Vexing Complexity

[Vanguard_Ex]

Hasn't Cataclysm pretty much smoothed this stuff over?

Also I feel I need to say that what Extra Credits said in that episode was moot, due to Cata changing the talent lines so that you can only invest in one at a time.

 

[Captain Pancake]

beyond the basics like agility and stamina, I have no idea what dodge rating, haste rating, critical strike rating or any of these others do or how they affect me. Moreover, I dont know which ones are important to me, so I usually just go for the biggest number and call myself lucky.

 

[Boxinatorizore]

This is all very true. The way I think gear is viewed though is as a requirement. Not really meant to be a choice. Getting new gear is like gaining a level, it won't change anything other then your overall output of damage/healing. It obviously could have more depth, but in my opinion WoW is more about the social aspect. It's about getting a raid group together and being able to organize yourself and problem solve mechanics until you can succeed. It's more about the planning and organisation done by the players behind the scenes then it is the execution of the fights. That's why gear is more of a static factor. It, along with your classes skill set, are the tools to accomplish the job. A screwdriver is always going to be a screwdriver... shit I totally forgot where I was going with this. I need sleep.

 

[Aurgelmir]

Early wow had some items that gave negative stats. This is an idea I think should be more used in games. Have fewer stats in general, but the gear had both positive and negative effects.

 

[John Funk]

Back when I played WoW (pre any expansion) I mained a Shaman. However, instead of using the Shaman set for level 60s, I used the Hunter set. I got harassed to no end for this, especially by my own guild. At the time 90%+ of the Shaman were restore spec'ed, and while I was to some degree (enough to sustain myself) I was spec'ed mainly to deal massive amounts of burst damage.

This lead to a conflict with my guild during an UBRS(iirc) run; they said they were tired of healing me and I need to respec for healing. I told them I have one of the highest DPSes in guild, that I can out damage rogues in most cases, and that I don't need to be healed as I could take care of myself. Needless to say they stopped healing me.

Because of the arguing and whatnot our group wiped on one of the bosses. I reincarnated, left my teammates dead, finished the boss off single handedly and stole all the loot. Obviously I got booted out of the guild for this.

Being angry at me, whenever I encountered a former guildmate they challenged me to a dual, and found out what my build was made for. Shortly after the honor system was implemented (but before battlegrounds) I started ganking even more than I previously had (which was a lot) and it was a blast. Then battlegrounds was implemented, world PVP died, and Shaman were pretty much forced to be half-assed healers in PVP amidst the chaos. It wasn't long before I gave up on WoW.

A similar thing happened during my 2moons run. I was the highest level Segnale(healer) on the server (for quite some time), but unlike every single other Segnale on the server which were entirely health spec'ed and equiped with lvl 6 weapons, I was pure damage spec'ed wielding the most powerful weapon for my level.

By all means I was a glass cannon, but very few could survive long enough to attack me. I was one of the most notorious PVPers, griefers, and guild leaders on the server. I hunted down mods/GMs, despite their level advantage, just because I could. Regardless, I came under constant fire for not being spec'ed for party grinding.

Kind of went on a tangent, but the point I'm making is there is a small degree of flexibility with builds in these sort of games: many of which are only effective if they are done to extremes, making huge sacrifices in various areas of gameplay. The people who do chose to go these routes, constantly get shit for not following a cookie cutter build. So not only does the game itself vastly limit your options, but the community treats you like a leper if you do anything other than the norm -- regardless of the success you have with your build.

This is one of the reasons I can't do MMOs anymore. Moreover I can't stand the fact that every MMO allows respec'ing; it makes your choices meaningless and encourages this sort of bullying into playing a defined role.

Fingers Diablo III will not allow respec. (yes I know its not an MMO)

Diablo 3 will allow respeccing, because it's no fun to spend a month leveling to cap to find out that your build is useless.

 

[John Funk]

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.

This, actually, I agree with wholeheartedly (that is, I think Blue made the right choice). A number is just a number; does it matter whether you have 50k HP and the boss is hitting for 25k, or you have 150k and the boss is hitting for 75k? Really, it's percentage-wise the same increase that you saw from the other expansions (High-end tanks in Classic had 12k HP, high-end tanks in TBC had 25k HP, high-end tanks in WotLK had 70k HP, tanks in Cata have 130k HP), but it also comes with a design philosophy that encourages triage-based healing, gets rid of instakill boss hits, and means that players actually exist in a state between "full health" and "dead."

It's one of my favorite parts about the expansion, really.

 

[mindlesspuppet]

snip...
Fingers Diablo III will not allow respec. (yes I know its not an MMO)

Diablo 3 will allow respeccing, because it's no fun to spend a month leveling to cap to find out that your build is useless.

Disagree. That was one of my favorite things about Diablo is that it took a couple playthroughs just to figure out the right build for you. If you're unable to respec, you're forced to think more about your build. Also, it creates for more variations across the playerbase and there's less flavor of the month type builds. Besides, leveling in Diablo isn't terribly time consuming, and you should know well before you hit the level cap if your build is going to be effective or not.

 

[John Funk]

snip...
Fingers Diablo III will not allow respec. (yes I know its not an MMO)

Diablo 3 will allow respeccing, because it's no fun to spend a month leveling to cap to find out that your build is useless.

Disagree. That was one of my favorite things about Diablo is that it took a couple playthroughs just to figure out the right build for you. If you're unable to respec, you're forced to think more about your build. Also, it creates for more variations across the playerbase and there's less flavor of the month type builds. Besides, leveling in Diablo isn't terribly time consuming, and you should know well before you hit the level cap if your build is going to be effective or not.

You have a lot more time to devote to games than some people, as do I. Some people don't want to put 20 hours into a character and find out they've made a useless, gimped character who will never hold a candle to a powergamer.

And that's in Diablo, not an MMO where it can take weeks of in-game time to reach the level cap. If I hit level 85 after half a year and can't respec? I'm gonna be pissed.

 

[Baneat]

* Ranged weapons with better distance but less damage.

The end of the day, we're going all out DPS, if that means putting a hunter in melee range, whatever.

* Melee weapons that deliver better damage per second but cause fewer (or less severe) critical.

It's called +crit/agility. At the end of the day when you weigh it against strength, it's just an average number. It's there, and it's boring.

* Armor that reduces incoming damage but slows your own attack speed.

Attack speed.

* Items that will boost your magic potency but reduce your mana pool.

Yep, do you pick int or spellpower items?


They're either all ready in place and boring as hell or no brainer choices. This is from playing only the wrath expansion, bear in mind. I wore half leather as a plate dps paladin, because it gives higher damage, and you don't get hit.

I'll just point out that the leather was not taken over leather users who were going to use it as the spec they were in , or purchased from the auction house or through GDKP ICC

 

[mindlesspuppet]

snip...
Fingers Diablo III will not allow respec. (yes I know its not an MMO)

Diablo 3 will allow respeccing, because it's no fun to spend a month leveling to cap to find out that your build is useless.

Disagree. That was one of my favorite things about Diablo is that it took a couple playthroughs just to figure out the right build for you. If you're unable to respec, you're forced to think more about your build. Also, it creates for more variations across the playerbase and there's less flavor of the month type builds. Besides, leveling in Diablo isn't terribly time consuming, and you should know well before you hit the level cap if your build is going to be effective or not.

You have a lot more time to devote to games than some people, as do I. Some people don't want to put 20 hours into a character and find out they've made a useless, gimped character who will never hold a candle to a powergamer.

And that's in Diablo, not an MMO where it can take weeks of in-game time to reach the level cap. If I hit level 85 after half a year and can't respec? I'm gonna be pissed.

I suppose that's true. Not sure if I'd play a game with leveling if I didn't have the time I do, but that's me. I miss games that allowed the players to make mistake, they gave more of a sense of accomplishment when you got something done.

Respeccing in MMOs I can get behind with some degree, if only because the metagame is going to change dramatically over the course of time. Perhaps my real issue is that respeccing is generally to accessible; usually involves talking to an NPC and paying an arbitrary (to anyone who's been playing for awhile) amount of gold. PlanetSide's system wasn't bad.

 

[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.

This, actually, I agree with wholeheartedly (that is, I think Blue made the right choice). A number is just a number; does it matter whether you have 50k HP and the boss is hitting for 25k, or you have 150k and the boss is hitting for 75k? Really, it's percentage-wise the same increase that you saw from the other expansions (High-end tanks in Classic had 12k HP, high-end tanks in TBC had 25k HP, high-end tanks in WotLK had 70k HP, tanks in Cata have 130k HP), but it also comes with a design philosophy that encourages triage-based healing, gets rid of instakill boss hits, and means that players actually exist in a state between "full health" and "dead."

It's one of my favorite parts about the expansion, really.

I just feel that blizz would have an easier time trying to balance the game (mostly in pvp) if they kept the stats at the 10-20k hp jump per expansion they had in BC. Bigger numbers lead to more chances of screwing up somewhere as it's very easy to leave one 0 out and it all goes to hell as no debug program will notice you forgot one number.

 

[Daemonate]

Mostly, Shamus, you are pretty much spot-on.

Even at the highest end of PvE content, healing and damage dealing eventually get crunched out to the optimal, min-max, finalized numbers, and you do your best to conform to them.

However, there is one place where decision making still exists.

In high-end PvP, the sort of choices you are talking about abound. And while many people espouse authoritarian certainty on what the BEST setups/arrangements are, one need only look at or talk to a cross-section of the most successful players to learn that there exists a huge disparity in selection of gear, talent selection, playstyle, etc.

Do you stack resilience and stamina and be much harder to kill, but in doing so lower your efficiency behind your opponents'? Or do you stack power...but if you do that, whhat is the best approach? Should a Demonology warlock stack haste instead of critical strike? Well, that depends if you're playing with a healer, if you are in a team of 2, 3, 5 or in a 10-25 person battleground. And it depends on your strategy.

THis is probably the main reason I find PvP so much more refreshing than the rest of the game - you find your own way.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

On the other hand professional TF2 is similar to raiding. Typically you have the same team setups every game, people have worked out what the best loadouts for your role are and so on.

And 99% of the time, that's vanilla weapons.

Backburner, FaN or Kritzkrieg? FAIL.