A skill-based, non-grind, non-p2w, open world PvP battle arena sandbox MMORPG for busy adult gamers.
lmao
the hype on kickstarter is soooo icky, it gives me a yuck feeling each time someone even mentions the word, each project is like begging for money with hype and expletives, it's disgusting
It wouldn't be so bad if the games actually looked professional but MOST of them look like budget ware,cash grabs.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
TBH you just sound like you either a) never played a game with open world PvP or b) were just terrible at it and think that because YOU need to rely on others to get anything done that everyone else is just as bad.
Games like Darkfall have had numerous players who were good enough that they could go reroll a brand new character, throw on a newbie robe and weapon, then go roll groups of people for high end gear by themselves within a few hours of starting that new character. Oh but you're right. No skill whatsoever involved simply because its in the open world....
Hell even in non-twitch open RvR games such as DAOC and WAR you constantly had solo players and small organized groups who could roam around taking down much larger groups of equal level players and defend objectives from zergs simply because they were that much better at playing than others.
Are you going to control a bunch of territories and stuff as a solo player? No. But if youre going it solo, thats not your goal anyway. "Meaningful" is relative. Clan leaders may care about the political and territory metagame, solo players have very different objectives.
In Darkfall I was ambushed by 2 players. I landed ~21 hits on my opponent in the time it took them to land the ~3 hits that killed me. So no, unless something has drastically changed Darkfall is a textbook example of the casual nature of open world PVP.
If you take a balanced fight with even population and even progression, 100% of fights will be decided by player skill. If you then change that game to allow population or progression advantages, fewer than 100% of fights will be decided by player skill (relative to the magnitude of importance of the non-skill factors.)
So citing "sometimes players beat the odds" is a fallacy in these discussions. It fails to address the reasons world PVP games are less skill centric (and therefore more casual and shallow.)
Beyond it failing to address the argument, any intrinsic value to the excitement of beating the odds already exists in balanced games, so what you're citing certainly isn't unique to open world games. My PS2 chars had solid K/D and (more importantly) insane SPM, and these led to all sorts of beat the odds victories.
Unless something changed in PS2, I don't think it's a very strong argument for highly-structured PvP. As far as PvP goes, it offers pretty open areas, as well. You'd be much better served citing MOBA statistics, for instance.
Being a Planetside player since first edition... ^Yeah definetly
Unless something changed in PS2, I don't think it's a very strong argument for highly-structured PvP. As far as PvP goes, it offers pretty open areas, as well. You'd be much better served citing MOBA statistics, for instance.
Whether a game has open areas or not isn't really important in terms of skill-centric vs. casual PVP. All that matters is whether population is balanced, and in PS2 I spend 99% of my time on triple-pop-locked continents so pop was balanced. Any localized pop imbalances are skill-based, in exactly the same way as when a LoL jungler creates a 2v1 fight in the top lane.
It's not really about PS2 specifically though; diamond in HotS, top 3% in the "skill" leaderboard in BF4. In all games I'm going to basically end up near the top but not-quite-pro levels (too much game-hopping for that) and even if I wasn't personally skilled, the point would be just as valid.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Unless something changed in PS2, I don't think it's a very strong argument for highly-structured PvP. As far as PvP goes, it offers pretty open areas, as well. You'd be much better served citing MOBA statistics, for instance.
Whether a game has open areas or not isn't really important in terms of skill-centric vs. casual PVP. All that matters is whether population is balanced, and in PS2 I spend 99% of my time on triple-pop-locked continents so pop was balanced. Any localized pop imbalances are skill-based, in exactly the same way as when a LoL jungler creates a 2v1 fight in the top lane.
It's not really about PS2 specifically though; diamond in HotS, top 3% in the "skill" leaderboard in BF4. In all games I'm going to basically end up near the top but not-quite-pro levels (too much game-hopping for that) and even if I wasn't personally skilled, the point would be just as valid.
See my edit above. Honestly then, you cannot claim ESO PvP to be casual. As you have said in PS2, you can spend the majority of the time playing pop-locked battles (just as in ESO with campaigns). However, that doesn't prevent you from being run over by a zerg. I would challenge the argument that localized population imbalances are skill-based, unless you're trying to refer to a metagame in which a commander has full authority to place and move troops/assets. Then yes, his skill seems to become relevant.
Otherwise, you run back into the issue of an open world offering too much room for player groups to be imbalanced to the point of a zerg forming, thereby creating a more "casual" encounter. It's hard to justify including a 1v2 in a MOBA in the same category as a 50v100 in a game such as ESO or PS2. Those true effective odds, in the end, are much different, and rely on much different factors.
EDIT- Also, I wasn't challenging your personal skill, as its irrelevant to the arguments (as you yourself stated). The stats only offer any useful information as it pertains to the discussion of skill-based (structured) vs. open world PvP. And even then, very limited information, as it's anecdotal at best.
Being a Planetside player since first edition... ^Yeah definetly
Again, the point is that the fun of winning one-against-many isn't exclusive to open world PVP. Name any team-based skill-centric PVP and you'll have a game where divide-and-conquer techniques work well. Even in many non-team-based games this type of gameplay exists (eg isolating half your opponent's army in SC2.)
The point isn't about PS2 in particular, and it was never about "organized" PVP.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
See my edit above. Honestly then, you cannot claim ESO PvP to be casual. As you have said in PS2, you can spend the majority of the time playing pop-locked battles (just as in ESO with campaigns). That doesn't prevent you from being run over by a zerg. I would challenge the argument that localized population imbalances are skill-based, unless you're trying to refer to a metagame in which a commander has full authority to place and move troops/assets. Then yes, his skill seems to become relevant.
Otherwise, you run back into the issue of an open world offering too much room for player groups to be imbalanced to the point of a zerg forming, thereby creating a more "casual" encounter. It's hard to justify including a 1v2 in a MOBA in the same category as a 50v100 in a game such as ESO or PS2. Those true effective odds, in the end, are much different, and rely on much different factors.
EDIT- Also, I wasn't challenging your personal skill, as its irrelevant to the arguments (as you yourself stated). The stats only offer any useful information as it pertains to the discussion of skill-based (structured) vs. open world PvP. And even then, very limited information, as it's anecdotal at best.
Yes, if you're on a triple-pop-locked map in ESO then population isn't a factor and any localized imbalance is the result of player skill.
ESO still doesn't avoid being casual though because progression matters. Two max-level equally-skilled opponents will each win 50% of the time. But give one of them a less progressed character, and they will lose -- not because of skill, but because of the progression disadvantage.
1v2 in a MOBA is the exact same localized, skilled-created advantage as the 50v100 fight in PS2 or ESO. As long as overall populations are balanced, any localized imbalance is the result of skill. That's what matters in relation to a game being skill-centric or casual, so any other distinctions you're making simply aren't relevant to the topic at hand. It's only when overall populations aren't balanced that population becomes a non-skill factor.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
See my edit above. Honestly then, you cannot claim ESO PvP to be casual. As you have said in PS2, you can spend the majority of the time playing pop-locked battles (just as in ESO with campaigns). That doesn't prevent you from being run over by a zerg. I would challenge the argument that localized population imbalances are skill-based, unless you're trying to refer to a metagame in which a commander has full authority to place and move troops/assets. Then yes, his skill seems to become relevant.
Otherwise, you run back into the issue of an open world offering too much room for player groups to be imbalanced to the point of a zerg forming, thereby creating a more "casual" encounter. It's hard to justify including a 1v2 in a MOBA in the same category as a 50v100 in a game such as ESO or PS2. Those true effective odds, in the end, are much different, and rely on much different factors.
EDIT- Also, I wasn't challenging your personal skill, as its irrelevant to the arguments (as you yourself stated). The stats only offer any useful information as it pertains to the discussion of skill-based (structured) vs. open world PvP. And even then, very limited information, as it's anecdotal at best.
Yes, if you're on a triple-pop-locked map in ESO then population isn't a factor and any localized imbalance is the result of player skill.
ESO still doesn't avoid being casual though because progression matters. Two max-level equally-skilled opponents will each win 50% of the time. But give one of them a less progressed character, and they will lose -- not because of skill, but because of the progression disadvantage.
1v2 in a MOBA is the exact same localized, skilled-created advantage as the 50v100 fight in PS2 or ESO. As long as overall populations are balanced, any localized imbalance is the result of skill. That's what matters in relation to a game being skill-centric or casual, so any other distinctions you're making simply aren't relevant to the topic at hand. It's only when overall populations aren't balanced that population becomes a non-skill factor.
Sorry, but that doesn't cut it. When localized populations are imbalanced so that it's impossible (or impractical) to reinforce said location in time to make a different (as is the case in even games such as BF4), it becomes, in effect, the same thing as a global population imbalance (for that specific theater of battle).
If you happen to be the last few to port in for a keep defense in ESO before the keep is flagged due to a siege, ending in you and 15 other players (forget gear progression; it's irrelevant and for the sake of argument you can call all players equally progressed) defending a keep against a zerg of 90 players, then that "local" imbalance negates any skill you and your 15 comrades may have over those 90 players. Only if other players are able to reach and participate in said defense in time to make an effective contribution to the overall keep defense does the local imbalance become even remotely skill-centric (as you state). Same goes for a MOBA, which is why junglers are effective. You can claim that forcing a fight takes skill, sure. But honestly, forcing the fight has only so much control over the actual outcome (and, at least in Smite, is something very easily negated by simply maintaining wards to jungle entrances). More than likely, if the lone defender is a god with high mobility (say, Serqet in Smite), you're still going to fail at winning that battle (defined as taking down one player with two) without insane burst damage and/or lots of CC. You can, in small or large part, gain that insane burst and/or CC by utilizing items. So, in keeping with the argument you made, it seems the PvP there can rely on such casual measures as who farms gold (done in MOBAs, mostly, by PvE and not PvP) the fastest. So again, RPG elements player a larger role there, as I said before.
Even without those elements, if reinforcement from the global population is impossible or impractical in time to contribute significantly to the overarching goal of the players' collective (be it spawn point capture or keep defense), localized population imbalances become, themselves, global population imbalances within the smaller region. This, as you said earlier, diminishes skill effectiveness. Until you add in a "commander" role capable of utilizing abilities and equipment to predict and monitor enemy movements on the large scale or the ability to spawn into points being contested (a traditional BF franchise tactic), you're just guessing where the opposing force will deploy the majority of its firepower (coincidentally, DICE implemented this commander role in BF4 to help further mitigate and help prevent the very effect I am describing). That (guessing at OpFor deployment without intelligence) is not really skill, aside from maybe memorizing which points players usually progress to after taking a previous point. The crux of the issue lies not with the open world, then, but whether or not the PvP systems prevent reliable reinforcement and effective response to an enemy team's troop movements. In essence, stretch the MOBA map out far enough as to make an opponent's response to your team deploying 3 gods in the duo lane (from base) impractical (or impossible by disallowing players to change lanes once they've been "commited" to another lane), and you diminish the skill effect if the opposing team fails to guess that you will deploy three of your gods in the duo lane. Luckily for MOBAs, this issue is avoided through wards and a smaller arena through which players are freely able to travel. Even without such an arena, this "open world effect" can be mitigated through other game mechanics (such as commander in BF4). Just take a glance at the Natural Selection franchises Marines team for a perfect example.
Sorry, but that doesn't cut it. When localized populations are imbalanced so that it's impossible (or impractical) to reinforce said location in time to make a different (as is the case in even games such as BF4), it becomes, in effect, the same thing as a global population imbalance (for that specific theater of battle).
If you happen to be the last few to port in for a keep defense in ESO before the keep is flagged due to a siege, ending in you and 15 other players (forget gear progression; it's irrelevant and for the sake of argument you can call all players equally progressed) defending a keep against a zerg of 90 players, then that "local" imbalance negates any skill you and your 15 comrades may have over those 90 players. Only if other players are able to reach and participate in said defense in time to make an effective contribution to the overall keep defense does the local imbalance become even remotely skill-centric (as you state). Same goes for a MOBA, which is why junglers are effective. You can claim that forcing a fight takes skill, sure. But honestly, forcing the fight has only so much control over the actual outcome (and, at least in Smite, is something very easily negated by simply maintaining wards to jungle entrances). More than likely, if the lone defender is a god with high mobility (say, Serqet in Smite), you're still going to fail at winning that battle (defined as taking down one player with two) without insane burst damage and/or lots of CC. You can, in small or large part, gain that insane burst and/or CC by utilizing items. So, in keeping with the argument you made, it seems the PvP there can rely on such casual measures as who farms gold (done in MOBAs, mostly, by PvE and not PvP) the fastest. So again, RPG elements player a larger role there, as I said before.
Even without those elements, if reinforcement from the global population is impossible or impractical in time to contribute significantly to the overarching goal of the players' collective (be it spawn point capture or keep defense), localized population imbalances become, themselves, global population imbalances within the smaller region. This, as you said earlier, diminishes skill effectiveness. Until you add in a "commander" role capable of utilizing abilities and equipment to predict and monitor enemy movements on the large scale or the ability to spawn into points being contested (a traditional BF franchise tactic), you're just guessing where the opposing force will deploy the majority of its firepower (coincidentally, DICE implemented this commander role in BF4 to help further mitigate and help prevent the very effect I am describing). That (guessing at OpFor deployment without intelligence) is not really skill, aside from maybe memorizing which points players usually progress to after taking a previous point. The crux of the issue lies not with the open world, then, but whether or not the PvP systems prevent reliable reinforcement and effective response to an enemy team's troop movements. In essence, stretch the MOBA map out far enough as to make an opponent's response to your team deploying 3 gods in the duo lane (from base) impractical (or impossible by disallowing players to change lanes once they've been "commited" to another lane), and you diminish the skill effect if the opposing team fails to guess that you will deploy three of your gods in the duo lane. Luckily for MOBAs, this issue is avoided through wards and a smaller arena through which players are freely able to travel. Even without such an arena, this "open world effect" can be mitigated through other game mechanics (such as commander in BF4). Just take a glance at the Natural Selection franchises Marines team for a perfect example.
With equal overall population, localized population imbalances are the result of skill. It's the result of decisions made on either side which determine how imbalanced localized pop will be. Those decisions and the execution of those decisions is what skill is. This is a skill advantage.
Contrasting that is a game where the global pop for two opposing factions is 50 vs 100. This is a non-skill advantage. Though if you want to argue that some skill is required to put together a larger clan, we can delve into how that singular non-skill advantage trumps a huge range of other skills that might otherwise be important. The same is even true to a degree (it's the argument you're making) when overall pop is equal but localized pop imbalances trump other types of skill that would otherwise be important.
There are skill advantages and non-skill advantages. They are both advantages, so in that respect the effect is the same. But the cause is what matters: whether an advantage is gained by skill or not is what causes a game to be skill-centric vs. casual.
The per-match RPG elements in MOBAs are the result of decisions made that session, so they're the result of skill. This is why even if you fail to get the kill in that 2v1 you might have forced the opposing god to return to base and miss out on XP and Gold, weakening his scaling -- if the time and resources it took to execute the ambush weren't too expensive, then you might still come out ahead in the exchange, despite the lack of kill.
Progression which carries over between matches does dilute MOBA PVP with non-skill factors. It would be better if those systems didn't exist at all (for those of us seeking pure, undiluted PVP,) but it's worth noting that each individual level tends not to make a huge difference, and on top of that the matchmaker will tend to match players of similar levels. It's only marginally
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
With equal overall population, localized population imbalances are the result of skill. It's the result of decisions made on either side which determine how imbalanced localized pop will be. Those decisions and the execution of those decisions is what skill is. This is a skill advantage.
Contrasting that is a game where the global pop for two opposing factions is 50 vs 100. This is a non-skill advantage. Though if you want to argue that some skill is required to put together a larger clan, we can delve into how that singular non-skill advantage trumps a huge range of other skills that might otherwise be important. The same is even true to a degree (it's the argument you're making) when overall pop is equal but localized pop imbalances trump other types of skill that would otherwise be important.
There are skill advantages and non-skill advantages. They are both advantages, so in that respect the effect is the same. But the cause is what matters: whether an advantage is gained by skill or not is what causes a game to be skill-centric vs. casual.
The per-match RPG elements in MOBAs are the result of decisions made that session, so they're the result of skill. This is why even if you fail to get the kill in that 2v1 you might have forced the opposing god to return to base and miss out on XP and Gold, weakening his scaling -- if the time and resources it took to execute the ambush weren't too expensive, then you might still come out ahead in the exchange, despite the lack of kill.
Progression which carries over between matches does dilute MOBA PVP with non-skill factors. It would be better if those systems didn't exist at all (for those of us seeking pure, undiluted PVP,) but it's worth noting that each individual level tends not to make a huge difference, and on top of that the matchmaker will tend to match players of similar levels. It's only marginally
Again, localized population imbalances are only skill if there is enough information to make a strategic decision. To say that, when offered three otherwise equal options (in terms of the information you have about each objective), picking one that, luckily, isn't the option the opposing team thought you would pick is most decidely not a skill unless you believe ESP exists.
Which is why I included the point about having strategic information available on hand, such as the Commander in BF4. His using the equipment and abilities available to track and predict enemy movement is skill. Guessing based on no available information (or negligible information) is not skill, no matter the resulting population imbalance as a result.
However, we digress mostly because we enjoy a good argument. It has little effect on my overall point: the crux I mentioned. It is not open world, but the ability of a team to respond effectively and efficiently to presented threats within any type of PvP that determines whether that PvP leans more casual or skill-centric as a matter of game systems. MOBAs can respond to a jungle in solo lane by ganking mid, thereby negating the advantage gained even if the solo laner gets killed. If the team had no way to respond to or predict the solo lane gank (or the solo laner had no way of letting his team know he was being ganked along with no minimap presence), then they have no way to respond or avoid the solo lane gank no matter how skillful they are. It, essentially, results in a global population imbalance in the solo lane that the soloer and his team had no way to predict or avoid (save for standing under his own tower losing precious minion gold). The same goes with localized population imbalances that cannot be responded to or predicted (due to whatever reason). If it's all guesswork, skill doesn't come into play regardless of the nature of the arena in which the event happens. The difference is how game systems are implemented to provide a manner in which teams can respond and/or predict such things by utilizing skill, logic, and strategy. This provides an avenue for skill to affect that overall result.
Again, localized population imbalances are only skill if there is enough information to make a strategic decision. To say that, when offered three otherwise equal options (in terms of the information you have about each objective), picking one that, luckily, isn't the option the opposing team thought you would pick is most decidely not a skill unless you believe ESP exists.
Which is why I included the point about having strategic information available on hand, such as the Commander in BF4. His using the equipment and abilities available to track and predict enemy movement is skill. Guessing based on no available information (or negligible information) is not skill, no matter the resulting population imbalance as a result.
However, we digress mostly because we enjoy a good argument. It has little effect on my overall point: the crux I mentioned. It is not open world, but the ability of a team to respond effectively and efficiently to presented threats within any type of PvP that determines whether that PvP leans more casual or skill-centric as a matter of game systems. MOBAs can respond to a jungle in solo lane by ganking mid, thereby negating the advantage gained even if the solo laner gets killed. If the team had no way to respond to or predict the solo lane gank (or the solo laner had no way of letting his team know he was being ganked along with no minimap presence), then they have no way to respond or avoid the solo lane gank no matter how skillful they are. It, essentially, results in a global population imbalance in the solo lane that the soloer and his team had no way to predict or avoid (save for standing under his own tower losing precious minion gold). The same goes with localized population imbalances that cannot be responded to or predicted (due to whatever reason). If it's all guesswork, skill doesn't come into play regardless of the nature of the arena in which the event happens. The difference is how game systems are implemented to provide a manner in which teams can respond and/or predict such things by utilizing skill, logic, and strategy. This provides an avenue for skill to affect that overall result.
What game do you feel doesn't provide enough information to make a strategic decision? In every game I've played, you have a sense for which base(s) the enemy is most likely to attack, and you can take steps to see it coming by posting scouts of some kind if you feel that allocation of resources is worth it to get the advance warning. This becomes especially true of games with lots of players, or games with additional scouting features.
Even in games where offense/defense is poorly balanced, the strategy becomes 'continually attack to keep the enemy off their footing'. There's always strategy.
As for skill-centric vs. casual, that's just whether PVP is purely determined by skill factors, or whether it's diluted by non-skill factors.
You seem to think that players wouldn't change how they played in a MOBA if there were no wards and no way for other lanes to reinforce in time. That's just wrong. The moment the game rules changed (the moment wards were removed), players would immediately begin learning that what was previously a safe strategic decision (to push the lane more aggressively) is no longer safe, and they would gradually change how they play to account for that. Maybe a few players would throw their hands up and say "I can't do anything to stop these gankers!" and completely give up on trying to improve their strategy, but that's not the game lacking strategy -- that's the player lacking strategy.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
It wouldn't be so bad if the games actually looked professional but MOST of them look like budget ware,cash grabs.
Most of them ARE budget-weare & cash grabs. Think about it ... can anyone produce anything but budget-ware given the small amount of money some of these games (except, of course, star citizen) are asking for?
And don't tell me they can raise more money from VCs or publishers .. because if they can, they probably would not need KS in the first place.
What game do you feel doesn't provide enough information to make a strategic decision? In every game I've played, you have a sense for which base(s) the enemy is most likely to attack, and you can take steps to see it coming by posting scouts of some kind if you feel that allocation of resources is worth it to get the advance warning. This becomes especially true of games with lots of players, or games with additional scouting features.
Even in games where offense/defense is poorly balanced, the strategy becomes 'continually attack to keep the enemy off their footing'. There's always strategy.
As for skill-centric vs. casual, that's just whether PVP is purely determined by skill factors, or whether it's diluted by non-skill factors.
You seem to think that players wouldn't change how they played in a MOBA if there were no wards and no way for other lanes to reinforce in time. That's just wrong. The moment the game rules changed (the moment wards were removed), players would immediately begin learning that what was previously a safe strategic decision (to push the lane more aggressively) is no longer safe, and they would gradually change how they play to account for that. Maybe a few players would throw their hands up and say "I can't do anything to stop these gankers!" and completely give up on trying to improve their strategy, but that's not the game lacking strategy -- that's the player lacking strategy.
The first paragraph is my point entirely. Your argument seems to boil down to "well, no good PvP game doesn't provide strategic information, so localized population imbalances are, by definition, skill." It's ignoring the cause and effect and just calling the effect its own cause. Localized population imbalances themselves have only to do with skill in what method was used to arrive there. The entire point of my argument isn't to state that population imbalances are never the result of skill, just as it is not my argument that open worlds cannot be casual (they can). However, they themselves only err on the side of casual if the game developers intentionally design game systems within them to facilitate one or the other.
Your initial argument seemed to be that open world PvP is, by definition, casual. That is the argument I challenged that led us to the posts we are making now. In fact, to argue that localized population balances are the result of skill (which, regardless of semantics, we agree on) is to say that open world PvP games are skill-centric in that area; assuming, of course, there is a method by which to implement a strategy (predicting/tracking/scouting/rapid response). Ergo, open world (unstructured) vs. structured (such as arena) isn't analogous to casual vs. skill-centric. Change a few things in a MOBA, and it can quickly become a more casual experience than ESO without losing its structured nature. Change a few things in ESO (such as the gear progression you mentioned), and it quickly becomes as skill-centric as current MOBA offerings. Admittedly, you must cap the global populations to achieve such an effect.
Originally posted by nariusseldon What is news worthy is that people still think KS is newsworthy?
What a silly statement. I mean, I get that it's hip to be cynical and dismissive about KS these days, but this doesn't even make sense.
hmm ... you just said "I get that it's hip to be cynical and dismissive about KS these days" .. so you get the meaning. So what is the problem?
And yes, it is hip to be cynical & dismissive about KS .. and I will continue to do so. In fact, how can one not to be when it is so obvious that KS is selling pipe dreams with no guarantee of anything being produced.
Originally posted by nariusseldon What is news worthy is that people still think KS is newsworthy?
What a silly statement. I mean, I get that it's hip to be cynical and dismissive about KS these days, but this doesn't even make sense.
hmm ... you just said "I get that it's hip to be cynical and dismissive about KS these days" .. so you get the meaning. So what is the problem?
And yes, it is hip to be cynical & dismissive about KS .. and I will continue to do so. In fact, how can one not to be when it is so obvious that KS is selling pipe dreams with no guarantee of anything being produced.
That's why it's so great keeping track of these projects and seeing the backers pay.
Originally posted by nariusseldon What is news worthy is that people still think KS is newsworthy?
What a silly statement. I mean, I get that it's hip to be cynical and dismissive about KS these days, but this doesn't even make sense.
hmm ... you just said "I get that it's hip to be cynical and dismissive about KS these days" .. so you get the meaning. So what is the problem?
And yes, it is hip to be cynical & dismissive about KS .. and I will continue to do so. In fact, how can one not to be when it is so obvious that KS is selling pipe dreams with no guarantee of anything being produced.
That's why it's so great keeping track of these projects and seeing the backers pay.
BUHAHAHAHAH
Nothing light up internet forums like train wrecks?
Originally posted by nariusseldon What is news worthy is that people still think KS is newsworthy?
What a silly statement. I mean, I get that it's hip to be cynical and dismissive about KS these days, but this doesn't even make sense.
hmm ... you just said "I get that it's hip to be cynical and dismissive about KS these days" .. so you get the meaning. So what is the problem?
And yes, it is hip to be cynical & dismissive about KS .. and I will continue to do so. In fact, how can one not to be when it is so obvious that KS is selling pipe dreams with no guarantee of anything being produced.
C'mon, you're better than this type of overly simplistic garbage. Even the fact that you have such an extreme opinion on KS means that it is clearly still news worthy. Because here you are delivering a strong opinion on it.
Personally, I actually acknowledge the vast majority of successfully delivered KS projects, from RPGs, to comics, to computer games, to books, to everything else that the system has successfully allowed to happen outside of VC investment and mainstream publishers. Not one KS project I have backed has failed to deliver something that I am very happy with.
Originally posted by nariusseldon What is news worthy is that people still think KS is newsworthy?
What a silly statement. I mean, I get that it's hip to be cynical and dismissive about KS these days, but this doesn't even make sense.
hmm ... you just said "I get that it's hip to be cynical and dismissive about KS these days" .. so you get the meaning. So what is the problem?
And yes, it is hip to be cynical & dismissive about KS .. and I will continue to do so. In fact, how can one not to be when it is so obvious that KS is selling pipe dreams with no guarantee of anything being produced.
C'mon, you're better than this type of overly simplistic garbage. Even the fact that you have such an extreme opinion on KS means that it is clearly still news worthy. Because here you are delivering a strong opinion on it.
Personally, I actually acknowledge the vast majority of successfully delivered KS projects, from RPGs, to comics, to computer games, to books, to everything else that the system has successfully allowed to happen outside of VC investment and mainstream publishers. Not one KS project I have backed has failed to deliver something that I am very happy with.
Blanket condemnations are for children.
having some successes do not invalidate the fact that you were still paying for a pipe dream .. when the dev asked for money. There was still no guarantees.
I have no problems if others, like you, want to bet your hard earned money on mere promises .. but that does not mean that i cannot have some fun calling it out as it is.
The first paragraph is my point entirely. Your argument seems to boil down to "well, no good PvP game doesn't provide strategic information, so localized population imbalances are, by definition, skill." It's ignoring the cause and effect and just calling the effect its own cause. Localized population imbalances themselves have only to do with skill in what method was used to arrive there. The entire point of my argument isn't to state that population imbalances are never the result of skill, just as it is not my argument that open worlds cannot be casual (they can). However, they themselves only err on the side of casual if the game developers intentionally design game systems within them to facilitate one or the other.
Your initial argument seemed to be that open world PvP is, by definition, casual. That is the argument I challenged that led us to the posts we are making now. In fact, to argue that localized population balances are the result of skill (which, regardless of semantics, we agree on) is to say that open world PvP games are skill-centric in that area; assuming, of course, there is a method by which to implement a strategy (predicting/tracking/scouting/rapid response). Ergo, open world (unstructured) vs. structured (such as arena) isn't analogous to casual vs. skill-centric. Change a few things in a MOBA, and it can quickly become a more casual experience than ESO without losing its structured nature. Change a few things in ESO (such as the gear progression you mentioned), and it quickly becomes as skill-centric as current MOBA offerings. Admittedly, you must cap the global populations to achieve such an effect.
EDIT- For clarity.
If I posted a sentry player, and he called out the attack, skill (the cause) will have allowed our group to respond quickly enough to fend off the attack (the effect).
Open world PVP most frequently implies freeform team sizes like EVE or Darkfall, where the global pop for teams is uneven. Where uneven teams can be arranged long before the current session. That's what's casual. It's so frequent that open world PVP is a term applied to that type of game -- and not instanced PVP games (even high-pop-limit ones like PS2, GW2, ESO) -- that yes I often make generalizations in relation to the term.
But discussing the definition of open world PVP isn't even necessary, since it should be clear that what makes something casual is whether the game is purely decided by skill or not. When global pop is equal, it is. When global pop is allowed to be player-controlled, it isn't.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
having some successes do not invalidate the fact that you were still paying for a pipe dream .. when the dev asked for money. There was still no guarantees.
I have no problems if others, like you, want to bet your hard earned money on mere promises .. but that does not mean that i cannot have some fun calling it out as it is.
We get it, you're not a risk-taker and that's fine.
having some successes do not invalidate the fact that you were still paying for a pipe dream .. when the dev asked for money. There was still no guarantees.
I have no problems if others, like you, want to bet your hard earned money on mere promises .. but that does not mean that i cannot have some fun calling it out as it is.
We get it, you're not a risk-taker and that's fine.
Of course not. There is no point in taking risks when you can just wait ... and see if these "developers" actually produce a game.
It is not like there is a lack of good entertainment and I need to resort to taking risks to get it.
Comments
It wouldn't be so bad if the games actually looked professional but MOST of them look like budget ware,cash grabs.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Being a Planetside player since first edition... ^Yeah definetly
Sway all day, butterfly flaps all the way!
Whether a game has open areas or not isn't really important in terms of skill-centric vs. casual PVP. All that matters is whether population is balanced, and in PS2 I spend 99% of my time on triple-pop-locked continents so pop was balanced. Any localized pop imbalances are skill-based, in exactly the same way as when a LoL jungler creates a 2v1 fight in the top lane.
It's not really about PS2 specifically though; diamond in HotS, top 3% in the "skill" leaderboard in BF4. In all games I'm going to basically end up near the top but not-quite-pro levels (too much game-hopping for that) and even if I wasn't personally skilled, the point would be just as valid.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
See my edit above. Honestly then, you cannot claim ESO PvP to be casual. As you have said in PS2, you can spend the majority of the time playing pop-locked battles (just as in ESO with campaigns). However, that doesn't prevent you from being run over by a zerg. I would challenge the argument that localized population imbalances are skill-based, unless you're trying to refer to a metagame in which a commander has full authority to place and move troops/assets. Then yes, his skill seems to become relevant.
Otherwise, you run back into the issue of an open world offering too much room for player groups to be imbalanced to the point of a zerg forming, thereby creating a more "casual" encounter. It's hard to justify including a 1v2 in a MOBA in the same category as a 50v100 in a game such as ESO or PS2. Those true effective odds, in the end, are much different, and rely on much different factors.
EDIT- Also, I wasn't challenging your personal skill, as its irrelevant to the arguments (as you yourself stated). The stats only offer any useful information as it pertains to the discussion of skill-based (structured) vs. open world PvP. And even then, very limited information, as it's anecdotal at best.
Again, the point is that the fun of winning one-against-many isn't exclusive to open world PVP. Name any team-based skill-centric PVP and you'll have a game where divide-and-conquer techniques work well. Even in many non-team-based games this type of gameplay exists (eg isolating half your opponent's army in SC2.)
The point isn't about PS2 in particular, and it was never about "organized" PVP.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Yes, if you're on a triple-pop-locked map in ESO then population isn't a factor and any localized imbalance is the result of player skill.
ESO still doesn't avoid being casual though because progression matters. Two max-level equally-skilled opponents will each win 50% of the time. But give one of them a less progressed character, and they will lose -- not because of skill, but because of the progression disadvantage.
1v2 in a MOBA is the exact same localized, skilled-created advantage as the 50v100 fight in PS2 or ESO. As long as overall populations are balanced, any localized imbalance is the result of skill. That's what matters in relation to a game being skill-centric or casual, so any other distinctions you're making simply aren't relevant to the topic at hand. It's only when overall populations aren't balanced that population becomes a non-skill factor.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Sorry, but that doesn't cut it. When localized populations are imbalanced so that it's impossible (or impractical) to reinforce said location in time to make a different (as is the case in even games such as BF4), it becomes, in effect, the same thing as a global population imbalance (for that specific theater of battle).
If you happen to be the last few to port in for a keep defense in ESO before the keep is flagged due to a siege, ending in you and 15 other players (forget gear progression; it's irrelevant and for the sake of argument you can call all players equally progressed) defending a keep against a zerg of 90 players, then that "local" imbalance negates any skill you and your 15 comrades may have over those 90 players. Only if other players are able to reach and participate in said defense in time to make an effective contribution to the overall keep defense does the local imbalance become even remotely skill-centric (as you state). Same goes for a MOBA, which is why junglers are effective. You can claim that forcing a fight takes skill, sure. But honestly, forcing the fight has only so much control over the actual outcome (and, at least in Smite, is something very easily negated by simply maintaining wards to jungle entrances). More than likely, if the lone defender is a god with high mobility (say, Serqet in Smite), you're still going to fail at winning that battle (defined as taking down one player with two) without insane burst damage and/or lots of CC. You can, in small or large part, gain that insane burst and/or CC by utilizing items. So, in keeping with the argument you made, it seems the PvP there can rely on such casual measures as who farms gold (done in MOBAs, mostly, by PvE and not PvP) the fastest. So again, RPG elements player a larger role there, as I said before.
Even without those elements, if reinforcement from the global population is impossible or impractical in time to contribute significantly to the overarching goal of the players' collective (be it spawn point capture or keep defense), localized population imbalances become, themselves, global population imbalances within the smaller region. This, as you said earlier, diminishes skill effectiveness. Until you add in a "commander" role capable of utilizing abilities and equipment to predict and monitor enemy movements on the large scale or the ability to spawn into points being contested (a traditional BF franchise tactic), you're just guessing where the opposing force will deploy the majority of its firepower (coincidentally, DICE implemented this commander role in BF4 to help further mitigate and help prevent the very effect I am describing). That (guessing at OpFor deployment without intelligence) is not really skill, aside from maybe memorizing which points players usually progress to after taking a previous point. The crux of the issue lies not with the open world, then, but whether or not the PvP systems prevent reliable reinforcement and effective response to an enemy team's troop movements. In essence, stretch the MOBA map out far enough as to make an opponent's response to your team deploying 3 gods in the duo lane (from base) impractical (or impossible by disallowing players to change lanes once they've been "commited" to another lane), and you diminish the skill effect if the opposing team fails to guess that you will deploy three of your gods in the duo lane. Luckily for MOBAs, this issue is avoided through wards and a smaller arena through which players are freely able to travel. Even without such an arena, this "open world effect" can be mitigated through other game mechanics (such as commander in BF4). Just take a glance at the Natural Selection franchises Marines team for a perfect example.
With equal overall population, localized population imbalances are the result of skill. It's the result of decisions made on either side which determine how imbalanced localized pop will be. Those decisions and the execution of those decisions is what skill is. This is a skill advantage.
Contrasting that is a game where the global pop for two opposing factions is 50 vs 100. This is a non-skill advantage. Though if you want to argue that some skill is required to put together a larger clan, we can delve into how that singular non-skill advantage trumps a huge range of other skills that might otherwise be important. The same is even true to a degree (it's the argument you're making) when overall pop is equal but localized pop imbalances trump other types of skill that would otherwise be important.
There are skill advantages and non-skill advantages. They are both advantages, so in that respect the effect is the same. But the cause is what matters: whether an advantage is gained by skill or not is what causes a game to be skill-centric vs. casual.
The per-match RPG elements in MOBAs are the result of decisions made that session, so they're the result of skill. This is why even if you fail to get the kill in that 2v1 you might have forced the opposing god to return to base and miss out on XP and Gold, weakening his scaling -- if the time and resources it took to execute the ambush weren't too expensive, then you might still come out ahead in the exchange, despite the lack of kill.
Progression which carries over between matches does dilute MOBA PVP with non-skill factors. It would be better if those systems didn't exist at all (for those of us seeking pure, undiluted PVP,) but it's worth noting that each individual level tends not to make a huge difference, and on top of that the matchmaker will tend to match players of similar levels. It's only marginally
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Again, localized population imbalances are only skill if there is enough information to make a strategic decision. To say that, when offered three otherwise equal options (in terms of the information you have about each objective), picking one that, luckily, isn't the option the opposing team thought you would pick is most decidely not a skill unless you believe ESP exists.
Which is why I included the point about having strategic information available on hand, such as the Commander in BF4. His using the equipment and abilities available to track and predict enemy movement is skill. Guessing based on no available information (or negligible information) is not skill, no matter the resulting population imbalance as a result.
However, we digress mostly because we enjoy a good argument. It has little effect on my overall point: the crux I mentioned. It is not open world, but the ability of a team to respond effectively and efficiently to presented threats within any type of PvP that determines whether that PvP leans more casual or skill-centric as a matter of game systems. MOBAs can respond to a jungle in solo lane by ganking mid, thereby negating the advantage gained even if the solo laner gets killed. If the team had no way to respond to or predict the solo lane gank (or the solo laner had no way of letting his team know he was being ganked along with no minimap presence), then they have no way to respond or avoid the solo lane gank no matter how skillful they are. It, essentially, results in a global population imbalance in the solo lane that the soloer and his team had no way to predict or avoid (save for standing under his own tower losing precious minion gold). The same goes with localized population imbalances that cannot be responded to or predicted (due to whatever reason). If it's all guesswork, skill doesn't come into play regardless of the nature of the arena in which the event happens. The difference is how game systems are implemented to provide a manner in which teams can respond and/or predict such things by utilizing skill, logic, and strategy. This provides an avenue for skill to affect that overall result.
What game do you feel doesn't provide enough information to make a strategic decision? In every game I've played, you have a sense for which base(s) the enemy is most likely to attack, and you can take steps to see it coming by posting scouts of some kind if you feel that allocation of resources is worth it to get the advance warning. This becomes especially true of games with lots of players, or games with additional scouting features.
Even in games where offense/defense is poorly balanced, the strategy becomes 'continually attack to keep the enemy off their footing'. There's always strategy.
As for skill-centric vs. casual, that's just whether PVP is purely determined by skill factors, or whether it's diluted by non-skill factors.
You seem to think that players wouldn't change how they played in a MOBA if there were no wards and no way for other lanes to reinforce in time. That's just wrong. The moment the game rules changed (the moment wards were removed), players would immediately begin learning that what was previously a safe strategic decision (to push the lane more aggressively) is no longer safe, and they would gradually change how they play to account for that. Maybe a few players would throw their hands up and say "I can't do anything to stop these gankers!" and completely give up on trying to improve their strategy, but that's not the game lacking strategy -- that's the player lacking strategy.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Most of them ARE budget-weare & cash grabs. Think about it ... can anyone produce anything but budget-ware given the small amount of money some of these games (except, of course, star citizen) are asking for?
And don't tell me they can raise more money from VCs or publishers .. because if they can, they probably would not need KS in the first place.
The first paragraph is my point entirely. Your argument seems to boil down to "well, no good PvP game doesn't provide strategic information, so localized population imbalances are, by definition, skill." It's ignoring the cause and effect and just calling the effect its own cause. Localized population imbalances themselves have only to do with skill in what method was used to arrive there. The entire point of my argument isn't to state that population imbalances are never the result of skill, just as it is not my argument that open worlds cannot be casual (they can). However, they themselves only err on the side of casual if the game developers intentionally design game systems within them to facilitate one or the other.
Your initial argument seemed to be that open world PvP is, by definition, casual. That is the argument I challenged that led us to the posts we are making now. In fact, to argue that localized population balances are the result of skill (which, regardless of semantics, we agree on) is to say that open world PvP games are skill-centric in that area; assuming, of course, there is a method by which to implement a strategy (predicting/tracking/scouting/rapid response). Ergo, open world (unstructured) vs. structured (such as arena) isn't analogous to casual vs. skill-centric. Change a few things in a MOBA, and it can quickly become a more casual experience than ESO without losing its structured nature. Change a few things in ESO (such as the gear progression you mentioned), and it quickly becomes as skill-centric as current MOBA offerings. Admittedly, you must cap the global populations to achieve such an effect.
EDIT- For clarity.
What a silly statement. I mean, I get that it's hip to be cynical and dismissive about KS these days, but this doesn't even make sense.
hmm ... you just said "I get that it's hip to be cynical and dismissive about KS these days" .. so you get the meaning. So what is the problem?
And yes, it is hip to be cynical & dismissive about KS .. and I will continue to do so. In fact, how can one not to be when it is so obvious that KS is selling pipe dreams with no guarantee of anything being produced.
That's why it's so great keeping track of these projects and seeing the backers pay.
BUHAHAHAHAH
Sway all day, butterfly flaps all the way!
Nothing light up internet forums like train wrecks?
C'mon, you're better than this type of overly simplistic garbage. Even the fact that you have such an extreme opinion on KS means that it is clearly still news worthy. Because here you are delivering a strong opinion on it.
Personally, I actually acknowledge the vast majority of successfully delivered KS projects, from RPGs, to comics, to computer games, to books, to everything else that the system has successfully allowed to happen outside of VC investment and mainstream publishers. Not one KS project I have backed has failed to deliver something that I am very happy with.
Blanket condemnations are for children.
having some successes do not invalidate the fact that you were still paying for a pipe dream .. when the dev asked for money. There was still no guarantees.
I have no problems if others, like you, want to bet your hard earned money on mere promises .. but that does not mean that i cannot have some fun calling it out as it is.
Cheap games:
https://www.g2a.com/r/exalino
If I posted a sentry player, and he called out the attack, skill (the cause) will have allowed our group to respond quickly enough to fend off the attack (the effect).
Open world PVP most frequently implies freeform team sizes like EVE or Darkfall, where the global pop for teams is uneven. Where uneven teams can be arranged long before the current session. That's what's casual. It's so frequent that open world PVP is a term applied to that type of game -- and not instanced PVP games (even high-pop-limit ones like PS2, GW2, ESO) -- that yes I often make generalizations in relation to the term.
But discussing the definition of open world PVP isn't even necessary, since it should be clear that what makes something casual is whether the game is purely decided by skill or not. When global pop is equal, it is. When global pop is allowed to be player-controlled, it isn't.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
We get it, you're not a risk-taker and that's fine.
Sway all day, butterfly flaps all the way!
Of course not. There is no point in taking risks when you can just wait ... and see if these "developers" actually produce a game.
It is not like there is a lack of good entertainment and I need to resort to taking risks to get it.