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Blasphemeral posted:
I dont know man. My main experience in small group content consisted of glitching and stealthing past as much content as possible and then stacking and spamming AoEs for those that werent bypassable. It was really, really boring and tedious. I think where ANets design failed wasnt necessarily in doing away with the trinity, but in failing to adequately design content for groups that didnt consist of that trinity.
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Jun 5, 2017 18:28
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CoffeeBooze posted:I dont know man. My main experience in small group content consisted of glitching and stealthing past as much content as possible and then stacking and spamming AoEs for those that werent bypassable. It was really, really boring and tedious. I think where ANets design failed wasnt necessarily in doing away with the trinity, but in failing to adequately design content for groups that didnt consist of that trinity. I'd say, instead, that ANet included too many trash mobs with too much HP, and when people found bypasses to those encounters, ANet neither fixed the bypasses nor the problems that caused people to work out the bypasses and that led to a toxic and boring meta. The trinity had nothing to do with it.
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Jun 5, 2017 18:34
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The trinity is a crutch for bad game designers but that doesn't mean you can't make things interesting using it or that you can't fail to do so not doing it. Doing things differently just for the sake of being different with no idea what you're doing is something people are supposed to grow out of, doing it just for your hype material is loving retarded and just because you don't have to some dude before wandering into an area to collect ten bear asses isn't really different at all.
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Jun 5, 2017 19:11
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Most of the dungeons can be cleared in 10-15 minutes these days; there are exceptions, but not many of them. Now, when the game first came out, yeah, the dungeons were awful, but a fair bit of that was on the players because the dungeons were tuned for people with actual gear and not green-quality MF trash; and it's not a huge surprise that dungeons were long, horrible slogs when only one or two out of five party members were actually capable of meaningful contribution. Dungeon times generally dropped drastically after they got rid of MF as a gear stat. They still have their fair share of problems, but if you were only playing early on and formed judgements based on that, things have gotten better overall.
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Jun 5, 2017 20:49
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Colgate posted:I feel like I'm in the opposite camp. I cannot stand MMOs following the Everquest/WoW/Wildstar formula anymore, because it essentially boils down to either running the same group of dungeons over and over or grinding daily quests. Even playing with friends, that gets really really old. Also exploration is a joke, because 95% of the open world is trivial because only the endgame matters in these games, not to mention the thrill of discovery is dampened by the fact that datamining/wikis are a thing. I started playing BDO again after being turned off nearly immediately by it in '16 when it was new and I have to say I really appreciate its emphasis on lifeskill systems. It's made me crave the old days where UO was relevant and Runescape was new and amazing to me - there was really something about being able to go out into the world and just do whatever pressure-free and have a little virtual life to enjoy that was really relaxing to me. WoW is a great game and all, but I'm tired of the combat-heavy bent that's the norm for the genre. Most sandbox MMOs these days are pie in the sky pyramid scheme shitboxes or gate everything behind paywalls and that's a shame, because the genre is perfect for lifesim shenanigans and sometimes it offers hilarity and intrigue you can't get from bashing ogres in the face. Neocron was an ancient ghetto-rear end first person MMOFPSRPG set in the post apocalpyse but that game had a great atmosphere and a lot of the entertainment came from the tight community and how it really nailed the setting. You could go home to your apartment from a busy day of bashing rats in the face with a baseball bat, log into your hometerm computer, browse the built-in forums and organise a get together in the red light district, then travel there using the subway that you actually sat and waited for the rode to your destination in real time. A lot of it is grognardy ~my immersion~ poo poo and I get why everything is super streamlined these days, but I can't help but have cravings for the more experimental days where things weren't played so safe.
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Jun 5, 2017 21:25
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Is BDO the one with the super customizable character models
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Jun 5, 2017 22:05
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yea
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Jun 5, 2017 22:07
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Unoriginal One posted:Most of the dungeons can be cleared in 10-15 minutes these days; there are exceptions, but not many of them. I mean, just because they're fast and easy to clear now doesn't make them much better. They're still kind of boring and don't provide much interesting gameplay. Fractals and raids are much better than the dungeons, though. I wish they'd kept making dungeons and just applied what they'd learned to make better ones, but that doesn't seem to be on the table, so Fractals will have to do.
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Jun 5, 2017 22:13
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BENGHAZI 2 posted:Is BDO the one with the super customizable character models It's not a bad game but it is super loving confusing and weird for a very long time. If you can see past the jank there's some really interesting systems at play but it generally just makes me wish for a bigger company to make a super polished and accessible version of its ideas
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Jun 5, 2017 22:39
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Blasphemeral posted:I'd say, instead, that ANet included too many trash mobs with too much HP, and when people found bypasses to those encounters, ANet neither fixed the bypasses nor the problems that caused people to work out the bypasses and that led to a toxic and boring meta. GW2's dungeon problem wasn't that the mobs had too much HP. It's that they did entirely too much damage that had to be mitigated by bouncing threat or using specific longish cooldown abilities like reflect, which meant very few people were actually good enough to stumble through dungeons in a random group. Also, making unavoidable damage with mob attacks that just happen instead of having everything be like your attack where you have to aim at least a little bit was a really bad idea if the only ways of dealing with unavoidable damage are reflect and aggro bouncing. The only logical conclusion of all of that bullshit was people finding geometry to abuse and stacking as much damage as possible to make dungeon runs go faster because all of the damage had to be either mitigated with specific abilities or negated with speedrun strats. Also I'd argue that the trinity is actually good game design in its own right and people constantly poo poo on it without understanding what it actually does. Giving stabilization to encounters where everyone knows what they have to do at a base level and then building off of there with new mechanics actually allows fights to be more complicated and better puzzles than things like dark souls bosses. Like, pontiff is a hard fight in DS3, but he's hard because he swings fast and the timing on some of his attacks is weird and he's got weird reach on at least one of his attacks. He's not hard to understand, just to not gently caress up. If pontiff had things like alexander prime's time stop mechanics and group seperation mechanics and stacking different aoes in different places you'd have no time left to think about dodging just his normal melee damage because there isn't someone whose job is to deal with that.
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Jun 6, 2017 04:27
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e: hah oops im in the wrong thread my bad
A Spider Covets fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Jun 6, 2017 |
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Jun 6, 2017 05:13
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It's worth remembering that the "holy trinity" used to refer to tank, healer and crowd control. Then someone sensibly realized that having one player dedicated to keeping four mobs mesmerized while another player tanked one was a lot less fun than just giving tanks the tools to control all the mobs to begin with. Those two roles were slowly unified and the world was a better, gentler place because EQ chanter and tank were both pretty rubbish to play. I like that there's some level of choosing your difficulty, or at least level of involvement, in the typical damage/healing/tanking split: you can play tank if you want something where you need to be constantly on the ball, or go ranged damage and just kind of smash buttons and look at the pretty colors if you want something more relaxing. I also like that there's some level of role variation, which is pretty nice when dungeons tend to be repeat experiences. GW2 not having either was the sticking point when I played it: there was no "take it easy" role, which made getting into it hard for players behind the curve, and all the professions ended up filling a very similar niche so (when I played around release anyhow) every group stacked as many warriors as possible. I think any group PvE system should try to offer more variation than GW2 did, both in what roles you can fill and how much effort it takes to do so. It doesn't have to be precisely those 3 roles, but it should be something. One thing I'd like to see is a less obtuse version of FF11's skill chains somewhere. Have some classes set up combos and others finish them, in some way that doesn't require that everyone be intimately familiar with mob-specific elemental vulnerabilities and the attack chaining possibilities of specific class combinations. I remember LOTRO tried to do something along those lines, and mostly failed.
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Jun 6, 2017 10:28
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ESO kind of has a combo system where certain skills will set up fields anybody else can activate for bonus effects, extra damage and restoring some health/stamina/mana. That can be done at any point by anybody though so you don't have to bring a specific combination or bother doing it at all but it's a nice bonus.
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Jun 6, 2017 11:07
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EQ chanter was actually really cool and good to play in a group. In a good fast pulling group it was pretty high pressure and stressful in a way that was good and fun, kind of like a roller coaster. Playing a warrior though seemed like the ultimate tedium, you just mashed taunt when its up and auto attack.
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Jun 6, 2017 14:37
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Morglon posted:GW2 not having either was the sticking point when I played it: there was no "take it easy" role, which made getting into it hard for players behind the curve, and all the professions ended up filling a very similar niche so (when I played around release anyhow) every group stacked as many warriors as possible. I think any group PvE system should try to offer more variation than GW2 did, both in what roles you can fill and how much effort it takes to do so. It doesn't have to be precisely those 3 roles, but it should be something. To its credit, GW2 is doing more of this. Healing is valuable now, especially with some of the new elite specializations (especially the Ranger's Druid elite spec) in raids, and both Fractal dungeons and raids are built with a need for crowd control in mind. To keep crowd control relevant during boss fights, bosses also have break bars, which are basically just "use strong crowd control during specific phases to prevent the boss from doing something nasty" mechanics. It still has a ways to go, especially with five-person stuff, but it's much better than it was pre-expansion. Morglon posted:ESO kind of has a combo system where certain skills will set up fields anybody else can activate for bonus effects, extra damage and restoring some health/stamina/mana. That can be done at any point by anybody though so you don't have to bring a specific combination or bother doing it at all but it's a nice bonus. GW2 has a very similar system. Many skills set up elemental fields and many other skills are "finishers" of a certain kind that cause effects when performed in a field. For example, an Elementalist can set up a fire field with Lava Font and then someone else (or even the Elementalist themselves) can use a skill with a blast finisher in that field to give everyone nearby the Might buff. A blast finisher in a water field heals everyone around. Other skills can be leap finishers (usually give you an elemental shield corresponding to whatever you launched yourself through, or even stealth if you jumped through a smoke field), projectile finishers (basically adding a status effect based on the field you shot through to your shots), that kind of thing. Worth noting that, while some of these combos are awesome (like blasting fire fields for Might or smoke fields for group stealth), a lot of them aren't that useful and/or end up being close to negligible in effect, but it's a neat system and I hope they build on it more. Side note that ESO seems like it has some cool stuff going on and I've always been tempted to give it a try. Harrow fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Jun 6, 2017 |
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Jun 6, 2017 16:53
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If I u know NH it I'd VA u,do u known UK for youiiiu Andi,,f
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Jun 6, 2017 17:24
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John Dyne posted:If I u know NH it I'd VA u,do u known UK for youiiiu Andi,,f Uhhhh lol
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Jun 6, 2017 17:34
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John Dyne posted:If I u know NH it I'd VA u,do u known UK for youiiiu Andi,,f The brain tumor that caused John Dyne to install and play Wildstar is finally coming to take it's final toll.
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Jun 6, 2017 17:52
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CoffeeBooze posted:EQ chanter was actually really cool and good to play in a group. In a good fast pulling group it was pretty high pressure and stressful in a way that was good and fun, kind of like a roller coaster. Playing a warrior though seemed like the ultimate tedium, you just mashed taunt when its up and auto attack. Enchanter was my favorite class to play and the ability to turn the tide on a massive over-pull that should have wiped a raid is a feeling I've yet to experience again in any MMO I've played.
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Jun 6, 2017 17:55
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Does GW2 support controllers? There are so few skills you have to handle at any one time it feels like it would have been a natural fit. If FF14's mountain of skills can still work (apparently very well too though I've never tried it myself) on a controller I'm sure GW2 could manage it and it might even fit the game better.
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Jun 6, 2017 20:21
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Pierson posted:Does GW2 support controllers? It does not, but I really wish it would because it would definitely work. They introduced "combat mode" controls as sort of a surprise in the last expansion so maybe we'll get lucky and we'll get controller support in the next one 
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Jun 6, 2017 22:04
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Gildiss posted:The brain tumor that caused John Dyne to install and play Wildstar is finally coming to take it's final toll. Turns out if I don't lock my screen I CAN post on my phone with my rear end. Sadly it appears the quality of the posts improved.
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Jun 7, 2017 08:12
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rear end posting in the Wildstar thread good choice.
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Jun 7, 2017 08:41
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John Dyne posted:Turns out if I don't lock my screen I CAN post on my phone with my rear end. don't be sad, i think everyone will agree that that was the best post in this entire thread
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Jun 12, 2017 01:47
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RottenK posted:don't be sad, i think everyone will agree that that was the best post in this entire thread The "Wildstar is shutting down" post will be even better.
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Jun 12, 2017 07:52
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super sweet best pal posted:The "Wildstar is shutting down" post will be even better. We don't really have it on SA but on other social media sites the holdout Wildstar defenders are positively rabid and fly into a panicked bewildered rage whenever the ongoing viability of their favorite multiple flopped mmo product comes into question. Personally I can't wait for the inevitable meltdowns when they plug is finally pulled. Should be some excellent bargaining before they come to terms with accepting reality.
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Jun 12, 2017 11:52
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Truga posted:There's also DDO. Any class can heal or tank just fine if you put some effort in, almost all non-raid content gets soloed at max difficulty at level, most dungeons get run in a BYOH fashion, but as content became ever harder at higher levels, people just made tanks happen and clerics would spend most resources on heals despite having ridiculous offensive power, and eventually the developer put in skills for managing threat to facilitate this dynamic better. DDO was actually a really rad example of being able to do things with non-traditional builds or parties. There were so many options for how to beat dungeons. You could have a tank that had to actually raise a shield up and get in the way of arrows to block things. You could create a deathtrap with walls of fire and obscuring fog to just burn everything to death. You could have the bard run in first and cast the disco party spell to make everyone in the room start dancing. There were traps that you really wanted a rogue to evade and disarm. There were dungeons with basically no fighting at all. It was a cool-rear end game that played more like a D&D campaign with buddies than any other game I've played. I wish there was a more recent game like it. They could also remake City of Heroes while they're at it. Just sayin. GW2 was a beautiful world and I enjoyed exploring it but everything past that was completely bankrupt of entertainment for me. The actual mechanics of playing my characters felt awful, the open world bosses got real boring, and the dialogue in story instances was worst-in-class even for MMOs. Also their idea of progression was filling up your backpack with crap that rarely was useful for refining into other crap that you could refine into other crap that you could refine into other crap that you could make into a backpack that has spikes or something. I like cosmetics, but I got so loving sick of juggling little mystery tchotchkes in my inventory.
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Jun 12, 2017 15:39
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Chomposaur posted:I wish there was a more recent game like it. DDO is still getting content updates It is my go-to recommendation for people who want to do co-op dungeon crawling. vvvv: Well, yeah. It's a co-op game you play with 1-5 friends, rather than a real MMO IMO. Truga fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Jun 12, 2017 |
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Jun 12, 2017 15:44
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Yeah but the community is much worse now and I don't know how I feel about it being published by Daybreak now. If you really want to see all the content bring some friends and also everybody has to buy the packs, most of the stuff is rarely if ever done and last time I checked it was kind of hard to get a group for anything at all.
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Jun 12, 2017 15:48
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I see DDO mentioned a lot, but what happened to Neverwinter? I remember trying it just after I had played a short 5 hour campaign of 4e with friends to see if we liked it, and going "oh cool it has all the same abilities the tabletop game had" and thinking the focus on grouping dungeon content including player made dungeons was cool Then I never played it again the day after trying it and never heard about it ever again
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Jun 12, 2017 15:49
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Maybe I'll try to rally the crew for a traipse back through DDO sometime -- I think unfortunately enough of them are graphics snobs that they wouldn't make it too far though.Minrad posted:I see DDO mentioned a lot, but what happened to Neverwinter? I didn't give it much of a shot, but it seemed super hack-and-slashy when I tried it and had login bonuses and poo poo that kinda turned me off.
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Jun 12, 2017 15:53
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It's Cryptic/PWE so a lot of micro-transactions, sinks and farms, and grinding. I recall the gameplay was also extremely basic, as if they had tried to do what GW2 did (much lower number of abilities but a far higher degree of customisation) but forgot the second part so you had like four buttons. Could be wrong on that one though.Chomposaur posted:GW2 was a beautiful world and I enjoyed exploring it but everything past that was completely bankrupt of entertainment for me. The actual mechanics of playing my characters felt awful, the open world bosses got real boring, and the dialogue in story instances was worst-in-class even for MMOs.
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Jun 12, 2017 17:27
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Neverwinter doesn't even deserver the name, it's a game with 4e terminology but nothing beyond that in terms of D&D. Seriously, you could just dump all the branding and it wouldn't make one bit of difference. Also it's a really bad game.
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Jun 13, 2017 00:16
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Neverwinter had some potential to be a good game but none of that made it to the open beta. It's micro (and macro) transaction hell in video game form.
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Jun 13, 2017 21:53
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The thing I like about DDO is the relatively low pressure tactics they have for their cash shop and how they give out a lot of freebies to dedicated players. It actually incentivises purchases because the game is set up so I'm already having fun without spending tons of money and I'm open to even more content some time in the future when I next want to play and have $10 to spare. Neverwinter is dull. I've never made it to endgame despite logging back in to try and play my character every few years. That browser game they had with the NPC companions was kind of neat but not enough to hold my interest in playing the actual game to level up their rarity for harder dungeons. Fun fact: Cryptic's chat system is separate from its games and if you get kicked from a player channel in one game you can rejoin in another.
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Jun 13, 2017 22:16
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Yeah, there's some fun core mechanics in Neverwinter but it was the first game Cryptic made after being fully owned by a chinese MMO company and drat it really shows. It feels like an asian cash shop MMO with all the assorted bullshit that entails, and even some annoying bullshit of its own atop it like painfully limited inventory space that can only be expanded with cash purchases, or the in-game auction house only working with the currency that can be converted into cash shop currency and vice versa. It's bad.
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Jun 14, 2017 00:13
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Asimo posted:Yeah, there's some fun core mechanics in Neverwinter but it was the first game Cryptic made after being fully owned by a chinese MMO company and drat it really shows. It feels like an asian cash shop MMO with all the assorted bullshit that entails, and even some annoying bullshit of its own atop it like painfully limited inventory space that can only be expanded with cash purchases, or the in-game auction house only working with the currency that can be converted into cash shop currency and vice versa. ASTRAL DIAMONDS ....................../´¯/) ....................,/¯../ .................../..../ ............./´¯/'...'/´¯¯`·¸ ........../'/.../..../......./¨¯\ ........('(...´...´.... ¯~/'...') .........\.................'...../ ..........''...\.......... _.·´ ............\..............( ..............\.............\...
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Jun 14, 2017 00:34
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Was it Neverwinter that had the AH bug where you could bid negative amounts of astral diamonds and it would give you that many back? I feel like there was some fuckery going on like that.
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Jun 14, 2017 01:02
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I forget the specifics, but yeah there was a bug like that at launch which took ages to fix and nobody was ever punished for and the server was never rolled back, so the economy of the game was absolutely hosed from day one. 
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Jun 14, 2017 01:05
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The best part about that was that the same bug already was in STO a year or so before and also in beta and reported a bunch they just did nothing until poo poo really hit the fan.
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Jun 14, 2017 05:08
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