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What has happened to today's gamers mentality?
molitar
Member Posts: 17
posted this on another forum about combat system based on class/level vs skill based combat.
Problem with Combat is they have all gone to cookie cutter class/level where everyone is the same. What happened to uniqueness of character with skill based systems? Where your character could be truely unique and feel like it's your own.
Today's MMO games solution is just to give you more and more combat abilities but having 20 plus type of buttons to push for combat doesn't make it funner that is for sure. Just gives you more selection of button pushing. Just pushing buttons in specific orders is not active at all.
AC1 had it right with being able change type of attack and speed (which affected damage total) while in combat. Hmm.. hitting low is not doing very well let's try a high slash. It was alot more interactive. It gave control on how you wanted to swing and attack. The MMO need to get out of the rote pattern of simple button presses and calling it combat.
Combat since it is one of the biggest portions of any MMO game needs to be active:
1. Mix a bit of DoAC where you did some attacks from sides or rear for more damage.
2. Add defensive, neutral, or offensive stance for attacks with proper bonuses.
3. Add the low, mid, and high attack types (certain attacks work better on different creatures)
4. Add reason to have more than one weapon skill. Blunt weapons better on some creatures or sharp on others.
5. Make it harder to hit a moving mob so if they or us are physically moving that it gives attack minuses. This gives us a reason to move in battle and not just stand still attacking.
6. Give us a toggle to lock on target button. We are fighting we can lock on target than keep using the same cursor keys to strafe to left and right of the mob we are fighting. We already got so many keys to press that it's hard to use seperate strafe keys too. Only so many fingers per hand to use. Goes well with suggestion number 5.
Now that would make combat fun and more interactive. And would blow away any current combat system in any MMO right now as well as break out of the poorly handled combat systems that are in them now.
On a side note I got responses like from this posting:
Skill based systems confuse the vast majority of your run-of-the-mill game players. That's why you don't see them being done. I like them... But I also understand why they're not viable.
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Ok now I have to ask what is wrong with players? Racing games are going to as much customization as possible to the point that if you don't know car parts you don't know what is good or not.. But does that stop them from wanting this? NO.
Combat games have very complicated and tricky and hard to trigger special combat moves.. Does that stop them from wanting that? NO.
So why would players that have a single bit of intelligence in there head wish to have a dumbed down MMO game where everyone is the exact same cut from the exact same mold? Has the mental capacity of gamers dropped to such a point they no longer wish to be able to create totally unique characters? Is gimping such a fear that they would rather throw any immersion into games that they would rather just push buttons and not think?
What has HAPPENED to todays gamers?
Comments
Also, if you're going to take shots at peoples intelligence don't use funner as a word.
everyone likes different types of games/MMOs and you gota respect that, if you want a more fast paced mmo go play DaDO or wait for huxley.
playing eq2 and two worlds
Like Neocron and planetside.
I really don't know what a perfect skilled based mmo would actually be... except for mabie flight combat type games without the dice rolling and leveling but that is not what everyone wants anyways.
Everything is a cookie cutter these days.
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Give me lights give me action. With a touch of a button!
Well AC1 was a successful example of a skill based system that was not a cookie cutter. For example when I was a level 42 swordman (levels didn't mean much since it was skill based) I was hunting areas that level 50+ swordsman couldn't handle.. Reason being I focused my skills different.. I raised up creature magic so that I could buff myself and my weapon.. and the majority of my skills was into my sword, melee defense, and first aid. I could handle quite a few mobs at a time because my first aid and melee defense was quite high. I loved saving people that was 10 levels above me.. or suprising people because they would be like man your too low for this area.. but would quickly change their mind after seeing me combat for a while.
Eventually I dropped one of my skill focuses to pick up a different skill like making keys.. didn't need it at lower levels but later on I really needed it so ran a quest that would let me drop a skill and get some of my exp back for that skill to put into another. It was a very well done skill based system.. Classes meant nothing really since it all really was skill based system.
Secondly because of it being a skill based system people created a variety of various templates they like depending on if their focus was PvE or PvP. Everyone was different.. some went for more speed.. some went for more jumping.. Nobody was the same and even at level 100+ most players didn't cap out all their skills.
It is the bigger is better/more is better mentality it affect far more than just gaming but it has become especially bad in gaming.
In fact you see this mentality in martial arts and wrestling. A lot of novices believe its all about how many moves you know and then they are rudely awakened when they get their ass beat over and over by someone who has 3 good moves.
But to continue the martial arts analogy, 3 moves is real good, you can go real far with excellent basics and mastery of 3 moves. But you also do need a good breadth of experience and you need to drill combos of moves. And you really should be at least competent in some other moves too. But past a certain point more does very little at all.
There is a balance to this as with most things, but it really is a common trend for human to think more is better. Game companies are just capitalizing a common bit of foolishness. It is common for people to not only believe this but actively pursue things that validate it, even though it is actually wrong.
You shouldn't be surprised that many or even most game companies pursue this strategy, but you should have a lot of respect for those who don't.
The skill versus class thing though is another thing all together. They both have good points and bad points. I prefer free skill based or at the very least a nice feat/class system like 3rd ed D&D. But they both have ups and downs.
MMO migrant.
Almost all MMORPGs are targetted at existing MMORPG players, who appear to prefer low-thought, repetitive tasks repeated for hours on end, hence the popularity of games that involve long grinds of some sort. If combat takes significant thought or twitch (the two different things 'skill' gets used to mean), then it's not as easy to just repeat for large stretches of time, and also is harder to make remain challenging for long stretches of time. For whatever reason, no MMO companies seem to be targetting gamers who currently don't play an MMO (or the crowd who have only played WOW), so that's why combat is styled like it is.
Just look at the kind of comments that often pass without notice on this board; people judge the 'challenge' of the game by how long it takes to reach a given goal, consider a game with no grind to be a game with no content, and accuse people of wanting 'instant gratification' for not wanting to spend whole gaming sessions on boring stuff.
Pantastic wrote:
Just look at the kind of comments that often pass without notice on this board; people judge the 'challenge' of the game by how long it takes to reach a given goal, consider a game with no grind to be a game with no content, and accuse people of wanting 'instant gratification' for not wanting to spend whole gaming sessions on boring stuff.
I 100% agree. I would rather have 5 minutes of engaging gameplay than endless hours of clicking identical monsters and repeatedly pushing the same button.
The fast leveling, un-challenging and penalty free MMORPG's that have been developed over the last few years have attracted a whole different breed of gamer into the MMORPG comunity.
They see questing and crafting as pointless distractions ( side games as it were ) and believe that the only point of the game is to hit max level ASAP with all your character slots.
They feel no empathy with thier characters and simply train/spec them according to the most popular build for that character type.
In short they play for the MMO aspect and have no interest in ( in fact they often ridicule ) the RPG elements of the game genre.
I hope and pray that once the market is flooded and the accountants have less say in game development, then we will see some games where I can once again create supposedly "Gimped" characters simply because I want to and not have some clone /telling me that I am wearing the wrong gloves for my class/lvl
It basically boils down to WoW opening up the mmorpg genre to everyone, including the mental-midgets of the world. These same mental-midgets now think they are qualified to play other mmorpgs. Devs see the money that came in from these mental-midgets and want to cash in. How? By making games that the crowd of 60 and below IQ can play. Just my opinion.
In what way exactly are devs trying to cash in on people who don't play MMORPGs or didn't until WOW? From what I see, pretty much all devs are targetting existing MMO gamers with grinds, raids, and big advantages from playing longer. I always find the various comments about low IQ funny coming from MMO gamers, since it's usually applied to people who get bored with repetitive gameplay - which is a sign of high intelligence, not low. I don't think a person with a sub-60 IQ could even play an MMORPG.
Since I mentioned it earlier, what exactly is the 'challenge' in games like EQ or Lineage2? As far as I can see, the only real challenge is finding the time to repeat the exact same fights over and over again, there's not any real chance you won't succeed if you have tons of spare time. Same thing with penalties, from what I've seen all that harsh death penalties do is discourage people from seeking challenges in the game or trying any kind of different gameplay.
In what way exactly are devs trying to cash in on people who don't play MMORPGs or didn't until WOW? From what I see, pretty much all devs are targetting existing MMO gamers with grinds, raids, and big advantages from playing longer. I always find the various comments about low IQ funny coming from MMO gamers, since it's usually applied to people who get bored with repetitive gameplay - which is a sign of high intelligence, not low. I don't think a person with a sub-60 IQ could even play an MMORPG.
Since I mentioned it earlier, what exactly is the 'challenge' in games like EQ or Lineage2? As far as I can see, the only real challenge is finding the time to repeat the exact same fights over and over again, there's not any real chance you won't succeed if you have tons of spare time. Same thing with penalties, from what I've seen all that harsh death penalties do is discourage people from seeking challenges in the game or trying any kind of different gameplay.
It is rather funny how so many MMO players think they are somehow smart and yet they tend to find cookie cutter builds and grind repetitive tasks over and over. Two things that are considered essentially non-intelligent actions.
but in DAoC ToA for instance I spent weeks and weeks developing strategies for soloing the artifacts.
Just trying to find safe paths through certain zones to a good hunting spot was a buzz.
In EQ2 and WoW I can allmost allways just run in a straight line to where I'm going knowing that sprint or a potion will get me through. If i don't make it then so what ? - no penalty so who cares.
Same goes for fighting.
I can't think of one specific mob/encounter in either EQ2 or WoW that has required me to set up a Quick Bar or work out specific tactics
Anyway, the degree of challenge in any game is partly down to the player surely ?
If you play in a full group, camping mobs 2 or 3 levels lower than yourselves, then your going to face far less of a challenge than if you solo mobs 2 or 3 levels higher than you.
What myself and lot of us here feel is that MMORPG's today are aimed at the former rather than the later
Cheers
http://www.greycouncil.org/
Well AC1 was a successful example of a skill based system that was not a cookie cutter. For example when I was a level 42 swordman (levels didn't mean much since it was skill based)
Well thats not true... I played Ac1 for years, and everyone was constantly trying to find the best template. people rerolling all the time to make a more uber char. So in a sense it was cookie cutter...
However, that was the fun of it! A lot of players became "famous" for their build designs, and had builds named after them as a thousand people rolled one up lol (until someone broke the mold and made something better).
In WOW, your only options are to put 3 points or 4 points in a certain skill :P
Oddly, tho SB was poo for other reasons, I loved ths kill system. It doesn't make a game but it makes it a lot of fun.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
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No. Skill based system sometimes promote cookie cutter because of design. They do not necessarily do so.
What is the optimal skill set in Eve?
For some skill systems your notion of optimal skill set doesn't even really make much sense. And sometimes it is a matter of items and not the actual skills themselves.
You can have a class/feat based system that can also give a lot of
choices. AD&D 3rd edition has this. But you could easily have a class based system that had none
whatsoever, such as AD&D 1st edition fighters.
Its not about class or skills. Its about how these things relate to the gameplay. If axes just do more damage then maxing sword is gimp, but being a swordmaster class is also gimp under this condition. Hybrid classes have had just as much historic problems as skill systems that encouraged hybridazation.
Easy. When the numbers for a successful mmo went from 200k-500k to 6 million due to WoW, devs everywhere wanted a piece of that action. So they try to do what made WoW successful in their eyes: easy gameplay, no thought involved, linear gameplay, everybody has to have the same armor/weapons/build to be considered good. And my opinion still stands considering that WoW DID open mmorpgs up to a wide audience of people that had never/would never had played an mmo until WoW came out and made all the kiddies think all mmos were singleplayer games with other people to cuss at/ degrade thrown in as part of the package.
I don't think that gameplay is the only reason someone plays a specific MMO. You have to cosider the social aspect of the game too. For example, AC may have excellent gameplay, yet it has very few people left who play it. The outdated graphics isn't the only reason people aren't starting this game, there are very few people who play anymore. To run many of the quests, you need to group and it is almost impossible to find enough people to group with, especially at the low levels. IMO the size and quality of the guild is at least as important as the gameplay. The guild and its social aspect becomes as important if not not moreso to many players, especially in the older members. Believe it or not, there are many MMOer's who are 40+ years of age and use the chat feature, guild message boards, and Vent/TS as a substitute for lonliness in RL.
To sum up the reason why people play MMO's varies to the individual and is far more complex than the complexity of gameplay.
People who like different things from you are not stupid. Just because you dislike something doesn't mean your opinion is the truth.
Also don't bloody kid yourself, Eve has plenty of "this is the BEST build for that Job".
There are loads of builds on the boards, there are skills that are a most have (Enginering for one).
The reason is doesn't look like it, is because it has so many skills, but most are useless for a specific Job.
All games end up with people finding the BEST way/s and then telling the world and people copy it.
Go to CoX so many power primary/secondary choices, yet alot of people pick whats best for their "Class"/flavour of the Month.
8 sub-powers sets, yet 90% have Swift/Hurdle, Health, Stamina.
3/4 choices of 40+ plus power sets for each Class, yet people generally choose what they have heard whats best for their build so far.
People have a pack mentiality, if their told/shown a certain way is best, they will most likely go that way.
Add to that, most developers couldn't balance a simple seesaw.
Changing the names of the options doesn't change the core combat mechanic.
WoW has the stances. I don't see where having 3 buttons called low/mid/high attacks is any different from having 3 buttons called SuperSlash1/SuperSlash2/SuperSlash3, in terms of actual function in the game engine. Perhaps the theme is more appealing to you, but that's NOT different combat. Not really.
DAoC had that, probably some others. Many games have different resistances as well, especially for magical damage (which is the same as having different physical resistances to damage types).Um... isn't this contradictory, here and and in relation to your other points? Do you want combat to be more challenging or less challenging? A good /stick function makes fighting easier, not more interactive, which is what I thought you wanted.
That doesn't really sound very different, or more interactive, to me.
3E class/feats isn't much different from WoW class/talents, other than general feats being more available to anyone. The end result is the same, however: core classes that are then tweaked to emphasize certain capabilities or playstyles. A lot of people seem to knock WoW around here, but I think their talent system creates subtle (or not so subtle) but significant differences in how the builds play. I am a very non-cookie-cutter player and I have "weird" builds on almost all my characters and am perfectly happy with how they perform - they don't "feel" gimped, and anyone else's opinion on how I play and enjoy the game I pay for is meaningless to me.
I think that's the problem right there. It's very difficult to simulate a very fluid, real-time event like combat in what is essentially a number-crunching, statistical, and "impulse-based" game system. There's player skill and character skill. At one end are games where player skill dominates - the fighting and FPS game genres. At the other end are games with character skills - the traditional RPG and most MMOG. You can certainly "slide" back and forth between the two, but the more you go one way, the less you have of the other. If you're saying no game out there meets where you'd like, I can understand that -- but to say you want player-skill to dominate in a non-FPS/Fighting game just seems unrealistic, IMHO.
Would you really? You'd shell out $15 a month to login and play for 10 minutes each night -- really exciting, balls to the wall action and adventure -- and then logoff for the day? Done with that game, that's all it offers, is 10 minutes of play per day.
I'm not saying I want "endless hours of clicking" instead, but I sure don't want to get only 300 minutes of gameplay a month out of my MMOG subscription, either... This gets us into another topic entirely, though, which is what defines "content" and the inescapable fact that driven players can and will consume content faster than it can be produced....
That's grossly oversimplifying the situation, if not outright wrong...
I agree 100% with that. That's why I prefer calling all these games MMOGs rather than MMORPGs. Now, I do enjoy them a lot - I got a lot of mileage out of WoW, for example - but the sad truth is the majority of players want to just play and have fun, and that RPing is not fun for them. I don't blame them for that, even while I wait for a game to enforce good RP servers or put out a game where RP is an inherent part of the gameplay, somehow.
Exactly! I play games the way I want to, and if part of that is setting a challenge before myself, then that's what I do. I've had a LOT of fun in WoW seeing how far I could push my different characters. I could solo Mob X at level Y with my rogue, can I beat that with my druid or mage? etc. The ultimate truth is that the game designers can only force you to play a certain way to a point - after that, they have no control how you play, be that trivializing encounters or taking big challenges. I think a lot more hardcore players (I sort of feel like people on these forums are hardcore, since a casual player wouldn't be reading up on, studying, testing and discussing these games online) would enjoy themselves more if they just, you know, tried to have a little more fun, heh.
And cheers right back at ya