The original topic here was "What Do You Like About Raiding / End-Game?". One poster posted off-topic and started an argument. That argument has now spanned nearly 11 pages (not counting the first page which was still mostly on topic). There's a word for people who do that. Anyway, if it's a topic that interests you, feel free to post a thread with that as the subject. This thread however, has a different subject ENTIRELY. If the off-topic debate continues, I'm going to have to look into getting the thread locked. At this point, it's just a massive pile of troll food. Those who have remained on topic, thank you. Your opinions are interesting and valuable. The debate at hand could make for an interesting thread. Sadly, this is not that thread, and sifting through the troll food to find relevant replies is not at all interesting.
You are right, and I apologize for helping to feed the troll.
As per your topic, I don't really like "end games" or games that use that idea. Take the example someone else had of EVE. Eve doesn't really have an endgame. Yes, you will increase in power and versatility as you continue (you don't increase in a way that feels organic to me, but that's a different story) to play, as well you should, but there is no point where you can say, "I beat the game." That's because there is no "end game" idea and no "end game" content. CCP created a massive and engaging world, and they attracted players that manage to run the world themselves. It is an ongoing set of relationships/conflicts that continues but doesn't end. Most sandbox/pvp games can give you this, but some cannot.
Take GW. One of my favorite games, to play. It is not a game that feels like a world to me, and doesn't really have a serious community to speak of until you get into, yes, "end game" pvp. Of course, you can start a max-level person and only pvp with them, in fact this is encouraged. But there are four campaigns now, and when you beat them, you've beaten the game as it is, and are only left with very controlled pvp. So even though there is a community based around the pvp, and in and out of game relationships forged as a result (which is usually good for a game), it is still the "end game" so I feel that I'm done.
EDIT:
I want to add something about EVE that makes it amazing. Your equipment will wear out over time, and you will have to get new equipment, whereas in most MMOs you can simply repair it ad infinitum. Add to that the fact that equipment is player crafted (i.e. you cannot raid pve constantly and expect to outfit yourself with the ships and lasers or whatever that you need. At least, I don't think this is the case now.) and you have, amazingly, a real and active player-run economy within this harsh pvp reality.
Players control everything that happens in the world. And that one idea is what we need in our games. The devs just need to give us those worlds.
Apology accepted, thanks for returning to the original topic (thanks to the rest as well, who have either just joined and are on-topic, or who are now re-focusing on the original topic again)
I agree with you, and I think that part of the reason that EVE doesn't feel like it has an end-game is that it is an open-ended game that you can train in whatever skills you like, rather than being confined to a class, which means that when you've progressed as much as you can in one skill, you still have tons of other ways that you can progress. The other reason, I think, is that the skill progression doesn't put as big of a power gap between new players and old. It's not like a lv 1 and lv 80 difference in WoW. There IS a power gap, but only to a certain extent; after that, any gap is a versatility gap. That means that players 2-4 months in can still play with the players that are 2 year vets. Finally closing that power gap and feeling like you're at the "upper end" of the game compared to the rest of the population is a big part of end game I think.
As far as players controlling the world, while I would like to see more of this in MMOs, I'm not holding my breath; a semi-free / semi-open PVP system is seemingly needed to control much of anything except economy. What would be nice is to enable players to create new quests and missions (sort of like you can in CoX, but perhaps on a deeper level). This would, at the same time, help keep things fresh; it would help soften or altogether do away with an "end game", since there would always be something new to do, as long as players continued to create new content.
"In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional or disciplinary response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[2]" (Wikipedia.org, 8-24-09)
It seems that post-WoW MMOs are starting to focus more on making the leveling process faster so that end-game content can be reached more quickly. WoW itself has been taking steps to decrease its leveling time as well. Personally, I enjoy leveling a lot, and I'm not sure if I would enjoy raiding or not. Because I enjoy leveling so much, I usually have a ton of alts and jump games a lot. I've only been to level cap on DAoC (which is probably one of 10+ MMOs I've played); the closest I've come to cap in any other game is lv 64 in WoW when the cap was 70. Since it isn't likely that I'll ever find out for myself, I was wondering, what do you like about end-game and / or raiding? (I'm not just talking about WoW here; whatever game you play).
This is one of the few rare opportunities where I respond without reading the whole thread first and only because I been reading a lot all day. Was practicing programming C and reading about Lua and a novel on top of it all.
Anyways, before I digress too much, I would say I like absolutely NOTHING about raiding and end game and its starting to turn some popular games very 1-dimensional. I would much prefer other ways introduced in playing a game that might offer rewards on par to the "current end-game".
And whats with this concept of "end-game", whats the point of leveling then if most of the game is when I get to the maximum level? If there is so much emphasis on the end-game, why not just eliminate the leveling prerequisite and let the players have fun and get their MONEYS worth (oh I guess thats the key thing isn't it, *sigh* companies).
I think its absurd and games should take a step back and take lessons from the earlier MMORPGs. Make achieving maximum level actually something to brag about rather than a prerequisite for access to the other "half" of the game. I used to pride myself on DAoC for being mid level 40s (think max level was 50 at the time) and I never achieved maximum level in that game, but that never stopped me from feeling good being at that level, like I am amongst the upper echelon in the world (it was a game where death penalty involved a hefty exp loss). Make death penalties actually make people NOT want to die rather then not care, it seems like all I can get mad about in regards to dying is a 1 minute run to my "corpse". I would't mind if I saw some gold missing from my corpse or a random item in my inventory or something. Make the game exciting, you developers
I agree, and this seems to be the most common position taken by those who have replied to the original topic (which I am actually quite surprised at, I expected a few more opposing viewpoints). I also agree with you that the emphasis on end-game seems to belittle the journey there. I remember when leveling mattered in EQ and DAoC as well (it really doesn't anymore, as both have significantly sped up the leveling process). However, here, we have a conflict of views between two rather large groups. On the one hand, you have the group that wants less grind. That means leveling is faster, because grind is boring. On the other hand, you have the group that wants a challenge and a risk in leveling again, which the other side would consider a "grind." In reality, the MMO is a grind. You grind your way to max level (no matter how quick it is, it's still a grind, because you are repeating the same actions over and over again to progress), and when you get there, you grind your way to better gear, typically by doing the same raids over and over again. As other posters have mentioned, I think a good, long, difficult storyline to progress through would help relieve the "grindiness" of MMOs significantly. You can have gear improvements or stat improvements in there with it, but I think the focus needs to be spread out a little wider than "ZOMG more gear and more stats! NAO!" With a bigger focus on story, you can have both, a longer and more interesting journey to max level, and interesting content after the max.
"In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional or disciplinary response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[2]" (Wikipedia.org, 8-24-09)
The amount of bullshit and ignorance in this thread is amazing.
A bunch of people who raided Everquest and vanilla wow thinking they know about current high end wow raiding and throwing around the name "Algalon" like it makes it seem they know what they are talking about.
Anyone who thinks WoW raiding takes absolutely no skill has never fought bosses such as Mimiron and Yog Saron on normal mode - yet alone hard modes. Those bosses are not remotely gear checks. They are all about skill. Having 10 or 25 people move in co-ordination with each-other. All in the right places and doing the right things at the same time.
WowProgress.com tracks raid progress. Lets look at it's 25 man statistics. It reports that 20% or the guilds it is tracking have completed the first part of Ulduar (the siege area). However, only 6% have killed the end boss Yog Saron, and only 0.58% have completed Firefighter (Mimiron hard mode).
It's been my experience that any guild that has the gear to clear the first four bosses (the siege) has the gear to clear Ulduar. There are no real gear check bosses. So the difference between that 20% and the 6% that have killed Yog Saron is entirely in skill. Nothing else. This contrasts heavily with vanilla wow raiding, which had lots of gear check bosses - such as Ragnaros, who you couldn't even think about defeating until you had loads of fire res gear.
And then we come to hard modes. Some of the hard modes do have gear checks. They include DPS races (amongst other things). But pretty much all the gear you need for hard modes is available in normal modes. So all that 6% who killed Yog Saron has to do is farm Ulduar for a month or two, and they should have plenty of gear to do hard modes. So why have only 0.58% of them done Firefighter? Surely most guilds that can clear Ulduar are capable of farming the place for a month or two and getting gear? So whilst most of them almost certainly passed the gear check, 90% of those guilds who cleared Ulduar failed to get Firefighter. Why? Lack of skill...
So then, you enjoy raiding because it presents a challenge to you, and you enjoy overcoming challenges through practice and repetition? Or do you simply enjoy improving your character with better gear? Or is it a bit of both?
"In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional or disciplinary response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[2]" (Wikipedia.org, 8-24-09)
The Reason I quit WoW was mostly because of noobs ruining my raiding experience. Even with T7(10 man) in WoW, I was dealing nearly 4k dps in Naxx consistently. This is on a huntard, after nerfs, of course. Before I quit, I had 4pc T8(25 man) and barely got to use it, lol. Anyway, Ulduar isn't so Hunter friendly but I'd get over 5k mostly. There were countless numbers of people in my guild with good gear. Even just T7 25 man in ulduar, you should at least be doing 4k on any dps class but they were doing 3.5k or lower. It boils down to skill. In fact, most other classes I know /faceroll their keyboard to pull 4k dps if you have the rotation down and T7.5.
What I love about End Game is RAIDING! I log on only for raids. That's it. I set myself up so I sell Jewels on the AH to pay for repairs and that's it. I love to be the first, or fighting to be first, on the server to do something as a guild. Damn my friends, I quit WoW before and then they started playing. Alliance... Of course... If they told me that they were playing again I would have made them go Horde. maybe I'd still be playing.
So, one of the things you enjoy about raiding is the aspect of competition with other raiding guilds on the server? That's a viewpoint I haven't seen yet. That might be fun
Edit: I had to LOL at /faceroll xD nice.
"In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional or disciplinary response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[2]" (Wikipedia.org, 8-24-09)
Most mmo's that have one choose between personal social life, and staying competitive in game usualy lose their appeal to me rather fast at higher levels. I enjoy leveling at my own pace, exploring content, and being part of a small guild (group of about 12 friends) and not having to worry about recruiting a whole mess of bodies just to be able to fill slots for 20-40 man raids.
Staying competitive in some of these games has come to a point where you literally have to plan your social life around raiding, instead of just being able to log on when you have a couple of hours to spare. A bit to hard-core for me, which is why I prefer sandbox type games centered around pvp endgame.
Antipathy, I could write a thesis about why you are wrong, but since I am relatively sure you are just trolling us, I won't.
I will give an example for you and perhaps others. Since you are using WoW, I will do the same. Heigan is a boss that is notorious for wiping groups and causing problems. However, he is exceptionally easy if the entire group remembers to move to the correct place at the correct time. This is just a gimmick. If by "skill" you mean that everyone has to move in a coordinated fashion, then a case could be made for that, I will grant. However, many five-man encounters require coordination (running behind a pillar to avoid some arcane explosion or something, for example).
"Having 10 or 25 people move in co-ordination with each-other." This seems to be your definition of skill. Therefore, you must be arguing that it takes more skill for 25 people to be doing it than for five people to be doing it. That doesn't hold water, and you are still simply arguing number of people instead of actual skill or difficulty of an encounter.
The only, hear me, only, differences between normal content and raid content the gear checks and the number of people in the room. You have to be coordinated to complete any encounter that requires a group and is worth anything. Therefore, you are still simply arguing time. It takes time to get that many people together, and especially to do so again and again to complete prerequisites.
Face it, your argument does not hold any water. Skill implies difficulty, and difficulty does not have to be large groups or "raids." It just doesn't. And it isn't in WoW, at least. And if you are going to be a jerk about doing Ulduar, you could spell Yogg-Saron correctly.
You're just one of those pixel epeen jerks. You would hate any other system because you love the idea that because you have more time to spend running those raids and getting the great gear. You think that that time spent means you deserve better things. You don't really care about skill anyway.
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman
With the above post, I know you have to work hard for what you get in anything, but why make it that way in a game? You go to work in RL and come home to...'work'. lol (just a slight observation, nothing more) ;0)
Alright, time to go back to my WoW-crack. lol
Because if something is just given to you, and everyone else by extraction, then it has no value, it has no meaning.
If everyone was given a trillion dollars, the dollar would be worthless. So working for something gives it value.
This is the crux of the argument and it is why I don't play WoW anymore.
They have given everything to everyone and it has lost all meaning and value in having it.
While I agree with that, for those with a shorter attention span it makes it almost pointless to take months or even years to attain what they want in any game.
Myself for example: I do not mind a grind......just not one that is going to take me 7 months to get anywhere. Although I cannot complain too much as there is so much to do in WoW. =0)
I dont think the end game discussion should be about the merits of what people like. That's a personal preference anyhow. When it comes to end game, and I think many people fall into the same boat as I do, we've done it at different times in the past, and as time has past, our tastes have changed. You may have enjoyed PvE and now more PvP, or hell, maybe it did not change, and you still enjoy the same thing. Even if the last is the case, I dont think it invalidates that more than one playstyle should be supported.
I did the the WoW raiding thing pre-TBC, and was GL of a Naxx raiding guild. We ran 5 nights a week, probably 4-5 hours a night. It was fun stuff. Thing is, my real life responsibilities changed, and I dont have the time to commit to it. Although my taste has changed, I'm not going to say it's an any less valid or enjoyable activity, it's just not for me anymore.
I think where the problem centered, back then, was that the raiding, PvE gear was so good, it gave massive advantages in all facets of a game. If you were geared in T3 gear, you had huge advantages in PvP, and even casual doing dungeons. I think in some cases, that perception made people feel that their time in-game was devalued. Most folks just played to have fun, and I dont think gave a damn. It's not about what someone else can do, it's about what you do.
These days, I'm playing Warhammer, because I enjoy PvP, and even if there is a great repetitiveness in it, I still enjoy the possibility of different things happening, I like the unpredictiability that not playing the AI brings. Of course that's just me, not right for everyone.
So why not reward people with things that help them, and do little impact on other facets of the game? If you want to raid, great, make raid bosses drop items/gear that help you kill off the next boss, and so on? You'll be rewarded for investing your time in what you enjoy. If someone wants to PvP, let the PvP rewards give them advantage in PvP, they wont be able to jump into raiding and dominate, but they'll get rewards that suit what they enjoy. Same thing for people who are into small groups (sorry, I'd put soloists in this group) give them items that allow them to better deal with encounters in small dungeons and such.
Something like that would satisfy people who are out for gear. It'll make you better at what you choose to invest your time in, and there is no absolute "I win in all facets of the game." Those objecting, I think are lookin' for the I win.
In end-game, I enjoy the chance to do things with friends. I love PvP in my end-game these days, and probably casual PvE as I wont commit 4-5 days a week, and 4-5 hours a night to engage in it. The MMO developer who is strong enough to "win" itemization so that people can be rewarded for what they do, without impacting other facets would have a real winner on hand.
I'm not ready to say that it's all about the journey as opposed to end-game just quite yet, but with my current MMO, I've never had so many alts. I like end-game, so speed of leveling is nice, but the important thing, is that there is something engaging to do once I reach end-game, and I get rewards that support my playstyle. That's just my 2 cents though.
In reality, the MMO is a grind. You grind your way to max level (no matter how quick it is, it's still a grind, because you are repeating the same actions over and over again to progress), and when you get there, you grind your way to better gear, typically by doing the same raids over and over again.
I suppose that's accurate.
A big part of what makes games fun to players is the delight in discovering new gameplay patterns, and "grind" is basically the word players use to describe a slow rate of new patterns to delight in. In some games the word grind isn't mentioned at all, but it's not like a game could provide an endless stream of new patterns (nor would that even be fun; part of the fun of learning patterns is the feeling of mastery after you've figured them out - if the pattern switches too much, your mastery is never rewarded.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I'm not sure how much content you saw in terms of one day a week raiding. If you didn't get past Kara (TBC) or Naxx (Wotlk) then that's not really enough to understand the skill required for raiding.
However, if you want harder group (5-man) activity, then we are in agreement. The 5-mans are far too easy. And if (only if) 5-mans can be made as difficult as raids, then I've got no problem with them offering equivalent rewards.
It's just many people on this thread seem to think that difficulty can be reached purely through solo content. But that's just not practical for reasons I've already explained.
What does it matter how far I got in terms of raiding, raiding is raiding after all. There is a reason why I haven't gotten up to the Ulduar content, but raiding is ultimately all the same as a poster previously has said. It requires again, group coordination, gear and fulfilling the basic roles within a group (heal, dps and tank). You cannot discredit my experiences and opinions as a casual gamer because I do not have time nor interest to raid. This further proves my point that there SHOULD be more if all YOU think "real raiding" is running Ulduar or the hardest raid available. Skill goes beyond difficulty of a group effort and there should be many other difficult tasks involved than just solely Raid for PvE. That was practically the whole point of my two posts. WoW lacks diversity and does not try to cater to casual gamers all too well, which are probably the good majority of the people paying for this game in the first place.
The only people that seem to be able to do a full raid run are the people that have all the time in the world like young kids and college students and usually those people's accounts are being paid for by the casual working class people of WoW. This second part is my guess, but its funny how WoW doesn't make hard, valid efforts in catering to what I perceive as a "big crowd" if not a "bigger crowd/majority". Again, there should be more to do than just raid that will result in some form of character development progress (sadly only measured by items at WoW's end game).
Antipathy, I could write a thesis about why you are wrong, but since I am relatively sure you are just trolling us, I won't. I will give an example for you and perhaps others. Since you are using WoW, I will do the same. Heigan is a boss that is notorious for wiping groups and causing problems. However, he is exceptionally easy if the entire group remembers to move to the correct place at the correct time. This is just a gimmick. If by "skill" you mean that everyone has to move in a coordinated fashion, then a case could be made for that, I will grant. However, many five-man encounters require coordination (running behind a pillar to avoid some arcane explosion or something, for example). "Having 10 or 25 people move in co-ordination with each-other." This seems to be your definition of skill. Therefore, you must be arguing that it takes more skill for 25 people to be doing it than for five people to be doing it. That doesn't hold water, and you are still simply arguing number of people instead of actual skill or difficulty of an encounter. The only, hear me, only, differences between normal content and raid content the gear checks and the number of people in the room. You have to be coordinated to complete any encounter that requires a group and is worth anything. Therefore, you are still simply arguing time. It takes time to get that many people together, and especially to do so again and again to complete prerequisites. Face it, your argument does not hold any water. Skill implies difficulty, and difficulty does not have to be large groups or "raids." It just doesn't. And it isn't in WoW, at least. And if you are going to be a jerk about doing Ulduar, you could spell Yogg-Saron correctly. You're just one of those pixel epeen jerks. You would hate any other system because you love the idea that because you have more time to spend running those raids and getting the great gear. You think that that time spent means you deserve better things. You don't really care about skill anyway.
You go from talking writing a thesis to calling me a jerk. I guess you can't maintain the air of civilised debate for more than a few paragraphs.
You've never experienced these encounters. So you are speaking from a position of ignorance.
I understand what you say about Heigan. He does wipe a lot of groups. But he's still designed as quite an easy introductory boss. Move correctly, and he doesn't actually do very much damage - he can easily be done by far fewer than 10 people.Apparently he can be 2 manned, so there's loads of room for screw ups. So he's an introduction to raiding difficulties. Your point sounds like someone saying "I solved a quadratic equation therefore relativity must be easy".
Rather than responding to the actual points I make, you try to create a straw man by putting words in my mouth, How do you know what I hate? How do you know how much time I spent on raiding? How do you know what sort of guild I belonged to. All are assumptions.
Let me give you some real information. I actually belonged to what I'd consider a casual raiding guild - we raided because we enjoyed raiding, not because anyone was forcing us to do it. And if we didn't feel like raiding we went and did something else. There was no minimum attendance. No one was ever kicked out of the guild for not turning up for raids. Some nights we didn't have enough people for 25 man. So what - we ran 10 man. Some nights we didn't have enough people for 10 mans. Then we went off and did something else - levelled alts, pvp'd or did heroics. Whatever. I personally chose to never raid more than 3 nights a week, since I didn't want to get too stressed about it. And yet I still managed to progress far enough to top damage meters, and the guild still progressed far enough to clear Ulduar. So is that your definition of hardcore? Maybe it is by some standards - but there were people in my guild who raided a lot less than me - some who only turned up for raids once every few weeks, and they progressed through a lot of content as well. Because they were good players.
I can think of a few times in Ulduar when I remember wiping and thinking "We can't do this boss. Our gear isn't good enough". That was in my first few weeks there. But then we got the gear, and from then on it was all about skill. Every single wipe we had was because someone in the raid screwed up.
You pretend I said "difficulty means large groups of people". Where did I say that? Did I ? Where? You are attacking straw men again. I have said difficulty cannot mean solo, since the game isn't balanced that way. I've actually got a fairly open mind as to whether it can mean 5-man. I'm not a content designer - I've not sweated blood and tears trying to making 5-man content more difficult. So all I can do is look at what is currently produced and judge it - and the current Warcraft 5-man content is actually quite easy - even if it's done in blues. So that current content doesn't deserve raid level rewards. Maybe someone can design 5-man content that does deserve the rewards because it would be truely challenging. Good luck to them - I'd look forward to it !
You go from talking writing a thesis to calling me a jerk. I guess you can't maintain the air of civilised debate for more than a few paragraphs.
You've never experienced these encounters. So you are speaking from a position of ignorance.
I understand what you say about Heigan. He does wipe a lot of groups. But he's still designed as quite an easy introductory boss. Move correctly, and he doesn't actually do very much damage - he can easily be done by far fewer than 10 people.Apparently he can be 2 manned, so there's loads of room for screw ups. So he's an introduction to raiding difficulties. You point sounds like someone saying "I solved a quadratic equation therefore relativity must be easy".
Rather than responding to the actual points I make, you try to create a straw man by putting words in my mouth, How do you know what I hate? How do you know how much time I spent on raiding? How do you know what sort of guild I belonged to. All are assumptions.
Let me give you some real information. I actually belonged to what I'd consider a casual raiding guild - we raided because we enjoyed raiding, not because anyone was forcing us to do it. And if we didn't feel like raiding we went and did something else. There was no minimum attendance allowance. No one was ever kicked out of the guild for not turning up for raids. Some nights we didn't have enough people for 25 man. So what - we ran 10 man. Some nights we didn't have enough people for 10 mans. Then we went off and did something else - levelled alts, pvp'd or did heroics. Whatever. I personally chose to never raid more than 3 nights a week, since I didn't want to get too stressed about it. And yet I still managed to progress far enough to top damage meters, and the guild still progressed far enough to clear Ulduar. So is that your definition of hardcore? Maybe it is by some standards - but there were people in my guild who raided a lot less than me - some who only turned up for raids once every few weeks, and they progressed through a lot of content as well. Because they were good players.
I can think of a few times in Ulduar when I remember wiping and thinking "We can't do this boss. Our gear isn't good enough". That was in my first few weeks there. But then we got the gear, and from then on it was all about skill. Every single wipe we had was because someone in the raid screwed up.
You pretend I said "difficulty means large groups of people". Where did I say that? Did I ? Where? You are attacking straw men again. I have said difficulty cannot mean solo, since the game isn't balanced that way. I've actually got a fairly open mind as to whether it can mean 5-man. I'm not a content designer - I've not sweated blood and tears trying to making 5-man content more difficult. So all I can do is look at what is currently produced and judge it - and the current Warcraft 5-man content is actually quite easy - even if it's done in blues. So that current content doesn't deserve raid level rewards. Maybe someone can design 5-man content that does deserve the rewards because it would be truely challenging. Good luck to them - I'd look forward to it !
As I said earlier, and as you yourself say when discussing solo content, difficulty in terms of skill is a subjective matter....what a priest might find difficult a paladin might think is a breeze....is subjective, and I would argue that this skills upwards.
You can check my char on EU WOW Armory, I have Firefighter achievement for 10 man, and it is was a particularly difficult boss to kill, it took me and the 10 people I was with a considerable amount of time and effort to complete. Some might even argue skill. I wouldn't, because it is impossible to measure skill. Just how much skill did it take? can we quantify how much skill? Not really. So once you start arguing about the level of skill required you are basically arguing an unmeasurable, constantly changing subject matter.
Which is quite difficult to do. It is like arguing who is the best guitarist or the best drummer. A consensus will never be reached.
Originally posted by Jairoe03 The only people that seem to be able to do a full raid run are the people that have all the time in the world like young kids and college students and usually those people's accounts are being paid for by the casual working class people of WoW. This second part is my guess, but its funny how WoW doesn't make hard, valid efforts in catering to what I perceive as a "big crowd" if not a "bigger crowd/majority". Again, there should be more to do than just raid that will result in some form of character development progress (sadly only measured by items at WoW's end game).
My server is a quite casual RP-PvP server. We sometimes laugh about how casual we are. We were just about the last server in europe to get the sunwell gem vendor - so on the casual meter, we're pretty close to 10/10. Most of the truely hardcore players migrated away from our server a long time ago, seeking better progress elsewhere. And yet I've just logged on and done a "/who warrior 80" and seen that a third of the level 80 warriors are currently at this moment in either Naxx or Ulduar. That's not even counting the people who raid on some night other than Monday. So even on my backwards little server large numbers of people raid.
A lot of people raid. I'd agree a lot of people are casual as well, including some of my close friends. But the idea that the game was designed purely for raiders is laughable. All of the levelling zones were designed for casuals. All of the 5-man content was designed for casuals. The battlegrounds were designed for casuals. Wintergrasp was designed for casuals. The Vault of Archavon was designed for casuals (it can be completed in 30 mins). The Obsidian Sanctum was designed for casuals (again 30 mins). It may surprise you, but many people who raided through TBC consider that Naxxramas was designed for casuals. The difficulty level was set pretty low, and loads of people can run it successfully.
The only content that was designed to challenge experienced players is EoE, Ulduar and (recently) the Trial of the Crusader.. That's all. The reason I left wow a short while ago was very simple - there simply wasn't enough content to interest and challenger me. I was only being challenged by Ulduar, and when you're confined to that place, the "world" of warcraft becomes very small indeed.
Originally posted by Antipathy So is that your definition of hardcore? Maybe it is by some standards - but there were people in my guild who raided a lot less than me - some who only turned up for raids once every few weeks, and they progressed through a lot of content as well. Because they were good players.
I recently had a discussion on another forum where someone stated that WoW was a game for hardcore only and he knew no casual gamers who played it. It turns out that he considered anyone who spent more than 15 hours on a game in a month to be a hardcore player. To him casual players usually played for 15-20 minutes every few days and that was teh market the 'casual game' companies he knew were aiming for. 'Casual' and 'hardcore are relative concepts. I would clasify you as a casual raider but to non-raiders or 'true casuals' your playstyle is very hardcore. Heck, my playstyle is probably considered hardcore and until last Sunday I never stepped a foot into Ulduur and never completed a 25man Naxx.
Originally posted by Dafong As I said earlier, and as you yourself say when discussing solo content, difficulty in terms of skill is a subjective matter....what a priest might find difficult a paladin might think is a breeze....is subjective, and I would argue that this skills upwards.
You can check my char on EU WOW Armory, I have Firefighter achievement for 10 man, and it is was a particularly difficult boss to kill, it took me and the 10 people I was with a considerable amount of time and effort to complete. Some might even argue skill. I wouldn't, because it is impossible to measure skill. Just how much skill did it take? can we quantify how much skill? Not really. So once you start arguing about the level of skill required you are basically arguing an unmeasurable, constantly changing subject matter.
Which is quite difficult to do. It is like arguing who is the best guitarist or the best drummer. A consensus will never be reached.
I would disagree - I believe skill can be measured.
Congratulations on achieving Fire-fighter. But if you heard another group of raiders had managed that same achievement, whilst only spending half as much time learning and wiping, wouldn't you agree that they are more skillful than you are?
I would disagree - I believe skill can be measured.
Congratulations on achieving Fire-fighter. But if you heard another group of raiders had managed that same achievement, whilst only spending half as much time learning and wiping, wouldn't you agree that they are more skillful than you are?
Not really. I would have to know whether anyone lagged out during their attempts, if anyone disconnected, how fortunate they were with napalm shots etc. Two napalm shots on the same character, and that char being a clothy, can very much mean a death. Also what group make-up did they use? Did they go with a Boomkin, a Resto Druid and a Feral druid, therefore giving them 3 extra lives? (Battle Rez) Which makes a huge difference and does taking that character along really constitute skill ?
Just because your group succeeds and my group fails does not mean that skill was the defining factor. Skill could have been a factor, but there are so many other variables that you can never truly say how much is related to skill and how much is related to other things.
Actually - I'll partially take back my last comment, since I actually believe that time spent is part of skill.
Yes - if you spend time practicing you become more skillful. You mentioned the metaphor of musicians. Well - wouldn't it sounds ridiculous if a pianist said "I can play really complicated piano pieces now, but I'm not any more skilled then I was when I could only play chopsticks. It's just time spent".
You learn by doing. That's part of what skill is. Some people learn at different rates. Some people reach a plateau of skill and progress no further. Not every guitarist can play the same way as Eric Clapton or Santana, no matter how much time they've spent practising.
So yeah - time improves skill. But the important thing to me is that the reward comes with the skill rather than with the time. The challenges should test player's playing abilities and understanding of their character's, not be a pure measure of time spent regardless of ability.
Actually - I'll partially take back my last comment, since I actually believe that time spent is part of skill.
Yes - if you spend time practicing you become more skillful. You mentioned the metaphor of musicians. Well - wouldn't it sounds ridiculous if a pianist said "I can play really complicated piano pieces now, but I'm not any more skilled then I was when I could only play chopsticks. It's just time spent".
You learn by doing. That's part of what skill is. Some people learn at different rates. Some people reach a plateau of skill and progress no further. Not every guitarist can play the same way as Eric Clapton or Santana, no matter how much time they've spent practising.
So yeah - time improves skill. But the important thing to me is that the reward comes with the skill rather than with the time. The challenges should test player's playing abilities and understanding of their character's, not be a pure measure of time spent regardless of ability.
I was going to argue the exact opposite point.
I am a musician, I am a guitarist, quite an accomplished one, I played the London Guitar Show in 2007. I consider myself quite adept at playing the guitar.
However, it is all just muscle memory. There really isn't much skill involved. Anyone can play the guitar, I am also a trained music teacher although I am now studying Law as I didn't enjoy teaching music as much as I thought I would, so I am not just saying this off the top of my head. Anyone can play the guitar, it just takes time. The skill comes when you start to write music, music with feeling. That isn't something that everyone can do. The difficulty in playing the guitar is finding the time and making the effort to practice. I could have someone who had never held a guitar, playing a tune in 5 minutes, the amount of time it takes to show them the Em chord, one of the easiest to play. Where is the skill, it just doesn't exist in this scenario.
My argument is not the time it takes, although some here would paint it as such, it is the effort that it takes, the effort to be at a particular place at a particular time for a particular amount of time doing something that isn't always the most fun.
Much like learning a musical instrument. There are those in this thread that seem to think they should be able to pracitce for 20 mins a week and somehow be as accomplished a musician as the guy that puts in 6 hours a day, which is what I used to do when I was studying classical guitar. That took a lot of effort, a lot of commitment and a lot of doing stuff that wasn't neccessarily entertaining. I was rewarded with that by being an accomplished guitarist who can walk into a room full of guitar players and make their jaws hit the floor. That was my reward.
It wasn't about skill, it was about commitment and effort.
Actually - I'll partially take back my last comment, since I actually believe that time spent is part of skill.
Yes - if you spend time practicing you become more skillful. You mentioned the metaphor of musicians. Well - wouldn't it sounds ridiculous if a pianist said "I can play really complicated piano pieces now, but I'm not any more skilled then I was when I could only play chopsticks. It's just time spent".
You learn by doing. That's part of what skill is. Some people learn at different rates. Some people reach a plateau of skill and progress no further. Not every guitarist can play the same way as Eric Clapton or Santana, no matter how much time they've spent practising.
So yeah - time improves skill. But the important thing to me is that the reward comes with the skill rather than with the time. The challenges should test player's playing abilities and understanding of their character's, not be a pure measure of time spent regardless of ability.
Stop feeding the troll. He's impervious to logic (sadly my only weapon) and his definition of skill is divergent from the dictionary definition ("the ability, coming from one's knowledge, practice, aptitude, etc., to do something well")
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Stop feeding the troll. He's impervious to logic (sadly my only weapon) and his definition of skill is divergent from the dictionary definition ("the ability, coming from one's knowledge, practice, aptitude, etc., to do something well")
To be honest, he has a better debate style then Ilvaldyr, he seems to read what is written and respond to what you have said. Ilvaldyr just seemed to try and twist whatever was said into something else to make himself right. He wasn't interested in responding or answering criticisms instead more interested in proving himself right.
I would hestitate to say that about you because I never quite got into the debate with you, but you were confusing. You seemed to agree with me, and call me an idiot at the same time, which is damn confusing.
Stop feeding the troll. He's impervious to logic (sadly my only weapon) and his definition of skill is divergent from the dictionary definition ("the ability, coming from one's knowledge, practice, aptitude, etc., to do something well")
The odd thing is, my definition is more divergent from that dictionary definition then his is. I don't believe that the definitions you have listed really has anything to do with skill. Antipathy does.
My definition of skill would be more like, finesse. The ability to do something beyond the normal realms of the ordinary. DaVinci, Van Gogh, Michelangelo, Mozart, Bach...these people had great skill. It wasn't simply their knowledge, practice and aptitude that allowed them to do something well. It was an indefinable quality that took them beyond that which most of us can do.
That to me is skill.
Antipathy's idea of skill is more akin to your dictionary definition then mine is.
The odd thing is, my definition is more divergent from that dictionary definition then his is. I don't believe that the definitions you have listed really has anything to do with skill. Antipathy does.
My definition of skill would be more like, finesse. The ability to do something beyond the normal realms of the ordinary. DaVinci, Van Gogh, Michelangelo, Mozart, Bach...these people had great skill. It wasn't simply their knowledge, practice and aptitude that allowed them to do something well. It was an indefinable quality that took them beyond that which most of us can do.
That to me is skill.
Antipathy's idea of skill is more akin to your dictionary definition then mine is.
It sounds like your definition of "skill" is pretty close to what most people would call "talent".
So we're really just arguing symantics, which is a largely pointless activity, and never leads anywhere.
If I apply the term "talent" to many of the things you've said, then I find myself agreeing with them. Yes - talent is very hard to measure in a game, and it would be very hard to design a game that rewarded people for being "talented" - especially since talents can take so many different forms.
But that doesn't really progress us any further in deciding what should be rewarded. All it tells us is something we cannot reward.
Antipathy, the sheer level of ignorance and hate in you amazes me.
You have said, and repeatedly, that a raid deserves better gear than a five man because you are required to show up at a specific time and do so with many people. You yourself have indicated this.
I used Heigan only as an example, because he is well known, even to people who do not necessarily play WoW much. Note, this thread is not just about WoW. You have no idea what encounters I have or have not played in. In fact, I have been to Ulduar, granted, only ten man. (Sounds like you made a bad assumption?) Of course, your argument is that because it is easier to get ten people together, I should have been given less powerful items than someone that does the same thing in a 25-man raid, yes? Let's use XT-002, shall we? Still, it's a gimmick that only requires knowledge of the encounter, and no improvisation or skill. That's all WoW does, timing, coordination. XT has two (OMG That's harder!) gimmicks. Spiking damage and temporary vulnerability. That doesn't really make it that much harder, does it? How about Grobbulus? Just don't stand in the green crap, just don't stand in front of him (unless you're the tank). Two gimmicks. Wow. Even Yogg-Saron only has gimmicks, but is somehow considered harder because of the time he takes to kill and the fact that there are three "phases." You can't invalidate the core of an argument by saying I picked a boss you didn't like.
I don't see how directly addressing your previous statements is creating a straw-man argument. You say that raids deserve better gear. You say this is because of time and commitment. You say this is because of difficulty. And then you validate this argument by claiming raiding is more difficult. The only thing more difficult about raiding is the number of people. And raiding is NOT casual when it is three nights a week when you are expected to be there for several hours. Many of us have jobs and families that take up a large portion of time. Games are to be fun, not second jobs that require us to be on at a certain time and swear to be on for a certain length of time. You go on about how casual your guild was, when earlier you said that if someone missed more than one raid, they wouldn't be allowed to continue coming. It doesn't sound like you didn't care if you didn't have enough people to go to me.
But then, I am a priest, and as such I can pug 25-man raids when I want to. I cleared 25-man Naxx as a pug with a guild that simply didn't have a healer that was reliable, and they knew me, so if I was on, the raid leader would whisper me and ask me if I had the time; often I did. I even pugged a 25-man Ulduar, but just once. It wasn't really much different from ten man, but for some reason the gear was considerably better. How does this make sense? More people = hard. That is what you have been saying all along. It's not a straw-man argument, it is directly refuting your erroneous statements.
In fact, in your most recent post, you say that you can do five-mans in blues. Of course you can; they are geared for that. If you tried to do it in level 70 blues, you could not. They are the first tier of the dungeon-running progression. You get epics from heroics, then you can go to Naxxramas, when you get the epics from there, you can go to the Eye. It isn't actually harder if you have the gear, it only requires a higher ilevel of gear, and the time it takes to get said gear. And more people to be in the same room.
It does NOT require a higher level of skill. Therefore, it does NOT merit better items.
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman
Antipathy, the sheer level of ignorance and hate in you amazes me.
All else aside for a moment....where are you getting that from? I am involved in this debate, and I see no reason for such charges.
"You have said, and repeatedly, that a raid deserves better gear than a five man because you are required to show up at a specific time and do so with many people. You yourself have indicated this."
This is also more my argument. Antipathy's argument is that high end raiding in WoW actually requires a fair amount of skill and that fights, on hard-mode, like Mimiron and Yogg-Saron are actually difficult and require skill to finish and therefore should be rewarded.
You then go on and call things 'gimmicks' as if this somehow detracts from the difficulty level, that so long as you call them a comical name then they become easy. Yes Yogg only has gimmicks, but by this level of argument, Mathematics just has gimmicks, equations are just gimmicks, the difficulties of the Theory of Relativity is merely more gimmicks. You can't just call something a gimmick and therefore reduce it.
You then confuse me and Antipathy again when you talk about being able to attend raids. What I said was, 25 people in a raid, 35 people logged in means some people are not going to be able to attend raids and since those raids require a certain amount of knowledge and experience the more you fail to turn up the more chance you will not be chosen for those raids as you become a liability. If you leave early and therefore detract from the entire raid and cause 24 people to sit around and wait til they can get a replacement in because you didn't commit your evening to the raid, the next raid your chances of being invited are lessened.
"You say this is because of difficulty. And then you validate this argument by claiming raiding is more difficult. The only thing more difficult about raiding is the number of people. And raiding is NOT casual when it is three nights a week when you are expected to be there for several hours. Many of us have jobs and families that take up a large portion of time. Games are to be fun, not second jobs that require us to be on at a certain time and swear to be on for a certain length of time."
Games usually don't DEMAND that you do this to play the game, they only demand you do this to play a certain area of the game. If you can't do it, then don't do it, but don't expect the same rewards as those that do. That has been MY consistent argument through-out this thread.
"More people = hard. That is what you have been saying all along. It's not a straw-man argument, it is directly refuting your erroneous statements."
The confusion may be that again, this is more my argument then his. My argument is not that more people = hard exactly, but that getting 25 people to commit, as in your above statement that I have bolded and responded to, actually takes a fair amount of effort for each of those people. It requires a little more then simply logging in and finding 5 random people to play with for the 40 mins that an Heroic takes. If it requires a little more, shouldn't it reward a little more?
"In fact, in your most recent post, you say that you can do five-mans in blues. Of course you can; they are geared for that. If you tried to do it in level 70 blues, you could not. They are the first tier of the dungeon-running progression. You get epics from heroics, then you can go to Naxxramas, when you get the epics from there, you can go to the Eye. It isn't actually harder if you have the gear, it only requires a higher ilevel of gear, and the time it takes to get said gear. And more people to be in the same room.
It does NOT require a higher level of skill. Therefore, it does NOT merit better items."
This is interesting, read it vaguely it follows this pattern....it takes more, more and more but shouldn't merit better items.
Why not? If it takes more why shouldn't it merit better items? Surely that is why it should give better rewards, cause it took more then the heroics, cause it took more then naxx, cause it took more then Eye of Eternity, cause it took more then Ulduar normal mode. If it takes more then it should give more....that seems quite straight forward thinking to me.
Comments
You are right, and I apologize for helping to feed the troll.
As per your topic, I don't really like "end games" or games that use that idea. Take the example someone else had of EVE. Eve doesn't really have an endgame. Yes, you will increase in power and versatility as you continue (you don't increase in a way that feels organic to me, but that's a different story) to play, as well you should, but there is no point where you can say, "I beat the game." That's because there is no "end game" idea and no "end game" content. CCP created a massive and engaging world, and they attracted players that manage to run the world themselves. It is an ongoing set of relationships/conflicts that continues but doesn't end. Most sandbox/pvp games can give you this, but some cannot.
Take GW. One of my favorite games, to play. It is not a game that feels like a world to me, and doesn't really have a serious community to speak of until you get into, yes, "end game" pvp. Of course, you can start a max-level person and only pvp with them, in fact this is encouraged. But there are four campaigns now, and when you beat them, you've beaten the game as it is, and are only left with very controlled pvp. So even though there is a community based around the pvp, and in and out of game relationships forged as a result (which is usually good for a game), it is still the "end game" so I feel that I'm done.
EDIT:
I want to add something about EVE that makes it amazing. Your equipment will wear out over time, and you will have to get new equipment, whereas in most MMOs you can simply repair it ad infinitum. Add to that the fact that equipment is player crafted (i.e. you cannot raid pve constantly and expect to outfit yourself with the ships and lasers or whatever that you need. At least, I don't think this is the case now.) and you have, amazingly, a real and active player-run economy within this harsh pvp reality.
Players control everything that happens in the world. And that one idea is what we need in our games. The devs just need to give us those worlds.
Apology accepted, thanks for returning to the original topic
(thanks to the rest as well, who have either just joined and are on-topic, or who are now re-focusing on the original topic again)
I agree with you, and I think that part of the reason that EVE doesn't feel like it has an end-game is that it is an open-ended game that you can train in whatever skills you like, rather than being confined to a class, which means that when you've progressed as much as you can in one skill, you still have tons of other ways that you can progress. The other reason, I think, is that the skill progression doesn't put as big of a power gap between new players and old. It's not like a lv 1 and lv 80 difference in WoW. There IS a power gap, but only to a certain extent; after that, any gap is a versatility gap. That means that players 2-4 months in can still play with the players that are 2 year vets. Finally closing that power gap and feeling like you're at the "upper end" of the game compared to the rest of the population is a big part of end game I think.
As far as players controlling the world, while I would like to see more of this in MMOs, I'm not holding my breath; a semi-free / semi-open PVP system is seemingly needed to control much of anything except economy. What would be nice is to enable players to create new quests and missions (sort of like you can in CoX, but perhaps on a deeper level). This would, at the same time, help keep things fresh; it would help soften or altogether do away with an "end game", since there would always be something new to do, as long as players continued to create new content.
"In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional or disciplinary response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[2]" (Wikipedia.org, 8-24-09)
The best way to deal with trolls:
http://www.angelfire.com/space/usenet/ [IGNORE THEM, THEY JUST WANT ATTENTION!]
This is one of the few rare opportunities where I respond without reading the whole thread first and only because I been reading a lot all day. Was practicing programming C and reading about Lua and a novel on top of it all.
Anyways, before I digress too much, I would say I like absolutely NOTHING about raiding and end game and its starting to turn some popular games very 1-dimensional. I would much prefer other ways introduced in playing a game that might offer rewards on par to the "current end-game".
And whats with this concept of "end-game", whats the point of leveling then if most of the game is when I get to the maximum level? If there is so much emphasis on the end-game, why not just eliminate the leveling prerequisite and let the players have fun and get their MONEYS worth (oh I guess thats the key thing isn't it, *sigh* companies).
I think its absurd and games should take a step back and take lessons from the earlier MMORPGs. Make achieving maximum level actually something to brag about rather than a prerequisite for access to the other "half" of the game. I used to pride myself on DAoC for being mid level 40s (think max level was 50 at the time) and I never achieved maximum level in that game, but that never stopped me from feeling good being at that level, like I am amongst the upper echelon in the world (it was a game where death penalty involved a hefty exp loss). Make death penalties actually make people NOT want to die rather then not care, it seems like all I can get mad about in regards to dying is a 1 minute run to my "corpse". I would't mind if I saw some gold missing from my corpse or a random item in my inventory or something. Make the game exciting, you developers
I agree, and this seems to be the most common position taken by those who have replied to the original topic (which I am actually quite surprised at, I expected a few more opposing viewpoints). I also agree with you that the emphasis on end-game seems to belittle the journey there. I remember when leveling mattered in EQ and DAoC as well (it really doesn't anymore, as both have significantly sped up the leveling process). However, here, we have a conflict of views between two rather large groups. On the one hand, you have the group that wants less grind. That means leveling is faster, because grind is boring. On the other hand, you have the group that wants a challenge and a risk in leveling again, which the other side would consider a "grind." In reality, the MMO is a grind. You grind your way to max level (no matter how quick it is, it's still a grind, because you are repeating the same actions over and over again to progress), and when you get there, you grind your way to better gear, typically by doing the same raids over and over again. As other posters have mentioned, I think a good, long, difficult storyline to progress through would help relieve the "grindiness" of MMOs significantly. You can have gear improvements or stat improvements in there with it, but I think the focus needs to be spread out a little wider than "ZOMG more gear and more stats! NAO!" With a bigger focus on story, you can have both, a longer and more interesting journey to max level, and interesting content after the max.
"In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional or disciplinary response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[2]" (Wikipedia.org, 8-24-09)
The best way to deal with trolls:
http://www.angelfire.com/space/usenet/ [IGNORE THEM, THEY JUST WANT ATTENTION!]
So then, you enjoy raiding because it presents a challenge to you, and you enjoy overcoming challenges through practice and repetition? Or do you simply enjoy improving your character with better gear? Or is it a bit of both?
"In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional or disciplinary response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[2]" (Wikipedia.org, 8-24-09)
The best way to deal with trolls:
http://www.angelfire.com/space/usenet/ [IGNORE THEM, THEY JUST WANT ATTENTION!]
So, one of the things you enjoy about raiding is the aspect of competition with other raiding guilds on the server? That's a viewpoint I haven't seen yet. That might be fun
Edit: I had to LOL at /faceroll xD nice.
"In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional or disciplinary response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[2]" (Wikipedia.org, 8-24-09)
The best way to deal with trolls:
http://www.angelfire.com/space/usenet/ [IGNORE THEM, THEY JUST WANT ATTENTION!]
Most mmo's that have one choose between personal social life, and staying competitive in game usualy lose their appeal to me rather fast at higher levels. I enjoy leveling at my own pace, exploring content, and being part of a small guild (group of about 12 friends) and not having to worry about recruiting a whole mess of bodies just to be able to fill slots for 20-40 man raids.
Staying competitive in some of these games has come to a point where you literally have to plan your social life around raiding, instead of just being able to log on when you have a couple of hours to spare. A bit to hard-core for me, which is why I prefer sandbox type games centered around pvp endgame.
Antipathy, I could write a thesis about why you are wrong, but since I am relatively sure you are just trolling us, I won't.
I will give an example for you and perhaps others. Since you are using WoW, I will do the same. Heigan is a boss that is notorious for wiping groups and causing problems. However, he is exceptionally easy if the entire group remembers to move to the correct place at the correct time. This is just a gimmick. If by "skill" you mean that everyone has to move in a coordinated fashion, then a case could be made for that, I will grant. However, many five-man encounters require coordination (running behind a pillar to avoid some arcane explosion or something, for example).
"Having 10 or 25 people move in co-ordination with each-other." This seems to be your definition of skill. Therefore, you must be arguing that it takes more skill for 25 people to be doing it than for five people to be doing it. That doesn't hold water, and you are still simply arguing number of people instead of actual skill or difficulty of an encounter.
The only, hear me, only, differences between normal content and raid content the gear checks and the number of people in the room. You have to be coordinated to complete any encounter that requires a group and is worth anything. Therefore, you are still simply arguing time. It takes time to get that many people together, and especially to do so again and again to complete prerequisites.
Face it, your argument does not hold any water. Skill implies difficulty, and difficulty does not have to be large groups or "raids." It just doesn't. And it isn't in WoW, at least. And if you are going to be a jerk about doing Ulduar, you could spell Yogg-Saron correctly.
You're just one of those pixel epeen jerks. You would hate any other system because you love the idea that because you have more time to spend running those raids and getting the great gear. You think that that time spent means you deserve better things. You don't really care about skill anyway.
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman
Because if something is just given to you, and everyone else by extraction, then it has no value, it has no meaning.
If everyone was given a trillion dollars, the dollar would be worthless. So working for something gives it value.
This is the crux of the argument and it is why I don't play WoW anymore.
They have given everything to everyone and it has lost all meaning and value in having it.
While I agree with that, for those with a shorter attention span it makes it almost pointless to take months or even years to attain what they want in any game.
Myself for example: I do not mind a grind......just not one that is going to take me 7 months to get anywhere. Although I cannot complain too much as there is so much to do in WoW. =0)
http://zazzle.com/drooling_tiger*
Not really sure where to start here...
I dont think the end game discussion should be about the merits of what people like. That's a personal preference anyhow. When it comes to end game, and I think many people fall into the same boat as I do, we've done it at different times in the past, and as time has past, our tastes have changed. You may have enjoyed PvE and now more PvP, or hell, maybe it did not change, and you still enjoy the same thing. Even if the last is the case, I dont think it invalidates that more than one playstyle should be supported.
I did the the WoW raiding thing pre-TBC, and was GL of a Naxx raiding guild. We ran 5 nights a week, probably 4-5 hours a night. It was fun stuff. Thing is, my real life responsibilities changed, and I dont have the time to commit to it. Although my taste has changed, I'm not going to say it's an any less valid or enjoyable activity, it's just not for me anymore.
I think where the problem centered, back then, was that the raiding, PvE gear was so good, it gave massive advantages in all facets of a game. If you were geared in T3 gear, you had huge advantages in PvP, and even casual doing dungeons. I think in some cases, that perception made people feel that their time in-game was devalued. Most folks just played to have fun, and I dont think gave a damn. It's not about what someone else can do, it's about what you do.
These days, I'm playing Warhammer, because I enjoy PvP, and even if there is a great repetitiveness in it, I still enjoy the possibility of different things happening, I like the unpredictiability that not playing the AI brings. Of course that's just me, not right for everyone.
So why not reward people with things that help them, and do little impact on other facets of the game? If you want to raid, great, make raid bosses drop items/gear that help you kill off the next boss, and so on? You'll be rewarded for investing your time in what you enjoy. If someone wants to PvP, let the PvP rewards give them advantage in PvP, they wont be able to jump into raiding and dominate, but they'll get rewards that suit what they enjoy. Same thing for people who are into small groups (sorry, I'd put soloists in this group) give them items that allow them to better deal with encounters in small dungeons and such.
Something like that would satisfy people who are out for gear. It'll make you better at what you choose to invest your time in, and there is no absolute "I win in all facets of the game." Those objecting, I think are lookin' for the I win.
In end-game, I enjoy the chance to do things with friends. I love PvP in my end-game these days, and probably casual PvE as I wont commit 4-5 days a week, and 4-5 hours a night to engage in it. The MMO developer who is strong enough to "win" itemization so that people can be rewarded for what they do, without impacting other facets would have a real winner on hand.
I'm not ready to say that it's all about the journey as opposed to end-game just quite yet, but with my current MMO, I've never had so many alts. I like end-game, so speed of leveling is nice, but the important thing, is that there is something engaging to do once I reach end-game, and I get rewards that support my playstyle. That's just my 2 cents though.
I suppose that's accurate.
A big part of what makes games fun to players is the delight in discovering new gameplay patterns, and "grind" is basically the word players use to describe a slow rate of new patterns to delight in. In some games the word grind isn't mentioned at all, but it's not like a game could provide an endless stream of new patterns (nor would that even be fun; part of the fun of learning patterns is the feeling of mastery after you've figured them out - if the pattern switches too much, your mastery is never rewarded.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
What does it matter how far I got in terms of raiding, raiding is raiding after all. There is a reason why I haven't gotten up to the Ulduar content, but raiding is ultimately all the same as a poster previously has said. It requires again, group coordination, gear and fulfilling the basic roles within a group (heal, dps and tank). You cannot discredit my experiences and opinions as a casual gamer because I do not have time nor interest to raid. This further proves my point that there SHOULD be more if all YOU think "real raiding" is running Ulduar or the hardest raid available. Skill goes beyond difficulty of a group effort and there should be many other difficult tasks involved than just solely Raid for PvE. That was practically the whole point of my two posts. WoW lacks diversity and does not try to cater to casual gamers all too well, which are probably the good majority of the people paying for this game in the first place.
The only people that seem to be able to do a full raid run are the people that have all the time in the world like young kids and college students and usually those people's accounts are being paid for by the casual working class people of WoW. This second part is my guess, but its funny how WoW doesn't make hard, valid efforts in catering to what I perceive as a "big crowd" if not a "bigger crowd/majority". Again, there should be more to do than just raid that will result in some form of character development progress (sadly only measured by items at WoW's end game).
You go from talking writing a thesis to calling me a jerk. I guess you can't maintain the air of civilised debate for more than a few paragraphs.
You've never experienced these encounters. So you are speaking from a position of ignorance.
I understand what you say about Heigan. He does wipe a lot of groups. But he's still designed as quite an easy introductory boss. Move correctly, and he doesn't actually do very much damage - he can easily be done by far fewer than 10 people.Apparently he can be 2 manned, so there's loads of room for screw ups. So he's an introduction to raiding difficulties. Your point sounds like someone saying "I solved a quadratic equation therefore relativity must be easy".
Rather than responding to the actual points I make, you try to create a straw man by putting words in my mouth, How do you know what I hate? How do you know how much time I spent on raiding? How do you know what sort of guild I belonged to. All are assumptions.
Let me give you some real information. I actually belonged to what I'd consider a casual raiding guild - we raided because we enjoyed raiding, not because anyone was forcing us to do it. And if we didn't feel like raiding we went and did something else. There was no minimum attendance. No one was ever kicked out of the guild for not turning up for raids. Some nights we didn't have enough people for 25 man. So what - we ran 10 man. Some nights we didn't have enough people for 10 mans. Then we went off and did something else - levelled alts, pvp'd or did heroics. Whatever. I personally chose to never raid more than 3 nights a week, since I didn't want to get too stressed about it. And yet I still managed to progress far enough to top damage meters, and the guild still progressed far enough to clear Ulduar. So is that your definition of hardcore? Maybe it is by some standards - but there were people in my guild who raided a lot less than me - some who only turned up for raids once every few weeks, and they progressed through a lot of content as well. Because they were good players.
I can think of a few times in Ulduar when I remember wiping and thinking "We can't do this boss. Our gear isn't good enough". That was in my first few weeks there. But then we got the gear, and from then on it was all about skill. Every single wipe we had was because someone in the raid screwed up.
You pretend I said "difficulty means large groups of people". Where did I say that? Did I ? Where? You are attacking straw men again. I have said difficulty cannot mean solo, since the game isn't balanced that way. I've actually got a fairly open mind as to whether it can mean 5-man. I'm not a content designer - I've not sweated blood and tears trying to making 5-man content more difficult. So all I can do is look at what is currently produced and judge it - and the current Warcraft 5-man content is actually quite easy - even if it's done in blues. So that current content doesn't deserve raid level rewards. Maybe someone can design 5-man content that does deserve the rewards because it would be truely challenging. Good luck to them - I'd look forward to it !
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
"It's about the journey...not the destination."
Nothing about endgame interests me. I usually quit playing (and go play something else) until more non-grind content is released.
As I said earlier, and as you yourself say when discussing solo content, difficulty in terms of skill is a subjective matter....what a priest might find difficult a paladin might think is a breeze....is subjective, and I would argue that this skills upwards.
You can check my char on EU WOW Armory, I have Firefighter achievement for 10 man, and it is was a particularly difficult boss to kill, it took me and the 10 people I was with a considerable amount of time and effort to complete. Some might even argue skill. I wouldn't, because it is impossible to measure skill. Just how much skill did it take? can we quantify how much skill? Not really. So once you start arguing about the level of skill required you are basically arguing an unmeasurable, constantly changing subject matter.
Which is quite difficult to do. It is like arguing who is the best guitarist or the best drummer. A consensus will never be reached.
My server is a quite casual RP-PvP server. We sometimes laugh about how casual we are. We were just about the last server in europe to get the sunwell gem vendor - so on the casual meter, we're pretty close to 10/10. Most of the truely hardcore players migrated away from our server a long time ago, seeking better progress elsewhere. And yet I've just logged on and done a "/who warrior 80" and seen that a third of the level 80 warriors are currently at this moment in either Naxx or Ulduar. That's not even counting the people who raid on some night other than Monday. So even on my backwards little server large numbers of people raid.
A lot of people raid. I'd agree a lot of people are casual as well, including some of my close friends. But the idea that the game was designed purely for raiders is laughable. All of the levelling zones were designed for casuals. All of the 5-man content was designed for casuals. The battlegrounds were designed for casuals. Wintergrasp was designed for casuals. The Vault of Archavon was designed for casuals (it can be completed in 30 mins). The Obsidian Sanctum was designed for casuals (again 30 mins). It may surprise you, but many people who raided through TBC consider that Naxxramas was designed for casuals. The difficulty level was set pretty low, and loads of people can run it successfully.
The only content that was designed to challenge experienced players is EoE, Ulduar and (recently) the Trial of the Crusader.. That's all. The reason I left wow a short while ago was very simple - there simply wasn't enough content to interest and challenger me. I was only being challenged by Ulduar, and when you're confined to that place, the "world" of warcraft becomes very small indeed.
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
I recently had a discussion on another forum where someone stated that WoW was a game for hardcore only and he knew no casual gamers who played it. It turns out that he considered anyone who spent more than 15 hours on a game in a month to be a hardcore player. To him casual players usually played for 15-20 minutes every few days and that was teh market the 'casual game' companies he knew were aiming for. 'Casual' and 'hardcore are relative concepts. I would clasify you as a casual raider but to non-raiders or 'true casuals' your playstyle is very hardcore. Heck, my playstyle is probably considered hardcore and until last Sunday I never stepped a foot into Ulduur and never completed a 25man Naxx.
I would disagree - I believe skill can be measured.
Congratulations on achieving Fire-fighter. But if you heard another group of raiders had managed that same achievement, whilst only spending half as much time learning and wiping, wouldn't you agree that they are more skillful than you are?
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
Not really. I would have to know whether anyone lagged out during their attempts, if anyone disconnected, how fortunate they were with napalm shots etc. Two napalm shots on the same character, and that char being a clothy, can very much mean a death. Also what group make-up did they use? Did they go with a Boomkin, a Resto Druid and a Feral druid, therefore giving them 3 extra lives? (Battle Rez) Which makes a huge difference and does taking that character along really constitute skill ?
Just because your group succeeds and my group fails does not mean that skill was the defining factor. Skill could have been a factor, but there are so many other variables that you can never truly say how much is related to skill and how much is related to other things.
Actually - I'll partially take back my last comment, since I actually believe that time spent is part of skill.
Yes - if you spend time practicing you become more skillful. You mentioned the metaphor of musicians. Well - wouldn't it sounds ridiculous if a pianist said "I can play really complicated piano pieces now, but I'm not any more skilled then I was when I could only play chopsticks. It's just time spent".
You learn by doing. That's part of what skill is. Some people learn at different rates. Some people reach a plateau of skill and progress no further. Not every guitarist can play the same way as Eric Clapton or Santana, no matter how much time they've spent practising.
So yeah - time improves skill. But the important thing to me is that the reward comes with the skill rather than with the time. The challenges should test player's playing abilities and understanding of their character's, not be a pure measure of time spent regardless of ability.
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
I was going to argue the exact opposite point.
I am a musician, I am a guitarist, quite an accomplished one, I played the London Guitar Show in 2007. I consider myself quite adept at playing the guitar.
However, it is all just muscle memory. There really isn't much skill involved. Anyone can play the guitar, I am also a trained music teacher although I am now studying Law as I didn't enjoy teaching music as much as I thought I would, so I am not just saying this off the top of my head. Anyone can play the guitar, it just takes time. The skill comes when you start to write music, music with feeling. That isn't something that everyone can do. The difficulty in playing the guitar is finding the time and making the effort to practice. I could have someone who had never held a guitar, playing a tune in 5 minutes, the amount of time it takes to show them the Em chord, one of the easiest to play. Where is the skill, it just doesn't exist in this scenario.
My argument is not the time it takes, although some here would paint it as such, it is the effort that it takes, the effort to be at a particular place at a particular time for a particular amount of time doing something that isn't always the most fun.
Much like learning a musical instrument. There are those in this thread that seem to think they should be able to pracitce for 20 mins a week and somehow be as accomplished a musician as the guy that puts in 6 hours a day, which is what I used to do when I was studying classical guitar. That took a lot of effort, a lot of commitment and a lot of doing stuff that wasn't neccessarily entertaining. I was rewarded with that by being an accomplished guitarist who can walk into a room full of guitar players and make their jaws hit the floor. That was my reward.
It wasn't about skill, it was about commitment and effort.
Stop feeding the troll. He's impervious to logic (sadly my only weapon) and his definition of skill is divergent from the dictionary definition ("the ability, coming from one's knowledge, practice, aptitude, etc., to do something well")
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
To be honest, he has a better debate style then Ilvaldyr, he seems to read what is written and respond to what you have said. Ilvaldyr just seemed to try and twist whatever was said into something else to make himself right. He wasn't interested in responding or answering criticisms instead more interested in proving himself right.
I would hestitate to say that about you because I never quite got into the debate with you, but you were confusing. You seemed to agree with me, and call me an idiot at the same time, which is damn confusing.
The odd thing is, my definition is more divergent from that dictionary definition then his is. I don't believe that the definitions you have listed really has anything to do with skill. Antipathy does.
My definition of skill would be more like, finesse. The ability to do something beyond the normal realms of the ordinary. DaVinci, Van Gogh, Michelangelo, Mozart, Bach...these people had great skill. It wasn't simply their knowledge, practice and aptitude that allowed them to do something well. It was an indefinable quality that took them beyond that which most of us can do.
That to me is skill.
Antipathy's idea of skill is more akin to your dictionary definition then mine is.
It sounds like your definition of "skill" is pretty close to what most people would call "talent".
So we're really just arguing symantics, which is a largely pointless activity, and never leads anywhere.
If I apply the term "talent" to many of the things you've said, then I find myself agreeing with them. Yes - talent is very hard to measure in a game, and it would be very hard to design a game that rewarded people for being "talented" - especially since talents can take so many different forms.
But that doesn't really progress us any further in deciding what should be rewarded. All it tells us is something we cannot reward.
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
Antipathy, the sheer level of ignorance and hate in you amazes me.
You have said, and repeatedly, that a raid deserves better gear than a five man because you are required to show up at a specific time and do so with many people. You yourself have indicated this.
I used Heigan only as an example, because he is well known, even to people who do not necessarily play WoW much. Note, this thread is not just about WoW. You have no idea what encounters I have or have not played in. In fact, I have been to Ulduar, granted, only ten man. (Sounds like you made a bad assumption?) Of course, your argument is that because it is easier to get ten people together, I should have been given less powerful items than someone that does the same thing in a 25-man raid, yes? Let's use XT-002, shall we? Still, it's a gimmick that only requires knowledge of the encounter, and no improvisation or skill. That's all WoW does, timing, coordination. XT has two (OMG That's harder!) gimmicks. Spiking damage and temporary vulnerability. That doesn't really make it that much harder, does it? How about Grobbulus? Just don't stand in the green crap, just don't stand in front of him (unless you're the tank). Two gimmicks. Wow. Even Yogg-Saron only has gimmicks, but is somehow considered harder because of the time he takes to kill and the fact that there are three "phases." You can't invalidate the core of an argument by saying I picked a boss you didn't like.
I don't see how directly addressing your previous statements is creating a straw-man argument. You say that raids deserve better gear. You say this is because of time and commitment. You say this is because of difficulty. And then you validate this argument by claiming raiding is more difficult. The only thing more difficult about raiding is the number of people. And raiding is NOT casual when it is three nights a week when you are expected to be there for several hours. Many of us have jobs and families that take up a large portion of time. Games are to be fun, not second jobs that require us to be on at a certain time and swear to be on for a certain length of time. You go on about how casual your guild was, when earlier you said that if someone missed more than one raid, they wouldn't be allowed to continue coming. It doesn't sound like you didn't care if you didn't have enough people to go to me.
But then, I am a priest, and as such I can pug 25-man raids when I want to. I cleared 25-man Naxx as a pug with a guild that simply didn't have a healer that was reliable, and they knew me, so if I was on, the raid leader would whisper me and ask me if I had the time; often I did. I even pugged a 25-man Ulduar, but just once. It wasn't really much different from ten man, but for some reason the gear was considerably better. How does this make sense? More people = hard. That is what you have been saying all along. It's not a straw-man argument, it is directly refuting your erroneous statements.
In fact, in your most recent post, you say that you can do five-mans in blues. Of course you can; they are geared for that. If you tried to do it in level 70 blues, you could not. They are the first tier of the dungeon-running progression. You get epics from heroics, then you can go to Naxxramas, when you get the epics from there, you can go to the Eye. It isn't actually harder if you have the gear, it only requires a higher ilevel of gear, and the time it takes to get said gear. And more people to be in the same room.
It does NOT require a higher level of skill. Therefore, it does NOT merit better items.
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman
All else aside for a moment....where are you getting that from? I am involved in this debate, and I see no reason for such charges.
"You have said, and repeatedly, that a raid deserves better gear than a five man because you are required to show up at a specific time and do so with many people. You yourself have indicated this."
This is also more my argument. Antipathy's argument is that high end raiding in WoW actually requires a fair amount of skill and that fights, on hard-mode, like Mimiron and Yogg-Saron are actually difficult and require skill to finish and therefore should be rewarded.
You then go on and call things 'gimmicks' as if this somehow detracts from the difficulty level, that so long as you call them a comical name then they become easy. Yes Yogg only has gimmicks, but by this level of argument, Mathematics just has gimmicks, equations are just gimmicks, the difficulties of the Theory of Relativity is merely more gimmicks. You can't just call something a gimmick and therefore reduce it.
You then confuse me and Antipathy again when you talk about being able to attend raids. What I said was, 25 people in a raid, 35 people logged in means some people are not going to be able to attend raids and since those raids require a certain amount of knowledge and experience the more you fail to turn up the more chance you will not be chosen for those raids as you become a liability. If you leave early and therefore detract from the entire raid and cause 24 people to sit around and wait til they can get a replacement in because you didn't commit your evening to the raid, the next raid your chances of being invited are lessened.
"You say this is because of difficulty. And then you validate this argument by claiming raiding is more difficult. The only thing more difficult about raiding is the number of people. And raiding is NOT casual when it is three nights a week when you are expected to be there for several hours. Many of us have jobs and families that take up a large portion of time. Games are to be fun, not second jobs that require us to be on at a certain time and swear to be on for a certain length of time."
Games usually don't DEMAND that you do this to play the game, they only demand you do this to play a certain area of the game. If you can't do it, then don't do it, but don't expect the same rewards as those that do. That has been MY consistent argument through-out this thread.
"More people = hard. That is what you have been saying all along. It's not a straw-man argument, it is directly refuting your erroneous statements."
The confusion may be that again, this is more my argument then his. My argument is not that more people = hard exactly, but that getting 25 people to commit, as in your above statement that I have bolded and responded to, actually takes a fair amount of effort for each of those people. It requires a little more then simply logging in and finding 5 random people to play with for the 40 mins that an Heroic takes. If it requires a little more, shouldn't it reward a little more?
"In fact, in your most recent post, you say that you can do five-mans in blues. Of course you can; they are geared for that. If you tried to do it in level 70 blues, you could not. They are the first tier of the dungeon-running progression. You get epics from heroics, then you can go to Naxxramas, when you get the epics from there, you can go to the Eye. It isn't actually harder if you have the gear, it only requires a higher ilevel of gear, and the time it takes to get said gear. And more people to be in the same room.
It does NOT require a higher level of skill. Therefore, it does NOT merit better items."
This is interesting, read it vaguely it follows this pattern....it takes more, more and more but shouldn't merit better items.
Why not? If it takes more why shouldn't it merit better items? Surely that is why it should give better rewards, cause it took more then the heroics, cause it took more then naxx, cause it took more then Eye of Eternity, cause it took more then Ulduar normal mode. If it takes more then it should give more....that seems quite straight forward thinking to me.