For me the most frustrating part of the gaming community, aside from the hackers and griefers, would be people who don't seem to comprehend the marketing materials and game FAQs. I admit there was a time when I suffered from this problem - I'd buy a game, be surprised by the content, and then insist that the developers make changes to the game to meet my requirements.
I honestly feel bad for developers on this point.
They're in a tough spot.
For example, I'm posting on a game forum where people are complaining about 'choke points' in mining. They're upset that players are forced to mine rare ores in well known locations that have limited entrances and exits. They don't like this design because PKs make a nuisance of themselves and mining is difficult. The suggested fix by the playerbase: Spread rare ores out all over the map so that we can avoid PKs. This is in a PvP game, people.
Naturally, there is nothing wrong with making suggestions to the developers on how to improve a game; however, this suggestion seems to fly in the face of an obviously intentional design choice that encourages player conflict. In a PvP game the mechanics are supposed to encourage PvP - not work to avoid it. Again, If you buy a PvP game then understand that it is going to be put together in such a way as to force player conflict.
To me this is almost as ignorant as loading up Camelot Unchained and asking the developers when they'll implement intergalactic travel, trading, and space warfare. Hey developers, thanks for the new chainmail armor, but I'm really wanting to get some cybernetic implants - when does that update drop?
Reflexively I want to blame the developers in that they need to do a better job of communicating; however, for the game I'm talking about (Legends of Aria) the website brags about player vs. player conflict and that the world will be dangerous out in the wilds. If you don't 'get it' after viewing the website then I don't know what the developers could do to make it clear.
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I mean, seriously: if it happened in the last ten games you tanked, what makes you think that the current game will be any different?
When I see those two features advertised together I give the game a hard pass.
That aside, can you blame the players viewing others as victims when the game advertises that you can be an outcast and prey on the weak? Again, it is an advertised feature of the game that you can make other players your target - so I don't see how players to buy that game for that feature would be irritating to anyone.
Full disclosure: I don't PvP. Period. So my post isn't a veiled attempt to defend ganking.
I'm just puzzled by people who buy a game that advertises feature X and then immediately petition the developers to remove feature X.
It is like buying Madden 2019 and petitioning the developers to stop making the game all about football and to add more car theft and gunplay.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
It's a terrible mechanic which has oft been repeated and failed in far too many games especially when the victim has no chance to fight or flee.
I am "Prey" (might make that the name of my next alt) and I will play in PVP centric games as long as there is a way for me to control my level of risk and strong mechanics to avoid being caught.
EVE does this very well, providing several warning mechanisms such a local, ship scanning, and player corps often set up Intel networks to track enemy ship movements.
PVPers often complain it's too difficult to catch PVERs unaware but I just view that as crocodile tears considering I'm normally the only one who loses much of anything in such encounters.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
This is not a good design for the prey. They become unhappy. The fault here is not with the player who indulges in these activities knowing they will become targets and it is not that they are stupid and should not play but the design of the game is specifically creating prey and it is done in a way that will make the player who is the victim upset and feeling used by the game developers. The game developers seem to think that this is providing content for the PvP players when in fact what you're doing oft times is pissing off the players who are placed in disadvantages positions and quit in disgust.
I really cannot understand how game developers think players like to be cornered , overwhelmed and constantly outmatched because of the circumstances the game has placed them in as a result of its design. They should make these encounters fun for both sides.
Before you say they should bring guards and mercenaries, may be the dwindling population and the loss of these players should at some point light a light bulb above some game developer's head that there is a flaw in this design and it has nothing to do with paid protection.
It is also a very lazy design. Take for instance a village crafter who makes swords. He isn't going to go out and look for the metals for his craft. He will probably have it brought in and it might be the responsibility of the person transporting it to hire the guards to bring it safely to the village . In a game however the weaponsmith will be going to a mine and looking for the materials to make the weapons he wishes to craft and in the process get ambushed, killed and robbed. It does not work unless you make sure the design is such that the weaponsmith is not only going in one direction or to one place but can be unpredictable in his search and have a sporting chance for this to work.
I finally understand why Devs like PvP, the general answer is that it encourages player interaction. Sometimes I question the quality of the type of interaction they're going for but if I don't like it I simply won't play that game. The hardest to play would be game that have say 60% content I like and the rest I don't. I may play the game but will be complaining about stuff a lot. But again I understand their point.
"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 really want this thread to be about ganking because I think we all agree that is unappealing.
What is frustrating is when a game runs an ad like this:
GAME: Medieval Village
ADVERTISEMENT: Play this game to enjoy a really detailed and accurate roleplay of what like would be like to live, prosper, and die in a 1400 A.D. medieval village.
Next day on Medieval Village Forums: This game needs more mech warriors. The developers need to do this NOW or the game will die. What noobs built this game leaving out people who like to drive mech warriors? Are you all racists or what?
So then someone points out the name of the game is "Medieval Village" and how the ads made it clear what the game was about and the response is "Oh, so we have to play the game your way do we?" About 500 people who shouldn't even be in the game chime in with "BUT WE PAID GOOD MONEY FOR THIS GAME" and somehow it is a civil rights violation to not take their criticism seriously.
At some point I think it is fair to say: You are an idiot for not understanding that feature X means that feature X will be in the game. If you don't like feature X (when foundational to the game) then GTFO.
People giving feedback isn't really what I find frustrating.
What I find frustrating is when the central theme/selling point of the game is portrayed as being entirely wrong. In the case of Legends of Aria one of the game's marketing points is open world full loot PvP. That is spelled out very clearly on their website.
That isn't just a PvP balance tweek or a "gosh, goblins hit hard" concern - that is a "go back to the drawing board and rewrite the entire game to make it entirely something different" sort of complaint.
^--- That is the frustrating part. Missing the proverbial elephant in the room.
Minecraft Forums: Hi, I don't like mining stuff or building anything and there is nothing to do in the game. Can you please add an online Scrabble feature so I can play Scrabble with my friends or are you the kind of developers who hate the player base?
If you join a PvP game and have a fundamental objection to PVP you're in the wrong game.
I have to ask, have you really seen a lot of gamers asking for something totally unreasonable and outside of the lore?
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
In my initial example it isn't a lore question but certainly a fundamental premise of the game.
As an example: In Legends of Aria some players are complaining that the high tier ore is located in areas that have choke points (limited entrances/exits) such that it makes it very easy for PKs to find them, kill them, and loot them. The players are claiming is a design flaw that could be fixed by placing nodes all over the map.
They act as if they've identified a bug or game condition that didn't occur to the developers.
They could be right; however, if the game is a PvP game and the wilds are supposed to be dangerous then choke points would encourage PvP - and make it easier to defend miners when a guild is working anti-PK - and those are advertised features of the game. So if the design goal in a PvP game is PvP then a design that encourages PvP would be "working as intended".
And it isn't the PvP I'm defending (or ganking) - I didn't buy the game because I don't like that sort of thing - but rather, I'm ranting about gamers that are so oblivious to the intent of a game as to not understand when it is working as advertised. The inability to recognize the intent of what they encounter and then suggesting design changes that counter the features of the game is ridiculous.
It makes sense to complain about bugs or broken features in a game.
It doesn't make sense to complain about the underlying premise of the game.
And people always take that as insulting and I don't mean it that way. I played these games for many years before I took the helm of my own experience and decided that I needed to do a better job of picking where I'll spend my time and money.
I'm not saying "LOL NOOB, L2P OR QUIT" - I am saying "Jeez man, find something you enjoy and have at it - don't wait around for a development team to rewrite a title you don't enjoy".
The underlying premise of the game is what is being debated.
It would be like me going to a BBQ join and insisting that they switch over to vegan when there are dozens of vegan options across the street. I find it frustrating that person would be in such pain when joy can be attained by leaving the BBQ join and crossing the street.
At what point is the customer just flat out wrong?
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I'm thinking this is as much a consumer tastes shift as anything else. These days, "reds" don't exist without a full guild of buddies on Discord to back them up should someone give them a bit of resistance.
Chasing off a red is fun, but when he returns with a group full or more as necessary to ensure they ruin the game for anyone in that zone, it's fun for no one but the group chasing people down they know can't defend themselves against their mini-zerg.
In the end, wide open PvP is a very basic design philosophy. No dev has had the creativity and/or guts the implement a law system that appropriately discourages random ganking to the point where PvP is relegated to meaningful encounters within the purview of the game world itself.
"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
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
What you're equating is a complaint against the PvP game which isn't what this is about at all. They are complaining about one aspect.
It is also very disingenuous of companies to try to get players who like to craft and play in their open world games because let's face it they want those players' money by promising robust mechanisms in place while all the while setting up choke points to serve them up on a platter to the PvPers who love to pluck the low hanging fruit.
Devs that leave griefing opportunities wide open rarely succeed, and the ones that have generally appear to have succeeded by providing options to avoid it completely (private servers) or by being old enough to have diehard fanbases.
Whats funny to me as well is how people who fall into the category of playing a game when they shouldn't be are usually in my experience you find these same guys complaining they are getting ganked always tend to say "the devs need to do something about this" or "someone should form a guild to deal with this!".
But these are exactly the people who are the issue. They want everyone else to deal with their issues proactively. They will never try to create a solution in game as you described.
They will just go on a forum and whine to no end how the game is shit or whine that players dont get the game or understand how it was meant to be played when its themselves who dont fucking understand what the game is about.
The annoying part for me (which is a topic we could make an unending debate thread about) that really pisses me off in the open world pvp games is the people who complain about being ganked and how that something needs to be changed typically tend to be the same people who when someone complains that a game(especially ARIA) that it sucks and has no depth of content beyond crafting, gathering and pvp.
That same guy will tell that player he needs to go back to WOW or FF since you want a game on rails when clearly so does he. He doesnt want to play the game as intended and live for the moments exactly as Sovrath describes that make super memorable moments in games like UO and Lineage 2.
They dont even see how bass ackwards they are and never will.