Vandraad said:disposalist said:Arguably, adding competition, even if unnecessary, can make something more 'challenging', but it is unnecessary and even irrelevant to a PvE game, which is all about cooperation of players against the game.
It's been discussed a lot in these forums how much 'competition' should be in the game. The issue of contention itself contentious.
VR is building competition into the very fabric of Pantheon through use of open world, no/very very limited instancing, MDD engagement model for group level content and FTE for raid content, etc. Pantheon is a zero-sum game at its core: If I'm engaging in this content, whatever that content may be, you cannot engage in it until I'm done. You wanted that harvesting node? Too bad I got her first..I win, you lose. You wanted that name mob? You might have engaged first but I did more damage..I win, you lose. You wanted that dragon? We beat you in the race to get here and engaged first..we win, you lose.
VR is absolutely catering to competitive players even on the PvE servers.
EDITED: To unmix some metaphors.
You may as well say crime is built into the fabric of the real world. It's a matter of perspective. The freedoms we are afforded make crime very easy to do, but we can live without it.
Ok, competition is not crime, but the point is, competition being a by-product of open world does not make it something aspire to or even something we need.
Some prefer to see open world as shared experience. Some see contention.
VR aren't making Pantheon an open world game 'because competition' and it isn't needed. They aren't 'catering to' competitive gaming just because freedoms make it possible.
To refer to the OP: No, Pantheon doesn't need to cater to the competitive. Everything in the game can be done without competition being a driver or even being involved.
I'm not saying there shouldn't be any. It can be great when consentual and fair and not just domination and strife. Would love to see some way of doing that.
Chogar said:Ezrael said:stellarmind said: yes. hardcore raiders and competitive pvpers drive the economy of the game. im not talking cash shops. i'm talking mats, potions, food, the best gear and equipment. they are the majority of the economy in every major mmorpg that is still running today.This is completely and utterly wrong. They are a far smaller % of the playerbase and the economy than you realise.
Bleeding edge hardcore players make up 1-2% of active players, they are also the most fickle and the easiest to quit and move on to a new MMO to consume everything at a lightning pace.
Games should not be designerd around trying to satiate locusts.
I could be wrong; however, I think you misunderstood what Stellarmind was saying in this post.
Raiders make a player economy thrive by purchasing crafted gear/consumables in higher quantity than non-raiders (with exceptions of course). While you will get non-raiders using consumables to get a 1% damage/health/mana increase for the most part raiders will be popping them like candy to get any benefit they can to take down the raid boss (that is not on farm status). Wipe 8 times on the boss? Hundreds of consumables used/lost by the raid.
This is not to say that VR should cater to raiders. This is not to say one play style is better than another. All I took from their post was that raiders consume more crafted items than non-raiders and because of this, the player economy is impacted more by raiders than non-raiders. And from my experience that is true. I always consume fewer items when I am not raiding than when I am, with the exception of the quality of life consumables (Faster travel, faster health/mana regen, etc).
The problem is that they use gold sellers/farmers to buy the gold so they can buy the items they need to raid so, in reality, they are not supporting the player-based economy they supporting the gold-selling industry and creating forced inflation by cheapening the value of gold. (example when the Method BS from WOW came to light they used gold farmers/sellers)
disposalist said:Vandraad said:disposalist said:Arguably, adding competition, even if unnecessary, can make something more 'challenging', but it is unnecessary and even irrelevant to a PvE game, which is all about cooperation of players against the game.
It's been discussed a lot in these forums how much 'competition' should be in the game. The issue of contention itself contentious.
VR is building competition into the very fabric of Pantheon through use of open world, no/very very limited instancing, MDD engagement model for group level content and FTE for raid content, etc. Pantheon is a zero-sum game at its core: If I'm engaging in this content, whatever that content may be, you cannot engage in it until I'm done. You wanted that harvesting node? Too bad I got her first..I win, you lose. You wanted that name mob? You might have engaged first but I did more damage..I win, you lose. You wanted that dragon? We beat you in the race to get here and engaged first..we win, you lose.
VR is absolutely catering to competitive players even on the PvE servers.
EDITED: To unmix some metaphors.
You may as well say crime is built into the fabric of the real world. It's a matter of perspective. The freedoms we are afforded make crime very easy to do, but we can live without it.
Ok, competition is not crime, but the point is, competition being a by-product of open world does not make it something aspire to or even something we need.
Some prefer to see open world as shared experience. Some see contention.
VR aren't making Pantheon an open world game 'because competition' and it isn't needed. They aren't 'catering to' competitive gaming just because freedoms make it possible.
To refer to the OP: No, Pantheon doesn't need to cater to the competitive. Everything in the game can be done without competition being a driver or even being involved.
I'm not saying there shouldn't be any. It can be great when consentual and fair and not just domination and strife. Would love to see some way of doing that.
Ok, I do agree to have the freedom to explore and make choices that matter. but some people who are part of the HC community rely on RMT/gold sellers to keep up with everyone on the world's first stuff and that is the problem I have. they go for glory at the cost of the rest of the community.
FatedEmperor said:Honestly, you can't just design a game for one extreme of the population or the other.
If you only focus on keeping the top 10-30% of the player base happy, eventually you end up driving away the people who just want a more relaxed experience. On the opposite hand if you put more focus on the casual experience you drive away those looking for a competitive endgame experience.
A game needs to be designed in a way where players actively want to and naturally seek out more challenging content. I think that one of the major problems with most modern games is that they lack a decent transition between easier content and harder content. I think that the majority of people in games, who remain "casual", tend to remain casual because that is the way they were taught to experience the game. They have to weigh this jump in difficulty and some may not find it worth it, while others may find it too intimidating.
I personally think that a game needs to start out with the intention of training its players in what to expect in the long run. If your emphasis is on challenging group-based combat, then players need to be trained and taught to seek out groups very early on. Content needs to become increasingly more difficult as a player levels up to the point that jumping into a raid ends up feeling like a natural power progression. The more challenging the content is the more a player should feel enticed to participate in it.
it's not 10-30% more like 1-2% of the community total. the hardcore community is a really small community.
stellarmind said: oldwargoat, thats why i think its important to cripple rmt. im digging into a different aspect of mmos, but if the demand is so high where rmt becomes profitable, it goes to show how valuable raiders and pvpers are to the health of an mmo that it influences external game factors.
which means they are trying to take this game in an unhealthy direction at the cost of the community, well this needs to be addressed certainly!!
Oldwargoat39 said:it's not 10-30% more like 1-2% of the community total. the hardcore community is a really small community.
I don't think your numbers are any more reliable than anyone else's. Even in EQ1 the hardcore raiders were a much, much larger portion of the playerbase than 1-2%. WoW, too, for that matter, at least back when I played it. Either way, all of our numbers are purely anecdotal and of no value to the argument. The point is that raiders, hardcore, semi-hardcore, even casual-core, are the group that drives the life of an MMO that supports raiding at all.
I've been a hardcore raider for as long as I've been playing MMOs and I've never once bought into RMT nor has anyone I've ever guilded with that I know of. I think you also way overestimate any correlation between RMT and raiding.
I get it. Not everyone gives a damn about raiding. Some may even prefer the game have no raiding. That's your perspective and there's nothing wrong with it. But I assert that the make-up of those on these forums is not at all representative of the actual playing audience at launch. On average here on Pantheon's forums people are heavily interested in lore, random adventuring and sitting around taverns talking about stuff. On average in any other major MMO's forums lore takes a back seat where balance and raiding take front and center. That may or may not push too far to the other end of the spectrum but VR needs those players, too, for the game to succeed. It has to appeal to a wider audience than what we see here in these forums.
stellarmind said: this is a bit of psychology now, but i'll do my best to convey myself. its hard to work with a community when i constantly have a knife to my throat just being a pvper. while my feedback maybe different, it automatically is viewed negatively unless people know that i have good intentions to help the pve community. most pvpers i know are very blunt and that doesn't sit well with discussions. that's just the nature of pvpers because words mean nothing if it can't be backed up. it's the same reason why hardcore raiders intentionally separate from the community. why should a hardcore raider work with the community when they automatically hostile to them? they commit more time and resources to the game so of course they are going to be more passionate about their opinions. more skin in the game should account for a respectable opinion by the community, even if word choice or delivery isn't elegant. ain't got time to sort words when i'm sorting numbers. only devs have access to the raw analytics, so there's obviously a correlation to the value raiders and pvpers provide to an mmo. i don't know what it is and neither does the community. if i was a dev, i would be thinking who pays my bills to keep this game running? as long as it doesn't undermine my morals and values as a company, i should make sure my breadwinners needs are taken care of first.
So a few questions just to make sure I understanding you right?
Are you seriously stating that hardcores are more passionate about their opinions than non-hardcores, because they have more invested in the game? And they should therefore have those opinions automatically treated with some certain amount of respect and maybe even deference by the community, even if said hardcores will not take the time to communicate those highly priced opinions to the community at large in a respectful manner?
If that indeed is the case, then I respectfully suggest that your feeling of constantly having a knife to your throat in dealing with the community, has more to do with opinions like that, than it has you being a pvp'er.
And apoligies in advance if I have misunderstood you.
stellarmind said: im saying that is the psychology of what that they think, i could care less about hardcore raiders, they never really bothered me, but i understand them. see what i mean? its easy to put a knife to my throat so it makes me not want to share or work with the community lol.
Generally a bad look to both generalize a population/group and presume to understand the thinking of all or most within it.
Daalziel said:stellarmind said: this is a bit of psychology now, but i'll do my best to convey myself. its hard to work with a community when i constantly have a knife to my throat just being a pvper. while my feedback maybe different, it automatically is viewed negatively unless people know that i have good intentions to help the pve community. most pvpers i know are very blunt and that doesn't sit well with discussions. that's just the nature of pvpers because words mean nothing if it can't be backed up. it's the same reason why hardcore raiders intentionally separate from the community. why should a hardcore raider work with the community when they automatically hostile to them? they commit more time and resources to the game so of course they are going to be more passionate about their opinions. more skin in the game should account for a respectable opinion by the community, even if word choice or delivery isn't elegant. ain't got time to sort words when i'm sorting numbers. only devs have access to the raw analytics, so there's obviously a correlation to the value raiders and pvpers provide to an mmo. i don't know what it is and neither does the community. if i was a dev, i would be thinking who pays my bills to keep this game running? as long as it doesn't undermine my morals and values as a company, i should make sure my breadwinners needs are taken care of first.So a few questions just to make sure I understanding you right?
So if someone is just as passionate as an HC player's view is not valid? that is kind of a closed-minded and closed gate view as being considered HC is an ever-moving goal post.
Are you seriously stating that hardcores are more passionate about their opinions than non-hardcores, because they have more invested in the game? And they should therefore have those opinions automatically treated with some certain amount of respect and maybe even deference by the community, even if said hardcores will not take the time to communicate those highly priced opinions to the community at large in a respectful manner?
If that indeed is the case, then I respectfully suggest that your feeling of constantly having a knife to your throat in dealing with the community, has more to do with opinions like that, than it has you being a pvp'er.
And apoligies in advance if I have misunderstood you.
I am passionate about the game and I am not an HC gamer so my opinion is not valid?? If I commit the same amount of time and effort as an HC gamer and not being give the same opportunity as an HC is kind of exclusionary to say at least.
Oldwargoat39 said:I am passionate about the game and I am not an HC gamer so my opinion is not valid?? If I commit the same amount of time and effort as an HC gamer and not being give the same opportunity as an HC is kind of exclusionary to say at least.
I don't think that's what stellarmind was saying at all. If it was I certainly don't agree with it. Even as a hardcore raider, being in a minority in the community, I don't think my opinion is any more valuable or valid than anyone else's regardless of their preferred playstyle. That is not at all the point of this thread. Everyone has a voice and everyone should be heard. Let VR decide what to do with that information.
Please, let's keep this civil and not get overly heated about it. I just hoped to start a discussion and get take the community temperature on the subject.
Akilae said:Oldwargoat39 said:I am passionate about the game and I am not an HC gamer so my opinion is not valid?? If I commit the same amount of time and effort as an HC gamer and not being give the same opportunity as an HC is kind of exclusionary to say at least.
I don't think that's what stellarmind was saying at all. If it was I certainly don't agree with it. Even as a hardcore raider, being in a minority in the community, I don't think my opinion is any more valuable or valid than anyone else's regardless of their preferred playstyle. That is not at all the point of this thread. Everyone has a voice and everyone should be heard. Let VR decide what to do with that information.
Please, let's keep this civil and not get overly heated about it. I just hoped to start a discussion and get take the community temperature on the subject.
No no, I wasn't trying to be confrontational just trying to understand where your coming from. I just want to have everyone have an equal voice in all things that's all.
chenzeme said:There is more to a game than taking down a raid boss and more than one way to measure achievement. I would argue that players who have completed their classes epic quest lines in their entirety have easily achieved as much as any hard core raider.
A hardcore raider would have finished their epic quest line by the time they start raiding so that's not an awesome comparison. How many hours does a typical non-raider spend in-game per week actively engaging with the world and economy? I can say from experience that a hardcore raider spends 40-50 or more hours per week farming gold and materials, crafting consumables, and working to be prepared for raids. If they're a raid leader or, gods save them, a raid guild leader it can be much more.
chenzeme said:The ever increasing level range expansion model with new raids by your own admission is not working, so why employ it?
I said what WoW does isn't working, not that adding new content doesn't work. WoW's problem is that it's too easy to mow through new content and there is absolutely no reason to stick around once it has been beaten. There is no metagame in WoW. Every player at every skill/interest level has the same access to everything and even share all the same class skills. There is no differentiation, no way to feel proud of accomplishing anything because it's all too vanilla, too level.
Creating new content (which does not automatically imply increasing level cap or causing mudflation), or making it dynamic without false garbage like "mythics" (same dungeon, stepped up difficulty) that drone on in repetition, is important not just for raiders but for everyone.
stellarmind said: that sir is what i call the grey area, congrats i am now a stain amongst both communities. neither love or hated by either side. the in between understands both sides and usually put out great feedback.
And that grey area is needed to be talked about, there are too many players in this grey area and no one wants to talk about it
Oldwargoat39 said:FatedEmperor said:Honestly, you can't just design a game for one extreme of the population or the other.
If you only focus on keeping the top 10-30% of the player base happy, eventually you end up driving away the people who just want a more relaxed experience. On the opposite hand if you put more focus on the casual experience you drive away those looking for a competitive endgame experience.
A game needs to be designed in a way where players actively want to and naturally seek out more challenging content. I think that one of the major problems with most modern games is that they lack a decent transition between easier content and harder content. I think that the majority of people in games, who remain "casual", tend to remain casual because that is the way they were taught to experience the game. They have to weigh this jump in difficulty and some may not find it worth it, while others may find it too intimidating.
I personally think that a game needs to start out with the intention of training its players in what to expect in the long run. If your emphasis is on challenging group-based combat, then players need to be trained and taught to seek out groups very early on. Content needs to become increasingly more difficult as a player levels up to the point that jumping into a raid ends up feeling like a natural power progression. The more challenging the content is the more a player should feel enticed to participate in it.
it's not 10-30% more like 1-2% of the community total. the hardcore community is a really small community.
To be clear I was classifying anyone who raids as hardcore. However, in all honesty, your right. The total population of TRUE hardcore players right now, in any game, is probably no more than 1-2% at max. I was using WoW as my reference for these numbers where 30% of the population raid normal mode, 10-12% of that raid heroic mode, about 5% of that raid mythic with only about 2% actually completing the raid on mythic.
I want to be fully transparent at the risk of sounding like a hypocrite, I said "you can't just design a game for one extreme of the population or the other.", and I fully believe this statement. However, I don't think there are enough games out there that promote hardcore values fundamentally and there needs to be a shift to this standard. So, in that aspect, new MMORPGs do need to cater to the hardcore player base. I think it's more accurate to say that I wish the player base was just the player base. Whether or not the player base was casual or hardcore would be determined by the values of the community and the general game design and standards set up by the devs. I mentioned in my OP how games need to train their player base in what to expect from the gameplay and I fully believe this. I think that casualty has taken over the MMO environment to the point that there needs to be a shift to harder more challenging gameplay. This shift is going to require players to be trained out of the casual mindset and how they approach standard gameplay.
So mmorpg wrote an article about this because kilsin posted it on twitter and man the responses are bad.
I wasn't going to comment on this thread because it is presented poorly. Many of the points the OP is trying to make have been presented much better in previous conversations.
Now it's being spread around and people are taking the OP's post as if it came from VR...not good.
Competition fuels human progression. If there's nothing to work for, or be better at than someone else, most people won't bother doing it. It's an oversimplification to say an MMORPG must cater to the competitive, because it takes all sorts to make a world. The goal is to get people to subscribe to the game; if a casual only plays 20 hours a month compared to a hardcore playing 120 hours a month, it doesn't matter, VR still got both of their $15. The question should be: Are we catering to enough groups to keep our business model viable?
Pretty sure there are no solid definitions to be had. I've always understand hardcore and casual to be measurements of time to invest and nothing more. So to me someone playing 4+ hours a day every day or most days is hardcore, anything less is casual. Other than that? There is little one can glean from another being hardcore or casual, it doesn't speak of skill or much else beyond someone having more time to throw at a game. In EQ a hardcore poopsocker just had more time to spend trying to do anything in the game, not that they were necessarily skilled or particularly successful.
Not sure what this gray area or missing voice is about.
@Philo don't freak out many have already replied that is wasn't from VR.
"Yikes! this article should not have been written.
It's referring to a post by a forum member (a new member at that).
Kilsin, the community manager, posts random questions and highlights certain forum posts to pass the time and interact with the community.
Kilsin has made it VERY clear over the years that these posts don't mean that is the direction VR is taking things or that they even agree."
To be fair, I don't even understand this post that's why I never replied until now.
It's basically saying: "The game should offer skill expression for the more hardcore players. And release content at a reasonable pace so players are not bored"
Well of course. The game is supposed to be challenging. So competitive player will have the opportunity to push the boundaries of the game.
That's not an unpopular opinion especially not for Pantheon.
As for the frequency of update, the content will always be cleared faster than it is created so unless Pantheon has a Huge content team the top Players/Guilds will always have a moment where they cleared everything. If the game is interesting enough and fun however, they'll probably reroll new characters.