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To much math nowaday's.
DragenSoul
Member Posts: 86
Nearly all the MMO's out have the whole mathematic system of figuring out how much DPS(Damage per Second) you do. How much damage you can mitigate?...How much exp you can get a hour,How long it will take you to level, How fast you can earn money. How long will it take for you to earn the money.
World of Warcraft took it to the Max(IMO).
I wish there was a game where looks and skill took place. I wanna see someone look bad ass. Not look at numbers and that says there bad ass.
A sword is a sword. Depending on how sharp it is.
There is no excuse for that nowaday's. People have the skill to program it in.
Just ranting
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Comments
I totally agree with you here, and the numbers ruin the imersion from the game while at the same time promoting item greed.
We explore a world but what we find requires no exploration...it's all there in black and white. UO used to have a skill...maybe Item ID...that allowed you to see what kind of item you had found and you could judge wether it was any good to you. It wasn't the perfect system but it was better than everyopne being a blacksmith/tailor/artificer/jewler etc etc.
Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the reviews of MMORPG.com or its management.
Neil Thompson
Staff Writer
MMORPG.com
Well, mathematics are there and there's nothing we can do about it, so the best thing we can do is try and not let it be a big deal.
If you ask me, there's nothing wrong with having to use your head a little every now and then, it helps prevent the mind from slipping and teaches us to think quickly and improves our strategical know-how.
Mathematics are used in our everyday life, and MMORPGs help us do basic equations in our head. However, if you simply don't like it just keep a calculator handy.
Former Hard Core member at only 25 posts.
In PvE it took it to max. but It felt like there were more skill involve in WoW PvP then DAoC assist trains. Also most armor in tiers in wow so math already done for ya.. but in daoc it all about numbers.
Is there any game worse then DAoC where you try to squeez out every point in a build?
Edit: Also, I'm looking forward to more skill base games aswell. I hate going out of my way for the best armor. I would like todo that for customization instead.
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"Any free people have the right to choose how it wants to be govern thats the essence of democracy. It's sad when America has chosen for the stability and consistency of a dictatorship and doing it democratically" -utnow
Try TCoS....
It got rid of all these things and replaced most stats with pure good old skill.
(((Not entirely true, there are stats, and these stats allow you to build specialised charactes, they are just not the usuall stats like STR and CHA, but over all its skill that will make the difference)))
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Every game I've played has been the same number crunching with different names. The only difference in WoW number crunching was that everyone wore exactly the same thing or you were teh suck.
WoW pvp being better than DAOC??? not even close.
Besides, all it took to derail the assist train was a well placed stun, root or mezz.
And I'd like to see player stats based more on the avatar and less on the gear also.
D.
Math is awesomeness. As long as you understand it. I believe math will always be in games, it's just than when you want to add more aspects to the game like critical strikes and dodge ratings you will be forced to add some kind of additional math. I think math comes pretty much hand in hand with more realistic games. More aspects of the game makes for more different things that need to be counted on and thus you get more math.
LOL.. MMO gamers.. go figure.
have any of you ever played Pen/Paper gaming? ya know, real multiplayer rpgs?
if "world of warcraft" took it to the max, Id hate to see you sit down for even a simple game on a d20 system.. much less its predecessor.
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a robot foot stomping on a human face -- forever."
QFT....
There is no math in these games UNLESS YOU BRING THEM IN. When your spending talent points or getting gear no one asks you "What is the square root of 144?" lol, but seriously I know a lot of people in WoW who choose their gear based on their looks. Hell there's a 3v3 arena team called the uhh "Tuxedo Brothers" I believe, who wear nothing but tuxes into the arenas and have like a 0-250 record lol. FPS has math, action has math, RPG has math.... all video games use math one way or the other.
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
I take it that what you propose is to completely obscure the numbers from the players. Not that an RPG should not have complex numerical systems backing them.
This is interesting because I use to play a MUD that did just that. It was skills based and originally gave you a rating from 1 to 100 or with bonuses over 100. They then switched that to word like "Average" or "Master".
A similar thing was originally done in City of Heroes and for a long time they were fairly adamant about it.
I will point out two things. I knew the numbers in my MUD and I would tell them to people, because frankly it was just less confusing. I liked seeing the numbers as arbitrary verbage means almost nothing in the end. However some players preferred the verbage usually for immersion type purposes. The Devs of the MUD tried to keep all the numbers secret but that was really just silly since half the players base was around when they were public.
Also as Raph Koster has pointed out a MMORPG Dev should essentially assume that some sub-section of the player base WILL ALWAYS reverse engineer your numbers and will do so fairly quickly.
Both the difference in liking to see numbers and the reverse engineering of the numbers has a case study in City of Heroes. It also has what may be a rather good compromise. City of Heroes obscured its numbers and in game it still does so. However for a couple of years the forums debated and reversed engineered most of these numbers and eventually demanded them so often that the Devs basically published them. It is now possible to find the CoX numbers on a few websites, however you need not be bothered by them in game.
The availability of information is actually very important. Those who wish to be fully informed should be allowed to do so. Doing what my old MUD simply made the reverse engineers kings of information and just penalized people who wished to know but had no desire to do tedious unit testing. But I can see where people are coming from when they say all the numbers that are shown are crass and disruptive to the experience.
Hiding the information is pointless since Devs will never be able to hide something that is obviously derivable. Obscuring in game is fine as long as its published and easily available. The information itself is actually quite useful since it makes discussion about game mechanics far more fruitful and in the end lets the player base give the devs better feedback. It also helps to prevent people from making "gimps".
If one makes the choice to never avail themselves of the information, then that is their perogative and there is really no reason that it must be in game. But trying to keep everything secret has always been both impossible and highly problematic.
QFT....
There is no math in these games UNLESS YOU BRING THEM IN. When your spending talent points or getting gear no one asks you "What is the square root of 144?" lol, but seriously I know a lot of people in WoW who choose their gear based on their looks. Hell there's a 3v3 arena team called the uhh "Tuxedo Brothers" I believe, who wear nothing but tuxes into the arenas and have like a 0-250 record lol. FPS has math, action has math, RPG has math.... all video games use math one way or the other.
Yup QFT...Agree.Statistical data is something everyone is interested in one time or another. It is always been there in every game.
I like math.
Since you already mentioned WoW: Some might think that's
, but I study math, and it was kinda fun for me. I could put numbers to any build for my Warlock, and see how they would change for different fights, group compositions and item sets. I could say which build would be the best in terms of dps for me.
Then I would choose to play the one I had the most fun with.
My point is: There is complex math at the core of every computer game. You can't change that. But you can decide how much of your gaming experience you want to base on these numbers. You can play WoW perfectly fine without ever using a formula other than "bigger number is better".
Am I the only one that thinks that the numbers in games are a good thing. I think that being able to work your numbers and balance them to make a great build is probably the biggest skill in playing mmos. Other than that it's spamming one of a half dozen skills. In fact I think there should be more numbers, for example games that don't factor in wear and tear on gear. If you're talking about numbers being unrealistic, what's a sword that never ever breaks or gets dull. Pre nge swg had a great system I thought of making you be aware of your gear and stats. In the end I think crunching numbers is part of the strategy of most games, so if you don't like it...I don't know go play Mario Bros. or something.
yeah numbers have become a bit obsessive. Suppose mmorpgs have always been like that though and it is a little reliant on that as when you have an aim of a game revolvant around 15 items and having to keep every player incented every hour they play then maybe that was one of the few ways- ooh I can get a cap with 6% more ice dmg! 2% more than I already have..
This is a good topic and I'm glad someone made a post about it. I come down on the side of those who DON'T like the math. Someone mentioned how it ruins immersion, I totally agree. Immersion is everything (refer to the recent thread titled "Immersion is the answer..."). Without being immersed into another world, what's the point of even playing an MMORPG?
Think of it this way...if you're going up against a tough mob, are you more into a game if you think to yourself or even say out loud, "I'm going to take you down with my sword of Doom" (or whatever it is you happen to be wielding) or if you think, "If I can do 67 pts of damge per second while at the same time mitigate 35% of his damage, I should be able to survive the fight and take him down in about 30 seconds."
That's computer nerd talk. Unfortunately, when we play an MMO, while we look at a screen and see pixels, the computer is crunching numbers. Therefore, it's possible to reduce the game to numbers. Someone said in an earlier post, just don't play that way. And I don't. Put the problem is that I like to group. And when I get into a group with a numbers cruncher (or more than one), it takes me out of the game and into the real world.
Oh well, it's not a major problem, there are far greater problems in MMOs as far as I'm concerned, such as gold selling, but since someone brought it up, I just thought I'd stick my two cents in.
Even FPS type games have lots of math going on behind the scenes. It just does not change much from new equipment. Basically you have lots of complex physics going on behind the scene which allows for you to swing your weapon or dodge a weapon realistically. In RPGs is more a roll of the dice and less physics, but they both use numbers.
I agree with dropping the stat based character systems... sure absolutely.
On the condition that we all agree to stop calling them MMORPGs. The stat based combat and character development is the only thing that warrants calling them that, because there sure aren't very many people actually role-playing in them.
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Life sucks, buy a helmet.
I'm confused by people who says math make things unrealistic, although apparently there are quite a bit of people who feels that way...
In real life, math is everywhere. How much weights can I lift, how fast, how far can this gun shoot, etc, etc... There's a reason people prefer a sword over a piece of paper as a weapon, because it does more damage...
IMO, math makes thing much easier to deal with... If it's not there I'd have to tediously test and figure it out, which I'd rather not do...
"In nearly all MMORPG's the development of the player's character is a primary goal." -wikipedia
You don't develop your skills, you develop your character's skills therefore you deal with the math.
If you ask me, all level systems as we know it should be dropped. Get rid of numerical level and skill values, because all it does is take the RP out of MMORPG. I also feel that HP, MP, and the like are overused.
If a person is stabbed by a sword, a large person or a small person will have a very similar reaction: it is potentially lethal to anyone regardless of how seasoned they are.
Even if a player has been around long enough to, say in a normal MMO, get to the maximum level, they should still be just as vulnerable HP-wise as a newbie. What this means is that as characters, for example swordsmen, become more skilled in combat they are able to fight more effectively without taking a lethal blow. One should survive longer not by being able to get stabbed and slashed dozens/hundreds of time, but rather because they have the skill to parry or dodge attacks of one or more less-skilled opponent. What this means is that if a bunch of new character show up and they attack a vet as a group, it's very likely that they could kill him/her simply because the numbers are in their favor, so one of them is bound to strike the vet with enough force to kill him/her.
I feel that veteran characters are given too much power. It's gotten to the point where some players, who lack super-powers, have received super-human strength and endurance.
The fun should come from what you do and how you interact with other players as well as the environment, not from leveling up your character and becoming "uber".
I have a lot more to say about this, but I won't continue this rant unless requested.
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I love number crunching! I agree that I wish more cool items had awesome graphics, but if it's a choice between ATK and a glowing aura, I'd take the attack.
Laura "Taera" Genender
Community Manager
MMORPG.com
GLOWING AURA GLOWING AURA GLOWING AURA!!!
Qaze - Atheist, Nihilist, Sadist.
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A player's ability to defeat his or her opponent should be based on their character's level of skill, not how l33t their sword is.
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GLOWING AURA GLOWING AURA GLOWING AURA!!!
Qaze - Atheist, Nihilist, Sadist.
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Do it my way and you can have your glowing aura without some annoying 15 year old power-gamer walking all over you.
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Less spam and more relevance now. I also hate the level system. You could have absolutely no skill but a high level and you'd own everyone you fought. MMORPGs should have a more realistic system based on skills and attack combos IMO.
Qaze - Atheist, Nihilist, Sadist.
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