Design Update - December 2012

Discussion in 'Developer Roundtable' started by Moorgard, Dec 21, 2012.

  1. Jakkal Well-Known Member

    "I have to admit, it has a sort of strange fascination. How long can two people talk about nothing?" - Commander Riker, ST:TNG
    Kilsin likes this.
  2. Dielle Active Member

    The higher the overall challenge an encounter demands, the better the overall reward should be.

    That's what I agree on.

    The disagreement is you think the only thing that determines challenge is direct monster stats (when it in fact a summation of many different variables) and you also think the only thing that determines reward is higher stat loot (when rewards can come in many different forms.)

    You choose to only work with what you personally recognize as 'challenge', and feel that what you personally recognize as 'reward' should be higher stat items.

    Obviously at a single instant, killing 1 easy mob is not the same as killing 1. The issue is in totality. Why is totality perfectly ok when we are talking about the sum the actions of 24 people on raid, but you don't recognize it when it's not convenient for you? Doing something low skill, and of low value many times can be worth the same value as doing something highly skilled once. Making a stick of gum, does not have the value, or require the skill of performing open heart surgery. However, supplying enough gum for an entire city would cost more money then open heart surgery.

    Killing 6000 mobs can be as much an overall challenge as a 5 minute raid, when looked at in totality. It is effort spread out over a long period of time, in this case a 'grind.' But you dismiss the idea of time being a factor in reward, so you dismiss grinds. Can you honestly say being the 23rd, or 24th person in a raid on any of the encounters you listed, is more difficult than killing 6000 solo mobs? Is your issue the actual numbers?

    What if I said it was

    100000000000000000000 Solo mobs
    10000000000000 group mobs
    1 Raid mob?

    Would you still dismiss such a quest?
  3. Karii Well-Known Member

    Yes i would... killing whatever number of solo mobs does not equate challenge.. it equates a 'grind'.. period... it is a test of how much mind numbing grinding you can deal with, not skill..
  4. Dielle Active Member

    You being dismissive of grinding is no different then people being dismissive of raiding.

    "Bringing a ton of people to kill one mob does not equate a challenge, it equates a "zerg"... period. It's a test of how many people you can throw at a monster, not skill."
  5. Kilsin Well-Known Member

    That is ridiculous to claim that raids are a zerg man...You can't sit there and tell me that when Cobra raids, it is one big cluster f&%k with everyone running around screaming and mashing buttons hoping to heal, dps and hold aggro to then "somehow" walk away with shiny loot and a dead raid mob.

    There is structure, organisation, skill, teamwork and leadership in raiding, more so than grouping due to the size and level of difficulty.

    As Karii said, grinding out any number of mobs whether in group or solo is just that, grinding.

    Put a Challenging solo mob up, hardest in VG and put nice loot on it. Some will kill it some will struggle and some will fail miserably.

    Put a challenging group mob in VG and same deal...

    and again with Raid mob.

    The magnitude and challenge should be rewarded by how difficult and challenging the encounter is, the harder it is the better the loot, no group content will ever match the challenge of raid content and no solo content will match the challenge of group content.
  6. Dielle Active Member

    That's an 'elitist' attitude that demands a particular type of effort be rewarded despite the combined effort or value or effort over a given time of another skill being greater. You are viewing loot purely as a skill recognition mechanic, and not a quantified reward for effort. But loot is not just a 'plaque on the wall'; it's not just an achievement. If it was, then there would be no issue. I would not want, as a grouper, the achievement on my achievement board 'Slayer of Ancient Dragon.' TBH, I don't even think I'd deserve that if I was carried during a raid, or even if I was in a raid after 1st serverwide kill. But it's not just that. Loot actually has a key functionality in game, which means it cannot be monopolized as skill recognition w/o reprocussions. You are basically saying, using my RL example prior,

    'No matter how many sticks of gum you produce, even if you happiness to the entire world, you should never be able to purchase the same things a doctor can. No factory worker, or even plant manager, could ever perform open heart surgery. The intense education/skill of a single operation justfies best rewards."

    That's absurd. I should have an access path that allows me to get the same quantified rewards (that is what loot is, quantified rewards) that does not involve me being a doctor. To refuse that is elitist.
  7. Jakkal Well-Known Member

    All I know is, I spent the last 9 hours fishing. This is very skill intensive, demanding labor. And what did I get to show for it? Sodden boots, fish skeletons and Souleye*. I did not get a single lockbox, nor any kind of epic raid loot that I deserve after spending 9 hours out on the ocean, running out of Ice Cold Beer after the 30th "Unknown". Seriously Kojan, there's a ton of c r a p floating around in your ocean. You need to clean it up.

    I would like to know when we solo fisherpeople can start to look forward to reasonable rewards for the effort, time and skill we've put into it. Please consider giving those Unknowns some Adventurer's abandoned sack's full of RoRRs. With all this angst, I imagine several raiders have committed seppuku and thus their precious RoRR's are lost for time immemorial, saved perhaps by the hands of one lucky fisherperson.

    *That is a story in itself.
  8. Kilsin Well-Known Member

    This isn't real life though, it's an MMORPG set in a fantasy world to escape RL.

    I did not mean it from an "Elitist" point of view, I understand where you are coming from with the whole "Everyone should be able to get it eventually" way of thinking but I disagree, some things I don't think should be available to everyone, it's what makes players stand out from one another.

    If we all get easy paths to the best gear in game we would all be bored and move onto something else. I like being able to set myself apart from others with my achievements after all the hours and hard work I put in with my guild to obtain these items. It was a big team effort and we went through a lot of failed attempts and strategies until we succeeded, leaving us with some great memories and loot to show for it.

    I do agree a lot of loot should be accessible by all but I just do not think the best loot in game should be. You have to draw the line somewhere otherwise it will just be expected.

    The more the players get, the more the players want, if the Devs start handing things out or making all loot available there will be nothing to strive towards, no high end goals to look forward too, it will ultimately ruin raiding when everything can be obtained via grouping/solo, so why bother with end game content anymore?

    Just add some group quests/content in and SOE can save themselves a lot of effort by not bothering with anymore raid targets, HoSS, Stirhaad and so on.

    It would save them money and allow them to run the game at a much less cost, get rid of a few Devs and GMs, everyone will have the best gear so everyone should be happy, right?
  9. Verdic New Member

    Wow walk away for a few days and the same stuff is still going on. Dielle - You realize you aren't going to change a raider's mind in the sense that they don't deserve better than everyone else right? It's like expecting everyone to just suddenly hold hands, stop being greedy, and fight for the best for all parties. Simply never going to happen. A raider will always expect the best of everything in every MMORPG irregardless of whether or not they were actually proving some sort of skill or they were in charge of carrying the consumables on their back for the entire trip.
    Exmortis likes this.
  10. Kilsin Well-Known Member

    The gear is available to you and everyone else, nothing is stopping you from joining a guild or getting a group of friends together and progressing to the level of skill required to kill the mobs that drop these items. If you don't think their is any skill involved then this should makes things even easier for you, grab some random level 55's and go and kill a raid mob, you make it sound so easy so there shouldn't be a problem.

    When you kill the raid mob please link your loot and I will be the first to congratulate you as you would of "earned" it!

    Your post sounds like a rude/snide remark hidden behind useless text. Why don't you explain why you are for the "Groups and Soloers should have access to everything" argument instead of posting an insult for the sake of it, it makes you sound pretty childish.

    All items and gear are available to all players and they have been since the start of VG, why must players make such a big deal about not getting it, if they don't even bother to try in the first place?

    This is the lazy, easy-mode "I want everything naow!!!" argument I was speaking about in a previous post.

    If you want the best loot in game, go out and get it.
    Jakkal and dravid like this.
  11. Dielle Active Member

    Well, tbh, your post sounds like patronizing snivel. You'd congratulate him? Lol. This reminds me of when a few worthless Veracity zoned into Lost Canyon to congratulate Cobra when they killed Karax for the 1st time. Like he really wants your praise?
  12. Verdic New Member

    Like I said Dielle it isn't worth bothering. The point is, good content is coming, and hopefully it's coming for everyone. His reply was childish, just like the rest of them. Everyone should be glad that the developer's are working hard to bring in new content, and for better or worse changes will come when they may and everyone will have to eat that pie when it is served. :)
  13. Boox Active Member

    I've never raided in Vanguard, but when I used to raid it was with 40+ people. Getting them organized and having those people commit on a regular basis was not easy. Not to mention you wiped often and had to devote many hours to a single task for a very small chance at some loot. Some of our raids spanned multiple days. In order to get the drops you wanted you had to raid regularly and commit to it for the long haul.

    Getting group loot simply doesn't compare. At least not that I've seen.
    Kilsin likes this.
  14. Kilsin Well-Known Member

    I replied to Verdic in the same way that I was spoken too, if someone is going to blatantly insult myself and other like minded raiders in a general rude post, I will not do them any favours by responding to them with the respect or courtesy that I normally would.

    Hence the "be the first to congratulate him"...only said due to the insult and it not ever going to happen, you read too much into things Dielle, take a step back every now and then.
  15. Schiller Well-Known Member

    I don't see that the best raid gear should be hugely superior to the best group gear BUT raid gear should always have some attributes necessary to be able to raid. Forgive me if my memory is less than perfect (and there are always a few exceptions) but this is what I remember from EQ1. For example (and using tank gear, which I am more familiar with):

    The best group gear might have close to, or equal, AC and hitpoints of the best raid gear, but it would be missing one aspect--say resists (or could be rage, flurry, whatever). The lack of resists did not matter in a group, as the toughest group mobs would not kill you with, say, elemental damage. However, the toughest raid mobs would fry you without those resists. Looking at the gear side-by-side would show two pieces of gear very similar, but the group gear might lack one particular stat. Both pieces of gear would look awesome and draw those oohs and aahs some seem to crave.

    Group mobs were made so as not to use damage that required raid resists, so your group gear worked just as well as raid gear against a tough group mob. Raiders in best raid gear held no real advantage over those in best group gear against group mobs, as the resists they had were unused against a group mob, and otherwise their stats were little, if any, better. So those in raid gear would not necessarily dominate in a group setting because of gear any more than one with best group gear could. Yet those in group gear could not take on the toughest raid mobs without gearing up for raids, because the missing resists meant they would be fried with the first elemental AoE cast by the mob.

    This always seemed like a good system to me, but it does require planning on the part of developers, as adding, say, a group mob that does use nasty elemental damage, for example, would be totally out of bounds. It would also require some lower tier raid mobs that could be beaten in group gear, so those who want to transistion to raiding would have a path to start getting resist gear.

    Unfortunately, in VG, there are two things that make this hard to accomplish now. One is the cancer that is PotA which makes most of the raid-necessary gear group gear, and the other is the goofy augment system that allows (requires) items dropped by the lowest forms of 2-dot trash mobs imaginable. Vanguard went down a very strange path with these systems (as well as the huge amounts of our stats that we get purely from buffs, which is ridiculous) and we may all have to endure a bit of a painful growth period for things to be made right again. Personally, I am willing to submit myself to the care of a skilled surgeon, and even endure the pain of recovery, if that is what is necessary to be well again.

    Let us hope our surgeon is skilled, with steady hands!
  16. Fargham New Member

    Please add in level 50 content that is soloable with someone who has junk gear. EQ and WoW both did this well. Vanguard doesn't do it well at all.
  17. Silverblade New Member

    This is basically what I was proposing as well. Raid gear should be pretty much on par with other gear except when it comes to raid mobs, that's where they would shine and offer true advantages. I believe someone mentioned PvP gear and this is the same idea. People don't seem to mind allowing games to have specific PvP gear but fight tooth and nail against specific raid gear. They'd still stand out and they'd still progress.

    What they wouldn't have is an advantage in solo and group environments because raid gear in that context would roughly be the same as group gear (same goes with PvP gear). Why is this important? Groups will naturally want to group up with raiders if raid gear is better than group gear. Why pick the pally tank with group gear when there's a raider in full raid gear ready to go? The argument would be: raiders dont' run group content. Well, then what's the problem removing raid gear advantage in a solo/group environment?

    The truth is, it's not about challenge or progression for some raiders. It's the need to be exclusive.
  18. Finnatae Member

    This entire post is invalidated by another of your posts concerning lockbox loot. If the best loot in the game drops in lockboxes , as long as its available to everyone why make such a big deal about it? You want the best loot in the game, buy it.
    Hypocrisy ftw.
  19. Kilsin Well-Known Member

    I pay for 4 subscriptions that allow me to play the game with all the bells and whistles and giving me access to everything in game and I pay it for that reason, among others, like I have for the last 6 years, why should I then have to pay again to get the best items in game when I already spend more than the average amount of hours online putting in the effort to get my gear/items?

    If I and everyone else followed your flawed logic, there would be no subscribers and a ton of casual players rage quitting for either not getting their magic lotto prize or getting it and having nothing left to do.

    I am glad you're not in charge.

    Stupid ftw.
  20. Finnatae Member

    Lol im using YOUR flawed "logic". No one forces you to sub and no one forces you to have the best gear in the game, but if you want it you can have it just like anyone else.

Share This Page