Gear scaling system — any reason to keep playing pve for next 8 months? - Page 10

Deson · 07-02-2009, 01:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by firamas

Heh, you can convince the populace to go along with pretty much anything as long as you frame it in the right light.

No, Gage has this one...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gage

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. As if.

People flip out over name changes and fixing broken mechanics, good luck selling them on weak ideas--especially when it requires you to explain it's all your fault and you have no plan to prevent it from happening all over again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by firamas

The social contract between all of us will be dictated by each person's willingness to extend their resources. The decision to devote personal resources (money, time) to help another should be left with the individual, not dictated by the government. That is the essence of libertarianism. Those who extend maximum resources should expect the same in return. Those who don't, should be prepared to take care of themselves.

Thus I followed that comment with: "This isn't always the case. We deal with the results of our own imperfect leadership every minute of every day."

I wasn't trying to define specifically what I meant by the top 2% comment, merely that when you put the best and the brightest in charge of a company or a country, you get the best results. That was sort of a veiled allusion to SoE's historically confused leadership...

The important thing is communication. If the changes are framed properly, and discussed in appropriate ways (read: explain exactly why and how the changes are going down) ahead of time, the community is much more willing to accept it. Having the Senior Producer get into a series of regular webcasts explaining the thoughts of the dev team months before changes are implemented for testing would go a long way.

There's a reason pure libertarianism doesn't happen and it has everything to do with us being human. This however is a conversation for a different topic.

When you put the best and brightest in charge of the country, you get the Kennedy and W.Bush administrations-- if best and brightest is objectively measured. You can't use those terms if the "best and brightest" aren't always the people for the job or it's measured subjectively. You don't need super smart people doing anything, just people smart enough to know their limits, not full of themselves and capable of doing the job. Short of the math required for some jobs, SOE could put anyone in charge of EQ2 dev lead roles and just the ability to logically think should be enough. Why are you capping stats? Why are things broken? What's going to happen to bards and chanters if they stay t3 dps but only one of them is needed for the utility? Really basic questions the devs fail to answer--assuming they even ask-- every single year. Every bad idea takes a day at most to be ripped on the forums, why's it even get that far?

I'm laughing at your webcast idea again. It requires a community that wanted free masters and raid loot to accept a permanent treadmill just to maintain power and so far it's not even relative. It'd be one thing if the rating system worked by con like mit is supposed to but all prelim info sounds like it doesn't. In any event Rothgar and Domino already do really good jobs explaining things as did a few devs before before them. The problem isn't going to be the community seeing it's needed, it's going to be the community trusting the development philosophy that's hosed balance, mechanics and itemization for the past ~4.5 years live ( though it should never have left beta) to not screw it up again. The irony of your suggestion is that the only reason it'll get through is people not fully grasping it and the masses you seem to have so little respect for ultimately not caring.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crabbok

maybe after we hit lvl 90, we can simply self mentor back to 80 and get our stats on our gear back. I bet thats what is planned.

If it is it's a bad plan. You're essentially telling your playerbase to stagnate to keep having the fun they were having.

Illuminator · 07-02-2009, 01:58 AM

JFK actually ran a pretty incompetent administration. People give him credit for the Cuban Missile Crisis when really he shouldn't have even let the Soviets keep troops on the island OR dictate that the U.S. could never invade. Then there was Bay of Pigs, and on and on.

Deson · 07-02-2009, 02:00 AM

I can never be sure with you but that was my point. Kennedy had his moments but his fuckups stuck with us for a long time.

Hoss · 07-02-2009, 02:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deson

Looking at the link you provided, crowd wisdom does not apply here at all.

How does it not apply? Is it better to have a crowd of thousands testing the new game changes, or just a few devs who know the game really well? Thats how you get things like the soul lancer set being accidentally useable by predators, because those few devs who knew the game inside and out didn't understand a part of thier own game as well as a retard like me.

So it absolutely applies in this case, because they should be seeking input from the entire community instead of climbing to the top of thier mountain to contemplate the new changes in peace.

Quote:

Originally Posted by firamas

I flat out disagree with that. If you're taking one member at random from the crowd and using them as the basis of comparison, then yes, it's likely that the will of the majority could be more appropriate.

That's not what we're talking about here though. I'm talking about having people in power (either in politics, on a dev team, whatever) that fully understand the dynamics of the system and are intelligent enough to guide the course of the group as a whole.

Honestly, this is where your world view fails. The average joe is not as bad as you think. The average person can be trusted. Its pretty sad that you think so little of people that you think they need a shepard. Now maybe you understand why I use the phrase sheeple so often, its to make fun of people like you who think so little of the rest of us.

Quote:

Originally Posted by firamas

The reason politicians don't go against the will of the majority and do whatever they think is best is because the primary goal of any politician is to get remain in power. The populace is generally not patient enough to wait the years (decades) it takes for sweeping changes to have a significant effect or intelligent enough to even understand all of the variables that affect the system at hand.

Not sure what country you live in, but in the US politicians go against the will of their constituents all the time. Literally all the time. It is next to impossible to get an incumbant out of office.

Quote:

Originally Posted by firamas

The top 2% of the population should be making policy decisions for everyone.* This isn't always the case. We deal with the results of our own imperfect leadership every minute of every day.

We'll assume that you already have a definition for the top 2% (both on EQ2 and in politics). How do you account for people simply being selfish or evil (see obama)? You give absolute power to the 'top 2%' and they will be corrupted absolutely.

Quote:

Originally Posted by firamas

Fuck the "wisdom of crowds". I know where I fall on the bell curve,

I'm not sure you do.

firamas · 07-02-2009, 03:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hoss

You give absolute power to the 'top 2%' and they will be corrupted absolutely.

While I have been discussing them in the same context, in the end political administrations and dev teams are, of course, fundamentally different. My views on libertarian politics point to a govt that is as laissez faire as possible (while still being able to maintain civil order), but that doesn't work in the world of game design. There's a reason I had an asterisk and appended those views as a footnote rather than making them the premise of that other post.

The players of an MMO don't really have the same kind of influence or the decisions to make within the ruleset of the overall system as a citizen would in a libertarian republic. That's where my "top 2%" comment applies. The ones making the policy decisions should be those who best understand game theory, and specifically game balance in the historical context of the game in question. That should theoretically be a dev team and an advisory council of certain selected player volunteers. We actually have that in EQ2; there's a private board on SoE's main forums where a select few discuss these issues directly with the devs.

Unfortunately, the output of those discussions has to be tempered by the fact that the other 99% of the playerbase might not (many do, but certainly not all) understand the issues that are driving certain design decisions. In the end, it doesn't matter what's right or wrong for the game, it matters how much it's going to affect SoE's bottom line. That's where my frustration lies... and this being a private business venture, there's no way to get around that ground truth.

Deson · 07-02-2009, 03:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hoss

How does it not apply? Is it better to have a crowd of thousands testing the new game changes, or just a few devs who know the game really well? Thats how you get things like the soul lancer set being accidentally useable by predators, because those few devs who knew the game inside and out didn't understand a part of thier own game as well as a retard like me.

So it absolutely applies in this case, because they should be seeking input from the entire community instead of climbing to the top of thier mountain to contemplate the new changes in peace.

Contemplate the degree of the changes yes but the changes themselves? People will be too emotionally invested. Here you would fail just because you can't get the right sampling without paring down the crowd to begin with to get a useful diversity. The very nature of MMO design here means that on the level of these deep mechanical changes, crowd wisdom as you desire it is blunted by crowd ignorance and weaknesses all listed in that article.

Lestarion · 07-02-2009, 03:44 AM

When I read those list of changes they plan, I'm least concerend about the scaling system .... they want to change the whole game! Crit changes? Achievements? Only 4 resis? Debuff changes? Cure changes? Mythical changes? All that shards useless? Not to mention the Mythicals?

If they want a new game, they should make a new game. It really is like wasting all the playtime we allready invested in a game we even don't know anymore ... or don't we? Some of those things are quite similar to another very big MMORPG .... one I will never play, even if it's named EQ2 ...

decaffed · 07-02-2009, 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fritzzz

It all gets nerfed as you level up in 7 months.

Anyone know the exact details of how Gear scaling works?

Wth are you talking about ? You dont want new gear to be available as you level up in a new expansion ? What reason is there to play if nothing new gets added ? Are you gonna flex in your guildhall forever with your current uber gear that will never get replaced by anything better ?

Firza · 07-02-2009, 09:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by decaffed

Wth are you talking about ? You dont want new gear to be available as you level up in a new expansion ? What reason is there to play if nothing new gets added ? Are you gonna flex in your guildhall forever with your current uber gear that will never get replaced by anything better ?

don't you understand that I raided many hours for this gear so I want to wear and use it for the next 5 expansions?

stivan · 07-02-2009, 09:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lestarion

When I read those list of changes they plan, I'm least concerend about the scaling system .... they want to change the whole game! Crit changes? Achievements? Only 4 resis? Debuff changes? Cure changes? Mythical changes? All that shards useless? Not to mention the Mythicals?

If they want a new game, they should make a new game. It really is like wasting all the playtime we allready invested in a game we even don't know anymore ... or don't we? Some of those things are quite similar to another very big MMORPG .... one I will never play, even if it's named EQ2 ...

How is consolidating some of these things changing the game, when they mean jack shit anyways right now? Crit - most people are near cap in their respective crit categories. Resists - when have resists actually meant something before? lmao Mythicals - we've had them for 2 xpacs... it's time for a change. I'm excited about the debuff changes personally. I hate that 1 class has that much power over raidwide dps..

Gear scaling sounds a little scary, but if all of this helps them make more scaled and meaningful armor.. let them do it. As long as the content around the changes is actually worth a shit too.