i don't like math, and i don't like when math intervenes in my enjoyment of a game. MMORPGS and their dependency on gear stat calculations instead of raw player skill is very annoying.
EDIT: RNG is another problem.
I consider the ability to create a build that suits your own skills well an extremely important part of player skill. That's part of the reason I love deep customization so much. For instance in ArcheAge you are picking all your skills. Nothing in your build is there unless you put it there. Picking the skills I need, making sure I can use them all effectively and keymapping them so I can access them when I need them is huge.
My careful planning and playing a build suited to my skillset can give me a massive advantage over someone who does not plan things out carefully or just uses a cookie cutter build that doesn't suit their own skills as a player very well. It can allow me to beat someone who has a better reaction time naturally, but not after factoring in that my setup is meant to increase my reaction time.
Personally I think I deserve that advantage. Twitch isn't everything. Being prepared should give me an edge.
I don't think anyone is saying that someone who is well prepared shouldn't have an advantage over someone who isn't. The point I'm making is that for SOME players, the fun of the game is making sure they steamroll everyone. Making sure they have the absolute best of the best of the best by crunching numbers etc. They only pick builds that are the FOTM and every decision they make in the game is dependent on that. So for example.. the guy who admitted he played a balance druid in WoW.. arguably one of the worst choices of play in the game.... guess what, I did too! Why? Because it was A FUN CLASS TO PLAY.
There are players out there who literally won't play a certain class all because someone on the internet said it wasn't good, or that it wouldn't allow you to win every single encounter, every single time. People don't pick abilities or skills based on what is fun or what their brain tells them is the best choice to make.. they immediately go to google to the build calculators and the spread sheets that literally tell them how to play the game. The "best" choices are already made for them, taking all the fun and imagination out of the game.
I chose Occultism in Archeage, without looking at the forums and without consulting any guides or build calculators.. Why? Because it LOOKED FUN. Guess what happened when I finally did consult the forums? I found out that nobody plays Occultism because it isn't "good" at whatever particular aspect of the game they want to "win" at. You know you can't beat an MMO right? There's no end.
My point in this post was to point out that gaming (especially in this genre) has shifted from being about fun, to just being about the highest numbers. It's like.. why are we even allowed to choose what we want? You're going to pick whatever is deemed "the best" which is often ONE path. What is the point in having choices if we're not actually going to make any? I decided that last night I was going to play what I wanted to play regardless of if it was the "best" or not. If I was having fun with my character, that's what was important. The game devs wanted me to be able to pick and choose whatever I want and still have viable/fun character to play.. and while they didn't do a perfect job in that clearly.. that's what I feel was the intention. They don't go into this thinking that there are people out there who are going to do so much number crunching to the point that they figure out the best of the best all the way down to a point or two.
This is why I prefer "skill based" games over number crunching games. I like to do number crunching when it comes to gear, and figuring out stuff that is best for my character on my own. Maybe it isn't the developers or the players who have created this way of playing.. maybe it's the internet.. Before you had WoWhead and Icyveins and what not, you had to actually figure this stuff out on your own, based on what you thought was best or was more fun.
How many people play the FOTM just because its the FOTM? Way more than there should be.
www.facebook.com/themarksmovierules
Currently playing:
FFXIV on Behemoth, FFXI on Eden, and Gloria Victis on NA.
It seems like every game that I try to play now, the majority of the playerbase are people who spent an abundance of time number crunching every single aspect of the game, trying to min/max their stats as quickly as possible and just completely ignoring the exploration and immersion of the game in favor of more or less gaming the system to be the best? It's like their enjoyment of the game stems from doing math and crunching numbers, so it makes me wonder.. did these people love Math in school?
When I first started playing MMO's it was just about exploring, and socializing with people from all different areas. It wasn't about being the best in the shortest period of time.. but every game forum I hit all the posts are about, "How fast til level cap?" "This game is P2W" or "NUMBERS! NUMBERS! NUMBERS! STATS! STATS! STATS!" It wasn't always this way, at least not for me.. or maybe it was and I just never noticed because there were at least some people just playing to have fun and explore.
Thoughts?
I think there are a few different angles to this issue that are worth exploring.
1) Personal Perception
This is really the key thing for me and probably something that has been overlooked. Min-maxing / number crunching has always been there in every MMO. The maths that control the mechanics which controls your success or failure have always been there and people have always crunched the numbers.
The difference is your personal level of exposure. Most people, even now, just simply aren't exposed to this aspect of the game. The content doesn't require the average gamer to know about the maths. It's enough to know that strength increases damage, HP increases health etc. That is enough for 95% of the playerbase. Most players never visit forums and never crunch numbers. The closest the average player gets is "Do I choose +5 strength or +10 crit?".
However, the longer you've been part of the genre and the more hardcore you get, the more important the numbers become. If you're posting on these forums then chances are you are or have been hardcore at some point, either in terms of hours spent or attitude.
2) Combat Design
It is the design of the game that determines the importance of the numbers. Some games set their difficulty based on reaction times / punishing mistakes (e.g. action combat), some games set their difficulty based on numbers (e.g. enrage timers), some games set their difficulty based on depth (e.g. intergroup skills), some use a combination of these and I'm sure there are other ways too.
Basing difficulty on numbers is the easiest way, but in my opinion, the laziest and also the quickest to overcome.
You take each class, calculate absolute maximum potential. Average across classes, then balance enrage timers on that. So, if average DPS is 1000 across all classes at maximum, then hardmode might be 90% requirement, normal mode 75% and easymode 50%.
Very easy to calculate, easy to set and tweak, easy to balance. Boring for the user. It places all the emphasis on the numbers and very little on player skill. SW:TOR is the worst game I've played for this but I'm sure there are worse. Nearly every boss had an enrage timer so every DPSer had to meet minimum requirements. This meant a combination of learning the right rotation (takes 5mins of searching the net plus 30mins of practice to get perfect) and gearing up properly. Every fight was then essentially the same - run in, execute rotation, avoid whatever special attacks there were, move to certain spots at certain times.
I compare this to something like LotRO. For years the game had no enrage timers so number crunching and stats just weren't important (though, we still did it). To this day there is no such thing as a power-neutral rotation. LotRO's difficulty was determined by boss tactics/skills and combat depth. Everybody constantly had to make difficult decisions about what skills to use next. Get it right, you win. Get it wrong and there were usually ways to recover, but get it wrong too many times and you fail.
This is much harder to design and implement and balance, but much more rewarding for the players. In the entire time I played LotRO, no-one cared about dps or threat meters because they didn't matter. Player skill did.
3) I don't think math is actually important
I do actually enjoy maths. I did maths and further maths at A-level (ages 17 and 18 of school, not sure equivalent in US) and a degree in computer science. The maths involved in MMO combat is usually really simple.
First, there is the maths in terms of stat gains. Usually, this is linear until a soft cap, then diminishing returns until a hardcap (if there is one). Yes, it can be complicated to work out the algorithm to calculate the diminishing returns but chances are someone else has already done so.
Second, there is the maths to calculate damage. This does involve different moving parts (weapon damage, strength modifier, accuracy modifier, crit chance and crit modifier etc) but the actual maths itself is easy, the hard part is knowing what to include.
Most often, as far as I can tell, the number crunching usually comes down to just a few key things:
Do I want raw damage or crit chance?
Do I want health or mitigation?
Do I want low-damage-fast-speed weapon, or high-damage-slow-speed?
Do I want raw mana or regen?
Even then, the vast majority of these questions don't even need to be asked because the itemisation makes the decision for you, plus in most games it just doesn't matter anyway. With the way itemisation works out, these sorts of decisions only end up making 1-5% difference in output. For nearly all PvE and PvP, that few % just doesn't matter, your rotation and ability to execute it is far more important.
This post wasn't a bash on Math, it was a bash on how MMORPG's have been come just simply "MMO"s" because the role playing game part has been traded for stat and number crunching.. it's less about playing and developing a character who lives in this world and more about making sure all his stats are maxed out so you always win. I know it's been this way a long time, but reading forums is what drove me to the "It didn't use to be this way..." train of thought.
Because the base systems under the covers of all online games are simple die rolls and math formulas.
Min/Maxing is simply the smartest way to play the game efficiently, there is nothing wrong with that approach, just like there is nothing wrong with taking time to smell the roses approach.
We're all plugged into the Matrix, and some of us, like Neo, can't help seeing it for what it really is: just 1's and 0's. I'll let y'all decide whether that's good or bad.
I enjoy mathematics, but not the MMO type of number crunching. Writing proofs, calculus, linear algebra, discrete mathematics, and probability are all way more interesting. I didn't start enjoying mathematics till I started to learn some of the upper-level stuff.
I definitely feel more pressure in certain games than others. WoW seems to be very damage meter focused, more than other PvE type MMO's I've played. Even group PvP games (Darkfall UW) I've played were less about the perfect build/damage than PvE in WoW.
Luckily there are number cruncher's that have already done the boring math for most of these games.
I think there was a time when it was more necessary than it is now. I once spent 10-15 hours a week crunching numbers for our guild "back in the day". However there is almost always an online tool that can crunch the numbers for you. It is a bit unfortunate because these tools are a major reason that skill trees were abolished and have also, in my opinion, contributed to the decline of the community. Why? Everyone is an elitist now. You merely need to remember 2 or 3 builds and that qualifies you to laugh at anyone who has a build which lies outside of those, just like an elitist asshole. Meanwhile, there is a mere fraction of a fraction of 1% who even know why. The rest? Just fucking lemmings..... in my opinion
I think there was a time when it was more necessary than it is now. I once spent 10-15 hours a week crunching numbers for our guild "back in the day". However there is almost always an online tool that can crunch the numbers for you. It is a bit unfortunate because these tools are a major reason that skill trees were abolished and have also, in my opinion, contributed to the decline of the community. Why? Everyone is an elitist now. You merely need to remember 2 or 3 builds and that qualifies you to laugh at anyone who has a build which lies outside of those, just like an elitist asshole. Meanwhile, there is a mere fraction of a fraction of 1% who even know why. The rest? Just fucking lemmings..... in my opinion
You can spot the lemmings quickly on a technical boss fight.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
i don't like math, and i don't like when math intervenes in my enjoyment of a game. MMORPGS and their dependency on gear stat calculations instead of raw player skill is very annoying.
EDIT: RNG is another problem.
I consider the ability to create a build that suits your own skills well an extremely important part of player skill. That's part of the reason I love deep customization so much. For instance in ArcheAge you are picking all your skills. Nothing in your build is there unless you put it there. Picking the skills I need, making sure I can use them all effectively and keymapping them so I can access them when I need them is huge.
My careful planning and playing a build suited to my skillset can give me a massive advantage over someone who does not plan things out carefully or just uses a cookie cutter build that doesn't suit their own skills as a player very well. It can allow me to beat someone who has a better reaction time naturally, but not after factoring in that my setup is meant to increase my reaction time.
Personally I think I deserve that advantage. Twitch isn't everything. Being prepared should give me an edge.
I don't think anyone is saying that someone who is well prepared shouldn't have an advantage over someone who isn't. The point I'm making is that for SOME players, the fun of the game is making sure they steamroll everyone. Making sure they have the absolute best of the best of the best by crunching numbers etc. They only pick builds that are the FOTM and every decision they make in the game is dependent on that. So for example.. the guy who admitted he played a balance druid in WoW.. arguably one of the worst choices of play in the game.... guess what, I did too! Why? Because it was A FUN CLASS TO PLAY.
There are players out there who literally won't play a certain class all because someone on the internet said it wasn't good, or that it wouldn't allow you to win every single encounter, every single time. People don't pick abilities or skills based on what is fun or what their brain tells them is the best choice to make.. they immediately go to google to the build calculators and the spread sheets that literally tell them how to play the game. The "best" choices are already made for them, taking all the fun and imagination out of the game.
I chose Occultism in Archeage, without looking at the forums and without consulting any guides or build calculators.. Why? Because it LOOKED FUN. Guess what happened when I finally did consult the forums? I found out that nobody plays Occultism because it isn't "good" at whatever particular aspect of the game they want to "win" at. You know you can't beat an MMO right? There's no end.
My point in this post was to point out that gaming (especially in this genre) has shifted from being about fun, to just being about the highest numbers. It's like.. why are we even allowed to choose what we want? You're going to pick whatever is deemed "the best" which is often ONE path. What is the point in having choices if we're not actually going to make any? I decided that last night I was going to play what I wanted to play regardless of if it was the "best" or not. If I was having fun with my character, that's what was important. The game devs wanted me to be able to pick and choose whatever I want and still have viable/fun character to play.. and while they didn't do a perfect job in that clearly.. that's what I feel was the intention. They don't go into this thinking that there are people out there who are going to do so much number crunching to the point that they figure out the best of the best all the way down to a point or two.
This is why I prefer "skill based" games over number crunching games. I like to do number crunching when it comes to gear, and figuring out stuff that is best for my character on my own. Maybe it isn't the developers or the players who have created this way of playing.. maybe it's the internet.. Before you had WoWhead and Icyveins and what not, you had to actually figure this stuff out on your own, based on what you thought was best or was more fun.
How many people play the FOTM just because its the FOTM? Way more than there should be.
I think the thing with FOTM classes is if they are truly that, Flavor of The Month then I don't see the problem with them. It's when they fail to nerf something that is clearly broken or buff something that is clearly underpowered for a very long time that you run into problems. Like how the Thursar/Khurite was thee build to play in Mortal Online if you wanted to be a foot based melee fighter for like five damn years. That's a problem.
People can change their builds to reflect whatever is currently in-style more frequently than they change their underwear but people who find a build that feels right to them and focus on getting exceptionally good with that specific build are going to be better than the vast majority of them.
I know at least for me I generally find a certain build that "clicks" with me and that character will stay my main forever in that particular game, and I am a pretty darn good PvPer. I can spank most people at or slightly above my equipment score most of the time regardless of how "FOTM" their class is.
IMPORTANT: Please keep all replies to my posts about GAMING. Please no negative or backhanded comments directed at me personally. If you are going to post a reply that includes how you feel about me, please don't bother replying & just ignore my post instead. I'm on this forum to talk about GAMING. Thank you.
Insightful. Thanks for your contribution to the conversation bud. You know I originally thought the answer was yes but your post was so well argued you won me over.
OP - I min/max in games I play as well as my guild, it really has nothing to do with "love of math", it has to do with maximum efficiency of spending time online for maximum gain.
I do happen to love math, but the correlation of min/maxing and love for math is not really there, its more human nature for efficiency.
But not everyone is drawn to efficiency. Say that you've a choice: between an effective build and a build you like. Which one'd you choose?
The answer is probably.. I like being effective.
www.facebook.com/themarksmovierules
Currently playing:
FFXIV on Behemoth, FFXI on Eden, and Gloria Victis on NA.
Here's the real question. Will you change your build to be the most optimal possible at the end of every patch if you know that in the long run sticking with a build you really love and getting good with that build will make you stronger than anyone could possibly be for a build they have just adopted this patch and will discard the next patch?
Because for most games, those are your real options. You should tweak some points to go here and there over time as you learn the strengths and weaknesses of your build better and ir patches make major changes to skills that will now or did fit in your build then a revision may be in order. But the core of what your build is should not alter dramatically very often if ever.
Maybe if you are a pro-level gamer you can change builds constantly and use them to full effectiveness but being super good with one build sets you ahead of 90%+ of the people who can't stick with a build.
IMPORTANT: Please keep all replies to my posts about GAMING. Please no negative or backhanded comments directed at me personally. If you are going to post a reply that includes how you feel about me, please don't bother replying & just ignore my post instead. I'm on this forum to talk about GAMING. Thank you.
90% sure this wasn't there before my post. You have no idea how happy it makes that one sarcastic comment apparently got you this mad.
OP - I min/max in games I play as well as my guild, it really has nothing to do with "love of math", it has to do with maximum efficiency of spending time online for maximum gain.
I do happen to love math, but the correlation of min/maxing and love for math is not really there, its more human nature for efficiency.
But not everyone is drawn to efficiency. Say that you've a choice: between an effective build and a build you like. Which one'd you choose?
Option C. Quit the game and go find a new one where both are true. And if no such game exists, bitch on the forums until one does.
I don't like math but do know my way around spreadsheets. I use to be into high stats and the best of everything. Now I prefer adventure and social stuff. I rarely even craft in a game and never gear grind unless it's a natural part of the fun element. If a game doesn't feel fun to play, I just won't play it. If I can't level without crafting or grinding gear or has long skill timers, feels like the devs designed the game to PK players, I won't play it. Lots of games out there so I can afford to be picky.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I don't like math but do know my way around spreadsheets. I use to be into high stats and the best of everything. Now I prefer adventure and social stuff. I rarely even craft in a game and never gear grind unless it's a natural part of the fun element. If a game doesn't feel fun to play, I just won't play it. If I can't level without crafting or grinding gear or has long skill timers, feels like the devs designed the game to PK players, I won't play it. Lots of games out there so I can afford to be picky.
Comments
There are players out there who literally won't play a certain class all because someone on the internet said it wasn't good, or that it wouldn't allow you to win every single encounter, every single time. People don't pick abilities or skills based on what is fun or what their brain tells them is the best choice to make.. they immediately go to google to the build calculators and the spread sheets that literally tell them how to play the game. The "best" choices are already made for them, taking all the fun and imagination out of the game.
I chose Occultism in Archeage, without looking at the forums and without consulting any guides or build calculators.. Why? Because it LOOKED FUN. Guess what happened when I finally did consult the forums? I found out that nobody plays Occultism because it isn't "good" at whatever particular aspect of the game they want to "win" at. You know you can't beat an MMO right? There's no end.
My point in this post was to point out that gaming (especially in this genre) has shifted from being about fun, to just being about the highest numbers. It's like.. why are we even allowed to choose what we want? You're going to pick whatever is deemed "the best" which is often ONE path. What is the point in having choices if we're not actually going to make any? I decided that last night I was going to play what I wanted to play regardless of if it was the "best" or not. If I was having fun with my character, that's what was important. The game devs wanted me to be able to pick and choose whatever I want and still have viable/fun character to play.. and while they didn't do a perfect job in that clearly.. that's what I feel was the intention. They don't go into this thinking that there are people out there who are going to do so much number crunching to the point that they figure out the best of the best all the way down to a point or two.
This is why I prefer "skill based" games over number crunching games. I like to do number crunching when it comes to gear, and figuring out stuff that is best for my character on my own. Maybe it isn't the developers or the players who have created this way of playing.. maybe it's the internet.. Before you had WoWhead and Icyveins and what not, you had to actually figure this stuff out on your own, based on what you thought was best or was more fun.
How many people play the FOTM just because its the FOTM? Way more than there should be.
www.facebook.com/themarksmovierules
Currently playing:
FFXIV on Behemoth, FFXI on Eden, and Gloria Victis on NA.
1) Personal Perception
This is really the key thing for me and probably something that has been overlooked. Min-maxing / number crunching has always been there in every MMO. The maths that control the mechanics which controls your success or failure have always been there and people have always crunched the numbers.
The difference is your personal level of exposure. Most people, even now, just simply aren't exposed to this aspect of the game. The content doesn't require the average gamer to know about the maths. It's enough to know that strength increases damage, HP increases health etc. That is enough for 95% of the playerbase. Most players never visit forums and never crunch numbers. The closest the average player gets is "Do I choose +5 strength or +10 crit?".
However, the longer you've been part of the genre and the more hardcore you get, the more important the numbers become. If you're posting on these forums then chances are you are or have been hardcore at some point, either in terms of hours spent or attitude.
2) Combat Design
It is the design of the game that determines the importance of the numbers. Some games set their difficulty based on reaction times / punishing mistakes (e.g. action combat), some games set their difficulty based on numbers (e.g. enrage timers), some games set their difficulty based on depth (e.g. intergroup skills), some use a combination of these and I'm sure there are other ways too.
Basing difficulty on numbers is the easiest way, but in my opinion, the laziest and also the quickest to overcome.
You take each class, calculate absolute maximum potential. Average across classes, then balance enrage timers on that. So, if average DPS is 1000 across all classes at maximum, then hardmode might be 90% requirement, normal mode 75% and easymode 50%.
Very easy to calculate, easy to set and tweak, easy to balance. Boring for the user. It places all the emphasis on the numbers and very little on player skill. SW:TOR is the worst game I've played for this but I'm sure there are worse. Nearly every boss had an enrage timer so every DPSer had to meet minimum requirements. This meant a combination of learning the right rotation (takes 5mins of searching the net plus 30mins of practice to get perfect) and gearing up properly. Every fight was then essentially the same - run in, execute rotation, avoid whatever special attacks there were, move to certain spots at certain times.
I compare this to something like LotRO. For years the game had no enrage timers so number crunching and stats just weren't important (though, we still did it). To this day there is no such thing as a power-neutral rotation. LotRO's difficulty was determined by boss tactics/skills and combat depth. Everybody constantly had to make difficult decisions about what skills to use next. Get it right, you win. Get it wrong and there were usually ways to recover, but get it wrong too many times and you fail.
This is much harder to design and implement and balance, but much more rewarding for the players. In the entire time I played LotRO, no-one cared about dps or threat meters because they didn't matter. Player skill did.
3) I don't think math is actually important
I do actually enjoy maths. I did maths and further maths at A-level (ages 17 and 18 of school, not sure equivalent in US) and a degree in computer science. The maths involved in MMO combat is usually really simple.
First, there is the maths in terms of stat gains. Usually, this is linear until a soft cap, then diminishing returns until a hardcap (if there is one). Yes, it can be complicated to work out the algorithm to calculate the diminishing returns but chances are someone else has already done so.
Second, there is the maths to calculate damage. This does involve different moving parts (weapon damage, strength modifier, accuracy modifier, crit chance and crit modifier etc) but the actual maths itself is easy, the hard part is knowing what to include.
Most often, as far as I can tell, the number crunching usually comes down to just a few key things:
- Do I want raw damage or crit chance?
- Do I want health or mitigation?
- Do I want low-damage-fast-speed weapon, or high-damage-slow-speed?
- Do I want raw mana or regen?
Even then, the vast majority of these questions don't even need to be asked because the itemisation makes the decision for you, plus in most games it just doesn't matter anyway. With the way itemisation works out, these sorts of decisions only end up making 1-5% difference in output. For nearly all PvE and PvP, that few % just doesn't matter, your rotation and ability to execute it is far more important.Luckily there are number cruncher's that have already done the boring math for most of these games.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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People can change their builds to reflect whatever is currently in-style more frequently than they change their underwear but people who find a build that feels right to them and focus on getting exceptionally good with that specific build are going to be better than the vast majority of them.
I know at least for me I generally find a certain build that "clicks" with me and that character will stay my main forever in that particular game, and I am a pretty darn good PvPer. I can spank most people at or slightly above my equipment score most of the time regardless of how "FOTM" their class is.
No.
www.facebook.com/themarksmovierules
Currently playing:
FFXIV on Behemoth, FFXI on Eden, and Gloria Victis on NA.
www.facebook.com/themarksmovierules
Currently playing:
FFXIV on Behemoth, FFXI on Eden, and Gloria Victis on NA.
Because for most games, those are your real options. You should tweak some points to go here and there over time as you learn the strengths and weaknesses of your build better and ir patches make major changes to skills that will now or did fit in your build then a revision may be in order. But the core of what your build is should not alter dramatically very often if ever.
Maybe if you are a pro-level gamer you can change builds constantly and use them to full effectiveness but being super good with one build sets you ahead of 90%+ of the people who can't stick with a build.
90% sure this wasn't there before my post. You have no idea how happy it makes that one sarcastic comment apparently got you this mad.
Quit the game and go find a new one where both are true. And if no such game exists, bitch on the forums until one does.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey