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MMO's are getting absurd. (long)
draekus
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 0 Arc User
(taken from my post on Reddit.)
Alright, are there players out there that are more interested in honing proper combat tactics as opposed to skipping content through means of silly catwalks and holes in the map?
I can't be alone in thinking this has just got completely out of control. Fighting bosses by exploiting the environment doesn't make you a better player nor is it enjoyable to me.
When you have a group of players who are well-trained players. Skilled with their class and their tactics: You get a group synergy that can't be beat. That kind of play leads to smooth runs and enjoyable experiences where you can enjoy the game as opposed to trying to run past or speed through content in order to roll a D100.
It has been for so long a sickness on the gaming community of MMOs: Rushing to get gear in order to do it again in the next level of content. I think it is pathetic and I have come to hate it. Grinding A to get to B without ever enjoying the experience (unless you're high, drunk or otherwise inebriated in order to make the drudgery of content skipping less boring.)
I want to put together a list (maybe even a guild) of at least T1 geared players who are interested in enjoying the gameplay that comes along with the commitment of doing Epic dungeons in Neverwinter.
I'm not interested in exploiting the environment to fight bosses or doing anything ANYTHING other then intended gameplay. Every single boss, every mob, every patrol every encounter in these types of video games has a solution. A solution based on core gameplay mechanics not aggravating tactics that force even seasoned players to fail and become frustrated.
I don't need to explain myself. Not really. Since this is only about video games (MMOs particularly) I will only relate to that by saying I've been playing them a long, long time. Most if not all English-based MMOs have passed through my computers over the decades. I make this statement only to make clear that I don't give two ****s what those in favor of what I have just ridiculed have to say. I am only interested in finding other players who feel as I do. If that's you: Contact me. Let's get the hell out of pugging with crazy people or out of guilds that just ruin our experience and care nothing for the players their with.
Contact @draekus in game or msg here. You must be on Dragon shard.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
-Vinnlander
P.S. I'm not on tonight. Will be tomorrow. 07/02/2013
Alright, are there players out there that are more interested in honing proper combat tactics as opposed to skipping content through means of silly catwalks and holes in the map?
I can't be alone in thinking this has just got completely out of control. Fighting bosses by exploiting the environment doesn't make you a better player nor is it enjoyable to me.
When you have a group of players who are well-trained players. Skilled with their class and their tactics: You get a group synergy that can't be beat. That kind of play leads to smooth runs and enjoyable experiences where you can enjoy the game as opposed to trying to run past or speed through content in order to roll a D100.
It has been for so long a sickness on the gaming community of MMOs: Rushing to get gear in order to do it again in the next level of content. I think it is pathetic and I have come to hate it. Grinding A to get to B without ever enjoying the experience (unless you're high, drunk or otherwise inebriated in order to make the drudgery of content skipping less boring.)
I want to put together a list (maybe even a guild) of at least T1 geared players who are interested in enjoying the gameplay that comes along with the commitment of doing Epic dungeons in Neverwinter.
I'm not interested in exploiting the environment to fight bosses or doing anything ANYTHING other then intended gameplay. Every single boss, every mob, every patrol every encounter in these types of video games has a solution. A solution based on core gameplay mechanics not aggravating tactics that force even seasoned players to fail and become frustrated.
I don't need to explain myself. Not really. Since this is only about video games (MMOs particularly) I will only relate to that by saying I've been playing them a long, long time. Most if not all English-based MMOs have passed through my computers over the decades. I make this statement only to make clear that I don't give two ****s what those in favor of what I have just ridiculed have to say. I am only interested in finding other players who feel as I do. If that's you: Contact me. Let's get the hell out of pugging with crazy people or out of guilds that just ruin our experience and care nothing for the players their with.
Contact @draekus in game or msg here. You must be on Dragon shard.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
-Vinnlander
P.S. I'm not on tonight. Will be tomorrow. 07/02/2013
Post edited by draekus on
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Comments
However, I did read part of it.
The reason players skip so much content and the reason they exploit boss kills is because of dungeon and boss fight mechanics. Had the developers sough to make more engaging encounters, rather than spawn infinite adds with every boss, then players would, by and large, welcome the encounters and the challenges they bring.
As it is now, the encounters are boring to the point of players just either getting sleepy and nodding off during boss fights, or they are so tedious and frustrating that they just want to end them as quick as possible to get gear.
I understand your frustration. Personally, I am with you in that I hate to skip content. But... the bulk of the players feel the way I just described and they do it to get at least SOME reward for ridiculously poor designs in high-end encounters.
Maybe the devs like it this way. I don't know. But that is how it is and I really don't see it changing anytime soon.
All the best to you, Vinnlander. I hope you can find at least some fun with this game before 80% of the active accounts drop to find something more creative.
Well, I can't say it's not all creative. The design of zones, the graphics choices, the environments and sounds, the light shows you get with spells... they are all stellar. Sadly, the play of this game tarnishes all of that goodness.
newbie rogue extraordinaire
My only aim here is to attract like-minded players. I understand all that you said and really for the most part agree. However, I still get a thrill of excitement when even the smallest fight goes perfect. There's a satisfaction to be had at being the best or at least very good. It's like when you play the guitar. Even if you're skilled there are moments where you pick the strings perfectly, even if only for a few seconds and it feels like lightning going through your arms. It's a thrill. Even though this game is clearly made for Farmville-like profit it still has some remnants of what was once good and what we all originally should have enjoyed: A challenge.
The point the OP is saying its boring there is not really any challenge to the instances. If you like killing mobs until you get to the boss. Then attack said boss kill more mobs repeat until boss is dead. Thats not fun for pretty much everyone.
Taking CN as a example.
- window jumping is no good. Happy that its fixed.
- if u run the whole of cn, there is a shortcut which lets u skip some mobs by opening a gate and run sideways along the walls in shadow fells. I feel that this is fine and infact brings fun to the game. Imagine ur invading a castle with a small group to a targeted guy. Would you go thru the main door and state ur intention or go from the side and find the shortest path of resistance there?
Some shortcuts brings fun to the game especially its D&D. It shouldnt be conventional. Even better if they drop rogue dps and let them have special skills which open secret doors for significant shortcuts in dungeons.
I have a solution, why don't they make all the dungeons like the crafting system. You push a button to get it started and then just wait for the time bar to fill to completion and then click another button for your reward? Because fighting the same mobs, sitting in the same spots, reacting the same way every time you go in. There two of these, one of those, a few of that and they have so many hit points it's obvious they are just there to make the dungeon crawl long and tedious. I get no enjoyment out of killing the same mobs just to get to the boss fights. This is suppose to be dnd, where are the puzzles? Where are the coordinated efforts to problem solve? Oh you say it's a game, you can't put those kinds of things in. BS, ddo did it. But no, they decided to make every boss fight the same, lots of hp, constantly spawning adds, aoe that can one shot and after all that give HAMSTER for loot.
If 'moving on' is now exploiting dungeons, rushing to game cap in a few days and crafting offline by clicking a single button and waiting xx hours, then the genre is in a bad way.
I hope you manage to get your guild up and running and enjoy the game in the way it was meant to be played (hopefully).
For me, I think the game has lost me - hopefully, I can bump into more people like yourself in the world of ESO or Wildstar..
Some things are exploiting actual bugs, others are simply usings the physics mechanics as intended. There are ledges and knock effects and the two were meant to be used together.
Pretty much sums it up for me.
Thing is not all the classes in this game can use this particular shortcut .
It's a shame we are on different servers, I'd have liked to make your acquaintance in game.
I share your sentiment fully.
I believe the fundamental and irreconcilable difference is the one between enjoying do-ing and have-ing.
A tough fight here in NW can be very enjoyable to me, when the party can "click" together. I was in a Dread Vault group where that happened and we beat the final boss without even destroying the tentacles right in front of the brain. No corner fight. It was tough, it was a dodge fest, it was a close call more than once, but it was glorious. Sure it also helped we were lucky with our hallucinated sub boss spawns (no pit fiend). It sadly also only happened once.
For many though such a fight is undesirable because it takes a bit longer and is just in the way of having the loot. I actually quite enjoy the boss mechanics for the most part (DC, all normal dungeons, epic CT and CC so far). You just have to embrace the idea that it's boss encounters and not fights with only the boss. The loot is not for killing that oversized ****** in the middle, it's for winning the entire engagement with all the smaller stuff around as well. It's not mugging an individual for his stuffs, it's fighting a skirmish against the boss and his/her/its minions.
About the boss mechanics being boring: a lot of the people bringing this argument just use it as an excuse. I have been in another game with some times pretty elaborate boss mechanics. You had to click this, avoid that damage, run here, run there, what ever. Unique stuff for each boss. What happened was: fight this one in this corner, his abilities don't reach into it. End game was one particular DPS class and nothing else, because they could buff themselves into the stratosphere and execute the boss in record breaking time. A lot of "super pro" endgame players didn't even know about the mechanics, or that there actually might be some.
The fact you can trade loot for cash shop items nether helped there or here. Loot runs become a matter of money, essentially. Even though most won't engage in RMT, it's about having stuff that would normally cost a lot of money without paying.
I believe also part of the problem are the short instanced dungeons. The fact they are meant to be done in one sitting of a limited time period also lead to the desire to do them even more quickly. Save 5min here or there? We can run this another once during DD, or twice, or even more! If something already takes little time to do, the desire to do it even faster, turbocharged, ludicrous speeded probably also goes up.
Just go your own way, if possible, and laugh at the unwise people turbo charging they way through, only to find out they don't have anything left to do anymore.
Doing is the only point of this recreational activity, those that short circuit it are missing the point imo.
So what you are saying is that players who do not enjoy playing the game, do all they can to avoid playing the game whilst playing the game?
Why even bother playing a game to get gear if you do not like how the game plays in the first place? Some people have no sense.
If you actually find the gameplay to be tedious and frustrating, why are you even playing? It is not like having gear will somehow make the gameplay more fun.
Feast of the Moon | Rising of the Dark | Shadow of the World | Everdark
Basically doing silly things that leave danger behind. Or causing unnecessary frustrations that ruin the fun. To me it's a lot more fun to understand encounters so well that you can flash through them like a skilled player. Playing well rewards you also when things go wrong by helping you to think fast and save the day. It also promotes teamwork which is a word that usually falls on deaf ears but means a lot to me.
Neverwinter is not only a very badly designed MMO, it is a badly designed game entirely. And obviously a rushed job out of Cryptic, a company that hasn't done anything right since CoH. Neverwinter is basically just an online version of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, as the PvE content is the worst in any MMO ever released to the North American market. Add to the mess a UI that is obviously designed for console play and this game will be over and done by Labor Day.
It takes, on average, 10 runs of a specific dungeon to receive the specific piece of loot you're searching for, and that's only if you run them exclusively during DDs. Up that to 50 runs during non-DD times. "full" runs as you describe take around an hour+ per dungeon (for T2s, double that for CN). That's between 10 to 50 hours time invested for a marginal gain of +30-50 stats when you do get the piece you wanted (if it's an upgrade, otherwise you're reward is the AD from selling it to buy something you do want). Your reward for all those other times is, at best, some trash loot you're lucky to sell for 3-10k AD, but usually (50% of the time) some BOP belt=1.6g vendor trash. Keep in mind that outside of selling loot in the AH, players are capped at what, 25k AD per day income via normal gameplay means, via Dailies + tradeskills + invocation, etc.
In a game where stats measure in the 10-15 thousand range, the incentive to waste 10-50 hours for +30-50 is laughably non-existent. Of course players will seek ways to increase the efficiency of their time invested vs rewards received. The first time through sure, it's new, you explore, you learn the encounters. After that, there's something wrong with you if you're not trying to better your gameplay and knowledge by increasing your efficiency in dungeons.
No matter what you do, sane players will continue to improve their likelihood of being rewarded for their effort. The only way to change the current meta (clear dungeons as efficiently as possible to increase the chances of being rewarded in a given period of time) would to either:
a) reduce the amount of pointless trash clearing in dungeons to make it more efficient to just kill your way through it
b) rework the loot system in the game so that players are rewarded more fairly for the time put in.*
*there's a million ways they could do this, ie some or all of the following: always T2 loot in T2 chests during DD, remove the bugged BOP belts so that they can be sold for AD rather than booby prizes, increase the likelihood that T2 set gear drops from chests rather than ring/belt/necks, improve drop rate of set gear from bosses, improve drake seal reward items to being worth using, replacing bounty items that are currently turned in for low level seals with Epic versions of said bounties which are turned in for the loot you actually wanted from the dungeon, etc.
Otherwise, if you want to artificially reduce your chances of receiving rewards for your effort, then why not run dungeons exclusively during non-DD times?
To clarify there are exploits and there are "shortcuts". exploits are things like glitching through walls/outside of the map or using bugs to instakill bosses. Shortcuts are using abilities, the actual environment/terrain, skills or knowledge to avoid certain packs of trash mobs or shorten the duration of fights against them.
Most if not all legit players are fine with removing exploits but shortcuts are there by design to reward players for their knowledge and/or skill. If you want to leeroy through dungeons aggroing everything and doubling the time it takes you to complete them, feel free. But there's nothing wrong with players who'd rather not be terribad at video games not wanting to do it your way.
Neverwinter was originally supposed to be a co-op game that switched to an MMO once Perfect World got involved.
I think we are beginning to see through the illusions that were put in place to try and convince us that this game was designed as an MMO from the start.
I am HOPING this is the case, it if isn't, then there are some fundamental issues with the game that were designed from the start.
Great ideas! I think every single dungeon should last 2 mins with one big boss with maybe 1 aoe spell. Would be awesome and fun.
Well i guess it's because people like you can't focus more than 5 mins on the same activity that most of my pug runs are a huge pain. I have to accept to skip/cheat, i can quit or force others to fight through the dungeon, but then the atmosphere between these excited kids and me becomes quite hateful. I often pick the 2nd or 3rd option and don't mind anymore to "ruin" cheaters DD runs.
I wouldn't mind an increase in gold drop to give people more reasons to kill, but it's rather pointless anyway, there will always be people with no patience, saying all day long they keep playing something they don't enjoy for rewards they shouldn't care about, since they should "quit" the game anyway.
Humans excel at using their brains to devise solutions to challenges. One of the byproducts of that is that players will find ni el ways to defeat encounters that designers and programmers never anticipated. When there are several thousands of players -many of them elite and highly skilled at game strategy- methods will always arise to defeat a dungeon are counter to the design.
We can be fairly certain that the devs did design the dungeons to be run more than twice per event. And it's probably they didn't design the dungeons to be run twice.
Just because it's possible to blow past the trash mobs and gate to the boss, doesn't mean that was the intention.
As we can see that pushing mobs off cliffs and kiting bosses out of their rooms wasn't as intended as players previously claimed considering the patches that include invisible walls being added to several dungeons recently in order to prevent that behavior.
Regarding the OP's rant about learning proper combat tactics...
One of the major issues is that trash mobs don't require innovative combat tactics. They're viewed as completely superfluous nuisance encounters. Even most of the boss fights are really less about honing combat roles and more about surviving zergs of adds.
Casual players will be more interested in playing the content as long as it doesn't feel impossible to complete.
Elite players will looks for ways to maximize their playing time and efforts.
I somewhat agree with you but on the Elite players.
The way you describe them makes me more think of fastfood players than Elite players.
Beeing an Elite means running content as it should be done (not by using shortcut and bypass) and beating really hard stuff, that only a small percentage can do, because it asks skills, strategy and often, time.
I can't see where do you see Elite players in this game...
Server Beholder
Wow (no trolling please) learned it partially in later raids when they realized ****loads of trash didn't bring anything to the game but annoyance. So the designed some raids that barely had trash and you went from boss to boss.
NW has ridiculous amounts of trash and even worse they take lots and lots (and I emphasize that) of time to kill without any real purpose.
Devs should look into this as the first measure to stop exploits or at least ease them down.
On the other hand I also agree some abuse exploiting to levels I never experienced in any other mmo (I've been playing them for 10+ years).
And that class of players soem call "Elite" aren't really Elite , they're just a bunch of nolifers (sorry for the term but its the truth) that only care about pixel chasing. It isn't about the experience or the fun. That mentality got lost several years ago when you needed to work and learn to do content. THOSE were the elite.
Now we see in chat "LF x for y exp please" and I tend to ask "What do you mean experienced? If I know all the bull**** exploits every dungeon has? Sorry but no, I'm a **** then".
Question is I don't want to, I play only at night mostly and I want to PLAY not to chase pixels, else I will just play Tetris and get more enjoyment out of it.
Anyway I would defo join a guild like that but I'm also on Mindflayer but I'm going to take the opportunity to say if someone has this kind of mentality on Mindflayer and needs members please drop me a message.
QFT.
I wish you the best of luck with that. And I'm not being sarcastic, I hope that works out and you can find some people who enjoy curbing the exploits, etc. You're certainly not alone in that sentiment.
On the other hand, this is a problem that needs to be addressed by Cryptic. It's simple: better AI. Better pathing of mobs and NPCs, ability for both to make jumps, and ability for both to do more than just take the shortest path. This is a huge problem with the Neverwinter engine (is it based on Cryptic's Hero engine I assume?). You can see the horrible pathing right away when the sparkling quest trail goes through solid rock, goes over open air, etc., etc.
If Cryptic fixes their AI this issue wouldn't be nearly so prevalent. You'll always have exploits, but this would address those who casually exploit.
Hammerfist Clan. Jump into the Night: NW-DMXWRYTAD
Bravo, sir (or madam). Bravo.
The objective of a game is to have fun playing the game and beating the game. Not exploiting the heck out of every hole you can find so you can maximize the looting speed. Unfortunately, it seems like the people who spend the most time playing have that nutty minmaxer mentality where the objective isn't to play the game, it's to exploit the game to the hilt. Not only do they run exploits, but there is no fun factor involved anywhere. Every run is about as playful as a joint editing of a spreadsheet, and everyone must bring the "appropriate" skills and "appropriate" gear so as to maximize the efficiency of the run, not the fun of it.
A loss or failure in a boss fight isn't a fun learning experience, it's a shakesperean tragedy where anyone perceived to be "guilty" of causing it is about as popular afterwards as genital warts.
But that's where you wind up - if you look at what this game is, it's basically a giant capitalism simulator. The goal is much like our entire society to amass the maximum amount of crud to show off to the other players who also want the maximum amount of crud. The entire underlying premise of all MMO's is utterly diseased, so of course the end result among the die-hards is diseased thinking taken to its most extreme form.
Nowhere is it about the maximum amount of fun and camaraderie, at least among the exploit gangs. I've heard anecdotes of guilds and players who actually play for fun, but I have yet to see much of it...
Shortcuts and alternative routes would be fantastic. I'd be completely in favor of them. Some could be harder than others, some could be easier, some could be downright dead ends where you're tiptoeing along and suddenly the entire floor gives way and kills your entire party or part of it. There is an infinite number of ways shortcuts could be a great thing.
But here's the rub: those shortcuts would have to be planned and created explicit shortcuts and not glitches being exploited by players. Glitches that give advantage is what we refer to as bugs or exploits, and they're often seriously game-breaking or at least game-damaging.
More variety in maps is one thing people are crying out for. Shortcuts and alternate routes would be an extremely good way to do it. You could even randomize what happens in every shortcut from time to time so one time you get five very surprised goblins who get pulverized, and another time you get a whole herd of giants who were on their way to the baths and decided to stomp you on the way.
But the key is that content has to be planned and created to work that way in order for it not to do very bad things to game balance and character power balances.
Ideally, these little side paths would only be discovered and known by the most ingenious and observant of adventurers. But given the nature of the internet, as soon as someone finds one, everyone else will know via twitch of youtube within a weeks time. This is the same issue that puzzle games like Portal have, where you can pretty much find video walkthroughs that give you step by step solutions for all maps, to attain achievements.
While in single player experiences, the choice to use a shortcut is your own choice; in a MMO it becomes problematic when the party is composed of differing opinions. I see two solutions to this. Designers can either eliminate all choice for players, and create strict "one" path dungeons that force players to engage in a certain way, or Players can take it on themselves to enter these dungeons with a consensus in how they're going to approach it.
The first option I find rather dismal, as it makes content repetitive and eliminates a lot of re-playability. The second option is harder on un-social players who don't have friends or guilds that they can rely on to run a dungeon to their preference.
I personally, comb every inch of an area to be sure I've encountered and discovered everything there is to do.
glassdoor.com - Cryptic Studios Review
Consider the following situation: In CN for over an hour. All players are very well experienced with the dungeon minus one. The four experienced players traverse through the dungeon using many shortcuts and exploits showing the fifth player 'the ropes'. At the final campfire before Draco (as when first entering the dungeon) the party's Rogue runs ahead to the last campfire. Everyone in the party is then commanded to relog in order to leave the instance and then return in. This works for everyone but one. Nope, not the inexperienced player. Instead one of the very experienced players in the party are unable to rejoin the party for the dungeon because he 'clicked too fast on the return to instance button before his party was finished being populated by the server' and it is a DD run. Because the party is one man short the last boss fight is impossible and so the party is told to disband and start all over doing the exact same shortcuts and exploits.
To me something like the above is incredibly stupid. Time wasted. No fun had. Nothing learned by the new player. No rewards gotten and no friends or teamwork produced. I've had these kinds of experiences over and over again in dozens of online games and I'm simply not doing this kind of **** ever again. There's fun to be had even in Neverwinter I just need to stop playing with the special olympics and find some other players who feel as I do. Hopefully I can. I know I'm a bit 'old-fashioned' but that's the way I am.
Elite is all about strategy and time achieving the greatest rewards. Doesn't really matter whether the strategy is defeating difficult bosses in direct combat or defeating a dungeon indirectly. It's all good as long as they pwn.
Hardcore players probably want everything to be hard.