This is what happened with eso. From the very beginning the philosophy was supposed to be "resources determine everything" which was the justification for the lack of cooldowns and very short global timer (~1sec).
They abandoned that pretty quick, which was a mistake, and now in the game your basically a potato unless you learn to get the most out of the multiple "free" damage sources that include light attacks, procs, conditions and enchants (has a cost but is negligible).
so the combat system in eso is directly opposed to its core founding philosophy and they have been suffering it ever since.
You end up with a player base that is full of either super heroes or super zeros and nothing in between. This has lead to a massive disconnect content wise between casual and hardcore players as the game is either too easy or too difficult with little to no middle ground.
tanks are either invincible or they are one shot. dps is either really good or more often really bad healer not really required that often because people often only die to one shots and missed mechanics. in pvp you can be "one shot" which is actually a "4 shot" counting all the different things that can hit you before you can react, and with poor performance you can often double that giving a massive advantage to low ping players.
its a mess and its a mess because they didnt stick to their own philosophy.
I think a developer has to have a clear vision for the project.
If they are careful and listen to community members who've bought into that vision then it can be a profitable partnership. That is, community generated ideas have to mesh with the vision, not rewrite it.
What happens too often is community members impose their vision of a game onto the developer vision - and if the developer isn't clear on what they're trying to accomplish they end up in a huge mess. See: New World
You can think of many examples:
Developers with a PvP vision spend way too much time making the game PvE friendly.
Developers that want to create distinct classes that necessitate group play end up making the game solo friendly - which results in OP classes blasting through content.
I could go on...
Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the developer to let a community know that ideas inconsistent with the vision will not be entertained, despite protestations from some community members that not incorporating their ideas is a violation of their civil rights.
GW2 originally tried this approach, for a few things.
I will use Mounts for an example. They explained that the way points made it so that mounts did not need to exist, and even made a point to note that mounts in any form, did not exist in their game.
PoF added Mounts to the game.
They probably realize how much momey they can make by selling mount. Or wings/gliders etc.
I think a developer has to have a clear vision for the project.
If they are careful and listen to community members who've bought into that vision then it can be a profitable partnership. That is, community generated ideas have to mesh with the vision, not rewrite it.
What happens too often is community members impose their vision of a game onto the developer vision - and if the developer isn't clear on what they're trying to accomplish they end up in a huge mess. See: New World
You can think of many examples:
Developers with a PvP vision spend way too much time making the game PvE friendly.
Developers that want to create distinct classes that necessitate group play end up making the game solo friendly - which results in OP classes blasting through content.
I could go on...
Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the developer to let a community know that ideas inconsistent with the vision will not be entertained, despite protestations from some community members that not incorporating their ideas is a violation of their civil rights.
GW2 originally tried this approach, for a few things.
I will use Mounts for an example. They explained that the way points made it so that mounts did not need to exist, and even made a point to note that mounts in any form, did not exist in their game.
PoF added Mounts to the game.
They probably realize how much momey they can make by selling mount. Or wings/gliders etc.
They already had Gliders, thanks to HoT.
The real problem was, they made a huge mistake with HoT when they caved to the demands of the vocal minority that kept crying for Raids, Roles, and Challenge. They put all that in HoT and it almost ended their entire company (After all, GW2 is their ONLY game), but the screw up that is HoT resulted in half their staff being fired laid off, and all their side projects turning to vaporware, including some as yet unknown huge project that they had over 100 people working on (All of which got let go and the project canceled thanks to how much fiscal damage HoT did to the company) so, no doubt in an effort to save themselves, they dumped a huge amount of what they felt would be fan service in PoF, mounts, story, dragons, more mounts, mount races, and casual shit as far as the eye could see!
They dumbed down the difficulty of HoT, and put Legendary Armor into WvW and sPvP, when it was originally Raid only, they finished the legendary weapon journeys, and made them able to be done in PoF as opposed to HoT only.
Start to focus on Story and Living World, and even brought back the Festival of the Four Winds.. all in a desperate move to not sick from the screw up that HoT was, because they listened to the vocal minority on what to do with their game.
But.. still.. Mounts. Said they don't belong.. Oh look.. mounts!
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
This is what happened with eso. From the very beginning the philosophy was supposed to be "resources determine everything" which was the justification for the lack of cooldowns and very short global timer (~1sec).
They abandoned that pretty quick, which was a mistake, and now in the game your basically a potato unless you learn to get the most out of the multiple "free" damage sources that include light attacks, procs, conditions and enchants (has a cost but is negligible).
so the combat system in eso is directly opposed to its core founding philosophy and they have been suffering it ever since.
You end up with a player base that is full of either super heroes or super zeros and nothing in between. This has lead to a massive disconnect content wise between casual and hardcore players as the game is either too easy or too difficult with little to no middle ground.
tanks are either invincible or they are one shot. dps is either really good or more often really bad healer not really required that often because people often only die to one shots and missed mechanics. in pvp you can be "one shot" which is actually a "4 shot" counting all the different things that can hit you before you can react, and with poor performance you can often double that giving a massive advantage to low ping players.
its a mess and its a mess because they didnt stick to their own philosophy.
ESO is still resource dependent. Sustain simply happens to be in abundant supply at the moment. It hasn't always been so and may not remain so.
A game is being made and is everything you wanted in a game. The devs say they are open to community feedback and making changes based on community feedback. Do you trust the rest of the community to get it right?
On the other hand, a game you are not that interested in because they are doing your favorite genre wrong (in your opinion) opens the game to community feedback and promises to make changes based on that feedback. Do you think the game will be less or more interesting to you after the community feedback changes are in?
In my experience the loudest community members that tend to get their way usually have the absolute worst taste and in both cases I think the game would end up worse. But, even when they have community surveys or polls I am usually not in the majority in any given subject.
listen......
They can pretend to or listen for a bit but then the mentality this is my game kicks in and they shut out most of what they don't think will work
Nahh.. for me it's pretty simple.
I play a game I like. I like the game that way, which is why I am actively playing it.
Then comes in some other people, and they only kind-of like the game, but want the game to be more like other game, they liked, but stopped playing for reasons.
Let's get something clear, I am not playing other game as well, for reasons, I am playing the game I am playing because it is not other game. If I wanted to play other game, I'd just play other game, and not be playing this game. So, if you left other game for reasons, coming to this game just to turn it into other game, I would rather you not come to this game to start with, and just stay with other game.
I picture this very similarly to the full bed where one new person gets in and one on the opposite side falls out, as players seek "something different" from the old game
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
A game is being made and is everything you wanted in a game. The devs say they are open to community feedback and making changes based on community feedback. Do you trust the rest of the community to get it right?
On the other hand, a game you are not that interested in because they are doing your favorite genre wrong (in your opinion) opens the game to community feedback and promises to make changes based on that feedback. Do you think the game will be less or more interesting to you after the community feedback changes are in?
In my experience the loudest community members that tend to get their way usually have the absolute worst taste and in both cases I think the game would end up worse. But, even when they have community surveys or polls I am usually not in the majority in any given subject.
listen......
They can pretend to or listen for a bit but then the mentality this is my game kicks in and they shut out most of what they don't think will work
Nahh.. for me it's pretty simple.
I play a game I like. I like the game that way, which is why I am actively playing it.
Then comes in some other people, and they only kind-of like the game, but want the game to be more like other game, they liked, but stopped playing for reasons.
Let's get something clear, I am not playing other game as well, for reasons, I am playing the game I am playing because it is not other game. If I wanted to play other game, I'd just play other game, and not be playing this game. So, if you left other game for reasons, coming to this game just to turn it into other game, I would rather you not come to this game to start with, and just stay with other game.
I picture this very similarly to the full bed where one new person gets in and one on the opposite side falls out, as players seek "something different" from the old game
This is largely what happened to Shroud of the Avatar. Many of the features that made it stand out from other games and made it feel more like those of the past were toned down or removed in an effort to broaden the game's appeal.
However, it was those differences that attracted many of those that crowd funded the game to begin with and helped in tolerating the weakness of the game. It provided a different experience than the norm. The more mainstream in nature it became the less it contrasted with other games on the market and the more the flaws became a bother.
Why continue with a game that was now much closer to the the rest yet still suffered more issues while having less pleasing aesthetics and a small player base.
I think they would have ultimately done better in the long run if they held firm to their original intent so they would have remained a clear alternative. Appealing to the masses with a game that isn't massively appealing was a poor strategy to adopt.
Comments
They abandoned that pretty quick, which was a mistake, and now in the game your basically a potato unless you learn to get the most out of the multiple "free" damage sources that include light attacks, procs, conditions and enchants (has a cost but is negligible).
so the combat system in eso is directly opposed to its core founding philosophy and they have been suffering it ever since.
You end up with a player base that is full of either super heroes or super zeros and nothing in between. This has lead to a massive disconnect content wise between casual and hardcore players as the game is either too easy or too difficult with little to no middle ground.
tanks are either invincible or they are one shot.
dps is either really good or more often really bad
healer not really required that often because people often only die to one shots and missed mechanics.
in pvp you can be "one shot" which is actually a "4 shot" counting all the different things that can hit you before you can react, and with poor performance you can often double that giving a massive advantage to low ping players.
its a mess and its a mess because they didnt stick to their own philosophy.
The real problem was, they made a huge mistake with HoT when they caved to the demands of the vocal minority that kept crying for Raids, Roles, and Challenge. They put all that in HoT and it almost ended their entire company (After all, GW2 is their ONLY game), but the screw up that is HoT resulted in half their staff being fired laid off, and all their side projects turning to vaporware, including some as yet unknown huge project that they had over 100 people working on (All of which got let go and the project canceled thanks to how much fiscal damage HoT did to the company) so, no doubt in an effort to save themselves, they dumped a huge amount of what they felt would be fan service in PoF, mounts, story, dragons, more mounts, mount races, and casual shit as far as the eye could see!
They dumbed down the difficulty of HoT, and put Legendary Armor into WvW and sPvP, when it was originally Raid only, they finished the legendary weapon journeys, and made them able to be done in PoF as opposed to HoT only.
Start to focus on Story and Living World, and even brought back the Festival of the Four Winds.. all in a desperate move to not sick from the screw up that HoT was, because they listened to the vocal minority on what to do with their game.
But.. still.. Mounts. Said they don't belong.. Oh look.. mounts!
ESO is still resource dependent. Sustain simply happens to be in abundant supply at the moment. It hasn't always been so and may not remain so.
I picture this very similarly to the full bed where one new person gets in and one on the opposite side falls out, as players seek "something different" from the old game
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
This is largely what happened to Shroud of the Avatar. Many of the features that made it stand out from other games and made it feel more like those of the past were toned down or removed in an effort to broaden the game's appeal.
However, it was those differences that attracted many of those that crowd funded the game to begin with and helped in tolerating the weakness of the game. It provided a different experience than the norm. The more mainstream in nature it became the less it contrasted with other games on the market and the more the flaws became a bother.
Why continue with a game that was now much closer to the the rest yet still suffered more issues while having less pleasing aesthetics and a small player base.
I think they would have ultimately done better in the long run if they held firm to their original intent so they would have remained a clear alternative. Appealing to the masses with a game that isn't massively appealing was a poor strategy to adopt.