Maidens of the Kaleidoscope
~Beyond the Border~ => Akyu's Arcade => Topic started by: BoLaD on November 11, 2009, 11:30:44 PM
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Just as the title states- is there anyone here besides me that refuses to play online games? If so, please give a very long description of why you have given up online gaming.
As for me- only 3 years ago when I was in 6th grade- I was really hooked on an MMO called Maplestory. I didn't know why I liked it; I just a lot of friends in the game, I didn't see anything that outstanding in the least, yet I still played several hours each day in 6th, 7th, and the first half of 8th grade. I played two accounts- both of which I spent over $150 each on and leveled them both past level 100.
Eventually I had to go take the SHSAT test to determine what kind of high school I would go to. At this point, I was failing school miserably due to the many hours I spent on that stupid MMO. It was then I realized that playing the game wouldn't do me any good, so I gave the accounts away and had my parents set a password on my PC while I went to study for the SHSAT.
After I took the SHSAT, the password was removed from my computer, and I was able to get online again. I realized that playing games with a few people online was something I had to give up; I was afraid of getting addicted again.
That's actually how I discovered Touhou- I was looking for some short, single player games online and I just clicked at whatever caught my eye. To this day, I refuse to play the games for more than an hour on weekdays and at max- 2 hrs on a weekend.
So... anyone else want to share?
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used to play runescape 10-13 or something
never touching mmos again
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I do play a few games online, but i've never got into an MMO like that. They just don't interest me.
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Never touched any MMOs ever.
In general, I dislike PC games. Not so much the games themselves, but the fact that you play them with a computer. Touhou is pretty much the only game on that system that I play.
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Total waste of time in the end for me, out of the 50+ total friend in the list, only few are still in contact with me on MSN mainly because more and more quit the game. MMO are only fun because other people play with you.
Try Flash Games instead, some are pretty fun as hell playing alone and only takes about few hours at most.
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Most games I play online tend to be fighters, TPS's and FPS's. I tend to avoid most mumorpergers like the plague.
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I used to be really into MMOs and such (mostly Ragnarok Online, but I did play Maplestory for a while too), but now they just bore the hell out of me. I tried WoW last year and didn't even last 15 minutes before stopping, closing the game, and uninstalling the demo and deleting it. As far as playing online goes, it depends on the game. I can't stand more than a few rounds of Halo 3 per month, because the fact that the online play is so broken by boosted accounts and lag-switch whores and 12-year old pissants who need serious mental help just ruins it for me.
It'd be kinda neat to play some 2-player shmups online though, maybe. Y'know, as long as it isn't Aegis Wing. x_x
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The only MMO I really played was PSO and that's stretching it. When I play online it's usually stuff over Xbox Live or Steam.
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used to play runescape 10-13 or something
never touching mmos again
I've played it until the last summer holiday.....(played it for 5 years)then I've decided to stop MMOs period as they are just addicting grindfests and time eaters.
Also played Cabal Online. Cool until lv100+, where it turns into a korean luck/grindfest. Gave up at 146 as I've lost my sanity with the constant grinding while there are only 2 decent spots in the entire game.
Shame that most online games are FPS, easily the genre I'm worst at.
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Runescape was the only MMO I've ever played. Haven't touched it for more than 3 years though.
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Took me two years to realize it was a complete waste of time and money (pointless, repetitive grindfests). I never touched any MMOs afterwards.
But I do play some CSS rounds every once in a while. At least they're less tedious.
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Never played an MMO before, and I have no inclination to try one. I don't mind playing e.g. an FPS over Xbox live (though it's frequently necessary to mute most of the other players) or something online for the Wii, but on the whole I'm not a big online gamer.
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Bandwidth is expensive and connection is crappy.
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I've almost always found year after year that the best multiplayer would be in less popular niche games that either have too steep a learning curve for the average person or only appeal to a specific kind of gamer and are unfun to everyone else as a result.
It's sad but it seems that the best way to have a good multiplayer experience is to keep the majority out.
It seems that just about anything more mainstream than Operation Flashpoint or the first three Rainbow Six games (Original, Rogue Spear, and Raven Shield) will inevitably get bogged down by an endless mass of inconsiderate players who seem intent on "destroying their own game" so to speak.
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No, a game is a game. Single or multiplayer is irrelevant.
Also there's a difference between MMO's and Multiplayers like CoD
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as it can be guessed after my post in the MMO thread, I now avoid playing MMOs, due to them rewarding play time (with equipments, items, levels. Item drops, crafting/overupgrading and other factors are luck-dependent, also, which imho increases the grinding for these), instead of a player's pure abilities. The resources of one who's just started playing the game aren't comparable to the ones of someone who've been playing for a couple days, or weeks, months or years. (as Sirlin -- not that I'd agree with everything he says :p -- would put it, "time > skill ?")
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connection is crappy.
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I used to refuse to try mmorpgs because I tried several and though they all sucked. But I was pretty much forced to watch classmates play WoW's beta in College. I decided that it didn't share alot of the problems that made me hate the other ones so much so I decided to try it... Actually my family convinced me to get it believe it or not. still am enjoying it after almost 4 years now.
As for being a waste of time and money, it can be depending on how you enjoy these games. I personally do not feel it wastes either. For example it did not impede on my graduation at all, and it might have even helped me be more assertive around people (I used to be a total pushover, now I'm just an ordinary pushover >=P). But some people just can't manage playing an mmo and doing productive stuff at the same time. I think their problem (though I could be wrong) is that they push themselves into guilds,clans,organizations, whatever in game which demands a certain level of performance from the player to stay in. so they burn themselves out trying to be a model guild-mate for their entire mmo-career so to speak.
I'm in a casual guild (alot claim to be that but mine really is lol) that has a frustrating number of players who really quite...Suck. But the beauty is that I can decide not to log on for a month and I wont get demoted or removed or any of that nonsense. To this day I have some people look down on me (in-game I mean) about how I'm such a "slacker" in game in regards to farming gold, mats, whatever. I play when I want to pretty much, and that enough gives me enough gold to keep myself repaired, and have consumeables for "hard" content provided I don't waste it on easy stuff.
Generally if you want to aspire to being #1 on the pvp ladder or even close to that, or if you want to farm gold so much that you buy every possible vanity thing in the game, chances are you aren't playing the game for fun, and either you're a flat out addict, or you're doing it because you feel like you have to, which really ruins the point IMO.
Anyway, if you can play it in moderation, for fun, when you feel like it. It's really quite an economically smart thing to spend your money on. 20-bucks a month for entertainment is nothing. Nowdays a movie-theatre costs nearly that much, as does a single new movie purchase, or new music CD, etc.
I personally only log on WoW myself like twice a week or so after discovering Touhou >=P. I still respect it as a good game if played for fun and not necessity.
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i don`t like play online...i don`t know why. XD
i tried play SWR with someone one time but we can`t connect, and that was all...
i don`t know if played RPG Maid for some months count like play online...but videogames online in a PC...never.
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been playing this (http://www.cityofheroes.com/) off and on for about 4 years because it's honestly the highest quality MMO i've ever played.
other than that, i agree, most MMOs are crap and a waste of time, and i probably won't be trying new ones any time soon.
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It's not that I refuse to to play online. It's just that online games refuse to captivate my attention.
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I like playing online but I don't like playing MMORPGs since 90% of them are crap. I wanted to play WoW and Aion but it costs to much and my internet is extremely slow. So the games I play online are Diablo and Warcraft 3.
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I've never really run across an MMO that kept my attention for long... Of course, I haven't tried that many, so...
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I've played it until the last summer holiday.....(played it for 5 years)then I've decided to stop MMOs period as they are just addicting grindfests and time eaters.
While I can understand the former, why do people always quote the latter? A game being a time-eater is rather redundant since they all take time out of your life to play (unless your offline games really don't take up time to play, in which case I wish to play on your Sakuya-console).
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I used to play Runescape until about 3 years ago. After most of my friends quit, I started to notice that it was taking WAY too much of my time. Eventually, it got less exciting and after a while, I stopped playing all together. Now, I avoid MMOs like the plague, afraid that the same thing may happen again.
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While I can understand the former, why do people always quote the latter? A game being a time-eater is rather redundant since they all take time out of your life to play (unless your offline games really don't take up time to play, in which case I wish to play on your Sakuya-console).
General addiction and wanting to get better as there is competition.
I can play PS2 for 7-8 hours straight, but I can put it down anytime and everything stops.
Grinding is also much more enjoyable in non MMO games, most of the time it isn't even required as you can make up for the lower levels with skill or strategy, and even if you need to grind for an hour, you won't get bored at all and the results will be noticeable.
MMOs? Grind for 8 hours. Definitely not fun and unavoidable. A general waste of time.
Unfortunately, you'll realize it only after quitting it forever. That's why I'm not touching one again :V
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Sakuya-console
oh god do want
I can play PS2 for 7-8 hours straight, but I can put it down anytime and everything stops.
That's what they all say :V
Honestly, MMOs simply bore me. IF I ever found one that I really enjoyed, I'd probably get hooked for a couple solid weeks...until I got bored. I have a limited amount of time I can play any one game (though I've been playing the Touhoues for over a year almost every day...then again, different ones, so yeah). But what really throws me off is the way the games are built - they are designed with grinding in mind, and I honestly stop feeling like levelling fairly quickly. Once - ONCE - I got a character to level 112 out of 500. That was when I had basically NOTHING else to play (long story), so I just kept coming back to it. In any reasonable game, the farthest I'll get is around 40 out of 100 or so before getting bored to death and playing something else.
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Since we're on the topic of MMOs:
http://news.quelsolaar.com/#comments59
I like your dress, its too bad you have fat legs.
Posted by Eskil Steenberg Fri, October 30, 2009 13:26:04
Everyone wants to be loved, so why are we so drawn to abuse?
Playing an MMO is like having an abusive relationships. They kick you and they slap you, and they make you beg for every scrap of appreciation. Lets face it, if you are grinding for hours to get a mount, then you are not that far away from the girls who say "He is really a great guy when he doesn't drink!" ... yeah, sure he is.
Its not the kind of relationship I want, I have no time for fights, no matter how good the makeup sex is. I'm not going to insult someone even if that's what will make them want me. I want to treat my players right, but what if they really want abuse? Everybody says they love Shenmue, Okami and Another world, pinnacle of "interactive story telling", but then they go back to their desks to kill 15 scorpions or collect 30 bore pelts. Clearly something is rotten in Denmark.
The less you get out of games the more you want out of them. The more time wasted the higher the honor of its accomplishment. Gamers will put up with the most punishing games, just as long as the game every now and then stop by that store at the airport that only sells poor relationship band-aids, to pick up chocolate, alcohol or what ever else they can use to instill hope that the relationship is not a waist of time.
Ask yourself, would you rather play an hour of grind to level up, or and hour of great gameplay who's progress you couldn't save?
I think many gamers would rather take a beating if they think that they are accomplishing something, then have some pointless fun. That's a real shame because, lets be clear, you don't accomplish anything when you play games. There is nothing wrong with that, we don't have to accomplish things all the time, it should be OK to just have fun every now and then. That's why I'm not so sure I'm OK with is trying to fooling you in to thinking you did accomplish something when you played my game.
I'm not the beating kind, and i don't waste time, yours or mine. By now you shoul have figured out that I'm a romantic but also that I speak my mind. But if love is not what you want, perhaps it is me I end up fooling? It begs the question: Is game design by its very nature to be a con artist of the seducing kind? Everyone know that the best con is the one where the one being conned enjoys being conned.
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"My pretend funtime is BETTER than your pretend funtime!"
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I am not exactly great at expressing what I am thinking about this but I'll give it a shot.
A lot of people have some disdain for MMORPGs for the wrong reasons in my opinion and by extension online games in general. The term MMORPG stands for "Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game." and is often used in places or for games that do not fit that at all. Some people call games that are simply played online MMORPGs. Sometimes people call non-RPG games MMORPGs but that has fallen out of use moreso as of late. Another is when people just say MMOs. Massively is still part of that and when you think of games like Call of Duty, Team Fortress 2 or other online games, can you really consider that "Massively multiplayer" in whole or part?
I have a different reason to play games than most people on here and honestly it's about fun. How I have my fun is different than some people. Some days I want to have some quick fun that is just trying on my nerves and makes me want to punch a kitten, such as playing Touhou. No progress, single player, nothing to show for my time except that I am using my time to enjoy myself. There are other times when I want to spend my time doing something that will be directly comperable or I can display to other people in the same environment. Let's take Borderlands. It is a fun game, don't get me wrong. But if it were single player online I honestly would not have bought it.
It brings me to the point of my own opinion about online games. Personally I refuse to play single player games for the most part. All of the high end titles that people seem to think I would love because the genre is something I love. Dragon's Age. I have had a few of my friends think I'd be all over that game like nobody's business but frankly I couldn't care much less about it. I went and checked the game out, saw it was single player and never gave it another thought. The story of video games doesn't interest me or sway me. Very, very few games that are single player ever interest me and frankly I get more entertainment watching a youtube playthrough for free than actually playing the game myself.
But honestly that's all just different tastes of gaming. I like multiplayer games because I think playing something with a buddy is typically much more fun. When my progress can be saved and shown online among other players of the game I find my time spent in it is more rewarding, even when I quit playing it. I think I had Pokemon red way back in the day and would play it at high school when nothing was going on. I spent a little time in it, beat it and then quit it. When I saw Pearl come out, I went ahead and read the box, saw multiplayer support and bought it. I spent about 150 hours on the game working on training and getting pokemon I wanted just so I could play with my buddies who also got it. The fact a game had an element where I could show off the time I spent on top of having fun killing time with it makes the game so much more appealing to me that I find single player experiences are no longer with the effort.
I know that's long and part of it is rambling, so allow me to sum it all up.
-I prefer multiplayer games.
-I do not like single player games anymore.
-Multiplayer games allow my time spent to be shown to other people in terms of playing skill, status achieved or in game items.
-Non-RPG Multiplayer games allow me to play against people non-artificial intelligence for what is a much more varied and interesting time.
-Single player games are played once for the story and forgotten.
-Non-story Single Player games that you just sit down for an hour to play and have fun with are still fine, such as Touhou, Spelunky or IVAN.
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General addiction and wanting to get better as there is competition.
And this does not apply to MMOs... how?
I can play PS2 for 7-8 hours straight, but I can put it down anytime and everything stops.
Everything stops as far as your character is concerned, too. Unless you want to be "DA BEST" in an MMO, there's really no reason to force yourself to be among the top players.
Grinding is also much more enjoyable in non MMO games, most of the time it isn't even required as you can make up for the lower levels with skill or strategy, and even if you need to grind for an hour, you won't get bored at all and the results will be noticeable.
Again, this applies to MMOs as well (unless you play for PvP, anyways).
Most PvE dungeons do not require grinding, per se. Heck, talk with players who have multiple characters and they'll tell you they have thought up strategies for doing higher-level quests/dungeons with lower-level chars to help raise their level for stuff they want that has a level requirement (like a specific weapon or event). The reason grinding FEELS manditory at first is because you're not as familiar with how things work, so when something gives you trouble you decide to simply level yourself to plow through it rather than try something new (unlike people who've played a while, who have learned the mechanics and use their second character with which to experiment since their high-level one usually won't need to aside maybe dungeons specifically for high-levels).
On that note, standard RPGs are like this as well. If you're having trouble a lot of people will just grind a few more levels, rather than just try a different tactic (which is why some RPGs have started including anti-grinding stuff to prevent people from just grinding to the top without any formal strategy... see: Tales of Destiny remake and Devil Survivor).
MMOs? Grind for 8 hours. Definitely not fun and unavoidable. A general waste of time.
ITT we rag on people who like MMOs. Oh wait, that was the point. Nevermind.
Unfortunately, you'll realize it only after quitting it forever. That's why I'm not touching one again :V
I just play ones that interest me, whenever I feel like playing. Is it really that hard to just play a few hours each weekend? =V
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Tinari:
- Touhou games (and emulators that allow you to record your inputs) allows you to save inputs; 2DF (and the older versions of GGPO) allows you to record and playback matches in fighting games/Twinkle Star Sprites
- you mentioned that you like the ability of MMOGs/Pok?mon to display how much time you've spent playing a game. I'll admit that I don't play Pok?mon, but let's differentiate playtime from a player's actual skill as a whole. These two aren't necessarily the same; there will be games that you and someone else pick up at the same time, yet one will adapt himself/herself faster in that game. This result could have a different outcome for a different game/genre, so, imho, a player's ability should be considered, not the playtime itself. Therefore, if a game tests, as a criteria of who should win, how much time one spent playing it, rather than how good he/she really is under fair conditions, one shouldn't feel bad for losing. And if you're winning in such a kind of game, think of the people who grind the game (not really thinking of Pok?mon here, but mainly MMORPGs, with their insane level caps and resources, overupgrading, rare crafting materials and that sort of time-consuming tasks) to unhealthy extents. Can one say that they're more skilled than, say, someone who plays fighting games/shmups competitively, and don't spend as much hours per day playing?
- since I mentioned (somewhat) that when two players of the same level of skill meet each other and are given different resources (one set being *better* than the other, as in providing more attack/defense, having a more leveled up character, etc.), the fact that one has advantages over the other (besides the players' abilities) sort of makes that match unfair, and detracts from the winner's merit. So, by this idea, a DotA/WarCraft match would be fair, a GunBound match (with avatar items turned off) would be fair, a GunZ: The Duel/Grand Chase match (with the same equipments and level) would be fair, and so on. Unfortunately, though, most MMOGs aren't as merciful, and expect people to keep leveling/grinding for equips/items, in order to maintain/increase their playerbase and continue earning money and keeping the servers alive.
- as for playing for the interaction with friends and having fun with them, I agree with you. (just to explain my point of view, however, if I like to play certain games that also have competitive value in them, either for scoreruns or for playing online/offline with/against my buddies, that competition will motivate people to keep playing and improving themselves, maintain/increase a playerbase that has a different motivation/mindset to play that game/genre, and be a way to make that game "resist the test of time")
- as for playing MMOGs as a time-killer, I have no objections as well.
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On that note, standard RPGs are like this as well. If you're having trouble a lot of people will just grind a few more levels, rather than just try a different tactic (which is why some RPGs have started including anti-grinding stuff to prevent people from just grinding to the top without any formal strategy... see: Tales of Destiny remake and Devil Survivor).
ITT we rag on people who like MMOs. Oh wait, that was the point. Nevermind.
I just play ones that interest me, whenever I feel like playing. Is it really that hard to just play a few hours each weekend? =V
Depends on the MMO. Most of them are just number wars, without any real skill required.
Numbers are gained through wasting time, then add in some RNG and you have a winner.
That's why I don't play them. No skill required, only gear, levels, etc.
I barely ever grind in RPGs, I usually end up underleveled yet I still pull through with a good strategy.
That's what most MMOs don't allow.
Can't beat something? Grind more levels/grind e-monies for better gear.
I prefer playing console RPGs for a few hours a day and improve actual gaming skill instead of clicking.
But that's just me :V
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Same story as BoLaD here, pretty much. :V Played MapleStory for around three years, got to level 11x, led a guild of forty people, spent way too much time and money on it and eventually it started affecting my schoolwork, so I made myself drop it. It's only MMOs that I refuse to play, though; most other games aren't as addictive or time-consuming (or expensive) so I'm okay with them.
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I also hate MMORPGs. When you start, it's fun because you can level up very fast, but if you have to spend multiple hours just for one extra point, you really ask yourself WHY.
Now I'm playing Battlefield Heroes. If somebody wants to add me, add "ToramaruShou".
And yeah, I know that you only gain extra points at every even level, but Buccaneer Bay is AWESOME.
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Depends on the MMO. Most of them are just number wars, without any real skill required.
Numbers are gained through wasting time, then add in some RNG and you have a winner.
That's why I don't play them. No skill required, only gear, levels, etc.
I barely ever grind in RPGs, I usually end up underleveled yet I still pull through with a good strategy.
That's what most MMOs don't allow.
Can't beat something? Grind more levels/grind e-monies for better gear.
I prefer playing console RPGs for a few hours a day and improve actual gaming skill instead of clicking.
But that's just me :V
While I understand what you're saying, and even agree for the most part. That's not completely true for MMOs. For example, I'm often not allowed to bring a character to some group or another when I play WoW for example (albeit I cannot speak for other mmos) because I need better gear, or I don't have enough spellpower, or hp, or attackpower, or whatever the hell it is they think I need an arbitrary number of. But yet I can excell at whatever role I need to do in it and even pull groups thru it if they aren't capable of doing it alone.
However, this in my opinion is mostly because people expect the requirements and the average to be higher than needed for me not because my skill is that great or whatever. But because your average mmo player sucks *that* bad..like.. really bad.
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It may be tedious and annoying to have to grind for a long time in an MMORPG, but in a single player game, like Tinari has been saying, you have absolutely nothing to show for it. I've done countless feats in single player games, especially RPGs, but they amount to nothing because nobody actually knows about it unless I go through the tedium of recording it with substandard equipment (If you dig through my YouTube channel here (http://www.youtube.com/kurautihime), towards the last few pages you can see some of them). As a person, I admit I like to be noticed, and since I have absolutely no talent aside from video games (lol) I must turn my attentions towards MMORPGs - and I love it! I might not be the absolute best at it, but at least I get to show people how good I am at something. The same is true for multiplayer games in general.
I like to be able to show my skill at something. Single player games in that respect just don't cut it for me. I'll still play them when I'm not at home, since I mainly play on handhelds, but.
I also hate MMORPGs. When you start, it's fun because you can level up very fast, but if you have to spend multiple hours just for one extra point, you really ask yourself WHY.
Now I'm playing Battlefield Heroes. If somebody wants to add me, add "ToramaruShou".
And yeah, I know that you only gain extra points at every even level, but Buccaneer Bay is AWESOME.
I honestly wouldn't mind spending multiple hours just for that "one extra point," actually. It's a long process, but along the way, when I meet that scenario, I get to interact with more people. It's an MMORPG fer chrissakes, you don't solo ALL the time =_= Even I've started Arad Senki again recently, I am not Japanese but I can get along fine with them >_>
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Stopped MMORPGs for that reason, but I still play TF2
or would if my only computer that could run it hadn't been dead since June.
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It may be tedious and annoying to have to grind for a long time in an MMORPG, but in a single player game, like Tinari has been saying, you have absolutely nothing to show for it. I've done countless feats in single player games, especially RPGs, but they amount to nothing because nobody actually knows about it unless I go through the tedium of recording it with substandard equipment (If you dig through my YouTube channel here (http://www.youtube.com/kurautihime), towards the last few pages you can see some of them). As a person, I admit I like to be noticed, and since I have absolutely no talent aside from video games (lol) I must turn my attentions towards MMORPGs - and I love it! I might not be the absolute best at it, but at least I get to show people how good I am at something.
I like to be able to show my skill at something. Single player games in that respect just don't cut it for me. I'll still play them when I'm not at home, since I mainly play on handhelds, but.
(http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/4752/xbawks2.png)
I've had to ;_;
Yeah, it sucks when your skill goes unnoticed....top MMO players are known all over the boards, but when is somebody good at some obscure game, no one knows about it even though it involves more than endlessly beating monsters while sipping coke and eating hotdogs.
And no matter what people say, everyone likes to get noticed when you are good at something and that goes for everything, not just games :V
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And no matter what people say, everyone likes to get noticed when you are good at something and that goes for everything, not just games :V
Yes, it does go for everything.
It is however kind of sad when you are good at nothing else except that though :V
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So once again I find that the general consensus among video gamers and game companies is that I am nothing more than a myth, and I simply do not exist. :V
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It is however kind of sad when you are good at nothing else except that though :V
Same here. I suck at everything except for videogames :V
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I played Mabinogi for half a year until the updates stopped altogether (RIGHT before G4), I played CoH for a few years, and everquest (back when I was 4.)
I don't play online games anymore. I just quit the last one that I was playing, that was really fun too. It got trampled over by kids. not 11 year olds, 5 year olds.
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I mostly stopped playing MMOs due to money and interest constraints. If people I know are playing it and we can talk about shared experiences outside the game a little bit in real life, it makes the whole experience so much more enjoyable. Grinding on your own's no fun. That said I have no objection to MMOs themselves or anyone who plays them.
Refusing to play online is a bit of a loaded term, makes it feel like everyone who does it is a sheep which is just not true or fair. It's no less valid as a form of social interaction than any IRC channel. Everything in moderation. Eat white meats, brown bread, drink water and get plenty of sleep :V
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I would like to bring to light something about how everyone brings up "fair" as a point against MMOs, how a person can spend more time, get better gear and that it is unfair.
Of course that's unfair by the very definition of it, but I don't think that anyone who goes into these games expects anything to be fair. Unless you specifically go out of your way to wear the same things, be the same class and race and duel in an area you're both comfortable with, it's NOT fair. Class A vs B isn't fair. B vs C isn't fair and C vs A is definitely not fair.
Now that I have that out of the way I would also like to bring up as an ex-WoW player that I was not a raid type person. I did not do the whole guild thing and I was a solo player for most of it. I did manage to get into PuGs because I read a lot about raids and knew what I was doing and when some group wanted a PuG or was helping people for fun, I could get in on that. So my gear wasn't top tier by any means but as a loaner/PuGger I did manage to assemble a decent set of gear.
And ya know what? I love when a person of the same class as me with 3K more health and clearly superior gear jumped me and I stomped them because I knew how to do more than just tap out the same tried and true combo that works on anyone who doesn't have half a brain. You'd be amazed how often a person with more forethought, knowledge of the classes and abilities and typical strategies can beat a person who invested "more time" and has better gear.
Not being fair is honestly the least of my concerns when I go into said kind of game. I don't know why everyone is hung up on that. Chess is fair, as is checkers. Or is it? The person who moves first has an advantage don't they? Or maybe the guy who goes second has a plan that can only work if he goes second that makes it unfair. Probably not, but in my opinion the best games in my list of recent games I love ARE COMPLETELY UNFAIR. Why? Because they're not pong. Team Fortress 2 for example. The game isn't perfectly fair or balanced but it's great fun. WoW can be great fun too at high level when you get into a groove of something you like. Ragnarok Online was definitely not fair for some classes but it was great back fun back in the day.
TL:DR
Fair is something I don't care about and is meaningless as the best games I've ever played online or offline have had major unfair elements. :3
P.S.
Yes, online games aren't for everyone. Most require grinding as it puts a goal out that is far out of reach so gamers will have to grind their ears off just to get it. But has anyone here ever thought that there ARE people who do like grinding? When I played Fallout 3 (Not long, I actually don't like it or Oblivion) I would remake a character very often. I never beat either game as I would be too often remaking the character and starting over and grinding out different character ideas and builds until the game bored me. :D
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Tinari:
- it's possible for MMORPGs to have well-balanced enough classes (if not all, at least most of them. Neither of us would like to see healers fighting themselves, or some damage-dealer/tanker taking on one) and give different classes at similar level ranges a close enough win ratio in pvp (though I care for gvg the most, especially because wizards [1] are more fit for teamwork -- gvg and/or MVP/raids)
- Rock/Paper/Scissors is fine too, someone having developed more skill (faster response/more experience on particular situations/more knowledge on what you and the opponent can do/more psychological preparation, etc.) than other is fine too
- someone being on a higher level or having better equipment (more attack/more defense/more stat boosts/status effects, and resistance to them, etc.) will have better chances, in the cases where previously there was balance
- that player who you've defeated deserved it. Well done. I had friends that could single-handedly eliminate 5 characters who tried to gank on him (he was mid-leveled, like the others), not before telling them that they wouldn't be able to defeat him (but also not telling them why -- the answer, he could evade their attacks through some acquired skill). That same friend once defeated a lvl. 70 character with his lvl. 60, due to being properly buffed up (through his.. support characters in alternate accounts :( ). As for my personal achievements, there's not much that a Wizard/High Wizard can do on pvp in RO. If someone falls for my stuff, it's their fault, not my merit. The same can be said for my case, if I happen to not have the proper resistance (except when it comes to resistance against Stun.. in order to have full resistance against it, you're required to have a very rare item -- 00.01% -- from a boss, who normally respawns one time an hour after being defeated).
- the higher level you are, the more are the possibilities for top equipments, and the more effort they take to be made/found/upgraded. By that time, you can't expect opponents to commit as much mistakes as in former levels, which is okay. This is when the skill level of its players will be similarly high, and when whoever has more equipments/levels (and number of good players, in gvg, WoEs, Castle Sieges, alliance vs. alliance, etc.) will make their advantages become more noticeable and have better chances of winning. (it's still possible to pull out strategies/combinations for invading/defending territories, but if the opponent side can't counter these, then it's their mistake. They might learn from it -- as expected from competent, skilled players --, adapt themselves, and make such battles once again have equipments/levels as an advantage)
- I used to enjoy grinding, to an extent (both solo and party hunting, for items or spot leveling). But (as I mentioned in the MMORPG thread) I quit them when I lost some 34 +8 Staves of Piercing in RO trying to get one of them to +10, and hearing, from the same mastersmith that tried to upgrade them for me, that he was able to get 2 of them to +10, out of his 10 Staves.
- new skills, features and dungeons are something that kept me and my friends playing.
[1] once, a friend of mine ranted on how, everytime I played a MMORPG (Priston Tale, RO, L2..), I would play as a magic user D:
Signum-Hime:
single-player (and 2-player) games do have stuff that you can show to others. Scores, videos, challenges.. and I'd say, they're more rewarding, more difficult. So difficult that few MMORPG players would try them, yet many people who play MMORPGs seem to pay more attention to who's better in their game(s) -- my complaint is that most of these people may haven't noticed that play time gives advantages in MMOs, thus giving an illusion/impression that their accomplishments were due to their skill alone, and that merely being a better player could make you reach the top players' level; my complaint is that the respect towards these top players isn't justified.
Personally, I don't give much value if someone says "I was playing here since the beta" or "we were the first guild to kill boss X/kill boss X with N people in the party", or "our castle X has remained uninvaded for N weeks/months before we finally dropped it for castle Y". But I care for stuff like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAd-vPODVOA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L2SNX7k4v8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKt1Pu6z7-w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m7WO8u28uE (I don't prefer combo movies/demonstrations over actual matches, but if I were to show one, many things could go on unnoticed on it without explanation about them; plus, that player's very good, not because of combos)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEtCWmlud7c
tl;dr:
- hearing people boast that they have better equipments, or that they play better than me, when in fact he/she has the advantage of equipments/levels/numbers (instead of that person being actually better than me), is disagreeable.
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I've done countless challenges on single player RPG games that go unnoticed for whatever reason, I don't know, maybe it is just me.
It just saddens me, so I turn to such things. Of course, I do not boast about things like that in THAT respect, because I know being a long time player of SOMETHING gives you advantages over others. But starting from the bottom and making your way up to the top somehow makes me feel better as opposed to, say, me soloing the Four Stars x2 Battle with Annie on Unknown difficulty in ToR, sure, it is a pretty damned crazy feat but a very select few people know about the game itself (Hi Sana)
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me soloing the Four Stars x2 Battle with Annie on Unknown difficulty in ToR, sure, it is a pretty damned crazy feat but a very select few people know about the game itself (Hi Sana)
I know about that game....it's just almost impossible to get over here, just like most of the Tales games.
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Bullshit, there's nothing about an MMO/online that makes it "easier" than a single player game. It's just that, a game you can play with lots of other people, most involving a persistent world of some kind.
If you don't like the MMO/MP style, so be it, it's not for everyone. But don't disparage people for enjoying it by saying they're too "afraid" for a real challenge or that they're too simple. There's NOTHING that makes an MMO or an MP game any simpler or easier than a single player game, and oftentimes they can present a challenge that cannot be met with scripted monsters or bosses. Saying "oh it's only because you dropped more time in it", guess what, that's how it works in every game, multiplayer or single player. You get better at games not because of innate skill but because of learning the tricks of the trade. There's some things involving reflexes etc, but to know HOW to use those reflexes or to know what things to do is simply from playing the game more.
It's just a different gamestyle. If you don't enjoy it, so be it, but don't bash people who do.
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Bullshit, there's nothing about an MMO/online that makes it "easier" than a single player game. It's just that, a game you can play with lots of other people, most involving a persistent world of some kind.
If you don't like the MMO/MP style, so be it, it's not for everyone. But don't disparage people for enjoying it by saying they're too "afraid" for a real challenge or that they're too simple. There's NOTHING that makes an MMO or an MP game any simpler or easier than a single player game, and oftentimes they can present a challenge that cannot be met with scripted monsters or bosses. Saying "oh it's only because you dropped more time in it", guess what, that's how it works in every game, multiplayer or single player. You get better at games not because of innate skill but because of learning the tricks of the trade. There's some things involving reflexes etc, but to know HOW to use those reflexes or to know what things to do is simply from playing the game more.
It's just a different gamestyle. If you don't enjoy it, so be it, but don't bash people who do.
Offline games do involve innate skill though, mostly genre based.
People that play shmups often are usually able to grab a new game and move to the higher difficulties almost immediately after adjusting to the controls and mechanics, while a complete newbie will have problems on lower difficulties.
I know that you've already pointed out reflexes, but it goes for pretty much every genre, from RTS to puzzle games.
Even when you get bored of shmups, you've improved your reflexes at the very least and had fun every second playing(face it, every MMO player was raging at some point from grinding or endless quests) - but when I've quit a MMO, there was just that "wow, that was a huge waste of time" feeling.
I've already experienced that two times and I know that's how every MMO ends, so now I just rather avoid them altogether so I don't get hooked and waste money on it.
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I find it funny how people constantly refer to MMO's as a "waste of money" when most of the good ones are free and don't even require money unless you really feel like it.
As for the "waste of time" part, any type of game can be called a waste of time because you're doing nothing productive by sitting in front of a screen playing a game. Just don't play the game if you don't enjoy it, simple as that.
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Offline games do involve innate skill though, mostly genre based.
People that play shmups often are usually able to grab a new game and move to the higher difficulties almost immediately after adjusting to the controls and mechanics, while a complete newbie will have problems on lower difficulties.
I know that you've already pointed out reflexes, but it goes for pretty much every genre, from RTS to puzzle games.
There are MMOs that also involve innate skill if you're using that logic.
Valkyrie Sky is a MMO Shmup, and there are several beat-em-up MMOs too that require some degree of "innate" skill in some senses of the word.
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points brought up:
- if you don't like that kind of game, then don't play
it's fine if our preferences and motivations to play certain games/genres are different, I've already explained why I felt that MMOGs wouldn't reward/motivate me to keep playing (besides them having new content and allowing me to interact with friends in a different way), and I'm not going to say that other people should think that way.
- starting from bottom and climbing up to the top makes me feel better
I understand the feeling of character improvement, and the sense of progress (as you explore new areas), as part of a game's experience, and that's a good aspect. You're able to stop your progress and resume later from where you left off.
However, to climb to the top, it's necessary to grind progressively more. Since the goal (reaching the top) is subjective, and will always have room for improvement (or else, people who reach it may lose interest in the game), people who have played the game for more time (either by having started playing it before you, or by spending more hours per day/week) will have more advantages. Plus, there's sometimes the luck factor (rare drops, upgrade/crafting success rates). (again, motivations varies from player to player. PvE/raids, to me, was the mean to obtain resources for GvG; to other people, GvG may not mean as much as PvE/Raids)
- players of MMO/MP games aren't afraid of challenges
I didn't mean that they're all afraid, and play their games only because theirs would be easier. But, if you show them (but not limited to them) things like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UsgbtidOwY), most of them will deem that game to be out of their current ability range/zone of comfort, forever. Most. (the person who uploaded this video was/is also a MMORPG player)
It's disappointing to see that these types of games (single/2P games) don't get talked about as much by players of MMOG/MP, it's as if these are avoided, left to be forgotten, or made into a taboo.
There's NOTHING that makes an MMO or an MP game any simpler or easier than a single player game, and oftentimes they can present a challenge that cannot be met with scripted monsters or bosses.
there aren't rules saying that people developing single-player/2P games should make them harder/easier, and like I said above, I didn't mean that the people playing MMOGs/MPs only play it because they would choose easy/easier options. But I'd like to know how a MMO/MP (besides RTSes such as StarCraft, but my issue was with games that offerred in-game advantages to people who played them longer) would be more difficult than, say, scoring competitively at certain shmups, or attaining a notorious placement in a competitive enough fighting game tournament.
Saying "oh it's only because you dropped more time in it", guess what, that's how it works in every game, multiplayer or single player
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060222/sirlin_01.shtml
There are also a lot of things us Street Fighter players take for granted. They are truths so self-evident, that we never talk about them because it never even occurs to us that these aren't givens. Here's a few examples:
* A fair game does not give material advantages to one player over the other
* A fair game gives each player equal opportunity to bring whatever legal materials he wants (in our case, you can choose any character you want, no need to grind him to level 60. All players have immediate equal access to all characters.)
* It's ok (and the entire point!) to bring to the game a) more knowledge than your opponent about the nuances of the game, and b) more skill than your opponent.
* Time invested should count for nothing in a fair game. It might take me 1 hour to learn a few nuances and gain a certain level of skill and you 1000 hours. The hours don't matter; only the knowledge and skill matter.
* I'll say it again: winning is a meritocracy.
* Finally, playing a fair game is what it's all about. It would never occur to us to play a game where one player gets to do 50% more damage because he has a level 60 Chun Li.
I pretty much agree with him, especially about this last part. It increases the chances of a skilled MMOG player (who may happen to be just starting his alt. character and thus have a low level) losing to someone who's simply higher-leveled. (no matter how well the former player has played that class before on his friends' accounts, for example.)
There are MMOs that also involve innate skill if you're using that logic.
Valkyrie Sky is a MMO Shmup, and there are several beat-em-up MMOs too that require some degree of "innate" skill in some senses of the word.
like I said before in this post, my issue is with games that offer in-game advantages to people who played it for a longer time. It's not fair, to me, to be blamed if I lose to another player due to having less/not-so-good resources, instead of that other player having played better.
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I pretty much agree with him, especially about this last part. It increases the chances of a skilled MMOG player (who may happen to be just starting his alt. character and thus have a low level) losing to someone who's simply higher-leveled. (no matter how well the former player has played that class before on his friends' accounts, for example.)
like I said before in this post, my issue is with games that offer in-game advantages to people who played it for a longer time. It's not fair, to me, to be blamed if I lose to another player due to having less/not-so-good resources, instead of that other player having played better.
This. So much.
If I'm going to lose to somebody, it should be because the other person was simply better, not because they've started playing 2 months before I have or because they got extremely lucky and got a good drop.
No matter how skilled and how much knowledge of that game you have, nothing will save you when the level gap is too big.
There isn't too much thinking involved either, as you can easily copy a character build off some guide and the rest is just gear/levels/RNG.
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This. So much.
If I'm going to lose to somebody, it should be because the other person was simply better, not because they've started playing 2 months before I have or because they got extremely lucky and got a good drop.
You're right, someone who plays the game casually should be able to slaughter people who have been playing for months trying to become 'DA BEST' with absolute ease.
First of all, you seem to think you can be high-level and suck. This is false, as you cannot become a high-level player without serious dedication (especially due to the grind it takes once you start to near the level cap). Second, high-levels generally only team up with people who know the best ways to take advantage of the game's mechanics for the best DPS rate so that dungeons/missions can be completed with optimal efficiency. Efficiency is *VITAL* at high levels, because if you can't do the best damage you will either not be able to beat the dungeon you have to rely on for reasonable EXP gain, or said dungeon will take absolutely forever when everyone else can do it in half an hour (which cuts your EXP gain considerably, preventing you from levelling further).
To be blunt, dedicated players SHOULD have an advantage over casual players, because forcing people to all be on the same level regardless of how much they play punishes people who put a lot of time and effort into getting better. Check the list of top WoW players; I can tell you now they didn't reach the top playing once a week.
No matter how skilled and how much knowledge of that game you have, nothing will save you when the level gap is too big.
Because there's no possible way to, you know, not play in PvP. Nor do games with PvP ever have level 'tiers' to prevent lv 80's from farming level 20's for stuff, and ones that don't certainly never have have high-levels gain so little from farming on low-levels that there's no point (What's that? Pretty much all MMOs these days have designated areas for PvP to prevent griefing? That can't be true, right?).
It is at this point you can tell how often I've had to deal with these exact same complaints.
There isn't too much thinking involved either, as you can easily copy a character build off some guide and the rest is just gear/levels/RNG.
And this is different from any other RPG in the universe... How?
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I hate you AlexX, you keep saying things right before I want to say them. <3
As for the argument that there's "no thinking involved", that's completely up to the player. You could go out and make your own builds instead of following the crowd you know. But I guess I can give you that point since most of the time the builds that most people go by *are* the effective ones. But like AlexX said, this can be applied to pretty much every other genre as well so the argument is a bit baseless.
Take a look at Ragnarok Online for example. Sure, each class has the general areas they're best in (You wouldn't make an Int-based swordman or a Str-based archer now would you? ;D) but it's still highly flexible in what you want to do with your character. For each class there's usually a good amount of different builds. Skill builds are also HIGHLY varied. If there's one thing RO got right, it's that there's not really any useless skills and that no class has one set build that's best (I'm lookin' at you Maple Story).
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This. So much.
If I'm going to lose to somebody, it should be because the other person was simply better, not because they've started playing 2 months before I have or because they got extremely lucky and got a good drop.
No matter how skilled and how much knowledge of that game you have, nothing will save you when the level gap is too big.
There isn't too much thinking involved either, as you can easily copy a character build off some guide and the rest is just gear/levels/RNG.
Those problems above have nothing to do with MMOs, and everything to do with RPGS. Expecting to beat a level 80 as a level 30 in an mmorpg is like expecting to beat Warmech in Final fantasy 1 at level 10. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. If anything MMORPGs actually IMPROVES your chances as a low-level dude fighting higher level ones because there are cases where low level people can stomp a higher level one. The fact is though that MMORPGS just seem to feature you getting owned by higher level people more often than traditional RPGS because the nature of pvp. Which in my opinion is dumb too. Play on a PVE server or something.
As for build's and whatnot, I never look into other builds, I just look at them, and make em up myself, every time it's pretty much the cookie cutter build you find on the internet, because that's what some thought and experience leads you to. It's true how it's lame that most MMORPGs generally have a select few "flat out better" builds for every class, and that the player's choices are really quite no-brainers. But again, this is a problem with most RPGS in general, or any game featuring character customization at ALL really. The only difference with an MMO is that due to being a game where people communicate with each other regularly, you end up having these builds common knowledge relatively quicker.
That being said: I absolutely do NOT agree with this at all:
First of all, you seem to think you can be high-level and suck. This is false, as you cannot become a high-level player without serious dedication (especially due to the grind it takes once you start to near the level cap). Second, high-levels generally only team up with people who know the best ways to take advantage of the game's mechanics for the best DPS rate so that dungeons/missions can be completed with optimal efficiency. Efficiency is *VITAL* at high levels, because if you can't do the best damage you will either not be able to beat the dungeon you have to rely on for reasonable EXP gain, or said dungeon will take absolutely forever when everyone else can do it in half an hour (which cuts your EXP gain considerably, preventing you from levelling further).
Dude, I don't know about you, but the level of suck from level-capped people still amazes me to date. I kid you not, but here is one example.
One day, I was raiding Blackwing lair in WoW.. Back when it was the latest and greatest content, before AQ was out. Some dumbass warlock in my raid was asking "wtf are you guys talking about, I don't see ____ spell, or ____ spell" (bear in mind that this person has been raiding for almost a year already at the time, and has cleared MC numerous times). As it turns out, they were confused with warlock spells people were talking about because they didn't know there was a SCROLLBAR in their talent window. Yes, that person never knew there were any talents past the 20 point ones, but lo and behold, the magic scrollbar on the window opened a new realm of possible spells and talents to learn, AMAZING! That's just one example. I've also seen guild main tank warriors in BC not know about beserker stance, they weren't sure wtf I was talking about when I mentioned stance-dancing to break fear.
I mean even if you don't know WoW at all, the fact you've been level-capped for over a year and didn't notice the scrollbar in your talent tree is just ridiculous. But the kicker is I see that kinda level of jaw-dropping suckdom on a regular basis. People who have leveled to 80 MULTIPLE TIMES via alts, don't know not to stand in the @%#@ing fire. Everyone makes that mistake sometimes, they are spaced out or distracted or something. But some people just do it over and over again and again. Now you can say you choose not to play with those people, but that does NOT mean they aren't there, and the sad fact is they are the majority of the players.
This is why MMORPGS seem so damned easy compared to offline games. Because developers KNOW that they have to balance the majority of the game's content to allow super-noobs to actually be able to have a chance and enjoy it. But on the flip side, just because you don't need as much general gaming skills to "get by" in an MMO, does not mean that higher levels of gaming skills and knowledge are "wasted". I can tell how good a person is at pretty much any game genre when I play WoW with them.
As for Trance saying he likes games to be MMO so he can have his skills noticed. I almost feel the opposite. I mean, I feel like when I do good at an MMORPG (probably not applicable for other mmo genres though), anything I do gets dismissed because of the average-level of a large group or raid as a whole. No matter how good you are, you can be a gaming god. But you aren't going to be able to beat some raid dungeon without a group of decent players to go along with. Alas, I'm frequently amidst the pile of average Shmoes to your average onlooker because I just don't have the desire to be in a hard-core raiding guild that actually expects you to commit x-hours a day or whatever to do stuff with them like a bloody job. But I can totally see it's apparent for content that doesn't take much more than 5 players or whatever I suppose.
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EDIT: Eh, lets just leave it at "the communities of MMOs are a mixed bag."
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My biggest thing here is that people are putting "fair" on this pedestal and acting as if it is the holy grail of gaming. Then they compare an MMO that's an RPG to a SHMUP. Compare apples to different kinds of apples at least, please. Compare an MMO RPG to a single player RPG. Tell me a level 1 in Neverwinter Nights can use a console to spawn the final boss and win via "skill" any more than a level 30 could beat a level 60 in WoW. Tell me how playing Halo differs so substantially in single player mode to playing something like Counter Strike which is as online as you can get for an FPS while nearly being as popular.
I don't get why people seem to clamor all over "fair" as if without it a game cannot be fun. Team Fortress 2 is one of the most fun multiplayer FPS games I have ever played and I can garuntee you that not all the classes are balanced and fair compared to some. Without getting into specifics there are some classes that feel like you're an immobile target with lots of counter classes while others seem like they can perform in every area while having no true counter worth their salt.
If I wanted a game that was absolutely and completely fair I'd play Pong. I hate that arguement.
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Tinari:
- single-player RPGs don't have other players/guilds to attack/defend yourself against. You usually don't try to measure your own skills against NPCs such as bosses, you do it against other players, because they're normally more challenging. (though there are exceptions, such as people being able to solo in FF6, Romancing Saga 3 or play with low level characters in these games)
- I haven't played Halo, but don't see anything wrong with CS, since one team doesn't have initial advantages over the other.
- as for my favoring of fair matches, do you feel accomplished if you get to realize that you defeated someone else because you had advantages (more damage, more resistance, faster attack speed, more movement speed, more MP, higher hit rate, evasion, critical success rate, magical critical success rate, improved skills, better gear that can't be used by lower-leveled characters..), rather than having played better than your opponent? Can you say that, by defeating someone that way, you're more skilled than your opponent?
- as it was once said on the IRC, "hyperboles work both ways". A game doesn't have to be perfectly balanced, but not aiming for balance (or meta-balance) hurts the game more. And if you consider the situation in the above paragraph (which doesn't necessarily mean that the game is entirely imbalanced, just a case of a large enough level/equip gap), like I said in earlier posts, winning or losing becomes somewhat pointless.
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I still don't get these arguments at all.
If MMO's were meant to be fair and equal to everyone, they wouldn't exist. The whole point is that it's *not* equal. You have to fight for your power and it takes a lot more work to get to a point where you can compete with others.
I mean, what would the point of MMOs be if everyone started at the same place and never moved anywhere? It would be boring as hell.
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iirc, Grand Chase and GunBound have an option (in the form of arenas) to play with avatar items disabled, these would be examples of fair matches, and aren't boring ones.
what you said about working for your items before being able to compete, also means that if someone else has worked more on said items (or levels), they'll have better chances of winning than you have. So, it seems more like a grinding contest, where the players' abilities are left as a secondary factor, due to some equipments being so powerful and making such a difference. (a funny thing is that some RO players nickname their GvG events, the War of Emperium, as War of Equipments)
Like I mentioned in earlier posts, if you feel good by winning in such contests, think of people who grind the game to unhealthy extents. Like gold farmers, for example. (or people who try to "work" as much as them, without having co-workers to switch turns with them)
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what you said about working for your items before being able to compete, also means that if someone else has worked more on said items (or levels), they'll have better chances of winning than you have.
You're right, someone who plays the game casually should be able to slaughter even the most dedicated players with absolute ease.
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Those problems above have nothing to do with MMOs, and everything to do with RPGS. Expecting to beat a level 80 as a level 30 in an mmorpg is like expecting to beat Warmech in Final fantasy 1 at level 10. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
Depends on the RPG. For very simple ones yes, but I've managed to go through FFVII without gaining any experience at all(gamesharked it).
Even stuff from SNES like Breath of Fire 2 or Chrono Trigger can be completed at the lowest level.
That's because that's when skill and knowledge matter, not just levels.
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AlexX:
dedicated players of single-player/2P games (that have competitive value, like.. shmups and fighting games) are able to hold their own standings (against casual players) without needing in-game advantages. If play time is so important to players of MMOGs, they could at least admit that they're not being tested for their skills more than they're being tested for the amount of time they've spent playing.
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I think it's more of an issue with incentives than anything else.
Most MMOs use the desire to become more powerful as an incentive to keep playing because it is something most players are already familiar with and it's very cost effective.
Of course, this isn't the only way to motivate players. If that were true then all non-MMO multiplayer games would have died out by now.
There is no fundamental reason to think MMOs would be limited to just this idea alone, it's just that other forms of motivation tend not be as cost effective in an MMO setting and are harder to pull off. Using gameplay and content to motivate players becomes far too expensive in the long run in most cases and relying on player vs. player and co-op gameplay opens up a whole new can of worms when it comes to balance and difficulty.
What we see now as far as MMOs go is by no means all they can be, that would be like saying all FPSs had to be like Doom and all adventure games had to be like Myst. I think the best way to think about it is that the genre is still young compared to other types of games and has room to evolve in many different directions and sub-genres that just haven't developed yet.
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Depends on the RPG. For very simple ones yes, but I've managed to go through FFVII without gaining any experience at all(gamesharked it).
Even stuff from SNES like Breath of Fire 2 or Chrono Trigger can be completed at the lowest level.
That's because that's when skill and knowledge matter, not just levels.
That is likely to do with using vastly overpowered gear and/or spell combinations. Chrono trigger imo has one of the most op weapons in RPG history. that damn rainbow sword crits more often than the true masemune on frog WITH the hero medal on. I don't see why it's any more acceptable for a player to rely on being more powerful via gear than it is levels or any other thing. The nature of RPGS IMO is to gain power by playing more thru leveling, gear, spells, buffs, etc. That's what makes the whole genre for the most part unless you're one of those story mongers who really should read books more and play games less IMO.
I generally play console based RPGS without ever grinding levels. For example just now I beat DQ4 for my first time, and I chose the fortune teller as my healer because I heard she learns "multi-heal" earlier. Too bad she never did before I beat the game, or any other character for that matter. OOPS. Now I didn't cheat or anything to make my level even lower, but while I often avoid grinding levels if I can to increase the challenge on an otherwise too-easy genre, I still enjoy the feeling I get of leveling occasionally. While you may not, that's just your own personal tastes disliking a near-fundamental piece of the entire RPG genre. That has little to do with MMOS.
But reading more I guess your own personal problem is you feel leveling takes too long. In a regular RPG you can just play thru normally, do every dungeon, do a buncha quests in each town, and naturally work your way at the end and beat it. MMORPGS regularly have a restriction where you absolutely MUST be an arbitrary level to enter this dungeon or whatever. I can respect a distaste for that, but I think it's an over-reaction on anybody's part to label MMORPGS as a waste of time and money because of that one tidbit when it shares so many things in common with other non MMO games that people seem to enjoy.
The bottom line is MMORPGS are not a waste of time or money as long as you're having fun playing it. If you're not enjoying it, then stop playing it. The wasted time isn't the game's fault, it's simply a matter of taste on your part. Human beings can be addicted to these games to a point where it really is unhealthy yes, but that kind of behaviour happens with non MMORPGS too. Actually, it's generally something *EVERY* form of major entertainment gets accused of when it's relatively new.
Television was accused of this when it was new and entertaining to kids, Dungeons and dragons too, then video games in general, now it's MMORPGS. 10-20 more years people wont be saying this, and I can bet my leg that any new form of entertainment that gets invented in that timeframe will be looked up with great disdain by many people in the future, it always happens.
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post
Leveling in RPGs and MMOs are 2 different things....endgame, it doesn't take more than a few hours to max out your party and I avoid it unless I have to(Persona 3 for example forced me to grind for hours, but I've enjoyed every single minute of it and every single boss that went down really made me feel accomplished)
MMOs are just a long grind. A really long one.
I consider MMOs a waste of money since I don't enjoy grinding at all. It's that vision of "oh god look at what all can I wield, cast and do at a higher level" but when you reach it after a year, it isn't that awesome at all and I've realized that I've wasted 1500 hours on nothing.
They are indeed well done to make the people hooked and waste money, but I'm not falling for it anymore.
But if you enjoy it, I'm not going to bash you. In that case, it's not a waste of money, but for me, it is.
I also like normal RPGs for boss battles. It feels great to drop a boss after a close 20 minute battle so you can go on with the story and you'll look forward to it on other playthroughs.
In MMOs, you kill a boss without any added epicness, no great BGM, you just hit it down while tanking him yourself or letting a party member eat the damage, loot him, and guess what.....
....kill him again for more loot. It's just another form of grinding. Now with added luck.
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WHY does NOBODY get that a lot of good MMORPGs can be played for free!
In MMOs, you kill a boss without any added epicness, no great BGM, you just hit it down while tanking him yourself or letting a party member eat the damage, loot him, and guess what.....
Uhhh "no great BGM?" What MMORPGs have YOU been playing?
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WHY does NOBODY get that a lot of good MMORPGs can be played for free!
Uhhh "no great BGM?" What MMORPGs have YOU been playing?
Tell me one good FREE one.(no limited crap which is supposed to make you buy premium)
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I've always believed such MMO doesn't exist.
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Tell me one good FREE one.(no limited crap which is supposed to make you buy premium)
Valkyrie Sky? dBu's music kicks ass in this one.
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Free MMORPG List (http://www.freemmorpglist.com/)
Take your pick. There's plenty of them.
Honestly, MMOs are only a waste of money if you want it to be. Do you have to buy those sexy cash items to perform well? No. Granted, some games skewer the cash item system by making cash items incredibly overpowered (Trickster is infamous for this), but the smart developers won't do this.
It irks me that people think that an MMO must somehow cost money if it's going to be considered good.
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GunBound has an option (in the form of arenas) to play with avatar items disabled, these would be examples of fair matches, and aren't boring ones.
Gunbound is more of a skill/strategy based game than it is stat based. Stats help, but just because you have attack maxed out doesn't mean you're automatically going to beat everyone weaker than you.
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AlexX:
dedicated players of single-player/2P games (that have competitive value, like.. shmups and fighting games) are able to hold their own standings (against casual players) without needing in-game advantages. If play time is so important to players of MMOGs, they could at least admit that they're not being tested for their skills more than they're being tested for the amount of time they've spent playing.
That doesn't change that you are effectively saying we should punish the people who take more time and effort to improve.
If someone really does have no life and plays each day out of their week, why should they be no better off than someone who just started the game that day? If these two people in question are on the exact same level, that means the person who spent more time and effort to learn the game's mechanics and figure out the most efficient way to go about things has effectively just wasted their time when they could have just signed on that day without any prior work beforehand and have had just as much a chance of winning then as they do now.
Oh, and don't try to argue "well MMOs are a waste of time in general." All video games take time, and saying one game is a better way of spending it than another is rather elitist.
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Oh, and don't try to argue "well MMOs are a waste of time in general." All video games take time, and saying one game is a better way of spending it than another is rather elitist.
When you think that way, even living is a waste of time.
It's a waste of time when you don't enjoy it. For some reason, I've played MMOs even when I didn't really have fun.
Of course that one game is a better way of spending time than another if you enjoy it more than the other. It just differs from person to person. :V
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Lifespring Infinity:
sometimes, the level/equip difference does help (as in, "damn, he should be dead by now!"), if you can't bung said player. Of course, it's fun when we can :D
AlexX:
perhaps you're under the impression that said single-player/2P games penalize players who've dedicated themselves more to them. That's not accurate.
- Execution: if you practice shmups more, your precision increases, and you'll be able to perform progressively difficult maneuvers (for survival and/or score). If you practice fighting games more, that precision helps you pull out special movements (from the most troublesome, to the most basic) with a greater success ratio, when you need them, and helps you perform increasingly difficult and efficient (emphasis on efficient) combos, that allow you to take the most out of each attack opportunity (given that your opponent defends himself/herself well enough to make such a difference become a necessity, or at least highly demanded).
- Psychological preparation: if you practice shmups/fgs more, you'll become less anxious as you become more familiar with the situations you'll encounter on them, and/or learn how to handle your stress; sometimes, you can even use it to your advantage, as there are times where you shouldn't feel all relaxed, either (and for fighting games, you can use/increase your opponent's instability to induce mistakes, or delude your opponent into thinking that you're going to behave as he/she expects you to).
Besides, live fighting game tournaments are tense environments, where you don't perform as well as in other environments. One mistake that you do gives the opponent an advantage that he will try to maintain/increase, further pressuring you. A couple mistakes in critical moments can lead to your defeat, and you'll be out. Virtues such as self-control, concentration and endurance (among others) help you maintain your play level, and you'll surely need every little help against such high-level players.
- Knowledge: one of the factors of the longevity of competitive games (besides the fun provided by their game systems) is the depth, the possibilities that they have. If we exhaust the possibilities of a game, or come close to it (and have done enough research in order to come to this conclusion), we get tired of it. (think of Tic-Tac-Toe.)
For shmups, let's take Armed Police Batrider, as an example. If you learn to chain medals and bomb scenery elements, you'll score decently, but not as much as those who take one step further and plan ahead their ship selection (to meet certain bosses, some ships/characters from different teams have to be alive in your team when you reach them. Plus, the game has a difficulty rank system that encourages suicides in order to decrease the difficulty according to how few lives you have, and score play, in order to regain lives. Some ships score better on stages and bosses than others, and you'll want to have the right ships at the right times) and start using their aura more often. Of course, Knowing Is Half The Battle, since the higher the reward, the higher the risk involved.
For fighting games, at times you may discover that a move A from character B inhibits most of your opponent's actions. Someone else may, though, come better prepared and (but not limited to)
a: know beforehand (or from previous experiences) how to counter that move A
b: know beforehand to not give you chances to abuse move A
c: compensate by using advantages of their character's gameplay over yours (for example, more speed, or more range, or being able to attack safely and reducing the amount of opportunities that you could use to damage him)
d: pick some other character (rock-paper-scissors, remember?)
I was just using a basic example here. There's much theory behind playing fighting games, such as zoning, space control, frame advantages, character match-ups (fireballer vs. someone who has plenty of tools to handle them, or grappler vs. someone who has the means to escape and/or keep them away), efficiency of certain moves versus certain characters (example: "don't do move A against character B, because if character B jumps over it, you'll be open for his combo/throw/super move", "use move A to prevent your opponent from using move B against you", "don't jump against character C"), setups (if you manage to get your opponent placed where you want at the right times, you can attack them through several options with relative safety, and your opponent must defend the one you chose), yomi (foresight, being able to understand your opponent and counter them properly), mix-ups (your means to confuse your opponent, vary your moves, make yourself less predictable and create attack opportunities), hit confirms (confirming if your attack has connected without being blocked before continuing a combo that would otherwise be punishable, or waste a super move), traps (you may induce your opponent to do a mistake that he/she didn't know or wasn't expecting), situational combos, option selects, besides game-specific resources (kara-throwing, priority linking, negative edge, piano inputs, guard breaks)
There's still other virtues such as adaptability, fast responses, improvisation, observativeness, conservativeness/willingness to take risks. You put a bit of yourself in such games, and if you lose (or even if you win), you understand that there's room for self-improvement. If you lose (in shmups/fighting games), the match still seems fair. If you win, you'll see how your previous efforts paid off. (see, for example, the ending of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv7fCr6QFis -- I recommend watching all the three parts, for the informative value)
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I have cleverly avoided getting addicted to online gaming by not playing shitty games 8)
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I have cleverly avoided getting addicted to online gaming by not playing shitty games 8)
The best way to not get addicted is to avoid it like plague.
You just say that you'll "try it out" and 1 month later you are playing it like a zombie.
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Stuff
This stuff is all irrelevant. Your original complaint was that playing MMOs was pointless because you'll always lose to people who have been playing longer. This means you either want to play on par with everyone else the moment you first start the game, or believe the gap between you and people who have played longer will always exist, both of which are false. A game where someone new can take out experts is not a well-balanced game at all. MMOs always have a level cap, and generally, the gap between the levels becomes smaller and smaller as you begin to reach it. Take a look at people level 100 and level 130 in PSO: the difference is much, MUCH smaller compared to say, between a level 1 and a level 30 (not to mention levelling in MMOs generally doesn't start to become a real grind until you're about 3/4 the way to the level cap or so).
You claim that skill is not a factor, but that's not true, or at least not once you reach high-level play. There's more to DPS in an MMO than just hammering the attack button... Try that in the aforementioned PSO. You'll find yourself dead quite quickly. Managing your skills and items, as well as the proper timing for using them, is just as important, if not more important, than getting the resident superweapon.
If you lose a dungeon you learn better strategies for tackling it, if a skill turns out to be ineffective to your playing style you will stop training it and put your focus into something with a better payoff. There's always room to improve.
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Lifespring Infinity:
sometimes, the level/equip difference does help (as in, "damn, he should be dead by now!"), if you can't bung said player. Of course, it's fun when we can :D
Well, it's kind of dependent on a multitude of factors. If someone uses Mammoth and decides to dual shot his 2nd shot through a force column and they happen to have maxed attack, it's going to make a huge difference compared to maxing attack with something like J.D.
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Your original complaint was that playing MMOs was pointless because you'll always lose to people who have been playing longer. This means you either want to play on par with everyone else the moment you first start the game, or believe the gap between you and people who have played longer will always exist, both of which are false.
my complaint is that MMOs don't reward skill more than playtime. Which causes that issue (losing to people who've merely played the game for more time and had been given and helped by material advantages). And tell me, how can one expect to catch up with someone else who've played longer, if that person can just keep playing as much as you? And, how isn't this reduced to a contest of who has grinded more for levels/equips/items?
A game where someone new can take out experts is not a well-balanced game at all.
that doesn't happen in competitive single-player/2-player games, either. Someone who excels at various games often will be defeated by specialists in a game, who've focused in improving in said game more (this can be sometimes said for game characters!). You may also notice that in these games, playtime is a consequence, how well you play is what really matters. No need for lvl. 60 Chun Lis here.
MMOs always have a level cap, and generally, the gap between the levels becomes smaller and smaller as you begin to reach it. Take a look at people level 100 and level 130 in PSO: the difference is much, MUCH smaller compared to say, between a level 1 and a level 30 (not to mention levelling in MMOs generally doesn't start to become a real grind until you're about 3/4 the way to the level cap or so).
levels aren't the biggest problem, overupgraded equips/rare equips are. Some items can be so powerful, that their availability can change an invading guild's strategy, and the defending guild's defense strategy. Items that change your element to ghost (considering you can switch clothes during battle, provided your character isn't somehow disabled), meaning that you receive 75% less damage from non-elemental weapons/magic skills (but more damage from some others), shields that make you immune to magic skills, garments that allow non-assassin classes to become invisible and walk away from someone who might be attacking him/her and doesn't have the means to reveal him/her? Armors that make your character unfreezeable and give a chance to cast an anti-AoE field around you when your character is hit? Equipments that allow non Lord-Knight classes to use a skill (Frenzy) that increases their HP to 300% (and also refills their HP fully, to that 300%), ASpd (dramatically) and (iirc) their movespeed, at the cost of losing their defenses and having their skills disabled for its duration? weapons that have a chance to destroy (not permanently) the opponent's weapons/armor, and can be slotted to receive cards that increase that chance?
When the previously obtained "cost-effective" gear start to fall behind, or if you choose to have better equipment, then there will be more work to do. Equipments can be so rewarding (which means, worthy spending time into them in these games) that some players find spending time into some important (and not so difficult to obtain, since their level isn't yet maxed) equipments will make their characters more effective than if you just reached the level/job level cap without said equipments (but again, that's a RO example, which might be game-specific). Then, they may resume leveling up characters. (and after reaching 99/70, at least before the new classes, they would gain exp for the guild and concentrate on equipments.)
You claim that skill is not a factor, but that's not true, or at least not once you reach high-level play. There's more to DPS in an MMO than just hammering the attack button... Try that in the aforementioned PSO. You'll find yourself dead quite quickly. Managing your skills and items, as well as the proper timing for using them, is just as important, if not more important, than getting the resident superweapon.
if you're underleveled, you'll have fewer chances of winning. If your opponent plays just as well as you (or even a bit worse), you'll have more losses than wins. If said person defeats you, was it the player that defeated you, or the character (the advantages given by the game, with the illusory notion that more playtime necessarily means that that player plays better)?
Of course, knowing tactics is important, the wood doesn't defend itself [/Bruce Lee]. But, if you were ever to almost defeat someone, and then get defeated not because of the opponent's merit, but because of levels/equipments, wouldn't it be frustrating? Like, I'm new at this school, and physically just as capable as the other dude who has some years here. Then, we somehow get to fight, or he chases me for some weird reason. But wait! He brought his friends with him! Now.. how do we know how well that person would do, if he didn't have said friends? We won't know. He will likely say that he "fought better", or at least admit that he's not so sure about it. (he may even be right, who knows?)
(by the way, I normally play with wizard-type characters, and maintain that levels and equipments -- the "resident superweapon", or the lots of them, overupgraded as much as viable -- play a more important role than how well you play, provided that your opponent plays well)
If you lose a dungeon you learn better strategies for tackling it, if a skill turns out to be ineffective to your playing style you will stop training it and put your focus into something with a better payoff. There's always room to improve.
dungeons aren't much of a problem, compared to fighting other guilds, or even if your group gets to fight another (if you're leveling up and your group is met by another, for example). There's still room for macro/micro management, like, overprotecting a wizard in RO, that was only there to tank damage and serve as a bait to divert attacks that would otherwise wear down the other wizards in his guild, or in L2, sending one really-hella-fast member run past the opposing group (in the case of group pvp), that runs so fast that the opponents can't even click him, and as they try to chase him, they've turned their backs to the other team. Or taking out certain classes first, or take out the weaker/lower-leveled characters first and then play defensively. But, if the opponents fall for these tactics too often without offerring just as much danger than your team, then they're not good enough (note, that the equipment/playtime doesn't even matter if the player is that bad).
In some MMORPG's defense, though, they may provide proper tournament environments, and guess what, the same resources are available to its participants at the start of the matches (same number of team members, limited cash to spend on equipments/items on special NPCs, one class type per team, n advanced classes per team, etc.).
.............. lol, I can't forget how a (perhaps a couple of years old, by now) brazilian RO tournament ended. One of the teams were boasting, overconfidently, at the semi-finals, by letting the last of the opposing team members alive, and having a level-capped hunter (bow-user class) hit that survivor (don't remember) with his/her fists, which dealt 1 damage and is clearly not a viable way of taking someone out.
What happens at the final? That same team gets to lose, because the hunter has forgot to reequip his bow, and thus remained useless in that match until it was too late for that team. (my mention of him being level-capped also means that for this edition, there was no equal resources. Funny, how some other participants would boast/exhibit their Angel Helms/Helms of Angel, when bRO was starting, and write out in-game claims of how well he played and how jealous other people should feel)
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my complaint is that MMOs don't reward skill more than playtime. Which causes that issue (losing to people who've merely played the game for more time and had been given and helped by material advantages). And tell me, how can one expect to catch up with someone else who've played longer, if that person can just keep playing as much as you? And, how isn't this reduced to a contest of who has grinded more for levels/equips/items?
Play time =/= skill.
And it's not just a grind contest. If someone has just grinded themselves to the level cap and economy'd themselves the best equipment it won't matter if they don't know how to properly use high-level skills. Continuing to use PSO as an example, you can have an Angel Harp and be level 50, but a level 30 with a simple railgun can take you out if they make good use of spells and items while all you do is stand there and shoot them all day, hoping your rare items and dodge/block % will do all the work.
that doesn't happen in competitive single-player/2-player games, either. Someone who excels at various games often will be defeated by specialists in a game, who've focused in improving in said game more (this can be sometimes said for game characters!). You may also notice that in these games, playtime is a consequence, how well you play is what really matters. No need for lvl. 60 Chun Lis here.
Again, this applies to MMOs. Its not just levelling, its proper stat and skill distribution. If you don't know the optimal ways to fight you'll just fall behind, even if you're at the level cap.
Broken equipment
Which MMO are we talking, here? Obviously, there are some MMOs better at balancing their equipment than others.
When the previously obtained "cost-effective" gear start to fall behind, or if you choose to have better equipment, then there will be more work to do. Equipments can be so rewarding (which means, worthy spending time into them in these games) that some players find spending time into some important (and not so difficult to obtain, since their level isn't yet maxed) equipments will make their characters more effective than if you just reached the level/job level cap without said equipments (but again, that's a RO example, which might be game-specific). Then, they may resume leveling up characters. (and after reaching 99/70, at least before the new classes, they would gain exp for the guild and concentrate on equipments.)
It quite honestly sounds like RO has some pretty major balancing issues.
if you're underleveled, you'll have fewer chances of winning.If your opponent plays just as well as you (or even a bit worse), you'll have more losses than wins. If said person defeats you, was it the player that defeated you, or the character (the advantages given by the game, with the illusory notion that more playtime necessarily means that that player plays better)?
Define "underlevelled". That is, how big a level gap before it starts making a difference? Also, does the game force you to PvP or is it optional?
Of course, knowing tactics is important, the wood doesn't defend itself. But, if you were ever to almost defeat someone, and then get defeated not because of the opponent's merit, but because of levels/equipments, wouldn't it be frustrating? Like, I'm new at this school, and physically just as capable as the other dude who has some years here. Then, we somehow get to fight, or he chases me for some weird reason. But wait! He brought his friends with him! Now.. how do we know how well that person would do, if he didn't have said friends? We won't know. He will likely say that he "fought better", or at least admit that he's not so sure about it. (he may even be right, who knows?)
I'm not understanding this... You mean you're winning and then just suddenly lose? Or that the opponent has friends that help gang up on you?
(by the way, I normally play with wizard-type characters, and maintain that levels and equipments -- the "resident superweapon", or the lots of them, overupgraded as much as viable -- play a more important role than how well you play, provided that your opponent plays well)
Yeah, I'm starting to think that RO just has some major balance issues.
(note, that the equipment/playtime doesn't even matter if the player is that bad).
Wait, weren't you arguing that it does?
Rest of the stuff isn't really anything to argue about, so I'll leave it and go back to bananamaniac's post:
When you think that way, even living is a waste of time.
Somehow strikes me as something Shikieiki or Komachi might say.
It's a waste of time when you don't enjoy it.
I can understand that, but that doesn't change that people keep telling me to stop playing them because they're just a waste of time, even though I DO enjoy them.
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As someone that's been playing RO for a really long time, I shall come to its defense.
Firstly, while equipment does play a pretty important role, it's not going to make the difference between a win and a loss. Sure, people obsess over getting their armors and weapons upgraded to ridiculous amounts, but that's not going to make a huge difference in the long run. Really, as long as you aren't running around in a cotton shirt, you will be able to make do with what you have. People only obsess over upgrading their armors and weapons for flair. A +7 Padded Armor sure does sound more epic than an un-upgraded Padded Armor now doesn't it? Doesn't mean it's going to give that big of an advantage.
Secondly, if you're trying to run around in PVP or WoE (War of Emperium, the guild vs guild system of RO) at Level 30 then of course your going to have these kind of complaints. You can't expect to be able to perform just as well as anyone else at a low level.
And I would say that RO has done a pretty good job at class balancing as well. Sure, there's some match-ups that would show some obvious advantages towards one side (Hunter vs. Assassin for example, the Hunter's extremely high hit would get past the Assassin's dodge) but it doesn't really mean the other side can't win.
Also, you mention a lot of equipment and cards that are going to be EXTREMELY hard to get a hold of. The Lord Knight Seyren card (gives access to Frenzy for other non Lord Knight classes) drops from an MVP that is found in an incredibly high leveled area with really high-leveled mobs. Even large parties of experienced players can die very easily in that area if they aren't careful. I might also note that the drop rate of that card is 0.01%. I'm confused on why you complain about balancing issues of such rare items. Usually in a highly populated server, there's not even that many MVP cards floating around at all unless it's a really high rate server.
I might also mention that Frenzy reduces your def, mdef, and flee to 0.
I would understand your argument if this kind of gear was common, but the fact is that this gear is extremely hard to get a hold of. Even in the official servers of RO, there's usually only anywhere between 1~10 copies of such a rare item floating around, and you can bet they're worth hundreds of millions.
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And then there's the fact that private servers exist.
There are various private servers where drop rates are jacked up to make it a 100% rare item/card drop.
Others have malls installed where almost every damn item can be bought if you have the Zenny for it, and though MVP cards may or may not be present, these servers also tend to have events where MVP cards can be obtained easily - I've gotten Valkyrie Randgris cards, Turtle General cards and the like on such servers >_>
These servers also tend to have high level caps, which make skill far more necessary than gear set-up (though the gear set-up helps a bit). In a server where every damn player is Lv500 (because the exp rate is like 9m/9m/10k or something) you need to be able to hold your own and having a shoddy skillset alongside decent gear isn't going to do jack shit.
Even in the official servers of RO, there's usually only anywhere between 1~10 copies of such a rare item floating around, and you can bet they're worth hundreds of millions.
You mean only in official servers of RO. Nobody plays in private servers that don't change the drop rate, and I doubt any of those exist anyway - the lowest rate server I've played at least boasted a 10% card drop rate for normal mobs and a 0.1% card drop rate for MVPs.
my complaint is that MMOs don't reward skill more than playtime. Which causes that issue (losing to people who've merely played the game for more time and had been given and helped by material advantages). And tell me, how can one expect to catch up with someone else who've played longer, if that person can just keep playing as much as you? And, how isn't this reduced to a contest of who has grinded more for levels/equips/items?
This is false. Haven't you read a word AlexX said? You need a combination of both knowledge of how your skills work, when to use them, the proper timing, appropriate counters for other classes, and such in order for you to stand your ground against even opponents of an EQUAL level. That's not how MMORPGs are supposed to work.
I'll cite a browser MMORPG I've been playing since earlier this year, where levels really do not matter at all, but rather, knowing how the game works and having the appropriate measures to defeating your opponents:
http://www.estiah.com/character/combat/replay/id/10356504/owner/33693
(Xmoonstar [Lv30] vs Fenelia me [Lv20])
This was a battle that took place when my character Fenelia was only Lv20, and just class changed to the first tier (Recruit). Fenelia only had 280 HP, and the attacker, "Xmoonstar," had a 121 HP advantage, a 10 level advantage (meaning access to more gear). Ignore the spirit advantage, that does not matter in this battle - I still won on the defense because the attacker seemed to have no idea what he was doing. He still uses low-level gear, he has no deck synergy, and he has none of the major important charms to be obtained in the 20s, such as Night Cloaks (Extra Action, +5 to melee ongoing, lose 5 life).
9
Xmoonstar88 uses [Duelist Sprite Invocation]
Xmoonstar88 summons a Sprite
Sprite shoots a water bolt, Fenelia takes 6 magic damage
10
Fenelia uses [Warrior's Earth Staff]
Xmoonstar88 takes 78 magic damage
Xmoonstar88 takes 8 melee damage
11
Xmoonstar88 uses [Greater Lightning Scroll]
Fenelia takes 13 magic damage
Sprite shoots a water bolt, Fenelia takes 6 magic damage
12
Fenelia uses [Mud Splash]
Xmoonstar88 takes 25 melee damage
Xmoonstar88 takes 8 magic damage
** Battle status **
Xmoonstar88 : 277/401 HP, 0 Armor, 0 Ward, 3 Willpower, 28/34 Charm(s) left
Fenelia : 255/280 HP, 0 Armor, 0 Ward, 0 Willpower, 29/35 Charm(s) left
In about 2 rounds I already shaved off 130 HP off my opponent (the previous rounds were spent setting up my method of attack - high damage burst), whereas I only lost around 25. My opponent essentially only did around 20% of my total damage despite being 10 levels higher and having far more HP than I did. Hell, the game even REWARDS you with being able to defeat opponents of a higher level than you.
that doesn't happen in competitive single-player/2-player games, either. Someone who excels at various games often will be defeated by specialists in a game, who've focused in improving in said game more (this can be sometimes said for game characters!). You may also notice that in these games, playtime is a consequence, how well you play is what really matters. No need for lvl. 60 Chun Lis here.
It doesn't happen in competitive games because it's not supposed to. An MMORPG that introduces factors or is rebalanced so someone who is completely new can take out a so-called specialist is bullshit and shouldn't be played, because that goes against how PvP should work. Highly skilled players of a high level should be encouraged to take on those who are better than them in skill, but lower leveled players shouldn't be given BENEFITS just because they're NEW. If they want to excel at a low level, they have to work for it and conduct research on how the game works. I know that's what I did
http://www.estiah.com/pvp/coliseum/tournament/id/51975
http://www.estiah.com/character/combat/replay/coliseum/51975/id/363825
(Fenelia me [Lv26, L] vs Bateau [Lv26, W])
Yeah, the fighters are at an equal level, but you have to note that there are many different strategies to employ in any PvP scene. Notice that earlier I did a burst damage approach, here I tried to tank and exhaust the opponent - I lost, but that proves that knowing the game well is a huge advantage over just having high levels and having an HP advantage.
Of course, knowing tactics is important, the wood doesn't defend itself [/Bruce Lee]. But, if you were ever to almost defeat someone, and then get defeated not because of the opponent's merit, but because of levels/equipments, wouldn't it be frustrating? Like, I'm new at this school, and physically just as capable as the other dude who has some years here. Then, we somehow get to fight, or he chases me for some weird reason. But wait! He brought his friends with him! Now.. how do we know how well that person would do, if he didn't have said friends? We won't know. He will likely say that he "fought better", or at least admit that he's not so sure about it. (he may even be right, who knows?)
This pisses me off so much because there are only a few isolated cases of MMORPGs where people can gang up on you - RO is one of them, so you chose like one of the worst examples to defend your case. Most PvP systems feature a fair 1v1 or a team-based system. Arad Senki/Dungeon Fighter Online/DNF is one of them. In PvP, you can either have a team battle or single combat. Gear for certain classes here is important, but not as important as knowing which skills have priority, which skills have wonky hitboxes, the appropriate spacing for your skills not to whiff, zoning, placement, etc. There's NEVER an instance where an opponent wins not of his own merit - there are VERY FEW high level players who do not know what they are doing - they got to that level, WITH that high gear, for a good reason - because they exerted effort into doing it. That's how MMORPGs work because you aren't the only player playing the damn game. Of course there's going to be a skill gap, but the skill gap between two individuals playing WILL ALWAYS NARROW, it's just that since there are SO MANY PLAYERS, you are making a gross generalization of the genre.
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"Skill" in any game is 95% playing the game a lot and understanding the system, 4% luck, 1% "reflexes".
You can't tell me that just by playing other RPGs you could pick up a random RPG and be able to beat shit at a very low level, or innately knowing the tricks and how the system works. There is very little knowledge that carries over from game to game. Even between FPSes, the epitome of execution and reflex-based game play, very few skills and knowledge transfer between games. While you may be able to pick up things faster in TF2 if you were a pro Quake player you're not going to be as good as another pro Quake who's played the game for a while. A person who plays more is going to beat someone who's just casual or just picked up the game, 99% of the time, in ANY game.
BTW it's how it works in real life. Someone who's done a task more times generally has more skill and is better than someone who's just starting to do something or may only do it occasionally. Most of our reflexes and skills are not innate, they are trained. Stuff like muscle memory, or intuition, are all based on either repeating a certain set of steps over and over, or based on recognizing similar situations and resolutions and being able to deduct approaches from it.
And you complain about level disparities and bring up a random ass gamesutra quote to back your statements up. Guess what, 99% of people who PvP on MMOs, do it at level cap, they don't do it at level 10. And even then most games have tiers so a 90 can't stomp on a 2, and in well designed games the gaps between levels aren't that big. Look at EVE, yes someone who started the game before you is going to be more efficient and have better stats for their build than you, but we're talking a 5-10% difference at most, which can generally be overcome with better tactics or gearing or ship outfits. And in Warhammer Online they actually buff your stats and skills in PvP to be equivalent to a middle-ranged level in each tier. Only thing you lose is you don't have the wider skill selections, but the skills you have still hit as hard as someone of that level.
Is it not an even playing field? Yeah, but so what? You're going to lose to someone who's played more even if everything else was equal simply because they are more familiar to the system and the quirks and exploits.
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I'm not sure why the pro-mmo crowd is offended by the skill debate compared to some of the other things said myself. While it's difficult to say just how much skill matters in mmos over other games, I have to admit that "general gaming skills" seem to matter less in an MMO than they do in most action-focused games. Of course as MMOs evolve, they are slowly becoming more action-oriented themselves I find. I agree with Shadowbringer in his opinion that MMOS favor playtime more than they do skill. While that might be true for many games that aren't MMO based, I have to say I agree that your average has the scales weighted towards playtime versus skill more than most offline games. It's simply a matter of personal taste in my opinion if you like it balanced that way or not. I personally like it either way.
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If someone has just grinded themselves to the level cap and economy'd themselves the best equipment it won't matter if they don't know how to properly use high-level skills.
a high-leveled character is expected to play just as well as you, at least, if he/she is to be taken seriously. If said high-leveled player doesn't know how to use his/her skills, then it's not you who earned a hard victory, it's the opponent that played terribly, so terribly that even with advantages he/she wasn't able to win, what to say if he/she played with equal conditions?
So, if a high-leveled character is expected to play just as well as you, he/she will be able to make proper use of any advantages he/she may have. The more advantages, the more chances he/she has to come out victorious.
Again, this applies to MMOs. Its not just levelling, its proper stat and skill distribution. If you don't know the optimal ways to fight you'll just fall behind, even if you're at the level cap
consider that you'll be fighting others that do know said optimal ways to fight, and as I mentioned before, if they do play well enough, they'll learn to use their advantages (given by lead in playtime) against you, if they have them. Bad selection of character skills and equipment sets shouldn't be considered here, if they play as well as you (if they don't, let's disregard them. It's no achievement to use them as a measure of improvement), they'll probably take some time to adapt themselves to your gameplay, and likely not fall for the same mistakes twice.
Which MMO are we talking, here? Obviously there are some MMOs better at balancing their equipment than others, but either way, the thing about rare items is that its not just high-levels that can get them. It's indiscriminate in that way, which can be a good or bad thing, but it doesn't favor anyone in particular.
if you spend time trying to get these rare/overupgraded items (overupgraded items aren't necessarily rare, but they're hoarded and then upgraded past their safe limits), that would be an advantage; for rare items, spending time trying to obtain them increases the chances of obtaining them.
Define "underlevelled". That is, how big a level gap before it starts making a difference? Also, does the game force you to PvP or is it optional?
underleveled would be the case when you encounter an opponent that has more levels (and more importantly, better equipments, but I didn't express myself clearly enough) than you.
Guild vs. Guild (War of Emperiums in RO, Castle Sieges in L2..) events are as optional as PvPing/raiding. In Lineage 2, PvP is enabled in PvE environments (it's possible to kill someone who doesn't want to fight you, but there are penalties to it, namely, the Karma system), and there's a PvP arena, besides Duel commands and Party Duel commands.
I'm not understanding this... You mean you're winning and then just suddenly lose? Or that the opponent has friends that help gang up on you?
friends ganging up on you.
(note, that the equipment/playtime doesn't even matter if the player is that bad).
Wait, weren't you arguing that it does?
they do matter, if the player knows how to use their advantages to his/her favor, as mentioned before in this post.
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I'm not sure why the pro-mmo crowd is offended by the skill debate compared to some of the other things said myself.
I'm more offended that the "fair" advocates expect that every damn thing in an MMORPG has to be biased to the newer players. If the newer players are willing to learn the ropes and there are nice high-levels willing to mentor them, that's a fair enough advantage for them. The game shouldn't have to bend over to appease them.
a high-leveled character is expected to play just as well as you, at least, if he/she is to be taken seriously. If said high-leveled player doesn't know how to use his/her skills, then it's not you who earned a hard victory, it's the opponent that played terribly, so terribly that even with advantages he/she wasn't able to win, what to say if he/she played with equal conditions?
So, if a high-leveled character is expected to play just as well as you, he/she will be able to make proper use of any advantages he/she may have. The more advantages, the more chances he/she has to come out victorious.
Why does the focus always have to be the high-level player? In a high-level metagame, even "average"-level equipment and gear are considered bad, so it could be that the said high-level character had decent gear for his level and thus HAS the advantage of better gear, and has barebones knowledge of his skills for PvP and PvE. Even with the gear and HP advantage, a low level player who IS a specialist can easily take over and defeat a high level player.
http://www.estiah.com/character/combat/replay/id/13437545/owner/45687
(Graybutcher [L14, L] vs Kuonhime me [L11, W])
Okay so this replay cheats because the low level HAS MORE HP THAN THE ONE WITH THE LEVEL ADVANTAGE, but that proves my point even more: Knowing the game can easily give lower level a chance against higher level players.
consider that you'll be fighting others that do know said optimal ways to fight, and as I mentioned before, if they do play well enough, they'll learn to use their advantages (given by lead in playtime) against you, if they have them. Bad selection of character skills and equipment sets shouldn't be considered here, if they play as well as you (if they don't, let's disregard them. It's no achievement to use them as a measure of improvement), they'll probably take some time to adapt themselves to your gameplay, and likely not fall for the same mistakes twice.
So why don't you adapt too?
if you spend time trying to get these rare/overupgraded items (overupgraded items aren't necessarily rare, but they're hoarded and then upgraded past their safe limits), that would be an advantage; for rare items, spending time trying to obtain them increases the chances of obtaining them.
There are rare/overupgraded items for nearly every level range anyway, and some games allow enchanting of these gears to compliment a given strategy.
underleveled would be the case when you encounter an opponent that has more levels (and more importantly, better equipments, but I didn't express myself clearly enough) than you.
Guild vs. Guild (War of Emperiums in RO, Castle Sieges in L2..) events are as optional as PvPing/raiding. In Lineage 2, PvP is enabled in PvE environments (it's possible to kill someone who doesn't want to fight you, but there are penalties to it, namely, the Karma system), and there's a PvP arena, besides Duel commands and Party Duel commands.
You're describing that a level gap is present, but you don't at all state how many levels the gap is big in order for it to make a significant difference. Check the replays I posted earlier, one had a 3 level gap, the other had a whopping 10 level gap - I still won both of them.
friends ganging up on you.
Give me a list of 10 MMORPGs that allow this and I'll concede this point.
they do matter, if the player knows how to use their advantages to his/her favor, as mentioned before in this post.
If a player knows how to use what they've got to his or her favor then it doesn't really matter how long they've played. Much knowledge can be learned prior to playing the game. Actually actuating this knowledge is a different story altogether, but I hope you can extract the message from this.
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I'm not sure why the pro-mmo crowd is offended by the skill debate compared to some of the other things said myself.
I'm not so much offended as much pissed that they aren't even listening.
1. They apparently want to join in on the game and be able to tackle people who have already been playing for 2 months. We explain that its only natural someone will lose to someone who knows the game better, but they insist learning the game doesn't matter, because apparently those two months are that big an advantage and that the gap between you can never, ever close. Even though Trance has even posted proof lower-levels can still win with good strategy.
2. I explain that proper use of skills is vital, otherwise someone just sitting there and spamming use of their rare weapon will just find themselves kissing the floor. They don't listen and continue to insist that all that matters is how long you've been playing and that skill is meaningless (again, contradicted by Trance's examples).
3. When I ask for more information to understand their point of view...
Define "underlevelled". That is, how big a level gap before it starts making a difference?
underleveled would be the case when you encounter an opponent that has more levels (and more importantly, better equipments, but I didn't express myself clearly enough) than you.
They completely dodge my questions.
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There isn't obviously only one RPG, there are tons of them and every single one plays in a different way....that means, one is slightly more skill based, another is a korean grindfest and the last one is extremely luck based.
You can't counter arguments like "it's a grindfest lol" with "but this mmo isn't"Even though Trance has even posted proof lower-levels can still win with good strategy.
Like this. Turn based MMOs obviously play differently than real time skillspams.
....this thread is going nowhere :V
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Stuff.
Nobody is denying you have to have a taste for them. =V
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....this thread is going nowhere :V
Then stop being stubborn and stop saying we have no lives and we're wasting our money just because we enjoy playing MMORPGs.
For the record, I've never spent any money on any MMORPG and I have a perfectly normal social life. Hell, I'm only playing Arad Senki because my IRL friend asked me to :V
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Then stop being stubborn and stop saying we have no lives and we're wasting our money just because we enjoy playing MMORPGs.
....I've never said that :x
I've already said like 10 times that I find it a waste of time and money, but it might be different for others which actually enjoy it :V
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many stuff going on here, I think I won't have the time to post a proper response to each of the newer posts before new ones come out.
- Yoshi:
having an overupgraded set (with overupgraded optional equipments) does help noticeably, not just the two more Def from a +7 Padded Armor (each defense upgrade being worth 2/3 Def, which reduces melee damage by (100-Def)% ) compared to the +4 of its safe limit, unless you're fighting other people who aren't using overupgraded equipments (and are at a similar level range) as well.
I didn't do WoEs at such early levels, nor did I expect to be much useful at 70 or even 80, since my abilities to produce the desired basic stuff (gears, cards, minerals for upgrading, money income for overupgrades and gears/cards sold by other people for me to try more overupgrades) aren't as effective until then (plus, a wizard needs more HP and Dex for WoEs -- you may have heard, "a fast wizard is one who raises Dex last"). Again, when your basic gears are done, then you'll move on to overupgrading (occasionally shifting your goals to something else that may be more urgent at that time, like new equipments, opportunities to earn money from server events, etc.), and be competing against others who are also overupgrading and know how to hold their advantages.
One reason why I don't care for PvPing in the arenas in RO, and care more for WoEs, is that PvPing doesn't give any benefit like WoEs do, and they waste resources (pots/equipment repairs) that I didn't need to spend. But I sometimes did use the PvP rooms for experimenting and damage testing (even though there's a site that explains the math behind damage calculation). (sometimes, though, I would help my guild mates or friends outside of them to do party pvp, like some sort of practice for WoEs).
Wizards/High Wizards aren't expected to have good chances against Sages/Scholars, and other classes as well, but I believed that the classes were more well balanced towards WoEs, which involve team play, so I didn't bother.
About the rare equipments, people may think that they're so hard to find that they shouldn't be something to be worried about. But then you see some really old players having slotted sunglasses, which are the only equipment that's used in the middle head slot that can contain a headgear card, and aren't obtainable anymore since long. There are people who have two Megingjards (+40 Str each) on their characters in iRO, people who've made damage experiments with two Brisingamens (+6 Int each) in the PvP room (with unrealistical setups/situations, they could pull over 200k damage on one experiment, then over 300k on an improved one, just for those who might be curious on how it went), and people who prove, in practice, that Martyr's Reckoning's (a Paladin skill) Attack Speed isn't improved by Doppelganger card. And then, people who spend Mistress Cards on Helms. (note: Megingjards and Brisingamens are items that can only be obtained by guild masters that have castles, these items are very sought, and obtaining one of them restarts the cycle of "seals" that need to be undone by hundreds of players (server-wide) in order to try to assemble another of these items. Funny thing, is that Assassins will try to create new Assassin characters and bring them to level 70 in order to be able to repeat the 4th seal quest and be rewarded with a rare and useful item, the Ice Pick knife)
Frenzy also removes the ability to use consumables, change equipments during battle and mutes you (among other things), but increases the movement speed. Was you Dispelled by a Sage/Scholar, and had your HP/MP reduced to almost nothing? Use some MP (SP) pots quickly and then reactivate that skill before being hit again (or HP pots, if you deem appropriate and feel that you've drawn too much enemy attention towards yourself). It can be a lifesaver, and has potential for recalling (summoning, teleporting) guild members, or piercing a precast/taking out certain classes (for example, Lord Knights are said to go after enemy Scholars first).
more to come later.
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Stuff
Well, the fact people are using the worst possible examples doesn't really help things...
There's good and bad MMOs just like there's good and bad any other genre in the universe, so we try to bring up more reasonable examples. Yeah, you need a certain taste for them, but that doesn't change that you wouldn't rate a whole genre based on the worst possible example, would you?
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Signum-Hime:
I've never played at such a high-rate server, the highest I've played was 30x/30x/20x (and the lowest p. servers being 3/3/2 or 5/5/2), I think (there, I once asked my friend/guild mate to forge a Wind Damascus for my OverCharge/DisCount merchant, and returned him a Marc Card, while keeping another for myself). Don't know how balanced the classes are, at servers where the level/attribute cap are higher. But, if they're indeed balanced, and the equipments are relatively easier to be obtained/hoarded/overupgraded (so to diminish the difference of advantage between both player's equipments), that's nice. (for RO, at least, because L2 has a higher default overupgrade cap.. haven't played a high-rate L2 myself, either)
This is false. Haven't you read a word AlexX said? You need a combination of both knowledge of how your skills work, when to use them, the proper timing, appropriate counters for other classes, and such in order for you to stand your ground against even opponents of an EQUAL level. That's not how MMORPGs are supposed to work.
for the opponents I'm speaking of, knowledge of how skills work, when to use them, the proper timing, appropriate counters for other classes (and other stuff, like knowledge of teamwork, strategies, adaptability, fast reactions), are all givens. I was, for quite a long time in this thread, assuming that I would be facing opponents that possess these virtues and know how to use their advantages (given by lead in playtime), and don't let something like the first match you've posted here happen (that is, why have an advantage if you don't even know how to use it?).
So, the better the play level of both players, the more difference the level/equipment gap makes. Perhaps some people here may have heard of character tiers (in fighting games) before, and may have read that these "tiers" don't matter, because they know (or even are) examples of someone winning with "weaker" characters. But these people need to know that said tier-lists/matchup charts are made from tournament environments, where the participants can bring out most of their characters' potentials. Something that the examples you gave didn't do.
(note: in competitive fighting games that give equal resources to both players, if one character has a certain advantage over the other, and both players are highly skilled, every subtle difference, like how good a move is against the opponent's character, becomes more and more relevant. And then, you transfer this situation into MMOGs. The subtle differences now will become a hopeless one, I'll say again, if the opponent is skilled enough. And that difference doesn't involve pure skill, it involves mostly playtime, and most MMOGs were made that way, among other reasons, to reward players who keep playing the game.)
As for a game rewarding players that are able to defeat higher-leveled characters, I highly doubt that these rewards are better than being higher-leveled. Let's see Lineage 2's example. The game has a Karma system that gives Karma points to people to kill other players that don't fight back, and haven't attacked someone else recently. Killing someone who has less levels than you will make you gain more karma points, in order to avoid having relatively strong players keeping other players from leveling up. So, what's more beneficial to your character? To try to defeat higher-leveled characters in PvP (being that this won't happen much often), or to use your higher-leveled character to generate equipments, perform raids, Castle Sieges and do similar tasks in favor of your guild/alliance, and ultimately, to yourself, giving you more equipments and thus increasing your chances against other PvPers (L2 in particular has PvP enabled in PvE environments)? If skill is the single most important factor for winning in these games, why do top players work so hard and spend so much time to increase their chances, by gathering resources? Because they don't make a difference?
It doesn't happen in competitive games because it's not supposed to. An MMORPG that introduces factors or is rebalanced so someone who is completely new can take out a so-called specialist is bullshit and shouldn't be played, because that goes against how PvP should work.
are you saying that single-player/2-player games are rebalanced so someone completely new can take out a so-called specialist?
Highly skilled players of a high level should be encouraged to take on those who are better than them in skill, but lower leveled players shouldn't be given BENEFITS just because they're NEW. If they want to excel at a low level, they have to work for it and conduct research on how the game works. I know that's what I did
single-player/2-player games don't receive benefits, either. That would be like, setting a game's handicap so that the beginner's character deals more damage than the more experienced player. This doesn't happen, and the more experienced players don't need to set the handicap to make their characters do more damage, either.
Also, I wonder why do you assume that I was a low level-user, and that my problems are pertaining to that level range. Do you not consider the possibility that I may be a (relatively) experienced MMORPG player that gets to fight people (in GvG) who grinds the game for lots of hours per day, whenever possible? (and I was a level-capped character, several times across different servers, and kept playing. Oops, I'm bragging about my playtime. D: )
This pisses me off so much because there are only a few isolated cases of MMORPGs where people can gang up on you - RO is one of them, so you chose like one of the worst examples to defend your case. Most PvP systems feature a fair 1v1 or a team-based system. Arad Senki/Dungeon Fighter Online/DNF is one of them. In PvP, you can either have a team battle or single combat.
if I knew that people would take my words literally, I wouldn't use such metaphors. The "friends" I've mentioned are actually equipments/level lead. That should confirm that I'm not very good at exposing my thoughts. That metaphor could be remade, so that the friends get replaced by weapons/guns. Being beaten by someone wielding them (and you can't escape, for some reason), when you don't have the same option of choosing a weapon that suits you accordingly, doesn't look fair.
Gear for certain classes here is important, but not as important as knowing which skills have priority, which skills have wonky hitboxes, the appropriate spacing for your skills not to whiff, zoning, placement, etc. There's NEVER an instance where an opponent wins not of his own merit - there are VERY FEW high level players who do not know what they are doing - they got to that level, WITH that high gear, for a good reason - because they exerted effort into doing it. That's how MMORPGs work because you aren't the only player playing the damn game. Of course there's going to be a skill gap, but the skill gap between two individuals playing WILL ALWAYS NARROW, it's just that since there are SO MANY PLAYERS, you are making a gross generalization of the genre.
It seems you're associating levels/equipments with a player's skills. That could be true, if the game in question only allows you to gain items by purchasing them, and only offers PvP as the means to earn money, but even then, the advantage of better equipments/levels shouldn't be needed, if that player plays better. But said advantage can save the life of someone who plays slightly (emphasis on slightly) worse than you. It will certainly help an opponent who plays as well as you.
I have no problems with skill gap.
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Not going to add a lot to this...
What is the point of an RPG if the main aspect of it (Leveling up, collecting increasingly powerful loot, etc) is completely removed when you go into Multiplayer/PvP/GvG?
There are MMO games that are 100% skill based.
There are single player games that are 100% skill based.
There are MMOs that are gear/level dependant.
There are single player games that are gear/level dependant.
Why don't you people compare apples to at least different kinds of apples? Don't compare SP fighting games to MP RPGs. Don't compare SP shooter games to MP stratagy games. :P
All games require skill. Period. There is NO game where skill can be eliminated as a factor unless it's something inane like rolling a die and seeing who rolled higher. WoW requires skill. DAoC requires skill. Guild Wars, Chapmions Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online. They ALL require skill. Skill, reflexes, game knowledge and time.
Just because a person with LESS skill, reflexes, game knowledge but more time can beat a person with more skill, reflexes and game knowledge but less time does not make the game unbalanced. The balance is when you add all FOUR components together and see which comes out on top.
This is not pong, for gods sake.
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Signum-Hime:
I've never played at such a high-rate server, the highest I've played was 30x/30x/20x (and the lowest p. servers being 3/3/2 or 5/5/2), I think (there, I once asked my friend/guild mate to forge a Wind Damascus for my OverCharge/DisCount merchant, and returned him a Marc Card, while keeping another for myself). Don't know how balanced the classes are, at servers where the level/attribute cap are higher. But, if they're indeed balanced, and the equipments are relatively easier to be obtained/hoarded/overupgraded (so to diminish the difference of advantage between both player's equipments), that's nice. (for RO, at least, because L2 has a higher default overupgrade cap.. haven't played a high-rate L2 myself, either)
The classes are unbalanced like you wouldn't believe, you literally have to give everyone super high levels and stats and all that shit to make it "fair"
for the opponents I'm speaking of, knowledge of how skills work, when to use them, the proper timing, appropriate counters for other classes (and other stuff, like knowledge of teamwork, strategies, adaptability, fast reactions), are all givens. I was, for quite a long time in this thread, assuming that I would be facing opponents that possess these virtues and know how to use their advantages (given by lead in playtime), and don't let something like the first match you've posted here happen (that is, why have an advantage if you don't even know how to use it?).
So, the better the play level of both players, the more difference the level/equipment gap makes. Perhaps some people here may have heard of character tiers (in fighting games) before, and may have read that these "tiers" don't matter, because they know (or even are) examples of someone winning with "weaker" characters. But these people need to know that said tier-lists/matchup charts are made from tournament environments, where the participants can bring out most of their characters' potentials. Something that the examples you gave didn't do.
(note: in competitive fighting games that give equal resources to both players, if one character has a certain advantage over the other, and both players are highly skilled, every subtle difference, like how good a move is against the opponent's character, becomes more and more relevant. And then, you transfer this situation into MMOGs. The subtle differences now will become a hopeless one, I'll say again, if the opponent is skilled enough. And that difference doesn't involve pure skill, it involves mostly playtime, and most MMOGs were made that way, among other reasons, to reward players who keep playing the game.)
I think the disparity comes from the fact single-player/2player games and MMORPGs are intrinsically different. You completely ignored the fact that because there are many players instead of just two in an MMORPG, and the fact that everyone is different, it is literally impossible for a fair environment to occur. You seem to be adamant in refusing to conceeding this point, and I will take it upon myself to drill it into your head until you understand
As for a game rewarding players that are able to defeat higher-leveled characters, I highly doubt that these rewards are better than being higher-leveled. Let's see Lineage 2's example. The game has a Karma system that gives Karma points to people to kill other players that don't fight back, and haven't attacked someone else recently. Killing someone who has less levels than you will make you gain more karma points, in order to avoid having relatively strong players keeping other players from leveling up. So, what's more beneficial to your character? To try to defeat higher-leveled characters in PvP (being that this won't happen much often), or to use your higher-leveled character to generate equipments, perform raids, Castle Sieges and do similar tasks in favor of your guild/alliance, and ultimately, to yourself, giving you more equipments and thus increasing your chances against other PvPers (L2 in particular has PvP enabled in PvE environments)? If skill is the single most important factor for winning in these games, why do top players work so hard and spend so much time to increase their chances, by gathering resources? Because they don't make a difference?
Goddamnit you are stubborn. This isn't about the rewards being better than being high leveled or some shit, it's the proof that there are games out there that encourage you to beat the "advantages" of the higher-level AND the fact that in some cases the level disparity doesn't exist. I was making a POINT.
are you saying that single-player/2-player games are rebalanced so someone completely new can take out a so-called specialist?
Even though no one in their right mind in a serious setting would use it...
HANDICAP SEZ HI
single-player/2-player games don't receive benefits, either. That would be like, setting a game's handicap so that the beginner's character deals more damage than the more experienced player. This doesn't happen, and the more experienced players don't need to set the handicap to make their characters do more damage, either.
This doesn't happen BUT IT EXISTS. And who the hell said it would be the experienced players making the handicap to make their characters /stronger/? Usually it's the experienced player making the handicap AGAINST their favor to give the newbie a chance. This has happened to me countless times.
Also, I wonder why do you assume that I was a low level-user, and that my problems are pertaining to that level range. Do you not consider the possibility that I may be a (relatively) experienced MMORPG player that gets to fight people (in GvG) who grinds the game for lots of hours per day, whenever possible? (and I was a level-capped character, several times across different servers, and kept playing. Oops, I'm bragging about my playtime. D: )
It seems you're associating levels/equipments with a player's skills. That could be true, if the game in question only allows you to gain items by purchasing them, and only offers PvP as the means to earn money, but even then, the advantage of better equipments/levels shouldn't be needed, if that player plays better. But said advantage can save the life of someone who plays slightly (emphasis on slightly) worse than you. It will certainly help an opponent who plays as well as you.
I have no problems with skill gap.
You may be an experienced player but you argue with the naivete of a newbie.
I daresay I have more experience than you, having played a ton MMORPGs in their originating servers, reaching level cap in many or reaching close to it in levels higher than 100 (I was 33x in MU).
Also, it doesn't require a lot of skill at all to be good at buying and selling things. That's something you should already know, and is not necessarily part of the game itself. Money hoarding is hardly considered a major skill. Money by only doing PvP? What kind of bullshit MMORPG does that? Not everybody is even into PvP, forcing players to do something like that won't attract any players to that MMORPG, so it's impossible to say whether such an example is going to help your case >_>
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AlexX:
1. They apparently want to join in on the game and be able to tackle people who have already been playing for 2 months.
Assuming that my complaints are due to me having just started a new character and/or having no grasp on the game's mechanics is a mistake. I do believe that most of the high-leveled players have developed their skills in their game, and that doesn't have a proportional relation to their playtime. Exactly because of their developed skill (not playtime), they wouldn't lose to newcomers, even if both players had the same resources, unless that the newcomer had indeed superior skills (unlikely, except that player is a pro at similar games -- but again, the most dedicated players would take the first place).
The problem is, in most MMOGs, playtime does give benefits to people who play more, and playing more doesn't necessarily mean playing better, having more skill (again, except on cases where actual PvP is the only source of character improvement). If players of most MMOGs rely that much in skill, I wonder what would keep them from playing single-player/2-player games and make them think that these games punish people who dedicate themselves more, and benefit new players by giving them *equal* resources.
We explain that its only natural someone will lose to someone who knows the game better
If my complaint was this, I wouldn't be playing single-player/2-player games.
You're denying, so far, the possibility of someone being saved by their better equipment/higher level, or someone being just as good as you, but defeating you because they have better equipment/higher levels.
but they insist learning the game doesn't matter, because apparently those two months are that big an advantage and that the gap between you can never, ever close.
Why do you have the idea that I'm saying all this because I didn't learn the game for quite a long time?
Why do you think that other players will always play less hours per day than you? Are you going to fight these people, or the ones that will spend more hours per day than you?
Also, the level gap may close at later levels, but that doesn't mean that the players will have equal conditions, much to the contrary. Like I said in earlier posts, the main problem later on is the equipments. There may be a level cap, but there won't be a limit to how well-equipped one can be. Those who value levels only, disregarding the importance of equipments, will someday change their minds.
Even though Trance has even posted proof lower-levels can still win with good strategy.
Sorry, that's not going to work that often against people who are similarly skilled, at least, and know to use their advantages to their favor. Think of the example, "a master with the rock defeats the novice with the sword, but doesn't defeat the master with the sword".
I explain that proper use of skills is vital
I explain that proper use of skills by top players is a given, it's just expected from them, not due to their playtime, but to them actually thinking about what matters more in their fights. Since they're fighting similarly skilled top players, they will either try to settle their scores with better equipment (for PvP and GvG), and having the proper classes to execute attack/defense strategies and having numerical advantage (for GvG). (particularly, I liked the strategic potential, but still felt like fighting the system, regarding other aspects)
otherwise someone just sitting there and spamming use of their rare weapon will just find themselves kissing the floor.
that would be another case of a high-leveled player that doesn't know how to use his/her advantages to his/her favor. Not the kind that I was looking for to fight against.
They don't listen and continue to insist that all that matters is how long you've been playing and that skill is meaningless (again, contradicted by Trance's examples).
I did say that playtime is the primary factor, but unfortunately had the skilled players in mind, not the ones that commit such critical mistakes as in former examples. So, once again I wasn't good enough at expressing my thoughts. Whatever, people think that it will be easy to overcome the difference in equipments, by playing better, by having more skill than the opponent (who will have a similar degree of skill, at least, if he/she is to be regarded as a worthy opponent). That's a mistake, to not give the proper importance to your own level/equipment (some friends of mine, for example, would know not to pick a fight with certain players, just by looking at their gears, without even having to lose to them once. This is so common knowledge, that lots of players often wear inferior gear as a disguise), and to underestimate the opponent's skill, putting him/her at the same level as the former defeated opponents.
They completely dodge my questions.
You didn't understand my metaphor about the dude at school, I could only expect you to not have understood what underleveled meant. As for that question (how large a gap between equipments/level can be, for me to consider them a significant difference), in the hands of the opponents I expect to play against, my build when I played last time..
= +8 Unfrozen Silk Robe (don't remember if I had a +7 Silk Robe of Zephyrus back then, and/or a +7 Aqua Silk Robe, I think that I didn't have them yet; that wasn't the only server I played, btw): Silk Robes give 3 base Def, each upgrade point gives 2/3 additional Def, each Def point reduces physical damage by (100-Def)%, and give 10 MDef (MDef can't be upgraded, and works similarly as Def, for magic). Unfrozen means that the character wearing it can't be frozen, and won't fall victim of bards' freezing songs or opposing wizards' freezing Area-of-effect spells; "of Zephyrus" means that the armor is imbued with wind element, thus making the user take 75% less damage from wind-element attacks, 50% less damage from water-element attacks, but 50% more damage from earth-element attacks. "Aqua" means that the armor is imbued with water element, making the user take 75% less damage from water-element attacks, 50% less damage from fire-element attacks, but 75% more damage from wind-element attacks.
= +8 Cranial Guard: Guards give 3 Def, Cranial means that this guard makes me take 30% less damage from human characters (PC or NPC)
= +9 Superior Shoes: Shoes give 2 Def, Superior means that these shoes will give me Str(enght) +2, and an additional bonus of HP/MP (SP, in RO) of 10% if the equipment is upgraded to +9 or +10
= +7 or +8 Apple of Archer/+4 Drooping Cat/+4 Erudite Circlet: Apple of Archer gives 0 Def and 3 Dex(terity), the more Dex, the faster I'll be able to cast a spell (but it doesn't reduce the cooldown). There's a headgear that gives 2 Dex and 2 base Def, but I normally use Drooping Cat, switching to AoA when I feel I'm relatively safe or need the additional Dex. Drooping Cat gives 1 Def, 15 MDef, 30% Curse resistance (Curse is a status effect that decreases your movespeed considerably, reduces your luck to 0 and your attack by 25%). Circlet gives 3 Def, 3 MDef; Erudite means that this headgear gives me +2 Int(elligence) (which increases max SP, minimum/maximum MAtk, SP recovery and Int MDef). So far, every upgradeable non-weapon equipment has a safe upgrade limit of 4 times.
=+8 Staff of Piercing/+10 Quadruple Dexterous Rod (lol @ useless +10)/+4 Swordbreaker/+4 Mailbreaker/+10 Quadruple Stun Rod: Staves of Piercing give 80 Atk (plus 5 per upgrade), +15% Matk, +4 Int, and ignore enemies' MDef by 10+<upgrade level> (in this case, 18%); Rods give 15 Atk (plus 2 per upgrade), and +15% Matk; Quadruple Dexterous means that 4 cards that give me +1 Dex each are installed on it. Swordbreaker is a knife that gives 70 Atk (plus 7 per upgrade), and has a chance to destroy the opponent's weapon, if it's destructable, and if it hasn't been protected by an Alchemist skill, Glistening Coat. It's possible for me to use this weapon from a distance, through a High Wizard skill (Magic Crasher) that allows me to physically attack someone from a 9 tile distance. Mail Breaker is another knife with the same properties of Sword Breaker, except it destroys the opponent's armor. These two knives could receive 3 slots, but I didn't try to, because the price and the success rate for slotting would be out of my current reach, and I didn't have the desired cards to use on them (the ones that increase the chance of weapon destruction), therefore making said slotting upgrade useless, if I don't have cards to use on them. Quadruple Stun Rods give me 20% chance to stun other characters upon physical hits. (I'd hate to have this being used on me, because the resistance card against Stun is too expensive)
= Vesper Core 01/Hiding Clip/Nimble Gloves: Vesper Core 01 gives 1 Def, 3 MDef, Int +2, Max SP +5%; Clip gives 10 SP, and is a common item, meant mostly to contain Accessory cards. Hiding means that the user has a Thief skill, Hiding, which makes the user bury himself/herself in the ground and cancel out non-Earth skills. Hidden users can be hit through Earth skills (for single-target skills, they need to be targettable, though), can't use skills or attack, can't use pots iirc, can be revealed through a variety of skills (Ruwach, Magnum Breaker, Sight, Improve Concentration, Detect), and can be seen by players wearing a headgear with the Maya Purple card. Slotted Gloves give 1 Dex (while unslotted ones give 2), Nimble means that they're combined with a card that gives me 3 Dex.
There may be some stuff that I'm missing, but that would be an above-average equipment. It would make me resist quite well against Hunters (bow users) and some melee classes that are average-leveled/geared, but will not fare well against Mastersmiths (they have strong, spammable physical damage skills that cost them money), Assassin Crosses (they have either a skill that increases their melee damage to 400%, Enchant Deadly Poison, which normally is used against Wizards through another skill, Grimtooth, a targeted ranged attack (with splash damage) that an Assassin can use through the invisibility of his Cloak skill; either this, or another ranged skill, Soul Destroyer, which uses both Atk and MAtk, that can also be used from his Cloak skill) and most Snipers (Hunters with higher damage, due to them having more Dex). Wizards are usually a target, they're more useful in large numbers, since magical damage is reduced by 40% in WoEs (War of Emperiums). Still, I would do well against average-leveled/equipped players, and be sure to meet death against certain players (none of them being wizards/High Wizards), even with that equipment. Perhaps me being a wizard (like I mentioned, a target. Some would say, "glass slingshot" class) also helps this. (however, it was so.. nice.. when I was properly protected, through a Crusader/Paladin skill, Devotion, which transfers my received damage to the Crusader/Paladin, as long as we're close enough to each other, and I'm not Dispelled by a Sage/Scholar)
I would've moved on to other, new equipments, but, most of my IRL friends have stopped playing, everyone was also getting tired of remaking their characters, even with the presence of some long-time competitors/partners.
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What is the point of an RPG if the main aspect of it (Leveling up, collecting increasingly powerful loot, etc) is completely removed when you go into Multiplayer/PvP/GvG?
sounds like some sort of necessary evil (that is, to be able to improve your character, yet allow others to fight themselves with the improvements they've obtained so far).
There are MMO games that are 100% skill based.
if that's so, then, I'll have no objections. It might be possible, due to the amount of free MMOGs that were shown on the link that PrismYoshi posted.
Just because a person with LESS skill, reflexes, game knowledge but more time can beat a person with more skill, reflexes and game knowledge but less time does not make the game unbalanced. The balance is when you add all FOUR components together and see which comes out on top.
interesting point of view, I wouldn't have seen things that way by myself, considering that, besides playing MMOGs, I also enjoyed playing fighting games as a hobby. There was much fun into employing your virtues in fighting games and talking about the matches, and the new games, combo discoveries and tactics (though I myself cared most for developing my patience and defense, because I still have difficulties in performing complex combos, so, I worked on creating more attack opportunities). Some of the people who got me to play MMORPGs/MMOGs also played these games, as well.
Perhaps if I had a different mindset, or gaming background, I wouldn't be as obsessed with testing myself, perhaps I wouldn't be as competitive, and not aggravate myself with PvP/GvG. Our guild had friends that followed the Take It Easy view, and we wouldn't ever try to remove them, because we valued their friendship over the game.
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Perhaps if I had a different mindset, or gaming background, I wouldn't be as obsessed with testing myself, perhaps I wouldn't be as competitive, and not aggravate myself with PvP/GvG. Our guild had friends that followed the Take It Easy view, and we wouldn't ever try to remove them, because we valued their friendship over the game.
I can play and enjoy fighting games, and I have played against one of the best US Guilty Gear players in the nation. (AKA if anyone knows him).
I can play RTS games with a race vs race (Zerg vs Zerg or Protoss vs Protoss) and enjoy it.
I can ALSO play RPGs and fully enjoy them even when a person who's played some number of hours and has better gear than me whoops my ass. It just drives me to get bigger and stronger via either time or resources.
All things said, regardless if you are a "Games must be 100% perfectly balanced and fair" or a "Time is a viable aspect of games that should give tangible bonuses" player, we all play games for either fun, challenge or both. Let's all agree to disagree on how we have our fun, and get back to having our fun, yes? :)
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I haven't read the whole discussion here so I won't join in.
So I'll just write about my experiences.
I've also been addicted to MapleStory for a few years, playing almost everyday until I reached lv100 where I stopped for a few months. I played it again few months later and got to lv108 before I stopped playing it for a few weeks due to exams.
Somehow, I never got the motivation to play again afterwards. Maybe it was the feeling of relief not having to grind at gobies for an hour per day before doing anything else.
That was how I never wanted to play a MMO involving grinding and level up only. :V
I enjoyed playing Kart Rider as well, but now, if I play it, I'd only try out the new tracks with my friend in a private room or something.
The reason is, Kart Rider has different tiers of karts, and the really high tier ones cost real money, and the high tier ones have way too much advantage over the lower ones.
It is not just the speed, but it makes all kinds of different drifting tricks and controling the kart easier to do.
I just couldn't stand losing to someone just because they have a better kart, it's kind of frustrating.
I'm not refusing to play online though, it depends on what kind of game it is.
MapleStory is actually pretty fun when you're not trying to level up though.
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I am getting sick and tired of this because my posts are either misinterpreted or completely disregarded, so I'm going to kindly bow out of this once I've made my final point, because this is a battle that I cannot win, for my patience runs thin.
You're denying, so far, the possibility of someone being saved by their better equipment/higher level, or someone being just as good as you, but defeating you because they have better equipment/higher levels.
Why do you have the idea that I'm saying all this because I didn't learn the game for quite a long time?
Why do you think that other players will always play less hours per day than you? Are you going to fight these people, or the ones that will spend more hours per day than you?
Also, the level gap may close at later levels, but that doesn't mean that the players will have equal conditions, much to the contrary. Like I said in earlier posts, the main problem later on is the equipments. There may be a level cap, but there won't be a limit to how well-equipped one can be. Those who value levels only, disregarding the importance of equipments, will someday change their minds.
I explain that proper use of skills by top players is a given, it's just expected from them, not due to their playtime, but to them actually thinking about what matters more in their fights. Since they're fighting similarly skilled top players, they will either try to settle their scores with better equipment (for PvP and GvG), and having the proper classes to execute attack/defense strategies and having numerical advantage (for GvG). (particularly, I liked the strategic potential, but still felt like fighting the system, regarding other aspects)
that would be another case of a high-leveled player that doesn't know how to use his/her advantages to his/her favor. Not the kind that I was looking for to fight against.
I did say that playtime is the primary factor, but unfortunately had the skilled players in mind, not the ones that commit such critical mistakes as in former examples. So, once again I wasn't good enough at expressing my thoughts. Whatever, people think that it will be easy to overcome the difference in equipments, by playing better, by having more skill than the opponent (who will have a similar degree of skill, at least, if he/she is to be regarded as a worthy opponent). That's a mistake, to not give the proper importance to your own level/equipment (some friends of mine, for example, would know not to pick a fight with certain players, just by looking at their gears, without even having to lose to them once. This is so common knowledge, that lots of players often wear inferior gear as a disguise), and to underestimate the opponent's skill, putting him/her at the same level as the former defeated opponents.
Please state where I have "denied" the possibility of good gear saving a high-leveled player.
I bet you can't.
Because I didn't.
YOU keep denying the possibility that there are just a bunch of idiots who can't use their advantages and keep using the excuse "but those aren't the guys I'm looking for!" Well, deal with it, because those players exist and will continue to exist for as long as MMORPGs exist. You cannot rule them out of the equation until such players become a hypothetical. I have never even questioned the idea that equipment was a bogus factor, I am merely defending the idea that playtime isn't the only goddamn factor into deciding who is a good player and who is not.
Furthermore, with the whole "a master with the rock defeats the novice with the sword, but doesn't defeat the master with the sword" deal, you're doing it wrong. That analogy falls because most equally skilled players, when pitted against each other, will likely beat each other with a counter-strategy rather than merely just improved gear. In a rapidly growing PvP metagame, classes tend to have blanket strategies they use to defeat other players. When these blanket strategies are analyzed by similarly skilled players, these players develop counters to easily break through the plan and overcome the opponent. The equipment is just to add insult to injury, as I've seen a billion RO PvP matches where someone with inferior gear beats someone with improved gear because he uses a counter strategy, furthermore, they're equally skilled and at an equal level. Now, that's not to say that higher level equipment is bogus, 'cause it isn't, but I'm trying to make the point that IT ISN'T THE ONLY FUCKING FACTOR YOU INCLUDE INTO THIS.
And now I'm done. I'm sick of this. I don't want to be labelled as someone with no life or someone who wastes money just because I enjoy MMORPGs. Leave me alone. :|
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This is a pretty stupid thread. Who cares who plays what? Jesus Christ.
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Trance pretty much said whats on my mind right now, so I'll just respond to this:
You didn't understand my metaphor about the dude at school, I could only expect you to not have understood what underleveled meant.
Except I didn't ask what underlevelled meant. In fact...
Define "underlevelled". That is, how big a level gap before it starts making a difference?
I specified exactly what I wanted to know, but you didn't seem to bother noticing that despite having the exact same quote given to you a second time.
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This is a pretty stupid thread. Who cares who plays what? Jesus Christ.
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while I was reading through the thread again, to see how it ended up in such a conflict, I came to the conclusion that, given our different gaming backgrounds (I've spent a lot of time in few MMORPGs, but committed myself to play some of them well, if I were to spend that much time back then; you may have played other MMORPGs and distributed more/less/the same amount of effort/research on them) and acquired knowledge/experience, we might come to different conclusions, and might believe in our previous experiences more than in the words of someone else. So, I'll respect your standards of fun. (and will try to not get somewhat aggravated by hearing/reading that competitive single-player/2-player games aren't as interesting, or even as challenging. Said aggravation coming from the fun in higher-level play in these competitive single-player/2-player games being disregarded, even if said fun potential isn't obvious -- meaning, it's not your fault for not having experienced or read about it before)
About my view on avoiding less-skilled players, just to show an example of the differences in our standards according to our gaming backgrounds, I learned that if I were to play a fighting game I'm quite good at (at low-level, at least), in an arcade center, against someone that's already playing the game alone, and I spot several mistakes and lack of experience and basic theory, I wouldn't play against him, because playing against the AI after I defeat him (if no one else were willing to play as well) would be a waste of a credit (if the AI wasn't challenging enough). In the other hand, I like to play against other people that play well, and have fun, even when I lose. That's why, in MMOGs, if I expect opponents to play well and get disappointed, I don't enjoy winning. (of course, if the opponent were willing to improve, I'd be glad to help with what I know, since I myself wanted to improve too)
Finally, we can agree that skill is important in MMOGs, how much it's important compared to the level/equipment (more importantly in most cases at higher levels, the latter) is something that can be discussed over and over, and both sides will likely hold their opinions. Don't be offended if I say that top players in MMOGs rely on items (again, how much they rely on them is debatable), because using the game system to their advantage is skill. My discontent was mostly with the game system itself, and how most people respect these top players (in forums, etc.) for their skill alone (or even for how old they are in the game), forgetting other factors, leading to some top players bragging about their skill. (internet drama, may happen after GvG events involving rival guilds/guild members that fight themselves in forums :p)
edit: lots of mistakes, even I can't withstand my own walls of text :(
Good night, people.
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for their skill alone (or even for how old they are in the game), forgetting other factors, leading to some top players bragging about their skill. (internet drama, may happen after GvG events involving rival guilds/guild members that fight themselves in forums :p)
I'd like to point out that most of the top level players are there, because they're beating other "top level" players with the same or equal gear, so it does actually rely a LOT more on skill than most people seem to give credit for.
I don't get that. You don't get to the top by beating down people who are lower than you. You have to find people at your level or higher to rank up more. That's just my observation. And I've played in ALL areas of games, from 2D fighters, RTS games, SHMUPS and MMOGs.
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Thing is, they don't always brag, for example, if they lose the castle they were defending so fiercely, or fail to take the castle they were aiming for and leave our guild "homeless". (in these cases the bragging/retort can be from my part/our guild/our allies as well.. next time, things can be different, other guilds can interfere positively or negatively, for both sides, among other factors)
Perhaps I've forgot to consider that a lot of non-top players also like to tease the rival guilds?
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New topic: What's really a bigger waste of your time; playing an MMO and enjoying it, or typing walls of text that people probably aren't reading but feel like arguing about anyway?
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New topic: What's really a bigger waste of your time; playing an MMO and enjoying it, or typing walls of text that people probably aren't reading but feel like arguing about anyway?
I actually enjoy typing walls of text and arguing needlessly. Why don't people understand that some people do enjoy it?
"Oh, you're just arguing to be arguing! No one likes arguing!"
Uh, actually, I love to argue. About nothing, about everything and randomly. I think it's very therapeutic. It let's me unwind and relax.
So I find it productive. :)
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I actually enjoy typing walls of text and arguing needlessly. Why don't people understand that some people do enjoy it?
"Oh, you're just arguing to be arguing! No one likes arguing!"
Uh, actually, I love to argue. About nothing, about everything and randomly. I think it's very therapeutic. It let's me unwind and relax.
So I find it productive. :)
I like arguing too actually. I just don't like emotional arguing, which I rekon you share in common with me. Some people argue not to be right, or to prove the other side right, but because it helps you observe every angle on a subject, which is just interesting to me (depending on what I'm arguing about). Unfortunately it's difficult to argue against something without the other party getting offended, or something. Sometimes I learn things that I didn't realize about my OWN point by arguing. I haven't seen my dad for over half my life now, and awhile back when I spoke with him he mentioned how he was going to drop contact because I rarely contact him so he deduced I wasn't really interested.
So I told my mom later on when it was appropriate that I thought he actually had a point (even though I didn't really want him to drop contact). She said "wtf? you've been contacting him for the last 10 years and he hasn't phoned YOU once!". It was a real shocker to me, she was absolutely right.
But anyway I too think that the argument in this thread turned to the emotional side moreso than the productive one. In its heart though, I find it to be an interesting topic, so I lurk on >=)
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The only problem is this subject is impossible to argue with logic and reason, because it's a matter of personal taste. So it's always going to be without conclusion and moreover, as peoples' personal tastes are being criticized, things will always boil down to the emotional level. This isn't a debate; it's "your favorite game sucks cuz I don't wanna play it."
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The only problem is this subject is impossible to argue with logic and reason, because it's a matter of personal taste. So it's always going to be without conclusion and moreover, as peoples' personal tastes are being criticized, things will always boil down to the emotional level. This isn't a debate; it's "your favorite game sucks cuz I don't wanna play it."
Well going back to the original post I think they intended this to me more about people telling us their story of why they quit mmos cold-turkey type deal. Which alot of the anti MMO people have responded with once. Alas some of them mentioned that "Waste of time" business (or did the op too? I forget), which isn't quite true for those that genuinely enjoy the game.
I'm playing WoW alot less these days myself. I played less after discovering touhou sure, but not by enough to really make myself feel like I was dumping my guildies or anything. But just recently I've only been playing a couple hours a week or so. I think this is due to valkarie sky. I know it's a real bad idea to commit to more than one MMO, and at the moment, I'd rather commit to that one even though alot of my friends are on WoW. I still enjoy wow, and I think it's a good game. But...well, I've always disliked how WoW's (and alot of other MMORPGS) highest level content absolutely requires many people (25 in wow's case). And well, I just don't have 25 friends on WoW.. Hell, I don't even have 5 on WoW. While I can get 25 people for that stuff, they definately aren't my friends, and it really makes a game less enjoyable if you're forced to play with people you may not even like.
Valkarie sky is really cool IMO because it IS MMO, but never are you ever absolutely NEEDING more than 2 people I don't think (and as a bowman myself, I never needed anybody other than myself). Even if they ever release something that needs a full group somehow, 4 is a very manageable number.
In addition, because the group sizes are so small in that game, you'll never feel the need to fufill some kind of "online duty" that alot of people feel while playing your typical MMORPG.
I think that's the problem with the majority of MMOS in general, is that they simply require too many people to cooperate for the 'endgame'. It's fun having large teams for certain things I suppose (for some people), but the more you need them, the pickier people have to be with their teams, and the harder it is to have that many "stable" players in your clique, hence expectations will rise...Even though 1 scrub hurts a group of 25 less than they would a smaller group of say 5. Hard to explain.
It's very hard for a great deal of people to draw the line between "duty" and "recreation" when playing mmos after they get involved with such a group. Then it dawns on them "wtf I don't wanna spend my time off doing...work" and they realize that they were wasting their time the whole time. Afterwards, they feel like they dumped a friend that they never liked to begin with, chances are they did too (online).
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New topic: What's really a bigger waste of your time; playing an MMO and enjoying it, or typing walls of text that people probably aren't reading but feel like arguing about anyway?
a bigger wasting of your time: not playing a single-player/2-player game that feels so much more rewarding imho. [/TakeAThirdOption] ;D
you may enjoy them for your reasons, I don't enjoy them for mine. Perhaps if I didn't get to discover higher levels of play, through competition in single-player/2-player games, I wouldn't have tried to reach the same level in MMOGs and might've been playing them until nowadays.
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a bigger wasting of your time: not playing a single-player/2-player game that feels so much more rewarding imho. [/TakeAThirdOption] ;D
This is exactly the kind of responses that piss people off and make others think you're a troll.
I've played single-player/2-player games a lot, and they DO feel more rewarding. They SHOULD.
But as someone who feels inadequate, it is of my volition that I want others to /see/ that rewarding achievement done. And be lauded for it.
I do not give a flying fuck if you say that is my own problem (because it is and I know it) but I feel greatly offended that I would be labelled as something socially unacceptable because of my desire to want to be socially accepted. :/
In any case...
The only problem is this subject is impossible to argue with logic and reason, because it's a matter of personal taste. So it's always going to be without conclusion and moreover, as peoples' personal tastes are being criticized, things will always boil down to the emotional level. This isn't a debate; it's "your favorite game sucks cuz I don't wanna play it."
This is pretty much what happens with anything taste-related.
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a bigger wasting of your time: not playing a single-player/2-player game that feels so much more rewarding imho. [/TakeAThirdOption] ;D
you may enjoy them for your reasons, I don't enjoy them for mine. Perhaps if I didn't get to discover higher levels of play, through competition in single-player/2-player games, I wouldn't have tried to reach the same level in MMOGs and might've been playing them until nowadays.
Now you're talking like I play them.