I hope you are not suggesting that dummying down the game is good. Many people who were looking forward to Vanguard wanted a hardcore time investment challenging game. Double experience weekends and teleporting doesn't help progress the quality of Vanguard for the hardcore.
No I am not.
However, you can't make a player move backward. This is against the very motivation of this player. Add challenges, developps more, but never, never, never, take away from a player. A player solo a monster +5 levels, fine, make it so that the next real challenge is to take over monsters +6 levels.
See, "dumbing down" implies making it easy. Nope. However, in your quests to put challenges and stuff to overcome, never, never, never, removes a toy from a player. Players solo stuff they shouldn't? Well, fine, add something for the groupers now...don't remove the solo content. And so on. 1 class is too strong, well, improve all others, don't nerf them. Challenges can be added, if something is easy, don't change it, you manage to fails to do what you want, but never, never, never, remove anything from the players. Once they have, it is belonging to them.
Challenges are welcome IMO, not at the expense of everything else. Removing "easy content" to make it harder is not a solution; as you will invariably aggravated some players in the process, players who progress and now find themselves regressing...and are bitter about it, rightfully bitter...
Ah, but what if "losing a toy" could be part of some type of advancement? Or any kind of losing or failure as a basis for advancing a character.
Now we're thinking. We learn more from failures than successes.
Take the life of Joe character from your popular MMOG. If his life were a book it would look something like this:
I killed stuff. I got better. Killed some more stuff - got better. Mitigated risk by only accepting challenges suitable for my ability. Was rewarded appropriately. I am now able to kill dragons.
I'm gonna have to go back to getting drunk and posting. This making rational arguments thing isn't working.
He has made some salient points, though, which sadly seem to have been lost in the overall bickering about his being condescending.
A lot of players don't know what they want. Even when they are given what they claim they want, they are still not happy, and complain that they want more.
A lot of players take up a class that is clearly overpowered, whether they were aware of it, or not when they started the class, and when the class is brought back in line, they claim it isn't fun to play, or that it's totally unplayable. While playing in God mode is fun and all, for a game that's centered around keeping you playing as long as possible, it's a bad idea.
I see posts in every game every time there is a patch claiming their class has been nerfed into unplayability. And there are always a healthy number of posts after it saying that they play the same class, and while they had to change up their strategy to take the changes into account, they're just as successful as they were before the change. There were plenty of people that played Warlocks in WoW when they were woefully underpowered and did just fine. There is always some vocal minority that will scream to high heavens at any change that they view as non-positive, while the rest roll with the punches, adjust their strategies, and carry on.
Yes, sometimes devs tweak things too far one way, or the other, and player feedback is a good way to help gauge that. But that feedback needs to be taken with a grain of salt, or maybe a block of salt, given most of the posts I read. A post in all caps, screaming that class x is now totally useless, and broken, and if it isn't hotfixed instamediately they will quit the game(yeah right) isn't feedback. A post with a parse of things before and after the changes, showing that yes, the devs did swing the nerfbat too hard is feedback, and is of use. But how often, if ever, do you see that?
In his admittedly somewhat snooty way, that's what the OP was trying to say, or at least that's how I read it.
I hope you are not suggesting that dummying down the game is good. Many people who were looking forward to Vanguard wanted a hardcore time investment challenging game. Double experience weekends and teleporting doesn't help progress the quality of Vanguard for the hardcore.
No I am not.
However, you can't make a player move backward. This is against the very motivation of this player. Add challenges, developps more, but never, never, never, take away from a player. A player solo a monster +5 levels, fine, make it so that the next real challenge is to take over monsters +6 levels.
See, "dumbing down" implies making it easy. Nope. However, in your quests to put challenges and stuff to overcome, never, never, never, removes a toy from a player. Players solo stuff they shouldn't? Well, fine, add something for the groupers now...don't remove the solo content. And so on. 1 class is too strong, well, improve all others, don't nerf them. Challenges can be added, if something is easy, don't change it, you manage to fails to do what you want, but never, never, never, remove anything from the players. Once they have, it is belonging to them.
Challenges are welcome IMO, not at the expense of everything else. Removing "easy content" to make it harder is not a solution; as you will invariably aggravated some players in the process, players who progress and now find themselves regressing...and are bitter about it, rightfully bitter...
Ah, but what if "losing a toy" could be part of some type of advancement? Or any kind of losing or failure as a basis for advancing a character.
Now we're thinking. We learn more from failures than successes.
Take the life of Joe character from your popular MMOG. If his life were a book it would look something like this:
I killed stuff. I got better. Killed some more stuff - got better. Mitigated risk by only accepting challenges suitable for my ability. Was rewarded appropriately. I am now able to kill dragons.
Does it have to be that way? I think you are being rather glib.
One can dumb anything down to that level when one looks beyond all of the small things.
Take the life of Joe person from life:
I was born. I grew up. I went to school - got smarter. Mitigated risk of being homeless by accepting a job suitable for my ability. Was rewarded appropriately. I am now able to retire.
Does this accurately describe life? Only in the broadest of strokes, just like your description of a MMOG.
Remember, a MMOG is a game world, nothing more. It is up to the player, in part, to have fun. If you look at a game in the way you just did, of course it will be unsatisfactory because you seem to simply not care about the little things. There is so much more than you described in any game - what about all the times spent with friends figuring things out, messing up, and laughing? Or do you just se the game as a straight line from Point A, newbie, to Point B, raider, with nothing in between with a grind? I get that vibe.
I am not claiming a developer is free from having to add interesting content, but the player also has a responsibility to take an active part in the world to fully enjoy it.
I claim to be more knowledgable than 4% of the community and we still have some contrarian who wants to put me below the 4th percentile. Unbelievable.
"You're probably just exhibiting anti-social behavior in believing your peers are idiots, rather than this post being some enlightening divine intervention in the industry you intended it to be."
Discussing the topic on a message board is actually a very social activity. The people I'm addressing are not my peers. They are idiots. I posted this to discuss something that bothers me... not sure what you mean about divine intervention.
You're assuming I ever agreed with the random percentages you spewed out. Every single one of my friends, family members and guildmates I've played these games with have -always- at some point complained about nerfing. It happens when you play these games for years and go through dozens of patches. So exactly why should I go along with your few percent figure of people who complain about nerfing?
I get that you're trying to minimize your generalization, but you needn't pull out baseless figures to prove how frivolous your assessment was in the first place. We already know just how much.
And I really could care less just how much you attempt to boil down the bunch you're deeming idiots, you're still a hypocrite in a lot of what you say. Particularly the notion that 'fun' is all developers should design for; it doesn't take being a 15-year aspiring-but-not-quite game developer to figure out what 'fun' is.
Like, come on. Say something deep; prove the difference between you and those you deem idiots. Merely slinging insults doesn't work to differentiate yourself. You can't complain about whiners then go on and whine about how all classes shouldn't be equal.
Or just continue to mitigate your original assessment even moreso, and come to a conclusion we already know; your opinion on game design weighs no more than any one else's.
That said, your opinion as a player just like every other player is important. You needn't bash others before making an opinion; it's no criteria in need of fulfillment before anyone can agree with you. I'll even agree with your point that the eternal pursuit of equalizing classes has gotten to be a pretty stale approach to game balancing for 'fun'. Yeah, the numbers are arbitrary and don't mean much, but I never claimed to be more knowledgeable than 95% of everybody here, which is what you implied. I'm not trying to be an elitist.
Of course fun is what developers should design for! What else is there, really? We're not developing educational tools here, we're talking about games! They need to be fun! The rest is details.
I'm also not an aspiring game developer. I'm just a programmer who happens to be a lifetime gamer.
As to the first point. I haven't played COH, but I'll take your word for it that there have been fundamental changes to the game mechanics. I think your main contention is that there are incompetent game designers. Like any profession, I'm sure this is true. However, on the whole, professional devs and designers have a better understanding of their game than the target of my initial post.
You are right that most developers have a better understanding of game design, especially their own (where they know all the numbers and we usually do not) than most players do, including most players who whine about changes. However, that's like saying I have a better understanding of the Theory of Relativity than my cat does. In other words, just because most players know 0 about game design and developers know "greater than 0", it does not make the developers' knowledge a large number. It's like the story of "doubling your net worth." If your net worth is a penny and you found another penny on the side of the road, and picked it up, you've doubled your net worth but it doesn't make your rich. The fact that a designer knows more than a player doesn't mean he's a good designer. And in fact, there are a lot of designers who seem to know LESS than most players.
The reason why so many designers seem to be completely ignorant of fundamental game design issues is that they spend their time caught up in the details of some element of their design, while the players are generally playing their game. If you want to see a really good rant on game design by an "amateur" player who is smart, a good (funny) writer, and does not mince words, you should check out this site: http://mu.ranter.net/. It's an old website, with dated material, but the guy's comments about design are spot on. He points out over and over in example after example from games since Chain Mail to today, the fundamental flaws that keep cropping up in game design. Many of these are "congenital" to RPGs -- that is, as he points out, because of some really stupid decision made by the designers of D&D, people think that is "the right" way to design all RPGs, and they just keep doing it that way no matter how dumb it is to do. I won't summarize it further... if you're interested you can read his site. It's long, but interesting, and it illustrates in no uncertain terms just how stupid the decisions of these professional designers can be.
I simply don't buy your argument that "most designers know a lot about game design." My experiences in many different games indicate just the opposite. A small number of designers know a LOT about game design, but the vast, vast majority know zero about it, and don't really think hard about what they are doing in the larger sense. They're so busy getting their in-game mounts to work that they never stop to ask about the larger implications of putting mounts into the game (and no, I'm not complaining about mounts in Vanguard or any other game -- it's an example).
On the second point. Some people feel that their game experience is diminished when their characters abilities are adjusted. Other people don't. I'm in the latter group. These numbers that represent our characters skills are completely arbitrary and serve only to relate them to the challenges in the game, as well as the skills of other players. If the desired game dynamic wasn't achieved on the first try, then by all means, adjust it. Some people don't see it that way. They view their character as a collection of skills and loot. If you take something away from them, it somehow lessens their achievement. I guess it's just a philosophical difference... but their $15 is as good as mine, and they outnumber me, so game designers have to be very mindful of nerfing.
You have to understand the difference between the logical "how this works" element of a game, and the "is this fun?" element. In the old days when we played D&D as kids, my friends and I tried, and I mean really tried, to use all the rules, including the encumbrance and the "damage vs. AC" tables. These things were so complicated and forced us to do so much book-keeping, however, that even though we knew it would unbalance the game, we tossed them. Yes, it ended up with my character walking around with crates of gold pieces strapped to his back, which is totally unrealistic. However, it was more fun to do that, and just play, than to do the insane amount of book-keeping, and tromping back and forth between home base and dungeon, that playing with the encumbrance rules required. The DM saw in a moment of inspiration that this rule, though important for balance, was killing fun, and deleted it in favor of fun. I submit to you that our DM knew more about how to run a game than most developers do just from that one moment.
Balance is very important, and yes, you can often have more fun in a balanced than an unbalanced game. However, IF balance is achieved by KILLING fun, we have a problem. You see this over and over in game design. For example in D&D again, it was the case that magic-users basically sucked as characters for about 10 levels. They died when the enemy sneezed, couldn't cast more than a couple of spells A DAY, and so forth. That was designed as such for one reason: balance. Since the designers knew that a level 20 magic-user could waste whole armies, they achieved "balance" by making it suck to play a magic-user for the first 10. Of course what escaped their notice was that your character sucking is NEVER fun... and so most people either didn't play magic-users, or their DMs altered the rules to make magic-users more powerful in the lower levels. After all most people I know never GOT to 20th level with their magic-user... most D&D groups even in a few years weren't level 10 yet, back in those days, and few groups lasted longer than a few years (people graduate, move, etc).
This is just a simple non-Vanguard example of how an otherwise brilliant game designer (Gygax) managed to screw up by trying to achieve balance by making something NOT be fun. It doesn't work. The only reason people play games (other than real psychos) is to have fun. If something in your game is not just not fun, but purposely designed NOT to be fun, then you have made a fundamental (and IMO, as a player, unforgivable) mistake.
I agree that players know when something is not fun. However, the converse is not always true. Players don't always know what IS fun, even for them. It might sound crazy, but it's true. "This game isn't fun. If only I could be a Jedi, then it would be fun." Then you make 'em a Jedi, and guess what? It's no fun.
Now if you are referring to the SWG/NGE fiasco, giving players Jedi had very little to do with the ruination of the game. The SWG problem was multi-faceted. First, most SW fans love Jedi and want to be one. This is no secret to LucasArts. which is why many of their games (Jedi Knight 1 and 2, KOTOR 1 and 2, and so forth) include or focus on being Jedi. There is a reason why those 4 games are amongst the best-selling SW games of all time. So, to purposely set the game in a time period within the movies when all the fans who want to be Jedi also know they shouldn't be (canon-wise) was idiotic. This was fundamental mistake #1... "We know players want to play Jedi and have fun with that, so we won't let them." Stupid.
The second mistake was in making the Jedi be fun, but the path to Jedi suck. Like the magic-user example above, this is fundamentally flawed. You should not be purposely designing things into your game ("you" not meaning you the poster, but "you" the metaphorical game designer) that are not fun.
Third, the "NGE" was a complete and total change of a game from Jedi being a rare "uberclass" to being a common regular class. This is not the same thing as "giving the players what they want." I know of no one before the NGE changes who wanted what we call the NGE. So again this is a spurious example.
The idea that players don't know what they find fun is just absurd. Yes, it's possible that a player may ask for something he thinks will be fun and then finds out it won't be. But this is much rarer than the case of players saying "X is fun" and designers saying, "Too bad here is Y instead."
The way that the final point relates to the rest of the post is that some people claim imbalance because their skills aren't identical or equal to other players.
I agree with that point, but not your other ones.
My comments in pink this time. I have no idea why.
I understand there needs to be balancing, and while no one cares for it, as long as the developers give players a chance to respec their characters to a new build after the change I'm all for it. (for games that have that sort of customization) Players should also be compensated financially if the nerf devalues something they spent a lot of money acquiring....
A for instance...
My first MMO was Lineage 1, and my first character was a mage. Mages at that time got get a spell called "summon bugbears" which summoned anywhere from 2-8 bugbear henchman (normally you got 4) which would fight for you. This spell made mages very powerful (overpowered I suppose) therefore lots of people wanted to play one and the cost to buy the spell (it was a rare scroll drop only) was quite high. (like 1 million adena).
I saved up my adena for 2 months as I painfully ground enough for the spell. I picked it up for 950,000 (a bargin at the time) and gleefully began hunting with my newfound friends. Less than a month after I got the spell it was nerfed. They decided to tie the number of bugbears you could summon to your "charisma" stat (one that no mage ever bothered to spec in as it was formerly useless) so I suddenly found myself restricted to only 2 bugbears, which was signifcant nerfing from my normal 4.
This made the class far less attractive and it wasn't more than another month or so and the cost of the bugbear spell dropped to 35,000 adena. Worse, Lineage 1 had no provision to respec your characters so you could boost up your charisma to get back to at least 4 bugbears (but it meant really nerfing your mages wis/int specs)
I felt totally ripped off. I had spent a kings ransom (at the time) in cash that I had worked very hard for, only to get a character that I didn't even enjoy playing anymore. (I re-rolled a fighter and a prince right afterwards)
I still harbor a grudge towards NCSoft over this issue..and always look for flaws in any of their games that I play.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I claim to be more knowledgable than 4% of the community and we still have some contrarian who wants to put me below the 4th percentile. Unbelievable.
"You're probably just exhibiting anti-social behavior in believing your peers are idiots, rather than this post being some enlightening divine intervention in the industry you intended it to be."
Discussing the topic on a message board is actually a very social activity. The people I'm addressing are not my peers. They are idiots. I posted this to discuss something that bothers me... not sure what you mean about divine intervention.
You're assuming I ever agreed with the random percentages you spewed out. Every single one of my friends, family members and guildmates I've played these games with have -always- at some point complained about nerfing. It happens when you play these games for years and go through dozens of patches. So exactly why should I go along with your few percent figure of people who complain about nerfing?
I get that you're trying to minimize your generalization, but you needn't pull out baseless figures to prove how frivolous your assessment was in the first place. We already know just how much.
And I really could care less just how much you attempt to boil down the bunch you're deeming idiots, you're still a hypocrite in a lot of what you say. Particularly the notion that 'fun' is all developers should design for; it doesn't take being a 15-year aspiring-but-not-quite game developer to figure out what 'fun' is.
Like, come on. Say something deep; prove the difference between you and those you deem idiots. Merely slinging insults doesn't work to differentiate yourself. You can't complain about whiners then go on and whine about how all classes shouldn't be equal.
Or just continue to mitigate your original assessment even moreso, and come to a conclusion we already know; your opinion on game design weighs no more than any one else's.
That said, your opinion as a player just like every other player is important. You needn't bash others before making an opinion; it's no criteria in need of fulfillment before anyone can agree with you. I'll even agree with your point that the eternal pursuit of equalizing classes has gotten to be a pretty stale approach to game balancing for 'fun'. Yeah, the numbers are arbitrary and don't mean much, but I never claimed to be more knowledgeable than 95% of everybody here, which is what you implied. I'm not trying to be an elitist.
Of course fun is what developers should design for! What else is there, really? We're not developing educational tools here, we're talking about games! They need to be fun! The rest is details.
I'm also not an aspiring game developer. I'm just a programmer who happens to be a lifetime gamer.
Still, everyone complains sometimes. Probably not the incessant breed you have in your head that you think are idiots; but it ranges from them to someone who maybe publicly complains only once in the entire lifespan of an MMO. I can understand how the former can be overbearing, but at it's root even they're people who've stopped having fun for one reason or another.
I just think its worth listening to even them, the ones you call 'idiots'. It's a burden to filter through anger and other unhelpful factors, but everyone's opinion have to be respected. If you believe everyone is capable of fun, then the only difference between anyone is their ability to articulate matters. The lacking of that ability can be solved by simple patience on the developer's part and not give in to whims to just ostracize a sect of gamers as idiots.
Not criticizing you in particular, I'm just a hippy for positivity where it can exist is all. Essentially all I'm saying is, I'm 110% capable of respecting your opinion, I just could've done without having to read you believe some MMO players are idiots; no matter the premise.
Chessack is absolutely correct in his assessment of most game designers' competence.
The MMOG industry is quite tiny. There are very few designers who have shipped a successful MMOG and who are also looking for work. Every time a new game begins development, a lot of the designers come from the realm of non-massive and/or non-online games. Unfortunately, in those realms, class and skill balance are not nearly as critical -- in many cases, there weren't any classes or skills to balance. Thus, the tricky task of balancing the game has to be learned almost from scratch.
Even more unfortunately, some studios hire people with no design experience whatsoever and give them junior design positions -- in these cases it's mostly about who you know rather than what you know. If the management is halfway smart, they don't allow these people enough power to cause any real damage, but you might be surprised how not-smart management can be.
I totally agree with Anofalye. He hit the nail on the head, at least for me. I quit playing Vanguard right after the last patch. I was having fun playing my lvl 17 ranger until then. My long range weapon damage was reduced by 50%. Talk about a nerf. I had no idea I was overpowered, only that I was having fun. Don't take the fun away and expect anyone to be happy. I just wanted to let anyone who would listen, know why I left.
I hope you are not suggesting that dummying down the game is good. Many people who were looking forward to Vanguard wanted a hardcore time investment challenging game. Double experience weekends and teleporting doesn't help progress the quality of Vanguard for the hardcore.
No I am not.
However, you can't make a player move backward. This is against the very motivation of this player. Add challenges, developps more, but never, never, never, take away from a player. A player solo a monster +5 levels, fine, make it so that the next real challenge is to take over monsters +6 levels.
See, "dumbing down" implies making it easy. Nope. However, in your quests to put challenges and stuff to overcome, never, never, never, removes a toy from a player. Players solo stuff they shouldn't? Well, fine, add something for the groupers now...don't remove the solo content. And so on. 1 class is too strong, well, improve all others, don't nerf them. Challenges can be added, if something is easy, don't change it, you manage to fails to do what you want, but never, never, never, remove anything from the players. Once they have, it is belonging to them.
Challenges are welcome IMO, not at the expense of everything else. Removing "easy content" to make it harder is not a solution; as you will invariably aggravated some players in the process, players who progress and now find themselves regressing...and are bitter about it, rightfully bitter...
Ah, but what if "losing a toy" could be part of some type of advancement? Or any kind of losing or failure as a basis for advancing a character.
Now we're thinking. We learn more from failures than successes.
Take the life of Joe character from your popular MMOG. If his life were a book it would look something like this:
I killed stuff. I got better. Killed some more stuff - got better. Mitigated risk by only accepting challenges suitable for my ability. Was rewarded appropriately. I am now able to kill dragons.
Does it have to be that way? I think you are being rather glib.
One can dumb anything down to that level when one looks beyond all of the small things.
Take the life of Joe person from life:
I was born. I grew up. I went to school - got smarter. Mitigated risk of being homeless by accepting a job suitable for my ability. Was rewarded appropriately. I am now able to retire.
Does this accurately describe life? Only in the broadest of strokes, just like your description of a MMOG.
Remember, a MMOG is a game world, nothing more. It is up to the player, in part, to have fun. If you look at a game in the way you just did, of course it will be unsatisfactory because you seem to simply not care about the little things. There is so much more than you described in any game - what about all the times spent with friends figuring things out, messing up, and laughing? Or do you just se the game as a straight line from Point A, newbie, to Point B, raider, with nothing in between with a grind? I get that vibe.
I am not claiming a developer is free from having to add interesting content, but the player also has a responsibility to take an active part in the world to fully enjoy it. I agree with you totally, and I don't think our opinions are in disagreement. I think that many people view MMOs as a linear progression in the way you described. I don't necessarily agree with that view. That's the point I was trying to illustrate. I realize that I took a birds eye view of MMOs and their game mechanics.
Let's say you graphed the progression of a character, with the x axis being time, and the y axis being level. In general you'd arrive at an ascending graph that plateau'd a bit as you moved to the right (as advancement slowed). All characters more or less follow the same trend. If your Y value is better than mine, you can beat me up. That's pretty much the jist of it.
Now imagine you graphed the story arch of LOTR, for example. There would be tumultous highs and lows, conflict and turmoil with apocolyptic implications. The fellowship makes progress, experiences setbacks, gains allies, loses friends, experiences desperation. And in the end, a couple of lowly hobbits save the world.
But there's no room for such a story in MMO's. How could a "3rd level" hobbit, Samwise Gamgee, help save the world? It's impossible. The game mechanics simply aren't organic enough to allow for such a thing. There's really no such thing as a story (unless you make your own). You just kill stuff and get better, and I guess most people like it that way.
I'm gonna have to go back to getting drunk and posting. This making rational arguments thing isn't working. He has made some salient points, though, which sadly seem to have been lost in the overall bickering about his being condescending. A lot of players don't know what they want. Even when they are given what they claim they want, they are still not happy, and complain that they want more. A lot of players take up a class that is clearly overpowered, whether they were aware of it, or not when they started the class, and when the class is brought back in line, they claim it isn't fun to play, or that it's totally unplayable. While playing in God mode is fun and all, for a game that's centered around keeping you playing as long as possible, it's a bad idea. I see posts in every game every time there is a patch claiming their class has been nerfed into unplayability. And there are always a healthy number of posts after it saying that they play the same class, and while they had to change up their strategy to take the changes into account, they're just as successful as they were before the change. There were plenty of people that played Warlocks in WoW when they were woefully underpowered and did just fine. There is always some vocal minority that will scream to high heavens at any change that they view as non-positive, while the rest roll with the punches, adjust their strategies, and carry on. Yes, sometimes devs tweak things too far one way, or the other, and player feedback is a good way to help gauge that. But that feedback needs to be taken with a grain of salt, or maybe a block of salt, given most of the posts I read. A post in all caps, screaming that class x is now totally useless, and broken, and if it isn't hotfixed instamediately they will quit the game(yeah right) isn't feedback. A post with a parse of things before and after the changes, showing that yes, the devs did swing the nerfbat too hard is feedback, and is of use. But how often, if ever, do you see that? In his admittedly somewhat snooty way, that's what the OP was trying to say, or at least that's how I read it.
Yes, you nailed it. In a far more civil manner than I was able to.
I totally agree with Anofalye. He hit the nail on the head, at least for me. I quit playing Vanguard right after the last patch. I was having fun playing my lvl 17 ranger until then. My long range weapon damage was reduced by 50%. Talk about a nerf. I had no idea I was overpowered, only that I was having fun. Don't take the fun away and expect anyone to be happy. I just wanted to let anyone who would listen, know why I left.
I play a ranger as well, only level 12. In a typical solo encounter I make a ranged attacked (Critical Shot) then move in for melee (you really have no choice), where the combat lasts for, say 10-15 rounds. Given that model, reducing the ranged attack power by 50% means that your overall output in a given encounter might be about 5% less, give or take.
I just can't understand quitting a game over a 5% "nerf". This last patch didn't affect the fun factor one iota for me.
You're within your rights to quit and I'm not saying that you're wrong, just that we view it differently, I guess.
I totally agree with Anofalye. He hit the nail on the head, at least for me. I quit playing Vanguard right after the last patch. I was having fun playing my lvl 17 ranger until then. My long range weapon damage was reduced by 50%. Talk about a nerf. I had no idea I was overpowered, only that I was having fun. Don't take the fun away and expect anyone to be happy. I just wanted to let anyone who would listen, know why I left.
I play a ranger as well, only level 12. In a typical solo encounter I make a ranged attacked (Critical Shot) then move in for melee (you really have no choice), where the combat lasts for, say 10-15 rounds. Given that model, reducing the ranged attack power by 50% means that your overall output in a given encounter might be about 5% less, give or take.
I just can't understand quitting a game over a 5% "nerf". This last patch didn't affect the fun factor one iota for me.
You're within your rights to quit and I'm not saying that you're wrong, just that we view it differently, I guess.
My ranger is no longer a ranger. He's a fighter who happens to use a bow for a shot or two at most per encounter, and with the damage ouput the way it is now, the bow is only used to get the enemy's attention -- not to damage him.
Your response was long and I'll just say that I agree with most of it. I had to laugh about the D&D references regarding encumbrance and the Wizard class because we did exactly the same thing!
I totally agree with Anofalye. He hit the nail on the head, at least for me. I quit playing Vanguard right after the last patch. I was having fun playing my lvl 17 ranger until then. My long range weapon damage was reduced by 50%. Talk about a nerf. I had no idea I was overpowered, only that I was having fun. Don't take the fun away and expect anyone to be happy. I just wanted to let anyone who would listen, know why I left.
I play a ranger as well, only level 12. In a typical solo encounter I make a ranged attacked (Critical Shot) then move in for melee (you really have no choice), where the combat lasts for, say 10-15 rounds. Given that model, reducing the ranged attack power by 50% means that your overall output in a given encounter might be about 5% less, give or take.
I just can't understand quitting a game over a 5% "nerf". This last patch didn't affect the fun factor one iota for me.
You're within your rights to quit and I'm not saying that you're wrong, just that we view it differently, I guess.
My ranger is no longer a ranger. He's a fighter who happens to use a bow for a shot or two at most per encounter, and with the damage ouput the way it is now, the bow is only used to get the enemy's attention -- not to damage him. Hmm... I actually agree with you. The trouble is that ranged combat systems can be tricky. In real life, a guy with a sniper rifle can kill you. Clearly that wouldn't be fair. If your ranged attack is powerful, it effectively gives you a head start on combat since you can always see enemies before they see you in mmo's. That's not exactly fair either. So how would you propose fixing it?
Yes, you nailed it. In a far more civil manner than I was able to.
You will find not putting "this is why you are an idiot" in your statements is a skill that goes a long way towards nailing many things in life. Once you say something like that, people think "Oh the irony is killing me". Which is counterproductive.
I know rangers did some crazy damage at range, from being shot by a few in pvp. And they can hold their own well enough in melee as well.
If they wanted to lower overall ranger dps, doing it to their melee skills would have been the better route, I think. It still would be an unpopular change, but people wouldn't see it as cutting their legs out from under them as much, as Rangers are a ranged dps class.
Over and over on the forums I see people complaining about adjustments to character attributes, or so-called "nerfing". If you're one of those guys, here's why you're an idiot.
Game developers and designers understand game balance better than you do. It doesn't matter if you've played every race and class combination. These guys have been writing game code for years. If you perceive some sort of imbalance, it's probably because you're biased, or you just don't see the big picture. After all, nobody EVER says, "my class is too strong". You are not really a 12th level Paladin. If your feelings are hurt when your "Power Attack X" is reduced by X damage per second, some introspection is in order. Balancing the game is not a personal attack aimed at you. If you feel slighted because your on-screen persona was "nerfed" for the sake of game balance, it's time to grow up. Game balance does NOT mean that all players should be equally good at all things. To this end, developers go too far already to accommodate the mindless majority. "But my 10th level candle maker doesn't do as much damage as his 10th level barbarian! It's not fair!" Different classes have different strengths! The developers' only goal when searching for game balance should be to make all classes equally fun and rewarding to play! Imagine the character diversity we might unlock if we dispelled this moronic notion that all characters must be equal. Perhaps a Sage with little combat ability, but whose knowledge and information makes him invaluable. Or a Master Mechanic who helps smugglers evade the imperial star fleet (swg). No, instead we're reduced to 10 stereotypical look-a-likes who can all kill X of Y in Z seconds.
flame away.
Point 1 and 3 conflict.1. If you think your character should be more powerful but game designers "just don't understand", you're probably an idiot.
3. If you think that all characters should be equally powerful, you're an idiot.
Does that clear it up for you?1. This insinuates developers always know best, they see the 'big picture' and players are biased.
3. You give an opinion, which must be biased. You also say we're reduced to 10 stereotypical look -a-likes, which means you're dissatisfied with with usual developer design decisions that are contrary to your piece-of-a-picture opinion.1. Yep, that's pretty much what I'm saying. Remember this post is targeted at those whiny kids who complain about nerfing.
3. Developers implement the feature set that is handed down to them. Designers try to be inventive, but generally are restricted to using a proven formula. It's not the developers fault if the core game mechanics suck. It's the developers fault if the game is buggy.
Nope,sorry, it's the TESTERS fault if a buggy game is released, It's not a developer's job to create bug-free code (no such dev exists), but it IS the testers fault if buggy code is released.
(I assume when you say "developers' you are referring to the individuals who actually create the code.)
Over and over on the forums I see people complaining about adjustments to character attributes, or so-called "nerfing". If you're one of those guys, here's why you're an idiot.
Game developers and designers understand game balance better than you do. It doesn't matter if you've played every race and class combination. These guys have been writing game code for years. If you perceive some sort of imbalance, it's probably because you're biased, or you just don't see the big picture. After all, nobody EVER says, "my class is too strong". You are not really a 12th level Paladin. If your feelings are hurt when your "Power Attack X" is reduced by X damage per second, some introspection is in order. Balancing the game is not a personal attack aimed at you. If you feel slighted because your on-screen persona was "nerfed" for the sake of game balance, it's time to grow up. Game balance does NOT mean that all players should be equally good at all things. To this end, developers go too far already to accommodate the mindless majority. "But my 10th level candle maker doesn't do as much damage as his 10th level barbarian! It's not fair!" Different classes have different strengths! The developers' only goal when searching for game balance should be to make all classes equally fun and rewarding to play! Imagine the character diversity we might unlock if we dispelled this moronic notion that all characters must be equal. Perhaps a Sage with little combat ability, but whose knowledge and information makes him invaluable. Or a Master Mechanic who helps smugglers evade the imperial star fleet (swg). No, instead we're reduced to 10 stereotypical look-a-likes who can all kill X of Y in Z seconds.
flame away.
Point 1 and 3 conflict.1. If you think your character should be more powerful but game designers "just don't understand", you're probably an idiot.
3. If you think that all characters should be equally powerful, you're an idiot.
Does that clear it up for you?1. This insinuates developers always know best, they see the 'big picture' and players are biased.
3. You give an opinion, which must be biased. You also say we're reduced to 10 stereotypical look -a-likes, which means you're dissatisfied with with usual developer design decisions that are contrary to your piece-of-a-picture opinion.1. Yep, that's pretty much what I'm saying. Remember this post is targeted at those whiny kids who complain about nerfing.
3. Developers implement the feature set that is handed down to them. Designers try to be inventive, but generally are restricted to using a proven formula. It's not the developers fault if the core game mechanics suck. It's the developers fault if the game is buggy.You're straying off base from my original point. You basically accused everyone of being idiots asides from developers and having no idea of how to balance a game, yet went on to give your own assessment of what game balance is. You even went on to make comments such as the 'mindless majority' being listened to which implies there's some minority sect I assume you belong to that the designers SHOULD listen to.
Which is it? Are we all idiots and only the developers know best? Or could it be you yourself aren't above believing your own opinions are best just like every other subscriber to any game?
No need to be a hypocrite about it, just be fair. If you have an opinion of how things should be, other people will too.
P.S. There's been plenty of times when I've KNOWN my character class was too strong in games, and I participated in feedback to suggest ways of 'fixing' the class. If you ask me, acknowledging imbalances and working with developers if they so grace you with the ability to is a lot better than pretending your class isn't overpowered and then a nerf comes along you complain about having no say-so in.Let's not generalize. I'm not accusing "everyone of being idiots". I said there is a sect of mmorpg'ers who complain about nerfing. They constitute a portion of the communitiy. For the most part, they're idiots. Conservatively, let's say 95% of them.
Since I am a developer, there's really no hypocrisy here. I honestly believe that I understand balance better than most of these posters.So what MMORGS have you been a developer on?
Nope,sorry, it's the TESTERS fault if a buggy game is released, It's not a developer's job to create bug-free code (no such dev exists), but it IS the testers fault if buggy code is released. (I assume when you say "developers' you are referring to the individuals who actually create the code.)
Are you for real? That's cool tho. Next time I'll tell my employer it's all the testers fault and I'm not being paid to do a quality job.
Over and over on the forums I see people complaining about adjustments to character attributes, or so-called "nerfing". If you're one of those guys, here's why you're an idiot.
Didn't bother to read it past that. Immaturity, is the root of all evils....and boring threads.
No, you have to read it. Very entertaining and hilarious stuff, I love posts by that kind of person, but the key is not to take it seriously.
I cancelled my VG sub weeks ago, but I stil come up here because these forums are more entertaining than the game ever was.,
I totally agree with Anofalye. He hit the nail on the head, at least for me. I quit playing Vanguard right after the last patch. I was having fun playing my lvl 17 ranger until then. My long range weapon damage was reduced by 50%. Talk about a nerf. I had no idea I was overpowered, only that I was having fun. Don't take the fun away and expect anyone to be happy. I just wanted to let anyone who would listen, know why I left.
I play a ranger as well, only level 12. In a typical solo encounter I make a ranged attacked (Critical Shot) then move in for melee (you really have no choice), where the combat lasts for, say 10-15 rounds. Given that model, reducing the ranged attack power by 50% means that your overall output in a given encounter might be about 5% less, give or take.
I just can't understand quitting a game over a 5% "nerf". This last patch didn't affect the fun factor one iota for me.
You're within your rights to quit and I'm not saying that you're wrong, just that we view it differently, I guess.
My ranger is no longer a ranger. He's a fighter who happens to use a bow for a shot or two at most per encounter, and with the damage ouput the way it is now, the bow is only used to get the enemy's attention -- not to damage him.
You are 100% correct.
Rangers are ranged DPS. Take half that away and you've got exactly what you described.
Nope,sorry, it's the TESTERS fault if a buggy game is released, It's not a developer's job to create bug-free code (no such dev exists), but it IS the testers fault if buggy code is released. (I assume when you say "developers' you are referring to the individuals who actually create the code.)
Are you for real? That's cool tho. Next time I'll tell my employer it's all the testers fault and I'm not being paid to do a quality job.
Wonder how long I'll stay employed...
Yes I am for real. Code created by developers ain't perfect and it's not expected to be, which is why (where I work) there are several testers each of whom test various parts, including standalone (unit) and integrated.
developers often work on a specific piece of a whole, and as such are not usually familiar with what goes on in other parts. When their code is finally integrated into other parts, bugs quite often pop up. Other bugs are in reality mis-information imparted by those who write the requirements.
I've been a developer for almost 20 years, and I've NEVER worked for a company that penalized developers for creating bugs caught by testers, If any company did that, we'd run out of developers very quickly.Obviously if a given developer seems to be generating a LOT of bugs, then that obviously is an exception.
So your company punishes developers for bugs? Wow, let me know what company that is; I can't imagine any dev wanting to work there.
And BTW, when something is released into production, sometimes bugs happen, and in 99.9% of the cases the testers take the hit, assuming it wasn't something else like bad requirements.
Your response was long and I'll just say that I agree with most of it. I had to laugh about the D&D references regarding encumbrance and the Wizard class because we did exactly the same thing!
I am not surprised. Everyone did the same thing (pretty much).
You see, what you did, and what my group did, was say, "The designers of this game have made it not be fun. So we don't like that." Now, since it was table-top, we were allowed to change the rules to be however we see fit. This would be similar to how NWN or NWN2 work today. You can make up your own rules (in scripting language) for your server, and for you and your friends to play.
In an MMORPG, though, we don't have that luxury. It's equivalent to Gygax coming to your house and mine, and telling our parents to FORCE us to use encumbrance rules. Would you have liked that? I know I wouldn't. Had that happened what would you have done? Well by analogy with today's forums, you'd have argued with him... or appealed to your parents. And if none of that had worked, you'd have tossed your D&D books in the trash and bought Rolemaster or Lords of Creation or something else similar, but whose rules were not as objectionable. Why? Because you and I and our game groups wanted to have fun, and the rules (as written) were not.
When players object to the design decisions that (in their view) rob them of fun, it is exactly analogous to you and your friends tossing the encumbrance rules and changing the rules of magic-users. The only difference is they have to beg the designers to make those changes, whereas in D&D, you and I could just wave our DM wands and "make it so."
I hope you are not suggesting that dummying down the game is good. Many people who were looking forward to Vanguard wanted a hardcore time investment challenging game. Double experience weekends and teleporting doesn't help progress the quality of Vanguard for the hardcore.
No I am not.
However, you can't make a player move backward. This is against the very motivation of this player. Add challenges, developps more, but never, never, never, take away from a player. A player solo a monster +5 levels, fine, make it so that the next real challenge is to take over monsters +6 levels.
See, "dumbing down" implies making it easy. Nope. However, in your quests to put challenges and stuff to overcome, never, never, never, removes a toy from a player. Players solo stuff they shouldn't? Well, fine, add something for the groupers now...don't remove the solo content. And so on. 1 class is too strong, well, improve all others, don't nerf them. Challenges can be added, if something is easy, don't change it, you manage to fails to do what you want, but never, never, never, remove anything from the players. Once they have, it is belonging to them.
Challenges are welcome IMO, not at the expense of everything else. Removing "easy content" to make it harder is not a solution; as you will invariably aggravated some players in the process, players who progress and now find themselves regressing...and are bitter about it, rightfully bitter...
Ah, but what if "losing a toy" could be part of some type of advancement? Or any kind of losing or failure as a basis for advancing a character.
Now we're thinking. We learn more from failures than successes.
Take the life of Joe character from your popular MMOG. If his life were a book it would look something like this:
I killed stuff. I got better. Killed some more stuff - got better. Mitigated risk by only accepting challenges suitable for my ability. Was rewarded appropriately. I am now able to kill dragons.
Does it have to be that way?I think you are being rather glib.
One can dumb anything down to that level when one looks beyond all of the small things.
Take the life of Joe person from life:
I was born. I grew up. I went to school - got smarter. Mitigated risk of being homeless by accepting a job suitable for my ability. Was rewarded appropriately. I am now able to retire.
Does this accurately describe life? Only in the broadest of strokes, just like your description of a MMOG.
Remember, a MMOG is a game world, nothing more. It is up to the player, in part, to have fun. If you look at a game in the way you just did, of course it will be unsatisfactory because you seem to simply not care about the little things. There is so much more than you described in any game - what about all the times spent with friends figuring things out, messing up, and laughing? Or do you just se the game as a straight line from Point A, newbie, to Point B, raider, with nothing in between with a grind? I get that vibe.
I am not claiming a developer is free from having to add interesting content, but the player also has a responsibility to take an active part in the world to fully enjoy it.
Comments
No I am not.
However, you can't make a player move backward. This is against the very motivation of this player. Add challenges, developps more, but never, never, never, take away from a player. A player solo a monster +5 levels, fine, make it so that the next real challenge is to take over monsters +6 levels.
See, "dumbing down" implies making it easy. Nope. However, in your quests to put challenges and stuff to overcome, never, never, never, removes a toy from a player. Players solo stuff they shouldn't? Well, fine, add something for the groupers now...don't remove the solo content. And so on. 1 class is too strong, well, improve all others, don't nerf them. Challenges can be added, if something is easy, don't change it, you manage to fails to do what you want, but never, never, never, remove anything from the players. Once they have, it is belonging to them.
Challenges are welcome IMO, not at the expense of everything else. Removing "easy content" to make it harder is not a solution; as you will invariably aggravated some players in the process, players who progress and now find themselves regressing...and are bitter about it, rightfully bitter...
Ah, but what if "losing a toy" could be part of some type of advancement? Or any kind of losing or failure as a basis for advancing a character.
Now we're thinking. We learn more from failures than successes.Take the life of Joe character from your popular MMOG. If his life were a book it would look something like this:
I killed stuff. I got better. Killed some more stuff - got better. Mitigated risk by only accepting challenges suitable for my ability. Was rewarded appropriately. I am now able to kill dragons.
Does it have to be that way?
I'm gonna have to go back to getting drunk and posting. This making rational arguments thing isn't working.
He has made some salient points, though, which sadly seem to have been lost in the overall bickering about his being condescending.
A lot of players don't know what they want. Even when they are given what they claim they want, they are still not happy, and complain that they want more.
A lot of players take up a class that is clearly overpowered, whether they were aware of it, or not when they started the class, and when the class is brought back in line, they claim it isn't fun to play, or that it's totally unplayable. While playing in God mode is fun and all, for a game that's centered around keeping you playing as long as possible, it's a bad idea.
I see posts in every game every time there is a patch claiming their class has been nerfed into unplayability. And there are always a healthy number of posts after it saying that they play the same class, and while they had to change up their strategy to take the changes into account, they're just as successful as they were before the change. There were plenty of people that played Warlocks in WoW when they were woefully underpowered and did just fine. There is always some vocal minority that will scream to high heavens at any change that they view as non-positive, while the rest roll with the punches, adjust their strategies, and carry on.
Yes, sometimes devs tweak things too far one way, or the other, and player feedback is a good way to help gauge that. But that feedback needs to be taken with a grain of salt, or maybe a block of salt, given most of the posts I read. A post in all caps, screaming that class x is now totally useless, and broken, and if it isn't hotfixed instamediately they will quit the game(yeah right) isn't feedback. A post with a parse of things before and after the changes, showing that yes, the devs did swing the nerfbat too hard is feedback, and is of use. But how often, if ever, do you see that?
In his admittedly somewhat snooty way, that's what the OP was trying to say, or at least that's how I read it.
No I am not.
However, you can't make a player move backward. This is against the very motivation of this player. Add challenges, developps more, but never, never, never, take away from a player. A player solo a monster +5 levels, fine, make it so that the next real challenge is to take over monsters +6 levels.
See, "dumbing down" implies making it easy. Nope. However, in your quests to put challenges and stuff to overcome, never, never, never, removes a toy from a player. Players solo stuff they shouldn't? Well, fine, add something for the groupers now...don't remove the solo content. And so on. 1 class is too strong, well, improve all others, don't nerf them. Challenges can be added, if something is easy, don't change it, you manage to fails to do what you want, but never, never, never, remove anything from the players. Once they have, it is belonging to them.
Challenges are welcome IMO, not at the expense of everything else. Removing "easy content" to make it harder is not a solution; as you will invariably aggravated some players in the process, players who progress and now find themselves regressing...and are bitter about it, rightfully bitter...
Ah, but what if "losing a toy" could be part of some type of advancement? Or any kind of losing or failure as a basis for advancing a character.
Now we're thinking. We learn more from failures than successes.Take the life of Joe character from your popular MMOG. If his life were a book it would look something like this:
I killed stuff. I got better. Killed some more stuff - got better. Mitigated risk by only accepting challenges suitable for my ability. Was rewarded appropriately. I am now able to kill dragons.
Does it have to be that way? I think you are being rather glib.
One can dumb anything down to that level when one looks beyond all of the small things.
Take the life of Joe person from life:
I was born. I grew up. I went to school - got smarter. Mitigated risk of being homeless by accepting a job suitable for my ability. Was rewarded appropriately. I am now able to retire.
Does this accurately describe life? Only in the broadest of strokes, just like your description of a MMOG.
Remember, a MMOG is a game world, nothing more. It is up to the player, in part, to have fun. If you look at a game in the way you just did, of course it will be unsatisfactory because you seem to simply not care about the little things. There is so much more than you described in any game - what about all the times spent with friends figuring things out, messing up, and laughing? Or do you just se the game as a straight line from Point A, newbie, to Point B, raider, with nothing in between with a grind? I get that vibe.
I am not claiming a developer is free from having to add interesting content, but the player also has a responsibility to take an active part in the world to fully enjoy it.
I get that you're trying to minimize your generalization, but you needn't pull out baseless figures to prove how frivolous your assessment was in the first place. We already know just how much.
And I really could care less just how much you attempt to boil down the bunch you're deeming idiots, you're still a hypocrite in a lot of what you say. Particularly the notion that 'fun' is all developers should design for; it doesn't take being a 15-year aspiring-but-not-quite game developer to figure out what 'fun' is.
Like, come on. Say something deep; prove the difference between you and those you deem idiots. Merely slinging insults doesn't work to differentiate yourself. You can't complain about whiners then go on and whine about how all classes shouldn't be equal.
Or just continue to mitigate your original assessment even moreso, and come to a conclusion we already know; your opinion on game design weighs no more than any one else's.
That said, your opinion as a player just like every other player is important. You needn't bash others before making an opinion; it's no criteria in need of fulfillment before anyone can agree with you. I'll even agree with your point that the eternal pursuit of equalizing classes has gotten to be a pretty stale approach to game balancing for 'fun'. Yeah, the numbers are arbitrary and don't mean much, but I never claimed to be more knowledgeable than 95% of everybody here, which is what you implied. I'm not trying to be an elitist.
Of course fun is what developers should design for! What else is there, really? We're not developing educational tools here, we're talking about games! They need to be fun! The rest is details.
I'm also not an aspiring game developer. I'm just a programmer who happens to be a lifetime gamer.
C
A for instance...
My first MMO was Lineage 1, and my first character was a mage. Mages at that time got get a spell called "summon bugbears" which summoned anywhere from 2-8 bugbear henchman (normally you got 4) which would fight for you. This spell made mages very powerful (overpowered I suppose) therefore lots of people wanted to play one and the cost to buy the spell (it was a rare scroll drop only) was quite high. (like 1 million adena).
I saved up my adena for 2 months as I painfully ground enough for the spell. I picked it up for 950,000 (a bargin at the time) and gleefully began hunting with my newfound friends. Less than a month after I got the spell it was nerfed. They decided to tie the number of bugbears you could summon to your "charisma" stat (one that no mage ever bothered to spec in as it was formerly useless) so I suddenly found myself restricted to only 2 bugbears, which was signifcant nerfing from my normal 4.
This made the class far less attractive and it wasn't more than another month or so and the cost of the bugbear spell dropped to 35,000 adena. Worse, Lineage 1 had no provision to respec your characters so you could boost up your charisma to get back to at least 4 bugbears (but it meant really nerfing your mages wis/int specs)
I felt totally ripped off. I had spent a kings ransom (at the time) in cash that I had worked very hard for, only to get a character that I didn't even enjoy playing anymore. (I re-rolled a fighter and a prince right afterwards)
I still harbor a grudge towards NCSoft over this issue..and always look for flaws in any of their games that I play.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I get that you're trying to minimize your generalization, but you needn't pull out baseless figures to prove how frivolous your assessment was in the first place. We already know just how much.
And I really could care less just how much you attempt to boil down the bunch you're deeming idiots, you're still a hypocrite in a lot of what you say. Particularly the notion that 'fun' is all developers should design for; it doesn't take being a 15-year aspiring-but-not-quite game developer to figure out what 'fun' is.
Like, come on. Say something deep; prove the difference between you and those you deem idiots. Merely slinging insults doesn't work to differentiate yourself. You can't complain about whiners then go on and whine about how all classes shouldn't be equal.
Or just continue to mitigate your original assessment even moreso, and come to a conclusion we already know; your opinion on game design weighs no more than any one else's.
That said, your opinion as a player just like every other player is important. You needn't bash others before making an opinion; it's no criteria in need of fulfillment before anyone can agree with you. I'll even agree with your point that the eternal pursuit of equalizing classes has gotten to be a pretty stale approach to game balancing for 'fun'. Yeah, the numbers are arbitrary and don't mean much, but I never claimed to be more knowledgeable than 95% of everybody here, which is what you implied. I'm not trying to be an elitist.
Of course fun is what developers should design for! What else is there, really? We're not developing educational tools here, we're talking about games! They need to be fun! The rest is details.
I'm also not an aspiring game developer. I'm just a programmer who happens to be a lifetime gamer.
Still, everyone complains sometimes. Probably not the incessant breed you have in your head that you think are idiots; but it ranges from them to someone who maybe publicly complains only once in the entire lifespan of an MMO. I can understand how the former can be overbearing, but at it's root even they're people who've stopped having fun for one reason or another.
I just think its worth listening to even them, the ones you call 'idiots'. It's a burden to filter through anger and other unhelpful factors, but everyone's opinion have to be respected. If you believe everyone is capable of fun, then the only difference between anyone is their ability to articulate matters. The lacking of that ability can be solved by simple patience on the developer's part and not give in to whims to just ostracize a sect of gamers as idiots.
Not criticizing you in particular, I'm just a hippy for positivity where it can exist is all. Essentially all I'm saying is, I'm 110% capable of respecting your opinion, I just could've done without having to read you believe some MMO players are idiots; no matter the premise.
Chessack is absolutely correct in his assessment of most game designers' competence.
The MMOG industry is quite tiny. There are very few designers who have shipped a successful MMOG and who are also looking for work. Every time a new game begins development, a lot of the designers come from the realm of non-massive and/or non-online games. Unfortunately, in those realms, class and skill balance are not nearly as critical -- in many cases, there weren't any classes or skills to balance. Thus, the tricky task of balancing the game has to be learned almost from scratch.
Even more unfortunately, some studios hire people with no design experience whatsoever and give them junior design positions -- in these cases it's mostly about who you know rather than what you know. If the management is halfway smart, they don't allow these people enough power to cause any real damage, but you might be surprised how not-smart management can be.
And yes, I know what I'm talking about.
No I am not.
However, you can't make a player move backward. This is against the very motivation of this player. Add challenges, developps more, but never, never, never, take away from a player. A player solo a monster +5 levels, fine, make it so that the next real challenge is to take over monsters +6 levels.
See, "dumbing down" implies making it easy. Nope. However, in your quests to put challenges and stuff to overcome, never, never, never, removes a toy from a player. Players solo stuff they shouldn't? Well, fine, add something for the groupers now...don't remove the solo content. And so on. 1 class is too strong, well, improve all others, don't nerf them. Challenges can be added, if something is easy, don't change it, you manage to fails to do what you want, but never, never, never, remove anything from the players. Once they have, it is belonging to them.
Challenges are welcome IMO, not at the expense of everything else. Removing "easy content" to make it harder is not a solution; as you will invariably aggravated some players in the process, players who progress and now find themselves regressing...and are bitter about it, rightfully bitter...
Ah, but what if "losing a toy" could be part of some type of advancement? Or any kind of losing or failure as a basis for advancing a character.
Now we're thinking. We learn more from failures than successes.Take the life of Joe character from your popular MMOG. If his life were a book it would look something like this:
I killed stuff. I got better. Killed some more stuff - got better. Mitigated risk by only accepting challenges suitable for my ability. Was rewarded appropriately. I am now able to kill dragons.
Does it have to be that way? I think you are being rather glib.
One can dumb anything down to that level when one looks beyond all of the small things.
Take the life of Joe person from life:
I was born. I grew up. I went to school - got smarter. Mitigated risk of being homeless by accepting a job suitable for my ability. Was rewarded appropriately. I am now able to retire.
Does this accurately describe life? Only in the broadest of strokes, just like your description of a MMOG.
Remember, a MMOG is a game world, nothing more. It is up to the player, in part, to have fun. If you look at a game in the way you just did, of course it will be unsatisfactory because you seem to simply not care about the little things. There is so much more than you described in any game - what about all the times spent with friends figuring things out, messing up, and laughing? Or do you just se the game as a straight line from Point A, newbie, to Point B, raider, with nothing in between with a grind? I get that vibe.
I am not claiming a developer is free from having to add interesting content, but the player also has a responsibility to take an active part in the world to fully enjoy it. I agree with you totally, and I don't think our opinions are in disagreement. I think that many people view MMOs as a linear progression in the way you described. I don't necessarily agree with that view. That's the point I was trying to illustrate. I realize that I took a birds eye view of MMOs and their game mechanics.
Let's say you graphed the progression of a character, with the x axis being time, and the y axis being level. In general you'd arrive at an ascending graph that plateau'd a bit as you moved to the right (as advancement slowed). All characters more or less follow the same trend. If your Y value is better than mine, you can beat me up. That's pretty much the jist of it.
Now imagine you graphed the story arch of LOTR, for example. There would be tumultous highs and lows, conflict and turmoil with apocolyptic implications. The fellowship makes progress, experiences setbacks, gains allies, loses friends, experiences desperation. And in the end, a couple of lowly hobbits save the world.
But there's no room for such a story in MMO's. How could a "3rd level" hobbit, Samwise Gamgee, help save the world? It's impossible. The game mechanics simply aren't organic enough to allow for such a thing. There's really no such thing as a story (unless you make your own). You just kill stuff and get better, and I guess most people like it that way.
I just can't understand quitting a game over a 5% "nerf". This last patch didn't affect the fun factor one iota for me.
You're within your rights to quit and I'm not saying that you're wrong, just that we view it differently, I guess.
I just can't understand quitting a game over a 5% "nerf". This last patch didn't affect the fun factor one iota for me.
You're within your rights to quit and I'm not saying that you're wrong, just that we view it differently, I guess.
My ranger is no longer a ranger. He's a fighter who happens to use a bow for a shot or two at most per encounter, and with the damage ouput the way it is now, the bow is only used to get the enemy's attention -- not to damage him.
Your response was long and I'll just say that I agree with most of it. I had to laugh about the D&D references regarding encumbrance and the Wizard class because we did exactly the same thing!
I just can't understand quitting a game over a 5% "nerf". This last patch didn't affect the fun factor one iota for me.
You're within your rights to quit and I'm not saying that you're wrong, just that we view it differently, I guess.
My ranger is no longer a ranger. He's a fighter who happens to use a bow for a shot or two at most per encounter, and with the damage ouput the way it is now, the bow is only used to get the enemy's attention -- not to damage him. Hmm... I actually agree with you. The trouble is that ranged combat systems can be tricky. In real life, a guy with a sniper rifle can kill you. Clearly that wouldn't be fair. If your ranged attack is powerful, it effectively gives you a head start on combat since you can always see enemies before they see you in mmo's. That's not exactly fair either. So how would you propose fixing it?
You will find not putting "this is why you are an idiot" in your statements is a skill that goes a long way towards nailing many things in life. Once you say something like that, people think "Oh the irony is killing me". Which is counterproductive.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
I know rangers did some crazy damage at range, from being shot by a few in pvp. And they can hold their own well enough in melee as well.
If they wanted to lower overall ranger dps, doing it to their melee skills would have been the better route, I think. It still would be an unpopular change, but people wouldn't see it as cutting their legs out from under them as much, as Rangers are a ranged dps class.
3. If you think that all characters should be equally powerful, you're an idiot.
Does that clear it up for you?1. This insinuates developers always know best, they see the 'big picture' and players are biased.
3. You give an opinion, which must be biased. You also say we're reduced to 10 stereotypical look -a-likes, which means you're dissatisfied with with usual developer design decisions that are contrary to your piece-of-a-picture opinion.1. Yep, that's pretty much what I'm saying. Remember this post is targeted at those whiny kids who complain about nerfing.
3. Developers implement the feature set that is handed down to them. Designers try to be inventive, but generally are restricted to using a proven formula. It's not the developers fault if the core game mechanics suck. It's the developers fault if the game is buggy.
Nope,sorry, it's the TESTERS fault if a buggy game is released, It's not a developer's job to create bug-free code (no such dev exists), but it IS the testers fault if buggy code is released.
(I assume when you say "developers' you are referring to the individuals who actually create the code.)
3. If you think that all characters should be equally powerful, you're an idiot.
Does that clear it up for you?1. This insinuates developers always know best, they see the 'big picture' and players are biased.
3. You give an opinion, which must be biased. You also say we're reduced to 10 stereotypical look -a-likes, which means you're dissatisfied with with usual developer design decisions that are contrary to your piece-of-a-picture opinion.1. Yep, that's pretty much what I'm saying. Remember this post is targeted at those whiny kids who complain about nerfing.
3. Developers implement the feature set that is handed down to them. Designers try to be inventive, but generally are restricted to using a proven formula. It's not the developers fault if the core game mechanics suck. It's the developers fault if the game is buggy.You're straying off base from my original point. You basically accused everyone of being idiots asides from developers and having no idea of how to balance a game, yet went on to give your own assessment of what game balance is. You even went on to make comments such as the 'mindless majority' being listened to which implies there's some minority sect I assume you belong to that the designers SHOULD listen to.
Which is it? Are we all idiots and only the developers know best? Or could it be you yourself aren't above believing your own opinions are best just like every other subscriber to any game?
No need to be a hypocrite about it, just be fair. If you have an opinion of how things should be, other people will too.
P.S. There's been plenty of times when I've KNOWN my character class was too strong in games, and I participated in feedback to suggest ways of 'fixing' the class. If you ask me, acknowledging imbalances and working with developers if they so grace you with the ability to is a lot better than pretending your class isn't overpowered and then a nerf comes along you complain about having no say-so in.Let's not generalize. I'm not accusing "everyone of being idiots". I said there is a sect of mmorpg'ers who complain about nerfing. They constitute a portion of the communitiy. For the most part, they're idiots. Conservatively, let's say 95% of them.
Since I am a developer, there's really no hypocrisy here. I honestly believe that I understand balance better than most of these posters.So what MMORGS have you been a developer on?
Wonder how long I'll stay employed...
No, you have to read it. Very entertaining and hilarious stuff, I love posts by that kind of person, but the key is not to take it seriously.
I cancelled my VG sub weeks ago, but I stil come up here because these forums are more entertaining than the game ever was.,
I just can't understand quitting a game over a 5% "nerf". This last patch didn't affect the fun factor one iota for me.
You're within your rights to quit and I'm not saying that you're wrong, just that we view it differently, I guess.
My ranger is no longer a ranger. He's a fighter who happens to use a bow for a shot or two at most per encounter, and with the damage ouput the way it is now, the bow is only used to get the enemy's attention -- not to damage him.
You are 100% correct.
Rangers are ranged DPS. Take half that away and you've got exactly what you described.
Wonder how long I'll stay employed...
Yes I am for real. Code created by developers ain't perfect and it's not expected to be, which is why (where I work) there are several testers each of whom test various parts, including standalone (unit) and integrated.
developers often work on a specific piece of a whole, and as such are not usually familiar with what goes on in other parts. When their code is finally integrated into other parts, bugs quite often pop up. Other bugs are in reality mis-information imparted by those who write the requirements.
I've been a developer for almost 20 years, and I've NEVER worked for a company that penalized developers for creating bugs caught by testers, If any company did that, we'd run out of developers very quickly.Obviously if a given developer seems to be generating a LOT of bugs, then that obviously is an exception.
So your company punishes developers for bugs? Wow, let me know what company that is; I can't imagine any dev wanting to work there.
And BTW, when something is released into production, sometimes bugs happen, and in 99.9% of the cases the testers take the hit, assuming it wasn't something else like bad requirements.
You see, what you did, and what my group did, was say, "The designers of this game have made it not be fun. So we don't like that." Now, since it was table-top, we were allowed to change the rules to be however we see fit. This would be similar to how NWN or NWN2 work today. You can make up your own rules (in scripting language) for your server, and for you and your friends to play.
In an MMORPG, though, we don't have that luxury. It's equivalent to Gygax coming to your house and mine, and telling our parents to FORCE us to use encumbrance rules. Would you have liked that? I know I wouldn't. Had that happened what would you have done? Well by analogy with today's forums, you'd have argued with him... or appealed to your parents. And if none of that had worked, you'd have tossed your D&D books in the trash and bought Rolemaster or Lords of Creation or something else similar, but whose rules were not as objectionable. Why? Because you and I and our game groups wanted to have fun, and the rules (as written) were not.
When players object to the design decisions that (in their view) rob them of fun, it is exactly analogous to you and your friends tossing the encumbrance rules and changing the rules of magic-users. The only difference is they have to beg the designers to make those changes, whereas in D&D, you and I could just wave our DM wands and "make it so."
C
No I am not.
However, you can't make a player move backward. This is against the very motivation of this player. Add challenges, developps more, but never, never, never, take away from a player. A player solo a monster +5 levels, fine, make it so that the next real challenge is to take over monsters +6 levels.
See, "dumbing down" implies making it easy. Nope. However, in your quests to put challenges and stuff to overcome, never, never, never, removes a toy from a player. Players solo stuff they shouldn't? Well, fine, add something for the groupers now...don't remove the solo content. And so on. 1 class is too strong, well, improve all others, don't nerf them. Challenges can be added, if something is easy, don't change it, you manage to fails to do what you want, but never, never, never, remove anything from the players. Once they have, it is belonging to them.
Challenges are welcome IMO, not at the expense of everything else. Removing "easy content" to make it harder is not a solution; as you will invariably aggravated some players in the process, players who progress and now find themselves regressing...and are bitter about it, rightfully bitter...
Ah, but what if "losing a toy" could be part of some type of advancement? Or any kind of losing or failure as a basis for advancing a character.
Now we're thinking. We learn more from failures than successes.Take the life of Joe character from your popular MMOG. If his life were a book it would look something like this:
I killed stuff. I got better. Killed some more stuff - got better. Mitigated risk by only accepting challenges suitable for my ability. Was rewarded appropriately. I am now able to kill dragons.
Does it have to be that way?I think you are being rather glib.
One can dumb anything down to that level when one looks beyond all of the small things.
Take the life of Joe person from life:
I was born. I grew up. I went to school - got smarter. Mitigated risk of being homeless by accepting a job suitable for my ability. Was rewarded appropriately. I am now able to retire.
Does this accurately describe life? Only in the broadest of strokes, just like your description of a MMOG.
Remember, a MMOG is a game world, nothing more. It is up to the player, in part, to have fun. If you look at a game in the way you just did, of course it will be unsatisfactory because you seem to simply not care about the little things. There is so much more than you described in any game - what about all the times spent with friends figuring things out, messing up, and laughing? Or do you just se the game as a straight line from Point A, newbie, to Point B, raider, with nothing in between with a grind? I get that vibe.
I am not claiming a developer is free from having to add interesting content, but the player also has a responsibility to take an active part in the world to fully enjoy it.
Many people seem to have forgotten that.