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Fight Against "Streamlined" Systems

I want to make sure AOC doesn't cater to lazy ('casual') players. This ultimately ruins a majority of MMOs with otherwise great potential. See video on what made Vanilla WoW so great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OBK8k_B3Lc

Thoughts?

Comments

  • There are plenty of games for casuals. Let there be a game for the more serious folks for once.
  • Independently from the basic difficulty of the game, there can and should be content for all kinds of players. I also like it more when even normal mobs sometimes need attention and strategy to kill them and not just smashing some buttons while drinking coffee. But casual players are not some kind of cancer to mmo's (except the ones who littarly cry about everything) , they are a important part of the community and you cant make mmo's general difficulty aim for something like demon souls just cause hardcore gamers would love that. 

    So yes i also hope normal mobs are not just there to get farmed in hordes by one not even strong player but casual and not so much skilled players should be able to play through the normal content if they use their brain a little. Dungeons, raids and world bosses are another thing to talk about. Of course there should be rly difficult content like this that just can be made with a lot of skill and coordination. And i also hope that i dont play this kind of content and im very proud that i made it and some weeks later they nerf it cause some of the crybabies where to loud.

  • There really does need to be some challenge come back into MMO's and I don't mean just raid and dungeon content. There needs to be a sense of danger even out in the open world, perhaps there are more dangerous mobs that have long paths that a single player can not take on, or groups of mobs that take a couple of coordinated players to attack. 

    Challenge needs to be there in what we seek to do in the world of Verra, a sense of wonder and danger really do need to find their way back into MMO's. 
  • What exactly do you mean by streamlined systems? Are you referring to dungeon cues and lfr type systems? If that's the case then yes I agree to a certain point. I feel like there's nothing wrong with a group finder system, especially if it's a local one. The auto cue, stuff where once a full team is gathered just auto pops you to the dungeon is totally unnecessary tho. Since dungeons aren't instanced for the most part I don't think we will even be able to see that implemented tho. Which is great! 

    I do however think it is beneficial for pvp content when it comes to arenas and instanced battlegrounds. 

    If you are just referring to general difficulty in content, then I absolutely agree. I've leveled a couple toons in WoW this last month and leveling is just a joke. The only time I died out in the world was when I accidentally pulled 3 mobs, and got aggro from two patrolling mobs too, which ended up with like 15 enemies beating on me, and even that was probably beatable if I wasn't just literally "smashing buttons and drinking coffee"

    Im very hopeful that this game will bring back a need to CC, interrupt, and position well in every day questing, and definitely in dungeons/raids. Having to do these things in solo content, makes you better at group content. 
  • I recently came across this YouTube piece about levelling in RPGs. I don't agree with all he says, but he makes some very valid points I feel. It's about twenty minutes, so if you have the time. It might be worth checking out.

    https://youtu.be/x6UV2gXwFPw
  • Ariatras said:
    I recently came across this YouTube piece about levelling in RPGs. I don't agree with all he says, but he makes some very valid points I feel. It's about twenty minutes, so if you have the time. It might be worth checking out.

    https://youtu.be/x6UV2gXwFPw
    He definitely has an interesting take on leveling systems, and there are a lot of good points that he makes, namely that all creatures are basically the same difficulty with an artificial difficulty added by levels, his comments on how mobs level, and that grinding levels sucks. 

    With the way Steven has said mobs will be I think we may slightly get away from the standard with the absence of actual level gated areas(this area is for 1-10, next is 11-20 etc etc). Having mobs of varying levels occupy an area will certainly help. Also with how he said primary class will be a more vertical progression and secondary more horizontal, we have an opportunity for a better feeling there as well in the leveling experience. 

    As as soon as you involve systems where you unlock things as you go in his example (skills, talents, etc) you're still including a leveling system, just getting rid of the character levels and putting it else where.

    Idk if we need to totally tear down the leveling system we are all familiar with, we just need to find better ways to implement it. Horizontal AND vertical progression is a nice start. Making the world feel more dynamic with varying mob levels is a nice start. Weapon proficiency progression is a nice start, and most importantly making all content at all points of the game rewarding, and with a semblance of difficulty will help lessen the need to just grind levels and rush to max.

    I'm interested to see how Intrepid handles that claim of making this game about the entirety of the game and not just about max level. I hope this isn't another game where I dread making an alt because max level is all that matters and the grind to get there is long and boring. 
  • Having a streamlined experience is good. Having a casual-friendly experience is very good. These things don't need to be "dumb" for the lowest common denominator. League of Legends is very streamlined and simple but it has a lot of depth and a very high skill ceiling. Systems for the sake of systems are not good, any system in the game should be there to improve the multiplayer experience.
  • I don't know exactly what OP meant, but, some of these comments and that video are great.

    I think there needs to be a sense of danger, a sense of importance. Dragons Dogma on hard mode did this well.

    There is a fine line between punishing decisions and adding importance. I think the difference is games that don't allow skill changes, costing you potentially months of decisions vs doing a quest wrong and costing you minutes. I prefer challenging systems that I come close to failing regularly but games some games you can invest so much into a character and never be able to customize play further, leading to boredom because restarting is so punishing.

    Its hard, because you need the game to be fresh and customizable but still rewarding and punishing.
  • It would be nice for there to be a sense of danger in the world. Having monsters with variety of attacks and animations (like say GW2 where there was a variety of mobs attacking at once in say Silverwaste, each with a different danger to counter or avoid)... Having more difficult combat in the open world that takes longer, but gives an equal reward for the time would be great....

    That said... no matter what we are dealing with AI when talking about PvE anything. With enough practice, they will become easy. Going back to my GW2 example, when Silverwaste first came out, it was insane to hold a fort by yourself or with too few people. You'd get knocked down by the dog things, rooted by the tree things, and swarmed by the bee summoning things... all before you could stand up from that first knockdown...

    Then people got used to it. They got used to the animations, patterns... learned where to stand and what kinds of skills / weapons fit you best for wrecking face in that area. It was no longer dangerous, it felt easy and became mindless farming. 

    The real challenge in this game is going to be the events where you face other players. Either the monster coin events where players can be monsters, or just the PvP sieges, etc. That is where your skill is going to matter the most because there's always someone better. 
  • Council said:
    I want to make sure AOC doesn't cater to lazy ('casual') players. This ultimately ruins a majority of MMOs with otherwise great potential. See video on what made Vanilla WoW so great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OBK8k_B3Lc

    Thoughts?
    Don't lump all of us casual players in with the lazy players.  I consider myself a casual player because I can't really do 6-12 hour gaming sessions any more.  I have a job and family responsibilities that take up most of my time.  Also because I choose to only play certain types of content.  I play MMOs mostly for the story, questing, crafting and character progression.  I don't play open world PVP if I can help it since it usually boils down to being repeatedly ganked by characters 20+ levels over my level.  I also don't raid.  I used to but after several instances of being in raiding guilds that became all about power politics and infighting due to family\friends drama I just gave up on it.

    That doen't mean I want the game to be easy.  Most MMOs these days are way too easy.  I miss games where you had to think to beat your opponent.  You had to lose a few times before you learned what worked and what didn't.  I even miss having to retrieve my stuff from my corpse\tombstone after getting killed.  No matter how good the story is if I can face roll the keyboard and win I'm not interested.  I do not want an I win button.  Does that mean I want Dark\Demon Souls level of difficulty?  No, let's be real.  Those games are brutal.  Soul crushing even.   B)   But there's got to be more of a challenge than there is in most games right now.  Hopefully AoC can find the right balance.
  • Another 'casual' chiming in to support much more challenging mobs - not just dungeons and raids.

    Tough mobs and fear of dying lead to excitement when levelling. Suddenly, gaining a level and a new skill point matters, your build matters, and you actually become happy when you find better items. 
  • Hopefully this game is well suited for semi-hardcore gamer's as I would love to sink some time into the game to get an advantage over the casuals :smirk:

  • Sure the game should have a certain level of difficulty however by no means should it be tailored twords one particular group of people, if people want some casual gameplay then let them. What's more since the game has levels, skills etc. then simply leveling up and going into areas of the same level as you are is enough for it to be considered casual play.

    Also making the game too difficult for 'casual' players will make some people discouraged from playing the game.
  • I'm more of a casual gamer, I don't have the time to go full out hardcore like others, and also if my schedule hits a snag, my playtime is what is cut first, I don't mind the game being more geared to cater to a serious audience, as long as it's still fairly playable for me, who mostly will be a wanderer never settling anywhere
  • From my understanding OP doesn't necessarily mean making the game excessively difficult, just that gameplay shouldn't be dumbed down to appeal to a wider audience. Think original SWG or Vanilla WoW vs the later iterations of both those games, SWG in particular.
  • Sure the game should have a certain level of difficulty however by no means should it be tailored twords one particular group of people, if people want some casual gameplay then let them. What's more since the game has levels, skills etc. then simply leveling up and going into areas of the same level as you are is enough for it to be considered casual play.

    Also making the game too difficult for 'casual' players will make some people discouraged from playing the game.
    "Casual" players should have no more or less difficulty than a "hardcore" player. The quote is what worries me "too difficult for casual". The term casual should have no mention in terms of difficulty. I promise you there will be people playing 30+ hours a week that aren't going to perform well. 

    I don't see many people having a problem with some casual gameplay I think there should be casual aspects to the game where you can log on for an hour and accomplish something but that should not be the focus of a sub based  game.
     
    I can't speak for everyone but I've seen a large group of people looking for difficulty and longevity. If you can accomplish everything you need to do in a single play session and you can easily breeze through it all something is wrong. 
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited January 2018
    The hardcore 1%ers are the folks walking around in game with the look, gear, achievements, etc. that everyone wants but not everyone wants to earn.  They have their place and they need to have content designed for them.  However, they alone cannot support a game or really constitute a large, healthy, vibrant community.  It takes all types to do that:  Crafters, Casuals, RPers, PVE only, PVP only, the everyday player, the twice a week player, the Collector, the Auction House Marketer, the Almost but not quite 1%ers, etc.

    A truly successful game will have something for almost everyone; maybe not the Whiners......
  • I don't understand the whole "casual" thing. I don't see how a game can be catered toward a casual player. If content is hard to achieve because you aren't putting enough time in then achieving said content will feel a lot more rewarding once you get it. Progression is what matters to me. Put more time into it and you progress faster than some others may but at the end of the day everyone has the ability to get to where a hardcore player has gotten. If youre here for a relaxing time after a long work day, then well we know ashes has questing, pvp, buying/selling, gambling (tavern games), exploring and a bunch of other things that a "casual" player can do and still have fun with. Theres also tons of things that hardcore players can do as well. What matters at the end is that everyone progresses and as long as that progression is interesting and challenging for all parties (both casual and hardcore) then the game will do well.
     
     On a side note i can already see myself spending a lot of time gambling as long as there are a couple of different types of games you can play. 
  • I prefer games that reward skill, rather than games that reward no-life grind (that usually doesn't require much skill, it just requires for you to have no life).


    There has to be some time investment, but this required time investment shouldn't be to harsh. Instead part of the time investment requirement should be replaced with skill requirement.

    Formula for game progression should be something along the lines of:

    40 x your success (attained by your skill) + 20 x your time investment + 20 x social factor + 20 x easy attainment (anyone can get just by logging in)

    Just my 2 cents.
  • Gothix said:
    I prefer games that reward skill, rather than games that reward no-life grind (that usually doesn't require much skill, it just requires for you to have no life).


    There has to be some time investment, but this required time investment shouldn't be to harsh. Instead part of the time investment requirement should be replaced with skill requirement.

    Formula for game progression should be something along the lines of:

    40 x your success (attained by your skill) + 20 x your time investment + 20 x social factor + 20 x easy attainment (anyone can get just by logging in)

    Just my 2 cents.
    I completely agree with you. I have spent the last several years playing World of Warcraft and Blizzard finally pushed me away with Legion because it is nothing but a lifeless grind. We need something that will reward people's skill, but at the same time I fear that a horde of players from MMOs like WoW or Runescape will come in and complain about it not being, "I can't spam a few buttons and win."
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited January 2018
    I feel a game can balance casual and hardcore play but so many game devs are lazy about it. The current solution so many use is item shops that offer xp boosters and such. The idea is people can "pay for convenience" if they don't have the time. Of course hardcore players use this too. I could go on for days about shitty P2W.

    To be frank, an MMO needs the casuals. They pay a sub just like everyone else. It also needs the hardcore crowd. There's a spectrum of game play devs need to cover and it's hard. Most solutions are to just keep kicking the can down the road.

    The "good" games figure out a way to reward players based not on just achievement but meaningful game play. Skill vs time played, I chose skill Everytime.
  • Read the blog guys: https://www.ashesofcreation.com/a-world-with-consequences/ It flat out says the game won't be easy, and the world will feel dangerous.

  • Sure it says it, but that won't erase the levels in the game, as long as your level is high enough the 'danger' dissapears bit by bit. Well I guess the game will take more getting used to then other mmo's.
  • Streamlining is not an inherently bad or good thing. Streamlining can mean many different things.

    If you mean feature pruning, I would tend to agree; a company should be careful about pruning too many features, unless they're exceptionally vestigial.

    If you mean streamlining UI, I would disagree; complexity is not often a good enough excuse to keep something looking/feeling janky.

    A balance is necessary, of course, but I think your remark is a touch silly. What matters is that the developers keep their vision in mind and that they routinely check that what they're doing accomplishes that vision.
  • One of the things that drew me to this game is pace. So many games these days are so fast paced you can't see what's going on, you're just mashing buttons in a memorized order and rolling through content without thinking about it. I want challenge in the game and I want the danger, and a slower pace so I can think through what I'm doing. And things should be challenging enough to encourage groups. With that regard I agree with the OP. 

    However, I consider myself a casual now. I used to be the GM of a high end raiding guild and we demanded up to 6 hours a night at least 3 nights a week... that's something I simply can't do anymore and looking back I'm glad I got out of it. I want to play a game to have fun doing it, not to take it on as a second job. Content should be challenging but not to the point where I have to sacrifice my ability to see the sun to do it.

    Give me a game where I have to think - bring strategy back to gaming. 
  • Council said:
    I want to make sure AOC doesn't cater to lazy ('casual') players. This ultimately ruins a majority of MMOs with otherwise great potential. See video on what made Vanilla WoW so great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OBK8k_B3Lc

    Thoughts?
    No offence, how come casual = lazy ? imo casual players in general have nothing to do with the difficulty.
    I'm a casual but I prefer challenging content and I'm not a fan of the "pay for convenience" or "p2w" as well.
    I get your point and I agree but again they don't play 10 hours a day not because they're lazy, it's because one job is enough, I don't need a second one.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited January 2018
    Council said:
    I want to make sure AOC doesn't cater to lazy ('casual') players. This ultimately ruins a majority of MMOs with otherwise great potential. See video on what made Vanilla WoW so great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OBK8k_B3Lc

    Thoughts?
    I think it's important not to generalize Casual Players.

    Seen a lot of toxicity towards the term "Casual Player" in the MMO scene in the last few years and it's unwarranted and bad. This could turn potential new people away from a game for absolutely no reason.

    The term "casual player" has been used in a very specific  way by game reviewers and thus has gained some negative connotation, we need to remember it can mean many things.

    I like my games to be challenging and I dislike games that are too easy.

    There are times I am Hardcore and there are times I am Casual depending on my real life commitments.

    People may need to play casually due to school or family. That doesn't mean that they necessarily want the game to be easy or are "lazy"

    It's better just to state how you want a game to be than to being toxic to a term that could have a broad meaning.

    Could say:
    I hope this game provides a challenge and does not cater to people who want and easy game or want to purchase advantages over other players.

    Something like that where it doesn't really insult anyone and still gets the idea across.

    Even if someone differs from what you want you can still be respectful and discuss it your point in a diplomatic way which builds a community. 

    I've made some great friends in my gaming life and some of them where we were on the opposite sides of a discussion but we always respected each other. Sometimes with a good argument we have swayed in out opinion.

    Good community is all about respect and holding a conversation not dictating, please leave toxic comments at the door.

    Let's be mindful of how we talk to each other.


  • Look what killed wow (Final Fantasy holds more subs now) is bad planning. The game was not built with the wisdom to see what would happen on year 12. As such stats, ITlevel and ability bloat forced Blizz to have to carve things out periodically. This in turn caused the constant issues with balance for the classes had to be reinvented every xpac. Add to this  catering to the raiders. I will say this again CATERING TO THE RAIDERS...."here is your dungeons...with tiers, here is your raids....with tiers, wanna see the story end.....go to a raid, need mats for high level stuff....go to a raid, etc....and what suffered as a result? PVP for starters and each xpac you received your typical, small turd shaped new map. Then add in the flight debacle....which AoC has that covered already.

    Casuals do not kill the game, hell casuals help keep the population up. What AoC needs to do is plan ahead and I do not mean just a story. The need to sit down and think "what happens at level 130? will we have to cut the classes up with a knife and what effect will that have on the game." "what can we add to the game to with each new xpac that wont break the game" "how can we reward hard work without creating a disparity between the 24/7 no lifer and the 3/5 working stiff and the 6/7 student" 

    A pretty game with stuff to do can last for years but what will truly be the games death will be those little decisions that add up to the hot mess that wow and other games are today.
  • Council said:
    I want to make sure AOC doesn't cater to lazy ('casual') players. This ultimately ruins a majority of MMOs with otherwise great potential. See video on what made Vanilla WoW so great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OBK8k_B3Lc

    Thoughts

    Not sure what you think qualifies as a "lazy casual "in an open world pvX sandbox. From my casual @ 25 prestige PuG perspective  you sound like a wow psuedo elite pve raider. But let's avoid assumptions. I agree about giving in to the QQ of "it's too hard" if that is what you mean but if the general content of any game caters to hardcores only, the limited income base will kill it. Player generated content means being hardcore means finding hardcore so we won't get our que served to us or a summons. THAT is also streamlining.

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