I think what the OP is getting at is some people's aversions to peaks and valleys. If a game is designed to be 'fun' from the ground up, then it will eventually never be fun. There needs to be elements that objectively feel bad, to contrast and rinse the pallet for things that are intended to be fun or rewarding.
The "dumbing down" that you are referring to doesn't necessarily sound like simplifications to design, but rather simplification to the peaks and valleys. If the valleys become shallow or nonexistent, the peaks will gradually feel less and less rewarding.
For reference: corpse runs. I've had many people say "Isn't dying and having to start the encounter over failure enough? I just wasted X minutes fighting and didn't win anything." Zero gain can not and should not be equated to loss. Time is often an argued factor here. "Mindless grinding is just time consuming, it doesn't add anything to the game." Well if that's the case, then time being the only penalty in "losing" a fight is equally meaningless, and has no bearing on the game. There must be a measurable loss to give peaks their proper due height.
Obviously this is all an extremely subjective viewpoint. However, every game currently out there or being developed (with the exception of Pantheon) follows this exact formula. Minimize the loss, magnify the gains. The problem being with no real sense of loss or valleys then your peaks can only reach so high. This leads to stagnation in player interest in most cases. Proper valleys can help magnify peaks when done correctly. Sure many people are also turned away by their own loss aversion, but that's the fault of the industry for conditioning this mindest of "there is no down, only higher and higher". This is, of course, an impossible task.
picks86 said:I think what the OP is getting at is some people's aversions to peaks and valleys. If a game is designed to be 'fun' from the ground up, then it will eventually never be fun. There needs to be elements that objectively feel bad, to contrast and rinse the pallet for things that are intended to be fun or rewarding.
The "dumbing down" that you are referring to doesn't necessarily sound like simplifications to design, but rather simplification to the peaks and valleys. If the valleys become shallow or nonexistent, the peaks will gradually feel less and less rewarding.
For reference: corpse runs. I've had many people say "Isn't dying and having to start the encounter over failure enough? I just wasted X minutes fighting and didn't win anything." Zero gain can not and should not be equated to loss. Time is often an argued factor here. "Mindless grinding is just time consuming, it doesn't add anything to the game." Well if that's the case, then time being the only penalty in "losing" a fight is equally meaningless, and has no bearing on the game. There must be a measurable loss to give peaks their proper due height.
Obviously this is all an extremely subjective viewpoint. However, every game currently out there or being developed (with the exception of Pantheon) follows this exact formula. Minimize the loss, magnify the gains. The problem being with no real sense of loss or valleys then your peaks can only reach so high. This leads to stagnation in player interest in most cases. Proper valleys can help magnify peaks when done correctly. Sure many people are also turned away by their own loss aversion, but that's the fault of the industry for conditioning this mindest of "there is no down, only higher and higher". This is, of course, an impossible task.
Very, very well written. I enjoyed reading your post - thanks. This is why dying must have penalties and consequences. Such as corpse runs with XP loss (though there are ways to recover XP that require some work). I'm glad that torches and light-sources will matter. Also yes, the modern model of "minimize the loss, magnify the gains" is pretty annoying already. Let's abolish the nonsense right here with Pantheon, and I am looking forward to it. And I am looking forward to myself and my friends being subscribed for years and years to come.
Syrif said:Very, very well written. I enjoyed reading your post - thanks. This is why dying must have penalties and consequences. Such as corpse runs with XP loss (though there are ways to recover XP that require some work). I'm glad that torches and light-sources will matter. Also yes, the modern model of "minimize the loss, magnify the gains" is pretty annoying already. Let's abolish the nonsense right here with Pantheon, and I am looking forward to it. And I am looking forward to myself and my friends being subsrcribed for years and years to come.
Thanks! I think the takeaway is that the overall design philosophy that motivates a need/desire that motivates death penalties should really permeate facets of the game. Abilities that have downsides. Equipment that has negative effects to balance strong or unique bonuses. Rewards that come with a price. There needs to be a give and take, otherwise if the game just give-give-gives people really do become immune to the effect and find themselves bored or losing interest.
bryanleo9 said: Dumbed down = EQ 2 where I could solo up to 6 mobs at once all the way until 17 where I deleted that garbage of a game. That game basically gave you better gear than it took me 2 years in EQ 1 to get. Now modern EQ 1 has been going the easy route with mercenaries and defiant gear from trash mobs which is better than boss mob drops. I want a difficulty game no more easy mode.
Yeah. They've dumbed that game waaaay down. In the beginning, you would die to Grimfeather (back then a 25 x 2) randomly flying over The Commonlands or when Ladon (30 x 3) would randomly spawn by the entrance to Fallen Gate. Then there were the triple-up skeletons in Nektulos Forest just over the main bridge, while running from giant piranha that aggro'ed you and would chase you overland. I recall being so excited when me and a fellow Shadowknight duo'd at level 20 and took down one of those darn (now blue) skeletons back in 2005. We were still considered a broken class at that point too. It had so much potential that they just watered down little by little over the years.
picks86 said:I think what the OP is getting at is some people's aversions to peaks and valleys. If a game is designed to be 'fun' from the ground up, then it will eventually never be fun. There needs to be elements that objectively feel bad, to contrast and rinse the pallet for things that are intended to be fun or rewarding.
The "dumbing down" that you are referring to doesn't necessarily sound like simplifications to design, but rather simplification to the peaks and valleys. If the valleys become shallow or nonexistent, the peaks will gradually feel less and less rewarding.
For reference: corpse runs. I've had many people say "Isn't dying and having to start the encounter over failure enough? I just wasted X minutes fighting and didn't win anything." Zero gain can not and should not be equated to loss. Time is often an argued factor here. "Mindless grinding is just time consuming, it doesn't add anything to the game." Well if that's the case, then time being the only penalty in "losing" a fight is equally meaningless, and has no bearing on the game. There must be a measurable loss to give peaks their proper due height.
Obviously this is all an extremely subjective viewpoint. However, every game currently out there or being developed (with the exception of Pantheon) follows this exact formula. Minimize the loss, magnify the gains. The problem being with no real sense of loss or valleys then your peaks can only reach so high. This leads to stagnation in player interest in most cases. Proper valleys can help magnify peaks when done correctly. Sure many people are also turned away by their own loss aversion, but that's the fault of the industry for conditioning this mindest of "there is no down, only higher and higher". This is, of course, an impossible task.
Geez, you put it prefectly as to why I think penelties for death should be higher and/or harsher.
Everyone railroaded me about the tediousness of having to click everything off of your corpse after you die vs. the simple 1 click everythng is picked up and re-equipped tactic being used. Is it tedious? Yes, but it should be, as in it should be something you desperately want to avoid ever doing again. To ensure you never have to do it again, don't die. If you do die, you regreat it, you won't make that same mistake, you'll be more careful, you'll use caution because you sure has heck don't want to have to stand there for 5 mins, clicking everythinng out of your corpse and re-equipping all the gear.
Same with having to re-apply all the buffs, or re-memorize all your spells, either to your hot bar or to your spell book. These are all things that have contributed to the dumbing down. "It's not fun, it's tedious and doesn't add to my fun." So what happend? It was removed, the path got easier, the unfun was removed so the "fun" could continue endlessly.
Is dieing ever fun? No it's not, death shouldn't be fun. The fun comes from the fear. The high needs a valley and that valley is the bad, that extream regret from a death and that regret comes from the knowledge that I just lost 10 mins of my time for the fight, I just lost another 10 mins it took to get there and now I'm going to lose 10 more to get there again and then when I do get there I have to re-gear, re-buff, and re-mem. Would that be extreamly frustrating? Yes, but it should be, because without fear that victory, that march, that death, they all mean nothing.
We even saw it in the all-star stream. They zerged Lt. Fiona (yes it's pre-alpha) but removing any of the penelties removes the accomplishment.
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's not really much a dev can do about fighting the community with sharing information inside or outside, once the game is launched. Right now there's the NDA keeping some from spilling secrets, but that goes away, and then some of players are going to dump info and pictures into the wiki. There's always the choice of an individual to keep their "no spoilers!" shades on, and refuse to search for any map, recipe, quest, etc... but who can resist? I think there was a post that mentioned they were going to allow saved maps to be dropped into your files to allow community driven content. Randomized elements would be fantastic, but once you've seen every outcome within the boundries of the theme, it becomes pre-cog again.
Feyshtey said:No, he's not the only one whose feathers got ruffled. And it's not necessarily simply a matter of the word choice.
I apologized and corrected the post and will let it end with that unless you want to pm me. Sometimes you have to ruffle some feathers to get heartfealt reactions. If you're response is "YES! I love me some inconvienent convoluted was to play the game. Heavier bags, no fast traveling, no map option!" etc. or to that extent, I would not tell you your fun is wrong. You do not have to think like me. You may even sway my opinion. Some responses are excelent.
picks86 said:I think what the OP is getting at is some people's aversions to peaks and valleys. If a game is designed to be 'fun' from the ground up, then it will eventually never be fun. There needs to be elements that objectively feel bad, to contrast and rinse the pallet for things that are intended to be fun or rewarding.
The "dumbing down" that you are referring to doesn't necessarily sound like simplifications to design, but rather simplification to the peaks and valleys. If the valleys become shallow or nonexistent, the peaks will gradually feel less and less rewarding.
For reference: corpse runs. I've had many people say "Isn't dying and having to start the encounter over failure enough? I just wasted X minutes fighting and didn't win anything." Zero gain can not and should not be equated to loss. Time is often an argued factor here. "Mindless grinding is just time consuming, it doesn't add anything to the game." Well if that's the case, then time being the only penalty in "losing" a fight is equally meaningless, and has no bearing on the game. There must be a measurable loss to give peaks their proper due height.
Well put, You see what I'm saying though. Corpse runs are a hard lessons. Lost a few too, and learned not to go anywhere I couldn't get to naked! lol. If the penalty of death was the deletion of your character, many would tread very very lightly.
bryanleo9 said: Dumbed down = EQ 2 where I could solo up to 6 mobs at once all the way until 17 where I deleted that garbage of a game. That game basically gave you better gear than it took me 2 years in EQ 1 to get. Now modern EQ 1 has been going the easy route with mercenaries and defiant gear from trash mobs which is better than boss mob drops. I want a difficulty game no more easy mode.
That's awefull, reminds me of GW2. Got to level 60 in two afternoons. Deleted the game the next day. I never liked the Defiant gear, but the mercs were not to bad. They shouldn't be a substitute for real players when there's people lfg, but they did assist you with getting something done when you could never find one.
Everything after everquest was "dumbed down" Everquest development team was blessed with devs who took it as a challenge to make game harder, more creative and changing. Its player base also took it as a challenge to make it easier.. find more creative solutions and cause its change. Any game that wishes to be relevent for any length of time requires this to be recipricated on both ends.
Kittik said:picks86 said:I think what the OP is getting at is some people's aversions to peaks and valleys. If a game is designed to be 'fun' from the ground up, then it will eventually never be fun. There needs to be elements that objectively feel bad, to contrast and rinse the pallet for things that are intended to be fun or rewarding.
The "dumbing down" that you are referring to doesn't necessarily sound like simplifications to design, but rather simplification to the peaks and valleys. If the valleys become shallow or nonexistent, the peaks will gradually feel less and less rewarding.
For reference: corpse runs. I've had many people say "Isn't dying and having to start the encounter over failure enough? I just wasted X minutes fighting and didn't win anything." Zero gain can not and should not be equated to loss. Time is often an argued factor here. "Mindless grinding is just time consuming, it doesn't add anything to the game." Well if that's the case, then time being the only penalty in "losing" a fight is equally meaningless, and has no bearing on the game. There must be a measurable loss to give peaks their proper due height.
Obviously this is all an extremely subjective viewpoint. However, every game currently out there or being developed (with the exception of Pantheon) follows this exact formula. Minimize the loss, magnify the gains. The problem being with no real sense of loss or valleys then your peaks can only reach so high. This leads to stagnation in player interest in most cases. Proper valleys can help magnify peaks when done correctly. Sure many people are also turned away by their own loss aversion, but that's the fault of the industry for conditioning this mindest of "there is no down, only higher and higher". This is, of course, an impossible task.
Geez, you put it prefectly as to why I think penelties for death should be higher and/or harsher.
Everyone railroaded me about the tediousness of having to click everything off of your corpse after you die vs. the simple 1 click everythng is picked up and re-equipped tactic being used. Is it tedious? Yes, but it should be, as in it should be something you desperately want to avoid ever doing again. To ensure you never have to do it again, don't die. If you do die, you regreat it, you won't make that same mistake, you'll be more careful, you'll use caution because you sure has heck don't want to have to stand there for 5 mins, clicking everythinng out of your corpse and re-equipping all the gear.
Same with having to re-apply all the buffs, or re-memorize all your spells, either to your hot bar or to your spell book. These are all things that have contributed to the dumbing down. "It's not fun, it's tedious and doesn't add to my fun." So what happend? It was removed, the path got easier, the unfun was removed so the "fun" could continue endlessly.
Is dieing ever fun? No it's not, death shouldn't be fun. The fun comes from the fear. The high needs a valley and that valley is the bad, that extream regret from a death and that regret comes from the knowledge that I just lost 10 mins of my time for the fight, I just lost another 10 mins it took to get there and now I'm going to lose 10 more to get there again and then when I do get there I have to re-gear, re-buff, and re-mem. Would that be extreamly frustrating? Yes, but it should be, because without fear that victory, that march, that death, they all mean nothing.
We even saw it in the all-star stream. They zerged Lt. Fiona (yes it's pre-alpha) but removing any of the penelties removes the accomplishment.
+1
Inconvience is not dumming down, such as 4 hr corpse runs to get back to your group. It adds nothing to the flavor of the game, it just annoys most people. I can understand maybe 5-10 minutes to recover but not hours on end. We always find work arounds, and just camp a cleric close by. If you really want to CR run for 4 hrs then by all means leave your body there and run back. Just remember dont get SOW, and turn Run off... so it looks more realistic and make sure you bind at your home city and not somewhere close by.
Really give your head a shake, there is no purpose behind it. Asking for CR runs is funny, at best.
Crazzie said:Inconvience is not dumming down, such as 4 hr corpse runs to get back to your group. It adds nothing to the flavor of the game, it just annoys most people. I can understand maybe 5-10 minutes to recover but not hours on end. We always find work arounds, and just camp a cleric close by. If you really want to CR run for 4 hrs then by all means leave your body there and run back. Just remember dont get SOW, and turn Run off... so it looks more realistic and make sure you bind at your home city and not somewhere close by.
Really give your head a shake, there is no purpose behind it. Asking for CR runs is funny, at best.
Dieing and becoming a "ghost" so you can aggro free run back to your corpse or dieing and awakening back at your "/bind" location, we'll say mandated as your home town 4 hours away.
Which of these sceneros are you more likely to pay attention and use caution during your game play session? Which of these scenerios would give you're heart a stop if you were about to die during a fight but slimly pulled through?
The second one, the hard one, the one that would piss you off is which one. Know why? Because you know there are are severe consiquences for dieing.
Be as pissy toward the idea all you want, but this factor along in all of MMO's is the leading attribute to the dumbing down of the games. No one has to worry anymore. About anything. As someone stated above, it's all highs now, no valleys and we are all programed after 10, 15 years of only winning that yes, the audiacious idea that I be penelized for my mistake is outrageous.
picks86 said:I think what the OP is getting at is some people's aversions to peaks and valleys. If a game is designed to be 'fun' from the ground up, then it will eventually never be fun. There needs to be elements that objectively feel bad, to contrast and rinse the pallet for things that are intended to be fun or rewarding.
The "dumbing down" that you are referring to doesn't necessarily sound like simplifications to design, but rather simplification to the peaks and valleys. If the valleys become shallow or nonexistent, the peaks will gradually feel less and less rewarding.
For reference: corpse runs. I've had many people say "Isn't dying and having to start the encounter over failure enough? I just wasted X minutes fighting and didn't win anything." Zero gain can not and should not be equated to loss. Time is often an argued factor here. "Mindless grinding is just time consuming, it doesn't add anything to the game." Well if that's the case, then time being the only penalty in "losing" a fight is equally meaningless, and has no bearing on the game. There must be a measurable loss to give peaks their proper due height.
Obviously this is all an extremely subjective viewpoint. However, every game currently out there or being developed (with the exception of Pantheon) follows this exact formula. Minimize the loss, magnify the gains. The problem being with no real sense of loss or valleys then your peaks can only reach so high. This leads to stagnation in player interest in most cases. Proper valleys can help magnify peaks when done correctly. Sure many people are also turned away by their own loss aversion, but that's the fault of the industry for conditioning this mindest of "there is no down, only higher and higher". This is, of course, an impossible task.
nailed it.
SilkyWhip said:I see this term on many topics and posts by people who seem like nostalgic players crying for thier perfect vision of, basically project 1999, but what are they even talking about?
It seems like an argument against conviniece.
Do you really prefer spending an hour of your game time everyday running around across 2 continents on autorun or autofollow? It may be fun the first 20 times, but day after day, week after week, for the entire duration of the time you play the game(maybe even a decade) gets really old, really fast. Is jumping on a portal and meet up with your friends in popular dungeons in 5-10 minutes just too fast?
Did you really have an awsome time killing 300 treants for sap, running for 20 minites to the ocean for salted water, then out to the local farmland for flour, and back to town to a bakery; where you dragged and dropped one item at a time, All just to make yourself some +1 hp pancakes that won't last you the amount of time it took to gather the resources? But having a baker sell water and flour where you can spend 5 minutes flipping some flapjacks that will last you 2-3 days, is a dumbed-down system?
That was probably fine when we were all young and spent 20 hours on a game over the weekend, but alot of people have families now an limited game time. To me game mechanics should be complex, engaging and above all, fun. Not long arduous tasks that are designed to waste your time. I think Eastern MMOs should be excluded from western standards, because there is a completly different culture and mindset behind them; doing the same task thousands of times to perfect it, is fun for them. Think DDR or Starcraft lol.
I think that a system can be a bad idea, or poorley executed and then streamlined and reworked as technology progresses, but that doesn't mean it's been Dumbed down. "Dumbing down is the deliberate oversimplification of intellectual content in education, ...meaning: "[to] revise so as to appeal to those of little education or intelligence""- Wikipedia.
There are other subjects and examples, but this is just a small rant of something that was bothering me for a bit right here on the forum. What are your opinions?
Hmmm. You are correct that "dumbed down" may not be the best way to describe some of the modern MMO design choices. Personally I consider the Quality of Life features a detriment to world and community building. I have way more time to play now than I did when I played EverQuest in highschool...maybe you don't and that's fine you have plenty of options for the sort of game you are looking for...I don't. I'm not looking for another instanced dungeon/raid finder style game personally. This is a fundamental difference in design philosophy; are MMORPGs about combat or are they about more than that? Modern day MMORPGs really should be stripped of the RPG portion imo.
SilkyWhip said:--snip--
Do you really prefer spending an hour of your game time everyday running around across 2 continents on autorun or autofollow? It may be fun the first 20 times, but day after day, week after week, for the entire duration of the time you play the game(maybe even a decade) gets really old, really fast. Is jumping on a portal and meet up with your friends in popular dungeons in 5-10 minutes just too fast?
--snip-'-
OK I tried to ignore this the first time I read it in the OP but people keep quoting it "day after day, week after week, for the entire duration of" this thread so I just GOTTA say it.
You have GOT to be the worst planner I have ever heard if in my entire life. Either that or your "friends" are trying to ditch you and you're not taking the "hint".
So yes... 5-10 minutes IS too fast. If i want to begin the journey across Terminus i want it to take me 2 play sessions at least to make that journey. If i want to ditch some dweeb that has been annoying me and my friends I WANT to be more than a play session out of his reach when he loggs on.
SilkyWhip said:Did you really have an awsome time killing 300 treants for sap, running for 20 minites to the ocean for salted water, then out to the local farmland for flour, and back to town to a bakery; where you dragged and dropped one item at a time, All just to make yourself some +1 hp pancakes that won't last you the amount of time it took to gather the resources? But having a baker sell water and flour where you can spend 5 minutes flipping some flapjacks that will last you 2-3 days, is a dumbed-down system?
Zorkon said:SilkyWhip said:--snip--
Do you really prefer spending an hour of your game time everyday running around across 2 continents on autorun or autofollow? It may be fun the first 20 times, but day after day, week after week, for the entire duration of the time you play the game(maybe even a decade) gets really old, really fast. Is jumping on a portal and meet up with your friends in popular dungeons in 5-10 minutes just too fast?
--snip-'-
OK I tried to ignore this the first time I read it in the OP but people keep quoting it "day after day, week after week, for the entire duration of" this thread so I just GOTTA say it.
You have GOT to be the worst planner I have ever heard if in my entire life. Either that or your "friends" are trying to ditch you and you're not taking the "hint".
So yes... 5-10 minutes IS too fast. If i want to begin the journey across Terminus i want it to take me 2 play sessions at least to make that journey. If i want to ditch some dweeb that has been annoying me and my friends I WANT to be more than a play session out of his reach when he loggs on.
What you're touching on here cant be understated.
One of the most interesting and compelling things I loved about EQ (and to a lesser degree some other games), was the process of planning multiple things I wanted to do, plotting an efficient path toward doing it, and then setting out on my journey. I liked the mental exercise of setting a series of objectives and prioritizing them in such a way that when they were complete I had traveled across the continent(s) completing things along the way and arriving at a place in the end with multiple profitable tasks complete and the possibility of more already set out before me. I found great value in the requirement to engage in forethought.
"Get A and B, go to the next spot to turn in A and pick up C, go to the next spot to get F, go to the next spot to turn in B and C and pickup D, go to the next spot to pickup E and farm stacks of G, and then go to the next spot to turn in D, E and F. And at that final spot I should have dinged, I can bank, train, and tradeskill up on the stacks of G, and I'm only a couple of zones away from that dungeon that has the Mantle of Badass I've been wanting to camp for." This is a simplified example, and yet a continent traversed, 6 tasks completed, and I'm set up for multiple options for further advancements the second I log in the next time.
When you can just bop around at will in a couple of minutes this kind of thinking isn't necessary. This entire puzzle is elminated, and everything seems like a bunch of mindless courier garbage that any nimrod can churn thru. And it provides inherent rewards for playing smart because using your time wisely and to your best advantage allows you to achieve and advance more rapidly than those who can't/won't put in the effort.
Something as simple as having some tradeskill components on hand for combines while waiting for the boat; You can be the person sitting there yelling about how you have to wait, or you can advance your character in a different way during that time. Many of the "timesinks" from old EQ have similar ways of looking at them. And I loved figuring them out. I felt like my mental investment paid dividends.
Zorkon said:OK I tried to ignore this the first time I read it in the OP but people keep quoting it "day after day, week after week, for the entire duration of" this thread so I just GOTTA say it.
You have GOT to be the worst planner I have ever heard if in my entire life. Either that or your "friends" are trying to ditch you and you're not taking the "hint".
So yes... 5-10 minutes IS too fast. If i want to begin the journey across Terminus i want it to take me 2 play sessions at least to make that journey. If i want to ditch some dweeb that has been annoying me and my friends I WANT to be more than a play session out of his reach when he loggs on.
It was a hypothetical scenario and exaggerated for inflection. If you want to walk the long route, that's cool enjoy, but why do you think everyone else should? We're going to ask the community for a port.
Kaen said:SilkyWhip said:Did you really have an awsome time killing 300 treants for sap, running for 20 minites to the ocean for salted water, then out to the local farmland for flour, and back to town to a bakery; where you dragged and dropped one item at a time, All just to make yourself some +1 hp pancakes that won't last you the amount of time it took to gather the resources? But having a baker sell water and flour where you can spend 5 minutes flipping some flapjacks that will last you 2-3 days, is a dumbed-down system?
Stuff like that, sometimes it was a giant PITA... But you know what? When I was finished doing that stuff, I felt like I actually accomplished something. And if it's such a PITA, don't do it. Buy flapjacks from another player or go without them.
But why even have the vendor sell the the materials? Making flapjacks isn't fun. Why can't you just buy the flapjacks from the vendor? But wait, isn't that a waste of time? Why don't the devs just give people the +1hp and skip the whole flapjacks fiasco?
Yes, what you're describing is absolutely a dumbed-down system that sounds like every other garbage MMORPG that's come out in the past 10 years, none of which could keep me for more than a few weeks because they offered nothing but bright explosions and button-mashing, and handed everything to you with zero effort and zero critical thinking. And at the end of the day, zero satisfaction and zero sense of accomplishment. People who like those games can choose from 5 new MMORPGs every year... (none of which are ever any good, which is probably why you're here?)
No offense, but the things you're arguing for are the very reasons why I think the genre has become a joke.
Now you're just taking the ball and running with it. You could even keep arguing "Why even have a food system if it just slows you down? Why even walk when you can just teleport infront of anything you want? Why even turn on attack when you can just look at something and it explodes?
My argument is, time wasted for little to no returns. If you screwed up and where punished for it, that's fine. If you go on a grand adventure and run a couple errands along the way, that's cool. That's time management.
I could say that, "If your didn't plan on how much air you breathe tomorrow, and that you automaticaly breathe, That's a dumbed-down system."
bryanleo9 said: Dumbed down = EQ 2 where I could solo up to 6 mobs at once all the way until 17 where I deleted that garbage of a game. That game basically gave you better gear than it took me 2 years in EQ 1 to get. Now modern EQ 1 has been going the easy route with mercenaries and defiant gear from trash mobs which is better than boss mob drops. I want a difficulty game no more easy mode.
I agree with you but that is only one-half of the issue. What you've described is simply easy encounters. And, again, I agree, they should not be so easy.
But dumbing down is where the overal immersive game experience is taken away and you are hand-held and guided into how, when and where to do things. An example is a big exclamation point over a quest NPC so you don't have to *BE* your character talking to NPC's and trying to find a person living in the town - instead the game just says "here he is!". Maps that show you exactly where you are, ala GPS, so you never actually experience the world through travel. Instead of living in a virtual 3D world, you simply move your character along the 2D mini map to get where you want to be. Instant travel, auto looting, etc etc. These are all dumbed-down things.
And make no mistake there is a huge market for those players. But, according to Brad and VR, this game is specifically catering to those orphaned players who don't want to be dumbed-down and hand-held through a video game but, rather, want an immersive virtual world to live in.
IMO what makes a game "Dumd down" is when a game takes all the fine tunning availble to your class and either desregards half of it removes it or just gives it away for free.
example 1 charcter at one point gets 50 AA points to spend in a AA tree where you have 150 options to spend it. at this point the player has to truly think what and where they want to spend there points on to customize there chacter. Now the "Dumb down" version the game decides thats to hard lets give everyone 150 AA points to so there is no need to think about what makes that charcter different and everyone is the same.
Example 2 each character has multiple attributes to worry about INT DEX WIS etc etc and you have to think about what gear you want and need to get the max points into each attribute to be productive at that class. Now the "Dumb down " version is they game decides its to much for players to worry about all those attributes and they gorup all the needed attributes into one general attriubte, Wizard needs INT so now you only need to get gear with INT and not worry about STR to gear stuff or CONS to help with your health etc etc.
There are a ton of othere ways that games can "Dumb down" or even "water down" the game and they do this to make it simpler for a more diverse player base. Fast travel can be considered Dumb down unless you make it a super hard quest that you need to complete in order to be able to take a boat or a flying station to get to a port. Now dont mistake me there would still need to be travel times but completeing said quest would allow a player to cut that travel down by a short amount be completeing the quest. When i started EQ2 11 years ago if i wanted to get to a new area i had to complete a quest which opened up a boat that i could take to cut my travel time down. It didnt mean i could port to the area i wanted i stil had to run/ mount to get where i wanted to go. Later on EQ2 watered it down by making it so i could port anymore from a guild hall or port loctaion in any city.
picks86 said:I think what the OP is getting at is some people's aversions to peaks and valleys. If a game is designed to be 'fun' from the ground up, then it will eventually never be fun. There needs to be elements that objectively feel bad, to contrast and rinse the pallet for things that are intended to be fun or rewarding.
The "dumbing down" that you are referring to doesn't necessarily sound like simplifications to design, but rather simplification to the peaks and valleys. If the valleys become shallow or nonexistent, the peaks will gradually feel less and less rewarding.
For reference: corpse runs. I've had many people say "Isn't dying and having to start the encounter over failure enough? I just wasted X minutes fighting and didn't win anything." Zero gain can not and should not be equated to loss. Time is often an argued factor here. "Mindless grinding is just time consuming, it doesn't add anything to the game." Well if that's the case, then time being the only penalty in "losing" a fight is equally meaningless, and has no bearing on the game. There must be a measurable loss to give peaks their proper due height.
Obviously this is all an extremely subjective viewpoint. However, every game currently out there or being developed (with the exception of Pantheon) follows this exact formula. Minimize the loss, magnify the gains. The problem being with no real sense of loss or valleys then your peaks can only reach so high. This leads to stagnation in player interest in most cases. Proper valleys can help magnify peaks when done correctly. Sure many people are also turned away by their own loss aversion, but that's the fault of the industry for conditioning this mindest of "there is no down, only higher and higher". This is, of course, an impossible task.
Great post - extremely well-written. Best I've read here in a long time. Can't /agree with this enough.
picks86 said:I think what the OP is getting at is some people's aversions to peaks and valleys. If a game is designed to be 'fun' from the ground up, then it will eventually never be fun. There needs to be elements that objectively feel bad, to contrast and rinse the pallet for things that are intended to be fun or rewarding.
The "dumbing down" that you are referring to doesn't necessarily sound like simplifications to design, but rather simplification to the peaks and valleys. If the valleys become shallow or nonexistent, the peaks will gradually feel less and less rewarding.
For reference: corpse runs. I've had many people say "Isn't dying and having to start the encounter over failure enough? I just wasted X minutes fighting and didn't win anything." Zero gain can not and should not be equated to loss. Time is often an argued factor here. "Mindless grinding is just time consuming, it doesn't add anything to the game." Well if that's the case, then time being the only penalty in "losing" a fight is equally meaningless, and has no bearing on the game. There must be a measurable loss to give peaks their proper due height.
Obviously this is all an extremely subjective viewpoint. However, every game currently out there or being developed (with the exception of Pantheon) follows this exact formula. Minimize the loss, magnify the gains. The problem being with no real sense of loss or valleys then your peaks can only reach so high. This leads to stagnation in player interest in most cases. Proper valleys can help magnify peaks when done correctly. Sure many people are also turned away by their own loss aversion, but that's the fault of the industry for conditioning this mindest of "there is no down, only higher and higher". This is, of course, an impossible task.
It's not as much of an extreme viewpoint as you might think. It actually is the basis of how gamblers rationalize their continued gambling.
They frame it in their mind as an "investment" as if their winning is a foregone conclusion, they just have to "invest" the time.
I tried so hard to explain this concept to a young 20-something friend, badly "addicted" to these Korean MMOs and their gambling hooks. Their time-sinks and RNG. He kept insisting his grinding, the rng upgrading, loot boxes were an investment.
Most modern gamers have no grasp of game design in the 21st century. It is almost entirely based on hooking players using addiction mechanisms that trigger OCD tendancies.
When you feel that little voice in the back of your head, telling you that the game is now playing you and not the other way around. You should know it's time to get out.
Dumbing down is not just in all the added conveniences over the last 20 years, but literally watering the game itself down at the "per encounter" level.
Example 1 - instancing vs persistent dungeons. A person who has only played MMOs since WoW and never logged into a game like p1999 or even current mudlfated EQ Live has no idea what the phrase "TRAIN TO ZONE!!" even means. Not only did the developers create danger and excitement, but your fellow players add more with constantly emergent gameplay. In an instance, there is no emergent content. It is exactly the same every single time. Instancing dumbed down dungeons.
Example 2 - reducing the power curve of mobs so that everyone can solo essentially killed the idea of crowd control. Even in current EQ1, the power curve of mobs is still insane, and if you pull multiple mobs and don't CC them, you're going to die or run to zone. At best in modern MMOs, you have a 10-20 sec single mob stun or something that can sort of aid in a fight, but generally, everyone goes HAM is how all encounters are decided. Root, stun, mezz, charm, lull....all gone.
Example 3 - dungeon rooms/encounters themselves. In WoW and beyond, everything is very linear, conveniently spaced, etc. Most fights between bosses are 2 or 3 mob packs, depending on the difficulty of the pack, there are hardly any roamers, repops are very slow, there's tons of room to operate, etc. Classic EQ1 had claustrophobic spaces, insane chain aggro, through the wall aggro, tightly packed rooms that demanded forethought and CC prep, and as with all things EQ1, random roaming mobs that literally exist to create more aggro chains to wreck your carefully laid plans. Modern instance does none of that. Just fight 2-3 packs between scripted boss fights, lather, rinse, repeat. Team crowd control is basically meaningless since 2004.
Example 4 - no more death touch, summons, or other insta-dead mechanics that gave EQ1 raid bosses their "holy crap is this scary" quality. Nothing says DPS timer quite like DT. Get boss dead fast, or as time goes by, that "every 30 sec" DT will tilt the fight the boss's way. Also, no summoning for jumping to top of aggro list. In modern MMOs, grabbing aggro off the Main Tank on a raid boss is cause fo lulz ad giving the tank sass for being gimp. In EQ1, grabbing aggro off tank gets you summoned, then summarily squashed like a bug, then your contribution to th fight is gone until you get rezzed, gimp while you shake off rezz effects, and generally makes you a knucklehead.
It's more than just convenience features that have dumbed down MMOs. Some of the raid bosses in modern MMOs do have some pretty righteous scripts, no doubt, but the lack of death penalty, restarting at some progress beacon, and being back on that boss in under a minute takes it from scary to simply trying to learn the script. The MMO genre has just gotten easier all the way around. No game has a vanilla EQ1 plane of fear/hate zone in experience. It simply does not exist anymore outside project 1999.
If people are complaining about the dumbing down, it's because they want to feel that thrill they felt at their first Aaryonar fight, Fear break, final epic weapon mob encounter, etc. No game has that anymore, and a pretty sizable amount of players miss it and want a game to bring it back.