A 1-2% difference is within an acceptable margin of error where things are not clearly optimal. I have a strong suspicion that things will not be that well balanced because I have 20+ years of precedence to support that assessment.
Wearing fire resist gear against a mob that does cold damage is clearly not optimal. Situational gear sets don't change the meta, it just means you need to carry more gear. "Meta" is not equivalent to "best in slot". I appreciate situational gear because it helps, but it doesn't solve the issue of elementary school math being able to tell you what is optimal for a given situation.
I feel like I've repeated myself enough at this point, though, so I'm just going to let this rest.
Using situanional gear (ex: fire resist gear vs fire damage mobs) is common sense I don't need any math to understand I'll have an advantage and all around perform better if I have the resist gear on, but lets imagine there are 3 fire resist gear pieces for each slot, and each one of them has different stats, this is when theorycraft (using exact formulas) comes into play and the 4% 5% differences are spoted and one of the pieces is branded garbage because it's 5% worse than the other one, if there's no way to clealy identify the difference between the pieces they'll all be usefull and not seen as useless garbage gear that you want to avoid.
It's not always possible to reverse engineer the formula, nor is it necessary. You said it yourself, a 4-5% difference. Spotting a relative difference in effectiveness does not require knowing the exact formulas behind the scenes. If your formula is extremely convoluted or extremely simple, it doesn't really matter.
In all likelihood, you won't require 100% optimized gear to be able to clear the content, anyway. No one is going to intentionally choose a worse piece of gear, though, and unless the gear is randomly generated it will eventually be common knowledge that X item is better than Y item for a given task, so unless Y item is much harder to get than X, it's pointless to pursue X.
You simply can't erase two decades of MMO knowledge. Elite players will easily figure out how to optimize, and the information will propagate to the rest of the playerbase.
I don't know how to fix it, not practically. Neither do most devs, which is why most gear is created by scripts in newer games outside of select items. It's why EQ simplified their itemization from expansion to expansion, because they realized that spending hundreds of hours hand making gear was a wasted effort.
Situational gear will not change this. It just means that you will have to carry more gear in your bags to swap out depending on what you're doing. The best pieces to pursue will still be there.
I hope it comes with a manual of sorts.
Perhaps I am old school but I like the visceral feel and heft of a general guide manual with the following predjudice: If the game comes with a four-fold glossy paper in small to fine print I will not read it and instead play the game and figure it out, If the game comes with a manual that is like a small paperback I think to myself that this is not a normal game but that this game must be taken seriously.
If the ...book... is easy to understand and has fun things in it like mediocre maps and some lore and some nitty-gritty hints, I wont be put off from actually reading it. I would prefer it include basic info like warriors are better with STR but nothing too detailed, and then with general descriptioins of attributes that are not specifically pointing to one class like, Dexterity allows for complex manipulation or fine work.
Someone mentioned tribal knowledge and I thought that was a perfect description of what tends to come out, I agree it doesnt help making the decision but I don't mind the vagueness of such in-game rumors and speculations, its part of the charm. I fell in blackburrow once all the way down to the water and was not instantly killed- I therefore assumed that gnolls could not swim and so I was relatively safe in the water (while I was lamenting how I was going to get back to the group and not needing to gate and run back) The fish got me, though- heh.
I admit to also being influenced by the "meta". If there is one undisputed must-have thing for a class and I am that class I will set hopes for the same thing. Although I would like to see or have it made known that even if I dont have the "thing" but instead have I have those shoes and these gloves- I excel in another area like stronger DD spells or better mana useage. The more happenstance and accidental the better.
I am drawn to the "meta" but I prefer the accidental hero.
The more important question is will Pantheon come with a bib and a pair of Depends. I'll need the bib to catch all the drool as I stare mouth agape at the amazing visuals on a 35" curved monitor. I'll need the Depends because missing even 1 minute for bathroom breaks right after release is too much to ask.
Vandraad said:The more important question is will Pantheon come with a bib and a pair of Depends. I'll need the bib to catch all the drool as I stare mouth agape at the amazing visuals on a 35" curved monitor. I'll need the Depends because missing even 1 minute for bathroom breaks right after release is too much to ask.
Lol, now that is an image I won't be able to get rid of! I doubt you will be alone though, my friend :D
Liav said: ... I don't know how to fix it, not practically. Neither do most devs, which is why most gear is created by scripts in newer games outside of select items. It's why EQ simplified their itemization from expansion to expansion, because they realized that spending hundreds of hours hand making gear was a wasted effort. ...
Three possible ways to fix it, off the top of my head:
1) Reward specialization. - This means if I really want to specialize in ice damage, to the exclusion of all else? I can, and it's awesome. But Brell help me if I want to fight an Ice Giant, cause I'm gonna have a bad day.
2) Hand over the reins to the players ( with appropriate caps/limits. ) - This means allow players to customize every aspect of their character, including all skills, spells, gear, appearance, particle effects, sounds, everything. Every aspect of everything.
3) Dynamic content. - this means the encounters are different each time. It means saying goodbye to static mobs with static loot, known drop rates, fixed respawn timers, static resists and damage types, and break out those dice, because things are going to get far more randomized.
Any will work, all three will be the design that re-defines the genre. Essentially, the first dev team with the guts/bravery to peel back the curtain just a little more will get the glory. Risk = Reward.
None of your proposed solutions address the problem I'm talking about, unfortunately.
1. Such a system is still an illusion of choice at best. If a given player doesn't care about optimizing their gameplay, then nothing in this thread applies to begin with. Allowing players to specialize doesn't change the fact that there is, mathematically, a best way to specialize for a given section of content.
2. Players already have the ability to do most of these things in many existing games already. What do particle effects and sounds have to do with optimal gameplay?
3. Randomization in video games is never truly random. You have a finite number of stats with a finite spectrum of those stats. Through years of testing, people will crowdsource the randomly generated stats you should seek the exact same way that you do with static itemization. Severe RNG will prevent you from acquiring 100% optimal gear, probably, but it will not prevent people from knowing what they should seek out and likely finding something close. The disparity still exists, you've just added a more random element to achieving optimization.
As to your final paragraph, none of the aforementioned things are unique in the MMO genre.
I also don't know what risk vs. reward ratios have to do with the rest of your post.
Zorkon said:I thought this was a thread about an instruction manual?
It is. This particular train of thought began with discussing the contents of what an instruction manual would contain, and why it's probably pointless with the existence of wikis and various other information sources.
I think it needs something... I get that a lot of people on the forums want to just be dropped into the world and told "good luck, have fun" but gaming has changed and if the game is going to be successful it is going to need to appeal to newer gamers who haven't experienced that type of game before. If we lose people because they are lost and overwhelmed at the start of the game then bad player reviews will get written and it will be an uphill struggle...
Liav said:None of your proposed solutions address the problem I'm talking about, unfortunately.
1. Such a system is still an illusion of choice at best. If a given player doesn't care about optimizing their gameplay, then nothing in this thread applies to begin with. Allowing players to specialize doesn't change the fact that there is, mathematically, a best way to specialize for a given section of content.
2. Players already have the ability to do most of these things in many existing games already. What do particle effects and sounds have to do with optimal gameplay?
3. Randomization in video games is never truly random. You have a finite number of stats with a finite spectrum of those stats. Through years of testing, people will crowdsource the randomly generated stats you should seek the exact same way that you do with static itemization. Severe RNG will prevent you from acquiring 100% optimal gear, probably, but it will not prevent people from knowing what they should seek out and likely finding something close. The disparity still exists, you've just added a more random element to achieving optimization.
As to your final paragraph, none of the aforementioned things are unique in the MMO genre.
I also don't know what risk vs. reward ratios have to do with the rest of your post.
Well Liav this is more or less what I thought in that you are def a power gamer which isnt a bad thing but your comments on this post show how in depth you want to get with this game and prob any game.
1. You are obviously correct BUT some ppl dont care. There also may be many dif specs you can play OR some ppl want to be a jack of all trades so dont have to change spec.
2. To some players the entire game is about how they look. I knew several players who were top notch and all they talked about was the look of their character. So you are again correct in that particles mean nothing in the game but to the player it can mean everything. Example: Before eq allowed you to dye your gear if someone had a unique piece of gear ppl would come up and ask you where you got it. I had 2 such pieces and had alot of ppl comment on them. So its not all about power gaming for some if not most ppl. There are a few that that is that matters. Getting to 50th/max lvl so they could say they were 1st.
3. I had mentioned on another thread about the randomizing dungeons so that as the server changes the mobs in the dungeon change. Paw could be taken over by giants, then orcs, etc. As such the loot tables would change to match the mobs BUT they would also be random. You can crowdsource all you want but if it was truly random it wouldnt matter like you said. I HOPE the world changes so that every time you go into a dungeon it is dif. Boss x was killed and now Boss y takes over. IF its the same mobs then yes the loot table will prob be about the same BUT it could be dif IF boss y is a caster vs boss x being a sword wielder. Then the loot table should change to match. Personally I havent seen that in any game I have played and I have played alot of games but maybe there is one somewhere. Meaning dungeons change AND their loot table changes to match and I dont mean a patch or rewrite of a zone.
Overall you are 100% correct BUT in some things its not about min/maxing for ppl. Its about having fun and for some ppl min/maxing isnt fun. They just want to play and let the cards fall as they may.
1. I wouldn't say I'm correct necessarily, I just think that people underestimate how predictable a game can get and how even extreme development complexity can eventually be easily reduced to something very simple by the players.
2. Collecting appearance gear is like half of my gameplay. I'm just specifically talking about things like combat effectiveness so it seemed out of place. I like min/maxing but I care more about perfecting my mechanical skills, and honestly the only reason I ever raid is because the best looking equipment tends to come from higher end content. If I can't make my character aesthetically pleasing, I don't play that game. Half the reason I don't play FFXIV is because the art style makes me gag.
3. EQNext tried to do this but it is extraordinarily difficult to do. The way I like to describe it is like the uncanny valley in robotics. At best, it would be a pseudorandom system and it would have to have a lot of underlying support from the various game systems to make sense in the context of the world. Do the mobs just despawn and suddenly giants appear there? Do they physically travel across the world for two real life weeks to take it over? You rapidly approach Westworld levels of developmental complexity when you try to work this out. If you do it cheaply, it's just a gimmick that no one really cares about. To do it well requires it to be supported at the fundamental level during game development, and an absolutely unfathomable amount of AI work.
I know that min/max isn't fun for everyone, and I'm not trying to say it is.
Liav,
Nice set of rebuttals/agreements and I hope the world doesnt end but here goes.
1. Agreed. Example, its like learning Calculus the long way, then the teacher shows you the short cut. Its almost a slap yourself on the forehead moment IF you didnt already see the short cut that is. Then its like, didnt everybody else know that? Obviously everybody else DIDNT know it or the teacher wouldnt have to show it to them. Those are the players who reduce it to something simple.
2. Agreed. I HATED it when eq did that with ppl dying their gear as then everybody looked alike. When you had that 1 item on the server that nobody else had alot of the time ppl didnt even realize it was unique. I was sort of proud of having earned that gear thru all of the work with my guild. So yes I like having a good look also.
3. Agreed. I know as soon as I mention something like what I did that it would be VERY hard to do to say the least. I would say IF the mobs actually had clan wars for sake of argument then you could have the giants fight the kobalds. If you played eq then you would probably know about the giants fighting the dwarves that was in an entire zone. They fought each other with one character as the person who actually started it as a quest. They were the general who ran it. I never did it but it was one hell of a fight to watch. THAT was an amazing quest and at that time great programming as far as I was concerned. Since they did that so many years ago in eq I gotta believe it would be MUCH easier to do that same thing today meaning what I had already said and that is having clan wars and having mobs move in and out of zones as they fight for areas. So no, it wouldnt be just a despawn, and pop, another clan takes over. It would be logical.
It was funny that you had mentioned the min/max thing as last night I was playing some REAL dnd with friends and they were arguing over min/maxing. So the timing couldnt have been more perfect. Of the ppl that were there only one of them is a HUGE min/maxer while the rest just play to have fun. He gave several arguments on his side and others gave their side as to why him doing his constant badgering of the DM was taking away from THEIR game play ergo fun. It was actually funny to listen to. In the end it didnt matter as thats how he likes to play and thats HIS fun while for the rest it wasnt.
Liav said:tl/dr;
.....Knights have never been able to MT as well as Warriors. Druids can't be main healers in raids. CH rotations practically predate human history. People had EQ pretty well figured out very early on, even if the math wasn't 100% there...
not saying I agree or disagree with min/maxing. However, the above is a clear example of how min/maxing is exclusive. When you raid in top guilds and find that knights indeed can be as good and in some situations better than warriors, where good Druids can totally out parse clerics and where ch rotations are guaranteed to kill a raid, it clearly shows that while min/maxing might tell you something about the material, it says nothing about the skill (or the lack of) of the player.
20 years experience in mmo's means you've played an mmo or multiple mmo's for 20 years. It does not mean you are skilledd. It does not tell anyone you are more or less skilled than another. Knowing how to find out or knowing which is the BiS does not make anyone a better player. if you have it, you have a better chance at a top guild and Vice versa, if you don't you may have a smaller chance. Ive heard it many times in guild people saying so and so had these things in the see slots...what are they thinking?
We all play this game from different perspectives. What is fun for one, may not be the other nd the reverse is true as well.
we all have one thing in common though and that is we want this game to succeed and be fun for as many different play styles as possible. It is not going to bee for everyone and that has been clearly stated. If you like the game, great! If you don't but it's close and a minor mod might fix it, try by posting to fix it. If it's too far of, move on.
Right now, we have no idea about anything and that's kinda a separate game, trying to convince others about what you perceive to be fun. I find these forums and posts interesting for there are so many different views and there are few forums where so many skilled players take out time to put their thoughts on paper in such detail. Look at all posts, read them thoroughly, use what you can and respect other people's opinions, thoughts and play styles. There is no wrong way to play as long as you are having fun.
You've quoted my post but you're not even addressing anything that I've said.
You can ignore the optimal path and play "for fun" if you want to. I'm not trying to dictate what is and isn't fun.
That has nothing to do with the topic of this thread or the post you replied to, however.
Can't we all just...get a long?
In all seriousness, though, it doesn't affect me much how someone else wants to play the game. Personally, if I put on Kilsin's Itchy Kilt (sorry bud) and I see that my HPs go up XX amount, mana XX amount and it is better than what I was just wearing (Brad's Beer-Stained Bottoms) then I will use the better of the two. I know some like to delve deep into the mechanics of the game and min/max...so what? It never affected my gameplay, never stopped me from getting a group in most of the MMOs I have played. A guide showing how to load your spells, etc etc would be handy right off the bat for those who have never played this type of game before, though. Just my 2 cp.
Mod Edit: Removed guideline breach and reworded to save the post from being removed.
Quite correct. There's no need to address anything in particular Other than to point out that regardless of the experience one has in one mmo or another, or how one perceives what is fun and what is not, or what is the optimal path or what is not, people will play and have fun.
Optimal paths are perceived differently by one guild over another. I played in severap top guilds and optimal paths were not at all the same from one guild to another. One guild poo-poohd Knights and had one while the other had 4 or more. One had 6 or more Druids while another had one if they were lucky. One had 11 Rangers the other Three. They were equally successful.
With respect to the topic I think an instructional manual might be handy with minimal movement and interaction instruction as well as perhaps a list of commands and allowable macros if any. (Like forage and autoinventory to use an eq equivalent). Additionally (perhaps separately) a more detailed section about the lore of the races and terminus with are might be nice.
i believe that giving detailed information about stats (other than that hp are hit points and determine the damage you can take, ac is armor class which might determine the damage that might be mitigated, int which might be used for a mana pool for certain casters etc) is not the way to go. You may be correct in saying that you might sit at your desk and use a calculator and figure it out. For some, that's actually part of their fun. Personally, I hope a formula is used that's differs perhaps each level or based on level and type of equipment and more and cannot be easily figured out if at all. again, I'm not saying I am for or against min/maxing, because min/maxing is purely Based on solo experience. This game is geared towards grouping. Depending who is in the group, one tank who's min/maxed for one situation may not fare as well as another. I just would hate to see exclusionary attitudes from some who swear by it.
sunstalkr said:Liav said:None of your proposed solutions address the problem I'm talking about, unfortunately.
1. Such a system is still an illusion of choice at best. If a given player doesn't care about optimizing their gameplay, then nothing in this thread applies to begin with. Allowing players to specialize doesn't change the fact that there is, mathematically, a best way to specialize for a given section of content.
2. Players already have the ability to do most of these things in many existing games already. What do particle effects and sounds have to do with optimal gameplay?
3. Randomization in video games is never truly random. You have a finite number of stats with a finite spectrum of those stats. Through years of testing, people will crowdsource the randomly generated stats you should seek the exact same way that you do with static itemization. Severe RNG will prevent you from acquiring 100% optimal gear, probably, but it will not prevent people from knowing what they should seek out and likely finding something close. The disparity still exists, you've just added a more random element to achieving optimization.
As to your final paragraph, none of the aforementioned things are unique in the MMO genre.
I also don't know what risk vs. reward ratios have to do with the rest of your post.
Well Liav this is more or less what I thought in that you are def a power gamer which isnt a bad thing but your comments on this post show how in depth you want to get with this game and prob any game.
1. You are obviously correct BUT some ppl dont care. There also may be many dif specs you can play OR some ppl want to be a jack of all trades so dont have to change spec.
2. To some players the entire game is about how they look. I knew several players who were top notch and all they talked about was the look of their character. So you are again correct in that particles mean nothing in the game but to the player it can mean everything. Example: Before eq allowed you to dye your gear if someone had a unique piece of gear ppl would come up and ask you where you got it. I had 2 such pieces and had alot of ppl comment on them. So its not all about power gaming for some if not most ppl. There are a few that that is that matters. Getting to 50th/max lvl so they could say they were 1st.
3. I had mentioned on another thread about the randomizing dungeons so that as the server changes the mobs in the dungeon change. Paw could be taken over by giants, then orcs, etc. As such the loot tables would change to match the mobs BUT they would also be random. You can crowdsource all you want but if it was truly random it wouldnt matter like you said. I HOPE the world changes so that every time you go into a dungeon it is dif. Boss x was killed and now Boss y takes over. IF its the same mobs then yes the loot table will prob be about the same BUT it could be dif IF boss y is a caster vs boss x being a sword wielder. Then the loot table should change to match. Personally I havent seen that in any game I have played and I have played alot of games but maybe there is one somewhere. Meaning dungeons change AND their loot table changes to match and I dont mean a patch or rewrite of a zone.
Overall you are 100% correct BUT in some things its not about min/maxing for ppl. Its about having fun and for some ppl min/maxing isnt fun. They just want to play and let the cards fall as they may.
1. Some people don't care, I agree. And some simply won't have the best item for each slot. I'm usually a jack of all trades, and I won't fit in in Liavs world. And NO disrespect meant to Liav or oneADseven or the other super top end gamers, in these forums. They have their way of gaming and I have mine. I will learn from them and have a lot of fun doing it. They will most assuredly max level way before I do.
2. In UO I had my town clothes I wore in my Inn. Anytime I was not in my inn I wore armor of different colors to camouflage myself in the woods. I'd love to be able to own an Inn in Terminus. Again I know it's not gonna happen but wth.
3. I agree. This is what I hope for. If I was in charge loot would be a global table. Mob x wouldn't always drop item #23 etc. That would spread out groups. There would be say 10 level 50 raid possibilities, but you don't know what anyone mob would drop and the mobs would rotate randomly for good measure. I know this is not likely, but that's how I would end guilds stacking up in the plane of rainbow sparkles or to get that one great drop.
@Questaar
I know that is directed at sunstalkr, but I don't see anything disrespectful about that.
If my posts come off as people feeling the need to walk on eggshells to not get what I imagine is perceived as an angry reply, I urge anyone to try to look past that and consider things a little differently.
When I talk about an "optimal way to play", it is implied that I am only talking about players who care about playing optimally. I don't speak for everyone. In addition, optimizing gameplay is not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of fact, or rather the hard-coded rules of the game that are as tried and true as 2+2=4.
I welcome anyone to discuss statements like "CH rotations are the most efficient, sustainable way to heal a MT through long fights in early EQ" with facts. If my posts come off as angry, it's probably more frustration, because opinions don't really have a place in that type of discussion.
In other words, how much a given individual cares about the meta does not bend reality and change the fact that a meta exists, and what that meta consists of.
Last but not least, this topic is officially in orbit, as far as being on topic goes.
Liav said:@Questaar
I know that is directed at sunstalkr, but I don't see anything disrespectful about that.
If my posts come off as people feeling the need to walk on eggshells to not get what I imagine is perceived as an angry reply, I urge anyone to try to look past that and consider things a little differently.
When I talk about an "optimal way to play", it is implied that I am only talking about players who care about playing optimally. I don't speak for everyone. In addition, optimizing gameplay is not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of fact, or rather the hard-coded rules of the game that are as tried and true as 2+2=4.
I welcome anyone to discuss statements like "CH rotations are the most efficient, sustainable way to heal a MT through long fights in early EQ" with facts. If my posts come off as angry, it's probably more frustration, because opinions don't really have a place in that type of discussion.
In other words, how much a given individual cares about the meta does not bend reality and change the fact that a meta exists, and what that meta consists of.
Last but not least, this topic is officially in orbit, as far as being on topic goes.
I'm not going to be walking on eggshells here and say you are indeed coming of as knowing it better than anyone.
I like to play with the best gear possible in order to do the task I'm asked to do the best way possible. if you call that playing optimally then I care about playing optimally and yes, you don't speak for everyone. im sorry to break it to you but optimizing gameplay is most certainly a matter of opinion as the thousands of threads in as many game forums show. Everyone has their opinion about which is the more optimal way to do anything. Eg which of these is the more optimal way of accomplishing the same goal: turning two quarters to the left or turning two quarters to the right? You can't tell cause it depends on the situation.
ch rotation. Certainly efficient in a fight like xegony. But siometimes not efficient or even necessary in other fights, just as long if not longer.
Liav said:Last but not least, this topic is officially in orbit, as far as being on topic goes.
Yep, Seems like she has drifted a bit.
Hey there OP:
What if there was an instruction manual, but it was in an ancient language that your character had to learn before it could be read and used with that account. Maps could be the same way and be a part of the manual. Account based, not character based is good, so as soon as any of your characters complete the learning you do not have to repeat it over and over.