Strategy vs Slaughter

[FURYous]

Sorry but if your "playstyle" is nothing more than to beat things with a stick, then you are a brain dead bully. Monkeys can beat things with sticks, it doesn't require thought to find something moving and hit it with a stick until it stops moving.

First off to all the trolls taking offense where none was offered, no one called you a monkey. I said "if your playstyle is NOTHING MORE THAN hitting things with a stick, you are a brain dead bully" and I stick to that. I THEN mentioned in a completely different sentence that monkeys can beat things with sticks. Nothing was mentioned at all about them playing video games or using strategy.

I’m responsible only for what I say, not what you understand.


Let's get back to the original premise of the thread, why not allow more latitude to the playstyle. Hey, if your thing is to beat things with a stick, then go to town, some of us would like variety and options. I don't see why we can't have both.

[Hawkwier]

First off to all the trolls taking offense where none was offered, no one called you a monkey. I said "if your playstyle is NOTHING MORE THAN hitting things with a stick, you are a brain dead bully" and I stick to that. I THEN mentioned in a completely different sentence that monkeys can beat things with sticks. Nothing was mentioned at all about them playing video games or using strategy.

I’m responsible only for what I say, not what you understand.


Let's get back to the original premise of the thread, why not allow more latitude to the playstyle. Hey, if your thing is to beat things with a stick, then go to town, some of us would like variety and options. I don't see why we can't have both.

See, this is what happens when I let you take your head out of the toilet bowl too soon. So, back in you go...

[False_Gods]

First off to all the trolls taking offense where none was offered, no one called you a monkey. I said "if your playstyle is NOTHING MORE THAN hitting things with a stick, you are a brain dead bully" and I stick to that. I THEN mentioned in a completely different sentence that monkeys can beat things with sticks. Nothing was mentioned at all about them playing video games or using strategy.

I’m responsible only for what I say, not what you understand.


Let's get back to the original premise of the thread, why not allow more latitude to the playstyle. Hey, if your thing is to beat things with a stick, then go to town, some of us would like variety and options. I don't see why we can't have both.

Reminds me of when I am casually killing the mobs over the 3rd seer in Madstone and someone is continually yelling "YOU DONT HAVE TO KILL THOSE YOU DONT HAVE TO KILL THOSE" and I'm like yeah I'm the one who came up with that idea back in 2008 but I actually like killing them

What can I say Im a solution oriented guy. The solution here is higher difficulty levels. Imagine running R20 Epic Gwylands Stand where you get down to the first area where you set the charges. A place where even the best players in the game would be slaughtered wholesale if they were to wake up the whole room. That is how you create situations that require additional strategies. We once had situations like that when Epic first came out.. running things like Offering of Blood on Epic. Even R10 nowadays is a cakewalk in comparison.

[slarden]

For the most part in questing I think there are multiple difficulties and so many quests in the game - I think you can beat quests with many strategies besides straight up max dps.

Raids on the other hand is where there is a definitely an over-emphasis on dps. People play a variety of builds for questing and those builds may work fine for questing - but unfortunately many of those builds are sub-par for raiding because at least 9 of the 12 roles are dps and that mcgyver style wizard that works so well for someone in questing is a liability in a raid because dps is terrible compared to top-tier boss-dps builds.

Unfortunately when it comes to class balance for end-game raiding there is none because boss-dps is not balanced and if I choose to play a warlock for example - it might work well in questing but nobody wants me to bring it to a raid except in edge cases where instant kill is useful. And even there the leader will prefer to err on the side of over-emphasis on dps and only want max one caster and have dps killing the mobs rather than risk going with 2 casters and being too light on dps.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

When I first started playing this game, they had some quests that could be done without the monotonous room to room slaughter that seems to be the only allowed “strategy” now.
Why is [slaughter, move ten feet, slaughter, move ten feet, slaughter] the only option for 99% of quests?
I remember being able to sneak through quests, to CC through quests, having different options based on your team’s classes.

Now it seems even the traps and puzzles are a side note that can be ignored most of the time and people only build for DPS.
Kills things fast enough and ignore everything else. Seems like a FPS more the D&D.

Exactly my point(s) !

However, DDO follows very closely the overwhelmingly successful formula of Blizzard . Reduce the NPC social contacts to the ABSOLUTE minimum, and instead provide hugely adrenaline-producing action-battles ! And vialá ! You have an ever-producing money formula !

That's how Blizzard became big - in the first place.

And tha's what was copied by so many firms, who saw, how insanely successful that formula was / is - that it became the Industry Standard for almost 2 decades !

That's right . Action-RPGs are the industry standard for almost 2 decades now.

And this industry standard is still followed by so many developers.

Why ?

Just look how much money-efficiect Bauhaus is, compared to Art Nouveau / Jugendstil :
Bauhaus basically has no embellishment, nothing but basic platonic bodies, and so it is so much more efficient to build - less costs !

Action-RPGs are the same. No immersion, no NPC social interaction, no embellishments, nothing. It is so much more money-efficient to totally reduce the whole "game" into 1 aspect : Battle.

DDO follows that formula. It is cost-efficient, because it throws away immersion (Harbour Notice Boards) or / and doesn't use any form of immersion in the first place ("The Newcomers").
Social interaction with NPCs ? Uninteresting, because it consumes money.


The reason why so many firms used the Blizzard-Formula is in my opinion a typical chicken-egg problem :
The industry almost says "Gamers want it so." "Gamers want Action."

Meanwhile at the same time NOT offering ANY alternatives. Chicken-Egg problem.

The Chicken-Egg problem is simply this : Do "gamers" really want action games - or do they play action games because "the industry" doesn't offer them any alternatives ?


The last LucaArts Sam & Max game was cancelled because ... at LucasArts it was thought that suddenly ( ! ) there were no buyers of Adventure games. Emphasis is on "suddenly" It was documented within the blog-ilke "Summer of Sam & Max series of articles.

That is to be seen with the surge of Action-games in general. No more thinking Adventure games were produce, but action Adventure games. Compare the last Indiana Jones "Action-Adventures" with the still absolutely brilliant "Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis".


I call our time the "age of action", because in the media - not only in gaming ! - there is far more "action" than "thinking".
Action movies produce the most money, not movies which make people think or capture them emotionally.

I have also written a few times elsewhere that i believe in an "addiction to adrenaline".
Which is my suspicion why adrenaline-producing action games are so much popular.


DDO simply follows that industry standard, whicu is oh so much more cost effective. Other MMOs do that as well.
Raiders essentially don't want riddles, for example All they need is a long tunnel made of concrete, and no colours, please, and a few bosses waiting at the end. That's all.

DDO is an MMO, and MMOs are based, fundamentally, on risk/time/skill:reward. Invisi-zerging and CC zerging were bad for the game because they circumvented the risk:reward balance, and also the time:reward balance.

The only real metric for risk in the game is dying. So the only way to justify worthwhile rewards is to challenge you not to die. And the only real good way to do that is through combat. Being able to sneak/CC past fights entirely essentially removes that challenge.

This way of thinking - this philosophy - is the perfect example of Blizard's formula. And how people lerned to immerse that formula as a rule.

Blizzard's formula has sunk to deeply into the minds of people that they simply cannot think out of the boix anymore - and especially developers can't !


The ONLY RPg I have EVER played which gives away xp ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY for doing social tasks - is at the same time heavily frowned onpon the mostly male gamers, because it doesn't give them any kind of competition (and fighting is THE form of competition ! : "SIM's Medieval".

No-one plays it, because it is considered by male "ghemers" as "too much womanlike" and "not manly".
Manly, are, on the other side, games with the development of power, competition ("it's me or the other player/NPC") and killing.

Killing as the ONLY imagineable problem-solving method. "Peacemaker" style. "A problem doesn't exist anymore if the other one doesn't exist anymore."

Which often leads in MMOs to the reply of "if this is too brutal for you, then go play Hello Kitty."

I come to believe that male gamers get trained through video games that there are no other ways to solve problems than through competition. Diplomacy, for example, is NEVER taugfht in games, and is thus HEAVILY frowned upon, because it is not manly.

Diplomacy in DDO is even nothing but a combat-related skill.

And, not to mention, as soon as things are changed - or even developed in the first place - into something else than just "action" or "battle", then developers get the storm of "this is toooo soft !!!111eleven".




I'm still waiting for developers emancipating thmselves from Blizzard's formula.

But, on the other hand, Action games are so much more cost-efficient to produce that this is very likely to never happen.
The financial departtments will make that sure.
Especially with the "hint" towards "shareholder interests"
and the top people in that company wanting their money, too (ActiBlizzard).

[Epicsoul]

I’m responsible only for what I say, not what you understand.

Man, some people are stupid.

Let's get back to the original premise of the thread, why not allow more latitude to the playstyle. Hey, if your thing is to beat things with a stick, then go to town, some of us would like variety and options. I don't see why we can't have both.

We can have both, and I think we should.

[Chai]

Both of those fails were because of bad AI development. And instead of doing good development they doubled down on the bad by nerfing the options of the player, rather than increasing/improving the AI options.

Invisi-zerging =/= sneaking - Invisibility can be dispelled at any time. SSG was just too un-imaginative to have mobs with true-seeing and that cast dispel to counter the invisible scrolling when they had tremor-sense go off.

Complete CC zerging would have been trivial to defeat in most quests if mobs didn't rubber band (an arguably they shouldn't at all without a barrier).

The reason why everything is a DPS fest is because of the limited skills of the dev crew to be able to code anything that is not. It has nothing to do with player choices or risk/reward.

This.

They began using a scaling template to create quests some years ago. Some still get designed with some level of immersion, but its still 1. kill mobs, 2. move forward, 3. repeat. The original DDO had an XP bonus for killing few-zero mobs. This playstyle went away because posters on the forum complained about how other players not even in the same group or quest, were doing things differently. The vast majority of the options we used to have are now condensed down to which stat are you going to consolidate everything to, and what skin you want to put on your damage generator. Nowdays the gear is also a template, as set bonus leaves little room for variance.

[boredGamer]

The original DDO had an XP bonus for killing few-zero mobs.

The CURRENT DDO has an XP bonus for killing few mobs.

[arminius]

The CURRENT DDO has an XP bonus for killing few mobs.

Yes, but I think the point though is that there is a lot of counter-design to that at play as well, with having to kill X mobs to advance to the next plot point, or kill everything in the room to open the door, etc. There isn't as much room for clever workarounds like existed in the Harbor and Marketplace quests. A lot of that has to do with the fight against lag, having too many active mobs at once and bringing the server performance down.

[Abilbo]

While I agree with your post, I want to point out something that SSG did that completely ruined the ability to do this, and made it so the only "viable" way to complete the very vast majority of quests is to actually kill every monster instead of incapacitate them. It's called Dungeon Threat. If you pull too many monsters, dungeon threat increases. Getting to Red is something most everyone avoids, as even yellow/orange can cause wipes on Elite without proper tanks. Rogues/Arti's and probably some very unique builds could take advantage of sneaking past everything so as not to actually agro mobs, but there is no longer the option to "cc and run" because even CC'd mobs still count towards the dungeon threat level. For solo players, sneaking classes or invisibility paired with a good hide/move silently check could still work but in a group setting it's all about the slaughter as you put it. Back in the original game (long before even Shroud was released) you actually would CC groups of very dangerous mobs and move past them into an area they couldn't follow, or sneak past mobs to grab keys/levers/runes etc. Was a very viable part of the game, and most of the successful groups utilized that option. SSG made the game into a kill fest.

This!!! This i agree with. The Red Alert dungeon threat that was implemented years ago, changed the way dungeons are run. Because of this threat generating system, it is much easier to build a mass murder toon, and be successful, than it is to build a CC/Sneaky toon, and try and complete dungeons.

The threat system not only affects Elite, it also effects Reaper. Groups of mobs where you "might" have thought about skipping, become more important to kill, because if you move past them, and then accidentally back into them, you are now fighting two groups. Its much easier to murder each pack of mobs as you go, and you build your characters to do such.

[myliftkk_v2]

I call our time the "age of action", because in the media - not only in gaming ! - there is far more "action" than "thinking".
Action movies produce the most money, not movies which make people think or capture them emotionally.

This isn't an "age" thing. The "call to action" has literally existed probably forever. Go back to the original superhero, Captain Action. It's always been there.

There's never been "age of clever", because humans, on balance, aren't clever. Game systems by an large, aren't designed to entertain clever humans, they are designed to entertain masses who aren't clever and who generally react dis-favorably to any clever approach to solving a problem. Forums like SSGs bear this out because of the endless calls for nerfs on clever builds. But, it's not unique to SSG, it happened in sports long before SSG.

There have been very few games over the years that catered to clever humans, almost all of them stealth games.

[Cordovan]

This thread started with an insult to a vast section of the player base and went downhill from there. Now closed.