Harsh is far from better. I would rather the new norm of a small slap on the hands. Most players dont have the nerve to stick through a hard encounter and fail till you learn how to over come it. All harsh death penalties would do is make more teams break up sooner when the perfect team is not there or when leaning a new mechanic in a boss or dungeon. This old way of thinking is not needed any more.
Originally posted by Nanfoodle Harsh is far from better. I would rather the new norm of a small slap on the hands. Most players dont have the nerve to stick through a hard encounter and fail till you learn how to over come it. All harsh death penalties would do is make more teams break up sooner when the perfect team is not there or when leaning a new mechanic in a boss or dungeon. This old way of thinking is not needed any more.
I think what's missing is balance. It isn't so much about death penalties but the overall "quality of life" changes that have been made in the genre over the years. I am not against them. In fact many of the old ways are just that. Old ways. Doing something for the sake of repetition to draw out the time it takes to get it done is tiring. But there was also something to be said for working towards...and earning something too. But I think the pendulum has swung a little too far on the back swing. Some of these changes have just made things to easy and have diminished their value to some degree or another.
And yes, I'll agree adding tedium is not a good way to do it, but adding a challenge might be. Not sure how to add a challenge to something like a death penalty, but again, I'm talking about the bigger picture.
This is the problem with people like you. You don't want to be competitive and that's fine but many if not most people do. People want to compete in multiplayer games, they are built around competition. So very simple, how is a person harmed if a crap player copies their build? They are harmed because they are made less competitive, less superior to their opponent not only that but they could become worse and lose. If I am better at building and spreadsheet modelling and you are better at twitch playing, 9 out of 10 times my superior building skills will enable me to beat you but if you steal my build even though you cant model gameplay mechanics, you steal my work and ability which you couldn't have made yourself. Then ofcourse there is the moral argument, lets say I don't like you for whatever reason, then I shouldn't have to help you by being forced to allow you to steal my build.
I'm not a fan of allowing others to see our specs/build/gear etc. Should be totally optional. But for me it is more of an immersion thing where I shouldn't be able to magically see your exact STR some how, unless you are lifting some virtual weights. I love competition, but I also like team work and helping others. I've helped and been helped by others in many ways over the years.
I'm not a win at all costs gamer. If I'm on a stacked team in a match (FPS, MOBA, mmorpg PVP) I'll usually switch sides if I think I can help. Actually to prove that I'm that good and can take a crappy team/build/class whatever and make something of it.
As a big PVPer, I totally get where you are coming from. From a PVE stand point, much less so. If I have the "best" of anything, I've already won. Someone else coming in 2nd, 3rd, 1000th, doesn't matter to me. Obviously we all handle this differently. While I agree people want to be competitive, thread after thread talks about how games are bad now a days because of the solo "me me me" focus. Many seem to want to have an experience that is about the team/community/social aspects and not just waving our epeens around. Looking at EQN, not sure how anyone is going to be "the best" beyond a personal definition.
You are lost on this because you didn't understand that paragraph at all. It was about what makes a game an adult game in my opinion and that is complex gameplay mechanics. For example, in diablo 3 the way the multipliers work, which are exclusive multipliers and which aren't, which abilities have hard caps and soft caps, how skills, gear, paragon points are put together to create what is called effective dps as opposed to weapon dps. To work these things out, you need to understand maths, gameplay mechanics, how to test the mechanics and to build spreadsheets. These are fundamentals of building that (1) a child cannot do and (2) an uneducated adult cannot do.
I think I get it, just seems like a poor choice of a word. Maybe "hardcore" or "skilled" or some other random buzzword would work better in my mind I guess. Not sure how old you are, but if anything, I've probably gotten lazier over the years and 19 years ago when I was a "kid", I spent more time with the math. And yes when it comes to D3, I do not spend time with excel spreadsheets. I'm not trying to to be "the best" and actually play for casual fun. The Meta sometimes takes away all the joy for me, others it is the game, just depends.
Again you fail to understand so I will explain for you using diablo. The mechanics in diablo 3 that I mentioned above make it adult but the game is ruined because someone like me can find out the gameplay mechanics and model them n a spreadsheet or someone with less but some knowledge can work out a basic approximation of exlusive, non exclusive multipliers and ntheir relationships to build a better character than someone like you. That would be worthwhile and allow us to defeat you in competition but Diablo just like wow in WOTLK is ruined by the fact that a fully invasive inspect feature lets a bad player like you who realises he is losing to look at our builds and copy them thereby taking away our advantage in skill over you without actually being able to do the work themselves. You would have no idea how to understand and simulate the gameplay mechanics to create a good build so instead you would just copy us without our permission like cheating in an exam.
I do get it, 10th times the charm I guess. Simply don't care as much as you. When I was younger, I spent way too much time on games, making the "best" builds, grinding for gear, perfecting skill chains, getting my UI done to nothing so I could see everything, yadda yadda. I now have a life beyond my keyboard and getting that .0005% isn't what it used to be. I have nothing against folks like you that have enough free time or choose to spend the little you might have on game math. I also understand you don't want to be copied, I'd suggest it to the devs to have it be optional if I was you.
You are wrong once again, almost all people who play multiplayer games want a competitive aspect and in rpgs a big factor in the competitive aspect is building because that's a fundamental of rpgs. What you are suggesting is that there is no competitive aspect or people don't want competition or want a clone shooter because you don't have the intellect to build so if you want a clone shooter, go play halo or gears of war. As for best, the guy who gets the highest pvp rating is the best, the guy who gets the highest raid dps is the best dps, your definition and fear of competition is irrelevant.
What happens if there is no system in place for you to know who is the "best"? No UI addons, data mining, scoreboards, etc? What if it is like early EQ or early gaming in general that was about the community and not being 100% self centered? We can speak for the community all we want, doesn't really have much fact behind it though. Did you ever play PnP RPGs (fundamentals), MUDs, UO/EQ and early games etc? How did you determine who was the best if so? Or are you an "adult" that started gaming after WoW? I get you want a cookie for being "the best", but I'm doubting the majority of gamers care if you are or not.
You don't know how to mix max, you don't know how to theory craft, everything you have written so far is about supporting your right to copy other peoples builds and how no one should be able to hide their work and about how you don't care about competition and think no one else does. You aren't fooling anyone. Btw no one enjoys maths, people enjoy using it to make something meaninfuly, you lack of ability to use it in building or to understand gameplay mechanics is your weakness, don't blame others for it and say that just because you aren't able, they shouldn't be allowed to use it either or their ability should be negated by you stealing their work by a fully invasive inspect feature.
While I do find it amazing that you can somehow see through all my lies and know the true me, I'll still disagree. Just because I don't find myself in the min/max group today, doesn't mean I haven't ever. I actually deleted some DAoC spreadsheets for spellcrafting gear back from from 2003 a couple weeks ago, along with a lot of crappy quality RvR videos I recorded of me "being the best" in the fun low lvl BGs. Maybe I missed where I said I want to or feel others have the right to steal all your hard work, but I don't believe so. It should be a personal option.
At the same time, I have no problem sharing nor getting help when needed, we simply are in different groups. Not that I want one or the other to exist or one is better. But feel free to keep telling me what I am, think, have done...sounds like you are just bitter because your precious build was copied in WoW and probably the main mmo you've played. Would love to know all the games you have been "the best" at though.
All I hear here is excuses. Anyone can raid, to be competitive you have to do something others cant and that's exactly what you are afraid of. Thank you for admitting that you cant optimise though but just because you are unable to doesn't mean you should have the right to try to prevent everyone else from doing so. You don't want to be competitive according to your words anyway so you should have no problem with losing to people who do have optimised builds.
If everyone can raid, why did only like ~5% of the millions of WoW players do so in Vanilla aka before they watered down the system so everyone was a winner? Getting 40 people together, gearing/building them, learning how to actually run the raid wasn't a piece of cake. Like I said, I could of given anyone my build, but if they didn't have multiple other components, they would of been out of luck.
Same goes for PVP. Full time raiders in top gear would get ran over in PVP, because it wasn't 100% about the gear/build, it was about knowing how to PVP against a actual brain, not crap AI. When it comes to PVP, I want and am going to win if possible. I don't see PVE and PVP to be the same thing.
If some random guild from China gets world first on a dragon, I'm not going to cry myself to sleep or go copy their build. My guild was pretty good, but we sure as hell struggled in WoW raids like most others in the early days. Same goes for EQ and older games. There was no youtube/wiki guides or whatever to just google it up. Again, sounds like you started gaming, at least competitively after all those convenience features were in place. No problem not wanting to share, some people are like that. There was a time and there are people that don't only want to compete or be "the best".
Personally, even in WoW with all the addons, if I was out DPSed in a raid, I didn't log off quickly and work on a spreadsheet so I'd get that extra 1% next time. I was just happy we finished the 5 hours of raiding and I could get some sleep lol.
On this part I don't want to have a huge go at you. Long story short, inspect should be optional and allowable at different levels if at all but not mandatory like in wow and diablo.
Totally agree. Not sure I ever disagreed. Then again I write walls of text so who knows lol. The fact that you need to have a "huge go" at me is pretty telling of how much "adult" you are working with... guess you did leave out maturity in your definition of what an "adult" game is.
Actually, in the long run, they are very meaningful because these barriers are what deter careless playing and give worth to the actions you do choose to make. Btw no one cares about being 1st, people care about being the best or one of the best. Btw ive seen games where barriers work very well but ill use a popular example, wow prior to wotlk had expensive respecs, people really had to put effort into their build then because if they went by trial and error, they would have to record their damage numbers over several monthes as it would take that much time to constantly farm enough to afford all the respecs which would mean they would have to sacrifice a lot of raiding and other things to do so. Hence, there were big consequences for those choices and the choices were meaningful. It works.
When did you start playing WoW? Maybe I was rich or something, but I never felt like respecs broke the bank. Even still, with the ease of gold in most games, it still isn't a huge wall to overcome. Obviously we all have different subjective experiences, but I've yet to play a game that makes death serious being features like Hardcore in D3 and permadeath in other games that aren't about respawning and gearing quickly (DayZ). Very few games really make death, actually resemble death.
You say that and you could be right but at the same time I have seen many different elements of customisation within this game so far and that means choice, as long as all of those customisations come with consequences which cant easily be fixed with a trial and error method effectively meaning there is no choice since you will just be able to trial and error the best way or copy it via a fully invasive inspect skill. there will be wrong choices as you put it or less effective choices as I would put it. Strictly speaking you making a crap build isn't a wrong choice, its just a less effective choice than the ones I make.
I agree for the most part. In any game there are FOTM builds/classes and the typical cookie cutter copying and what not. Regardless if you personally share something, usually 1 other out of the millions will figure it out and share it eventually and then everyone gets on the bandwagon. Not sure how crazy WoW's building ability got after I quit, but a least for the first few years, it wasn't that complicated or at least the degree of variations wasn't worth loosing sleep over.
We still need to see quite a bit more of the actual game design and how everything will work, but I'm not seeing WoW or D3 type focuses in EQN.
No rush to "the end", no "beating" the game, less focus on the individual due to less UI-Addons. One big thing they've said is that they could add in 1 single item that could change the entire meta. With such impact, I'd highly doubt people are going to be "punished" for not knowing that one item was coming and everything they did up until that point doesn't work with that new item. But yay for the 19 that built something that works perfectly for it. Just don't see it myself.
Sure someone could choose to ignore that new item and be less effective, but there is no way to know it was coming before hand with earlier choices resulting in being less effective after.
If it was just like EQ I'd be ok with it, but the important part is to make death meaningful.
I favor big XP loss if you don't get to the body, but not gear loss. I wouldn't make it days of loss, EQ, even at 50 was a few hours loss.
I thought the gear was where EQ crossed the line especially at max level. I'd be happy if it was the same as original but I can't see a game ever having gear loss. Maybe a FFA loot game where gear doesn't mean as much.
The only part of this huge debate I care about is that you agree than inspect shouldn't be mandatory.
As for death penalties, I still disagree with you, they should be a barrier to dying as in you want to avoid death cuz it costs you enough materially to be of detriment
As for competitive playing, like I said fi you don't want to be competitive and are ok with losing every game, thats up to you but people want consequences, death penalties and no fully invasive inspect (or an optional one where you decide what to show) to be competitive.
As for community, like I said before community exists in all competitive games. It being competitive doesn't stop communities existing.
Originally posted by Telondariel Nothing about EQ:N is going to be harsh. Nothing. Dave has made it quite clear it is going to be "accessible", with lots of Station Cash conveniences. Even the original EQ game has been tamed far beyond it's original roots to make it easier for new and old players. I am still in a "wait and see" frame of mind, but the more I see as I wait makes me feel more and more that Dave Georgeson has killed the original spirit that was EQ.
Deaths penalties are designed to make people care about dying, right? What if people already care about dying without harsh penalties? Theoretically people are playing the game to get through the content. If they can't get through the content because they are dying, why add the extra detriment? I'm in agree with those that say make the content challenging. If that is taken care of the will to get past it should be enough. Besides, in all my experience I learn more from mistakes than triumphs. Should XP be boosted when one dies?
On the inspect subject I can see the psychological aspects of someone inspecting you, probably feels like a violation. I just think they should take the notification that someone is inspecting away. What is the reasoning for why it's so bad? In most cases the gear comes from a pool offered to everyone. Maybe it's to hide a stat combination that works really well. If that's the case understand but wouldn't do the same, I like to help others.
Originally posted by Telondariel Nothing about EQ:N is going to be harsh. Nothing. Dave has made it quite clear it is going to be "accessible", with lots of Station Cash conveniences. Even the original EQ game has been tamed far beyond it's original roots to make it easier for new and old players. I am still in a "wait and see" frame of mind, but the more I see as I wait makes me feel more and more that Dave Georgeson has killed the original spirit that was EQ.
^This^
Nothing about EQNext will be harsh.
The EQ expansion The Darkened Sea (which i bought) is not easy. In fact, noone level 100-105 is touching any of the content. few people are and everyone else just does the same dailies and heroic adventures from the previous content. It took 30-45 mins to run a heroic adventure for level 105 with 4 people in the previous expansion content. In this one, It took my friend 4 hours with a full group to do one quest for progression in TDS. The npcs have like 25-30 million hit points and they hit for 11k. This wasn't in the original game i know, because ive played the original its a breeze compared to this stuff!
Deaths penalties are designed to make people care about dying, right? What if people already care about dying without harsh penalties? Theoretically people are playing the game to get through the content. If they can't get through the content because they are dying, why add the extra detriment? I'm in agree with those that say make the content challenging. If that is taken care of the will to get past it should be enough. Besides, in all my experience I learn more from mistakes than triumphs. Should XP be boosted when one dies?
This above argument is moot. It's ridiculous. What if people already care about dying so they don't have to die. Are you joking? Tell ya what, lets make no consequences for dying in that case and make instant revives on the spot with no cooldowns or consequences at all even during fights since people already care about dying then cuz apparently they don't need penalties. Heck actually, instead of making virtual immortality via that why don't we just do the same thing and remove dying all together lol. Great idea bro.
On the inspect subject I can see the psychological aspects of someone inspecting you, probably feels like a violation. I just think they should take the notification that someone is inspecting away. What is the reasoning for why it's so bad? In most cases the gear comes from a pool offered to everyone. Maybe it's to hide a stat combination that works really well. If that's the case understand but wouldn't do the same, I like to help others.
No a notification doesn't help this situation. In rpgs building a character is what distinguishes it from other from other games. If a person who is losing to you in pvp or doing worse than you in pve and is thus less competitive than you because you are better skilled at building then why should he be able to copy your work especially if he cant make it himself and use it to become as good as you or better than you.
Its the same as someone not being able to compete with you in an exam but looking at your paper during or even worse because in many cases, that person cant even understand gameplay mechanics as well as you so even if they studied, they still wouldn't be able to build as well as you because for example even if they could identify exclusive and nonexclusive multipliers, hard caps, soft caps and other aspects, they wouldn't be able to simulate results.
That in itself would make them unable to optimise their build as well as a person who could and thus less competitive due to less skill but all of that skill and competition is removed if you let them not do the work and just copy your build by force with a fully invasive, non optional inspect skill.
It is also unfair and immoral to make someone who doesn't think another deserves his work without paying for it or if they are a bad person. We don't work for free in real life, why should someone take our work in a video game for free? especially a compeititor.
The only option which protects everyones interests is to allow an optional inspect skill of varying level where if a person wants to inspect another, they send a request to inspect them which can be declined if the other person doesn't agree.
Btw you make it sound a lot simpler than it is or you actually believe it is that simple which is exactly why a fully invasive inspect shouldn't be mandatory. You think its only some stat combination which is simplistic thinking. Its actually effective dps and effective health pool which is made up of combinations of exclusive and non exlcusive multipliers, hard caps and coft caps, combinations of diminishing returns from gear/ attributes, combinations of skills and bonuses. These are all combined together and multiplied by each other according to whatever gameplay formula the game usesto calculate effective dps and effective health pool.
If I can understand the relationships between these and you cant, then I can create a better build than you and beat you in pvp and pve. Alternatively if I can actually simulate these via a spreadsheet, I can go 1 step further and beat you even better. Why would I want my competitor to beat me in a compeititive game by copying my answer if he cant do the work himself, by inspecting my build after losing to me 10 games in a row even when he cant understand gameplay mechanics let alone simulate them. That's my skill making me more competitive than him and if you aren't competitive why do you need to inspect, you should be ok with losing every time if you aren't competitive.
Deaths penalties are designed to make people care about dying, right? What if people already care about dying without harsh penalties? Theoretically people are playing the game to get through the content. If they can't get through the content because they are dying, why add the extra detriment? I'm in agree with those that say make the content challenging. If that is taken care of the will to get past it should be enough. Besides, in all my experience I learn more from mistakes than triumphs. Should XP be boosted when one dies?
This above argument is moot. It's ridiculous. What if people already care about dying so they don't have to die. Are you joking? Tell ya what, lets make no consequences for dying in that case and make instant revives on the spot with no cooldowns or consequences at all even during fights since people already care about dying then cuz apparently they don't need penalties. Heck actually, instead of making virtual immortality via that why don't we just do the same thing and remove dying all together lol. Great idea bro.
On the inspect subject I can see the psychological aspects of someone inspecting you, probably feels like a violation. I just think they should take the notification that someone is inspecting away. What is the reasoning for why it's so bad? In most cases the gear comes from a pool offered to everyone. Maybe it's to hide a stat combination that works really well. If that's the case understand but wouldn't do the same, I like to help others.
No a notification doesn't help this situation. In rpgs building a character is what distinguishes it from other from other games. If a person who is losing to you in pvp or doing worse than you in pve and is thus less competitive than you because you are better skilled at building then why should he be able to copy your work especially if he cant make it himself and uses it to become as good as you or better than you.
Its the same as someone not being able to compete with you in an exam but looking at your paper during or even worse because in many cases, that person cant even understand gameplay mechanics as well as you so even if they studied, they still wouldn't be able to build as well as you because for example even if they could identify exclusive and nonexclusive multipliers, hard caps, soft caps and other aspects, they wouldn't be able to simulate results.
That in itself would make them unable to optimise their build as well as a person who could and thus less competitive due to less skill but all of that skill and competition is removed if you let them not do the work and just copy your build by force with a fully invasive, non optional inspect skill.
It is also unfair and immoral to make someone who doesn't think another deserves his work without paying for it or if they are a bad person. We don't work for free in real life, why should someone take our work in a video game for free? especially a compeititor.
The only option which protects everyones interests is to allow an optional inspect skill of varying level where if a person wants to inspect another, they send a request to inspect them which can be declined if the other person doesn't agree.
I think you misunderstood my stance on the subject of harsh death penalties. Of course death should mean something. It should mean you didn't succeed in your goal and you have to try again, which is the whole reason you are playing... to succeed in mini and macro objectives. Saying there shouldn't be corpse runs or the loss of hours in xp isn't a natural jump to insta-rez immortality, that's just silly. If the content isn't faceroll easy being denied your goal and a small amount of time (such as traveling from a shrine) should be adequate. Some, like yourself, may disagree but I play MMOs to have fun. I like a challenge but there is no challenge in losing large patches of time or effort and it won't make me try harder to stay alive, any more than I already would.
On the inspect issue I can see your point if there is a complex itemization and build system in place. Most of the theorycrafting in MMOs is done via skill rotations, which is kind of unfortunate, so in those cases it really doesn't mater if someone can inspect your gear. Builds are not typically inspect-able either, at least in my experience. Another wild card is if the company that makes the game has a character search feature. That would make the issue of in-game inspection moot.
I agre that dying has too little meaning in games nowadays. Dying = the fast escape back to spawnpoint in some games. I'm not convinced it's a bad thing though.
You should not want to die because you want to complete your quest, not because you are afraid of harsh deathpenalties.
A lot of QoL have been added to mmo's, some good, some not quite so good. My personal thing is grouppfinder. Imo it makes people just stay in the main city, use groupfinder and the mmo world is less populated because of it.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't have a groupfinder. I personly just think especially the "port to instance" part of groupfinder maybe wasn't the best idea.
With respect, I didn't misunderstand your stance on the issue, I just took what you literally said to an absurd extreme to show how absurd it is.
For example, no corpse run, no xp loss, no death penalty is what you suggested. If you add in instant res in combat which is the only thing you didn't mention because as you said people already care about death so they don't need penalties, that becomes truly no penalties at all which makes death obsolete in the game.
So what I was pointing out was the fallacy in your argument that death penalties aren't needed because people care about death without them.
Secondly, you seem to misunderstand, skill rotations in mmos even in wow still are optimised via spreadsheet and theory crafted and thus a fully invasive inspect ruins competition, hence why I left wow after wotlk. If you truly believe its so simple and just skill rotations, then again it proves that inspect should not be mandatory to prevent players like you (no offence) copying the depth of a build from a player like me without understanding why things are made the way they are.
Wow, diablo, nwn, da, gw2 etc all use multipliers(exlusive and otherwise), hard capcs, soft caps, some games use break points, diminisihing reutrns and a whole host of other gameplay mechanics. The 1st step to understanding the relationships between these mechanics is identifying them and the next step is understanding them and the last step is simulating them.
As a person who cannot identify the mechanics and thinks is simply rotation or like you said previously simply stat combinations, you are the exact type of person that justifies my argument that there should not be a fully invasive inspect skill because if you were to lose 10 games in a row to me due to having an unoptimised, sub standard build, you would just inspect and copy. This is what happens in games with fully invasive, non optional inspect skills.
I mean no offence when I say these things but I do have to show you the point im making hence the above.
I agre that dying has too little meaning in games nowadays. Dying = the fast escape back to spawnpoint in some games. I'm not convinced it's a bad thing though.
You should not want to die because you want to complete your quest, not because you are afraid of harsh deathpenalties.
A lot of QoL have been added to mmo's, some good, some not quite so good. My personal thing is grouppfinder. Imo it makes people just stay in the main city, use groupfinder and the mmo world is less populated because of it.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't have a groupfinder. I personly just think especially the "port to instance" part of groupfinder maybe wasn't the best idea.
Not being able to complete your quest or kill a mob is a death penalty in itself. I am against the ultra casual gamer attitude that everything you do in a game should have a quick fix so in effect you can make no mistakes or do anything right because their are no consequnces for mistakes.
You can make every player do the right thing or best thing every time or make it effectively the same as that by allowing quick fixes that are so fast that doing the wrong or less good thing doesn't matter but then there is no choice in a game because there are no consequences.
With choice comes consequence and responsibility. Take away consequences and no one has a choice anymore, everyone just follows the same path with a quick fix to any less good decision they make. I personally don't support dumbing down games to the point where there is no choice and everyone follows an identical path which is the path of the best choice because there are no consequences
Btw what does group finder have to do with anything, that doesn't remove consequences or choice from the game, it only adds them. Taking away death penalties and other consequences via easy respecs or fully invasive inspects does take away consequences and thus choice which is the problem. If you really want a game with no choice and just twitch gaming skills, don't play a rpg where building is fundamental and other choices, go play a fps like gears of war or call of duty or a moba.
Why is a a corpse run and XP lose a "death penalty"? Because it will cost you time away from your objective. Time is the same penalty I'm talking about but to a lesser degree. Death penalties are in place to make you not not want to die and give meaning to the content. IMO this can be achieved without an absurd amount of wasted time. I think we'll have to agree to disagree since this is a matter of preference.
On the stat and inspect thing I understand perfectly the aspects of theory crafting and is a really enjoyable aspect of MMOs. The only thing I was questioning was how much someone could actually gain by inspecting gear in relation to their effectiveness. There is more to being a good PvPer and I would welcome the challenge. I see your point though I was only pointing out that, unfortunately, most MMOs don't allow so much variation in stat itemization to make custom builds that different. Archeage maybe but I don't play it out of principal.
Originally posted by Nanfoodle Harsh is far from better. I would rather the new norm of a small slap on the hands. Most players dont have the nerve to stick through a hard encounter and fail till you learn how to over come it. All harsh death penalties would do is make more teams break up sooner when the perfect team is not there or when leaning a new mechanic in a boss or dungeon. This old way of thinking is not needed any more.
I think what's missing is balance. It isn't so much about death penalties but the overall "quality of life" changes that have been made in the genre over the years. I am not against them. In fact many of the old ways are just that. Old ways. Doing something for the sake of repetition to draw out the time it takes to get it done is tiring. But there was also something to be said for working towards...and earning something too. But I think the pendulum has swung a little too far on the back swing. Some of these changes have just made things to easy and have diminished their value to some degree or another.
And yes, I'll agree adding tedium is not a good way to do it, but adding a challenge might be. Not sure how to add a challenge to something like a death penalty, but again, I'm talking about the bigger picture.
I think we just get rose colored glasses. We remember the good old days but forget the bad. Sure some things were better back 10 years ago but I say go play a 10 year old MMO and fast you will remember why you dont play them. The positive of modern MMOs soon strip down what makes the old so not worth playing other then to remember the good old days for a few weeks.
EDIT: Also if you go back to the old MMOs like EQ1 that had harsh penalties you would be shocked to find out they dont have them any more. There are good reasons why we dont any more.
No, you won't find any of that in EQNext. You might even get rewarded for dying so that people don't get their feelings hurt if they fail. If you played EQ1 or 2 just keep moving, nothing to see in EQNext.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
TOTALLY agree....dave ahhmmm (soe)...has ruined anything and everything affiliated with original EQ, and is nothing but a phony, smiling, talking head who really has NOTHING to do with this game. This is STRICTLY a corporate game that wants to know where you will throw the most money....hence the "lets build this together"....arrrgggghhhh....puleze. Lets see how much we can cut out, and still sell the shit outta stuff in the cash shop. Don't forget people this is ONLY SOE...not dave and his dev friends building a game for you. This has 0% to do with EQ and dave and 100% to do with soe and bottom line. And finally, don't come at me with "that's what devs are supposed to do is make a game that makes money! That is obvious, just don't LIE about what you are selling.
I am starting a new business for all these people who want harsh death penalties. You just give me your address and when you die in game I (or one of the my employees) will show up with a baseball bat and inflict some serious "detterence" upon you.
For $5 extra we will make the "deterrence" extra high quality by assiduously avoiding any damage to your hands or cranium so that you may continue to play unhindered.
For $10 extra we we provide the Hardcore Masochist package were we will at randomly placed points make sure to also hit you in the balls.
Even better you will have no idea when we show up so you can experience maxium "deterrence" through fear and uncertainty. As a side package you can get the Extreme Ninja deal, which we offer for the low low price of $5, we will provide "deterrence" from extremely unlikely places such as popping out unexpectedly from corner or possibly breaking into your cat and hitting you, I mean, providing "deterrence" from the backseat while you start your car. Not only will you get the satisfaction of knowing your doom approaches the extreme uncertainly of the inevitable but unpredictable sword of damocles hanging over your head will provide an exquisite edge to your fear.
I am running an old business for the people who don't want death penalties, its called WoW, come join. no matter what you do you cant do the wrong thing in it, all of you will all be given the same choice and get the same result.
Its not really a choice though but don't worry cuz it means you will all be equal and make no mistakes ever.
For example, no corpse run, no xp loss, no death penalty is what you suggested. If you add in instant res in combat which is the only thing you didn't mention because as you said people already care about death so they don't need penalties, that becomes truly no penalties at all which makes death obsolete in the game.
Can you name one AAA/popular fantasy mmorpg since EQ that has any sort of death system that did anything meaningful beyond scare off the extreme casual players? I'm sure they exist, but I can't remember 1 game, even EQ for the most part, where death added anything worth while and simply caused me to have to play a bit more to regain the xp, travel time, gold, gear, etc.
None of which taught me a lesson or made me play any different. I died and had to do some non-fun task, oh no. Someone that is Leeroying it up will be set back over and over and not make it very far. The average gamer simply by investing time into a game isn't going to be slowed down too greatly by any non-permadeath system. A death now and again isn't going to cause me to totally adjust my play style so that I only play it safe and never die, boring and no risk.
Secondly, you seem to misunderstand, skill rotations in mmos even in wow still are optimised via spreadsheet and theory crafted and thus a fully invasive inspect ruins competition, hence why I left wow after wotlk. If you truly believe its so simple and just skill rotations, then again it proves that inspect should not be mandatory to prevent players like you (no offence) copying the depth of a build from a player like me without understanding why things are made the way they are.
PVP is an obvious situation where copying can result in someone gaining insight into your style or power or whatever. PVE, beyond a lame data mining addon, how would someone having the same build/rotation as you impact your gameplay at all? How you would know what/how they are doing? How can someone do better/worse then you on a personal level?
Wow, diablo, nwn, da, gw2 etc all use multipliers(exlusive and otherwise), hard capcs, soft caps, some games use break points, diminisihing reutrns and a whole host of other gameplay mechanics. The 1st step to understanding the relationships between these mechanics is identifying them and the next step is understanding them and the last step is simulating them.
1st step is realizing those that even know what break points are make up a very small minority of gamers. Most are more then happy to have +10 STR instead of +5 STR or a prettier sword then the previous one "it's so shiny!"
2nd step is realizing that if your calculations take a great deal of effort, then someone copying them probably can't simply go A. Look at your build, B. Make build, C. Profit. Probably quite a bit of effort involved. If they can just copy/paste, it probably wasn't that special to begin with.
Diablo 3 is a great example. I can look at a GR 45+ player's build and can know exactly how they do it. Selecting the skills takes seconds. Gathering gear can take 100s of hours. Learning how to play or the rotation might not ever happen depending on my skill cap.
Guess I find it odd to think that someone would be willing to invest 100s of hours into copying your build instead of making their own as they progress or that you some how have a 100% unique build that also is "the best."
Then again you reference WoW so maybe it was super easy to copy your top secret spreadsheet build and someone could whip it together in 5 min or something. WOTLK was 7 years ago, since then it seems quite a lot has changed and people don't seem to keep many secrets anymore, guess you can blame inspect on that, but between youtube, twitch, guide sites, and nice folks helping out in forums, there is no shortage of info that someone really needs to steal.
I'm still confused how complex your WoW build was that seems to have got you so worked up. I left during TBC, but Vanilla was not complex and TBC didn't seem to add a great deal of depth. WOTLK added Glyphs, not sure what else. In high end raiding, going DPS crazy or playing unsafe to show off could result in a wipe so PVE wise it wasn't very useful to focus on the .00001% difference between each other.
3rd step, realize most play games to have fun and don't care about your build or theirs. After almost 20 years of online gaming, I'm come to the conclusion that many people have no real idea what is going on and just want to run around whacking things. You should see my wife's Crusader build in D3, whenever I make a suggestion that might make her "better" or make my time a bit easier, she simply gives me THE look
As a person who cannot identify the mechanics and thinks is simply rotation or like you said previously simply stat combinations, you are the exact type of person that justifies my argument that there should not be a fully invasive inspect skill because if you were to lose 10 games in a row to me due to having an unoptimised, sub standard build, you would just inspect and copy. This is what happens in games with fully invasive, non optional inspect skills.
Which games are these? Where you can just inspect then copy, without any effort?
With the devs alluding to not allowing data tracking/mining addons, less focus on the UI in general, and builds/gearing being very personal with no "best", I'm curious to see how much you end up enjoying EQN. You seem to really want to min/max and what not and EQN doesn't seem to cater to that style very much (that we know of).
Have you looked at POE at all? That might be something you can really get into. One of the most interesting character builders I've played. I'm pretty tired of dungeon crawlers, but it is pretty crazy how the skills work.
How about an ante-up solution to making a harsher death penalty? Let's say that you can choose a level of play like "easy", "medium", etc. and the experience loss or equipment loss scales with the level you've chosen. In addition, the experience or equipment rewards you gain for success would vary based on how long you've been playing in a harder level. So if you've been playing for a month on "hard", risking a fairly severe experience loss if you die, and you kill a boss mob successfully, you might gain twice the experience from the fight that a person who has been playing on "easy" would. Just a thought...
While harsh penalties would be welcome by me it just will not happen. It is an AAA game (i hope) among other AAA games out there. People will complain if it is too hard. Sadly, it is not the old days anymore. Companies have to cater to the casuals and carebears out there.
If it is too hard people will just go back to their old games or play a different one. It is all about instant gratification these days unfortunately. That is where the money is at.
While harsh penalties would be welcome by me it just will not happen. It is an AAA game (i hope) among other AAA games out there. People will complain if it is too hard. Sadly, it is not the old days anymore. Companies have to cater to the casuals and carebears out there.
If it is too hard people will just go back to their old games or play a different one. It is all about instant gratification these days unfortunately. That is where the money is at.
True.. However, I would love to see companies like Blizzard add new servers to their list for peeps like me.. I would love a server that promotes grouping because the open world trash mobs are MUCH harder then normal.. etc etc.. This would require little effort in doing.. I can dream..
how about giving us something that resembles EQ and stop trying to sell a recycled title that is totally diff.
EQ2 was not or any of the same of EQ
EQnext is not or in any way the same of EQ / EQ2
when will the butchering of EQ stop...sony needs to stop beating a dead horse or pony up and make a EQ title that falls in-line with the true EQ world of old
Comments
I think what's missing is balance. It isn't so much about death penalties but the overall "quality of life" changes that have been made in the genre over the years. I am not against them. In fact many of the old ways are just that. Old ways. Doing something for the sake of repetition to draw out the time it takes to get it done is tiring. But there was also something to be said for working towards...and earning something too. But I think the pendulum has swung a little too far on the back swing. Some of these changes have just made things to easy and have diminished their value to some degree or another.
And yes, I'll agree adding tedium is not a good way to do it, but adding a challenge might be. Not sure how to add a challenge to something like a death penalty, but again, I'm talking about the bigger picture.
I self identify as a monkey.
If it was just like EQ I'd be ok with it, but the important part is to make death meaningful.
I favor big XP loss if you don't get to the body, but not gear loss. I wouldn't make it days of loss, EQ, even at 50 was a few hours loss.
I thought the gear was where EQ crossed the line especially at max level. I'd be happy if it was the same as original but I can't see a game ever having gear loss. Maybe a FFA loot game where gear doesn't mean as much.
Asdar
The only part of this huge debate I care about is that you agree than inspect shouldn't be mandatory.
As for death penalties, I still disagree with you, they should be a barrier to dying as in you want to avoid death cuz it costs you enough materially to be of detriment
As for competitive playing, like I said fi you don't want to be competitive and are ok with losing every game, thats up to you but people want consequences, death penalties and no fully invasive inspect (or an optional one where you decide what to show) to be competitive.
As for community, like I said before community exists in all competitive games. It being competitive doesn't stop communities existing.
^This^
Nothing about EQNext will be harsh.
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
Deaths penalties are designed to make people care about dying, right? What if people already care about dying without harsh penalties? Theoretically people are playing the game to get through the content. If they can't get through the content because they are dying, why add the extra detriment? I'm in agree with those that say make the content challenging. If that is taken care of the will to get past it should be enough. Besides, in all my experience I learn more from mistakes than triumphs. Should XP be boosted when one dies?
On the inspect subject I can see the psychological aspects of someone inspecting you, probably feels like a violation. I just think they should take the notification that someone is inspecting away. What is the reasoning for why it's so bad? In most cases the gear comes from a pool offered to everyone. Maybe it's to hide a stat combination that works really well. If that's the case understand but wouldn't do the same, I like to help others.
The EQ expansion The Darkened Sea (which i bought) is not easy. In fact, noone level 100-105 is touching any of the content. few people are and everyone else just does the same dailies and heroic adventures from the previous content. It took 30-45 mins to run a heroic adventure for level 105 with 4 people in the previous expansion content. In this one, It took my friend 4 hours with a full group to do one quest for progression in TDS. The npcs have like 25-30 million hit points and they hit for 11k. This wasn't in the original game i know, because ive played the original its a breeze compared to this stuff!
I think you misunderstood my stance on the subject of harsh death penalties. Of course death should mean something. It should mean you didn't succeed in your goal and you have to try again, which is the whole reason you are playing... to succeed in mini and macro objectives. Saying there shouldn't be corpse runs or the loss of hours in xp isn't a natural jump to insta-rez immortality, that's just silly. If the content isn't faceroll easy being denied your goal and a small amount of time (such as traveling from a shrine) should be adequate. Some, like yourself, may disagree but I play MMOs to have fun. I like a challenge but there is no challenge in losing large patches of time or effort and it won't make me try harder to stay alive, any more than I already would.
On the inspect issue I can see your point if there is a complex itemization and build system in place. Most of the theorycrafting in MMOs is done via skill rotations, which is kind of unfortunate, so in those cases it really doesn't mater if someone can inspect your gear. Builds are not typically inspect-able either, at least in my experience. Another wild card is if the company that makes the game has a character search feature. That would make the issue of in-game inspection moot.
I agre that dying has too little meaning in games nowadays. Dying = the fast escape back to spawnpoint in some games. I'm not convinced it's a bad thing though.
You should not want to die because you want to complete your quest, not because you are afraid of harsh deathpenalties.
A lot of QoL have been added to mmo's, some good, some not quite so good. My personal thing is grouppfinder. Imo it makes people just stay in the main city, use groupfinder and the mmo world is less populated because of it.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't have a groupfinder. I personly just think especially the "port to instance" part of groupfinder maybe wasn't the best idea.
With respect, I didn't misunderstand your stance on the issue, I just took what you literally said to an absurd extreme to show how absurd it is.
For example, no corpse run, no xp loss, no death penalty is what you suggested. If you add in instant res in combat which is the only thing you didn't mention because as you said people already care about death so they don't need penalties, that becomes truly no penalties at all which makes death obsolete in the game.
So what I was pointing out was the fallacy in your argument that death penalties aren't needed because people care about death without them.
Secondly, you seem to misunderstand, skill rotations in mmos even in wow still are optimised via spreadsheet and theory crafted and thus a fully invasive inspect ruins competition, hence why I left wow after wotlk. If you truly believe its so simple and just skill rotations, then again it proves that inspect should not be mandatory to prevent players like you (no offence) copying the depth of a build from a player like me without understanding why things are made the way they are.
Wow, diablo, nwn, da, gw2 etc all use multipliers(exlusive and otherwise), hard capcs, soft caps, some games use break points, diminisihing reutrns and a whole host of other gameplay mechanics. The 1st step to understanding the relationships between these mechanics is identifying them and the next step is understanding them and the last step is simulating them.
As a person who cannot identify the mechanics and thinks is simply rotation or like you said previously simply stat combinations, you are the exact type of person that justifies my argument that there should not be a fully invasive inspect skill because if you were to lose 10 games in a row to me due to having an unoptimised, sub standard build, you would just inspect and copy. This is what happens in games with fully invasive, non optional inspect skills.
I mean no offence when I say these things but I do have to show you the point im making hence the above.
Not being able to complete your quest or kill a mob is a death penalty in itself. I am against the ultra casual gamer attitude that everything you do in a game should have a quick fix so in effect you can make no mistakes or do anything right because their are no consequnces for mistakes.
You can make every player do the right thing or best thing every time or make it effectively the same as that by allowing quick fixes that are so fast that doing the wrong or less good thing doesn't matter but then there is no choice in a game because there are no consequences.
With choice comes consequence and responsibility. Take away consequences and no one has a choice anymore, everyone just follows the same path with a quick fix to any less good decision they make. I personally don't support dumbing down games to the point where there is no choice and everyone follows an identical path which is the path of the best choice because there are no consequences
Btw what does group finder have to do with anything, that doesn't remove consequences or choice from the game, it only adds them. Taking away death penalties and other consequences via easy respecs or fully invasive inspects does take away consequences and thus choice which is the problem. If you really want a game with no choice and just twitch gaming skills, don't play a rpg where building is fundamental and other choices, go play a fps like gears of war or call of duty or a moba.
Why is a a corpse run and XP lose a "death penalty"? Because it will cost you time away from your objective. Time is the same penalty I'm talking about but to a lesser degree. Death penalties are in place to make you not not want to die and give meaning to the content. IMO this can be achieved without an absurd amount of wasted time. I think we'll have to agree to disagree since this is a matter of preference.
On the stat and inspect thing I understand perfectly the aspects of theory crafting and is a really enjoyable aspect of MMOs. The only thing I was questioning was how much someone could actually gain by inspecting gear in relation to their effectiveness. There is more to being a good PvPer and I would welcome the challenge. I see your point though I was only pointing out that, unfortunately, most MMOs don't allow so much variation in stat itemization to make custom builds that different. Archeage maybe but I don't play it out of principal.
I think we just get rose colored glasses. We remember the good old days but forget the bad. Sure some things were better back 10 years ago but I say go play a 10 year old MMO and fast you will remember why you dont play them. The positive of modern MMOs soon strip down what makes the old so not worth playing other then to remember the good old days for a few weeks.
EDIT: Also if you go back to the old MMOs like EQ1 that had harsh penalties you would be shocked to find out they dont have them any more. There are good reasons why we dont any more.
I am starting a new business for all these people who want harsh death penalties. You just give me your address and when you die in game I (or one of the my employees) will show up with a baseball bat and inflict some serious "detterence" upon you.
For $5 extra we will make the "deterrence" extra high quality by assiduously avoiding any damage to your hands or cranium so that you may continue to play unhindered.
For $10 extra we we provide the Hardcore Masochist package were we will at randomly placed points make sure to also hit you in the balls.
Even better you will have no idea when we show up so you can experience maxium "deterrence" through fear and uncertainty. As a side package you can get the Extreme Ninja deal, which we offer for the low low price of $5, we will provide "deterrence" from extremely unlikely places such as popping out unexpectedly from corner or possibly breaking into your cat and hitting you, I mean, providing "deterrence" from the backseat while you start your car. Not only will you get the satisfaction of knowing your doom approaches the extreme uncertainly of the inevitable but unpredictable sword of damocles hanging over your head will provide an exquisite edge to your fear.
I am running an old business for the people who don't want death penalties, its called WoW, come join. no matter what you do you cant do the wrong thing in it, all of you will all be given the same choice and get the same result.
Its not really a choice though but don't worry cuz it means you will all be equal and make no mistakes ever.
With the devs alluding to not allowing data tracking/mining addons, less focus on the UI in general, and builds/gearing being very personal with no "best", I'm curious to see how much you end up enjoying EQN. You seem to really want to min/max and what not and EQN doesn't seem to cater to that style very much (that we know of).
Have you looked at POE at all? That might be something you can really get into. One of the most interesting character builders I've played. I'm pretty tired of dungeon crawlers, but it is pretty crazy how the skills work.
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree
While harsh penalties would be welcome by me it just will not happen. It is an AAA game (i hope) among other AAA games out there. People will complain if it is too hard. Sadly, it is not the old days anymore. Companies have to cater to the casuals and carebears out there.
If it is too hard people will just go back to their old games or play a different one. It is all about instant gratification these days unfortunately. That is where the money is at.
True.. However, I would love to see companies like Blizzard add new servers to their list for peeps like me.. I would love a server that promotes grouping because the open world trash mobs are MUCH harder then normal.. etc etc.. This would require little effort in doing.. I can dream..
OP...
how about giving us something that resembles EQ and stop trying to sell a recycled title that is totally diff.
EQ2 was not or any of the same of EQ
EQnext is not or in any way the same of EQ / EQ2
when will the butchering of EQ stop...sony needs to stop beating a dead horse or pony up and make a EQ title that falls in-line with the true EQ world of old