Making grouping great again

[ReoDobbs]

Originally Posted by azxten [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Part of fun in games is challenge.

https://thinkgamedesign.com/flow-theory-game-design/

A game which is easy for one person is unchallenging and boring. Another person might find it too difficult and boring. A third person will find it is a good challenge and fun.

Game design theory has progressed so that most video game players today are not good at playing video games. You could compare something like Counter-Strike to Overwatch. In Counter-Strike, for the most part ignoring the limited economy, every round is the same. Your only ability to win or lose is based on your skill. In Overwatch (which I've never played) the concept of an "Ultimate" ability is introduced. At any given moment you can use an ultimate and "win". There is still skill involved but there is also an "I win something" button you can press. Now there is less incentive to be good at the game you just hit your "I win" button and get your dopamine. This is just a simplified example of the direction games have gone. Another would be EverQuest's brutal experience loss and corpse runs, which by the way is provably about 2x as bad in classic era than P99 makes it, another change they never put in here. Compare that to WoW with it's armor repair and ghost walk to your corpse mechanic.

So, what might be less fun for you or others who aren't good at EQ in particular, would be more fun for me and a lot of other people who enjoy a more challenging true to classic EQ experience.

Now let's talk about the types of gamers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle...f_player_types

I would argue P99 with its' raid and max level focus is designed for achievers. It also can appeal to social gamers. It can appeal to explorers but mostly if they aren't familiar with the game already. Finally, it has very little appeal for killers. My feeling is that Nilbog / Rogean must be achiever game types because their decisions often promote that style of gameplay while ignoring the others.

I am a killer, social, explorer gamer in that order. My competition fix from EQ is thriving in a punishing game model while others can't handle it. On Live I played PvP almost exclusively. However, I am also a social gamer. While P99 has socialization most of it ends up stacked at the max level and is socialization between achievers to that end. P99 also offers exploration to me because there are zones I never really played in during live and they aren't raid zones.

Making the game more difficult appeals to all three of these drives. Why? Because now if you can succeed more than others you have a basis of competition especially if it involves things like training, psychological games, PvP, etc where you are directly competing with them and not just the game. This is the killer gamer. It also promotes socialization because players group more realizing the game is very difficult and it's more efficient to play with others depending on your class. Finally, it promotes exploration because a more difficult game closes off more options for places to try to level and the promotion of grouping which typically overcrowds certain areas and dungeons due to more efficient mob killing leads players to be willing to leave and try another area.

On P99 they diminish the killer play style by having heavy handed play nice policies and implementing things that make the game easier while ignoring things that would make it more difficult. Similarly, they discourage grouping and socialization by leaving OP classes like Enchanter in place and implementing things like Teal instance and increased mob spawns. Suddenly there is no real reason to talk to anyone and people complain about the "lonely P99" experience on these forums all the time. Oh don't worry people say, just get up to max level, but that isn't what those players are talking about. They don't WANT to be max level or the game is effectively over for certain types of gamers. They don't want to eek out raid pixels and talk about the guild UN and petition quest. Same for explorers. If a camp is always available because high ZEMs, mob spawns, easy leveling, etc lets players progress easily through areas then that is where you will always go. In fact, on P99 "the camp" is so much better than anything else you could be doing if you know where "the camp" is that you feel like you might as well not play if you aren't there. You're certainly not going to leave The Hole and go get a group in KC you're just going to log off, play an alt, etc.

Hopefully that helps you understand. P99 is a low skilled achiever friendly server and I'd like to see it start accommodating other gamer types more because that is the furthest thing from my style. I am a high skilled killer gamer who also likes to socialize and explore but not the effort of min maxing my pixels.

You see instanced Teal, increased spawns, easy mode channeling, etc and get excited! YAY! I can get to those dragons so fast and the 300 player AFK raiding I love so much to get my pixels! I don't see that.

So much of this is so subjective drivel with sprinkles of more subjectivity (trying to be disguised as "fact")about how you think human behavior works.

Even if it wasn't none of this would be solved by nerfing solo xp and forcing people to group

[Darkwulf58]

Originally Posted by Tunabros [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

azxten you sure do like to write huge essays that no one will read

cope

Az is a deep thinker, nothing wrong with that and I like a well thought - out word wall.

[Stonewallx39]

Originally Posted by azxten [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Part of fun in games is challenge.

https://thinkgamedesign.com/flow-theory-game-design/

A game which is easy for one person is unchallenging and boring. Another person might find it too difficult and boring. A third person will find it is a good challenge and fun.

Game design theory has progressed so that most video game players today are not good at playing video games. You could compare something like Counter-Strike to Overwatch. In Counter-Strike, for the most part ignoring the limited economy, every round is the same. Your only ability to win or lose is based on your skill. In Overwatch (which I've never played) the concept of an "Ultimate" ability is introduced. At any given moment you can use an ultimate and "win". There is still skill involved but there is also an "I win something" button you can press. Now there is less incentive to be good at the game you just hit your "I win" button and get your dopamine. This is just a simplified example of the direction games have gone. Another would be EverQuest's brutal experience loss and corpse runs, which by the way is provably about 2x as bad in classic era than P99 makes it, another change they never put in here. Compare that to WoW with it's armor repair and ghost walk to your corpse mechanic.

So, what might be less fun for you or others who aren't good at EQ in particular, would be more fun for me and a lot of other people who enjoy a more challenging true to classic EQ experience.

Now let's talk about the types of gamers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle...f_player_types

I would argue P99 with its' raid and max level focus is designed for achievers. It also can appeal to social gamers. It can appeal to explorers but mostly if they aren't familiar with the game already. Finally, it has very little appeal for killers. My feeling is that Nilbog / Rogean must be achiever game types because their decisions often promote that style of gameplay while ignoring the others.

I am a killer, social, explorer gamer in that order. My competition fix from EQ is thriving in a punishing game model while others can't handle it. On Live I played PvP almost exclusively. However, I am also a social gamer. While P99 has socialization most of it ends up stacked at the max level and is socialization between achievers to that end. P99 also offers exploration to me because there are zones I never really played in during live and they aren't raid zones.

Making the game more difficult appeals to all three of these drives. Why? Because now if you can succeed more than others you have a basis of competition especially if it involves things like training, psychological games, PvP, etc where you are directly competing with them and not just the game. This is the killer gamer. It also promotes socialization because players group more realizing the game is very difficult and it's more efficient to play with others depending on your class. Finally, it promotes exploration because a more difficult game closes off more options for places to try to level and the promotion of grouping which typically overcrowds certain areas and dungeons due to more efficient mob killing leads players to be willing to leave and try another area.

On P99 they diminish the killer play style by having heavy handed play nice policies and implementing things that make the game easier while ignoring things that would make it more difficult. Similarly, they discourage grouping and socialization by leaving OP classes like Enchanter in place and implementing things like Teal instance and increased mob spawns. Suddenly there is no real reason to talk to anyone and people complain about the "lonely P99" experience on these forums all the time. Oh don't worry people say, just get up to max level, but that isn't what those players are talking about. They don't WANT to be max level or the game is effectively over for certain types of gamers. They don't want to eek out raid pixels and talk about the guild UN and petition quest. Same for explorers. If a camp is always available because high ZEMs, mob spawns, easy leveling, etc lets players progress easily through areas then that is where you will always go. In fact, on P99 "the camp" is so much better than anything else you could be doing if you know where "the camp" is that you feel like you might as well not play if you aren't there. You're certainly not going to leave The Hole and go get a group in KC you're just going to log off, play an alt, etc.

Hopefully that helps you understand. P99 is a low skilled achiever friendly server and I'd like to see it start accommodating other gamer types more because that is the furthest thing from my style. I am a high skilled killer gamer who also likes to socialize and explore but not the effort of min maxing my pixels.

You see instanced Teal, increased spawns, easy mode channeling, etc and get excited! YAY! I can get to those dragons so fast and the 300 player AFK raiding I love so much to get my pixels! I don't see that.

Seriously!? What did you even say? TLDR (I honestly tried but couldn’t get through it).

If small changes to how xp is gained could have meaningful impacts driving classic gameplay, that would be in line would the vision for this project. It might even make this *multiplayer game* more fun and engaging!

It also wouldn’t hurt to have more people practice socializing before reaching end-game. Understanding and empathizing with your opponent, because you’ve grouped together while coming, up would be huge in minimizing toxicity.

[Toxigen]

find people that play on the same level as you

add them as a friend on discord

build groups of people that pull their weight...you dont have to be inclusive and invite every semi-AFK mouth breather out there

[azxten]

Originally Posted by ReoDobbs [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So much of this is so subjective drivel with sprinkles of more subjectivity (trying to be disguised as "fact")about how you think human behavior works.

Even if it wasn't none of this would be solved by nerfing solo xp and forcing people to group

Most of what I wrote there is just established game design concepts and how it relates to P99. Some of it is subjective.

azxten you sure do like to write huge essays that no one will read

Funny I even get PMs from people telling me they like what I write. I wonder if you do.

Seriously!? What did you even say? TLDR (I honestly tried but couldn’t get through it).

Let me translate it into Twitterese for you...

You suck at video games and I don't, too bad for you.

People don't play video games for the same reasons and get enjoyment from different aspects of a game.

That was 157 characters. I'm glad Twitter seems to have increased the limit to 280 but I probably still got dangerously close to confusing you. Also that was kind of some big words for you probably let me try again.

Ahem...

u bad at game but me not bad, ha!

sum lik gam 4 many fun cuz not only 4 u fun cuz

Probably shouldn't have used the comma. Let me try again...

u bad and never get gud

Solid.

[Tunabros]

cap

[Stonewallx39]

Originally Posted by azxten [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Let me translate it into Twitterese for you...

You suck at video games and I don't, too bad for you.

People don't play video games for the same reasons and get enjoyment from different aspects of a game.

That was 157 characters. I'm glad Twitter seems to have increased the limit to 280 but I probably still got dangerously close to confusing you.

Solid.

It’s not that what you wrote was difficult to understand, it was boring and uninsightful. You’ve shared previously that you don’t play P99 and are literally just trolling on the forums which partially contributed to me jumping on your post.

I do regret the tldr and apologize for that. It was rude and I don’t mean to contribute to the negativity on the forums. Ultimately I want to make this community stronger, and that’s the soul of the OP idea.

100% support sharing differing perspectives and I’ll be the first to tell you my opinion of game design is biased towards my preferences (more ad hoc collaboration). Definitely welcome more insights from you and anyone else, it’s just the way you go about communicating which can be grating.

[Keza]

I empathize, but the values are pretty oppressive and I'm not sure that's the right course to take. I played a Dragoon on FFXI back in the day and it felt like there was no point logging on without committing an hour to finding a group and at least 2 more to leveling. Needing a group to get exp if the classes aren't balanced is bad, and EQ is also home to underpowered classes. Will the rangers of EQ enjoy this? If even the soloers need groups then rangers have no hope of getting one. If you're gonna go the route of manipulating numbers I'd start at class/race penalties/bonuses.

The problem I see stems from class imbalance, and the only way to fix that is unclassic changes. Ideally they would nerf Ench and Shm, nerf mage's pets, nerf bard target limits and even buff a few things. Some of the zones are also much more difficult by comparison to others. If wizards/druids were more desirable from rebalancing you couldn't say the zones were too out-of-the-way, but they're still very difficult by comparison. That's where ZEM should come into play for incentivization.

They probably won't do that though because classic. There are unclassic things, but those facilitate normalized gameplay. I recently agreed with a /permadeath suggestion, but that doesn't change the game, it only assists in people being forced to do what they can already do - delete their character on death. The argument of "groups were classic" is a tough one. There's no measurement for that, only subjectivity. I'd say it's not classic for an ench/healer to duo a 30 mob camp in a dungeon though.

[cd288]

Originally Posted by azxten [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Most of what I wrote there is just established game design concepts and how it relates to P99. Some of it is subjective.



Funny I even get PMs from people telling me they like what I write. I wonder if you do.



Let me translate it into Twitterese for you...

You suck at video games and I don't, too bad for you.

People don't play video games for the same reasons and get enjoyment from different aspects of a game.

That was 157 characters. I'm glad Twitter seems to have increased the limit to 280 but I probably still got dangerously close to confusing you. Also that was kind of some big words for you probably let me try again.

Ahem...

u bad at game but me not bad, ha!

sum lik gam 4 many fun cuz not only 4 u fun cuz

Probably shouldn't have used the comma. Let me try again...

u bad and never get gud

Solid.

Nothing is more sad than when people go “yeah well I’ve gotten a PM from someone telling me how much they loved my comment”

No, they didn’t lol

[Jimjam]

He did actually.