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Some thoughts .. (part I)
Mervyn
✭
The following thoughts are mainly a result of occasional prolonged or unexpected server down times. In advance I want to apologize for any mistakes in language or grammar. ( English is not my native language)
I would also remind everyone of the etymological origins of the term Criticism. If I criticize something, it does not mean I am against it, rather using rational judgment for a better understanding. In fact, it seems more of a sign of emotional attachment, to think about something a lot
1. Running in circles - Lack of Progression
All the mmo-games I have played had some sort of progression. First, through leveling, then by gearing your character up. Some had some sort of secondary leveling system (i.e. Paragon, Champion points). The first question seems: Why is this model so established in the mmo genre? The obvious reason seems, that it creates some sense of accomplishment you play the game and get stronger. In relation to playable content it also means, that you create more accessibility. Hardcore players tackle content as soon as it gets available, but the more casual u go, the more progression time goes by, until outleveling or outgearing kicks in to compensate the different skilllevels.
Now here comes the big "But..": in a constant progressing gameworld you would ,after some time, blocking out most new players. To make it accessible for them, there was always some sort of reset, or better said : a jump in the progression curve. By putting out new content through Addons, Expansions, DLCs ect.
Now let us look at ESO with those structures in mind:
The game had some different approaches to creating a feel of progression, but for the moment i dont want to make it a historical analysis (although it would be quite interesting to discuss the "veteran-level-fiasco"in this context). I rather stick with what we got now and the possible problems it evokes.
At the moment (1T) it almost feels like there is absolut zero progression going on.
Sure there is the champion system, that acts somewhat like leveling progression. but after a certain amount of points it become more and more irrelevant to the point of actual getting stronger (even the more casual players in my guild have enough points, they may lack a bit of diversity but not that much in strenght. At least not that much that further progression would even out the playing field between different skill levels.
In regards to item progression, it also seems quite lacking. With 1T we got an overwhelming amount of new sets, but overall nothing that gives some signicant power increase. Sure you can shuffle around some stats here and there, that may increase your dps a bit (spinner, spriggan ). Or free up a skillslot through a set, most of the time giving you only some utility but not much of character strength. Some may say: Oh so much variety, that must be good! That may be so, but the reason why i think this is problematic is the following:
If someone in my casual guild asks : what can i do to get stronger so we can do the veteran DLC dungeons or vDSA together? What sets and skills should i use? Most of the times i can only say : Nothing, sorry, if u do not come close now with what u have, no gear/skill setup or incremental increase by champion points will help you. You simply need the gameplay right , then it almost does not matter what you are wearing.
Imagine something like vMA existed in another game. There would be the small crowd of dedicated and ambitious players, who go in, fight through the pain and clear it the moment it comes out. But as progression time goes by more and more players of different skilllevel could access it. I guess that would be a good thing?
A last not on the side : Sometimes i see those weird arguments on the forum, where people argue that ESO is good because it does not have those gear resets or jumps. So if u do not like those , u can sadly have no progression either. I think that would get boring rather soon.
2. How to create frustration - Loot and Rewards
One of the topics, that people get most agitated about in ESO, is the loot- and reward structure. Often times, when I see some suggestions on the forums, I see the individual, emotional aspects, where those suggestions come from. But seldom do people trying to get the whole picture. To get a better understanding of the games heavy RNG-Systems, it seems helpful to look at the psychological aspects, as well as the systemic problems, especially in comparison with other grind-heavy games.
I would suspect, that we all got to a point in this game, where we wanted something. The elusive vMSA weapon to be competitive, the last setpiece for a funbuild or the new motif, that looks so shiny. So we go farming those things. And every time we complete something and stand before our chest after completing vMSA(again), getting our bag after a daily quest or standing before an undaunted chest, the game creates an expectation. And almost always those expectation results in a frustrating experience. So in the end, we get an experience that we all have a lot in real life and that we wanted to escape in the first place by playing an immersive videogame.
And even after I finally got my last sharpened 1h weapon in vMSA, it did not create that much happiness. More was it relief to be finally done with it. The biggest part of this, I would guess is the uncertainty that a complete RNG-system entails. Even if for some things there would be a long grind, but u always could anticipate the end, u could simply decide for you, if the grind is worth it or not. But what we have now, with almost all things u can aim for the game artificially creates frustration.
Well, after all this gloomy psycho talk, let us have a look how other grind heavy games manage RNG systems. The best game to look at (for the purpose of understanding RNG systems) is Diablo. I know it is not a mmo, and there a lot of different structures and expectations to consider. But some things are noteworthy here:
As Diablo 3 released, all loot was tradable/sellable. But to not inflate the market with all those shiny BiS legendarys, Blizzard had to adjust the drop rates over the whole population. That led to absurd low droprates for the individual player, that ended up in an extreme frustrating experience. Sounds familiar?
After a while Blizzard reworked the whole loot structure to a BoP system with much higher chances and variable stats at the items. This works much better, because you can play the build you want faster, but have always room for improvement. In terms of ESO: you could settle for the precise Weapon for now, while you are farming for a sharpened one. But this gets blocked out by trait imbalance and another layer, which is upgrading to golden quality (too expensive for non BiS stuff)
The last point I want to make on this topic, ties heavily into my first paragraph on the lack of progression in ESO. ZOS policy of putting out content that goes more wide then high, as well as the rather slow frequency, does not allow for systems that take place in other mmos. Other games tie the time it takes a player to complete something (gear, achievements, ect.) to the time it takes to release new content, and therefore new goals. If ZOS would shorten the time to achieve something and setting fixed points (tokens, factions, reputation), they would set for themselves a timeframe, where they need to put out something new, to create new goals. This ZOS probably cannot do frequently enough or do not want to, maybe both.
For me it is impossible to come up with an improvement, because a lot of factors are unknown to us. Such as active players, update schedule, company resources. What I can point out however is, that the system we have now, did not worked out so well in other games. Mostly for psychological reasons.
For now I will stop this wall of text, although I have some other paragraphs still ( New but not Better? – The Lack of global cooldown , A Crisis of Identity – the State of Cyrodiil )
I hope u got something to think about out of it and thx for reading
I would also remind everyone of the etymological origins of the term Criticism. If I criticize something, it does not mean I am against it, rather using rational judgment for a better understanding. In fact, it seems more of a sign of emotional attachment, to think about something a lot
1. Running in circles - Lack of Progression
All the mmo-games I have played had some sort of progression. First, through leveling, then by gearing your character up. Some had some sort of secondary leveling system (i.e. Paragon, Champion points). The first question seems: Why is this model so established in the mmo genre? The obvious reason seems, that it creates some sense of accomplishment you play the game and get stronger. In relation to playable content it also means, that you create more accessibility. Hardcore players tackle content as soon as it gets available, but the more casual u go, the more progression time goes by, until outleveling or outgearing kicks in to compensate the different skilllevels.
Now here comes the big "But..": in a constant progressing gameworld you would ,after some time, blocking out most new players. To make it accessible for them, there was always some sort of reset, or better said : a jump in the progression curve. By putting out new content through Addons, Expansions, DLCs ect.
Now let us look at ESO with those structures in mind:
The game had some different approaches to creating a feel of progression, but for the moment i dont want to make it a historical analysis (although it would be quite interesting to discuss the "veteran-level-fiasco"in this context). I rather stick with what we got now and the possible problems it evokes.
At the moment (1T) it almost feels like there is absolut zero progression going on.
Sure there is the champion system, that acts somewhat like leveling progression. but after a certain amount of points it become more and more irrelevant to the point of actual getting stronger (even the more casual players in my guild have enough points, they may lack a bit of diversity but not that much in strenght. At least not that much that further progression would even out the playing field between different skill levels.
In regards to item progression, it also seems quite lacking. With 1T we got an overwhelming amount of new sets, but overall nothing that gives some signicant power increase. Sure you can shuffle around some stats here and there, that may increase your dps a bit (spinner, spriggan ). Or free up a skillslot through a set, most of the time giving you only some utility but not much of character strength. Some may say: Oh so much variety, that must be good! That may be so, but the reason why i think this is problematic is the following:
If someone in my casual guild asks : what can i do to get stronger so we can do the veteran DLC dungeons or vDSA together? What sets and skills should i use? Most of the times i can only say : Nothing, sorry, if u do not come close now with what u have, no gear/skill setup or incremental increase by champion points will help you. You simply need the gameplay right , then it almost does not matter what you are wearing.
Imagine something like vMA existed in another game. There would be the small crowd of dedicated and ambitious players, who go in, fight through the pain and clear it the moment it comes out. But as progression time goes by more and more players of different skilllevel could access it. I guess that would be a good thing?
A last not on the side : Sometimes i see those weird arguments on the forum, where people argue that ESO is good because it does not have those gear resets or jumps. So if u do not like those , u can sadly have no progression either. I think that would get boring rather soon.
2. How to create frustration - Loot and Rewards
One of the topics, that people get most agitated about in ESO, is the loot- and reward structure. Often times, when I see some suggestions on the forums, I see the individual, emotional aspects, where those suggestions come from. But seldom do people trying to get the whole picture. To get a better understanding of the games heavy RNG-Systems, it seems helpful to look at the psychological aspects, as well as the systemic problems, especially in comparison with other grind-heavy games.
I would suspect, that we all got to a point in this game, where we wanted something. The elusive vMSA weapon to be competitive, the last setpiece for a funbuild or the new motif, that looks so shiny. So we go farming those things. And every time we complete something and stand before our chest after completing vMSA(again), getting our bag after a daily quest or standing before an undaunted chest, the game creates an expectation. And almost always those expectation results in a frustrating experience. So in the end, we get an experience that we all have a lot in real life and that we wanted to escape in the first place by playing an immersive videogame.
And even after I finally got my last sharpened 1h weapon in vMSA, it did not create that much happiness. More was it relief to be finally done with it. The biggest part of this, I would guess is the uncertainty that a complete RNG-system entails. Even if for some things there would be a long grind, but u always could anticipate the end, u could simply decide for you, if the grind is worth it or not. But what we have now, with almost all things u can aim for the game artificially creates frustration.
Well, after all this gloomy psycho talk, let us have a look how other grind heavy games manage RNG systems. The best game to look at (for the purpose of understanding RNG systems) is Diablo. I know it is not a mmo, and there a lot of different structures and expectations to consider. But some things are noteworthy here:
As Diablo 3 released, all loot was tradable/sellable. But to not inflate the market with all those shiny BiS legendarys, Blizzard had to adjust the drop rates over the whole population. That led to absurd low droprates for the individual player, that ended up in an extreme frustrating experience. Sounds familiar?
After a while Blizzard reworked the whole loot structure to a BoP system with much higher chances and variable stats at the items. This works much better, because you can play the build you want faster, but have always room for improvement. In terms of ESO: you could settle for the precise Weapon for now, while you are farming for a sharpened one. But this gets blocked out by trait imbalance and another layer, which is upgrading to golden quality (too expensive for non BiS stuff)
The last point I want to make on this topic, ties heavily into my first paragraph on the lack of progression in ESO. ZOS policy of putting out content that goes more wide then high, as well as the rather slow frequency, does not allow for systems that take place in other mmos. Other games tie the time it takes a player to complete something (gear, achievements, ect.) to the time it takes to release new content, and therefore new goals. If ZOS would shorten the time to achieve something and setting fixed points (tokens, factions, reputation), they would set for themselves a timeframe, where they need to put out something new, to create new goals. This ZOS probably cannot do frequently enough or do not want to, maybe both.
For me it is impossible to come up with an improvement, because a lot of factors are unknown to us. Such as active players, update schedule, company resources. What I can point out however is, that the system we have now, did not worked out so well in other games. Mostly for psychological reasons.
For now I will stop this wall of text, although I have some other paragraphs still ( New but not Better? – The Lack of global cooldown , A Crisis of Identity – the State of Cyrodiil )
I hope u got something to think about out of it and thx for reading
2
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Jim_Pipp✭✭✭✭✭
✭I can see you put a lot of thought into your post, but I can't help feel your first and second points contradict each-other. I don't mean to be disrespectful, so I will summarise what I understood so you can respond.
1) Champion point progression becomes slow and the new sets don't increase power much, so by the end-game there is little difference between players except skill.
2) RNG causes misery because people have to grind for the Best in Slot items, and you use trait imbalance and maelstrom weapons as an example.
I don't know that there is a problem with skill being the defining difference between players, and I agree that RNG causes misery (it also encourages replayability), but it seems like you recognise that there is BIS gear that is aspirational and rare.#1 tip (Re)check your graphics settings periodically - especially resolution.1 -
Mervyn✭I don't know that there is a problem with skill being the defining difference between players, .
The difference in skill will always be there among players, however the problems come when u relate those skill level to available content. in a progression oriented game u make all content available although at different times. the lesser skilled player simply needs to progress more until he compensates skill through progression. there is a smoother curve for what developers can create as "challenging" content. for eso this is not the case , because the lack of progression always creates a hard cut. some player are skilled enough for vMSA for instance , most are not and dont have a chance to comepensate through progression. so it seems to be a problem from a design standpoint?
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DHale✭✭✭✭✭
✭Sounds like this is not the game for you. I have over 750 cp i know people with way more than that.
On one character I have 311 skill points, assault 10 support ten the real way, every weapon is leveled both morphs are maxed. Undaunted 9 vamp and ww maxed. There are many players that have 6 toons like that. I have played since PC launch. You can constantly progress... if you want to. But you have to have will, desire, and self discipline.Sorcerna, proud beta sorc. RIP April 2014 to May 31 2016 DArk Brotherhood. Out of retirement for negates and encases. Sorcerna will be going back into retirement to be my main crafter Fall 2018. Because an 8 k shield is f ing useless. Died because of baddies on the forum. Too much qq too little pew pew. 16 AD 2 DC. 0 EP cause they bad, CP 2300 plus 18 level 50 toons. NA, PC, Grey Host#SORCLIVESMATTER actually they don’t or they wouldn’t keep getting nerfed constantly.1 -
Gargath✭✭✭✭✭
✭I think progression and gears in eso is quite good and other mmos are sometimes worse on this. As an example GuildWars2, after 2 months of playing it on ftp client I was able to get enough gold (even with ftp restrictions) to have full exotic quality gears for in game gold. Once I got it the game became boring even that I levelled to max only 1-st character, I lost interest in levelling 2-nd one. Soon later I quit GW2 completely and returned to ESO. Also lack of lore in GW2. ESO however is much more interesting in most aspects, lore, gearing up, progression, graphics etc. Already have 8 fully geared up alts with over 570CP and I still want more. Actually playing pvp in Cyrodiil just to get vigor on another alt. Respeccing stamina into magicka to play healer instead of archer for few days, then will switch it back to stamina with vigor ready to use. Other mmos don't offer me this what I have in ESOPC EU (PL): 14 characters. ESO player since 06.08.2015. Farkas finest quote: "Some people don't think I'm smart. Those people get my fist. But you, I like."0 -
SanTii.92✭✭✭✭✭
✭I don't know that there is a problem with skill being the defining difference between players, .
The difference in skill will always be there among players, however the problems come when u relate those skill level to available content. in a progression oriented game u make all content available although at different times. the lesser skilled player simply needs to progress more until he compensates skill through progression. there is a smoother curve for what developers can create as "challenging" content. for eso this is not the case , because the lack of progression always creates a hard cut. some player are skilled enough for vMSA for instance , most are not and dont have a chance to comepensate through progression. so it seems to be a problem from a design standpoint?
how come they don't have a chance to compensate through progression? Cp 160 - 300 or 561 it's a pretty significant difference in terms of stats. Then a perfectly geared char will be a lot more powerful than a fully crafted one, particularly with proper monster sets and jewelry. You also got progression through skill lines, passives and amount of skill points available. And lastly your skill and grasp of ingame mechanics should develop as you complete more and more content.When the snows fall and the white winds blow,
the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.
Arg | Pc Na | Factionless Mag Warden.0 -
Mervyn✭well .. i play since PC launch too, 667 cp, got ~21000 achievementpoints, emperor and some pvp-rank 25+, everything maxed, 4 toons through vMSA annd all weapons i need there. but thats not the point i am refering too
in my casual guild there are a lot of people with almost maxed toons too, but there is a hard cut barrier at what those lesser skilled players can do. some of them cant meet the requirements for Shadow of the Hist dungeons for example with the gear the game at the moment provides. this may not be inherently bad, but provides some challenge for ZOS when it comes to balancing content and providing challenging content over the whole playerbase.
i give an example:
when a new expansion launches for WoW, there is the hardcore raider who tackles the new raids as soon as possible even in blue gear. the semi-hardcore raider farms heroic dungeons some weeks for gear before staring to raid. and the casual plays for month to get some token or reputation gear before setting foot in a raid. but all of them get at some point in time content, that is challenging but doable for them with a sense of accomplishment after succeding.
the gear progression there basicly smoothens the curve over all players when it comes to skill level vs. challenging content.
and to be clear : i dont advocate for one way or the other. i just wanted to point out some thoughts that came to mind while reading forum posts like "zomg vMSA too hard" or "why game so easy" i think a lot of those come from the fact that there is a wide difference on what players experience as too easy->challenging->too hard, and i find those boundaries in content more fundamentally defined in ESO than in other mmos i played
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Stopnaggin✭✭✭✭✭
✭I have been saying something to this effect for a while. With 1T and battle spirit, there is no curve at all, new players can facepalm their way through the main story and dungeons. When it really hits home is after the cp levels, battle spirit drops off, and they then have to learn their character. While 1T was great in terms of getting new players, it also handicapped them. I have seen a bunch of medium to high cp players, after 1T, running trials and veteran dungeons, that honestly haven't a clue about the mechanics or should I say their own characters.
Example
I have farming a certain dungeon, every once in a while some will come through that dungeon and run into a boss. Now I try to be somewhat careful about helping, so I kinda stick around and watch, keep some heals on them but let them really tackle the boss. Now I'm no professional player, but if you have made cp300 you should know by now some sort of rotation, instead the said player would just light attack and spam some self healing. No aoe, no getting out of the big red stupid circles, no weaving any attacks. Now some of this is on the player to learn, but some of this is on ZOS, there is no tutorial that teaches the new or casuals any real combat techniques.
At least before 1T you would get your butt kicked if you went too far out of the zone you were leveled for. You had to learn to play before you hit champion points, or older veteran ranks.
Ok enough of my own wall of text.0