News Realms Remove Ads - Go Premium! Sign In or Register

Bluetracker

Tracks Blizzard employees across various accounts.

So let’s be a little more negative for a moment. Without bashing other games, what features do you NOT want to see in this game we are making?

So let’s be a little more negative for a moment. Without bashing other games, what features do you NOT want to see in this game we are making?

  • Ghostcrawler
    Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
    So let’s be a little more negative for a moment. Without bashing other games, what features do you NOT want to see in this game we are making?

    • Iksar
      Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
      @Ghostcrawler No addons. They’ve become the biggest barrier to entry for me. Feel like I can’t play without them but hate updating them. No third party access to logs. I want no websites with simulated dps rankings or tier lists based on scrubs of mass user data.

      • Chadd Nervigg
        Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
        @IksarHS @Ghostcrawler Seconding both of these, though I would caveat that second one that I do want to have some way to evaluate my own performance, so that I can track my progress and make improvements. I just don't want to be able to see how others are doing, or them see how I'm doing.

        • Mathamagicia
          Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
          @Celestalon @IksarHS @Ghostcrawler I do like a system like Proving Grounds (WoW) and Stone, Sky, Sea (FF14) where you can test your damage in your role. With FF, it’s encounter specific so you can make sure with your rotation you’ll hit the needed DPS check. With WoW it did an awesome job of teaching roles.

          • Chadd Nervigg
            Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
            @Mathamagicia @IksarHS @Ghostcrawler Yeah, I really want to be able to work on optimizing my performance, if and when that’s something I want to do. But I don’t want the social issues caused by critiquing others’ performance.

        • Xenogenic
          Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
          @Celestalon @IksarHS @Ghostcrawler This is definitely the tricky part for me too. I absolutely want (need) to know how I'm doing and measure improvement or I have a hard time staying invested, but also don't want the negativity around performance that turns players off from the game

          • Xenogenic
            Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
            @Celestalon @IksarHS @Ghostcrawler I rushed to max level in SW: The Old Republic and we were doing the first raid tier without addons (couldn't use them) or any data, and so we'd be wiping without enough information as to why. Are we not healing well enough? Why aren't we hitting DPS checks? etc.

            • Iksar
              Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
              @Xenogenic @Celestalon @Ghostcrawler I get that this is a subjective thing, but I think on average players will have more fun when they are forced to answer the ‘why’ of why they are succeeding without metrics like you describe.

              • Chadd Nervigg
                Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
                @IksarHS @Xenogenic @Ghostcrawler Yeah, I think there are ways to evaluate performance without requiring full logging/metrics. For example, in Diablo, access to join a public group of a certain difficulty level is blocked by having completed that GR level solo. So you know anyone you group with CAN do it.

              • Xenogenic
                Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
                @IksarHS @Celestalon @Ghostcrawler Only if they can actually figure out why. If you're in a raid of 20 people and you're not making DPS checks, and you don't have meters, how can you possibly address that? It's easy to overly-fixate on the negative outcomes of meters but many raids (like ours) use to diagnose

                • Xenogenic
                  Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
                  @IksarHS @Celestalon @Ghostcrawler If someone's healing or DPS is particularly low, we can tell because of the meters and figure out what they're doing wrong and help them do it right. SW:TOR was so insanely frustrating for us because we just had no way to figure it out.

                  • MorelloNMST
                    Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
                    @Xenogenic @IksarHS @Celestalon @Ghostcrawler Regardless of specific methodology, if players are being tasked to test a skill, but cannot get the information needed to improve that skill, then it's a highly likely exit point. That information has to be accessible, if its important.

                    • MorelloNMST
                      Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
                      @Xenogenic @IksarHS @Celestalon @Ghostcrawler If players aren't being tested, and the information is unimportant, then it's ok to not provide

                      • Iksar
                        Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
                        @MorelloNMST @Xenogenic @Celestalon @Ghostcrawler A lot of design topics are philosophical what ifs, but I don’t think this is. MMOs pre wow and early wow were mostly done without addons and meters. I personally found that environment to be more fun, though there is always a risk of nostalgia being a factor :)

                        • Iksar
                          Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
                          @MorelloNMST @Xenogenic @Celestalon @Ghostcrawler I don’t think any designer would argue that getting feedback on your actions isn’t important, I think the argument becomes how granular does that feedback need to be and who does it need to be shared with.

                        • Xenogenic
                          Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
                          @IksarHS @MorelloNMST @Celestalon @Ghostcrawler While that's true, they also didn't demand of players that the whole raid be playing particularly well. Case in point: Ragnaros took most groups weeks to kill in 2005, then the world-first Classic kill of Rag was with a raid that wasn't even entirely 60s

                          • Xenogenic
                            Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
                            @IksarHS @MorelloNMST @Celestalon @Ghostcrawler Modern raid fights don't leave the room for a bunch of players to be putting out low DPS or HPS, and they don't have feedback mechanisms that would make it possible to tell who in the group is falling short

                            • Iksar
                              Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
                              @Xenogenic @MorelloNMST @Celestalon @Ghostcrawler I don't disagree with any of that. That said, I think making it easy to single out low performers has some very negative side effects. It's a trade-off, but I'd be willing to accept less mechanisms for understanding failure in order to better protect players who aren't very good.

                              • Xenogenic
                                Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
                                @IksarHS @MorelloNMST @Celestalon @Ghostcrawler Yeah, absolutely. I think the use-case for the data varies a lot by activity/context. Using WoW as an example again, you don't really need it in LFR and people shoving it in each other's faces is a toxic experience. But very different experience in a tight-knit raid tryharding

                                • Iksar
                                  Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
                                  @Xenogenic @MorelloNMST @Celestalon @Ghostcrawler Yeah, and TBH I'm not really anti-meter, my original statement was more directed at websites that compile all the information from a meter and tell players 'these are the good classes, these are the bad classes' rather than the players deciding for themselves.

                                  • Iksar
                                    Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
                                    @Xenogenic @MorelloNMST @Celestalon @Ghostcrawler But I'm not sure disallowing access to meters even solves that problem. Some smart person will build a simulation tool and share it. Then you'll be left with the same type of website, except it will be far less accurate than just using player data.

                              • MorelloNMST
                                Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
                                @IksarHS @Xenogenic @Celestalon @Ghostcrawler I feel that goal is noble and worth checking into; how do we prevent social bullying on performance, especially in randoms and when it actually doesn't matter (most content)?

                                • Iksar
                                  Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
                                  @MorelloNMST @Xenogenic @Celestalon @Ghostcrawler cmon man twitter about thoughtful goal setting and solution brainstorming it's for HOT TAKES BABY

        • DevSpacePrez
          Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
          @Celestalon @IksarHS @Ghostcrawler Yeah, I like the idea of hiding some stats to be less toxic, like FFXIV and Monster Hunter both do; but then I find myself completely unsure of if I'm doing good or bad, am I a burden to my team? Am I doing reasonable DPS or am I way off the mark? Am I being carried, or carrying?

          • jerakal
            Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
            @DevSpacePrez @Celestalon @IksarHS @Ghostcrawler There's also an argument that not knowing all that allows people to have fun when they would otherwise feel like they weren't pulling their weight. Especially if they aren't pushing top content.

            • DevSpacePrez
              Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
              @jerakal @Celestalon @IksarHS @Ghostcrawler Agreed. But it also means someone could be a massive burden to every team they get matched up with and not ever even try to improve because they're completely oblivious to their performance, where more feedback could help them improve their game.

              • jerakal
                Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
                @DevSpacePrez @Celestalon @IksarHS @Ghostcrawler Yep. So it depends on the game and the player whether they'd like more or less info and what they choose to do with it/how it affects them.

                • DevSpacePrez
                  Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
                  @jerakal @Celestalon @IksarHS @Ghostcrawler The game can also be designed to offer soft discouragements to give less numerical feedback. Like getting killed in an FPS and having to respawn, waiting around feels bad so teaches you to avoid dying when possible.

                  • DevSpacePrez
                    Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
                    @jerakal @Celestalon @IksarHS @Ghostcrawler But in MMO design if you get hurt and get healed you don't always realize as much that you're even getting hurt. You do get the same feedback from actually dying, but in an MMO you may not die if your healers are on the ball, even if you're messing up constantly. Its tricky.

                    • Chadd Nervigg
                      Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
                      @DevSpacePrez @jerakal @IksarHS @Ghostcrawler I think that's a great challenge of encounter design. "Avoidable damage" is easy to brush off as a healer problem. I think a key advancement I've seen to solve that is to make avoidable damage a DPS problem too. As in, add a stun/knockback/snare/dmgdebuff/manaburn/etc.

    • Iksar
      Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
      @Ghostcrawler Controversial opinion: No PvP scaling or PvP specific gear. Let people who slayed a giant dragon and got the giant dragon sword have a gear advantage. Fairness is boring. Fancy gear should matter everywhere.

      • Chadd Nervigg
        Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
        @IksarHS @Ghostcrawler I think it's a reasonable sounding thing that "the best PvE gear should come from PvE" and vice versa. But the net result of that is that it fractured the playerbase and turned turned PvP into a shark tank. And that is arguably worse in the long run.

      • troldann
        Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
        @IksarHS @Ghostcrawler Alternatively, what about a PvP mode (maybe an event or something, not the default) where gear is normalized in some way to just showcase skill irrespective of grind?

        • Iksar
          Posted 3 years, 9 months ago (Source)
          @troldann @Ghostcrawler It's a controversial thought, but I think this is ultimately worse. MMOs are a power fantasy, the quest to become the most powerful. The more places in your game where that power doesn't matter anymore, the less exciting it becomes and the less exciting all activities become.
Tweet