Vexing Complexity

[Athinira]

He clarified in the comments that he wasn't talking about high-end raiding. I think we can agree that he'd be dreadfully wrong on that aspect.

Complexity/depth of the system is still the same regardless of who is behind the keyboard (casual, hardcore etc.), so point still standing.

Intelligence level and ability to understand the system can obviously vary of course, but thats why the more intelligent people try to help out/guide the less intelligent.

 

[ultimateownage]

Funnily, my dad plays both World Of Warcraft and Eve. He has a system of excel spreadsheets for each game that tell him how to systematically do everything.

 

[Zamn]

Unfortunately your proposed interesting choices aren't very interesting when you dig down a bit.

Ranged weapons with better distance but less damage.
Everyone would pick better damage, besides it's the same as the choice you identified. Being able to stand further from what you're shooting is survivability, and PvE players always choose damage over survivability.

Melee weapons that deliver better damage per second but cause fewer (or less severe) critical.
This is just a math problem. It's just up to someone to calculate whether the base damage or the crits add up to more damage in the final analysis. And for everyone else to copy them.

Armor that reduces incoming damage but slows your own attack speed.
Again, just damage vs. survivability as far as DPS classes are concerned, which is no choice at all. Possibly an interesting choice for tanks if the game is at a stage where threat generation is an issue, but mechanics already exist for threat vs. survivability tension.

Items that will boost your magic potency but reduce your mana pool.
As someone pointed out, this effectively already exists in the form of haste, which reduces your mana efficiency. As it happens, nobody worries much about the efficiency loss. DPSers always choose damage.

It's harder than it looks to get this stuff right.

 

[Stevepinto3]

Experienced Points: Vexing Complexity

Choosing equipment in World of Warcraft is ultimately meaningless.

Read Full Article

Thing is, at the raiding level, a lot of these discussions do take place.

I'm a holy paladin.

I play the same spec as Matt. Awesome.

That said, paladin Tier 11 gear looks absurd.

Bring back the Tier 2 styling, please.

Agreed.

 

[coldfrog]

The system is actually better now than it was a year ago. In Cataclysm, a great deal of the system was streamlined. But the underlying problem remains and I don't think it would be possible to fix it. (Fixing it would mean starting over, and there's no way players would stand for that. The time required to acquire the highest levels of gear in the game is phenomenal, and it would be horrifying to rob those players of their accomplishments with a reset.)

You know, I almost don't believe this. They pulled the rug out from under us three times with cataclysm, and each time no one seemed to mind all that much once the obligatory ***** phase was over. First, with the talent system, completely changing it (admittedly to cover their own tracks so people aren't swamped with over 100 talents and a ridiculous amount of "choices") and in a way, giving it more choices. Not only that, but these choices are mainly not at all based on dps or healing or, um... I guess tanky stuff. The obvious choices are obvious, and then there's the stuff that's more interesting. For interesting, take the warlock class (which I assume you are becoming intimately familiar with). As a demonologist, your pet is a major part of your DPS AND your survivability, and once your main DPS slots are full, you can decide whether or not you want a pet that you can keep alive longer, a pet that you can revive more easily, or do you skip that just to keep YOURSELF alive?

The second thing was the stats, which you mentioned. Agreed, a step in the right direction, but perhaps not far enough.

And the third thing is the entire world. Completely new, frequently changeable, and just plain better designed.

Maybe I give them too much credit, but if this isn't a step towards a complete overhaul, I don't know what is. And they can do it by scheduling it, as happened this time, right at an expansion. Gear becomes useless, people get to relearn themselves, and you're really buying an all new game, so why not take a step towards total transformation? I think they can do it!

For me, a better system would be one where the decisions are easy to understand but difficult to make. Decisions that are interesting for players are things like:

* Ranged weapons with better distance but less damage.
* Melee weapons that deliver better damage per second but cause fewer (or less severe) critical.
* Armor that reduces incoming damage but slows your own attack speed.
* Items that will boost your magic potency but reduce your mana pool.

These are all good tradeoffs, and players could have a lot of fun agonizing over choosing the item that best suits their taste and playstyle. But as it is, the only decision players are given is to decide if they care enough to look this one up on the wiki and run the numbers.

These are all great ideas, except for the Melee weapon one, which really is just more spreadsheetery. How often critical strikes occur is already measured, and intensity of said is not changeable regularly, but would come down to just another number. My favorite, though, is the last one, because this not only promotes interesting choices, but it challenges the intelligent healer to find the perfect balance between what is JUST ENOUGH mana to survive a fight, while still being powerful enough to survive for their skills.

Of course, what I wish more guilds did was promote synergy among their mates by building together, finding redundant stats that would just overlap (like warlocks' banes and druids' spell that increases damage done) and increasing more utility based things. This way, for instance, a healer can be prepared for a paladin to begin taking the entire raid's damage and focus on the tank instead of anyone else.

Also the armor should look less ridiculous. That's not related to the rest of the article, but it needed to be said.

Noooooo! I want my crazy green glowing skulls on my shoulders! Although, what I really hope is that they start putting color back in the gear and not making it so... black and blue bruise-colored. Lich King had a theme, and they stuck to it, to a sad degree.

 

[TitsMcGee1804]

I never ever wanted to trade in my wicked Druid armour. It was leaf-green with golden trimming. I prefer the looks over stats, I try to remember and have fun in this game. Main bulletpoint is to look damn good.

You may look good but you wouldnt last 30 seconds in a cata heroic...

on topic: the tradeoffs you mentioned are exactly that....TRADEOFFS. I dont want tradeoffs, where the choice gives me equal potency in two different area's, i would rather have a less significant choice of which one makes me more potent in the same area (as generally, you have one job in a dungeon or raid, heals, dps etc)

What wow players want is: 'does those extra stats give me better or worse dps' it sucks, but this is what the wow experience especially at endgame is like, unfortunately, all people care about these days is how much HP the tank has, how much DPS people do and how much healing output is happening

Cata has done a great job starting to alleviate this problem, but this is what warcraft is about

 

[sunpop]

They also shouldn't make stats jump 200% in 5 levels but here we are 100k health later and not even past the first bit of raids.

 

[Meteor4118]

Can't Parry arrows, It's why hunters don't stack expertise, and if You see a hunter stacking expertise, slap him in the back of the head.

Cataclysm streamlined the mechanics of armor penetration and reduced crit chance for every class, just enjoy what they've done to make us learn to play our classes all over again without making us agonize over the differences. WotLK was such a cake walk that even casual players were complaining about it's ease, and I'm Talking before they started adding a buff to ICC, due to wanting players to fight against the lich king.

Anyway you can't fight these sorts of number crunching, people will attempt to make everything Best in slot, Anyone who plays pokemon knows this far better than the people that play WoW. There are 400+ pokemon, look at championship teams and you'll see the same 30-40 pokemon over and over again due to Stats/Movepool/Typing. Everyone innately wants to be the best, Children are raised to excel, our performance governs everything we do in the real life, from job placement to education. We are graded everyday by others, why shouldn't we have to follow these same rules in games? Games reflect reality, even in the most obscure ways, a person can't just seperate themselves from these concepts that surround them in life, both the creator and the player wouldn't connect to a point of mutual understanding and be able to enjoy the finished product. (This is why made up terms in fanasy/Sci-fi settings need to be explained ASAP, otherwise you've got a whole Barrel of Flognards up Scrabbatab Plateux Nebularizer alley with no Fabbarar)

If you want to argue that there should be choice I point you to everyday life, were there are plenty of choices, but people generally choose the most practical one. If you want to compare the fact that a Rogue should have an ability that takes advantage of his choice of Mace over Axe, I'd point out to you, that the Warrior over there is duelwielding pillars, Get over it.

 

[jp201]

That said, paladin Tier 11 gear looks absurd.

Bring back the Tier 2 styling, please.

Completely agree on Tier 2 paladin looks. Plate Kilts own.

[http://www.wowwiki.com/index.php?title=Judgement_Armorℑ=Paladin-tier-II-jpg]

 

[Xirema]

Unfortunately your proposed interesting choices aren't very interesting when you dig down a bit.

Ranged weapons with better distance but less damage.
Everyone would pick better damage, besides it's the same as the choice you identified. Being able to stand further from what you're shooting is survivability, and PvE players always choose damage over survivability.

Melee weapons that deliver better damage per second but cause fewer (or less severe) critical.
This is just a math problem. It's just up to someone to calculate whether the base damage or the crits add up to more damage in the final analysis. And for everyone else to copy them.

Armor that reduces incoming damage but slows your own attack speed.
Again, just damage vs. survivability as far as DPS classes are concerned, which is no choice at all. Possibly an interesting choice for tanks if the game is at a stage where threat generation is an issue, but mechanics already exist for threat vs. survivability tension.

Items that will boost your magic potency but reduce your mana pool.
As someone pointed out, this effectively already exists in the form of haste, which reduces your mana efficiency. As it happens, nobody worries much about the efficiency loss. DPSers always choose damage.

It's harder than it looks to get this stuff right.

This, in a nutshell.

Choice has its shining moments in the form of Crit vs Haste vs Spirit vs Mastery for Healers. Healing Output was condensed in the previous expansion with Spirit (and by consequence, mana regeneration in general) not mattering, and Mastery not existing, and Crit being badly undervalued, so Haste was always the way to go.

Not so much anymore.

Haste is still a king stat (unless mastery is powerful enough for that class) but it acts now as a double-edged sword, making your heals come faster, but at the risk of draining your mana pool sooner. Spirit makes your mana last longer, but doesn't affect actual throughput at all. Crit makes your heals hit harder sometimes, but is less potent than other stats. And Mastery is basically like Crit, but with different benefits depending on what class you are. (Crit gives a chance to hit 50% harder with spells, Mastery gives a passive bonus depending on certain situations, like for Shamans, it gives them a bonus to healing inversely proportional to how much remaining health their target has, meaning it is more valuable in fights where their targets will constantly be low on health)

Tanking has a similar choice in their stats deciding between threat and survivability, but that one is still not quite up to par yet. DPS has little choice at all, except the choice between PvP and PvE gearing, which isn't even that deep either.

And of course, talent trees need some reworking still.

 

[(LK)]

You make a jab at eve online and it's probably deserved because the game doesn't do enough to explain this to players (so they have to get guidance from the rookie help chat channel and from 3rd party sources), but in terms of equipment the game has a heavy focus on exactly the kind of trade-off you mention. It's actually utility vs. survivability in this case since there is a lot more than just damage that you can equip a ship for offensively, but every change in the equipment fitted to a ship either adds more utility to the ship or adds survivability, and the two have been carefully balanced to be somewhat mutually exclusive such that you will generally always be adding one at the expense of the other.

The primary skill of the game is knowing how to create competent balances of these two divergent but synergistic factors and the complexity involved in it leads to a vast branching landscape of emergent depth where these decisions matter and can lead you down a variety of correct paths for a given situation.

The only failing is that the burden of discovery of all this leans too much on trial and error and outside sources; players should not be forced to toil on a wiki, apprentice under another player for a month, and download 3rd party applications just to become highly competent at this core aspect of the game.

The game's failing is in the learning curve but I think that it actually handles depth and complexity very well when that flawed learning curve does not spoil that aspect of the game for you.

 

[Lord_Ascendant]

Experienced Points: Vexing Complexity

Choosing equipment in World of Warcraft is ultimately meaningless.

Read Full Article

Thing is, at the raiding level, a lot of these discussions do take place.

He DID say Healing was another matter. But I'm a rogue and I too can vouch that there is more to it on the raiding level. It's a matter of culture, not design, that leads people to believe there is a single best spec or gear setup, when that has not been my experience at all. A mentor of mine when I was first starting raiding would take talents that seemed laughable because it fit his style better. Everyone would laugh at him until he showed up on the top of the damage charts with a sizable lead.

On another note, WoW isn't about collecting gear at all when it comes to the raiding level, and is kinda a silly target for this debate. The strategies of the fights and the execution is where you can find meaningful choices, better ones than most other games for that matter. For example, "Do I run through the fire to interrupt the boss, risking death or aggroing the healers, or risk letting the boss pull off that super-powerful move on the tank?" or "A crucial raid member just died, should I continue attacking the boss or sprint over to his position and fill his role?" Those are just two major decisions I had to make within a single run of Icecrown Citadel back before the whole Deathwing thing (On Valithria and Sindragosa for those playing along at home). And the consequences feel compounded extensively when there are real players who are affected by your judgment.

Gearscore is paramount for a charachter.

It really isn't. Gearscore grinds down what little choice there is when it comes to stats into an even more simplified stat to the point of being dumbed down beyond usefulness.

Way to put words in my mouth, read everything that I said I said Gearscore is stupid but that you can't avoid it. You need it so people will play with you. Take time to read what people say before you post something, it's only common courtesy.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

You could have easily gone into ranged vs. melee attacks.

CoH makes ranged near pointless, LotRo makes it godlike, EQ makes it meaningless and most of the shooting genre makes it Melee=instakill from surprise.

Then you could add in status effects where stun mean "You're dead"

Then level effects which means either grey mobs can decimate you by sheer numbers, while you swish greys away with a single strike.

Balancing games is a very VERY delicate area, but the sheer arms race to get new equipment means that games like WoW suffer from either vendor trash or UBER-weapons.

Less is more, but informed less is SO much more.

If I'm a Dwarf, I shouldn't even be looking at a sword because they're built for humans. Literally. Equally, no Giant should be wielding anything other than a sheer blunt trauma weapon.

But, they've got to add those "choices" in there...which then don't behave as they should.

I headshot you with a .50 calibre, and your head is missing. Even if you're a Lich. If you want to take down a spell-user, sniping is the only way you should even be thinking.

 

[Rythe]

Uhm. Fundamental failure to understand the nuances of the game's combat system here?

You could say that choosing gear is pointless while leveling, in that it doesn't seem to stop you from doing stuff. (Then again, I've seen some really badly geared toons get their arse handed to them by a random mob or two.)

I could say that I managed to pick and choose my gear well enough to qualify as an RP getup (costume), pieces being horribly sub level for my 75ish rogue, and *still* out-damage this one caster druid that somehow had the gear level to be in a 85 Heroic Dungeon. (Combat leveling spec pushing over 2k DPS, boomkin druid in 85 PuG Heroic run doing 1.5-1.8k DPS if you're curious)

Sooooo, yeah. I disagree with your post completely.

 

[James Bednarz]

Just bought Cthulhu Saves the World and the gear system is pretty good. Example: found a zombie tunic that gives you a crazy amount vitality (health, defense) but takes away all of your will (magic stat). There is a University in the game's starting town that explains which stat does what.

 

[Lucane]

~Ranged weapons with better distance but less damage.
~Melee weapons that deliver better damage per second but cause fewer (or less severe) critical.
~Armor that reduces incoming damage but slows your own attack speed.
~Items that will boost your magic potency but reduce your mana pool.


FFXI does the last three now and again but people use macros to switrch on/off the gear so they don't always carry the penilty.

Like with the increased magic/lower mp: just wait till your mp falls below the mp drop then reap the benefits with none of the costs.

Tougher armor/slower atk: if you have multiple defenders switching the armor off when not being attacked.


Though I'm not sure how fast a player is able to change gear in WoW however.

 

[Yvl9921]

Experienced Points: Vexing Complexity

Choosing equipment in World of Warcraft is ultimately meaningless.

Read Full Article

Thing is, at the raiding level, a lot of these discussions do take place.

He DID say Healing was another matter. But I'm a rogue and I too can vouch that there is more to it on the raiding level. It's a matter of culture, not design, that leads people to believe there is a single best spec or gear setup, when that has not been my experience at all. A mentor of mine when I was first starting raiding would take talents that seemed laughable because it fit his style better. Everyone would laugh at him until he showed up on the top of the damage charts with a sizable lead.

On another note, WoW isn't about collecting gear at all when it comes to the raiding level, and is kinda a silly target for this debate. The strategies of the fights and the execution is where you can find meaningful choices, better ones than most other games for that matter. For example, "Do I run through the fire to interrupt the boss, risking death or aggroing the healers, or risk letting the boss pull off that super-powerful move on the tank?" or "A crucial raid member just died, should I continue attacking the boss or sprint over to his position and fill his role?" Those are just two major decisions I had to make within a single run of Icecrown Citadel back before the whole Deathwing thing (On Valithria and Sindragosa for those playing along at home). And the consequences feel compounded extensively when there are real players who are affected by your judgment.

Gearscore is paramount for a charachter.

It really isn't. Gearscore grinds down what little choice there is when it comes to stats into an even more simplified stat to the point of being dumbed down beyond usefulness.

Way to put words in my mouth, read everything that I said I said Gearscore is stupid but that you can't avoid it. You need it so people will play with you. Take time to read what people say before you post something, it's only common courtesy.

I know what you said, and gearscore still is useless other than for bragging rights and slowing down the servers. My entire guild feels this way, and we're one of the top guilds on the server. Anyone who judges you based on your gearscore is not worth playing with.

 

[Rythe]

I know what you said, and gearscore still is useless other than for bragging rights and slowing down the servers. My entire guild feels this way, and we're one of the top guilds on the server. Anyone who judges you based on your gearscore is not worth playing with.

Also that.

 

[Shjade]

Thing is, at the raiding level, a lot of these discussions do take place.

I should have made clear: I was talking about the leveling aspect of the game. Yeah, once you're raiding, equipment is EVERYTHING. (So I'm told.) It's just odd that the first 80 levels don't work that way and don't prepare you for it.

"Mathcrafted". Heh. Hadn't heard that one before. I'll have to remember that.

That's fair, but as you're levelling, you're gaining levels faster than you're getting gear - you replace your full set of equipment approximately once every 10 levels. That levelling period is designed to get you familiar with all your skills and abilities, and how to play your class. But your character sees more change and progression from your development and talent selection than from gear selection, and at sub 80 levels talent selection is a choice (you get one talent point, do you want to add 2% to your damage output or give yourself another 10% chance to avoid stuns so you can retreat in a pinch? you're going to respec to your best class-spec at 85, but on the way up, what you choose can have a significant effect on your levelling, and there aren't necessarily "best" talents to take during levelling).

Virtually everyone levels on their DPS spec though, so offering variety and gearing options there serves little in-game utility. I guess it's not unfair to make the argument that when you get dumped into the world of gear progression at 85 that the game hasn't done a great deal to prepare you for it, but you should, at that point, have at least a pretty good idea of what you need based on what you've learned so far, and are now in a position to start experimenting, trying different gear configurations, and trying new talent builds, if you don't want to start reading. The game also then takes you through dungeon progression at 85, from dungeons to heroics to raids, which (now)include gear priority restrictions on rolls and is built around teachign you to select gear that enhances your performance in your class. By the time you're in heroics, the game has nudged you in the direction of gear that works for your class.

The old adage of wow is that "the game starts at 60(70[80{85}])". In a very real sense, 1-85 is just tutorial and character building.

-m

Glad I scanned first - this is pretty much spot on. Gear doesn't really matter while you're leveling because it isn't going to last and, just as important, at low levels the gear just...isn't all that differentiated, really. There's not much they can add at those levels - your talent choices will determine a lot more about your effectiveness than your gear (unless you dedicate yourself to twinking/get heirlooms, as those methods net you gear that is dramatically superior to your average gettables at-level). As a general example, if you level a rogue, from 1-60 basically any leather item that has +agility on it is fine. You replace them with items that have more agility as you find them, and you'll get by. Would hit rating help you out? If you're not 3/3 in precision as combat spec, yeah, it can, but you don't necessarily need it. You'll survive anyway, because solo questing to level up isn't hard, and dungeons at those levels don't require you to be in top gear to succeed.

In a way, gear while leveling isn't a matter of choice not because of the gear, but because of the content: you can make gear choices that do have significant effects in theory, but don't matter all that much in practice because your opposition isn't strong enough for it to matter unless you do something goofy like, say, only take druid caster gear (leather armor that's all stam/int/spirit, no agility). Even then you could still get by, probably. It'd just be needlessly difficult compared to taking gear intended for your spec.

Gear decisions in WoW don't matter until you have opposition that's actually tough enough to require such decisions to be made.