WAR RvR Video from E3.

[Draegan]

I think every game should have addons like WOW. 

yeah, because fuck forbid. you have to fucken manage hate, fucken heal... fucken drop a buff.. or a fucken nuike...


For fuck sake, addons are the worst fucken thing i have ever seen. Maybe you fuckers should get a program to play it for you...

Or maybe I just like to customize my UI the way I like it? 

[Koyasha]

I think every game should have addons like WOW. 

yeah, because fuck forbid. you have to fucken manage hate, fucken heal... fucken drop a buff.. or a fucken nuike...


For fuck sake, addons are the worst fucken thing i have ever seen. Maybe you fuckers should get a program to play it for you...

Addons have good points and bad ones.  Some are great, like ones that allow you to arrange your information the way you like it, or set up hotbars where and how you want them.  Others, I don't much care for.  Like you say, threat meters are something I've never liked, since they take the skill of learning and managing your threat and condense it into 'watch bar' and I wished Blizzard would break them like they did Decursive, not include them in their own UI.  Of course at times there's a fine line between 'convenience' and 'removing appropriate challenge'.  One example of something I didn't like them breaking was the autobuff mods that would buff you whenever you moved.  Buffing 'can' be a skill and part of the difficulty of the game, but I posit that it shouldn't be because...really, it's not a fun part of the game, and challenge can be added in ways that don't irritate the living shit out of classes with buffs.

[Fordel]

How do you manage something you can't get proper feedback on? Maybe we can hide the health bars too, so people can develop the skill of managing those better? 

If a game is about numbers and stats, hiding those numbers is always a bad idea.

[amiable]

I agree with Grunk.  Games nowadays coddle there players too much and remove all the challenge.  with these types of mechanics, how do you separate the skilled playas from the noobs?

Some things I would like to see:

1.  All skills dependent on positionals.  If you can't be bothered to move to the proper position, you shouldn't be able to attack, heal, move etc...

2.  An option to auto-kick from party and guild any non-tank party member who gains aggro. 

3.  Awesome 1 off power moves that are only available by farming literally thousands of mobs and obtain various rare components from large raiding dungeons.  These power moves should have awesome graphics and complete devastate noobs in PvP.

4.  The entire removal of all interface.  Who wants that shit on the screen?  It ruins immersion.  Players should just memorize what their keys do, or better yet, control their character through their sheer force of will. 

 

[tmp]

How do you manage something you can't get proper feedback on? Maybe we can hide the health bars too, so people can develop the skill of managing those better? 

You mean like Uncharted Waters did? 

And how to manage something with no proper feedback on? With lack of full information you either play conservatively, or take risks. Lot of game mechanics revolve around such decision making done with the lack of detailed feedback -- picture yourself regular poker where you know exactly what everyone's hand is... not much of exciting gameplay left there, is it?

Threat management is similar. A good player can reasonably estimate how much damage they can deal, and keep it right beneath threat level. It's part of that mythical 'skill' thing the MMO are supposedly lacking. A bad player can either estimate this badly or don't understand the concept at all, and cause mess with potential group wipes. And since people don't like to lose/wipe, and because lot of players are morons unable to grasp how the game works and cause the wipe to whole group in the process? Cue development of UI crutches that show the stupid people exactly what they're allowed to do. It's not improvement to gameplay, but rather removal of it to provide extra safety net.

If a game is about numbers and stats, hiding those numbers is always a bad idea.

Pretty much all games are about numbers and stats. But not having all these numbers right in your face doesn't seem to ruffle feathers of anyone but conditioned MMO gamers.

[tmp]

Players should just memorize what their keys do

Welcome to about every fighting game ever developed.

(my green is greener)

[amiable]

Players should just memorize what their keys do

Welcome to about every fighting game ever developed.

(my green is greener)

I know.  And those fighting games often have 50-100+ unique situational skills, abilities and items to choose from per character instead of high/med/low - kick/punch.  (And since it's what the cool kids are doing... )

[tmp]

And those fighting games often have 50-100+ unique situational skills, abilities and items to choose from per character instead of high/med/low - kick/punch.

There's MMOs out there that really have 50 unique situational skills, that don't mostly amount to "hit for little damage" "hit for med damage" "hit for lot damage"? Because otherwise.... count with me:

G-Clef Cannon = 1 1 1 (36)
Jab to Right High Kick = 1 4 (19)
Spin Behind = 2 b (12)
Right Straight to Left High Kick = 2 3 (24)
Triple Spin Razor = 4 4 1 (53)
Triple Spin Kicks = 4 4 4 (55)
Triple Spin Low = 4 4 d+4 (42)
Mountain Splitter = 1+2 (27)
Power Punch = f+2 (18)
Rising Heaven Kick = f+4 (20)
Energy Blast = f+1+2 (22)
Heavy Uppercut = f+1+4 (50)
Pearly Gates = df+1 1 (33)
Slow Power Punch = df+2 (10)
Slow Power Punch Combo = df+2 1 (36)
Snap Kick = df+3 (17)
Medium Power Punch = df+1+2 (28)
Furious Tiger = df+2 1+2 (36)
Giant Slayer = d+3 4 (35)
Sweep to Razor's Edge = d+4 1 (31)
Sweep to High Kick = d+4 4 (33)
Sweep to Low Kick = d+4 d+4 (20)
Rising Tide = d+1+2 (22)
Crumbling Tower = d+3+4 (30)
False Lift = db+2 (21)
Spinning Low Kick = db+3 (16)
Tiger Mountain = db+4 2 (33)
Cobra Fang = db+1+2 (28)
Jagged Edge = b+2 1 (21)
Evading Kick = b+4 (20)
Pinwheel Punch = b+1+2 (35)
Dancing Monkey Kick = uf+4 (22)
Foot Stomp = uf+3+4 (35)
Crouching Cobra = f [f]2 (22)
Swivel Kick = f [f]4 (25)
Dragon Power Punch = b b1+2 (100)
Heavy Power Punch = d df f+2 (45)
Leaping Side Kick = f f f+3 (30)
Gravity Punch = 2 2 2 (51)
Skyscraper Kick = 4 (21)
Sweeping Cartwheel = df+4 3 (29)
Parting Sweep = 4 (16)
Horse Tamer = 1+2 (22)
10 Hit Combo 1 = 2 1 1 4 4 1 1 3 4 2 (105)
10 Hit Combo 2 = 2 1 1 4 4 1 2 1 4 2 (94)
Headlock Toss = approach 1+3 or f+1+3 (35)
Body Slam = approach 2+4 or f+2+4 (35)
Crushing the Dragon = from left 1+3 or 2+4 (40)
Golden Mountain = from right 1+3 or 2+4 (40)
Reverse Neck Throw = from behind 1+3 or 2+4 (50)
Neutralizer = b+1
Swallow's Tail = 1 (f)
Massive Dragon = 2 (24)
Circling Dragon = 3 (15)
Flash Flood = 4 (18)
Attack Reversal = b+1+3 or b+2+4 (25)
Waning Moon = approach df df+2+4 (15)
Dragon Thrust = approach df+1+3+4 (45)

... 60 or so moves for a random Tekken character. Not including generic blocks, counters, dodges and that proverbial kick/punch.

[Fraeg]

i had a vision of a field of Yoshimatsu's charging across a valley and slaying all.

[bhodikhan]

I've mapped my F2 key to kick Grunk in the balls until I release it.  Probably gonna be the best keymap I've used.

Wonder if that attack is positional?

[Ingmar]

And how to manage something with no proper feedback on? With lack of full information you either play conservatively, or take risks. Lot of game mechanics revolve around such decision making done with the lack of detailed feedback -- picture yourself regular poker where you know exactly what everyone's hand is... not much of exciting gameplay left there, is it?

That's a bullshit comparison and you know it. Playing poker without proper feedback would be having a 10 and not knowing what the scope of cards your opponent could have is. Maybe he has 12 aces! But go ahead and bet anyway, even though you have no idea what the odds behind the game are.

MMO companies by and large are shitty about documenting their game mechanics and providing the feedback you need to make spec decisions, etc - sometimes even shit as simple as 'will this heal be big enough to heal that guy'. Sometimes if you're really lucky they not only don't tell you shit about what your abilities do, they don't give you any way to respec when you find out that their flowery descriptive names don't do shit for describing what things do or their relative power.

[Koyasha]

Some information is too basic and crucial to be obfuscated.  Other things should be hidden in order to maintain the lack of knowledge that allows risk-taking and skill to come into play.  Threat is one of the latter, it's not basic or crucial and we did without it for years, the difference between people who knew how to estimate their threat and those that didn't was what made the difference between a good DPS or not.  It wasn't impossible to do well without that information, it just took players who could estimate it well and knew when it was worth pushing a little harder and taking the risk and when that was a bad idea.  See: every fight in EQ, except rooted mobs and those with special agro mechanics.  At least up until the point I stopped playing.

[eldaec]

One of things Mythic (or Tweety at least) claimed to learn from ToA was that hiding the detail of character stats and capabilities  is bad, but hiding the detail of how the environment works can be fun.

And to be fair to them, Mythic have always published complete detail on stat forumlae and skill info before and since the ToA debacle.

As for skills and mechanics of the environment, I guess I can agree that there is fun to be had in reverse engineering scenarios/mobs.

[amiable]

And those fighting games often have 50-100+ unique situational skills, abilities and items to choose from per character instead of high/med/low - kick/punch.

There's MMOs out there that really have 50 unique situational skills, that don't mostly amount to "hit for little damage" "hit for med damage" "hit for lot damage"? Because otherwise.... count with me:

G-Clef Cannon = 1 1 1 (36)
Jab to Right High Kick = 1 4 (19)
Spin Behind = 2 b (12)
Right Straight to Left High Kick = 2 3 (24)
Triple Spin Razor = 4 4 1 (53)
Triple Spin Kicks = 4 4 4 (55)
Triple Spin Low = 4 4 d+4 (42)
Mountain Splitter = 1+2 (27)
Power Punch = f+2 (18)
Rising Heaven Kick = f+4 (20)
Energy Blast = f+1+2 (22)
Heavy Uppercut = f+1+4 (50)
Pearly Gates = df+1 1 (33)
Slow Power Punch = df+2 (10)
Slow Power Punch Combo = df+2 1 (36)
Snap Kick = df+3 (17)
Medium Power Punch = df+1+2 (28)
Furious Tiger = df+2 1+2 (36)
Giant Slayer = d+3 4 (35)
Sweep to Razor's Edge = d+4 1 (31)
Sweep to High Kick = d+4 4 (33)
Sweep to Low Kick = d+4 d+4 (20)
Rising Tide = d+1+2 (22)
Crumbling Tower = d+3+4 (30)
False Lift = db+2 (21)
Spinning Low Kick = db+3 (16)
Tiger Mountain = db+4 2 (33)
Cobra Fang = db+1+2 (28)
Jagged Edge = b+2 1 (21)
Evading Kick = b+4 (20)
Pinwheel Punch = b+1+2 (35)
Dancing Monkey Kick = uf+4 (22)
Foot Stomp = uf+3+4 (35)
Crouching Cobra = f [f]2 (22)
Swivel Kick = f [f]4 (25)
Dragon Power Punch = b b1+2 (100)
Heavy Power Punch = d df f+2 (45)
Leaping Side Kick = f f f+3 (30)
Gravity Punch = 2 2 2 (51)
Skyscraper Kick = 4 (21)
Sweeping Cartwheel = df+4 3 (29)
Parting Sweep = 4 (16)
Horse Tamer = 1+2 (22)
10 Hit Combo 1 = 2 1 1 4 4 1 1 3 4 2 (105)
10 Hit Combo 2 = 2 1 1 4 4 1 2 1 4 2 (94)
Headlock Toss = approach 1+3 or f+1+3 (35)
Body Slam = approach 2+4 or f+2+4 (35)
Crushing the Dragon = from left 1+3 or 2+4 (40)
Golden Mountain = from right 1+3 or 2+4 (40)
Reverse Neck Throw = from behind 1+3 or 2+4 (50)
Neutralizer = b+1
Swallow's Tail = 1 (f)
Massive Dragon = 2 (24)
Circling Dragon = 3 (15)
Flash Flood = 4 (18)
Attack Reversal = b+1+3 or b+2+4 (25)
Waning Moon = approach df df+2+4 (15)
Dragon Thrust = approach df+1+3+4 (45)

... 60 or so moves for a random Tekken character. Not including generic blocks, counters, dodges and that proverbial kick/punch.

And these do these do anything besides "damage other player" (besides a few counters/blocks)?  And do they change during the course of the game? Because if not I wouldn't really characterize them as unique.  But point taken.

[eldaec]

And these do these do anything besides "damage other player" (besides a few counters/blocks)?  And do they change during the course of the game? Because if not I wouldn't really characterize them as unique.  But point taken.

One of them is called 'Medium Power Punch'.

That is all you need to know.

[Fordel]

Now compare the complexity of those EQ fights and the current WoW fights.

Risk does not always have to equal gambling/chance. Which is what a hidden system amounts to. The current threat meters still let you push your threat, a lot fights it's crucial all the DPS are on a feather thin line of threat to ensure they beat out the enrage timer or whatnot. The risk is how tight do you ride the line. Despite meters, it's still very easy to blow over a threat limit and pull aggro. The difference now is you actually know you are getting close.

Threat shouldn't be a question of "will I push over?" it should be a question of "should I push over?".


As for Card analogies, a hidden threat system is more like playing BlackJack with your own cards face down. The more cards you get, the closer you should be to 21, so you can guesstimate it, right?  Oops, did you bust? 

[tmp]

As for Card analogies, a hidden threat system is more like playing BlackJack with your own cards face down. The more cards you get, the closer you should be to 21, so you can guesstimate it, right?  Oops, did you bust? 

Don't think so, the game doesn't hide your damage output from you, does it? You can reasonably estimate it, and you know that the more of it you dish out, the closer you are to crossing the line and grabbing the agro. Seriously, isn't the point of these threat meters exactly this, to remove the guesswork and tell you specifically how much damage you can do while remaining safe from what otherwise would be consequence of wrong decision?

[slog]

As for Card analogies, a hidden threat system is more like playing BlackJack with your own cards face down. The more cards you get, the closer you should be to 21, so you can guesstimate it, right?  Oops, did you bust? 

Don't think so, the game doesn't hide your damage output from you, does it? You can reasonably estimate it, and you know that the more of it you dish out, the closer you are to crossing the line and grabbing the agro.

I, personally, am an expert at reading combat text as it scrolls through my chat window at a rate of 60 lines a second.  That being said, other retards have a harder time with it.  Pansies.

[tmp]

That's a bullshit comparison and you know it. Playing poker without proper feedback would be having a 10 and not knowing what the scope of cards your opponent could have is.

I said "detailed feedback". Detailed and proper can be two different things, i.e. in some games the "proper" (in order to maintain gameplay) feedback is one that is on purpose not detailed. Hence example of poker -- here the 'proper' feedback is one that's on purpose not complete, and by increasing the detail of information that's avaialble to you, the large chunk of the original gameplay is removed. Exactly like the threat meters remove the guessing game of where you might be on the threat list. With this explanation in mind can you now specifically tell me why it's a bullshit comparison because no, i don't know it.

[tmp]

I, personally, am an expert at reading combat text as it scrolls through my chat window at a rate of 60 lines a second.  That being said, other retards have a harder time with it.  Pansies.

But people keep telling me MMOs are numbers and spreadsheets games, and every good MMO player has it all worked out, the DPS they can do and the other shit the game spells out to them in these cute tooltips. To the point where there's nerd wars over class dps balance, with graphs and shit. Was that all a lie in the end, and they really have no clue if there's no coloured bars from Progress Quest in front of them to show it?

But in this case, how the hell do gamers manage to play other MMOs than WoW with the threat add on, and not just wipe all over the place?

[amiable]

I, personally, am an expert at reading combat text as it scrolls through my chat window at a rate of 60 lines a second.  That being said, other retards have a harder time with it.  Pansies.

But people keep telling me MMOs are numbers and spreadsheets games, and every good MMO player has it all worked out, the DPS they can do and the other shit the game spells out to them in these cute tooltips. To the point where there's nerd wars over class dps balance, with graphs and shit. Was that all a lie in the end, and they really have no clue if there's no coloured bars from Progress Quest in front of them to show it?

But in this case, how the hell do gamers manage to play other MMOs than WoW with the threat add on, and not just wipe all over the place?

So.... what you are saying is you agree with Grunk?   

[tmp]

... i'll be in the shower, doing the jim carrey routine

[Ingmar]

One of things Mythic (or Tweety at least) claimed to learn from ToA was that hiding the detail of character stats and capabilities  is bad, but hiding the detail of how the environment works can be fun.

And to be fair to them, Mythic have always published complete detail on stat forumlae and skill info before and since the ToA debacle.

As for skills and mechanics of the environment, I guess I can agree that there is fun to be had in reverse engineering scenarios/mobs.

Except that in many cases in DAOC, having the data was actually misleading. I wish I could remember the exact details of the situation, but back when I had Pendragon boards access, there was a point at which it came out that the way something was documented on the site was leading people to incorrect conclusions and Mackey basically said "Who cares." Then there was all the 'low' 'medium' 'high' descriptions on melee styles, which turned out to not really reflect reality at all. I *hope* Mythic has learned their lesson about documentation, but we shall see. Incorrect documentation is worse than no documentation in a lot of ways.

[slog]

I, personally, am an expert at reading combat text as it scrolls through my chat window at a rate of 60 lines a second.  That being said, other retards have a harder time with it.  Pansies.

But people keep telling me MMOs are numbers and spreadsheets games, and every good MMO player has it all worked out, the DPS they can do and the other shit the game spells out to them in these cute tooltips. To the point where there's nerd wars over class dps balance, with graphs and shit. Was that all a lie in the end, and they really have no clue if there's no coloured bars from Progress Quest in front of them to show it?

But in this case, how the hell do gamers manage to play other MMOs than WoW with the threat add on, and not just wipe all over the place?

Before WoW: Small # of MMO raiders.
After WoW: Much bigger # of MMO raiders.

[Ingmar]

That's a bullshit comparison and you know it. Playing poker without proper feedback would be having a 10 and not knowing what the scope of cards your opponent could have is.

I said "detailed feedback". Detailed and proper can be two different things, i.e. in some games the "proper" (in order to maintain gameplay) feedback is one that is on purpose not detailed. Hence example of poker -- here the 'proper' feedback is one that's on purpose not complete, and by increasing the detail of information that's avaialble to you, the large chunk of the original gameplay is removed. Exactly like the threat meters remove the guessing game of where you might be on the threat list. With this explanation in mind can you now specifically tell me why it's a bullshit comparison because no, i don't know it.

All threat meters (in WoW anyway) do is add up information that is available to the player already. It just crunches numbers. A threat meter is the equivalent of counting cards in blackjack. You know how many 10s have gone by. You don't know anything that the game isn't revealing to you in some way - you don't know if your next attack is going to crit and send you over the threshold anyway. It is in no way telling you what is in someone's hand.

Now that EQ thing that told you exactly what that mob you killed was going to drop? That was like what you're describing.

But in this case, how the hell do gamers manage to play other MMOs than WoW with the threat add on, and not just wipe all over the place?

People play other MMOs? But seriously, for me at least, in the other games I've played, either tanks are so sticky noone is ever taking aggro off of them anyway (hello CoH) or the pace of combat is slower and there's much more time to react to changes (LotRO, DAOC, etc. etc. etc.) In WoW, it can often be 'pull aggro, wipe raid'. Other games are more forgiving about that.

[Fordel]

As for Card analogies, a hidden threat system is more like playing BlackJack with your own cards face down. The more cards you get, the closer you should be to 21, so you can guesstimate it, right?  Oops, did you bust? 

Don't think so, the game doesn't hide your damage output from you, does it? You can reasonably estimate it, and you know that the more of it you dish out, the closer you are to crossing the line and grabbing the aggro. Seriously, isn't the point of these threat meters exactly this, to remove the guesswork and tell you specifically how much damage you can do while remaining safe from what otherwise would be consequence of wrong decision?

But it doesn't report the damage your tank is doing, nor is the display of information exactly user friendly in anything but the smallest of PvE environments. You don't know if your tank missed his last attack, you don't know if he crit with his shield slam. Guesstimating only takes everyone so far.

The mini game of hidden threat only dumbs down the actual encounter, since you can't tune the content to specific levels of threat or require multiple people to maintain said levels. Making threat a visible mechanic turns it into another workable variable in a fight, which makes for a more interesting encounter. Also makes the game infinitely less frustrating and more transparent.


Again, why don't we just hide health and mana bars too? People know how much they have total from their character sheets, they know how much damage has been inflicted, they should be able to guesstimate it, right?  Since the guessing game is such a 'wonderful' part of the game play 

[tmp]

But it doesn't report the damage your tank is doing, nor is the display of information exactly user friendly in anything but the smallest of PvE environments. You don't know if your tank missed his last attack, you don't know if he crit with his shield slam. Guesstimating only takes everyone so far.

Hmm yes which is somewhat the point -- there's uncertainly element which creates room for player's decision to either play it 'safe' at the cost of dealing less damage, or to take more risky approach.

The mini game of hidden threat only dumbs down the actual encounter, since you can't tune the content to specific levels of threat or require multiple people to maintain said levels. Making threat a visible mechanic turns it into another workable variable in a fight, which makes for a more interesting encounter. Also makes the game infinitely less frustrating and more transparent.

Having it invisible forces the players to estimate and make decisions based on these estimations. Having it in the open basically turns the encounter into situation where the players are explicitly told "each of you, press your buttons this fast but no faster". You really consider the former of these (decision making vs following instructions) dumbed down, and the latter more interesting? After all you say it yourself that it renders the encounters more predictable... and i thought following the instructions to predictable results is what's called either "the grind" or "having the boss on farm status" and both are actually disliked as "boring necessity to gear up for next tier", or whathaveyou.

Again, why don't we just hide health and mana bars too?

Again, some games do it. And it doesn't seem to get people's underwear in a twist that "oh gosh i'm not told precisely if my character can stand 2 more hits, or maybe 3" ... so maybe it's not such crucial necessity as some believe, and as such makes it not so good argument why it's a must to have the threat levels shown.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I think the argument being made and not paying attention to can be simplified as.

Threat gen is not a 'fun' game mechanic even if it is challenging.

There are other more fun ways to make encounters challenging that don't involve paying close attention to threat gen.

[Fordel]

Having it invisible forces the players to estimate and make decisions based on these estimations. Having it in the open basically turns the encounter into situation where the players are explicitly told "each of you, press your buttons this fast but no faster". You really consider the former of these (decision making vs following instructions) dumbed down, and the latter more interesting?

That's the thing, having the threat visible doesn't remove the choice, it only expands it.

The "This fast and only faster" only happens because threat IS invisible. You can't ask any more of reasonable players but the rough guesstimations and you must make the line to cross fairly forgiving. You can't have systems where you need tanks on precise threat orders, you can't have sudden drops or gains or dumps of threat. You can't have threat swapping or temporary threat pulls to contain and control things.

With a invisible system, you either make threat a non-issue or you frustrate your player base. The only question you can ask is "will I go over?".

With a visible threat system, you make threat part of the fight. The question isn't simply just "will I go over?" it's "should I go over?". You can expand the encounter, make threat a new pivot to work around. You have endurance fights, you have DPS races, you have mitigation battles. Now you can have threat control as a true part of the encounter, instead of a vague idea of 'don't pull agg!'


What I'm saying the only reason the threat mini game seems like it's more 'interesting' is because threat itself is such a simple mechanic as it is, and it's simple because it's hidden and invisible. You can use it and expand on it and encounters if you are allowed to actually SEE it. The more recent and complex encounters in WoW's raid game only work because Blizz assumes (and rightly) that most people do have threat meters installed. With out them, some of the fights would be nearly impossible, and certainly FAR more frustrating for anyone attempting them.

[tmp]

With a invisible system, you either make threat a non-issue or you frustrate your player base. The only question you can ask is "will I go over?".

With a visible threat system, you make threat part of the fight. The question isn't simply just "will I go over?" it's "should I go over?". You can expand the encounter, make threat a new pivot to work around. You have endurance fights, you have DPS races, you have mitigation battles. Now you can have threat control as a true part of the encounter, instead of a vague idea of 'don't pull agg!'

I really don't see where you're drawing this conclusion from. The threat being visible or not does not change the basic mechanics of either being on top of the threat list or not, it just makes it easier for the player to control if they're on top of that list, or not. Nothing in it being visible makes it a new pivot to work around -- it already *is* the pivot players work around, even when it's not spelt out to them with colourful bars

The question is never "should i go over?" in these encounters, because they're designed in way that ensures that going over by someone not built to take it = deaths of squishies and/or wipe. If the design is at some point changed to allow or even require for players to indeed grab the top spot in the threat list, then that by no means hinges on the threat list being visible -- such visibility would (again) simplify the encounter but is not required; the players are perfectly capable of grabbing that threat spot as it is now without this detailed info, as evidenced by many who do it, usually to the chargrin of people around them.

What I'm saying the only reason the threat mini game seems like it's more 'interesting' is because threat itself is such a simple mechanic as it is, and it's simple because it's hidden and invisible. You can use it and expand on it and encounters if you are allowed to actually SEE it. The more recent and complex encounters in WoW's raid game only work because Blizz assumes (and rightly) that most people do have threat meters installed. With out them, some of the fights would be nearly impossible, and certainly FAR more frustrating for anyone attempting them.

Can you give some specific example of that? That is, what's done to these more recent encounters? I'm asking because the strategy guides for Sunwell bosses and such still boil down to "have tank(s), and no one dare to dps beyond the threat of these tanks" ... so there's probably some intricacies here that both these guides and i'm missing. Or is it simply the fight durations before the guaranteed wipe due to enrage/whatever are tailored to presumption the players will know exactly what their threat is, and dps as fast as the meters let them?

[Koyasha]

Having it invisible forces the players to estimate and make decisions based on these estimations. Having it in the open basically turns the encounter into situation where the players are explicitly told "each of you, press your buttons this fast but no faster". You really consider the former of these (decision making vs following instructions) dumbed down, and the latter more interesting?

That's the thing, having the threat visible doesn't remove the choice, it only expands it.

The "This fast and only faster" only happens because threat IS invisible. You can't ask any more of reasonable players but the rough guesstimations and you must make the line to cross fairly forgiving. You can't have systems where you need tanks on precise threat orders, you can't have sudden drops or gains or dumps of threat. You can't have threat swapping or temporary threat pulls to contain and control things.

With a invisible system, you either make threat a non-issue or you frustrate your player base. The only question you can ask is "will I go over?".

With a visible threat system, you make threat part of the fight. The question isn't simply just "will I go over?" it's "should I go over?". You can expand the encounter, make threat a new pivot to work around. You have endurance fights, you have DPS races, you have mitigation battles. Now you can have threat control as a true part of the encounter, instead of a vague idea of 'don't pull agg!'


What I'm saying the only reason the threat mini game seems like it's more 'interesting' is because threat itself is such a simple mechanic as it is, and it's simple because it's hidden and invisible. You can use it and expand on it and encounters if you are allowed to actually SEE it. The more recent and complex encounters in WoW's raid game only work because Blizz assumes (and rightly) that most people do have threat meters installed. With out them, some of the fights would be nearly impossible, and certainly FAR more frustrating for anyone attempting them.

It's been necessary to have tanks on close threat orders since the Avatar of War, who would occasionally take out a tank in a single round when it got lucky regardless of the healing applied (it's max possible damage output in a 'round' was higher than the max possible HP of tanks at the time) and if your second tank wasn't chasing the main tank's heels on the threat list, you could lose half your DPS (or worse, your cleric chain) before regaining control of the fight.  Especially since this would mean he would turn and start riposting for 2/3 of the health of melee damage dealers.  Tank swapping isn't new at all either, as there were fights dating back to Gates of Discord (or maybe further back, I don't recall exactly) that required tanks to swap when certain events (sometimes at predictable intervals, sometimes with unpredictable timing) occured.  Really, just about all of the mechanics you said you 'can't have' exists in EQ in raid content that varies in age from Gates of Discord all the way to the Serpent's Spine (and presumably beyond).

So far, I haven't seen a fight that could not be done without threat meters in WoW.  Nothing I have either seen personally or read the detailed mechanics of is something that simply could not be accomplished otherwise, and from what I've read of the Sunwell fights there's nothing there that couldn't be accomplished with skilled understanding of your abilities and your tank.  Would they be more difficult?  Sure.  Would considerably less people be capable of doing them?  Absolutely.  Why?  Because so many of the people raiding in WoW simply don't have the skill, level of judgement and ability to estimate the fight conditions that it would require.  Slog's point above on there being a vastly higher number of raiders now is absolutely true, and it is because of this, because WoW raiding requires much less personal ability from each individual involved - all that's really needed is the ability to follow orders and use whatever addons are developed to make up for the individual's inability to master their abilities and understand the rest of their companions' abilities.

Here's an important factor though: knowing your tank.  Being able to push the envelope on DPS in EQ, for example, was dependent on your familiarity with your tank's agro levels.  In my guild we had several tanks, and depending on who was tanking the DPS felt differently as to how much damage they could do.  This was very visible on post-raid parses where if our tank that was best at keeping agro was tanking, the raid's total DPS would be noticeably higher, while another tank would see the raid lose a considerable amount of total DPS because they had to limit themselves.  The difference between that and with threat meters?  The players don't need skill and an intimate understanding of their own abilities and their tank's to know when to stop attacking - they only need to watch a bar and turn off attack when it exceeds a certain point. 

Furthermore, there's no more interesting mechanic I can think of that can be integrated into the fight with this information.  I may be missing something, and if I am, give me an example...but all I see as a variable here is, 'what point on the bar do I need to stop increasing my threat at?'  That's it, there's no need for judgement or thought, just a certain number/location on the meter that I'm not allowed to exceed.  The number can vary depending on the situation, but as the individual player, all I need to know is, 'raid leader says not to go over X threat'.

[justdave]

EDIT: Fuck; Nevermind.

[Fordel]

Off the top of my head. http://www.wowwiki.com/Gurtogg_Bloodboil would be nigh unworkable without threat meters.

[Margalis]

That means the game design is broken.

Without a meter you have to learn to estimate threat. Estimating threat is a skill that can be honed. Looking at a meter is not.

In general I think a good rule of game design is that fewer meters is better. A meter is less immersive, draws your attention away from the onscreen action to the meter, and makes the game about managing a little graphical rectangle.

If there are encounters that require threat meters to work then WOW has some shitty design. Period.

In FFXI you manage threat based on feel, which you develop by being smart and paying attention. Works for me.

[Merusk]

And once again you all miss the point.

Nobody but you chucklefucks wants to do that.  No sane person who plays MMOs for FUN. (Yes, they're out there.) wants to do that.  Making things so simple is why WoW's got the number of folks it does. Since it's a business, yes that matters.

It always amuses me to watch folks who are skilled or talented at something berate others who lack that skill.. but then fail and whine about things they lack skill at.