|
EQ is still to this day the best MMO when it comes to class design (and yeah a bunch of it was unintentional) and that's with at least one class being totally useless and a couple others super hamstrung.
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2021 02:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 10:18 |
|
|
Zaphod42 posted:Both FFXIV and GW2 do this with EVENT / FATE things. I know they have public events. But when you get there you're still just 'alone' with all those other people and you have to manually form parties in chat. I'm saying the game should automatically form a 'Loose Party' with people around you. Literally put their names in the 'Party' section of your UI and you chat to them with party chat, and then you can click 'Form Party' to stick together even when you separate.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2021 03:40
|
|
|
Rhymenoserous posted:You know I’ve never had a sentence make me this viscerally uncomfortable without involving some form of immorality, creepy sex poo poo, body horror or some combination of the three. Congratulations.  Then you're reading too much into it. It basically means a game that becomes your hobby by itself. I don't spend more time playing games than I used to, I just spend all of that time in one game instead. I've played very few hours on non-WoW video games since classic WoW came out 5 months ago. My life is otherwise the way it was before. Basically I only want an MMO that is the game I want to play whenever I want to play games. So it needs to be an MMO that has a variety of intensities to suit whatever mood I happen to be in at the time. If it's not doing that for me I'd rather just play a bunch of random games instead.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2021 09:13
|
|
|
For all of Anarchy Onlines issues I do miss the sense of community it had. Hanging out at the south gate of Tyr trying to form groups. Classes even had spots they would sit and you would know most everyone so forming groups felt more natural I guess?
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2021 11:29
|
|
|
Agreed, AO had a great community and that's a big reason why I sunk thousands of hours into the game. In fact I was so into it that I applied to be an Advisor of Rubi-Ka (basically an unpaid, volunteer mod) waaaaay back in probably 2004 or so, and spent many hours "helping" newbies in the training areas. If I recall correctly, I sat through a 2-3 hour training session in IRC after which I was released into the wild with a modified game client and account that allowed me to teleport to individual players and follow them around while invisible to see if they looked like they were running into any problems. If they seemed confused, I would pop out of invisibility right in front of them (usually doing a ridiculous emote), and would channel Clippy: "WELCOME TO RUBI-KA, IT LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE HAVING SOME TROUBLE KILLING LEETS, DO YOU NEED ANY ASSISTANCE?!" 90% of people ignored me, 9% asked for money and were immediately annoyed when I said I didn't actually have any to give them (I really didn't!), and 1% asked for help. When I wasn't "helping" newbs, I spent my time chilling in the secret advisor zone chatting with random folks. It was awesome. Unrelated: are there any modern MMOs out there that have solo content that's actually difficult? kedo fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Jan 27, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2021 19:42
|
|
|
kedo posted:Agreed, AO had a great community and that's a big reason why I sunk thousands of hours into the game. In fact I was so into it that I applied to be an Advisor of Rubi-Ka (basically an unpaid, volunteer mod) waaaaay back in probably 2004 or so, and spent many hours "helping" newbies in the training areas. If I recall correctly, I sat through a 2-3 hour training session in IRC after which I was released into the wild with a modified game client and account that allowed me to teleport to individual players and follow them around while invisible to see if they looked like they were running into any problems. If they seemed confused, I would pop out of invisibility right in front of them (usually doing a ridiculous emote), and would channel Clippy: "WELCOME TO RUBI-KA, IT LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE HAVING SOME TROUBLE KILLING LEETS, DO YOU NEED ANY ASSISTANCE?!" ff14 has the solo Palace of the Dead and Heaven on High challenges, which are difficult both on the level of being tense and of being tedious endurance slogs where catching an unlucky break because of the roguelite mechanics can set you back a ton of hours.
|
|
#
?
Jan 27, 2021 22:20
|
|
|
kedo posted:Agreed, AO had a great community and that's a big reason why I sunk thousands of hours into the game. In fact I was so into it that I applied to be an Advisor of Rubi-Ka (basically an unpaid, volunteer mod) waaaaay back in probably 2004 or so, and spent many hours "helping" newbies in the training areas. If I recall correctly, I sat through a 2-3 hour training session in IRC after which I was released into the wild with a modified game client and account that allowed me to teleport to individual players and follow them around while invisible to see if they looked like they were running into any problems. If they seemed confused, I would pop out of invisibility right in front of them (usually doing a ridiculous emote), and would channel Clippy: "WELCOME TO RUBI-KA, IT LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE HAVING SOME TROUBLE KILLING LEETS, DO YOU NEED ANY ASSISTANCE?!" i had a similar experience in EQ. The guide program there gave you a modified client with a special zone (cshome aka Sunset Home), some training on IRC, more training in game, and then they let you loose with progressively more power/responsibility. I got myself kicked out within a couple weeks because I goofed around in Sleeper's Tomb before the zone was finished 
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2021 03:09
|
|
|
Zaphod42 posted:This is why MMOs died. Or is it that MMOs died because their hook ("there's random people all over the world for you to interact with") went from interesting to abrohhent when comment sections in YouTube taught us how much we don't want to do that?
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2021 09:26
|
|
|
Defiance Industries posted:Or is it that MMOs died because their hook ("there's random people all over the world for you to interact with") went from interesting to abrohhent when comment sections in YouTube taught us how much we don't want to do that? We do, and we need to, especially in times like lockdown quarantine. But players need more controls over it, and games need more design to foster positive experiences. Most games the only really meaningful way you can interact with someone is to grief them. And that's what we get. Give players more controls to curate who they run into and it'd be fantastic.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2021 09:56
|
|
|
Zaphod42 posted:We do, and we need to, especially in times like lockdown quarantine. But players need more controls over it, and games need more design to foster positive experiences.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2021 13:44
|
|
|
Dik Hz posted:Well, in WoW, the main way players interact with each other is running PvE content together in pick-up groups. Either randos or loosely organized dungeon/raid groups. So your progression is tied to the performance of the people you play with. This makes WoW players toxic af. I doubt that's the sole reason. Duty finder in FFXIV is the same thing but generally either quiet or pleasant, toxic people exist but ime tend to be more common in organized statics as opposed to pugs.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2021 13:52
|
|
|
CYBEReris posted:I doubt that's the sole reason. Duty finder in FFXIV is the same thing but generally either quiet or pleasant, toxic people exist but ime tend to be more common in organized statics as opposed to pugs. I see this brought up a lot and it’s never acknowledged that Duty Finder content is faceroll easy compared to a lot of matchmade content in WoW. Yes, there are other systems adding stakes (and therefore, pressure) to the WoW content but I think it’s understated how much toxicity the challenge adds when you’re running with pubbies.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2021 14:11
|
|
|
Pandaal posted:I see this brought up a lot and it’s never acknowledged that Duty Finder content is faceroll easy compared to a lot of matchmade content in WoW. Yes, there are other systems adding stakes (and therefore, pressure) to the WoW content but I think it’s understated how much toxicity the challenge adds when you’re running with pubbies. I don't know, content is designed so that a handful of players that know what they're doing can effortlessly carry the rest, but on patch weeks where few people really know what they're doing and there's tons of wipes resulting in a lot of lost time (usually on normal and alliance raid releases) people are still gung-ho and chipper.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2021 16:13
|
|
|
Hi friends, just wanted to let you know there's a new mod here (me) and a new rule thread (this). Give it a look and lemme know what you think!
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2021 16:59
|
|
|
Pandaal posted:I see this brought up a lot and it’s never acknowledged that Duty Finder content is faceroll easy compared to a lot of matchmade content in WoW. Yes, there are other systems adding stakes (and therefore, pressure) to the WoW content but I think it’s understated how much toxicity the challenge adds when you’re running with pubbies. I think you're right to an extent, in wow the "see the content" easymode for raids is really easy and there's less toxicity there. Also you have more players so bad ones stand out less. But that's just one factor. The problem is games aren't really thinking about the social experience enough and how their mechanics influence it. Like, to keep going back to my love of EQ, (and FFXI counted too) if you pissed off some wizard and then needed a teleport you weren't going to get one unless you're in a high traffic area with a lot of alternatives around. Your "reputation" matters more. Another example, I would say MOBAs are some of the most toxic games on the planet. LOL is probably the worst for this. But while heroes of the storm is basically a clone of it, the game is much less toxic just because the rounds are shorter. There's less investment and you "waste" less of your time on a bad team so you don't mind as much. There's a lot of subtle factors that go into this stuff that game designers just aren't exploring right now. The game's story and themes can also influence its culture as well. And obviously what players get rewarded for doing is a strong skinner box.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2021 18:56
|
|
|
Zaphod42 posted:I think you're right to an extent, in wow the "see the content" easymode for raids is really easy and there's less toxicity there. Also you have more players so bad ones stand out less. Agreed, especially on the “reputation” point. Hence most people’s excitement for classic. The damage the dungeon finder did to WoW’s communities can’t be understated. But my comment was more in response to the prevailing “FFXIV players are just *nicer*” theory, when I think it’s moreso that WoW is still the de facto choice for “hardcore” high skill-ceiling raiders so it attracts those types of people even if most of them won’t get that far. In any genre the more “casual” options are more chill socially because all the sweaty ragers are in the “big” game. This is proven further with your LoL vs HotS comparisons as well, which I also agree with.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2021 19:03
|
|
|
Zaphod42 posted:We do, and we need to, especially in times like lockdown quarantine. But players need more controls over it, and games need more design to foster positive experiences. There's this thing called "a guild" that you might have heard of. You can curate the people in it, make sure they're cool. What possible need would I have for pubbies with one? None, unless I want ethnic slurs screamed at me by a ten-year-old.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2021 19:13
|
|
|
Defiance Industries posted:There's this thing called "a guild" that you might have heard of. You can curate the people in it, make sure they're cool. What possible need would I have for pubbies with one?  if you just wanna be rude I'm gonna do something else with my time
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2021 19:51
|
|
|
Pandaal posted:I see this brought up a lot and it’s never acknowledged that Duty Finder content is faceroll easy compared to a lot of matchmade content in WoW. Yes, there are other systems adding stakes (and therefore, pressure) to the WoW content but I think it’s understated how much toxicity the challenge adds when you’re running with pubbies. I am wondering how much the increase in online toxicity is directly correlated to additional difficulty being added to a game. Back in the early days, the only real way to mess up as a dps was to accidentally pull extra adds. These days you need to know what the meta build of your class/spec currently is, perform a perfect dps rotation (everyone has a dps meter), interrupt specific spells (you're suppose to interrupt infernal charge, not infernal blast you idiot!), know every trash pack and boss encounter by heart so you don't wipe your group, and don't accidentally pull extra mobs. One of my first bad experiences in Shadowlands was when a Hunter had a meltdown because not everyone knew a boss encounter and we wiped a few times. The expansion launched 10 days before this.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2021 20:23
|
|
|
Cardboard Fox posted:I am wondering how much the increase in online toxicity is directly correlated to additional difficulty being added to a game. Back in the early days, the only real way to mess up as a dps was to accidentally pull extra adds. I think this is a massive factor in the toxicity in WoW, I hate dps meters and think they cultivate that competitive attitude. It's not always whether the boss dies or the dungeon run was successful, its oh it could have been 5 minutes faster if that dumb dps class knew their rotation. WoW also has a bigger culture of min/maxing and optimization, dunno how many times I have been whispered and told I was using the wrong talents because I chose one that was fun to use rather than one that did 2% more dps. FF14 every class is static one Red Mage is the same as another so you don't get that 'optimal build' mindset. I personally prefer the variety in WoW and just choose to not engage in the gameplay where optimization is, if not required at least encouraged.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2021 20:37
|
|
|
Cardboard Fox posted:I am wondering how much the increase in online toxicity is directly correlated to additional difficulty being added to a game. Back in the early days, the only real way to mess up as a dps was to accidentally pull extra adds. Fried Sushi posted:I think this is a massive factor in the toxicity in WoW, I hate dps meters and think they cultivate that competitive attitude. It's not always whether the boss dies or the dungeon run was successful, its oh it could have been 5 minutes faster if that dumb dps class knew their rotation. WoW also has a bigger culture of min/maxing and optimization, dunno how many times I have been whispered and told I was using the wrong talents because I chose one that was fun to use rather than one that did 2% more dps. FF14 every class is static one Red Mage is the same as another so you don't get that 'optimal build' mindset. I mean, there's a reason FFXIV is against dps meters. I'm not sure about depth being such a major factor though. While yeah, in WOW every class has a rotation, you also don't have to do it perfectly unless you're in an absolute top tier hardmode raiding guild, the multiple difficulties on offer creates a lot of variability for playing at a less serious level. And that was my experience in later wow doing normal raids, it was pretty chill and forgiving on meters. Going back to EQ, while the classes were much simpler to play than in WoW, nothing was explained to you at all, so the amount of player ignorance about basic features was waaaaay higher. WoW there's tutorials now, the UI is much clearer about a ton of things, and the game has youtube videos explaining everything. Also, in EQ you could screw up and pull a mob and wipe the whole party EASY. What's wild to me is what I consider a major factor in toxicity is investment, losing a LOL game is very frustrating because you just put in 40 minutes of doing your best only to have a teammate let you down. You can only get in a couple of LOL matches unless you're investing like 6 hours a day. So blowing maybe the only match you can get in is very frustrating. But in EQ when you die you don't just get kicked back to your respawn location, but you lose experience and even drop all your loot, which you can potentially permanently lose. That's more harsh than dark souls! And yet mooooost of the time in EQ if a party wipes its not particularly toxic. It sucks, but you don't usually attack each other even when things go really, really bad. People usually apologize and you work together to get back to your corpses or hire a cleric or something. So that goes against the grain of investment being a major factor. But that's what I was saying where its just a whole lot of variables. There's no single X factor. Its everything combined to how your game subtly encourages people to feel and play. Its like, social gamefeel. One positive I'll say is that people seem to be less toxic in VR games, since you feel more exposed in a way, less anonymous. Its an inherently more humanizing thing to be talking to people in VR. I really look forward to if we ever get a proper VR MMO like all the Dot Hacks and Sword Art Onlines have fantasized about. And if so I hope the positivity in VR holds up. (But maybe its just because only a few nerds have VR headsets right now)
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2021 21:41
|
|
|
Fried Sushi posted:I think this is a massive factor in the toxicity in WoW, I hate dps meters and think they cultivate that competitive attitude. It's not always whether the boss dies or the dungeon run was successful, its oh it could have been 5 minutes faster if that dumb dps class knew their rotation. WoW also has a bigger culture of min/maxing and optimization, dunno how many times I have been whispered and told I was using the wrong talents because I chose one that was fun to use rather than one that did 2% more dps. FF14 every class is static one Red Mage is the same as another so you don't get that 'optimal build' mindset. DPS meters became part of the core game once enrage timers were added to every boss. You needed a set number of dps to get the boss to the next phase or you will wipe, so a raid leader could link the meter and point out the Mage who was not pulling their weight. Hard enrage and soft enrage timers have been changed over the years, but the concept remains the same: your damage needs to be at least average to beat this encounter, and when half of the community is below average that's who the toxic people are going to target. Mythic+ has double-downed on this. Not only do you need a set amount of dps to beat the boss, but there is a dungeon timer you are also racing against.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2021 21:58
|
|
|
Half the time in those situations a dps meter isn’t necessary at all, it’s just used as a crutch for not executing mechanics correctly.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2021 22:10
|
|
|
Kaysette posted:Hi friends, just wanted to let you know there's a new mod here (me) and a new rule thread (this). Oh hell yeah, congrats!
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2021 23:35
|
|
|
it's amazing how much faster guilds in WoW Classic are clearing content than people did the first time round. the data mining tools were much cruder back then, and barely anyone really knew how to play their class optimally. most of the 40 mans were tuned for dragging around a fair % of dead weight, because getting 40 people together was a huge pain in the rear end. the raids were also correspondingly more poorly tuned, like c'thun being literally impossible to beat when AQ40 first came out, although i think at that point the data mining and dps meters had gotten pretty good. in ffxiv the focus is a lot more on not getting hit by mechanics, but also actually using clear signposting for what the mechanics are instead of just leaving you with a poorly written dungeon journal and some ambiguous visual effects.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2021 01:42
|
|
|
juggalo baby coffin posted:it's amazing how much faster guilds in WoW Classic are clearing content than people did the first time round. the data mining tools were much cruder back then, and barely anyone really knew how to play their class optimally. most of the 40 mans were tuned for dragging around a fair % of dead weight, because getting 40 people together was a huge pain in the rear end. the raids were also correspondingly more poorly tuned, like c'thun being literally impossible to beat when AQ40 first came out, although i think at that point the data mining and dps meters had gotten pretty good. imo it was good when the assumption was that a certain % of the party was dead weight. nobody (well, some people, but less) got angry when the hunter jumped off a cliff or whatever. i met a teenager a few years ago who told me about the good old days when he raided in WoW classic...back when he was 5 years old. it's objectively great that a literal baby was able to participate in that content without anybody getting toxic about it because it didn't matter conversely the guilds that took classic raiding super seriously and still were very bad at it are funny to look back on now
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2021 01:58
|
|
|
Jazerus posted:conversely the guilds that took classic raiding super seriously and still were very bad at it are funny to look back on now Wow I am triggered. Lucifron was easy and all, so we only wiped on him for a few weeks. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2021 03:11
|
|
|
Zaphod42 posted:
I think part of this was how dangerous and stressful corpse retrieval could be. Your whole group was now naked and had to get back to the spot where it died within thirty-six hours or they were going to lose all their gear. There was a pretty big incentive for everyone to take a deep breath, sort things out in a civil manner and then work as a group to get back to the spot where the wipe happened. The need for teamwork and coordination often times became greater if you had a wipe and people would usually act accordingly. Now in most MMOs a wipe is the prefect time to bounce on the group full of people you will likely never encounter again, and people act accordingly to that, too.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2021 05:50
|
|
|
Zaphod42 posted:
Keep in mind the time difference between "doing a dungeon" in EQ and WoW though. If I'm going to a dungeon in EQ, it's not to take a 30 minute linear journey - usually you are going for a specific mob, in which case you just have to get to it, or just for xp or rep or whatever which doesn't really require you to "progress" in a specific way. And while you might spend a few hours on there or whatever, a lot of that time is going to be waiting around - in which case it's way easier to be nicer because you are all chilling between bouts of action. As much as people blame dungeon finder for people not being social in dungeons, a lot of it is just that the pace of the game is difference and you really don't have room to breathe in modern game dungeons. You always have to be 100% on.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2021 12:55
|
|
|
There's a couple of other factors which play into the different mindset for WoW & FFXIV playerbases: 1) Newbies. FFXIV explicitly flags them up and then gives other players a bonus for running dungeons, doing raids, etc. with them. WoW throws them into the game post-tutorial and goes "Good luck" 2) Respecting player's time. WoW is a FOMO-orientated grind explicitly designed to keep players subscribed, which certainly does not do anything to alleviate the "time is money gogogo stop wasting my time" attitude that's pretty common. 3) Square is not afraid to ban the living poo poo out of toxic arseholes. Blizzard is either worried about upsetting that (non-trivial) part of their playerbase, or has done the maths and decided they're making more money from shitweasels than they're losing from players who've quit because of said arseholes.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2021 17:31
|
|
|
FFXIV wastes people's time in lots of egregious and obvious ways too. I don't think that can be pointed to as a major differentiating point. I think the biggest explanation between the different cultures is, as Pandaal suggested, that WoW acts as a magnet to draw most of the toxic players away, so FFXIV players average nicer. The FFXIV admins do deserve a lot of credit for banning "shitweasels" because it means what few toxic jerks do show up, tend to get booted out before they can cause too many problems. Which doesn't mean FFXIV has no jerks. I met several there, but their worst was well below the average day in e.g. barrens chat from WoW.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2021 17:47
|
|
|
I've somehow almost never been able to get questions answered in novice network, the mentors there seem to prefer making GBS threads on newbies and discussing American politics (Excalibur)
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2021 17:59
|
|
|
Biowarfare posted:I've somehow almost never been able to get questions answered in novice network, the mentors there seem to prefer making GBS threads on newbies and discussing American politics (Excalibur) Novice Network is a loving cesspit because it's community moderated so if whoever got picked to be head mod of a server's NN is a moron then it's worthless
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2021 18:01
|
|
|
Biowarfare posted:I've somehow almost never been able to get questions answered in novice network, the mentors there seem to prefer making GBS threads on newbies and discussing American politics (Excalibur) That or it gets used for impromptu ERP sessions.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2021 18:04
|
|
|
Zil posted:That or it gets used for impromptu ERP sessions. I remember referring a WoW friend and his first experience was watching a mentor or moderator (? some kind of hammer icon) ERP a "baby" lalafell in novice network and asked me what the gently caress game this is
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2021 18:26
|
|
|
Mormon Star Wars posted:Keep in mind the time difference between "doing a dungeon" in EQ and WoW though. If I'm going to a dungeon in EQ, it's not to take a 30 minute linear journey - usually you are going for a specific mob, in which case you just have to get to it, or just for xp or rep or whatever which doesn't really require you to "progress" in a specific way. Agreed. Everybody complained about downtime and grind but those things are necessary to give the party a chance to shoot the poo poo together. Games where you're always doing something means you'll feel compelled to just keep always doing something. The tough thing is designing a game with intentional downtime that also doesn't feel boring. But I think the potential for danger at any moment in EQ is one of those things that helps. But when games like WoW started becoming popular they started filling off the hard edges, but in doing so they made the game taste bland. You need that spice.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2021 18:34
|
|
|
Biowarfare posted:I remember referring a WoW friend and his first experience was watching a mentor or moderator (? some kind of hammer icon) ERP a "baby" lalafell in novice network and asked me what the gently caress game this is I don't have it handy but I once saw a chatlog that went on for about a page of a mentor in NN pitching an absolute tantrum because a newbie asked where they go to unlock Dark Knight and another player answered "Ishgard", so the mentor had a complete meltdown because that was spoiling that you go to Ishgard in the story
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2021 18:38
|
|
|
Chillgamesh posted:I don't have it handy but I once saw a chatlog that went on for about a page of a mentor in NN pitching an absolute tantrum because a newbie asked where they go to unlock Dark Knight and another player answered "Ishgard", so the mentor had a complete meltdown because that was spoiling that you go to Ishgard in the story That's like one of the most basic things I found out about the game from the Wikipedia page regarding the features which each expansion adds. It doesn't spoil anything more than the title of the game Skyrim spoils finding out the name of the setting from an NPC. Weird
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2021 19:26
|
|
|
Novice Network has been and always will be a cesspool of every bad idea on the internet, being defended by the most fragile people. The game became much better when I stopped trying to be helpful and left it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2021 19:40
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 10:18 |
|
|
I thought the sprout system in FFXIV was awesome. When I was new, people always knew it and taught me the mechanics. When my sprout went away and I saw sprouts, I started teaching them stuff.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2021 20:04
|
|
