Comments on: Simplification or just Dumbing Down?

By: We Need to be Able to Make Mistakes « Procrastination Amplification

We Need to be Able to Make Mistakes « Procrastination Amplification — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:52:55 +0000

[...] over again that games thrive on meaningful decisions. If you make stats as simple and intuitive as advocated by Spinks among others, you take away our ability to make bad choices. Sure, wearing intellect cloth as a [...]

By: Longasc

Longasc — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:28:00 +0000

The question is if a simplified system will also involve no trade-offs. If there is no choice but one clearly better item, and gearscore takes even the minor part to think about it away, then it is all for naught anyways.

By: Kudos

Kudos — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 07:24:40 +0000

I don’t know, as a tank I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with all the stat juggling. It’s kinda fun looking at new gear and seeing what changes, but its also a pain in the arse to keep it all balanced and retain your hit/exp caps.

I’ll miss the defense stat though, it is every tanks rite of passage to hit the cap, and with it all getting shifted to talents it takes away more of the choices in how you can spec.

By: spinks

spinks — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 05:17:53 +0000

I prefer my games to have depth via gameplay (the examples of chess and bridge are a case in point), not via obscure stats. But like I say, it’s a matter of taste as much as anything.

I’m not saying that WoW (or any MMO) has much in the way of deep gameplay either, but adjusting how the stats work doesn’t really change that for me.

What I don’t understand is why you’d be disapppointed by a stat change in a game you don’t play any more. Would you actually like them to make it more complex, add in more obscure derived stats that do similar but not identical things to existing stats, and so on?

By: Bristal

Bristal — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:36:30 +0000

I have a minor in mathematics and have delved superficially into some of the fascinating calculations to figure out gear upgrades, and you know what?

Since I got the Gear Score addon, I use that single number to figure out quickly what to “need” on for my alts.

Of course I will look closer at stats if I’m having specific issues like poor mana regen or something, but please spare us the need to compare 5 numbers between existing/potential gear when the tank has already pulled the next mob.

Simplifying gear will undoubtedly prevent people in pugs from needing on something they don’t need. I’ve done it myself. And why does the system allow you to need on “unique-equipped” items that you currently have equipped?

For a sub-80, I should be able to mouseover and know if it’s an upgrade in 3 seconds. And for an 80, it should take no more than 10 seconds even if I haven’t researched every single upgrade in the game.

By: Uzi

Uzi — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:06:33 +0000

Yar, as I’ve commented elsewhere the stuff about Hit Rating depending on tier of content your on frankly makes my brain die a little.

I’m really not very positive about what I’ve read so far as it apears its an exercise in change for changes sake. However I could be wrong and I’ll certainly give Blizz the opertunity to prove me wrong. Overall I’ve enjoyed WoTLK a lot, warts and all. So I’ll give Cata the go around. Then have a good hard look at the end game and see if I want in. I guess thats different from WotLK as I was out of the starting blocks like a greased weasle with my eyes on the end game right from release day. This time….not so much.

By: Fremskritt

Fremskritt — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:22:27 +0000

Considering how Blizzard also stated that they want to make talents “more interesting” I think that what they are doing is moving parts of the complexity to the talent trees.

Add this to the new Path of the Titans stuff they’re adding and I doubt the game will be any less dumbed down, I would think it only makes the game even more complex, with at least three wildly different things to juggle, all which are complex enough on their own.

People tend to look too much at one single aspect of the game at a time so they forget that everything in an MMO is interconnected to a certain degree. Stats are not everything that make up a character.

By: Everblue

Everblue — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:45:03 +0000

I made a post about this on my blog. Tanking stats (if anything) are not getting simpler. With dodge and parry behaving very differently in 4.0, tanking gear choices will be getting a lot more interesting, particularly once we get some information on how the new parry -50% damage buff will work. Will it be multiplicative if you parry or block the second hit? What if you avoid the second hit – does the buff carry? Would you rather have the raw mitigation of dodge or the smoother damage curve of parry?

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:08:17 +0000

Well I am not too worried about stat simplification – both bridge and chess has extremely simple rules – i can put them together on a napkin. Doubt that anyone ever will accuse them of lacking depth.

Same can be said also for D&D. Simple rules, quite fun gameplay with lots of depth. What WoW should do is simplify his math models. Give straight simple rules. And let designers and players go wild about what can be achieved with them – we will be pleasantly surprised I think.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:21:08 +0000

It was the removal of this sort of complexity that eventually led to me leaving WoW. Then more simplified a game becomes, the less engaged I am by it. I *AM* one of those players who found balancing stats to be its own reward, and hated the previous round of “streamlining” – this latest round takes it to new depths, which is disappointing to anyone like myself.

But then all these trends are why I left MMOs behind…. they’re just not for me anymore, and that’s fine.