What more, none of this dialogue you are so adamant in engaging in is even addressing the core point of it. That of how the components of the game are implemented and the kind of play and depth experienced out of them.
If we can't look at the majority of the gameplay situations and see a break in something like a repetitive combat rotation, then it already implies that active skills for evasion in the game are either largely ineffectual, or not worth using.
We can similarly observe the AI mechanics when trying to understand such points. If the AI effectively ignores certain things (such as automatically sprinting to the user's new position or striking through/in spite of an action/movement), then the depth of a game and it's mechanics are going to be directly impacted.
And then we turn to other games to compare and contrast their features as individual components and as how they interact/compare as a whole.
Somehow my last post got deleted. I don't know why. But I will say this.
You are ignorant of how WoW works. You just are. There are so many PBAoEs and GTAoEs that blink (and a multitude of other skills) avoid in PvE content (not to mention just walking). The boss doesn't have to "follow" that person with an attack. Attacks that are specifically targeted at a player and are intended to hit them will hit them, but that is not all there is to worry about.
In every MMORPG, the boss's AI ignores things. I have an issue with you making a distinction about that without offering a better version of evidence. Where is this brilliant AI in MMORPGs that makes you think you argument about this would stand up?
And in WoW, you see and incredible amount of breaking of rotation. That you don't understand that is telling of your ignorance. WoW upper tier raid combat is fluid in tone because apparently, the developers like to fuck with you as much as possible. Knowing rotations and priorities is paramount to success, but so is reacting to situations. What separates the great from the good (concerning DPS) is making consistently good decisions after you are forced out of your comfort zone.
But like I said earlier, I believe WoW is a game that is a test more about focus than it is with skill. And I would say that it is on a similar level with a few other games concering depth. And I would also say that when I played TERA, I believe that if we are only talking about combat, it had some depth. I was able to do pretty incredible things with a lot of practice in that game and it was heavily based on the decisions I made.
You want to claim I'm ignorant, yet you make those claims?
First do a little research before you argue. WoW's combat is predicated on a queueing and stat-driven conflict resolution system that runs on the server. What that means is that foremost, abilities and actions are received in a sequence and they are resolved in said sequence with the opposing skill/stat checks rolled against them. You don't get to completely bypass the threat of an attack unless the game says so.
Blink as an example operates within that rule set. Even if you blink away from an AoE, if it was queued then your character is going to have to make a save regardless of the fact that you are now away from the AoE.
That is where it starts to differ in mechanics from other games, as a dodge mechanic in other titles like Wildstar and STO is used as a hard interrupt that bypasses queued actions so there is no resolution to be calculated (in other words, the dodge effect negates the calculation of any abilities that were supposed to be tracked to hit). It's a fundamentally different type of mechanic in that manner.
You also missed part of the point about the AI. It's systemic across all mobs, not just bosses, and the aspect in question was the fact that when an enemy has a target, the way their combat mechanics works and fact that they operate off the server's hardware and queue means that even if you run from a mob, they will typically be able to hound you and continuously damage you until you finally get out of their aggro range. The point again with the players being, unless you're an idiot you're going to move when an opponent moves.
And the AI statement is has an MMO example actually by the likes of ESO. Due to their content updates, there is line of sight and detection states for enemies and you as a player can utilize that when engaging targets by using detection breaks to your advantage. It's more emphasized though outside of the MMO genre in most any stealth focused title that's exist in the last ten years. As AI is still one of the largest weak points of MMOs, this is a field that still is open to quite a lot of progress any ways.
In WoW there is not nearly as much rotation breaking as you seem to wanna claim. The fact is the AI is simply not that smart, and instead those boss fights you want to laud as dynamic are simply scripted events which predictably play out time and again for players just follow a routine (IE, a rotation) to overcome. Might they differ from the rotation they treadmill the other 90% of the game with? Sire, Is it still a rather predictable and rigid set of skills and behaviors you use ad-nauseam against the boss(es)? You betcha.
As for your concluding dialogue, see my extended/edited statement on my last post.
"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
What more, none of this dialogue you are so adamant in engaging in is even addressing the core point of it. That of how the components of the game are implemented and the kind of play and depth experienced out of them.
If we can't look at the majority of the gameplay situations and see a break in something like a repetitive combat rotation, then it already implies that active skills for evasion in the game are either largely ineffectual, or not worth using.
We can similarly observe the AI mechanics when trying to understand such points. If the AI effectively ignores certain things (such as automatically sprinting to the user's new position or striking through/in spite of an action/movement), then the depth of a game and it's mechanics are going to be directly impacted.
And then we turn to other games to compare and contrast their features as individual components and as how they interact/compare as a whole.
Somehow my last post got deleted. I don't know why. But I will say this.
You are ignorant of how WoW works. You just are. There are so many PBAoEs and GTAoEs that blink (and a multitude of other skills) avoid in PvE content (not to mention just walking). The boss doesn't have to "follow" that person with an attack. Attacks that are specifically targeted at a player and are intended to hit them will hit them, but that is not all there is to worry about.
In every MMORPG, the boss's AI ignores things. I have an issue with you making a distinction about that without offering a better version of evidence. Where is this brilliant AI in MMORPGs that makes you think you argument about this would stand up?
And in WoW, you see and incredible amount of breaking of rotation. That you don't understand that is telling of your ignorance. WoW upper tier raid combat is fluid in tone because apparently, the developers like to fuck with you as much as possible. Knowing rotations and priorities is paramount to success, but so is reacting to situations. What separates the great from the good (concerning DPS) is making consistently good decisions after you are forced out of your comfort zone.
But like I said earlier, I believe WoW is a game that is a test more about focus than it is with skill. And I would say that it is on a similar level with a few other games concering depth. And I would also say that when I played TERA, I believe that if we are only talking about combat, it had some depth. I was able to do pretty incredible things with a lot of practice in that game and it was heavily based on the decisions I made.
You want to claim I'm ignorant, yet you make those claims?
First do a little research before you argue. WoW's combat is predicated on a queueing and stat-driven conflict resolution. What that means is that foremost, abilities and actions are received in a sequence and they are resolved in said sequence with the opposing skill/stat checks rolled against them. You don't get to completely bypass the threat of an attack unless the game says so.
Blink as an example operates within that rule set. Even if you blink away from an AoE, if it was queued then your character is going to have to make a save regardless of the fact that you are now away from the AoE.
And the AI statement is has an MMO example actually by the likes of ESO. Due to their content updates, there is line of sight and detection states for enemies and you as a player can utilize that when engaging targets by using detection breaks to your advantage. It's more emphasized though outside of the MMO genre in most any stealth focused title that's exist in the last ten years.
In WoW there is not nearly as much rotation breaking as you seem to wanna claim. The fact is the AI is simply not that smart, and instead those boss fights you want to laud as dynamic are simply scripted events which predictably play out time and again for players just follow a routine (IE, a rotation) to overcome. Might they differ from the rotation they treadmill the other 90% of the game with? Sire, Is it still a rather predictable and rigid set of skills and behaviors you use ad-nauseam against the boss(es)? You betcha.
As for your concluding dialogue, see my extended/edited statement on my last post.
Unfortunately, you're just wrong. Yes, if you blink after you get hit, you get hit.... duh. I mean, really duh comment. What's more, if you were hit by a stun or movement effect, it does get out of it.
And LOL at the ESO comparison. You are talking about line of sight as if it's something new. I mean, jesus.
And of course rotations get broken in WoW. Your insistence that it is somehow otherwise is just embarrassing at this point. Why do you avoid reality so much? I just wish I was discussing this with someone reasonable at this point. Venge made solid points and made sense. You just try and trash on things every chance you get. You are one of the most intellectually dishonest posters I've run into thus far.
What more, none of this dialogue you are so adamant in engaging in is even addressing the core point of it. That of how the components of the game are implemented and the kind of play and depth experienced out of them.
If we can't look at the majority of the gameplay situations and see a break in something like a repetitive combat rotation, then it already implies that active skills for evasion in the game are either largely ineffectual, or not worth using.
We can similarly observe the AI mechanics when trying to understand such points. If the AI effectively ignores certain things (such as automatically sprinting to the user's new position or striking through/in spite of an action/movement), then the depth of a game and it's mechanics are going to be directly impacted.
And then we turn to other games to compare and contrast their features as individual components and as how they interact/compare as a whole.
Somehow my last post got deleted. I don't know why. But I will say this.
You are ignorant of how WoW works. You just are.
You want to claim I'm ignorant, yet you make those claims?
First do a little research before you argue. WoW's combat is predicated on a queueing and stat-driven conflict resolution. What that means is that foremost, abilities and actions are received in a sequence and they are resolved in said sequence with the opposing skill/stat checks rolled against them. You don't get to completely bypass the threat of an attack unless the game says so.
Blink as an example operates within that rule set. Even if you blink away from an AoE, if it was queued then your character is going to have to make a save regardless of the fact that you are now away from the AoE.
And the AI statement is has an MMO example actually by the likes of ESO. Due to their content updates, there is line of sight and detection states for enemies and you as a player can utilize that when engaging targets by using detection breaks to your advantage. It's more emphasized though outside of the MMO genre in most any stealth focused title that's exist in the last ten years.
In WoW there is not nearly as much rotation breaking as you seem to wanna claim. The fact is the AI is simply not that smart, and instead those boss fights you want to laud as dynamic are simply scripted events which predictably play out time and again for players just follow a routine (IE, a rotation) to overcome. Might they differ from the rotation they treadmill the other 90% of the game with? Sire, Is it still a rather predictable and rigid set of skills and behaviors you use ad-nauseam against the boss(es)? You betcha.
As for your concluding dialogue, see my extended/edited statement on my last post.
Unfortunately, you're just wrong. Yes, if you blink after you get hit, you get hit.... duh. I mean, really duh comment. What's more, if you were hit by a stun or movement effect, it does get out of it.
And LOL at the ESO comparison. You are talking about line of sight as if it's something new. I mean, jesus.
And of course rotations get broken in WoW. Your insistence that it is somehow otherwise is just embarrassing at this point. Why do you avoid reality so much? I just wish I was discussing this with someone reasonable at this point. Venge made solid points and made sense. You just try and trash on things every chance you get. You are one of the most intellectually dishonest posters I've run into thus far.
So going down the line.
Unfortunately you're just unaware of game architecture. I wasn't talking about hit/miss, I was talking about the structure of the game, how actions are initiated/resolved, and the subsequent consequence it has on the use of abilities within the game. What you refer to with blink getting one out of something at the end there is pretty simply another component of the abilitie's mechanics, not an aspect of the user's skill or subject to the timing of it's use.
Your only argument so far is that if something hasn't happened then you won't be hit by it. That's not an interrupt, that's not even a dodge. You could avoid an AoE in that context by standing in place even. Either someone/something has triggered an AoE or they haven't, and WoW does not have much in the way of telegraphed abilities outside of boss fights that blair it all from on-high. That means your window for making such excuses is at an all-time minimum.
I talked about ESO in terms of line of sight because they have a concept of field of vision to which WoW for example does not. Instead WoW uses aggro radius like most MMOs. Besides which, I also noted that there are different detection stages in ESO, so it's not as simple as your poor argument skills could address.
Venge's point was not really far from what I have stated. More so on the point of rotations, as you wish to claim they are broken, but have yet to even offer a situation where a predictable rotation is not applicable since even boss fights are heavily scripted components of the game.
Like this point;
"I'm saying the combat is shallow because the decisions during combat rarely alter the outcome of the combat."
That rests directly in line with what I just explained to you about the server, queuing, and stat driven mechanics, save for I gave a more specific statement as to the why of the situation.
To which, if you wish to claim anyone is being intellectually dishonest at this point, you are the indisputable poster-child at the moment. This conversation we're having started off by you straight up lying to me and since then you have been playing the game of dancing around the facts and offering no actual argument beyond "no, you're just dumb".
You're not even offering an intellectually dishonest argument any more, you're basically just trolling.
"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
Line of sight is only used in application to terrain collision detection, that is not the type of line of sight I was referring to, as I also made a qualifying statement already that the mobs have a distinct field of vision. If you understood that term, you'd know that it means the mobs have specific scope in which they can see at-range.
WoW at it's base only utilizes an aggro radius mechanic for mobs detecting whether or not a person is there. Quite literally the only context in which line of sight ends up existing in that game is for environmental barriers.
Meaning, a creature can see you walking up behind it in WoW just as easily as if you were in front of it, while in ESO you can move behind a target much more easily because they can't "see" you from that direction.
Beyond that, the game recognizes the notion of breaking line of sight to mean more than simply a target not being able to hit another target. It actually affects the detection status of the mobs and they can quickly fall into a "searching" state instead of an aggro state. WoW does not have a "searching" state, you are either aggroed or not.
Hence, they have a line of sight which operates different and in a more complex manner than the likes of WoW, and allows for deeper gameplay around how you maneuver around enemies.
"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
The demonology rotation is not an example of depth. It's an example of rote design, which is the opposite of depth.
The fact that you could beat most of the mobs using that rotation and only that rotation is not depth, it's lack of depth. The fact that you could beat the same mobs using that rotation, or half that rotation or just by using 2 buttons in that rotation shows an extreme lack of depth. It shows the choices are not significant and do not alter the outcome (it may alter how much dmg you do but how much dmg you do does not alter the outcome or affect any other choices in the game, the mob is still dead).
No Axe, you have proved that wow doesn't have depth.
And of course wow's other issues are extremely shallow again compared to other games. Shallow crafting, shallow (non existant) world events, nothing that impacts your character's decisions in the future, nothing that impacts other characters (good or bad). Most mobs are dead regardless of your choices for those activities. No activity you do really impacts anything else you do, therefore none of the decisions are significant, therefore shallow.
No Wow is not deep at all.
It is a good responsive simple and fun game. Thats it. It's like checkers and tic tac toe. Fun but not deep.
Until evidence exists which shows superior depth, this is the high bar.
Don't kid yourself that other games lack rotations. Every game has conditional rotations. There is always one perfect path through every situation. The more difficult and nuanced it is to describe those rotations, the deeper the game.
Claiming the choices aren't significant is nonsense.
Describing the choices doesn't make them less significant:
You're standing on a subway platform. A train approaches.
Choice #1: Don't step off.
I have not somehow deprived that choice of consequence by telling you the optimal path of how to survive your encounter in the subway station.
If you think a player using a 2-button rotation advances through trivial mobs at a faster rate than a player who has knowledge of their character's full capabilities, you're wrong. If you think "surviving one mob" is the only meaningful measure of success, you're settling for mediocrity at which point why are you even interested in a discussion about optimization (if survival is your bar for success then you're not going to care about the meaningful, real nuance that exists).
Depth isn't about long-term consequences. Depth is about whether decisions are hard to master.
"A multiplayer game is deep if it is still strategically interesting to play after expert players have studied and practiced it for years, decades, or centuries." -David Sirlin
Chess isn't shallow because you can use a 2-piece offensive to beat newbies. No, Chess is deep because after expert players have practiced and studied it for years it continues to offer a set of difficult decisions. Judging Chess' depth based on beating a bunch of newbies who offer no challenge isn't exactly a reasonable attitude -- and yet that's what you seem to be implying by fixating on that ~7% of WOW's gameplay experience that you're talking about.
Hey, using David Sirlin's definition one could say EVE has depth. Go figure.
Which it does of course, but not a discussion I'm going to get into on this thread, maybe another time.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Line of sight is only used in application to terrain collision detection, that is not the type of line of sight I was referring to, as I also made a qualifying statement already that the mobs have a distinct field of vision. If you understood that term, you'd know that it means the mobs have specific scope in which they can see at-range.
WoW at it's base only utilizes an aggro radius mechanic for mobs detecting whether or not a person is there. Quite literally the only context in which line of sight ends up existing in that game is for environmental barriers.
Meaning, a creature can see you walking up behind it in WoW just as easily as if you were in front of it, while in ESO you can move behind a target much more easily because they can't "see" you from that direction.
Beyond that, the game recognizes the notion of breaking line of sight to mean more than simply a target not being able to hit another target. It actually affects the detection status of the mobs and they can quickly fall into a "searching" state instead of an aggro state. WoW does not have a "searching" state, you are either aggroed or not.
Hence, they have a line of sight which operates different and in a more complex manner than the likes of WoW, and allows for deeper gameplay around how you maneuver around enemies.
Ok, one more.
"WoW at it's base only utilizes an aggro radius mechanic for mobs detecting whether or not a person is there. Quite literally the only context in which line of sight ends up existing in that game is for environmental barriers."
Wrong. Even world mobs in WoW agro from the front much earlier than behind. And the stealth mechanic exists on top of that which just serves to enforce the behind vs in front mechanic. Being behind something allows you to get closer before something agroes. In stealth, you have a higher chance to be detected if in line of sight (depending on lvl vs lvl).
You are just ignorant. Literally everything you say is just slightly off about the mechanics. I can't decide what you are more, dishonest or ignorant. The truly strange part is that I don't even play WoW anymore. I am literally just trying to be honest about its mechanics versus other MMORPGs. I think its combat is slick, it feels smooth and reactive.
I agree that if ESO has a searching version of mob status that it is interesting though. WoW, from what I've seen, doesn't have mobs "search" for you. They either have agro status or not. However, LoS is central to many encounters.
In the meantime, gamers will never tire of stroking their own egos in threads like this one.
"Most gamers are dumber than glue (of course not me)"--"Games need to be harder (cause I'm mad skilled)"
Regardless of how you assume your individual mantle of superiority, threads like this one will always deliver the egoboo for you (and you, and you).
So do keep coming, this stuff never gets old.
This is a very cynical way of looking at something that is actually very true and also very important in game design.
Yes, people like bragging rights and stroking their ego. However, when games fail to provide this, players feel unfulfilled. There is a balance somewhere in there, and unfortunately mmo design has shifted towards the accessibility side of the spectrum so far, a large portion of players no longer feel any sense of accomplishment in their games.
Its not just ego stroking. Without risk vs reward, games lack meaning for most people; Particularly adults who understand that nothing worth having is free or easily achieved.
Line of sight is only used in application to terrain collision detection, that is not the type of line of sight I was referring to, as I also made a qualifying statement already that the mobs have a distinct field of vision. If you understood that term, you'd know that it means the mobs have specific scope in which they can see at-range.
WoW at it's base only utilizes an aggro radius mechanic for mobs detecting whether or not a person is there. Quite literally the only context in which line of sight ends up existing in that game is for environmental barriers.
Meaning, a creature can see you walking up behind it in WoW just as easily as if you were in front of it, while in ESO you can move behind a target much more easily because they can't "see" you from that direction.
Beyond that, the game recognizes the notion of breaking line of sight to mean more than simply a target not being able to hit another target. It actually affects the detection status of the mobs and they can quickly fall into a "searching" state instead of an aggro state. WoW does not have a "searching" state, you are either aggroed or not.
Hence, they have a line of sight which operates different and in a more complex manner than the likes of WoW, and allows for deeper gameplay around how you maneuver around enemies.
Ok, one more.
"WoW at it's base only utilizes an aggro radius mechanic for mobs detecting whether or not a person is there. Quite literally the only context in which line of sight ends up existing in that game is for environmental barriers."
Wrong. Even world mobs in WoW agro from the front much earlier than behind. And the stealth mechanic exists on top of that which just serves to enforce the behind vs in front mechanic. Being behind something allows you to get closer before something agroes. In stealth, you have a higher chance to be detected (depending on lvl vs lvl).
You are just ignorant. Literally everything you say is just slightly off about the mechanics. I can't decide what you are more, dishonest or ignorant. The truly strange part is that I don't even play WoW anymore. I am literally just trying to be honest about its mechanics versus other MMORPGs. I think its combat is slick, it feels smooth and reactive.
I agree that if ESO has a searching version of mob status that it is interesting though. WoW, from what I've seen, doesn't have mobs "search" for you. They either have agro status or not. However, LoS is central to many encounters.
You say wrong, but your claim is pretty patently false.
WoW still uses aggro radius as their detection system for mobs, and stealth works directly with that system. Everything so far operates off of varying scales of arrgo radius for several effects, but they are all otherwise an effect in a radius around the mob. The closest you get to forward-facing detection showing any difference is a mob that is in-motion which means that their behaviors on server-side are changing, and because they are server-side they have a priority in queue to the update on positioning and events.
This is also why if you use any of the aggro radius highlighter mods out there, they just give a single meter detection range to define the radius.
Your claim about stealth is off as well. While there is a detection arc for stealth that makes detection easier from the front, it is the same as the aggro and detection radius from behind. It simply is a higher percent chance for detection. This is the only explicit instance of facing direction actually affecting the ability for a mob to detect something, but remains subject to the limitations of the aggro radius.
Again, saying "no, you're just dumb" is not a valid argument. If your goal is honesty about the game mechanics than you have been failing rather horrendously, and your approach of making blatant lies in your posts by which you then turn around and try to claim the inverse is just not reasonable in any form.
So, instead of sticking your fingers in your ears and calling me dumb because you believe your vision of reality is unassailable, maybe try and re-up on what the mechanics actually are. I have just linked two pages there for you that addresses and corrects your claims.
"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
In the meantime, gamers will never tire of stroking their own egos in threads like this one.
"Most gamers are dumber than glue (of course not me)"--"Games need to be harder (cause I'm mad skilled)"
Regardless of how you assume your individual mantle of superiority, threads like this one will always deliver the egoboo for you (and you, and you).
So do keep coming, this stuff never gets old.
This is a very cynical way of looking at something that is actually very true and also very important in game design.
Yes, people like bragging rights and stroking their ego. However, when games fail to provide this, players feel unfulfilled. There is a balance somewhere in there, and unfortunately mmo design has shifted towards the accessibility side of the spectrum so far, a large portion of players no longer feel any sense of accomplishment in their games.
Its not just ego stroking. Without risk vs reward, games lack meaning for most people; Particularly adults who understand that nothing worth having is free or easily achieved.
Ego, Good topic
Back around 2004 mmos were developed for a wide range of play styles.
From hard core, down to the casuals. From 40 man Raids, and End Game Dungeons to the city dwellers, chatters, guild masters, and crafters...........It's all gone.
Nothing wrong with having both and everything in between. Everyone had something, it was a gamming WORLD
Now it's get the game out the door, and get that Cash Shop working for us !
Meh, I think you are right about the argro radius. That does make me sad that I was ignorant of that. I know for a fact that stealth is impacted by front and back line of sight (like you admit). But your version of depth is still extremely questionable. In other words, me being wrong about something doesn't make you right about other things.
World mobs do appear to have a radius based on level. And I am completely happy to concede that. The real question is whether or not you can admit that movement interrupts a rotation. Can you admit that WoW includes many situations in which rotations get interrupted and therefor require decisions, LoS is an important part of the game and that the incredible variety of raid encounters require people to make decisions.
If not, I will never be able to consider you honest.
Won't dispute line of sight being important, seeing as it completely interrupts combat. Hence my prior statement that one of the few ways to actually break a rotation is to break line of sight.
Movement in that context can interrupt it, but for the most part, the very stat-driven nature of WoW makes it so a lot of the player's actions are superfluous to the consequences of the combat. It's like hopping, you might feel like it does something for you as you do a jump over a target, but as far as the game is concerned your movements are of almost no consequence.
Where it does matter is once again around breaking line of sight. For example, one of the few instances I'd say Blink actually can break rotations is if you blink around/behind an obstacle or behind the target themselves (so long as it's a player).
It's quite the uphill battle you are trying to make. To claim there are many situations where the rotations in WoW are broken comes with a lot of breaks in logic itself.
For one, if the combat rotations are broken that often, then it can simply be argued that there aren't actually any combat rotations since there is no stability to the right strategy. And yet, there are rotations that apparently work very well for players.
So either there aren't actually rotations and the game breaks it's own ability to provide an optimal flow to combat, or there actually is combat rotations and there is a layer of predictability you face in it.
And variety in terms of one raid as compared to another doesn't really mean much given that each raid has it's own set of scripted events that players interact with. You don't play one raid and get events triggering from another raid. Those elements are not nebulous in their nature and are well telegraphed, meaning the ability for players to learn and execute a predictable response to a raid is rather high, rendering the difficulty/depth of the encounters low.
"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
No, it is not uphill. Rotations are constantly broken, especially in raiding. It is not only not a stretch, it is the norm.
And yes, there is an optimal dummy version of rotations. But that represents the perfect situation (and there have been bosses that require DPS races with almost no movement). But the vast majority of upper level raid encounters require a lot of awareness, where you break rotations, and situations where movement is paramount to success or line of sight is important.
Pretending like this isn't the case is ignorant. Rotations or priorities are broken all the time in WoW. Greatness and average play are separated by whether the player understands all off these things. People's actions are not superfluous in WoW. Actions are important and can determine the success of the raid. Just like in any MMORPG. Movement is paramount to success. Situational awareness is paramount to success.
And yes, often times rotations don't work well in many situations for WoW players. That is part of why players change their build on the fly depending on the boss.
Your entire post illustrates the exact problem I just described. You say there is an optimal rotation, yet you claim immediately that it is perpetually broken by any actual use, which by virtue means it is not optimal.
It's a cyclical contradiction.
As for the raid commentary, I can only point out again that raids as they presently exist telegraph any event out of the norm to you rather bluntly (as in it gives you a message in the middle of your screen). Actions certainly are important, but in this case only in so far as responding to the obvious. It's not like you need a high level of situational awareness to see red text flashing in the middle of your screen.
That statement about telegraphing things isn't an understatement either. It will literally blast red text at you about what's gonna happen now. Having that level of information blasted at you in a raid kind of kills a lot of the challenge in tracking and dealing with what's supposed to be the curve-balls of the encounters. That's not a high watermark for game depth.
Perhaps it's something you remember about WoW that's not quite the case any more, but the very reason WoW has such strong FOTM syndrome is rather because rotations are such a huge crutch in the game. Raids have gone through the ringer as well and changed dramatically over time from a large orchestrated effort into largely five-man heavily scripted quests.
"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
Dullahan said: Yes, people like bragging rights and stroking their ego. However, when games fail to provide this, players feel unfulfilled.
Poor babies.
Posit: perhaps recreation shouldn't be used for this purpose. Perhaps misusing it for ego support contributes to unhappiness with most of these titles, expecting a game to provide therapy.
Your evidence doesn't show superior depth it shows extreme simplicity. The choices offered are insignificant they do not affect the outcome. The mob is still dead whether you cost a b or c.
Advanving faster is not the issuevand os determined more by the players engagement at the time. The mob is still dead regardless of your rotation. Your choices did not affect the outcome. Thar is shallow design.
Chess has depth because you have a multitude of strategies and decisions that affect future decisions. You made a wrong move you lose a piece which makes future decisions more important and risky. wow doesn't do that. Regardless of which rotation or choosing not to use a rotation most mobs still die your decisions therefore affect nothing further. Shallow.
No evidence? No argument.
If there were deeper MMORPGs you'd be able to provide evidence of it.
Also how in the world are you claiming the choices involved don't affect the outcome? It's a plain fact that the degree to which one performs a perfect rotation -- which is skill -- determines how much of your class' maximum potential you end up achieving during a fight. These decisions matter.
When you fail to take the perfect path of choices (and every game has that perfect path), you simply perform worse.
Killing all the quest mobs in 2 minutes is objectively superior to a slower player taking 5 minutes to finish the quest. To ignore the clear difference in performance between the two is ignorance. Clearly mobs in 2 mins is objectively a different outcome from killing them in 5. The choices mattered and the magnitude of success was substantially different.
The decision set in Chess has a similar spectrum of outcomes; maybe this game you got 1 more powerful piece into the center of the board and it let you win the game more decisively (perhaps you would've even lost the game without that move). Both games represent a giant tree of decision-making with different outcomes related to how perfectly you make your decisions.
But again, to be clear: we're comparing WOW's depth with the depth of other MMORPGs. Unless you have evidence of a deeper more nuanced decision-making tree in another MMORPG, you really have no tangible argument. Your argument has focused on the intangible claim that the outcomes in questing (7% of the WOW experience) somehow don't follow a spectrum of success from slow to fast, relative to the decisions players make. Critically this means your argument hasn't been focused on actually disproving me with evidence of a MMORPG with superior depth -- and that's the only way to actually dispute my point.
Sadly it's a common argument technique on these forums:
Joe: Balloon A is bigger than Balloons B, C, and D! Here's the data showing Balloon A's size!
Bob: Balloon A isn't very big; your data shows it's 3 feet wide and everyone knows that's not very big -- and because we know that, obviously that means B, C, and D are bigger!
Arbitrary claims that Balloon A isn't very big simply don't dispute position Joe has taken.
Whereas if one of the other Balloons was actually bigger and Bob posted evidence of a 4 foot wide Balloon, the discussion would immediately be over.
You don't beat a comparative claim by criticizing my data or fixating on 7% of the WOW experience (leveling) -- you beat it by providing data that shows another MMORPG offers superior depth.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Axe was saying wow is deep because combat is the biggest activity and it is deep.
I'm saying the combat is shallow because the decisions during combat rarely alter the outcome of the combat. Use the rotation on virtually any mob and the outcome is the same. Don't use the rotation, use a different rotation, use part of the rotation. It doesn't matter for the majority of mobs they are dead regardless. Wow is doubly shallow because combat has so little affect on anything else. So the biggest factor in the game ends up being shallow.
Wow is /was fun because of its simplicity.
Are you suggesting Chess is shallow because a Chess match has no affect on anything else? Or would you instead concede that game depth is simply how difficult a system is to master, and whether it affects outside systems doesn't matter?
The majority of play doesn't happen against trivial mobs. Again, for me those mobs have been maybe 14% of the experience (if we double that 7% of time my character spent leveling to account for the trivial daily quest mobs that I've spent time killing over the years). While I agree that the deepest portions of the rotation don't apply in these situations, you still have enough techniques (pulling strategies, like clumping mobs up to AOE them down with your AOE rotation) that some depth emerges (but yes, at this point those strategies are applicable to a lot of other MMORPGs too). Meanwhile maybe we shouldn't ignore the other 86%?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I think that's the crux of the argument and why you and Axe should both consider the possibility that depth in MMORPGs tends to be situational. If everyone stood still and did rotations, there would be no decisions. When you introduce movement and rotations are constantly broken, it turns into a game of making decisions again. And the cream rises to the top (in all games).
Anyway, you still can't admit that he was using chess in a different context, and that says a lot about you.
Right, exactly! Depth is situational! The rotation I linked to is literally conditional decision logic. That's situational decision-making.
The more elaborate and nuanced the conditional logic, the deeper the game.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I think that's the crux of the argument and why you and Axe should both consider the possibility that depth in MMORPGs tends to be situational. If everyone stood still and did rotations, there would be no decisions. When you introduce movement and rotations are constantly broken, it turns into a game of making decisions again. And the cream rises to the top (in all games).
Anyway, you still can't admit that he was using chess in a different context, and that says a lot about you.
Right, exactly! Depth is situational! The rotation I linked to is literally conditional decision logic. That's situational decision-making.
The more elaborate and nuanced the conditional logic, the deeper the game.
You are of course right, but I just wish MMOs in general put more focus on using the right skill at the right situation instead of how to most effectively rotate your skills. Timing is something all MMOs could put more focus on since once you learn the right rotation to maximize your DPs (or tanking/healing) you can put far less effort in any fight.
If the games were more focused on timing you would need to constantly pay attention to the fight and react (or outsmart) your opponent, no matter if you PvE or PvP.
But it been like it is in almost all MMOs since Meridian 59 so it is a common problem and not just something Wow done wrong.
You can easily recognize a game is good enough to play, but not for long term when you see where the resources are reinvested in. Look at World of Warcraft for example. All I want is plenty of PvE to keep me progressing, raiding and decent PvP to compete when I'm not raiding with guild, but then I see so many resources put in other things I have no interest and then no wonder why the game is failing equally in all because it tries to please so many different audiences.
I think that's the crux of the argument and why you and Axe should both consider the possibility that depth in MMORPGs tends to be situational. If everyone stood still and did rotations, there would be no decisions. When you introduce movement and rotations are constantly broken, it turns into a game of making decisions again. And the cream rises to the top (in all games).
Anyway, you still can't admit that he was using chess in a different context, and that says a lot about you.
Right, exactly! Depth is situational! The rotation I linked to is literally conditional decision logic. That's situational decision-making.
The more elaborate and nuanced the conditional logic, the deeper the game.
You are of course right, but I just wish MMOs in general put more focus on using the right skill at the right situation instead of how to most effectively rotate your skills. Timing is something all MMOs could put more focus on since once you learn the right rotation to maximize your DPs (or tanking/healing) you can put far less effort in any fight.
If the games were more focused on timing you would need to constantly pay attention to the fight and react (or outsmart) your opponent, no matter if you PvE or PvP.
But it been like it is in almost all MMOs since Meridian 59 so it is a common problem and not just something Wow done wrong.
Totally agree. I'd like something with serious differentiation. As it stands, there is very little difference between someone who is "good" versus someone who is "mediocre". I mean it's always easy to see the "bad" ones, but someone who is mediocre can easily, in a dps class, get damage within 5-10% of someone who is really good. So, essentially, where the reward for being godly? I have, quite literally, fallen asleep during fights and still out DPSed people, as a tank.
I'd really like to see a better system for rewarding exceptional players. I mean there is LFR for a reason, right? I know! They could put in Quick Time Events!!!
You are of course right, but I just wish MMOs in general put more focus on using the right skill at the right situation instead of how to most effectively rotate your skills. Timing is something all MMOs could put more focus on since once you learn the right rotation to maximize your DPs (or tanking/healing) you can put far less effort in any fight.
If the games were more focused on timing you would need to constantly pay attention to the fight and react (or outsmart) your opponent, no matter if you PvE or PvP.
But it been like it is in almost all MMOs since Meridian 59 so it is a common problem and not just something Wow done wrong.
Yeah I'd agree that MMORPGs (and games in general) need more focus on using the right skill for the right situation, but hopefully you're not implying that WOW's rotations fail to do that. Rotations (and the environmental/boss/player factors that cause them to vary) are literally a list of right skills for right situations.
Any game, once mastered, requires less effort to perform. That's the nature of learning: with practice things which previously needed our conscious attention (more effort) are eventually done without it (less effort). Depth is simply a measure of how difficulty it is to achieve that skill mastery.
Timing is a tricky word to throw around, since it calls to mind action combat. RPGs largely target a demographic uninterested in a significant twitch element. But yes, if you just mean timing by timing then chess and MMORPGs already involve that. (Is now the right turn (the right time) to move that knight into the center of the board? Is now the right time to use Hand of Guldan or to pop my cooldown(s)?)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Dullahan said: Yes, people like bragging rights and stroking their ego. However, when games fail to provide this, players feel unfulfilled.
Poor babies.
Posit: perhaps recreation shouldn't be used for this purpose. Perhaps misusing it for ego support contributes to unhappiness with most of these titles, expecting a game to provide therapy.
Expectation unreasonable.
You seem to lack even an elementary understanding of why people play games.
''Your standing on a hill looking down on an encampment full of bad guys. ''
From my perspective, is almost every video game like this (outside sports,.. games), basically brainless violence. Ok, some of them are trying to make something deeper like The Witcher 3, where none of them is in the right mind, including your hero:p. Today video games are extremely poor when it comes to presenting anykind of stories,..they are showing everything from black and white perspective, as very bad hollywood B movies, with completely unrealistic consequences, all are showing violence as the solution,...for example, you will have hard time to find any adventure,.. game where you won't need to kill at least 500 or 1k people,...so you'll solve all the problems,...
MMos are mostly based on genocide on nature, in the form to kill all the bad deers, bugs, spiders, bears, nature itself if is possible, a lot of them have turn even fairies, unicorns,..into evil creatures, which have to be destroyed!!!!
But again, to be clear: we're comparing WOW's depth with the depth of other MMORPGs.
There's been at least four MMOs now mentioned in the last few pages with arguably more depth in their gameplay.
If you're capable of acknowledging that and addressing it then there might be progress.
But otherwise it falls to what loke said there and what I pointed out on the last page. Beyond this, you saying that depth is situational is at least progress, though you calling rotations conditional decision logic is just nonsense. That's is a pointlessly complex and rather inaccurate way of saying "these rotations sometimes don't work".
To which there is my previous statement about the stability of the gameplay. If rotations are that easily and commonly "broken" or exist in such a conditional status as to not be usable under the normal pretense, then it has already failed the first goal of you establishing that rotation, that being to offer optimal use in play.
In which case, why would you hold up a specific rotation as a symbol of a game's depth? Obviously by your own logic that rotation isn't going to work reliably and therefore the game's depth does not exist within that rotation.
And on the flip-side, if it did exist in that rotation it would imply that by following this finite and easily repeated set of keystrokes, you can master that class. How, then would that in turn be reflective of depth since it implicates that the cycle on mastering the game's mechanics is remarkably short/easily reproducible?
In which case, you can't really argue there's much depth from either angle based on the example you have given us.
If you wanted to talk about gameplay with actual conditional logic then you look for games where individual abilities are designed to act as both individually and as a variably compliment/counter to another suite of abilities. Now, while WoW does have some of that, there is also the usage to account for. Everyone from a class/spec having more or less the same grouping of skills tends to mean that their play style ends up very predictable. But games that allow for flexible progression across a wide swathe to create a small subset means that players have to tailor their skills with situational counters and abilities that, while still having that overarching pool in common, also has more personal strategic value and subsequently more varied conditions to act/react to.
To which we would again be able to look at games like STO and ESO, which give such conditions and note that they have greater depth in their skill implementation than a game like WoW.
So it's pretty apparent that the depth of WoW has some rather clear limitations. A rotation heavy game by it's own design is limited in that nature and the more heavily it's relied on the more things like flavors of the month becomes a thing when optimization is as simple as slotting the best known variety for your class onto the bar and calling it a day.
"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
Comments
First do a little research before you argue. WoW's combat is predicated on a queueing and stat-driven conflict resolution system that runs on the server. What that means is that foremost, abilities and actions are received in a sequence and they are resolved in said sequence with the opposing skill/stat checks rolled against them. You don't get to completely bypass the threat of an attack unless the game says so.
Blink as an example operates within that rule set. Even if you blink away from an AoE, if it was queued then your character is going to have to make a save regardless of the fact that you are now away from the AoE.
That is where it starts to differ in mechanics from other games, as a dodge mechanic in other titles like Wildstar and STO is used as a hard interrupt that bypasses queued actions so there is no resolution to be calculated (in other words, the dodge effect negates the calculation of any abilities that were supposed to be tracked to hit). It's a fundamentally different type of mechanic in that manner.
You also missed part of the point about the AI. It's systemic across all mobs, not just bosses, and the aspect in question was the fact that when an enemy has a target, the way their combat mechanics works and fact that they operate off the server's hardware and queue means that even if you run from a mob, they will typically be able to hound you and continuously damage you until you finally get out of their aggro range. The point again with the players being, unless you're an idiot you're going to move when an opponent moves.
And the AI statement is has an MMO example actually by the likes of ESO. Due to their content updates, there is line of sight and detection states for enemies and you as a player can utilize that when engaging targets by using detection breaks to your advantage. It's more emphasized though outside of the MMO genre in most any stealth focused title that's exist in the last ten years. As AI is still one of the largest weak points of MMOs, this is a field that still is open to quite a lot of progress any ways.
In WoW there is not nearly as much rotation breaking as you seem to wanna claim. The fact is the AI is simply not that smart, and instead those boss fights you want to laud as dynamic are simply scripted events which predictably play out time and again for players just follow a routine (IE, a rotation) to overcome. Might they differ from the rotation they treadmill the other 90% of the game with? Sire, Is it still a rather predictable and rigid set of skills and behaviors you use ad-nauseam against the boss(es)? You betcha.
As for your concluding dialogue, see my extended/edited statement on my last post.
"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
And LOL at the ESO comparison. You are talking about line of sight as if it's something new. I mean, jesus.
And of course rotations get broken in WoW. Your insistence that it is somehow otherwise is just embarrassing at this point. Why do you avoid reality so much? I just wish I was discussing this with someone reasonable at this point. Venge made solid points and made sense. You just try and trash on things every chance you get. You are one of the most intellectually dishonest posters I've run into thus far.
Unfortunately you're just unaware of game architecture. I wasn't talking about hit/miss, I was talking about the structure of the game, how actions are initiated/resolved, and the subsequent consequence it has on the use of abilities within the game. What you refer to with blink getting one out of something at the end there is pretty simply another component of the abilitie's mechanics, not an aspect of the user's skill or subject to the timing of it's use.
Your only argument so far is that if something hasn't happened then you won't be hit by it. That's not an interrupt, that's not even a dodge. You could avoid an AoE in that context by standing in place even. Either someone/something has triggered an AoE or they haven't, and WoW does not have much in the way of telegraphed abilities outside of boss fights that blair it all from on-high. That means your window for making such excuses is at an all-time minimum.
I talked about ESO in terms of line of sight because they have a concept of field of vision to which WoW for example does not. Instead WoW uses aggro radius like most MMOs. Besides which, I also noted that there are different detection stages in ESO, so it's not as simple as your poor argument skills could address.
Venge's point was not really far from what I have stated. More so on the point of rotations, as you wish to claim they are broken, but have yet to even offer a situation where a predictable rotation is not applicable since even boss fights are heavily scripted components of the game.
Like this point;
"I'm saying the combat is shallow because the decisions during combat rarely alter the outcome of the combat."
That rests directly in line with what I just explained to you about the server, queuing, and stat driven mechanics, save for I gave a more specific statement as to the why of the situation.
To which, if you wish to claim anyone is being intellectually dishonest at this point, you are the indisputable poster-child at the moment. This conversation we're having started off by you straight up lying to me and since then you have been playing the game of dancing around the facts and offering no actual argument beyond "no, you're just dumb".
You're not even offering an intellectually dishonest argument any more, you're basically just trolling.
"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
Oh, LOL, you don't think WoW uses LoS...
WoW at it's base only utilizes an aggro radius mechanic for mobs detecting whether or not a person is there. Quite literally the only context in which line of sight ends up existing in that game is for environmental barriers.
Meaning, a creature can see you walking up behind it in WoW just as easily as if you were in front of it, while in ESO you can move behind a target much more easily because they can't "see" you from that direction.
Beyond that, the game recognizes the notion of breaking line of sight to mean more than simply a target not being able to hit another target. It actually affects the detection status of the mobs and they can quickly fall into a "searching" state instead of an aggro state. WoW does not have a "searching" state, you are either aggroed or not.
Hence, they have a line of sight which operates different and in a more complex manner than the likes of WoW, and allows for deeper gameplay around how you maneuver around enemies.
"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
Which it does of course, but not a discussion I'm going to get into on this thread, maybe another time.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
"WoW at it's base only utilizes an aggro radius mechanic for mobs detecting whether or not a person is there. Quite literally the only context in which line of sight ends up existing in that game is for environmental barriers."
Wrong. Even world mobs in WoW agro from the front much earlier than behind. And the stealth mechanic exists on top of that which just serves to enforce the behind vs in front mechanic. Being behind something allows you to get closer before something agroes. In stealth, you have a higher chance to be detected if in line of sight (depending on lvl vs lvl).
You are just ignorant. Literally everything you say is just slightly off about the mechanics. I can't decide what you are more, dishonest or ignorant. The truly strange part is that I don't even play WoW anymore. I am literally just trying to be honest about its mechanics versus other MMORPGs. I think its combat is slick, it feels smooth and reactive.
I agree that if ESO has a searching version of mob status that it is interesting though. WoW, from what I've seen, doesn't have mobs "search" for you. They either have agro status or not. However, LoS is central to many encounters.
Yes, people like bragging rights and stroking their ego. However, when games fail to provide this, players feel unfulfilled. There is a balance somewhere in there, and unfortunately mmo design has shifted towards the accessibility side of the spectrum so far, a large portion of players no longer feel any sense of accomplishment in their games.
Its not just ego stroking. Without risk vs reward, games lack meaning for most people; Particularly adults who understand that nothing worth having is free or easily achieved.
WoW still uses aggro radius as their detection system for mobs, and stealth works directly with that system. Everything so far operates off of varying scales of arrgo radius for several effects, but they are all otherwise an effect in a radius around the mob. The closest you get to forward-facing detection showing any difference is a mob that is in-motion which means that their behaviors on server-side are changing, and because they are server-side they have a priority in queue to the update on positioning and events.
This is also why if you use any of the aggro radius highlighter mods out there, they just give a single meter detection range to define the radius.
Your claim about stealth is off as well. While there is a detection arc for stealth that makes detection easier from the front, it is the same as the aggro and detection radius from behind. It simply is a higher percent chance for detection. This is the only explicit instance of facing direction actually affecting the ability for a mob to detect something, but remains subject to the limitations of the aggro radius.
Again, saying "no, you're just dumb" is not a valid argument. If your goal is honesty about the game mechanics than you have been failing rather horrendously, and your approach of making blatant lies in your posts by which you then turn around and try to claim the inverse is just not reasonable in any form.
So, instead of sticking your fingers in your ears and calling me dumb because you believe your vision of reality is unassailable, maybe try and re-up on what the mechanics actually are. I have just linked two pages there for you that addresses and corrects your claims.
"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
Ego, Good topic
Back around 2004 mmos were developed for a wide range of play styles.
From hard core, down to the casuals. From 40 man Raids, and End Game Dungeons to the city dwellers, chatters, guild masters, and crafters...........It's all gone.
Nothing wrong with having both and everything in between. Everyone had something, it was a gamming WORLD
Now it's get the game out the door, and get that Cash Shop working for us !
World mobs do appear to have a radius based on level. And I am completely happy to concede that. The real question is whether or not you can admit that movement interrupts a rotation. Can you admit that WoW includes many situations in which rotations get interrupted and therefor require decisions, LoS is an important part of the game and that the incredible variety of raid encounters require people to make decisions.
If not, I will never be able to consider you honest.
Movement in that context can interrupt it, but for the most part, the very stat-driven nature of WoW makes it so a lot of the player's actions are superfluous to the consequences of the combat. It's like hopping, you might feel like it does something for you as you do a jump over a target, but as far as the game is concerned your movements are of almost no consequence.
Where it does matter is once again around breaking line of sight. For example, one of the few instances I'd say Blink actually can break rotations is if you blink around/behind an obstacle or behind the target themselves (so long as it's a player).
It's quite the uphill battle you are trying to make. To claim there are many situations where the rotations in WoW are broken comes with a lot of breaks in logic itself.
For one, if the combat rotations are broken that often, then it can simply be argued that there aren't actually any combat rotations since there is no stability to the right strategy. And yet, there are rotations that apparently work very well for players.
So either there aren't actually rotations and the game breaks it's own ability to provide an optimal flow to combat, or there actually is combat rotations and there is a layer of predictability you face in it.
And variety in terms of one raid as compared to another doesn't really mean much given that each raid has it's own set of scripted events that players interact with. You don't play one raid and get events triggering from another raid. Those elements are not nebulous in their nature and are well telegraphed, meaning the ability for players to learn and execute a predictable response to a raid is rather high, rendering the difficulty/depth of the encounters low.
"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
And yes, there is an optimal dummy version of rotations. But that represents the perfect situation (and there have been bosses that require DPS races with almost no movement). But the vast majority of upper level raid encounters require a lot of awareness, where you break rotations, and situations where movement is paramount to success or line of sight is important.
Pretending like this isn't the case is ignorant. Rotations or priorities are broken all the time in WoW. Greatness and average play are separated by whether the player understands all off these things. People's actions are not superfluous in WoW. Actions are important and can determine the success of the raid. Just like in any MMORPG. Movement is paramount to success. Situational awareness is paramount to success.
And yes, often times rotations don't work well in many situations for WoW players. That is part of why players change their build on the fly depending on the boss.
It's a cyclical contradiction.
As for the raid commentary, I can only point out again that raids as they presently exist telegraph any event out of the norm to you rather bluntly (as in it gives you a message in the middle of your screen). Actions certainly are important, but in this case only in so far as responding to the obvious. It's not like you need a high level of situational awareness to see red text flashing in the middle of your screen.
That statement about telegraphing things isn't an understatement either. It will literally blast red text at you about what's gonna happen now. Having that level of information blasted at you in a raid kind of kills a lot of the challenge in tracking and dealing with what's supposed to be the curve-balls of the encounters. That's not a high watermark for game depth.
Perhaps it's something you remember about WoW that's not quite the case any more, but the very reason WoW has such strong FOTM syndrome is rather because rotations are such a huge crutch in the game. Raids have gone through the ringer as well and changed dramatically over time from a large orchestrated effort into largely five-man heavily scripted quests.
"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
Posit: perhaps recreation shouldn't be used for this purpose. Perhaps misusing it for ego support contributes to unhappiness with most of these titles, expecting a game to provide therapy.
Expectation unreasonable.
If there were deeper MMORPGs you'd be able to provide evidence of it.
Also how in the world are you claiming the choices involved don't affect the outcome? It's a plain fact that the degree to which one performs a perfect rotation -- which is skill -- determines how much of your class' maximum potential you end up achieving during a fight. These decisions matter.
When you fail to take the perfect path of choices (and every game has that perfect path), you simply perform worse.
Killing all the quest mobs in 2 minutes is objectively superior to a slower player taking 5 minutes to finish the quest. To ignore the clear difference in performance between the two is ignorance. Clearly mobs in 2 mins is objectively a different outcome from killing them in 5. The choices mattered and the magnitude of success was substantially different.
The decision set in Chess has a similar spectrum of outcomes; maybe this game you got 1 more powerful piece into the center of the board and it let you win the game more decisively (perhaps you would've even lost the game without that move). Both games represent a giant tree of decision-making with different outcomes related to how perfectly you make your decisions.
But again, to be clear: we're comparing WOW's depth with the depth of other MMORPGs. Unless you have evidence of a deeper more nuanced decision-making tree in another MMORPG, you really have no tangible argument. Your argument has focused on the intangible claim that the outcomes in questing (7% of the WOW experience) somehow don't follow a spectrum of success from slow to fast, relative to the decisions players make. Critically this means your argument hasn't been focused on actually disproving me with evidence of a MMORPG with superior depth -- and that's the only way to actually dispute my point.
Sadly it's a common argument technique on these forums:
- Joe: Balloon A is bigger than Balloons B, C, and D! Here's the data showing Balloon A's size!
- Bob: Balloon A isn't very big; your data shows it's 3 feet wide and everyone knows that's not very big -- and because we know that, obviously that means B, C, and D are bigger!
Arbitrary claims that Balloon A isn't very big simply don't dispute position Joe has taken.Whereas if one of the other Balloons was actually bigger and Bob posted evidence of a 4 foot wide Balloon, the discussion would immediately be over.
You don't beat a comparative claim by criticizing my data or fixating on 7% of the WOW experience (leveling) -- you beat it by providing data that shows another MMORPG offers superior depth.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The majority of play doesn't happen against trivial mobs. Again, for me those mobs have been maybe 14% of the experience (if we double that 7% of time my character spent leveling to account for the trivial daily quest mobs that I've spent time killing over the years). While I agree that the deepest portions of the rotation don't apply in these situations, you still have enough techniques (pulling strategies, like clumping mobs up to AOE them down with your AOE rotation) that some depth emerges (but yes, at this point those strategies are applicable to a lot of other MMORPGs too). Meanwhile maybe we shouldn't ignore the other 86%?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The more elaborate and nuanced the conditional logic, the deeper the game.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
If the games were more focused on timing you would need to constantly pay attention to the fight and react (or outsmart) your opponent, no matter if you PvE or PvP.
But it been like it is in almost all MMOs since Meridian 59 so it is a common problem and not just something Wow done wrong.
Totally agree. I'd like something with serious differentiation. As it stands, there is very little difference between someone who is "good" versus someone who is "mediocre". I mean it's always easy to see the "bad" ones, but someone who is mediocre can easily, in a dps class, get damage within 5-10% of someone who is really good. So, essentially, where the reward for being godly? I have, quite literally, fallen asleep during fights and still out DPSed people, as a tank.
I'd really like to see a better system for rewarding exceptional players. I mean there is LFR for a reason, right? I know! They could put in Quick Time Events!!!
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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Any game, once mastered, requires less effort to perform. That's the nature of learning: with practice things which previously needed our conscious attention (more effort) are eventually done without it (less effort). Depth is simply a measure of how difficulty it is to achieve that skill mastery.
Timing is a tricky word to throw around, since it calls to mind action combat. RPGs largely target a demographic uninterested in a significant twitch element. But yes, if you just mean timing by timing then chess and MMORPGs already involve that. (Is now the right turn (the right time) to move that knight into the center of the board? Is now the right time to use Hand of Guldan or to pop my cooldown(s)?)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
MMos are mostly based on genocide on nature, in the form to kill all the bad deers, bugs, spiders, bears, nature itself if is possible, a lot of them have turn even fairies, unicorns,..into evil creatures, which have to be destroyed!!!!
If you're capable of acknowledging that and addressing it then there might be progress.
But otherwise it falls to what loke said there and what I pointed out on the last page. Beyond this, you saying that depth is situational is at least progress, though you calling rotations conditional decision logic is just nonsense. That's is a pointlessly complex and rather inaccurate way of saying "these rotations sometimes don't work".
To which there is my previous statement about the stability of the gameplay. If rotations are that easily and commonly "broken" or exist in such a conditional status as to not be usable under the normal pretense, then it has already failed the first goal of you establishing that rotation, that being to offer optimal use in play.
In which case, why would you hold up a specific rotation as a symbol of a game's depth? Obviously by your own logic that rotation isn't going to work reliably and therefore the game's depth does not exist within that rotation.
And on the flip-side, if it did exist in that rotation it would imply that by following this finite and easily repeated set of keystrokes, you can master that class. How, then would that in turn be reflective of depth since it implicates that the cycle on mastering the game's mechanics is remarkably short/easily reproducible?
In which case, you can't really argue there's much depth from either angle based on the example you have given us.
If you wanted to talk about gameplay with actual conditional logic then you look for games where individual abilities are designed to act as both individually and as a variably compliment/counter to another suite of abilities. Now, while WoW does have some of that, there is also the usage to account for. Everyone from a class/spec having more or less the same grouping of skills tends to mean that their play style ends up very predictable. But games that allow for flexible progression across a wide swathe to create a small subset means that players have to tailor their skills with situational counters and abilities that, while still having that overarching pool in common, also has more personal strategic value and subsequently more varied conditions to act/react to.
To which we would again be able to look at games like STO and ESO, which give such conditions and note that they have greater depth in their skill implementation than a game like WoW.
So it's pretty apparent that the depth of WoW has some rather clear limitations. A rotation heavy game by it's own design is limited in that nature and the more heavily it's relied on the more things like flavors of the month becomes a thing when optimization is as simple as slotting the best known variety for your class onto the bar and calling it a day.
"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