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The Curse of Skill In Multiplayer Games | MMORPG.com
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The Curse of Skill In Multiplayer Games | MMORPG.com
Niklas examines a lesser-broached subject in multiplayer games: the curse of skill.
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The thing is Niklas that the casual (typically solo) player won't be defending the right of players who invest more time and effort in a game to get more out of it. He won't be defending those who want to do group activates, want an economic system with depth, want roleplaying tools or anything else. Indeed they regularly come on the forums here and in social media elsewhere to complain about the fact they cannot solo everything in an hours play.
The course of MMO history has been to favour the casual, indeed for years it has been the default playstyle MMOs cater for. The systems perceived as "core" today are levels and grinding and not much else. So they already have won, but that's not enough, anything slightly more difficult or taking slightly longer is taken to task. If they have to actually join a group they act like the studio has triggered them.
Though I see all the measures you suggest as helping I see no fully rounded solution apart from keeping such players apart, which B2P or even better a subscription helps with.
The problem with video games is there's no incentive to not crush the new guy. Quite the opposite in fact. Thus, the "this is not for me" effect happens much more frequently and games shed players left and right. This is obviously more prevalent in pvp games, but it happens in pve too.
Last night, I ran a team in City of Heroes at max level, 54, and max team size, 8. And I had players as low as lvl 8 playing on the team. We cleared the mobs with no real problems. Some of the lower players died a few times.
The last thing I would do is refuse to add someone because of their level, or their pick of powers, or their skill level.
Games that try to force you to complete very hard content to progress are ones I usually avoid. I don't want the Uber Sword of Doom if I have to try to complete some hard dungeon 45 times to get it.
I'd rather pop open a beer, and do some fishing, or crafting, or exploring, or doing some dungeons. But not rushing to complete in record time, not trying to get the topmost gear, not trying to be the top on the leader boards.
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2024: 47 years on the Net.
The real problem, as I see it, is that the common casual player can't coexist with the completely incompetent players that the games are play-balanced for. Instead, nearly everything is stupidly easy. Get up and physically walk away from your computer for 20 seconds before coming back and it probably won't even matter because the game is so easy.
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This wouldn't be a problem if everyone wanted to politely do the content but politeness is a rare commodity in online games.
So you get the ones doing the dungeon for the first time trying to enjoy it and the speed running vets who want to do it as fast as humanly possible and use terrain tricks to skip every boss that can be skipped.
I feel bad for new players, especially tanks and healers trying to learn how to do their group roles properly when the luck of the draw dumps into a group with 2 or 3 high end players that have enough DPS and self-healing to just burn everything down in seconds making the lowbees feel useless.
It may not be the epeen measuring contest that is more pronounced in PvP but it's players of different ability (or experience) having competing interests lumped together not just in the same game world but in the same group activity.
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I disagree with this. I generally play solo and very much want all of that stuff in an MMO. Don't confuse power gamers with solo players.
100% this... maybe it's a BJJ thing. People need to learn to lose with grace and understand that there is always someone better or that you simply had a bad day. They also need to learn to win with grace and learn that beating the snots out of someone over and over serves no one, including yourself. In my opinion, the best way to learn this is BJJ.
On that note, most games aren't made to be played solo so getting beat solo is usually a choice, although sometimes it's just bad timing. Most of my PvP experience was on DAoC. I mostly played solo on a stealther, but later on with my Warrior. Playing solo on a visible was interesting. Sometimes I would get steamrolled by a zerg, other times they would wave and run past me (when I became better known by the players. I never got him the "Lone Enforcer" title but I had almost 700 solo kills at level 50. I am not a kid with too much time on his hands.
Almost all MMORPGs have more difficult content, just not seen in the open world much these days, for "reasons."
How you enjoying that new DS inspired MMO, I've heard it has some decent challenge in it?
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
It's happened to me in Neverwinter, Warframe, ESO (base) and STO to name a few. Most of the time I did raids I would be at the back of the pack. I don't think I ever had the opportunity to properly experience a raid in ESO, every time was just a mad rush to the end. Anyone that's played Warframe has likely experienced that moment where certain mission types load up and all the other players take off like its the flash vs superman race.
Now, I have no problem with skilled players, they put in the time and energy (and sometimes money) to get where they are and I'm not going to moan because the "lvl200 dark sword of slaying +15" requires obscene amounts of time or skill to acquire. I'm also not going to trash games like Albion or EVE when I get ganked while doing my own thing in risky areas, that's just part of the game and avoidable if you put in the time and effort. Not all content is suitable for all players.
That said, I work 2 jobs now so I don't have the time, money or inclination to develop top tier skill or grind for meta drops. I just want to chill and enjoy content whether it's dungeon runs with a buddy or just casual exploration.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
When a person joins a dungeon run where they are the only person there that has not watched the video on where to run and what to do, it can slow everyone down. Normally in FFXIV when I played it last people will ask and then explain what to do. However if you don't get it fast enough they might kick you. Yeah that happens. I was playing a healer and because it was a responsibility I could not just walk in without knowing the fight I watched videos and let me remind you that when you don't want to waste other people's time especially people who get angry, it is advisable to watch the video and learn the fight. Otherwise tell everyone before so they can replace you if they wish.
Don't get upset and say "How can I learn if you don't teach me?" There are guilds that do runs like that but on the roulette of dungeons you won't always find people willing to cut you some slack. Does it suck? Of course it does but that is the way MMORPGs have evolved or devolved.
I think I would love to play games where you could even in an MMORPG have everyone with no experience in that dungeon in one setting but that is segregation and not healthy either. On the other hand you will have bad experiences where they might kick you.
I have stopped doing a lot of harder group content for this reason and I think I'd rather be in @olepi group. I would really enjoy those types of grouping experiences but they are getting rare unless you're lucky and play with friends.
This is getting worse as the people with no patience dictate and control content and make it even harder but in the end you decide what you can do and tolerate. This is why people tend to gravitate to soloing.
In those games everyone is forced to start at the top.
This makes for the absolute worst kind of game build, and why level based games, where you start in the noob areas, and learn the easy stuff, and then you work your way up, and it gets harder as you move to the higher level stuff.
Now ideally, a good game, would be built on the idea, that it is easy in the starting areas for starting players, but as they go up in levels, so too does the challenge, as such, a level 10 character will have a much easier time in a level 10 zone, then a level 50 character will have in a level 50 zone, because at that point, the player should have been building the skills to be competitive at that level point.
Games don't do this however.
They tend to make game modes easy, so you can be cap level with noob skills, and that just for things to get frustrating.
The problem with Lost Ark is that it's basically unplayable with a controller. Heavy mouse usage is a repetitive strain injury waiting to happen. Thus, I can't play the game at all for reasons that have nothing to do with skill.
What "DS inspired MMO" are you talking about? I'm not necessarily demanding that everything be super hard, but I don't like it when it's so easy that you win even if you're not paying attention. I also don't like it when, to the extent that there is any challenge, it consists of doing things that aren't fun, such as finding other players for groups or fighting with an awful control scheme.
Level gates games, allow the content to be challenge adjusted, at the starting levels, you have easy content, content that players can learn the game with, and screw around in, without much fear. This gives them time to learn and understand the game.
As the players go up in level, they should learn the game mechanics and why things work, what works best together, and things like that.
As such, the challenge can be increased, and thus not only do they level up, the fights become more engaging and less forgiving as they do so.
Now ideally, the game should built on a Down-Leveling system, so players are not forced to do harder or higher level content, and continue to play in the regions they enjoy playing in.
This would be the ideal plan, because slowly, players would in fact move around the content, as they gained the knowhow to overcome the content, some faster than others, obviously.
Personally a game with a meta, or everyone running cookie cutter builds, is overall a poorly designed game, regardless of style.
Now, Sandbox, there is no room for progress, you are tossed into the game, at the hardest it will ever be, and you have to either be good enough to overcome that on your skill alone, or you will just fail.
The worst part of Sandbox games, is that they start at their hardest, and then they get progressively easier as you acquire gear and whatever passes as progress ranks, so in the end, they become less a challenge the longer you last.
Personally I cannot think of a worse design, that is like taking someone to learn how to box, and putting them into a title fight, and saying "Alright, with no training, skill, or anything else, lets see if your raw talent is good enough to survive, but if you win this fight, the next one will be easier"
That is like going down the ranks, as opposed to up them.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.