Just a quick thought this time. Spinks has a great article up that refers to a couple of things regarding optimization and playstyle:
Optimization doesn’t belong in my MMOs
It made me wonder about this nebulous “right way” to play a game, especially one as… squishy… as an MMO. I think we’re simply stuck with min-max players who will optimize their play. There’s nothing really wrong with that, as it’s their choice, and arguably, the learning curve of a game may well be the most fun part, and optimization is a huge part of that learning process. I think the trouble comes when players start telling other people how to play.
Yes, yes, things like a Recount addon and Armory profiles in WoW let players scrutinize each other to unhealthy extremes, even without RealID. That’s probably the game devs erring on the side of “TMI” (Too Much Information). Similarly, game design that demands optimization (rather than simply allowing it) is annoying to all but the min-max crowd. (I keep almost typing that “Minmei“.) I think that optimization can be fun, and that it has a place in games, but it shouldn’t be the baseline. I’ve written about this before when thinking about autopiloting and broken games.
…and yet, I can’t help but think that the lion’s share of the “MMO optimization problem” is on the players’ shoulders. If players would just focus on having their own fun and stop whining about others, well, then we could have a nice hippie “buy the world a Coke” group hug moment and get on with making better games. Let the optimizers optimize and let the Role Players do their thing. Live and let live. (Well, except for the griefers. I’m all for harsh automatic counterganking mechanics. Jerks and bullies deserve a beatdown. *ahem*)
As always, the real problem is the other players in a multiplayer game. Even if we did have a level-less, gearless, addon-less MMO, we’d still have some who can’t resist telling others that they are doing something wrong. We seem to be wired that way.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go play my games my way. It’s my time and my money, after all.
We all want our worlds to be as we want them to be. That’s why I constantly argue that world mobs should start fighting back and not be just walking loot bags that pose no danger. No, I’m not talking about survival horror, but maybe the solofication pass for our MMO “worlds” has gone a bit too far.
Some MMOs got a bit more laid back nowadays – things are usually easy enough that nobody must fear for the success if one partymember does not have the latest gear and besides that does not seem to be a great player either.
My personal pet peeve is that guilds have become raid organization rosters first and foremost. Unless you form a guild with friends the TeamSpeak/Ventrilo server and the raid planner link seem to be the core of many guilds nowadays. That I am not interested in raids at all or at least not in a set raid factory schedule baffles people quite often.
Plus the modern view of MMOs is that Raiding is THE GAME, the “ENDGAME”.
http://stabbedup.blogspot.com/2011/05/on-sunday-we-went-rifting-doing-expert.html Stabs explains this shift nicely in this somewhat misleading titled blog entry.
I also wonder if people will really “get” or like public questing in the style of Rift or Guild Wars 2 that much. Quite a lot have already returned to Candyland to do their daily dosis of follow the green arrow.
I dunno if min/maxing is the current reason for the dissatisfaction of the WoW crowd regarding Cataclysm dungeons, apparently they got used to quick and easy speedclears of WOTLK dungeons and the new dungeons are not suited to this style at all. I.e. is gear min/maxing to blame here or have players to play a little better?
Does WoW really require min-maxing (or any other MMO aside from maybe Vanguard?) You have normal mode everything for everyone who doesn’t want to min-max and hard modes for those who do.
The problem arises at two points – when non min-maxers feel entitled to access each an every bit of content even if it isn’t meant for them, and when players require a level of min-maxing in places where it isn’t needed. Neither of theses is the game designers’ fault.
(I realize that you said that the real problem is the players and I absolutely agree. I just disagree with the part where you put some blame at the feet of the designers. I’d say it’s all on our side of the fence
)
Longasc,
…Plus the modern view of MMOs is that Raiding is THE GAME, the “ENDGAME”…
That drives me nuts. It’s just such a narrow slice of online gaming that I can’t help but shudder when someone honestly says that’s the point of playing. I *do* like normalized PvP, which is easier without level disparities, but that’s a very minor positive to the endgame focus. Thinking the endgame is the point of an MMO is turning a blind eye to a lot of what the genre has to offer. (This is noted for devs as well as players.)
And yes, guilds functioning primarily as raid engines always makes me sad. To each their own, to be sure, but if I ever look for a guild to join, it’s because of the people. All the shiny new guild tricks in WoW just underline that guilds are more about the endgame than anything else. (My level 68 character isn’t even “Friendly” with his own guild that he’s been with since level 17, and his contribution to the guild’s daily level grind is less than 1% of the max. Pre-60, the contribution was even less. Way to make lowbies useless to their guilds, Blizzard. Seriously, the endgame/levelgame dichotomy just isn’t cool, for a lot of reasons.)
…on the dungeon difference between CAT and WRATH, there’s a post idea brewing, I think. I’m no dungeoneer, but there’s a larger game design principle at work there, I think.
Scrusi, I’m not sure if it really does require min-maxing. I’ve never felt a need to really get serious about it, but I’m no raider. I do think that requiring min-maxing is a bad idea, but in practice in WoW, I haven’t seen it. So yeah, I agree with you, I just note that *if* the devs require it, that’s a natural choke point, moving the game into niche appeal.
Niche appeal isn’t actually a terrible thing as far as game design goes, incidentally, it’s just a potential problem for the business side of things.
Every time I hit the endgame in WoW, the game pretty much ends for me. The leveling game is good fun, and there are a few fun things to do at the cap (I got a couple of months out of gearing up in BGs this time around, for example). However, I have pretty much hated the idea of raiding since it was introduced in EQ. The idea that Raiding is the “real game” in WoW is absurdly myopic. Raiding is nothing more than a grindy time sink meant to keep a handful of hardcore players invested and subbing once they hit the cap.
On min / maxing, Blizzard really actively encourages it for some reason, both through the armory and by supporting add ons that keep a running tally on DPS and healing throughput. They also made it much harder to spec your toons in a way that is “suboptimal” with the Cataclysm talent revamp, you are now pretty much forced into one of the builds that all the stat munchers agreed was the most effective pre-Cata. Those are all design decisions, I don’t think you can blame the player base entirely for the direction that community has gone in.
That said, in nearly every MMO I have played there have been vocal players that were more than happy to tell you your character is a complete gimp if they deviated from one of the known cookie cutter builds by so much as 5%. You can certainly build a true gimp in many MMOs, but there is also normally a lot more leeway for effective builds than the hardcore stat munchers would have you believe. That final five percent effectiveness you can squeeze out of a “perfect” build or gear loadout almost never makes much of a difference. If you get into a situation where it might, some one screwed up (you boned a pull or got ambushed, for example).
Do you think that this optimisation problem is a systemic problem created due to the success of WoW? The whole “elitist jerk” style of play seems to have found a real home with the gear-based progression of World of Raidcraft and a lot of other games try to emulate WoW in order to carve out their own success niche. Therefore if WoW is all about gear/stat optimisation then maybe all the other games should be too, that’s what players obviously want, right? I don’t subscribe to that mentality (games should be fun, not a math exam afterall) but it sure seems there are a lot of people that are willing to go for it.
I think the trouble comes when players start telling other people how to play.
No, I think it comes when the game itself forces you to listen to them, or miss out on considerable chunks of content.
People can tell you how to play all they want and it don’t mean a thing if you can just ignore them and play.
But when the only way to get in that dungeon is to group with people who are televangelist about their method (whether it’s min maxing or something else), you either cotow to their preaching or you miss out on that dungeon.
But it’s not them (unless somehow you want to morally purge them), it’s the game forcing you to either play with them or miss out.
That’s actually the same missconception people have with gankers – they always blame the ganker, completely ignoring the fact that the programers enabled the ganker to begin with.
People always blame those most immediate to the scene, it seems, making the guy who enabled the scene invisible, yet utterly in control. It’s a frightening little hackers back door to controlling the human psyche. But I’m going off topic a little….
“MMO optimization problem” is on the players’ shoulders.
While I agree with that Tesh, it’s just very hard for the individual to completely steer free of this as soon as it spreads in a community – especially a type you’d like to join, for example raid guilds. a lot of optimization is a standard today and even in the most laidback guilds, so while you care to play inside one of them, the same standards will be applied to you. it’s basically the world changing around you while you might not like it, there’s only so much you can do imo. I always tried to find my own ‘middle way’ which was using a spartan UI and minimum of mandatory mods, ignoring the map or not using quest helpers etc. but there’s no way you can avoid it all.
collector-mania is a similar topic by the way; it’s just as “player-generated” as optimization, and yet it’s also changed the entire game for everybody, including how devs look at designing new content.
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