Just too picky. Which is fine. Get 10 MMO players in a room, and you'd probably get 9 different thoughts on an ideal MMO.
I also think (generally) peoples expectations of the latest and greatest MMO is just a bit too far fetched.
/shrug
Originally posted by Trudge34 Doesn't help that there have been maps with a compass that show which way you're facing, trails and markers everywhere showing you where to go for every quest so you don't have to read the text at all and some companies even posting guides to the dungeons on their own website. I don't disagree that player made websites and walkthroughs have helped, but IMO a larger portion of the dumbing down has been built right into the game.
I watched an interesting video the other day regarding this topic.
I think it may explain to some extent why MMO's seem to feel "dumbed down" to many players these days or why so many games only keep us engaged for a month or two at best.
Are we getting too smart?
Nope .. we're just as stupid as we ever were (or smart, take your pick). However we do have
1) A lot more experience .. when we were 20 and the MMO age was beginning, folks in their 30s and 40s weren't playing these games as they did not exist. Now, we're 30 (or 40 or whatever), and we do exist. Yay, us "smart" guys.
2) Information age. Google "google" and find out when it really started (lawl) if you care enough.
3) Game evolution. Games with no compasses? Body hunts? PKers? Remember when a walkthrough was a big deal, and people rushed to write game guides for the cred?
Exactly.
Overly-pretentious verbose narcissistic verbiage goes here
Google didn't ruin MMO's. You were always able to search for things. EQ and UO both had their respective sites. I used UO Stratics and a few other sites when I wanted to learn something or find out where it was. I tried not to abuse it though! Back then you had maps, locations, strategies, builds, everything that you have today. Today its the MMO's that hand it all to you is the difference. Either the game points me in the right direction, or it forces me into that direction.
heheh, in Everquest for .....3 years at the very least, you couldn't tab out of the game to your internet browser without crashing the whole game. Thats hardly the same. MMOs anymore put in ways to run the stupid quest spoiler websites right within the game UI.
A lot of what made those games awesome and a tremendous experience was exactly as the OP said....there was just a lack of information. No automatic data collection uploaded to a massive database, etc. The games were also slower. A regular npc would take a couple minutes to kill solo. Mana/energy/hp regen took a lot longer so you could establish a social connection to your groupmates. In SWTOR I would walk into a room and kill 5 npc with the push of a single button. In it and other MMOs, my mana comes back almost instantly. The action while dungeon crawling is such busywork, you cannot reasonably type a sentence to your groupmmates because you have 40 hotkeys to monitor and the fight is nonstop. If you don't have teamspeak, no one will say anything for the entire quest/mission/whatever.
Every advancement in mmos seemingly has chipped away at what I thought made he genre great. At the moment I love the change, but then I realize everyone will copy it and things will never be the same. I remember in EQ1 my crazy guild had multiple marriages broken up due to people filling "med break" times with cybersex due to slow mana regen. The same people would stay in the guild, and just end up with new men/women from within it. Wives would take off and move in with the guilds main tank because he is such a "manly man" with all of his hit points or maybe the bard because he was such a good puller and really kept the xp pace of a group up.
Hahahaha....ahhh, good times. Sad and pathetic but hilarious. You will never find the same per capita level of drama and insanity from something like SWTOR/GW2, thats for certain.
IMO, same problem one more time: old days MMO were unique and NEW.
They were NEW but that's not the only thing that made them different.
If you cannot see the mechanics, features, design philosophy of these games that are NOT available in the market now then you probably never played MMORPGs prior to 2003.
It's a fact that there are features some of us demand that are no longer served in new MMORPGs. Very simple, it's a fact just deal with it. I want these features in ONE game (not more). I don't ask for things to stop being, I don't want to change anything. I just want what is NOT available in the market now. Call it vareity, and it's good.
The CM wizz point is to use frost nova to permanent lock-up the mobs. So to do that efficient, you need to max crit and attack speed. In fact, much of the guide as you to ignore DPS. Plus, sheet DPS is not true dps because different skills have different multiplers and the way that CM wiz works, you can get a high multiplier. The point is .. it is NOT using the same stat the same way as everyone else. In fact read the forums, it is not uncommon to sacrifice DPS for some other crucical stat. THere is a debate about how important life-steal is (personally i use none of it, but have a weapon with it for switching in some situation) in archon build.
And there are 13 slots for a character. 5 out of 13 is HUGE. Plus, those are just BIS. We are talking about different stat priority in ALL OF THEM. The same item with attack speed and crit chance will be valued highly by some build, and not at all by some other.
I think this is right on topic. It shows the depth of combat systems in modern games.
You still need to kill the mobs in any case, watch the 1m cm wiz gearing video to see what that looks like in mp10.
If you are really suggesting that 1% crit pants are always more beneficial than anything else, we are way in the area of ej enthusiasts, if you dont ask yourself with every item with +crit and +as "is it it really worth it?" past ~40% crit and ~2 a/s .
5 out of 13 is huge only in your book, moreover you have 6 affixes per item, in the end you will have all of the beneficial ones or generic affixes like +damage against elites, as i said before, the main point here is that you take these (for me) marginal differences as depth, while ignoring and brushing off past differences (if you have to watch your mana you will exp in a completely different zone than when you dont, like being meelee).
Variation is the key. If you don't know what you'll face, you can't look it up and know for sure how to build/strategize/execute optimally.
The future of MMO's (hopefully) lies within not being able to predict what 'optimal' is at all.
Whether that involves more randomization or player controlled bosses or whatever, variation like this is a way to bring the magic of discovery and individualism back to MMO's.
The CM wizz point is to use frost nova to permanent lock-up the mobs. So to do that efficient, you need to max crit and attack speed. In fact, much of the guide as you to ignore DPS. Plus, sheet DPS is not true dps because different skills have different multiplers and the way that CM wiz works, you can get a high multiplier. The point is .. it is NOT using the same stat the same way as everyone else. In fact read the forums, it is not uncommon to sacrifice DPS for some other crucical stat. THere is a debate about how important life-steal is (personally i use none of it, but have a weapon with it for switching in some situation) in archon build.
And there are 13 slots for a character. 5 out of 13 is HUGE. Plus, those are just BIS. We are talking about different stat priority in ALL OF THEM. The same item with attack speed and crit chance will be valued highly by some build, and not at all by some other.
I think this is right on topic. It shows the depth of combat systems in modern games.
You still need to kill the mobs in any case, watch the 1m cm wiz gearing video to see what that looks like in mp10.
If you are really suggesting that 1% crit pants are always more beneficial than anything else, we are way in the area of ej enthusiasts, if you dont ask yourself with every item with +crit and +as "is it it really worth it?" past ~40% crit and ~2 a/s .
5 out of 13 is huge only in your book, moreover you have 6 affixes per item, in the end you will have all of the beneficial ones or generic affixes like +damage against elites, as i said before, the main point here is that you take these (for me) marginal differences as depth, while ignoring and brushing off past differences (if you have to watch your mana you will exp in a completely different zone than when you dont, like being meelee).
Flame on!
You really misunderstood what "marginal" means.
If you compare a archon wiz and a CM wiz .. at the same gear level ...
the archon wiz will have 2x the sheet dps, and probably 2/3 the attack speed. Is 2x, and 2/3 marginal? I don't think so.
And when you are trying APOC with 10-20% of your DPS (which i actually was considering), that is not marginal either.
One more example. The important of life-steal, which you can only get on your main weapon (unless you are a barb, who can get on the belt).
I have to give up 60k dps .. that is roughly 20% .. to get one. It does make my toon 100x more survivable, but at a great loss of DPS. The solution is to keep two weapons. Now don't tell me you think 20% DPS is marginal ....
Variation is the key. If you don't know what you'll face, you can't look it up and know for sure how to build/strategize/execute optimally.
The future of MMO's (hopefully) lies within not being able to predict what 'optimal' is at all.
Whether that involves more randomization or player controlled bosses or whatever, variation like this is a way to bring the magic of discovery and individualism back to MMO's.
Smart design goes a long way.
Nah ... the future is in the complexity of what "optimal" is. Look at all the theorycrafting and calculations. If everything is a wash, people will just do something random.
It is precisely because you can optimize, the game is interesting. Otherwise, why would i spend so much time balancing EHP (effective health), DPS, and other stats?
Variation is the key. If you don't know what you'll face, you can't look it up and know for sure how to build/strategize/execute optimally.
The future of MMO's (hopefully) lies within not being able to predict what 'optimal' is at all.
Whether that involves more randomization or player controlled bosses or whatever, variation like this is a way to bring the magic of discovery and individualism back to MMO's.
Smart design goes a long way.
Nah ... the future is in the complexity of what "optimal" is. Look at all the theorycrafting and calculations. If everything is a wash, people will just do something random.
It is precisely because you can optimize, the game is interesting. Otherwise, why would i spend so much time balancing EHP (effective health), DPS, and other stats?
Ever increasing complexity in games is a dead end. At a certain threshold the game stops being a game.
Trust me, i've been through the whole calculations and spreadsheets phase. went on for years. I'm past that now and crave unpredictability and improvisation in games. At a certain point you realize that all the calculations and numbers in the world can't hide a predictable and monotonous game experience. That's how I feel at any rate.
ncing EHP (effective health), DPS, and other stats?
Ever increasing complexity in games is a dead end. At a certain threshold the game stops being a game.
Trust me, i've been through the whole calculations and spreadsheets phase. went on for years. I'm past that now and crave unpredictability and improvisation in games. At a certain point you realize that all the calculations and numbers in the world can't hide a predictable and monotonous game experience. That's how I feel at any rate.
May be you grow out of it .. but given the proliferation of youtube "how-to" videos, and all sort of theorycrafting tools (do you know how many EHP and DPS calculators are out there for just one game .. Diablo 3?), i doubt this is coming to an end soon.
If you just read the D3 forum, there is lots of discussion about game mechancis like do i need a 2.71 attack speed or 3.01 attack speed to lock up boss with cc at this particular MP level.
(BTW, the numbers are not random, they correspond to cut-point of getting an additional tick in a particular damage dealing skill .. people are VERY precise about ti).
There are also research on drop rates, and stuff like that. I saw the same thing in WOW. And i bet the same thing in other popular games.
I crave new experiences. It's not about difficulty for me. It's about the unexpected. That's about it right now. A world that changes, throws things at me when I least expect it. Surprise me. Scare the crap out of me. Whatever!
I guess that's why ArcheAge is so appealing to me. It looks like a big adventure where lots of different things to do, lots of different possibilities. That's what I miss. The unexpected.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
If you compare a archon wiz and a CM wiz .. at the same gear level ...
the archon wiz will have 2x the sheet dps, and probably 2/3 the attack speed. Is 2x, and 2/3 marginal? I don't think so.
And when you are trying APOC with 10-20% of your DPS (which i actually was considering), that is not marginal either.
One more example. The important of life-steal, which you can only get on your main weapon (unless you are a barb, who can get on the belt).
I have to give up 60k dps .. that is roughly 20% .. to get one. It does make my toon 100x more survivable, but at a great loss of DPS. The solution is to keep two weapons. Now don't tell me you think 20% DPS is marginal ....
Well, define "gear level"
Problem is you will eventually not have to make these choices, sooner or later, players with top gear have ~50% cc, ~2.5 aps, 150-300k dps, 20apoc, 400-500k ehp. Even the top "sheet dps" players dont differ much.
The sheer nature of many affixes on many gear slots with the additive diminishing returns make stat focusing choices more and more meaningless as you progress further, and encourages players to gravitate towards the same items that break the overall system, like a slow onehander with extra base aps...
Comments
Exactly my thoughts
Are we getting too smart?
Nope .. we're just as stupid as we ever were (or smart, take your pick). However we do have
1) A lot more experience .. when we were 20 and the MMO age was beginning, folks in their 30s and 40s weren't playing these games as they did not exist. Now, we're 30 (or 40 or whatever), and we do exist. Yay, us "smart" guys.
2) Information age. Google "google" and find out when it really started (lawl) if you care enough.
3) Game evolution. Games with no compasses? Body hunts? PKers? Remember when a walkthrough was a big deal, and people rushed to write game guides for the cred?
Exactly.
Overly-pretentious verbose narcissistic verbiage goes here
heheh, in Everquest for .....3 years at the very least, you couldn't tab out of the game to your internet browser without crashing the whole game. Thats hardly the same. MMOs anymore put in ways to run the stupid quest spoiler websites right within the game UI.
A lot of what made those games awesome and a tremendous experience was exactly as the OP said....there was just a lack of information. No automatic data collection uploaded to a massive database, etc. The games were also slower. A regular npc would take a couple minutes to kill solo. Mana/energy/hp regen took a lot longer so you could establish a social connection to your groupmates. In SWTOR I would walk into a room and kill 5 npc with the push of a single button. In it and other MMOs, my mana comes back almost instantly. The action while dungeon crawling is such busywork, you cannot reasonably type a sentence to your groupmmates because you have 40 hotkeys to monitor and the fight is nonstop. If you don't have teamspeak, no one will say anything for the entire quest/mission/whatever.
Every advancement in mmos seemingly has chipped away at what I thought made he genre great. At the moment I love the change, but then I realize everyone will copy it and things will never be the same. I remember in EQ1 my crazy guild had multiple marriages broken up due to people filling "med break" times with cybersex due to slow mana regen. The same people would stay in the guild, and just end up with new men/women from within it. Wives would take off and move in with the guilds main tank because he is such a "manly man" with all of his hit points or maybe the bard because he was such a good puller and really kept the xp pace of a group up.
Hahahaha....ahhh, good times. Sad and pathetic but hilarious. You will never find the same per capita level of drama and insanity from something like SWTOR/GW2, thats for certain.
They were NEW but that's not the only thing that made them different.
If you cannot see the mechanics, features, design philosophy of these games that are NOT available in the market now then you probably never played MMORPGs prior to 2003.
It's a fact that there are features some of us demand that are no longer served in new MMORPGs. Very simple, it's a fact just deal with it. I want these features in ONE game (not more). I don't ask for things to stop being, I don't want to change anything. I just want what is NOT available in the market now. Call it vareity, and it's good.
You still need to kill the mobs in any case, watch the 1m cm wiz gearing video to see what that looks like in mp10.
If you are really suggesting that 1% crit pants are always more beneficial than anything else, we are way in the area of ej enthusiasts, if you dont ask yourself with every item with +crit and +as "is it it really worth it?" past ~40% crit and ~2 a/s .
5 out of 13 is huge only in your book, moreover you have 6 affixes per item, in the end you will have all of the beneficial ones or generic affixes like +damage against elites, as i said before, the main point here is that you take these (for me) marginal differences as depth, while ignoring and brushing off past differences (if you have to watch your mana you will exp in a completely different zone than when you dont, like being meelee).
Flame on!
"Are We Getting Too Smart for MMOs?"
No, or we'd be able to design and sell PC's with graphics already installed to optimum that didn't strain the electricity bill.
Variation is the key. If you don't know what you'll face, you can't look it up and know for sure how to build/strategize/execute optimally.
The future of MMO's (hopefully) lies within not being able to predict what 'optimal' is at all.
Whether that involves more randomization or player controlled bosses or whatever, variation like this is a way to bring the magic of discovery and individualism back to MMO's.
Smart design goes a long way.
You really misunderstood what "marginal" means.
If you compare a archon wiz and a CM wiz .. at the same gear level ...
the archon wiz will have 2x the sheet dps, and probably 2/3 the attack speed. Is 2x, and 2/3 marginal? I don't think so.
And when you are trying APOC with 10-20% of your DPS (which i actually was considering), that is not marginal either.
One more example. The important of life-steal, which you can only get on your main weapon (unless you are a barb, who can get on the belt).
I have to give up 60k dps .. that is roughly 20% .. to get one. It does make my toon 100x more survivable, but at a great loss of DPS. The solution is to keep two weapons. Now don't tell me you think 20% DPS is marginal ....
Nah ... the future is in the complexity of what "optimal" is. Look at all the theorycrafting and calculations. If everything is a wash, people will just do something random.
It is precisely because you can optimize, the game is interesting. Otherwise, why would i spend so much time balancing EHP (effective health), DPS, and other stats?
Ever increasing complexity in games is a dead end. At a certain threshold the game stops being a game.
Trust me, i've been through the whole calculations and spreadsheets phase. went on for years. I'm past that now and crave unpredictability and improvisation in games. At a certain point you realize that all the calculations and numbers in the world can't hide a predictable and monotonous game experience. That's how I feel at any rate.
May be you grow out of it .. but given the proliferation of youtube "how-to" videos, and all sort of theorycrafting tools (do you know how many EHP and DPS calculators are out there for just one game .. Diablo 3?), i doubt this is coming to an end soon.
If you just read the D3 forum, there is lots of discussion about game mechancis like do i need a 2.71 attack speed or 3.01 attack speed to lock up boss with cc at this particular MP level.
(BTW, the numbers are not random, they correspond to cut-point of getting an additional tick in a particular damage dealing skill .. people are VERY precise about ti).
There are also research on drop rates, and stuff like that. I saw the same thing in WOW. And i bet the same thing in other popular games.
I crave new experiences. It's not about difficulty for me. It's about the unexpected. That's about it right now. A world that changes, throws things at me when I least expect it. Surprise me. Scare the crap out of me. Whatever!
I guess that's why ArcheAge is so appealing to me. It looks like a big adventure where lots of different things to do, lots of different possibilities. That's what I miss. The unexpected.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Well, define "gear level"
Problem is you will eventually not have to make these choices, sooner or later, players with top gear have ~50% cc, ~2.5 aps, 150-300k dps, 20apoc, 400-500k ehp. Even the top "sheet dps" players dont differ much.
The sheer nature of many affixes on many gear slots with the additive diminishing returns make stat focusing choices more and more meaningless as you progress further, and encourages players to gravitate towards the same items that break the overall system, like a slow onehander with extra base aps...
Flame on!