This scenario was probably only in games that catered to raiding at the upper end of difficulty. I doubt that the majority of experience in the time period over the population conformed to this model. At some stage in any situation you are "carried" by the specialist who is designated for a task or capability.
I personally usually played in small guilds made up of friends, many of whom like to experiment with builds. Carrying each other was what we called playing.
Raiding? Yeah, it happened there. And in zone events, PVP, Dungeons....OK, maybe not zone events. But everywhere else.
Pull your own weight and you don't get carried. Play with some BS build and you get carried. If everyone plays that way....Well then that's probably the best that you found other people who want to play the way you do. And that's fine, as long as you don't do it in such a way that you end up disrespecting others who don't play like you.
I see there are both sides to this. But knowingly entering into grouped content where you WILL under perform simply because that's what you want to do, does disrespect the time of the others who are there to beat the dungeon.
IMO, making good use of Rift's Soul System was better for having fun in Solo content.
Why do I have the feeling that YOU are one of those people who "force" others to play the "optimal" builds. No, I don't have a feeling, I am sure of it
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
No, they have not been fun over the last 10 years.
More fun than ever IMO. If you haven't played a fun game in 10 years, the problem might be pessimism.
Actually I'm playing a fun game right now called Legend of Dragoon. It was released about 15 years ago. My problem is with the "MMORPG Games" themselves being released for dumb casuals, while the real MMORPG's I once loved have been changed and remade for dumb casuals and whales.
As soon as I read things like "dumb casuals" and "real MMOs", it feels like I begin to lose brain cells. If I had a dollar for every time I heard these two catchphrases I will be richer than Apple haha.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Honestly, I would like to see the genre (and all genres for that matter) move away from numeric stat upgrades as the primary form of character building and towards more difficult decisions in skill webs and passives.
Well .. more games should learn from Diablo 3 skill/combat systems then. And I agree.
Hilariously, that was pretty much exactly what I was thinking of, though I would go with something much more complex and extensive than that.
I don't think complex is necessarily more fun. However, more game mechanics changing abilities and gear (i suppose you can say that is complex .. just look at how many item can change some game mechanics in the new cube) is always fun.
I agree with this. I can't believe people get so excited over "stat" builds. Some people even argued that back in the "good old boring days" stats defined your role and that was a great thing. I am surprised people get excited by simple attirbute stats. They are so boooooring. +1 Dexterity, now you have 0.01% more chance to crit. Woohooo, so exciting it feels like Christmas. Cause I love spreadsheets and numbers and stuff!
We need more interesting choices in the form of skills, passives which alter the way you play etc. D3 is a great example of some of those cool passives. Of course the game can throw a lot more of those at you.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
games are being developed to match the level of laziness of the current massive audience that plays it. If you keep the systems complex, people rather not play than use their brain to make their own different character builds.
And when it comes to mmos, it is just easier to make extremely streamlined systems so they (devs) dont have to spend too much time balancing stats. Effectively making a braindead-ready game.
It did help you define your role. Different monsters, dungeons bosses, and even pvpers had different stats. Stats were a way of exposing the weaknesses of such (therefore helping you decide where you want to go).
Stats have been a part of rpg since the first release of rpg's. They are (were) as united with RPG's as the quality of a katana was to a samurai.
Saying you don't like stats is like the samurai saying he doesn't like swords. If you don't like it, why are you playing an rpg game?
You do realize that "chance of spawning a demonic helper on attack" and "+10 light radius" and "+25% Heroic Leap damage" and "+33% fire damage" are all stats, right?
RPGs are not confined to a standardized set of dull stats we've seen hundreds of times.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
In addition, some control over game mechanics (e.g. equiping gear that will make a skill consume less resources under some condition) is way more interesting (at least to me) than adding one point here, and two points there.
Which ... leads to more interesting tactical decisions.
Now, this can also be done on the character (say mechanics changing talents) ... but the point is that just customizing stats is pretty dry ... and way less fun (to me) than customizing multiple mechanics.
Well just because a progression system isn't interesting enough to carry an entire game individually, that doesn't make it a bad system. Character stats when balanced right can still provide an interesting strategic layer. They're not enough to carry an entire game's progression and make it really interesting, because they don't provide tactical decisions, but that's fine because they're not supposed to and you just have other progression systems for the tactical layer.
Agreed. I joke with my friends that mmoRPGs are heading towards just having the one stat called power that is used for everything. It would be said if it became true.
All the stats should have meaning, so if someone spends points to up one stat high, it will be hurtful from having lower stats. There was a pnp RPG called Bushido back in 79 where you spent points on stats at the beginning with certain pluses and minuses depending on class. One stat was intelligence which was important for all characters in that the initial number determined the number of skills that advanced normally and skills beyond that number had a penalty to the learning rate.
Bushi characters wanted strength and health as their main stats, but speed and deftness affected number/effectiveness of attacks. It was nice, you could spread points out or focus on a few. There was also a karma system that upon death your next character got more initial points to spend depending on the dead characters level, ki power, type of death, etc.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
This scenario was probably only in games that catered to raiding at the upper end of difficulty. I doubt that the majority of experience in the time period over the population conformed to this model. At some stage in any situation you are "carried" by the specialist who is designated for a task or capability.
I personally usually played in small guilds made up of friends, many of whom like to experiment with builds. Carrying each other was what we called playing.
Raiding? Yeah, it happened there. And in zone events, PVP, Dungeons....OK, maybe not zone events. But everywhere else.
Pull your own weight and you don't get carried. Play with some BS build and you get carried. If everyone plays that way....Well then that's probably the best that you found other people who want to play the way you do. And that's fine, as long as you don't do it in such a way that you end up disrespecting others who don't play like you.
I see there are both sides to this. But knowingly entering into grouped content where you WILL under perform simply because that's what you want to do, does disrespect the time of the others who are there to beat the dungeon.
IMO, making good use of Rift's Soul System was better for having fun in Solo content.
Why do I have the feeling that YOU are one of those people who "force" others to play the "optimal" builds. No, I don't have a feeling, I am sure of it
So, what you are saying is that deliberately queuing for instances knowing full well, you are relying on others to carry you as if you at other's expense is perfectly acceptable to you? You want to show an utter disrespect for other player's time and you come in here talking all entitled?
I have tremendous patience for new players and players who are trying. But if you show up in an instance just to fuck around with my time? Yeah, I'll kick you.
Funny thing is.....That's all hypothetical. I've never done it because I've never come across anyone who didn't want to play better......AFAIK anyway. I'm assuming that you really aren't like this in the game and are just passing judgement on me based on supposition.
Agreed. I joke with my friends that mmoRPGs are heading towards just having the one stat called power that is used for everything. It would be said if it became true.
All the stats should have meaning, so if someone spends points to up one stat high, it will be hurtful from having lower stats. There was a pnp RPG called Bushido back in 79 where you spent points on stats at the beginning with certain pluses and minuses depending on class. One stat was intelligence which was important for all characters in that the initial number determined the number of skills that advanced normally and skills beyond that number had a penalty to the learning rate.
Bushi characters wanted strength and health as their main stats, but speed and deftness affected number/effectiveness of attacks. It was nice, you could spread points out or focus on a few. There was also a karma system that upon death your next character got more initial points to spend depending on the dead characters level, ki power, type of death, etc.
Well a singular "power" stat wouldn't automatically be bad as long as the other decisions the game offered were interesting. For example everything you do to progress in Game of War (mobile) is summed up as a "power" stat that measures your overall progression and that game offers some reasonably interesting strategic decisions (a fact which is obscured by the game being irrevocably marred by pay-to-win, but that's beside the point.)
So I don't think it's automatically sad for an RPG to go to a one-stat system, so long as the game isn't really about the stats and is about other decisions instead. While those other decisions might not be something you actively recognize as stats ("Take half damage from fire"; "Unlock Singularity (spell): Tosses enemies into the air where they hover stunned for several seconds") they're functionally identical if they're strategic decisions.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
This scenario was probably only in games that catered to raiding at the upper end of difficulty. I doubt that the majority of experience in the time period over the population conformed to this model. At some stage in any situation you are "carried" by the specialist who is designated for a task or capability.
I personally usually played in small guilds made up of friends, many of whom like to experiment with builds. Carrying each other was what we called playing.
Raiding? Yeah, it happened there. And in zone events, PVP, Dungeons....OK, maybe not zone events. But everywhere else.
Pull your own weight and you don't get carried. Play with some BS build and you get carried. If everyone plays that way....Well then that's probably the best that you found other people who want to play the way you do. And that's fine, as long as you don't do it in such a way that you end up disrespecting others who don't play like you.
I see there are both sides to this. But knowingly entering into grouped content where you WILL under perform simply because that's what you want to do, does disrespect the time of the others who are there to beat the dungeon.
IMO, making good use of Rift's Soul System was better for having fun in Solo content.
Why do I have the feeling that YOU are one of those people who "force" others to play the "optimal" builds. No, I don't have a feeling, I am sure of it
So, what you are saying is that deliberately queuing for instances knowing full well, you are relying on others to carry you as if you at other's expense is perfectly acceptable to you? You want to show an utter disrespect for other player's time and you come in here talking all entitled?
I have tremendous patience for new players and players who are trying. But if you show up in an instance just to fuck around with my time? Yeah, I'll kick you.
Funny thing is.....That's all hypothetical. I've never done it because I've never come across anyone who didn't want to play better......AFAIK anyway. I'm assuming that you really aren't like this in the game and are just passing judgement on me based on supposition.
The point I was trying to make is that it's true that there are builds which are less optimal but often dungeons are so easy to begin with that it's not the end of the world if you do 10k dps instead of 11k dps.
E.g. in WoW balance druids and retribution paladins used to be the "lolz" specs. When a moonkin whispered anyone for a group invite, people were like "lol go back to dancing at the mailbox or try resto". Same for retri paladins. I am not saying that people should troll other people and that they should just slack but those people who wanted to play moonkins and retribution paladins did so because tehy enjoyed the playstyle. it's not that they didn't want to pull their weight or get carried. Their "specs" were just not seen as good.
Also a lot of these builds don't matter as much below the cutting edge progression based raiding as dungeons were designed with a lot of slack and buffer to accommodate for "inferior" specs. But I get what you mean. E.g. TBC heroics were brutal and one shotted everything so having a moonkin or retri paladin in your team would have made your life a lot more difficult.
However, the solution to this is not to give us less options but to make the underpowered options more viable.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
I am of the opinion that stats should matter in ways other then just for combat. For instance strength should have an impact on carrying capacity and what armor you can wear. For that reason I'm also a big proponent of not having much in the way of stat increases via equipment. I feel it should just aid in damage deflection, avoidance, or weapon damage.
I am of the opinion that stats should matter in ways other then just for combat. For instance strength should have an impact on carrying capacity and what armor you can wear. For that reason I'm also a big proponent of not having much in the way of stat increases via equipment. I feel it should just aid in damage deflection, avoidance, or weapon damage.
Yes, I think that is the thing, non-combat is being erased from MMORPGs, so rather than have vestigial dump stats they just get rid of anything that is not purposeful in combat. Every adventuring group in MMORPGs are perfectly tuned combat characters with abilities that are only relevant for combat. Crafting, etc. are always separate modes that are not connected to the character's build and thus there is no sacrifice required.
This is very far from the RPG family tree, as most RPGs have the character stats be a global way of evaluating the character. There are no interactions beyond combat in MMORPGs now, so there is no reason to have anything other than a 100% tuned combat machine that is only separated from being 105% tuned by a few nights of raiding.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
This scenario was probably only in games that catered to raiding at the upper end of difficulty. I doubt that the majority of experience in the time period over the population conformed to this model. At some stage in any situation you are "carried" by the specialist who is designated for a task or capability.
I personally usually played in small guilds made up of friends, many of whom like to experiment with builds. Carrying each other was what we called playing.
Raiding? Yeah, it happened there. And in zone events, PVP, Dungeons....OK, maybe not zone events. But everywhere else.
Pull your own weight and you don't get carried. Play with some BS build and you get carried. If everyone plays that way....Well then that's probably the best that you found other people who want to play the way you do. And that's fine, as long as you don't do it in such a way that you end up disrespecting others who don't play like you.
I see there are both sides to this. But knowingly entering into grouped content where you WILL under perform simply because that's what you want to do, does disrespect the time of the others who are there to beat the dungeon.
IMO, making good use of Rift's Soul System was better for having fun in Solo content.
Why do I have the feeling that YOU are one of those people who "force" others to play the "optimal" builds. No, I don't have a feeling, I am sure of it
So, what you are saying is that deliberately queuing for instances knowing full well, you are relying on others to carry you as if you at other's expense is perfectly acceptable to you? You want to show an utter disrespect for other player's time and you come in here talking all entitled?
I have tremendous patience for new players and players who are trying. But if you show up in an instance just to fuck around with my time? Yeah, I'll kick you.
Funny thing is.....That's all hypothetical. I've never done it because I've never come across anyone who didn't want to play better......AFAIK anyway. I'm assuming that you really aren't like this in the game and are just passing judgement on me based on supposition.
The point I was trying to make is that it's true that there are builds which are less optimal but often dungeons are so easy to begin with that it's not the end of the world if you do 10k dps instead of 11k dps.
E.g. in WoW balance druids and retribution paladins used to be the "lolz" specs. When a moonkin whispered anyone for a group invite, people were like "lol go back to dancing at the mailbox or try resto". Same for retri paladins. I am not saying that people should troll other people and that they should just slack but those people who wanted to play moonkins and retribution paladins did so because tehy enjoyed the playstyle. it's not that they didn't want to pull their weight or get carried. Their "specs" were just not seen as good.
Also a lot of these builds don't matter as much below the cutting edge progression based raiding as dungeons were designed with a lot of slack and buffer to accommodate for "inferior" specs. But I get what you mean. E.g. TBC heroics were brutal and one shotted everything so having a moonkin or retri paladin in your team would have made your life a lot more difficult.
However, the solution to this is not to give us less options but to make the underpowered options more viable.
"Less optimal" is not what I was talking about. Who's going to kick someone for putting out 10K DPS knowing the optimum is 11K if say 7K is needed to clear? But when you aren't even at the level needed to clear.....something else is wrong.
Agreed. I joke with my friends that mmoRPGs are heading towards just having the one stat called power that is used for everything. It would be said if it became true.
All the stats should have meaning, so if someone spends points to up one stat high, it will be hurtful from having lower stats. There was a pnp RPG called Bushido back in 79 where you spent points on stats at the beginning with certain pluses and minuses depending on class. One stat was intelligence which was important for all characters in that the initial number determined the number of skills that advanced normally and skills beyond that number had a penalty to the learning rate.
Bushi characters wanted strength and health as their main stats, but speed and deftness affected number/effectiveness of attacks. It was nice, you could spread points out or focus on a few. There was also a karma system that upon death your next character got more initial points to spend depending on the dead characters level, ki power, type of death, etc.
Well a singular "power" stat wouldn't automatically be bad as long as the other decisions the game offered were interesting. For example everything you do to progress in Game of War (mobile) is summed up as a "power" stat that measures your overall progression and that game offers some reasonably interesting strategic decisions (a fact which is obscured by the game being irrevocably marred by pay-to-win, but that's beside the point.)
So I don't think it's automatically sad for an RPG to go to a one-stat system, so long as the game isn't really about the stats and is about other decisions instead. While those other decisions might not be something you actively recognize as stats ("Take half damage from fire"; "Unlock Singularity (spell): Tosses enemies into the air where they hover stunned for several seconds") they're functionally identical if they're strategic decisions.
Then you should have zero stats.
As to the other things, I agree that other things should be done. The half damage from fire is not a new thing, heck go back to Dave Hargrave's Arduin Grimoire and you could get that (38 years ago). So they are recognized but perhaps not by the kids today.
How about a spell that has different factors to it depending on how you got it? One has a 5 minute cool down while another has a 2 minute cool down and perhaps another with a 10 minute cool down.
How about failure as a story advancement? You need to get to the village to stop the hill giants from attacking but along the way a woman needs help. Do you help her? What are the various outcomes? How does that affect the story?
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
As to the other things, I agree that other things should be done. The half damage from fire is not a new thing, heck go back to Dave Hargrave's Arduin Grimoire and you could get that (38 years ago). So they are recognized but perhaps not by the kids today.
How about a spell that has different factors to it depending on how you got it? One has a 5 minute cool down while another has a 2 minute cool down and perhaps another with a 10 minute cool down.
How about failure as a story advancement? You need to get to the village to stop the hill giants from attacking but along the way a woman needs help. Do you help her? What are the various outcomes? How does that affect the story?
The singular stat provides a purpose (it basically replaces level as the primary power indicator.) If done right, the stat can serve enough purpose to warrant keeping it.
Calling this a "kids" thing makes no sense. Singularity was literally a spell from Mass Effect. Resist stats seldom exist, but they are basically the shallowest possible tactical decision (monster users fire > equip fire resist gear) so not a huge loss there. It's probably okay when balanced correctly, but WOW went overboard on fire resist back in vanilla and a lot of players tired of the tedium that caused so it was removed, but if resist only existed on Neck items then it probably wouldn't be overly tedious, and could work.
It's not readily apparent how varying a spell's cooldown depending on how you got it would be balanced and fan, but perhaps if done right it would be.
"Failure quests" aren't done because they represent inefficient content design. If I beat the quest on the first try, I never see the failure version of the quest -- but a designer still spent one quest's worth of man-hours creating that failure quest, so I definitely do get one less quest overall. I don't think the concept is automatically unworkable it's just that the simplest version to describe (failure quests for every regular quest) would literally cut a game's quest content in half for a player that doesn't fail quests. Basically the more complicated a quest tree (failure quests and quests that trigger off player decisions) the fewer quests any given player will experience. Most games are struggling to get enough content in the first place (due to the rate of player quest consumption), so this would be a rather bad decision for most games.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
For that reason I'm also a big proponent of not having much in the way of stat increases via equipment.
Most video games are combat-centric. So gear has to improve combat power .. otherwise it misses the core gameplay of the game.
Whether gear has stats, or combat mechanics changing properties (like D3 leg) is not as relevant .. but it has to make player feels they are getting upgrades of their combat power.
For that reason I'm also a big proponent of not having much in the way of stat increases via equipment.
Most video games are combat-centric. So gear has to improve combat power .. otherwise it misses the core gameplay of the game.
Whether gear has stats, or combat mechanics changing properties (like D3 leg) is not as relevant .. but it has to make player feels they are getting upgrades of their combat power.
You don't need a super increase in power to have an upgrade. It is more realistic (and fun IMO) if people start out with the same equipment options (due to monetary constraints) and then picking up equipment as they go. Likely said equipment would be brought off vendors in most cases, but the rest would be from dangerous dungeons or areas. Said equipment would improve chances of winning, but not via stat boosts to attributes. It would be from improving chance of survival in various ways for armor by deflection/speed or damage/speed in terms of weapons. Attributes bonuses could be added, but would only be something like +1 or +2.
You don't need a super increase in power to have an upgrade. It is more realistic (and fun IMO) if people start out with the same equipment options (due to monetary constraints) and then picking up equipment as they go.
"realistic" .. what does that have to do with combat centric progression games? Plus, what is "realistic"? There is no real life upgrade that you can wear to increase your "magic" power.
Although i do agree you don't need a super increase in power to have an upgrade. And usually you don't ... if you look at each piece of equipment, and work out the theorycraft of say DPS .. you don't get much from one tier of gear to the next anyway (except may be the weapon).
For that reason I'm also a big proponent of not having much in the way of stat increases via equipment.
Most video games are combat-centric. So gear has to improve combat power .. otherwise it misses the core gameplay of the game.
Whether gear has stats, or combat mechanics changing properties (like D3 leg) is not as relevant .. but it has to make player feels they are getting upgrades of their combat power.
I think you are right but I wish you weren't Nari. I think all-combat focus is a bad thing for RPGs.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
You don't need a super increase in power to have an upgrade. It is more realistic (and fun IMO) if people start out with the same equipment options (due to monetary constraints) and then picking up equipment as they go.
"realistic" .. what does that have to do with combat centric progression games? Plus, what is "realistic"? There is no real life upgrade that you can wear to increase your "magic" power.
Although i do agree you don't need a super increase in power to have an upgrade. And usually you don't ... if you look at each piece of equipment, and work out the theorycraft of say DPS .. you don't get much from one tier of gear to the next anyway (except may be the weapon).
Realistic in this case is more fun IMO. It allows the player to look at their equipment upgrades as a fun thing where they have to weigh the pros and cons. In most cases now the developer hands you an upgrade when you are leveling up and specifically gives each class certain gear. There is little room for experimentation. The upgrades happen often. By the end of the game you have had so many small upgrades to stats that it has a large impact. I'd rather that the characters skills they learn from leveling up has the real impact than the equipment they wear. I find that both more enjoyable and realistic. Realistic doesn't have to be included. I just prefer it in the sense of having an enjoyable build where you start out with nothing and earn your equipment via any way you can make money to buy it or at least make it difficult to acquire if it's something like Plate Mail.
For that reason I'm also a big proponent of not having much in the way of stat increases via equipment.
Most video games are combat-centric. So gear has to improve combat power .. otherwise it misses the core gameplay of the game.
Whether gear has stats, or combat mechanics changing properties (like D3 leg) is not as relevant .. but it has to make player feels they are getting upgrades of their combat power.
I think you are right but I wish you weren't Nari. I think all-combat focus is a bad thing for RPGs.
Sorry .. i am Nari. That .. even I cannot change.
Why is this bad? If players like combat-centric RPGs, is there a reason not to provide for them?
Personally i love it .. i like combat-centric games. It is just a matter of catering to preferences of the audience .. and don't tell me you think that is a bad thing.
Do you mean "you do not like it"? If so, that is fair, you don't have to like what the dev cater to.
You don't need a super increase in power to have an upgrade. It is more realistic (and fun IMO) if people start out with the same equipment options (due to monetary constraints) and then picking up equipment as they go.
"realistic" .. what does that have to do with combat centric progression games? Plus, what is "realistic"? There is no real life upgrade that you can wear to increase your "magic" power.
Although i do agree you don't need a super increase in power to have an upgrade. And usually you don't ... if you look at each piece of equipment, and work out the theorycraft of say DPS .. you don't get much from one tier of gear to the next anyway (except may be the weapon).
Realistic in this case is more fun IMO. It allows the player to look at their equipment upgrades as a fun thing where they have to weigh the pros and cons. In most cases now the developer hands you an upgrade when you are leveling up and specifically gives each class certain gear. There is little room for experimentation. The upgrades happen often. By the end of the game you have had so many small upgrades to stats that it has a large impact. I'd rather that the characters skills they learn from leveling up has the real impact than the equipment they wear. I find that both more enjoyable and realistic. Realistic doesn't have to be included. I just prefer it in the sense of having an enjoyable build where you start out with nothing and earn your equipment via any way you can make money to buy it or at least make it difficult to acquire if it's something like Plate Mail.
well .. fun is subjective.
You just describe your own preference ... but you should NOT hide your preference behind "more fun" or "more realistic".
Honestly, i don't know what the pre-dominant preference is .. but if devs make incremental upgrade games (which you do not like), and lots of players are happy, i don't see a problem.
In fact, i like incremental upgrade ... experimentation can happen at max level. But hey i am not going to say it is more "realistic". I am just going to say that is what i find FUN.
For that reason I'm also a big proponent of not having much in the way of stat increases via equipment.
Most video games are combat-centric. So gear has to improve combat power .. otherwise it misses the core gameplay of the game.
Whether gear has stats, or combat mechanics changing properties (like D3 leg) is not as relevant .. but it has to make player feels they are getting upgrades of their combat power.
I think you are right but I wish you weren't Nari. I think all-combat focus is a bad thing for RPGs.
Sorry .. i am Nari. That .. even I cannot change.
Why is this bad? If players like combat-centric RPGs, is there a reason not to provide for them?
Personally i love it .. i like combat-centric games. It is just a matter of catering to preferences of the audience .. and don't tell me you think that is a bad thing.
Do you mean "you do not like it"? If so, that is fair, you don't have to like what the dev cater to.
Because there can be much more to the genre. It wouldn't be so bad if there options. Seems like the new MMORPG will give us more options but the big developers have bowed out. The focus on combat and single player game play is just odd to do in MMORPG format. It can be done lag and server free just making a single player RPG with or without multiplayer.
Example is skill checks and event checks, things you can define a character as capable or not through background stats that can then contribute to opening up options in gameplay.
Combat is tiself a very small set of checks that calculate things like probability of hit, damage, etc. All the same, things like hacking a system, casting charms, creating traps, stealth, conversational skills/options, and many more things can and sometimes are given a value that can impact the course of the game where players get to choose whether or not combat is even a necessary action for their style of play.
In many cases, games don't offer that level of control or definition of character and play style. Combat is the central focus and the stats and mechanics tends to reflect this, with the core of them all contributing to the ability for a character to succeed or fail in combat in some manner. It's a focus on a finite window of what kinds of interesting content can be generated, largely out of familiarity.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
For that reason I'm also a big proponent of not having much in the way of stat increases via equipment.
Most video games are combat-centric. So gear has to improve combat power .. otherwise it misses the core gameplay of the game.
Whether gear has stats, or combat mechanics changing properties (like D3 leg) is not as relevant .. but it has to make player feels they are getting upgrades of their combat power.
I think you are right but I wish you weren't Nari. I think all-combat focus is a bad thing for RPGs.
Sorry .. i am Nari. That .. even I cannot change.
Why is this bad? If players like combat-centric RPGs, is there a reason not to provide for them?
Personally i love it .. i like combat-centric games. It is just a matter of catering to preferences of the audience .. and don't tell me you think that is a bad thing.
Do you mean "you do not like it"? If so, that is fair, you don't have to like what the dev cater to.
Because there can be much more to the genre. It wouldn't be so bad if there options. Seems like the new MMORPG will give us more options but the big developers have bowed out. The focus on combat and single player game play is just odd to do in MMORPG format. It can be done lag and server free just making a single player RPG with or without multiplayer.
Again .. "so bad" for you. Sure you want those options. And if options are free to make .. then certainly there will be more. But option costs money. Is there a reason why it is "bad" for devs to only provide options that they think their audience like?
It is not odd at all ... if that is what players who play MMOs want. Now you can ask why they don't just play single player games ... and the answer is simple. Devs want their business, so they make mmos more like single player games.
May be these devs should just abandon MMORPGs (like Blizz) and make single player and online games ... but again, it is their game, and they can cater to anyone they want. So it is not bad for the devs, not bad to those who like combat (which i think you will admit ... a lot of players), and only bad to those who want something else.
In fact, i can ask you the same question. Why don't you play single player games that do not focus on combat? Puzzle games, may be? Or if you want to just socialize without combat, go to a chatroom, or play second life?
Comments
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
As soon as I read things like "dumb casuals" and "real MMOs", it feels like I begin to lose brain cells. If I had a dollar for every time I heard these two catchphrases I will be richer than Apple haha.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
We need more interesting choices in the form of skills, passives which alter the way you play etc. D3 is a great example of some of those cool passives. Of course the game can throw a lot more of those at you.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
And when it comes to mmos, it is just easier to make extremely streamlined systems so they (devs) dont have to spend too much time balancing stats. Effectively making a braindead-ready game.
RPGs are not confined to a standardized set of dull stats we've seen hundreds of times.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Agreed. I joke with my friends that mmoRPGs are heading towards just having the one stat called power that is used for everything. It would be said if it became true.
All the stats should have meaning, so if someone spends points to up one stat high, it will be hurtful from having lower stats. There was a pnp RPG called Bushido back in 79 where you spent points on stats at the beginning with certain pluses and minuses depending on class. One stat was intelligence which was important for all characters in that the initial number determined the number of skills that advanced normally and skills beyond that number had a penalty to the learning rate.
Bushi characters wanted strength and health as their main stats, but speed and deftness affected number/effectiveness of attacks. It was nice, you could spread points out or focus on a few. There was also a karma system that upon death your next character got more initial points to spend depending on the dead characters level, ki power, type of death, etc.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I have tremendous patience for new players and players who are trying. But if you show up in an instance just to fuck around with my time? Yeah, I'll kick you.
Funny thing is.....That's all hypothetical. I've never done it because I've never come across anyone who didn't want to play better......AFAIK anyway. I'm assuming that you really aren't like this in the game and are just passing judgement on me based on supposition.
So I don't think it's automatically sad for an RPG to go to a one-stat system, so long as the game isn't really about the stats and is about other decisions instead. While those other decisions might not be something you actively recognize as stats ("Take half damage from fire"; "Unlock Singularity (spell): Tosses enemies into the air where they hover stunned for several seconds") they're functionally identical if they're strategic decisions.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
E.g. in WoW balance druids and retribution paladins used to be the "lolz" specs. When a moonkin whispered anyone for a group invite, people were like "lol go back to dancing at the mailbox or try resto". Same for retri paladins. I am not saying that people should troll other people and that they should just slack but those people who wanted to play moonkins and retribution paladins did so because tehy enjoyed the playstyle. it's not that they didn't want to pull their weight or get carried. Their "specs" were just not seen as good.
Also a lot of these builds don't matter as much below the cutting edge progression based raiding as dungeons were designed with a lot of slack and buffer to accommodate for "inferior" specs. But I get what you mean. E.g. TBC heroics were brutal and one shotted everything so having a moonkin or retri paladin in your team would have made your life a lot more difficult.
However, the solution to this is not to give us less options but to make the underpowered options more viable.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
I am of the opinion that stats should matter in ways other then just for combat. For instance strength should have an impact on carrying capacity and what armor you can wear. For that reason I'm also a big proponent of not having much in the way of stat increases via equipment. I feel it should just aid in damage deflection, avoidance, or weapon damage.
This is very far from the RPG family tree, as most RPGs have the character stats be a global way of evaluating the character. There are no interactions beyond combat in MMORPGs now, so there is no reason to have anything other than a 100% tuned combat machine that is only separated from being 105% tuned by a few nights of raiding.
Then you should have zero stats.
As to the other things, I agree that other things should be done. The half damage from fire is not a new thing, heck go back to Dave Hargrave's Arduin Grimoire and you could get that (38 years ago). So they are recognized but perhaps not by the kids today.
How about a spell that has different factors to it depending on how you got it? One has a 5 minute cool down while another has a 2 minute cool down and perhaps another with a 10 minute cool down.
How about failure as a story advancement? You need to get to the village to stop the hill giants from attacking but along the way a woman needs help. Do you help her? What are the various outcomes? How does that affect the story?
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Calling this a "kids" thing makes no sense. Singularity was literally a spell from Mass Effect. Resist stats seldom exist, but they are basically the shallowest possible tactical decision (monster users fire > equip fire resist gear) so not a huge loss there. It's probably okay when balanced correctly, but WOW went overboard on fire resist back in vanilla and a lot of players tired of the tedium that caused so it was removed, but if resist only existed on Neck items then it probably wouldn't be overly tedious, and could work.
It's not readily apparent how varying a spell's cooldown depending on how you got it would be balanced and fan, but perhaps if done right it would be.
"Failure quests" aren't done because they represent inefficient content design. If I beat the quest on the first try, I never see the failure version of the quest -- but a designer still spent one quest's worth of man-hours creating that failure quest, so I definitely do get one less quest overall. I don't think the concept is automatically unworkable it's just that the simplest version to describe (failure quests for every regular quest) would literally cut a game's quest content in half for a player that doesn't fail quests. Basically the more complicated a quest tree (failure quests and quests that trigger off player decisions) the fewer quests any given player will experience. Most games are struggling to get enough content in the first place (due to the rate of player quest consumption), so this would be a rather bad decision for most games.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Whether gear has stats, or combat mechanics changing properties (like D3 leg) is not as relevant .. but it has to make player feels they are getting upgrades of their combat power.
You don't need a super increase in power to have an upgrade. It is more realistic (and fun IMO) if people start out with the same equipment options (due to monetary constraints) and then picking up equipment as they go. Likely said equipment would be brought off vendors in most cases, but the rest would be from dangerous dungeons or areas. Said equipment would improve chances of winning, but not via stat boosts to attributes. It would be from improving chance of survival in various ways for armor by deflection/speed or damage/speed in terms of weapons. Attributes bonuses could be added, but would only be something like +1 or +2.
Although i do agree you don't need a super increase in power to have an upgrade. And usually you don't ... if you look at each piece of equipment, and work out the theorycraft of say DPS .. you don't get much from one tier of gear to the next anyway (except may be the weapon).
Why is this bad? If players like combat-centric RPGs, is there a reason not to provide for them?
Personally i love it .. i like combat-centric games. It is just a matter of catering to preferences of the audience .. and don't tell me you think that is a bad thing.
Do you mean "you do not like it"? If so, that is fair, you don't have to like what the dev cater to.
well .. fun is subjective.
You just describe your own preference ... but you should NOT hide your preference behind "more fun" or "more realistic".
Honestly, i don't know what the pre-dominant preference is .. but if devs make incremental upgrade games (which you do not like), and lots of players are happy, i don't see a problem.
In fact, i like incremental upgrade ... experimentation can happen at max level. But hey i am not going to say it is more "realistic". I am just going to say that is what i find FUN.
Combat is tiself a very small set of checks that calculate things like probability of hit, damage, etc. All the same, things like hacking a system, casting charms, creating traps, stealth, conversational skills/options, and many more things can and sometimes are given a value that can impact the course of the game where players get to choose whether or not combat is even a necessary action for their style of play.
In many cases, games don't offer that level of control or definition of character and play style. Combat is the central focus and the stats and mechanics tends to reflect this, with the core of them all contributing to the ability for a character to succeed or fail in combat in some manner. It's a focus on a finite window of what kinds of interesting content can be generated, largely out of familiarity.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin