I'm not playing World of Warcraft at the moment, but it will change with Mists of Pandaria coming out. I'm not planning to start any project or doing any form of endgame, just a journey in the game content. Blizzard is famous for creating good content and for screwing up gameplay terribly. WoW isn't a game anymore, it's an interactive movie.
Growing individualism in MMOs became a theme in blogs, including Tobolds and stubborns. They claim that WoW is an individualist game, where one with individualist mindset will win over those who are collectivist. They emphasize the solo leveling as an unquestionable proof of fostering individual play. Tobold said "WoW's problem is that playing alone offers the fastest progression". It is factually not true. There are four kind of WoW quests:
I would guess WoW XP gathering is about 70% better in a team of two. Before Tobold would say "no", I'd ask him to do the same test and ask her wife just one hour to speed-level together. He'll see the XP just rolling in.
Why do people still level solo? One would naturally blame the morons and slackers who make grouping ineffective: they do low effort (they kill 2 wolves while you kill 8), they go AFK, forcing you to wait for them or drop group and they are extremely annoying with their jokes and lolspeak. However it's a wrong answer. You'd just have to find people of your own skill and the average players would level together happily.
The power increase from getting a groupmate is quadratic. Simple explanation: the team lives until the enemy eats their HP, time_to_live = HP*n/enemy_DPS where n is member count. They do DPS*n*time_to_live damage, so their overall damage is DPS*HP/enemy_DPS*n2. This equation is written deeply into our psyche, as it was a very strong evolutionary bonus to be able to recognize when to fight and when to run. So anything less than quadratic increase feels lacking.
The quadratic increase is there in PvP. The EVE alliances that focus on numbers steamroll "elite PvP" groups, despite their gaming skill and the value of their ship is low even by their own confessions. It could be there in PvE too, but it's not. Its lack is felt strongly, causing aversion from group play. I mean if you are in a team of two, you subconsciously expect 4x more XP and you get 1.7x more. Then you - also sub-consciously - assume that the other player is leeching on you.
To see the reason, let's return to the equation: total_damage = DPS*n*time_to_live. How much is time_to_live in WoW or EVE PvE? No, it's not HP*n/enemy_DPS. It's infinite. You just can't die. Both in WoW and EVE you can't die if you do level-appropriate quests unless you do something atrociously stupid.
OK, MMOs have to be accessible to different level of players, and a quest that is just OK for one is faceroll to another and impossible to the third. However there could be a solution: the rewards of enemies (XP, items) should be proportional to their strength. The main problem with WoW leveling is not at all rewarding questing into red. If I kill a monster much above my level, I get barely more XP than I'd get from one in the green, deep below me. Since there is no reward in killing hard enemies, there is no reason to try doing hard content, so the game will be facerolling to everyone regardless player skill. The only difference between a topguild member and Arthasdklol that the first facerolls yellow monsters while the second does deep green. I've done some missions for standing in EVE and found the same: there is no reason for a Badger II to fill up its hold with the mission cargo of a lvl 4 distribution, it's better to put the cargo of 4 lvl3s in it.
The solution to design games to be "collectivist" is to provide greater rewards for doing harder content. I mean much greater reward, in the sense that if that two destroyers can do just one lvl 3 together, they should get more rewards than farming lvl 1s all day or in WoW killing a monster 7 levels above you should grant you as much XP as killing 1000 7 levels below you.
No business reports because I'm AFK until Monday evening, can't process comments either.
Growing individualism in MMOs became a theme in blogs, including Tobolds and stubborns. They claim that WoW is an individualist game, where one with individualist mindset will win over those who are collectivist. They emphasize the solo leveling as an unquestionable proof of fostering individual play. Tobold said "WoW's problem is that playing alone offers the fastest progression". It is factually not true. There are four kind of WoW quests:
- Kill 10 wolves: you get kills for the wolves the other guy kill, so if you are N in the group, you have to kill 10/N wolves
- Kill big bad wolf: all of you have to do HP/N damage into the big bad wolf to die and you all get the kill.
- Take item from wolves lair: the item is protected by n wolves. In a party of N you have to kill n/N wolves
- Gather 10 wolf pelts: here you have to kill 10 wolves in group and in solo too. The only problem in group if the zone has less than 10*N wolves because you have to wait for respawn. However Blizzard adjusted respawn times according to players present, so wolves will spawn.
I would guess WoW XP gathering is about 70% better in a team of two. Before Tobold would say "no", I'd ask him to do the same test and ask her wife just one hour to speed-level together. He'll see the XP just rolling in.
Why do people still level solo? One would naturally blame the morons and slackers who make grouping ineffective: they do low effort (they kill 2 wolves while you kill 8), they go AFK, forcing you to wait for them or drop group and they are extremely annoying with their jokes and lolspeak. However it's a wrong answer. You'd just have to find people of your own skill and the average players would level together happily.
The power increase from getting a groupmate is quadratic. Simple explanation: the team lives until the enemy eats their HP, time_to_live = HP*n/enemy_DPS where n is member count. They do DPS*n*time_to_live damage, so their overall damage is DPS*HP/enemy_DPS*n2. This equation is written deeply into our psyche, as it was a very strong evolutionary bonus to be able to recognize when to fight and when to run. So anything less than quadratic increase feels lacking.
The quadratic increase is there in PvP. The EVE alliances that focus on numbers steamroll "elite PvP" groups, despite their gaming skill and the value of their ship is low even by their own confessions. It could be there in PvE too, but it's not. Its lack is felt strongly, causing aversion from group play. I mean if you are in a team of two, you subconsciously expect 4x more XP and you get 1.7x more. Then you - also sub-consciously - assume that the other player is leeching on you.
To see the reason, let's return to the equation: total_damage = DPS*n*time_to_live. How much is time_to_live in WoW or EVE PvE? No, it's not HP*n/enemy_DPS. It's infinite. You just can't die. Both in WoW and EVE you can't die if you do level-appropriate quests unless you do something atrociously stupid.
OK, MMOs have to be accessible to different level of players, and a quest that is just OK for one is faceroll to another and impossible to the third. However there could be a solution: the rewards of enemies (XP, items) should be proportional to their strength. The main problem with WoW leveling is not at all rewarding questing into red. If I kill a monster much above my level, I get barely more XP than I'd get from one in the green, deep below me. Since there is no reward in killing hard enemies, there is no reason to try doing hard content, so the game will be facerolling to everyone regardless player skill. The only difference between a topguild member and Arthasdklol that the first facerolls yellow monsters while the second does deep green. I've done some missions for standing in EVE and found the same: there is no reason for a Badger II to fill up its hold with the mission cargo of a lvl 4 distribution, it's better to put the cargo of 4 lvl3s in it.
The solution to design games to be "collectivist" is to provide greater rewards for doing harder content. I mean much greater reward, in the sense that if that two destroyers can do just one lvl 3 together, they should get more rewards than farming lvl 1s all day or in WoW killing a monster 7 levels above you should grant you as much XP as killing 1000 7 levels below you.
No business reports because I'm AFK until Monday evening, can't process comments either.
0 comments:
Post a Comment