Pre-release thread discussion

[kildorn]

None of those things require you to poopsock to be useful.

Well, usually I don't post when drunk, because, well...
BUT
I don't want to pass up the opportunity to tell the "We need those tools" people that you are wrong.
Are you playing Skyrim with a combat log?

Actually, quite a few people play skyrim with all the numbers known ;) It breaks the fourth wall, but it's useful to know that your crafted heavy armor set you twinked the fuck out is actually 400% past the hard armor cap that isn't displayed anywhere. Skyrim is a great example of why exposing the game mechanics is a GOOD thing.

[kildorn]

I've always thought of threat in sci-fi to be a given and something that should be metaed into the game.  I mean, we've already got energy, heat, force, etc. all with differing mitigation mechanics.  Why not add threat as well?  It'd give something else for the tanks to play with.

Threat in general makes no sense, so there's no reason to try and model it in to me. "I am the biggest armored, hardest to kill target here. Now find a logical reason why you'd shoot ME instead of all the high damage or healing dangerous targets nearby"

If anything, the way to model threat would be "this heavy armor target will deal crazy damage if you don't keep interrupting him, so focus his ass down even if he is hard to kill", but that would be exploitable as hell by just bringing multiple 'tanks'

[Sjofn]

Poor UI makes tanking more difficult than it needs to be = even less people tanking = good luck putting together a PUG (either as a DPS being unable to find a tank, or even as a tank having to deal with idiot DPS going full burn, pulling aggro and then bitching about 'fail tank' and dropping group). At least you should be able to quickly queue up replacements in the dungeon find....oh, wait.

I have never had a DPSer ditch my "failtank" ass because they pulled aggro. I have tanked a lot of fucking PUGs. You know why they don't drop? Either they know it was their own fault (indicated by a "lol my bad") or because they know they are easily replaced, even without a dungeonfinder, and THEY will have a harder time finding a group. Saying "you tanks will RUE THE DAY" is hilariously wrongheaded. Fuck, I could replace a stupid DPSer with my fucking companion if I had to.

[Merusk]

I've always thought of threat in sci-fi to be a given and something that should be metaed into the game.  I mean, we've already got energy, heat, force, etc. all with differing mitigation mechanics.  Why not add threat as well?  It'd give something else for the tanks to play with.

I agree, but I never understood why threat is always just assigned as the tank's responsibility by both the community and most devs.  It should be the job of DPS.  They generally don't have as much shit to do so make them responsible for keeping threat under control.  Take threat out of the hands of tanks by making it basically a flat line for them somehow.

IIRC this is basically how it was done in BC-era WoW.  Tanks produced a baseline threat and DPS could spike over it at times, meaning they'd have to watch and throttle themselves if they got a string of crits or were hovering close to the line and didn't have a dump. Rather than give all the DPS threat dumps a-la Vanish and Feign Death, this model was deemed "unfun" and tanks were given more damage ability so they could ramp-up their threat along with the ever-increasing powers of the DPS characters.

No, it's not. All those things break the 4th wall (I think thats the term.)

Edit: I dare you to prove me wrong.  

Yes, the metagame.  MMOs are almost 90% metagame at the "endgame" scenario.  So you can provide that information to your players, letting them pour over it and find flaws in your system; or you can try and hide it and watch them argue over it for years (like EQ1)

Skyrim is a horrible analogy on many levels.

1) It's a single player game so you don't care as much about balance or overpowered builds.  There's no competition for content, you can consume at your own pace and never need to interact with others and know that you're "playing wrong."  Why? Because there's an additional level of obscurity in having to only present information to the lone player.     Players that don't meta that shit never know they weren't doing things optimally or that they were over the hard armor cap.  They're enjoying "shit my dude looks like a badass and I'm tearing through xyz."  

2) Single player games have an end.  You resolve the game and are done. You have no need for continued content and analysis of how things are performing after you've completed the story.  Did you beat the baddie? Yes? Great, what you did worked and you can move on.  

3) Single player games are... single player.  As I mentioned in the first point you don't have any cooperative situations.  Nobody's bitching at you because they're tearing  through dragons with three shots while you're struggling to kill them because you focused on the wrong things.  As soon as you introduce that you need the tools to help people understand how to play better, because those that don't learn are playing alone and then move on to not playing.  

4) MMOs want and NEED you to keep paying.  This isn't a F2P enterprise it's a monthly sub.  Players that get told the suck or find they DO suck stop playing a game.  As a single player game you really don't care because you've got all the money you were going to get. (Well, prior to the DLC of modern games.)   As a MMO that means a hell of a lot more because you're all about the bottom line.  


Hell, a better analogy would have been Starcraft II if it hid numbers. But it doesn't.. because it's not Single Player.  Do you think Diablo III will be hiding numbers?  Your reasoning says there's no reason for them to be shown, but I say because there's a multiplayer component it's mandatory TO show them.

[Fabricated]

I'm not saying I need Omen or Recount or whatever; what I'd like is a UI with the same basic functionality as WoW's base UI. It's still not perfect, but it conveys 90% of the useful information you need. Shit, default WoW UI does threat with colors so you have an indication of what mobs are close to peeling off. I'd like at least that.

The raid-frames introduced in Cataclysm are basically what CTRaid was literally 5 years ago, but that's good enough. The SWTOR default UI doesn't quite cut it.

[Sky]

I'll just go with playing the game and having fun, not worrying about all that bullshit. I think it tends to ruin the fun. Are you all accountants or something?

[Furiously]

I just dont want to have to target my heal target, hope I target the right mob to shoot, shoot once, target another player heal them ad nauseam. That's just clicking all over the place.

[caladein]

I'll just go with playing the game and having fun, not worrying about all that bullshit. I think it tends to ruin the fun. Are you all accountants or something?

For me it has very little to do with optimization.  I like being able to click-cast as a healer.  I like being able to see important buffs and debuffs and their durations more easily than the default interface provides.  I don't like that they waste a lot of room on art while not providing me with enough buttons in non-idiotic places.  All of these are about enjoying the game (and not having to squint or fight with the interface).

I'm perfectly willing to take games on their own terms if they state them, and not every game needs to be as customizable as World of Warcraft, but, I do think one of these three needs to happen:

1) "This is the interface we want everyone to play with, get bent."
2) An interface that can have all its parts toggled and moved.
3) A heavily moddable interface.

[Paelos]

Put my down for not wanting combat log, threat meters, or any of that other shit. This is coming from both a tank and a raid leader. It's just not needed and makes the game less fun when everyone starts spreadsheeting.

[kildorn]

I'll just go with playing the game and having fun, not worrying about all that bullshit. I think it tends to ruin the fun. Are you all accountants or something?

No, I'm an IT Techie. I dislike when things try and hide data from me :P

I mean, I don't NEED SAR data to run a datacenter, but it sure as fuck makes the whole thing less trial and error.

[Tannhauser]

I'm against spreadsheeting as well.  Fuck a bunch of meters, I just want to play the game. 

[Sky]

Put my down for not wanting combat log, threat meters, or any of that other shit. This is coming from both a tank and a raid leader. It's just not needed and makes the game less fun when everyone starts spreadsheeting.

That's the thing, once it's in everyone has to use it, things start getting balanced toward it, and the game just gets less fun.

If you love WoW so much, go play WoW imo.

[Amaron]

If the actual problem is you play the UI rather than the game outside it i don't think it's really something 'mods can easily solve' unless you make mods that basically play that game themselves.

No I'm not talking about playing the UI.  I'm talking about nonsense like watching your icon bar waiting for X to proc/etc.    That sort of thing is a flaw in character design to me but you can at least make it palatable with proper scrolling combat text or some such.

[tmp]

No I'm not talking about playing the UI.  I'm talking about nonsense like watching your icon bar waiting for X to proc/etc.    That sort of thing is a flaw in character design to me but you can at least make it palatable with proper scrolling combat text or some such.

But then it's what i meant -- your gameplay is to focus on the UI cue(s). A mod which changes the UI doesn't change that, it can at best either change what exact sort of cue you're waiting for which doesn't really change how you play the game, or to automate your reaction to the cue to remove the need to watch for it... but then that aspect of the gameplay is well, removed.

[Thrawn]

Can we just get a separate thread for people to bitch about the same UI arguments over and over in?  Nothing new is ever really added to it.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Put my down for not wanting combat log, threat meters, or any of that other shit. This is coming from both a tank and a raid leader. It's just not needed and makes the game less fun when everyone starts spreadsheeting.

That's the thing, once it's in everyone has to use it, things start getting balanced toward it, and the game just gets less fun.

If you love WoW so much, go play WoW imo.

They are, they're just going to be playing it...in space.

[Fabricated]

Put my down for not wanting combat log, threat meters, or any of that other shit. This is coming from both a tank and a raid leader. It's just not needed and makes the game less fun when everyone starts spreadsheeting.

You act like people aren't going to spreadsheet the game anyway and the game isn't going to be designed around that spreadsheeting. Looking at the raid content spoilers so far outside of like one "lootship" fight it's pretty standard DIKU stuff; threat management, LOS, add control, burn/healing phases, etc. Now you get to do that with a UI that offers very little help.

[lamaros]

IIRC this is basically how it was done in BC-era WoW.  Tanks produced a baseline threat and DPS could spike over it at times, meaning they'd have to watch and throttle themselves if they got a string of crits or were hovering close to the line and didn't have a dump. Rather than give all the DPS threat dumps a-la Vanish and Feign Death, this model was deemed "unfun" and tanks were given more damage ability so they could ramp-up their threat along with the ever-increasing powers of the DPS characters.

Pretty sure they changed it because it was boring as batshit to be a tank, thus there weren't enough of them.

So they added more tanks to the game with TBC (making Bears and Paladins get there slowly - even putting in some end game stuff where they were more suited) and made their playstyles a bit more fun, in order to address a lack of tanking characters in the game.

Had nothing to do with threat, really.

[UnSub]

The spreadsheeters will be the ones telling BioWare Austin their game mechanics don't work like they think they do.

[Paelos]

Put my down for not wanting combat log, threat meters, or any of that other shit. This is coming from both a tank and a raid leader. It's just not needed and makes the game less fun when everyone starts spreadsheeting.

You act like people aren't going to spreadsheet the game anyway and the game isn't going to be designed around that spreadsheeting. Looking at the raid content spoilers so far outside of like one "lootship" fight it's pretty standard DIKU stuff; threat management, LOS, add control, burn/healing phases, etc. Now you get to do that with a UI that offers very little help.

Not everyone will spreadsheet. Some will, but they will be making educated guesses. That's fine, I have no problem with motivated people trying to decipher the system. What I don't want is every dps running with a meter on their screen. Or the developers designing fights around the assumption that people are running mods. If people can create meters without a combat log, then my point is moot. If they can't, then I say never give that to them ever.

In the beginning, Blizzard always said they weren't running things around mods. They were lying. They were lying so much that they started to put the mods into their base UI. Then, they kept designing around them. At some point it becomes a ridiculous arms race sort of like how they had to break decursive when it was trivializing their mechanics.

[Sjofn]

I'll just go with playing the game and having fun, not worrying about all that bullshit. I think it tends to ruin the fun. Are you all accountants or something?

I am hardly a damn "spreadsheeter," and think some of the things people want are pointless, but I'm not going to cry if they put that shit in. Hiding information is silly. It's just not that big a fucking deal.

[Ingmar]

None of those things require you to poopsock to be useful.

Well, usually I don't post when drunk, because, well...
BUT
I don't want to pass up the opportunity to tell the "We need those tools" people that you are wrong.
Are you playing Skyrim with a combat log?

Nobody else is depending on me to be competent and not waste their time in Skyrim.

[Paelos]

I'll just go with playing the game and having fun, not worrying about all that bullshit. I think it tends to ruin the fun. Are you all accountants or something?

I am hardly a damn "spreadsheeter," and think some of the things people want are pointless, but I'm not going to cry if they put that shit in. Hiding information is silly. It's just not that big a fucking deal.

I disagree with the point that hiding information is silly. I think it's one of those POV debatable things.

[Ingmar]

Yeah by all means, tell me to choose between two things but don't tell me what they do mechanically. That's great gameplay. 

[kildorn]

In the beginning, Blizzard always said they weren't running things around mods. They were lying. They were lying so much that they started to put the mods into their base UI. Then, they kept designing around them. At some point it becomes a ridiculous arms race sort of like how they had to break decursive when it was trivializing their mechanics.

I think it went the other way around. They were building SHIT raid encounters that caused the mod scene to explode. Decursive was not a reaction to "I'm a lazy healer", it was a reaction to the single worst raid encounter I've ever seen in a game.

I've yet to see an encounter built around Healbot/Vuhdo or any of the healing UIs. I've never actually seen one based around anything but maybe Omen, and even then it's that the encounter involves a threat dump on the tank at regular intervals. I want to say they've moved away from that stupid mechanic as well.

The reason the UIs were moved into the base UI wasn't "we balance around you having these", it's that "these make the base game better, so instead of making new players figure this shit out, let's give it to everyone as part of the base package". It's like insisting Airbags are now in all cars because manufacturers intend for you to get into accidents. They're just a good freaking improvement.

[Paelos]

The reason the UIs were moved into the base UI wasn't "we balance around you having these", it's that "these make the base game better, so instead of making new players figure this shit out, let's give it to everyone as part of the base package". It's like insisting Airbags are now in all cars because manufacturers intend for you to get into accidents. They're just a good freaking improvement.

I'm sure that was their intent. The reaction is usually WAY different from the playerbase than what the developers intended.

I do believe that Blizzard balances their raids around people using Boss Mods, for example. Or mods that scream DON'T STAND IN THE FIRE! at players.

[Arinon]

Yeah by all means, tell me to choose between two things but don't tell me what they do mechanically. That's great gameplay. 

I think there is happy medium between this skill does "high damage" and this skill does 400 + 2.8 (Prime Stat) damage with a 20% chance of (Secondary Stat) extra damage with a total threat modifier of 120% or whatever amount of behind the curtain information people feel they need to keep up with the Jones's.  Ideally I'd like the knowledge of what skills are good in which situations to come from trying shit out and gauging the results in a qualitative manner rather than with a calculator.  (Total pipe dream but whatever.)  I can see the other side but I agree with the monkey.

[caladein]

The reason the UIs were moved into the base UI wasn't "we balance around you having these", it's that "these make the base game better, so instead of making new players figure this shit out, let's give it to everyone as part of the base package". It's like insisting Airbags are now in all cars because manufacturers intend for you to get into accidents. They're just a good freaking improvement.

I'm sure that was their intent. The reaction is usually WAY different from the playerbase than what the developers intended.

I do believe that Blizzard balances their raids around people using Boss Mods, for example. Or mods that scream DON'T STAND IN THE FIRE! at players.

Contemporary normal modes?  No, I don't believe that's the case in the least.  (And it's really not the case for Raid Finder difficulty.)

I think most contemporary heroic mode strategies are built around having timers up for specific abilities.  That said, the strategies that are in widespread use aren't necessarily the ones that Blizzard intended to be used in the first place (e.g. low Scorpion Heroic Majordomo Staghelm, triangle formation for Magma Geyser on Heroic Ragnaros).

[Sjofn]

The reason the UIs were moved into the base UI wasn't "we balance around you having these", it's that "these make the base game better, so instead of making new players figure this shit out, let's give it to everyone as part of the base package". It's like insisting Airbags are now in all cars because manufacturers intend for you to get into accidents. They're just a good freaking improvement.

I'm sure that was their intent. The reaction is usually WAY different from the playerbase than what the developers intended.

I do believe that Blizzard balances their raids around people using Boss Mods, for example. Or mods that scream DON'T STAND IN THE FIRE! at players.

Given "boss mods" have been in the default UI since WotLK (I did the first few tiers of that with no boss mod at all without a problem, I think I finally installed one for ICC just for appearance's sake), they probably do now, yes. I don't see it as a problem, since it's in the default UI now.

[Fordel]

Hiding information just means hiding shitty game balance to me these days. That's what DaoC taught me again and again. Never mind the god damned doublefrost math, their own fucking tooltips of 'high/med/low damage' did not actually match up to anything in the games reality.

[tmp]

There's cases where hiding some info would be nothing but mercy. Let me believe a perk i select does something cool rather than increase my resistance to fart damage by 0.1%

[Ingmar]

Hiding information just means hiding shitty game balance to me these days. That's what DaoC taught me again and again. Never mind the god damned doublefrost math, their own fucking tooltips of 'high/med/low damage' did not actually match up to anything in the games reality.

Yes, this. DAOC is what soured me entirely on non-fully-documented mechanics.

[Nebu]

You guys must have missed the Mud era... damage back then was all in words.  It was ALL CAPS when you did the big damage. 

You EVISCERATE the hill giant!   

[Fordel]

I did, I assure you Sjofn and Ingmar did not 

[Rasix]

You guys must have missed the Mud era... damage back then was all in words.  It was ALL CAPS when you did the big damage. 

You EVISCERATE the hill giant!   

My MUD of choice gave the damage too.  Plus it put that shit in color with some badass ASCII around it.  My thief was a rainbow death machine.