Blizzard tries to nerf catassery

[El Gallo]

In the interest of decreasing jackassery 'round these parts, I have edited meandering, verbose crap into the following straightforward, non-verbose crap:

PROBLEM:You have a 100 players, who play from 1 through 100 hours a week. The 1 hour guy and the 100 hour guy are friends. How do you let them play together?

WRONG ANSWER TO PROBLEM: Limit all 100 people to 1 hour of advancement per week.

POSSIBLE ALBIET INCONVENIENT ANSWER TO PROBLEM: Have your friend play an alt with you when you are online sometimes, or voluntarily handicap himself in some way to play with you (by farming in a zone you can get xp in or something).

NEVER GONNA HAPPEN ANSWER THAT PROBABLY SHOULD NOT HAPPEN ANYWAY: Turn WoW into a skill based twitch game.

[El Gallo]

In the interest of decreasing jackassery 'round these parts, I have edited meandering, verbose crap into the following straightforward, non-verbose crap:

ANOTHER POSSIBLE ANSWER:  Make a game like SWG or UO where you can group across "levels" easier.  I don't like this because the same mechanics that made SWG and UO non-segregated (solo oriented combat) made the combat in those games suck.

[Alluvian]

Maybe if you re-read the thread it will make sense.

I would rather stab my eyes out with a hot iron poker.


I apologize if I attacked you on two shitty comparisons when you only made one shitty comparison.

I would go back and find out about who made the fucking stupid oatmeal statement but I keep coming back to that hot iron poker and the eye stabbing.

The topic is so far off any point it is ridiculous.  I know I am doing nothing to help, but I don't find the original point worth coming back to.

Playing an alt when you don't want to be playing an alt sucks ass and breeds resentment for the game.  That is good enough reason for avoiding segregation.  I had to have 5 fucking alts in EQ all specifically frozen ni time at certain levels so I could play with all of my friends.  It sucked ass.  Not only did I need all those alts but I could not play them on their own because then they would progress and then I could not use them anymore for their purpose.

So I would have a level 20, a 30, a 40... ugh.  Then a few level 30 friends are on for a few weeks and my level 30 is now level 40.  Then a friend who was away from the game awhile comes back with his level 30 SHIT.  Now I don't have a level 30!  What do I do?  Intentionally get in a bind death loop to delevel to him?  WTF?  Do I have to quick power level my level 20 to match and then power level ANOTHER level 20 in case a friend comes on who is level 20?

It is fucking assanine.

Blizzard's attempt to slow down the leading edge just might do that (I doubt it) but it does not solve the problem.  The person who starts 4 months into the game will still by WAY behind.  Make an alt for him... then another friend hears from the other friend and joins two months later... make another fucking alt?  When does it end?  I don't want to have to keep 1 of every level group around and feel BAD for playing them when the friend they were designed for is not online.

Does anyone think that is fun?

There are ways to avoid it.  Flattening the level curve helps in having less alts around, but does not really solve it.

CoH sidekick system has pretty much fixed it.  But you can't have TWO friends sidekicked.  That is still a limitation.  But it a big step in the right direction.

[Paelos]

If you put together some simple stats on how often accounts stayed logged into the game per day you could see whether the rest system is a good or bad idea. Blizzard has all the capabilities of doing this, and I'm sure they are tracking it. If you simply removed the 10% of players on both ends of the catass/absent outliers, you'd get a fairly good view of how often people play per day. I'd hazard a guess that the average player gets about 20 hours a week into the game. Mind you that's a guess. Without the actual numbers you have no idea if the catasses comprise the majority of your game. I would think they don't but they are the loudest contingent. Frankly, if they are the great majority, then you should cater to them as a business, consequences be damned. If not, then they will whine until they join up with Lineage 2, which will cater to their needs. Blizzard just needs to decide where it's market is, and they will follow the money to casual/hardcore just like any other service.

I'd love to see this be a trend in a game that caters to the casual player as I have to believe there are more of us out there who will stay satisfied with less content. That means less work on new stuff for developers in a rush, and it means longer subscriptions to reach the more high end stuff. You'd think its a wet-dream market to cater to, but you have to convince them that they can get there eventually without horrific inputs. I'd say three months of casual play (20 hours a week) to get to the highest level would be great for that market. Of course, catasses could do this in two weeks, but if they aren't the market and if you don't care if that small percentage quits, why bother? If pissing off catasses keeps your majority playing that seems to be key. We just never see the numbers behind the business decisions which would vindicate our position. Until then, it's either trust the company or STFU.

[Daeven]

PROBLEM:You have a 100 players, who play from 1 through 100 hours a week.  The 1 hour guy and the 100 hour guy are friends.  How do you let them play together?
 

Hmm. Waterthread is gone, so I can’t simply link to the Game Dev forum.

Synopsis answer: broad but shallow advancement. Allow for skill differentiation and specialization without jacking players ability to stand up to each other. Limit Hit Point and deal able damage advancement. Add more routs of advancement – social prestige, troops to command, territorial control, etc as opposed to more higher numbers.

In other words, stop simply implementing the mechanics of the single player RPG (which are wholly inappropriate to the MMOG setting) and try to implement the ‘gameplay’ of the single player RPG in a MMOg setting.

And if you can't differentiate between gameplay and mechanics then, well,  there isn't much else to say.

[El Gallo]

We've been around that issue before, but it seems to me just a fancy way of saying that you can't advance more than hour a week.  Advancement is either meaningful or it isn't.  If its meaningful, you will create barriers.  It it isn't you won't create barriers, but the advancement will be meaningless.

You can't have it both ways.  You can make a broad and shallow game that combines combat with magic with healing with architecture with Civ3 with chess with Madden 2004 with hearts with...ad infinitum where you quickly (or instantly) softcap each one.  Yeah, #1 and #100 could play together.  But your game will suck because it is very hard to make a game with even 1 of these facets that does not suck, much less 50 facets.  And even if you have 50 facets, your frequent players will have softcapped every one of them in a couple months, and then you are back to "no meaningful advancement".

I just think that it is unlikely that there is a quick and obvious answer.  People just plain like meaningful advancement, and meaningful advancement leads to segregation.

[Alluvian]

Advancement is meaningful in CoH and there are not these barriers.  You can have it both ways.

Advancement is meaningful in Planetside and there are not these barriers.  You can have it both ways.

[Daeven]

Translation:

Daeven: I don't like current mmog's because their 'meaningful advancemt' dillutes the playerbase and fun. Therefore we should minimize 'meaningful advancement' and focus on fun instead.

El Gallo: STFU. I like 'meaningful advancement' your game ideas sound boring.

It comes down to this. Either you like MMOG's as current implemented, or you think they are pale, shallow implementations of RPG's with all of the focus on 'advancement'. I'm in the latter camp. El Gallo is in the former. Thereby ending any chance of meaningful dialog.

Have a nice day.

[El Gallo]

Make me MMOG with no/very little advancement that is worth paying a monthly fee for because it is fun and I will pony up the money pronto.  I think "Planetside done right" could maybe be a lot of fun.  Not all games need "meaningful advancement" and I am allowed to like both kinds =)  WoW, however, appears to be focused on it, which is what this thread used to be about.  I just think it's impossible or really, really hard to have a game with meaningful advancement without segregation unless you have a literally impossible amount of breadth.  Others disagree. C'est la vie.

Anyway, I am going home to catass.  Someone please help Paelos derail this clusterfuck back on topic!

Paelos: Why not just have a game (or servers of a game) where you get to play x hours a week/month and that's it?

[HRose]

PROBLEM:You have a 100 players, who play from 1 through 100 hours a week.  The 1 hour guy and the 100 hour guy are friends.  How do you let them play together?

Synopsis answer: broad but shallow advancement.

No, just design games not around treadmills.

[Pantalaimon]

And your oatmeal analogy was fucking awful as well.  I sometimes wish there was some king of analogy license so we could take it away from people like you while batting you with a rolled up newspaper.

Oooo, analogy police. So sorry.

Guess I'm simple, but where I live we don't have any other oatmeal products like you seem to have. So when somebody here says "oatmeal", there's only one type of oatmeal he could refer to. Chalk it up to cultural differences.

[schild]

Analogy Police

Less than clever retort.

You missed the point in your oatmeal post. Most people don't want to keep up with John Q. Catass or whoever, the point is sometimes IT NEEDS TO BE DONE or you just have the urge to play nonstop for 24 hours. Let's use City of Heroes as the example:

Preorder players can play for 3 days before the general public is let in. Many of us will be catassing - not because we want to - but because we DON'T want to deal with the rush of newbies in the newbie zones. What's the best way to do it? Ya get the fuck outta them before they can bother you with endless questions about how to script or whatever other dumb shit they can come up with. If they took away the ability to catass, there would be near no reason to give us 3 days before because at best we'll be 3 days ahead of them. Right now, with the ability to catass, we can turn that three days into 2-3 weeks with our current knowledge of the game. Yes, catassing can be that advantageous under the proper circumstances.

As to your oatmeal analogy, here's an oatmeal analogy for you -

Blizzard Entertainment is really an IHOP. I like the oatmeal at Blizzard. But one day the owner decides HE doesn't like oatmeal and takes it off the menu. Now no one can order oatmeal because the owner is a stupid prick.

Now replace the word oatmeal with the word catass. See how that works?

Analogies are hard. I know.

[Soukyan]

Analogy Police

Less than clever retort.

You missed the point in your oatmeal post. Most people don't want to keep up with John Q. Catass or whoever, the point is sometimes IT NEEDS TO BE DONE or you just have the urge to play nonstop for 24 hours. Let's use City of Heroes as the example:

Preorder players can play for 3 days before the general public is let in. Many of us will be catassing - not because we want to - but because we DON'T want to deal with the rush of newbies in the newbie zones. What's the best way to do it? Ya get the fuck outta them before they can bother you with endless questions about how to script or whatever other dumb shit they can come up with. If they took away the ability to catass, there would be near no reason to give us 3 days before because at best we'll be 3 days ahead of them. Right now, with the ability to catass, we can turn that three days into 2-3 weeks with our current knowledge of the game. Yes, catassing can be that advantageous under the proper circumstances.

As to your oatmeal analogy, here's an oatmeal analogy for you -

Blizzard Entertainment is really an IHOP. I like the oatmeal at Blizzard. But one day the owner decides HE doesn't like oatmeal and takes it off the menu. Now no one can order oatmeal because the owner is a stupid prick.

Now replace the word oatmeal with the word catass. See how that works?

Analogies are hard. I know.

Timmy, I think she's trying to tell us something! What is it, Lassie? ;)

[Alluvian]

This thread makes no sense to me anymore.  I will just have the waffles please.  And some OJ.

[Mesozoic]

This thread makes no sense to me anymore.

C'mon...  

WoW.  Oatmeal.  Everyone else gets it.

[AOFanboi]

So I would have a level 20, a 30, a 40... ugh.  Then a few level 30 friends are on for a few weeks and my level 30 is now level 40.  Then a friend who was away from the game awhile comes back with his level 30 SHIT.  Now I don't have a level 30!  What do I do?  Intentionally get in a bind death loop to delevel to him?  WTF?  Do I have to quick power level my level 20 to match and then power level ANOTHER level 20 in case a friend comes on who is level 20?

Yes, with the current crop of "gameplay equals whacking rats for exp" leveling treadmills that is a problem.

But it's not wrong to wish for a world where MMOGs don't have that problem.

[HaemishM]

In the interest of decreasing jackassery 'round these parts, I have edited meandering, verbose crap into the following straightforward, non-verbose crap:

ANOTHER POSSIBLE ANSWER:  Make a game like SWG or UO where you can group across "levels" easier.  I don't like this because the same mechanics that made SWG and UO non-segregated (solo oriented combat) made the combat in those games suck.

How about another solution, a la CoH? Make it so that players of disparate levels/power ranges (in CoH it's a range of 4 levels difference) can play together by "sidekicking." The lower level player is brought up to the base statistics of the higher level character's level -1. So if my catass friend is level 20, and I'm level 10, I can hunt and sidekick with him as if I was an unenhanced level 19. Sure, I'm not quite on the same level, but I can fucking contribute and be with my friend without making him play an alt character.

See, it isn't impossible, it just takes some fucking thought.

[El Gallo]

It helps *one* friend at most and I have no doubt that it will be abused to hell and back by multiboxers, etc.  But I agree that it sounds like a promising start.  Can you advance while in sidekick mode? (i.e. if I am a level 5 foozle and am /sidekicked up to a level 19 foozle, do the things I do as a level 19 foozle help advance me to a level 6 foozle?)

I was thinking that a similar situation might work better, because it would not be limited to one person.  How about if your MMOG contains a /delevel command.  So whenever your lowbie friend is online, you hit /delevel and are reduced to his level (until you hit /relevel or whatever).  If you have multiple friends, you all /delevel to her level when you want to play together.  That way, you can all play together.  If possible, we'd throw in some way to allow the high level characters to gain xp or whatever while they are in delevelled mode (though this will be a huge bitch to balance).

Personally, I suspect that the issue is a red herring for people who are lying to themselves about why they want to be ub4r, but if its a legitimate concern, that should fix it.

[El Gallo]

But it's not wrong to wish for a world where MMOGs don't have that problem.

Negative ping code and fetapults are coming any day now.  GLITCHLESS 4 LIFE!

[Alluvian]

It helps *one* friend at most and I have no doubt that it will be abused to hell and back by multiboxers, etc.  But I agree that it sounds like a promising start.  Can you advance while in sidekick mode? (i.e. if I am a level 5 foozle and am /sidekicked up to a level 19 foozle, do the things I do as a level 19 foozle help advance me to a level 6 foozle?)

Yes, they gain exp, but exp relative to their unsidekicked level.  So if they are sidekicked up to 19, killing a level 19 mob (an even) will give them the same exp that they would get by killing an even mob before they were sidekicked.  So there is no way to powerlevel someone by sidekicking them.  They get proper proportionate exp.  It is just like they were doing a mission against level 10 mobs in a group of level 10s except now they can help out their buddy and have fun.

I was thinking that a similar situation might work better, because it would not be limited to one person.  How about if your MMOG contains a /delevel command.  So whenever your lowbie friend is online, you hit /delevel and are reduced to his level (until you hit /relevel or whatever).  If you have multiple friends, you all /delevel to her level when you want to play together.  That way, you can all play together.  If possible, we'd throw in some way to allow the high level characters to gain xp or whatever while they are in delevelled mode (though this will be a huge bitch to balance).

Personally, I suspect that the issue is a red herring for people who are lying to themselves about why they want to be ub4r, but if its a legitimate concern, that should fix it.

A /delevel command?

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST NO.

What is wrong with you man?  Given an option of having two disparate level character and the choice to give one a boon or to punish one you think PUNISHING one is the right choice?  WTF?

I can see the problems with only being able to sidekick one, but the solution then would be to have multiple sidekicks or a group sidekick function.  It isn't in CoH so the system is not perfect.  If you have 2 level 30s and 3 level 5s who want to group you got a problem.  One of those level 5s will be left behind unless you find another level 30 to sidekick them.

But to make the 30s play at level 5 does not seem like a good solution to me at all.  That would be punishing them for being higher level (because I think having level 5 mobs suddenly dish out level 30 proportionate exp is wrong).  Something which is pretty retarded.

Alluvian wrote:
So I would have a level 20, a 30, a 40... ugh. Then a few level 30 friends are on for a few weeks and my level 30 is now level 40. Then a friend who was away from the game awhile comes back with his level 30 SHIT. Now I don't have a level 30! What do I do? Intentionally get in a bind death loop to delevel to him? WTF? Do I have to quick power level my level 20 to match and then power level ANOTHER level 20 in case a friend comes on who is level 20?

Yes, with the current crop of "gameplay equals whacking rats for exp" leveling treadmills that is a problem.

But it's not wrong to wish for a world where MMOGs don't have that problem.

I disagree.  Even in a fun game having to make sure you have every potential level appropriate toon for every potential friend that might log on any given day will become a chore.  Unless every character is the exact same gameplay (which would suck ass) everyone will have their favorite characters.  This might even change day to day depending on mood.  Having to keep this complex matrix of properly leveled characters makes the higher level have to play a character he may not want to just to be with a friend.

The answer of "Well, thats just what you have to do" is become more and more inadequate as more and more options are showing the myth behind that statement.  There are other ways to do it.  And my choice might be to just play a different game with those friends.

I have never called CoH the holy grail or even revolutionary in any way.  The sidekick system borders on that and it is so fucking painfully simple it stuns me that everyone does not have it.  Even CoH has not perfected it though.  As shown in the case above.  But it is a far sight better than those higher level characters saying "Sorry, billy, I can't play with you.  I don't HAVE a level 10 character.... he leveled to 15 last week when playing with george.  You should have been there.  Now you just need new friends."

I also think it is a far sight better than the 30 deleveling to 5 to fight things he fought months ago.  Boost the 5 up and give him a cool new experience.

[HRose]

See, it isn't impossible, it just takes some fucking thought.

Yes but "some fucking thought" seems unrelated to mmorpgs.

[HaemishM]

See, it isn't impossible, it just takes some fucking thought.

Yes but "some fucking thought" seems unrelated to mmorpgs.

CoH made me forget that. I'll try to pull out the doll tonight to point out the places where EQ touched me in the bad way.

[El Gallo]

A /delevel command?

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST NO.

What is wrong with you man?  Given an option of having two disparate level character and the choice to give one a boon or to punish one you think PUNISHING one is the right choice?  WTF?

Because then you could allow unlimited grouping, not just 1 or 2 sidekicks.  If you have the unlimited /delevel, you can play with all your friends, whether there is 1 or 100.  If you have an unlimited /levelup command, grats on every single person being 1 level lower than the highest person on the server all the time, and goodbye to meaningful advancement in your game.  Which is fine if you have a game that is worth playing with no advancement, but good luck with that.  Sure, you can arbitrarily cut off the number of sidekicks at x, but the guy with x+1 friends will always bitch.

I completely see your point about it feeling cheesy to have lvl 5 mobs cough up level 30 xp when they are killed by a level 30 /delevelled to 5; but it also seems odd for a whole group of level 1's to become level 100 when a friend waves their magic wand, but for the level 100 mobs to only give the xp level 1 mobs give.

Really, the whole situation is very messy and I think that an elegant solution will be hard to find.

[ajax34i]

Why the fuck are we talking about CoH in a WoW thread, when there's three fucking CoH threads in this forum and two more in Distort/Decide?!?!

Anyway.  They are changing the Rest System a bit.

[Soukyan]

Why the fuck are we talking about CoH in a WoW thread, when there's three fucking CoH threads in this forum and two more in Distort/Decide?!?!

Because it's just that fucking good, that's why.

[ajax34i]

Isn't there a special forum for blatant fanboism?

Eh, fuck it.  It's your fucking site and if you want to turn it into a CoH fansite, it's your prerogative.  I think someone even predicted this would happen a while back.

[schild]

At least we're not talking about shadowbane.

[cevik]

Isn't there a special forum for blatant fanboism?

Eh, fuck it.  It's your fucking site and if you want to turn it into a CoH fansite, it's your prerogative.  I think someone even predicted this would happen a while back.

Jesus christ man, bitch much?  It's been like this for every single mmog release in the history of the community.  Just in the last fucking year every conversation was constantly redirected to Shadowbane during it's release, then Star Wars Galaxies during that release.  We always do this shit, when WoW is just about to be released you'll see the same stuff happen.

Besides, there are two threads about WoW's rest state system AND a front page update on the subject, it's not like we have been ignoring it.

Ohh, and btw, I've included your name and link above in monday's MMOG News post, part of which I wrote this morning..

[ajax34i]

Eh, well, that's my problem then, I've only started visiting this site a few months ago.

[Mesozoic]

I still contend that people are completely missing the point of the Rest State system.  

Its not about anti-catass, its about pushing players towards quests rather than simple camping.  As people have noted, the Rest State is character-specific and nothing stops a catass from simply switching characters.  And because it doesn't apply to quests or PvP, (by all accounts quests are the single largest source of XP in the game) the catass - even when using only one character  - can easily chain quests together (something WoW seems to blatantly encourage) or constantly hang out in PvP areas to get max XP.  Overall there are so many completely obvious ways around the "Rest State as catass control" theory that it seems much more sensible to simply take Blizzard on their word:  

This frees up time for exploring other aspects of the game without penalty, such as tradeskilling and social activities, and helps players avoid level-grinding.

Rest State is only a problem if you stubbornly insist on the most boring possible playstyle for a single character in the face of far better alternatives.  As it turns out, stubbornly insisting on the most boring possible playstyle for a single character is the modus operandi for all EQ and DAoC catasses.  So they bitch, because they aren't thinking.  And in response to their bitching we're only seeing Rest State as something it isn't.

[Ironwood]

Its not about anti-catass, its about pushing players towards quests rather than simple camping.  

Stop making sense.  It's out of place in this thread.

[HaemishM]

Eh, well, that's my problem then, I've only started visiting this site a few months ago.

Every MMOG gets its day. WT.O was all about Shadowbane in the month before release, and the month after release. And when the big problems hit, it was all about how SB fucked up. Both FFXI and SWG got their moments in the sun, though FFXI got significantly less than others because no one doing front page stuff wanted to play it.

CoH just happens to be pushing our buttons right now.

[Alluvian]

If you have an unlimited /levelup command, grats on every single person being 1 level lower than the highest person on the server all the time, and goodbye to meaningful advancement in your game

Not really, because levels are only a part of the equation.  Levels are only there for comparitive hitrolls and hitpoints and scaled damage and that stuff.

The MEANINGFUL leveling is not about boring things like hitrolls and bigger numbers on the same power. That would be stupid.  The meaningful leveling is about power selection and enhancement slots. You get new slots every other level and new powers every other level.  You could /sidekick everyone to level 40 tomorrow and you would still have meaningful leveling.

[El Gallo]

Rest State is only a problem if you stubbornly insist on the most boring possible playstyle for a single character in the face of far better alternatives.

I am not sure that I would say that an evening spent crawling a great dungeon with a tight group is more boring than an evening of solo/disposable group "collect 30 foozle paws" quests.

[Secundo]

The wow rest system is being tweaked and at this time noone can tell what the final version of it may be.
Maybe it will be cool. Maybe it will suck...  at the very least its a step on the game(mmorpg) evolution ladder.

As for friends who want to play with eachother..?  they will find a way to do it or they arent really friends..  Friendship is sooo much bigger than some lousy game mechanics.

So, fucktards.. (hehe) care more about your friend than the stupid game and you will all be happier.