I am all for this game taking months and months and months for me to level up to max. I like strategic planning of moving my alt into a zone, getting him bound, buying supplies and maping out the area. I dont want to see twitchy combat, where everyone groups up running through an area slaughtering everything, not talking and then disband never to be seen again(WOW, ESO)
I want to see the little things matter(food, water, armor, weapons). I want gear to be relevant long past the next expansion. I want to seek friends to help me travel. I want to see faction determine my outcome for hunting certain areas.
I want to find out more about the progeny system, weather effects, synergies.
Rose colored glasses possible, but i want it to mean something when I reach the next level.
streeg said: I don't think I can add anything that hasn't already been stated above on the main topics. However, I'd like to add something to a lesser point. I keep reading people's posts about how we have jobs, families, and responsibilities now and no time for those old school mechanics. I just want to point out that while many of you were children in 1999 when EQ1 was released, not everyone was. I was 28 in 1999. I had a wife, job, house, and a child. Many many of us were grown adults during EQ1 days. We may not have been able to all play 40+ hours a week. We may not have been in contention for server firsts or running with the elite raiding guilds, but we still had tons of fun. It took us far longer to achieve our goals, but we enjoyed the journey. It was about playing the game for us not playing it faster than everyone else or keeping up with the Jones. There were children with crap tons of play time and adults with limited play time all enjoying EQ1 and it will likely be the same mixture for Pantheon. Just because your in the latter this time doesn't mean you can't have fun like us adults did in EQ1. You might just have to be ok with not being the first this time.
Very true. There were about six people who I met in RL back in the day in my small town alone, all of whom were older, middle-age adults at the time. One was even my teacher. Many adults played Classic EQ and Vanilla WoW. Speaking for myself, I have a ton of responsibilities at the moment. I also have a ton of time for things that I enjoy doing: awaiting Pantheon, travel, running etc.
I definitely agree with Streeg and Syrif. Some of us were adults with very busy lives in 1999. I have far more time for gaming and other activities than I did 20 years ago. I don't need bite-sized 2-hr content slices. I'm hoping there's some real meat for the folks who like to spend many hours working their way into the toughest zones.
For me, some of the most critical "dumbing down" mistakes of past established games have been efforts to simplify the UI and specific class mechanics.
LOTRO dumbed down several classes, especially the warden. When the warden was first introduced, there were complex skill sequences you would execute to achieve your major attacks, buffs, heals, etc... The class was very challenging to play and gave experienced players a new plateau to strive for. It wasn't a plateau based on gear, but rather the true skill of the player to know how to perform the combos and recognize in advance (a bit like chess moves) when a particular skill could be optimally applied. Somone decided that warden's were too difficult to play and too over-powered. In the end, you could pretty much smash random buttons and get through almost any fight with any class. In LOTRO's current iteration you have to try pretty hard to die in solo play. I'm hoping that Pantheon will have some classes that are much more difficult to master than others and by this, I'm definitely not talking about twitch-style gaming.
Games get dumbed down when they reduce mob difficulty, make it easier to complete content that used to be more challenging, add UI elements such as smoke trails to quest NPCs, etc... All of which let you put more of your brain to sleep while you play. Perhaps the target audience is the player who wants to watch Netflix while they're gaming?
From what we've seen of Pantheon so far, this definitely doesn't seem to be the direction the devs are headed. There's not much that we could call dumbed down about Pantheon. Not sure what the fuss is about.
zewtastic said:Here's an example of dumbing down.
Blizzard Corporate, circa 2001.
"Won't that be a horrible game? We will be taking any challenge out of everything. Naw, only people that actually played real MMOs will realize it. The kids will never figure out Soylent Green is people."
That's Dumbing Down!
This is exactly what happened and why I loathe WOW. Then every company wanted in on the cash cow and tried to copy it. Blizzard/WOW basically killed true MMORPGs.
I loved the comment on crafting- going all those places just to make pancakes but this is also where the dichotomy comes and was well expressed.
You plan for it? no problem. for example, I am in the sea area and foam drops here for pancakes. while I am here I will collect foam, but I wont make pancakes today.
Likewise my friends are 2 zones away, I will not join them for it will take me a while to get there. But I will join them tomorrow if they stay there and from there, WE will decide what WE can do. I wil lstart running today, or look for other people to group with. if ONE decides to leave, then I am put out because I travelled all this way, however maybe we can get a stranger to join us.
I think the conflict is in the acceptance of delayed gratification while wanting to be instantly in the place where the thrill of serendipitous success might happen.
Rose-colored glasses example: Mail delivery. Erudin to qeynos, no problem and success! (endorphins!) Qeynos to Erudin, awesome- confidence. Qeynos to highpass....I held on to that mail pouch for I think 12 levels before I finally delivered it. Because I understood- rather accepted without complaining that this is what was required or survival because...
I learned about the hassle of corpse runs from dieing in the qeynos sewers (not so bad- easy run from bind) then dieing in Blackburrow (not terrible but nervewracking because I could still get killed by the wanderers in qeynos hills), then dieing in Warrens (bad, a naked run accross the zone was harrowing- monsters could kill you in toxx.) then the relief at the safe spot, and THEN dragging your corpse! but by the we had invis.
So from all of that, I did not want to die on my way to highpass, just to deliver the mail. Maybe held on to that mail for- months? Untill I got older to be able to think about making that journey.
The sub-game if you want to call it that which I hope is addressed- is inventory management. I would love to save my tradeskill seafoam to make pancakes- but i need that spot for the mail bag.
Corpse run? if late for me, I will do it tomorrow. My corpse will still be there with all its gear.
SWG Pre-NGE to post NGE, which is the definition of dumbing down in the most extreme example in the industry that I can think of. They took a complex choice driven skill tree based game and turned it into a pointless class based theme park without adding actual content which would have helped the Pre-NGE version immensely.
More responding to the emotion of the rant I find that there are a few phrases that people fall back on when they either do not personally like an idea or do not want to consider someone else’s idea.
The top phases I have seen as dismissals of others idea’s in no particular order:
Dumbs it down
Too complicated
Breaks immersion
This is a fantasy game
The game is too far along
That’s too realistic
Everquest had X therefor Pantheon cannot have Y
It’s much better to remember that everyone has reasons for their opinions and idea’s which are valid even we do not agree with the solution said person came up with. As good community members it would be better to take an emotional step back and work together at dissecting the root of each other’s ideas to see where the common ground lies. We may then be able to come up with real ideas that could help Pantheon as a whole both at launch and down the road.
fancy said: Fazool, you're the only one who seems to be offended by his post. But then after pointing out how it's offensive, you attack him and his intelligence. This forum post wasn't about calling people tards. It was about getting everyone else's thoughts on the definition of dumbed down and what different ways it could mean to people. Also. I see a lot of hypocrisy in your post. You should probably do some self reflection. People are here to discuss, not be attacked for making you feel uncomfortable about a word. The post isn't even about you.
You are correct. I had actually changed my mind and edited out my post, but you saw the not-yet-self-censored version I think
Don't stand in the black stuff.
Yeah, no. I'll take the old school difficulty any day of the week.
It's why you see people constantly ghosting r/mmorpg looking for something, ANYTHING that grabs their soul. MMOs of late have become soul crushing, corporatist money grubbing snoozefests for all the wrong reasons which everyone here knows by now.
The only question here with Pantheon is: do we have the will to fight it?
Kelendil said:Don't stand in the black stuff.
Yeah, no. I'll take the old school difficulty any day of the week.
It's why you see people constantly ghosting r/mmorpg looking for something, ANYTHING that grabs their soul. MMOs of late have become soul crushing, corporatist money grubbing snoozefests for all the wrong reasons which everyone here knows by now.
The only question here with Pantheon is: do we have the will to fight it?
Exactly.
A lot of good responses here. I'll just add that I think there is a difference between doing away with a tedious mechanic (and different people will probably think different things are tedious) and oversimplifying or doing away with a mechanic that adds value, depth, or immersion (also somewhat a matter of opinion). The latter would be my definition of dumbing down a game. Most of us who are interested in Pantheon because of its core tenets as stated on the website probably value many of the same things (though the details may vary), and view things like death penalties, non-instanced dungeons, and time spent traveling and exploring as having an inherent value that adds to the overall fun of the game, even if they can sometimes be "inconvenient." Whether something is "meaningful" or "tedious" might be a matter of opinion, and no system is going to make everyone happy, but I think VR is doing a good job of articulating their vision and delivering on it for those of us that feel the same.
The biggest example of dumbing down I can think of recently (well, not too recently...) is LOTRO, which, to begin with, was not exactly hard - to duo with a friend meant we pretty much never died, but there were still areas designed for groups where, as a duo, we had a very challenging time and sometimes we would team up with others to beat. There were also instances on quest lines that required groups and these could be very challenging.
Then... they made the group areas into soloable areas and in the quest instances they added a 'buff' that automatically applied and varied in strength depending on whether you were solo or duo or whatever.
That buff basically put you into some weird demi-god-mode that was never balanced and made everything easy. It was actually easier to solo those than to go in in a group.
It basically made the most interesting areas the easiest.
Someone above said maybe they were aiming at players that like to watch Netflix at the same time. It certainly felt that way.
Keno Monster said:Getting an audio alarm when a mob that you may or may not even see aggros on you.
I think that should be considered an exploit
philo said:Games themselves are a waste of time. I learned to love the grind long ago. After you run out of content for the umpteenth time anything that gives me incentive to log in and improve my character is greatly appreciated.
Grinds, time sinks, long drawn out quests that I can work on for a year or more? Yes please! I appreciate stretching out the content.
I'm not planning on playing for only a couple years. Ill be here awhile. Make it last.
Time is a waste of life right? Im not opposed to grinding, and have spent many hours killing the same thing repeatedly or completing the same quest; As long as there was progress in a character or friend. Otherwise it's like playing solitare 10,000 times for little reason(unless that's your thing). Long interesting quests are a rellief from the tedium, but excruciatingly long?
streeg said:I just want to point out that while many of you were children in 1999 when EQ1 was released, not everyone was. I was 28 in 1999. I had a wife, job, house, and a child. Many many of us were grown adults during EQ1 days.
You're right, I retract my statement. Some of us.
fazool said:OK, first, you started a thread by calling people "tards" which in itself is offensive
The argument about convenience suggests, falsely, that the only purpose for the game is to experience combat and that combat is the sole value within the game.
Sorry if I offended you fazool. No my argument was not to describe the sole purpose of any game is combat. There are many ways to experience content without killing something.
There are many good points here of which I do agree on. I don't think you should be forcefed the next 60 hours you'll play the game OR spend those 60 hours doing almost nothing. There is a balance the should be obtained, like Disposalist eloquantly puts.
Celandor said:Perhaps the target audience is the player who wants to watch Netflix while they're gaming?
Couldn't that be said about classic EQ when it took 5 minutes to med, then a 2 or 3 minute engagement before going back to medding? It's so stationary at times you could run errands while grinding. Granted, there wasn't any netflix at the time, I watched nick&night and BET when it was all Music videos.
Kelendil said:Don't stand in the black stuff.
Yeah, no. I'll take the old school difficulty any day of the week.
It's why you see people constantly ghosting r/mmorpg looking for something, ANYTHING that grabs their soul. MMOs of late have become soul crushing, corporatist money grubbing snoozefests for all the wrong reasons which everyone here knows by now.
The only question here with Pantheon is: do we have the will to fight it?
Yes, the difficulty is what makes it flavorful, but is difficulty just old school? I'm sure there's some new school challenges too. I'm also one who ghosts around, looking for something to play, and nothing has seemed right for me. Scrolling 40 pages deep into Steam /rpg for 2 years now. =P.
What about the playerbase? It seems they forced the hand of the devs for many games, to create easily disposed of content as quickly as possible. Figured I would create a fireplace for us to rant on these exact things instead of all over the forum.
Ok, I really love this thread. I don't have much else to add as most has all been covered.
I will jump on the "dont have time" soap box. I was 40 in 1999, wife 3 kids full time job with standard overtime putting in six 10 hour shifts. Everquest is what i did for relaxation, I found the time. I didn't do 40hours a week on eq, and I was never in a rush for it to be over (end game... why?) The biggest time problem I had was getting those three parasites (kidding, I love my little leaches) off my game!
The one Dumbing Down thing I dident see covered in this thread is the removal of the unpredictability that everquest had. The leashing of mobs, the agro turned off on returning mobs. In Everquest few places were safe. A mob(s) returning from freshly killing his fleeing victim could come from anywhere at any time. An unannounced train could hit the zone line at any time. If you were out in the wild in EQ you bestbe paying attention becouse that safe spot today may not be so safe tomarrow. Since WoW you know the safe spots.
Zorkon said:Ok, I really love this thread. I don't have much else to add as most has all been covered.
I will jump on the "dont have time" soap box. I was 40 in 1999, wife 3 kids full time job with standard overtime putting in six 10 hour shifts. Everquest is what i did for relaxation, I found the time. I didn't do 40hours a week on eq, and I was never in a rush for it to be over (end game... why?) The biggest time problem I had was getting those three parasites (kidding, I love my little leaches) off my game!
The one Dumbing Down thing I dident see covered in this thread is the removal of the unpredictability that everquest had. The leashing of mobs, the agro turned off on returning mobs. In Everquest few places were safe. A mob(s) returning from freshly killing his fleeing victim could come from anywhere at any time. An unannounced train could hit the zone line at any time. If you were out in the wild in EQ you bestbe paying attention becouse that safe spot today may not be so safe tomarrow. Since WoW you know the safe spots.
Well looks like we share a Bday, and good catch.
I do not think any other MMO (aside from Vanguard) had mobs that would chase you to the zoneline, no matter how far it was. And in full aggro, walk (or run) back to their post afterwards, attacking any targets of opportunity that it came upon.
In dungeons it was sort of the reverse-train. You had to look out for the train going out and coming back.
zewtastic said:I do not think any other MMO (aside from Vanguard) had mobs that would chase you to the zoneline, no matter how far it was. And in full aggro, walk (or run) back to their post afterwards, attacking any targets of opportunity that it came upon.
In dungeons it was sort of the reverse-train. You had to look out for the train going out and coming back.
I hope mobs don't leash in Pantheon. If they do, it's only because they aggro something closer to them and decide to try and go kill it.
One aspect of dumbing down is actually the converse - the increasing rate at which every game detail and strategy is shared amongst the player community. Today's players are smarter or at least better informed. This started to become a thing with guide web sites outlining class and zone strategies but it's far more spoon fed today with player streaming. Want to see where everything is and how the high-end players are getting through the top tier zones? Go watch their stream. You'll see the placement of every mob, trap, rock and blade of grass. You'll see every spell that was cast and hear commentary of how the group handled each encounter.
A significant part of the adventure is stripped away as much of the discovery process has been stolen/given away.
New games need more randomization or elements to offset this pre-cog effect. If devs do nothing to compensate for this in modern game design, then their new releases are effectively dumbed down by changes in communication/technology within the player community. Design assumptions made in 1999 won't be valid in 2019.
Celandor said:One aspect of dumbing down is actually the converse - the increasing rate at which every game detail and strategy is shared amongst the player community. Today's players are smarter or at least better informed. This started to become a thing with guide web sites outlining class and zone strategies but it's far more spoon fed today with player streaming. Want to see where everything is and how the high-end players are getting through the top tier zones? Go watch their stream. You'll see the placement of every mob, trap, rock and blade of grass. You'll see every spell that was cast and hear commentary of how the group handled each encounter.
A significant part of the adventure is stripped away as much of the discovery process has been stolen/given away.
New games need more randomization or elements to offset this pre-cog effect. If devs do nothing to compensate for this in modern game design, then their new releases are effectively dumbed down by changes in communication/technology within the player community. Design assumptions made in 1999 won't be valid in 2019.
You left out data mining. ;p
fancy said: Fazool, you're the only one who seems to be offended by his post. But then after pointing out how it's offensive, you attack him and his intelligence. This forum post wasn't about calling people tards. It was about getting everyone else's thoughts on the definition of dumbed down and what different ways it could mean to people. Also. I see a lot of hypocrisy in your post. You should probably do some self reflection. People are here to discuss, not be attacked for making you feel uncomfortable about a word. The post isn't even about you.
No, he's not the only one whose feathers got ruffled. And it's not necessarily simply a matter of the word choice. Though my friend who has a son with Down's Syndrome would definately find fault in that alone, the word itself doesn't bother me. But when you start a conversation by essentially stating "Think like me or you're a tard." you will in fact start the conversation on hostile footing. It happens more and more on these forums and a contributor to why I post so rarely anymore.
There are many MMO's out there filled to overflowing with conveniences. There are a rare few that arent. There are audiences that desire each. VR has stated their design goals, and they include fewer conveniences, and in so doing they have relatively clearly defined their target audience. And yet there's a steady stream of people coming here saying anyone in that target audience is a "tard". After 3 years my patience for that behavior has gotten pretty damn thin, and many of the original backers feel the same I'm sure. They're also exhausted by the petty insults of people who actually desire something different than this product and yet lobby to add it to the 100's of titles that closer fit their convenience requirements.
Thousands of the backers here are people who specifically pledged because they have played a lot of the convenience games and know with certainty that they don't particularly enjoy them. They have played EQ for years, played P99 for years, they have played newly opened EQ progression servers, they have played Vanguard emu's. The know what they like, and they know why. They aren't wrong, they just have different tastes. I'm among them. I'm not a "tard".
Instead of a definition I will give you an example from modern WoW. I realized things were dumbed down when -
"Questing" involved clicking on the NPC with the yellow exclamation mark. I read NOTHING about the quest. I opened my map and saw where the circle was on the screen. I started killing stuff in that area until the quests were complete. If there was a sparkly box on the ground, I would click on that until the quests were complete. I ran back and turned in the quest, having spent no time on the lore and "unique" plight of these particular NPCs.
I shouldn't have to order a Rosetta Stone disc and learn a new language to figure out and complete a quest. I also shouldn't be able to complete quests in zombie mode. There is a middle ground somewhere.
Celandor said:One aspect of dumbing down is actually the converse - the increasing rate at which every game detail and strategy is shared amongst the player community. Today's players are smarter or at least better informed. This started to become a thing with guide web sites outlining class and zone strategies but it's far more spoon fed today with player streaming. Want to see where everything is and how the high-end players are getting through the top tier zones? Go watch their stream. You'll see the placement of every mob, trap, rock and blade of grass. You'll see every spell that was cast and hear commentary of how the group handled each encounter.
A significant part of the adventure is stripped away as much of the discovery process has been stolen/given away.
New games need more randomization or elements to offset this pre-cog effect. If devs do nothing to compensate for this in modern game design, then their new releases are effectively dumbed down by changes in communication/technology within the player community. Design assumptions made in 1999 won't be valid in 2019.
There are game decisions you can make to mitigate some of this. Take maps for example. In EQ1 I had a full color printed atlas of every zone through Kunark (EQatlas). Printed out at work by the way - remember when game sites weren't blocked and you could print as many color pages as you wanted with no consequences...../sigh. BUT since EQ1 didn't have a compass or mini-map I would still get lost in zones. I was still immersed. I learned the zones, recognized landmarks and became an expert at /loc. I would pick a direction and run a few feet and compare my 2 /loc readouts and determine which way was N S E W.
I hope the devs are thinking about how to mitigate the online availability of information to maintain as much immersion as possible.
Celandor said:One aspect of dumbing down is actually the converse - the increasing rate at which every game detail and strategy is shared amongst the player community. Today's players are smarter or at least better informed. Via online, you'll see the placement of every mob, trap, rock and blade of grass. You'll see every spell that was cast and hear commentary of how the group handled each encounter.
New games need more randomization or elements to offset this pre-cog effect. Design assumptions made in 1999 won't be valid in 2019.
Such good points, all too true.
I am with you 100% and do hope the devs add randomizations (or as least maybe a preset of 5 or 6 randomly generated stratigies) to 1/2 of all raid mobs.
Also about mini maps. When playing any new MMO these days I catch myself focusing on the minimap almost all of the time verses the world that was created. This is why I hope they aren't in game.
Celandor said:One aspect of dumbing down is actually the converse - the increasing rate at which every game detail and strategy is shared amongst the player community. Today's players are smarter or at least better informed. This started to become a thing with guide web sites outlining class and zone strategies but it's far more spoon fed today with player streaming. Want to see where everything is and how the high-end players are getting through the top tier zones? Go watch their stream. You'll see the placement of every mob, trap, rock and blade of grass. You'll see every spell that was cast and hear commentary of how the group handled each encounter.
A significant part of the adventure is stripped away as much of the discovery process has been stolen/given away.
New games need more randomization or elements to offset this pre-cog effect. If devs do nothing to compensate for this in modern game design, then their new releases are effectively dumbed down by changes in communication/technology within the player community. Design assumptions made in 1999 won't be valid in 2019.
Not smarter, probably actually the reverse, they have gotten dumber. One, because the games are dumber, two because all the hard answers are already available to them online.
You said it yourself, every aspect of the (dumbed-down) game is handed to them in streaming video.
Here's the difference, watching a video, or reading a guide is NOT making you more skilled. In an actually challenging MMO, you still have to play the class correctly and execute the moves at the right time while working with an equally skilled group.
If simply reading a guide and watching a video made you great, then we would all be crazy-amazing at everything in life.
