mmoRPGs are not for everyone

Community General Discussion
203

In D&D yes but in a video game that starts to mean less because a video game has one way of doing things, there isn’t a person behind the scenes (i.e. DM/GM) who can see that your party doesn’t have a strong frontline character so they need to adjust the encounter to fit. A video game only has the way things are coded so min-maxing is more necessary since it’s a direct pass/fail mechanic.

Not to say it’s still not taken to the extreme, but that’s unavoidable. Any time you have multiple options one is going to be decided upon as being “the best” which invalidates all the others, even if the intent is that all of them are equally viable. The minute one gets labeled “the best option” everyone is going to pick that because there will be repercussions for not doing so.

That last part is the real problem. It’s that once a choice becomes meta, it totally invalidates any other choice and people become too blind to “but the meta” to think outside the box. That is the problem. The choices should matter but not so much that half of them are never taken because somebody said they weren’t as good as Choice A.

204

I joined because my roomie said, “hey play this game with me, and I said ok”. I couldn’t enjoy a mmorpg because I didn’t know they existed.

15 year old gamer me loved to create characters and play sandbox rpgs, 35 year old gamer me understands efficiency over pleasure and increasing the likelihood of success to achieve my end goals. I am NOT a character in a game, I am me irl working towards specific goals in a game.

Mah people :heart_eyes: well my people know all the resources and don’t have to ask :rofl:

Because they could end up building some trash, failing at what they wanted to accomplish and eventually MAYBE someday end up making what they could have made when they first started off and gotten what they wanted sooner.

I mean lol :man_shrugging: I have a goal, how do I most efficiently get to that goal? Fantasyzing or Mathesyzing

These aren’t my people, lol.

I’m sure everyone who doesn’t enjoy it doesn’t play

*and collecting :smiley:

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205

Yeah sorry, games are for entertainment and design, if your only goal is to “win” so you can feel better even though games are designed to be won and give you that feeling so you give them money I dont have much more to say

Bet they also follow guides on how to do visions instead of finding the optimal path themselves that fits their class gameplay

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https://www.dataforazeroth.com/leaderboards/completion-score Collectors collect :man_shrugging: Games may be designed to be won but who can collect the most :smiley:

Probably, I’d just watch a youtube guide for whatever class I was going to run.

207

Always be yourself. Unless you can be a unicorn. Then always be a unicorn.

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208

Yeah uhh. Retail is barely an mmorpg at this point. More like a call of duty esq loading menu with no player interaction.

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209

If by “now” you mean “since 2004 when the game launched”, then you’d be correct. People have always gravitated toward cookie cutter builds and specs.

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People have been using 3rd party sites for this kind of info for years. Probably before you were born :laughing: . Want the best cookie cutter spec? --> Icy veins, Noxxic etc, etc. You make it sound like this just started happening. Also posting in a Ralph thread. And most of these sites are supported in some form, or fashion by Blizzard, so don’t expect them to go away anytime soon lol. Free advertising for their product to.

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211

The min/max’ing mentality has been around a really long time; as far back as table-top Dungeons & Dragons.

It’s not the most adventurous way to play any role playing game, but some people want to do it, so i try not to begrudge them for wanting to do it.

The issue i have is when they try to push that mentality onto me or everyone around them, that’s when i kinda just tune out and ignore it; or at least try to; i just don’t have time for spreadsheet-gaming.

I just want to jump into the world and make discoveries on my own.

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212

The fact that you present yourself as a person old enough to be the gaming version of “get off my lawn” guy, yet you talk to people on the internet like a 15 year old, really makes me wonder which of them you actually are.

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You are so full of yourself, YOU define what a game is for everyone, and how they should approach it?

that high horse? you might want to get off of it.

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214

Interesting thread. Below is my commentary.

This is a MMORPG as in a Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. It is not a MMO and/or RPG, it is a MMORPG as in one functioning composition. Everything in the game should support that whole. Anything that doesn’t should not be in the game (ie achievements as meta instead of integrated into the World). And anyone playing the game should be playing it as a MMORPG.

That said, yes, if someone wants to play the game differently within that frame, there is no reason why they may not. Personally, I play solo which means I am not playing the game properly and therefore missing out on important aspects of the game but I am, for the most part, happily playing within that frame so it works for me. (For now, at least.)

The problem comes in when players do not want to play the game within that frame and instead want to bend that MMORPG frame to their non-MMORPG play style. Out of frustration, I recently made the comment that open world content should not require grouping. I was immediately called on it, I got my head out of my butt and agreed it is MMORPG so grouping can and should be a part of any gameplay aspect. The game should not be bent to me, I need to bend to the game for what it is or I should not be playing it.

And this is a game, not a sport or a career to ‘win’ or ‘succeed’ at. Competition is fine, setting goals is good, but that is not the point of a MMORPG. Creating and then stepping into a character’s shoes and having fun adventuring thru their world with other players’ characters is. And yes, that adventuring includes everything: open world quests, battlegrounds, arenas, dungeons, raids, pet battles, ect.

If you don’t want to play the game properly, don’t. But quit expecting the game to bend for you, quit expecting the other players to bend for you and most of all, get your head out of your butt and quit thinking your way is the way because it is not. Playing the game as a MMORPG is the way; anything else is just conceit.

There, I feel better. Stay safe and have a wowderful day.

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215

This is true, now if i could only predict the numbers with MY special powers like some here seem to have LOL!

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You dk know that there are a lot of people who play D&D, the og rpg, by min maxing their characters right? This isn’t a new thing to RPGs. This isn’t a unique thing to RPGs.

Additionally when blizzard adds things like arena cups and MDI, they’re incentivizing min/maxing.

They can make it an RPG choice by making all your choices cosmetic and lore. To an rpger that stuff matters. Locking power behind a covenant is a bad idea.

217

Most people just want to participate and play, to be a part of something full of other people… and they want to do a good job, but they are still learning. They might not have taken the time yet to come up with a great character idea. They are just busy trying to fit in, which is perfectly normal. Everybody moves at their own pace. Everybody’s somewhere different along the path of life.

218

I couldn’t agree more.

When are you leaving?

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219

You’re not gonna get anywhere on this one. The game designer is a min/maxer. I’m surprised that he even wants a story or decent graphics, and is not a game designer for Eve Online.

220

I’m sure others have said something similar, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to improve your character. There’s also nothing wrong with building your character how you enjoy to build it. The problem comes when the difference between the optimal and the most casual is large AND you’re attempting content that is challenging enough (for YOU, not method/limit) that you really should be using the optimal.

It’s when that occurs… that there’s a serious problem.

The best way to think about this, is to use essences as an example. Imagine essences were hard-locked like covenants. You choose one and boom… that’s your choice for the rest of the expac (without significant effort to change it later). Do you seriously think that would be ok?

Those who focus on M+, would probably be all over the focusing iris and BotE. Those who focus on raids, would probably be all over CLF.

Sure the essences “work” in the other content, but are they in anyway optimal? No… Not even close. Particularly for fights like hivemind where focusing iris/BotE performs WAY beyond CLF’s potential.

You can’t have fights that demand near optimal characters that are played pretty darn close to optimally… while also giving us “choices” that have abilities that are markedly suboptimal. It just won’t work.

And this brings it back to the players in general. What exactly is wrong with wanting to play the game as well as possible? What exactly is wrong with looking up which talents perform better in which situation?

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Yet his exact quote during a recent interview was: A" section of the community still needing to adapt and get passed the pure simcraft driven mindset that has dominated"