120916-welp-thought-id-like-it-page-2

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There's a point that they do, in fact, offer content you can do with less thought and coordination than a dungeon. An adventure is, across the board, usually a bit more lax and easier to play through for giggles than a dungeon. If that's still too serious, you're given things like Omnicore-1, open world content (that can generally be thrown together on the spot). There's the argument that, if Wildstar is desperately in need for more casual content than it already has, dungeons are not necessarily the place for that to happen. A dungeon is, itself, meant first and foremost to be a challenge, not a chore, for five people. A veteran dungeon, in particular, is meant to be a step below a raid, not a 15 minute Elder Gem dispenser. The problem is that, though the vast majority of the game IS, in fact, solo and small group casual content, it's stuff that's fairly quickly consumed. Why? Because it's relatively relaxed and casual. The second that content gets stretched out, we call it a time sink and ask for it to be removed. Daily quest zones are, for all intents and purposes, repeatable casual content. People generally hate them because they aren't hard enough or interesting enough, but that is exactly what you're asking for. They're very relaxed, very casual solo content repeatable every single day if you want to. It's also very easily consumed and very quickly becomes a sticking point for the community because they'll simply do all the easiest content faster. Given that easy content and difficult content both take development time, and easy content is far more quickly finished and made passe, it's amazing Carbine have spent so much time on it as they have. The problem is that Wildstar provides a range of options. In theory, this should mean you have something to do whether you feel like mindlessly working through solo quests, putting together a well-organized 20 man progression raiding team, and everything in between. In practice, internal dissonance within the playing population means people present a front where they want challenging content that won't require them to work hard, group content that won't inconvenience them with a group, and progress that they can already be at the end of to get the rewards. That's not some kind of veiled jab at the playerbase, that's just human nature. It's easy to want something and easy to not want the potential issues that come with those things, it's not easy to understand how they work together and to accept that sometimes it's not so cut and dry between the two. For dungeons to be as engaging as they are, they need to be difficult and to require multiple people. Sometimes, that means a person isn't going to do very well. How we treat that person says a lot about us, but if it wasn't even a possibility that a person not doing well could affect the dungeon run, it would no longer really be a five-person dungeon, it's just another repeatable quest that five people do at once. Though people can be a liability, being in a group and overcoming challenges is one of the core joys of playing an MMORPG. A dungeon is so engaging to so many people because, in the end, it is hard and it does require coordination. If it didn't, it wouldn't be engaging, it would just be another daily quest. It's not for everyday use. Sometimes, you don't feel like doing a dungeon. Sometimes, you feel like doing easier five man content. You've got adventures for that. Sometimes you want something so casual you don't even need to worry about trinities, having 5 people, or even having anyone else at all. You've got shiphands for that. Sometimes you don't even want to worry about instances, and you've got 20, 5-man, and solo open world content, even dailies. As Yasfan pointed out (perhaps not making the intended point, but making a point), the only thing that isn't really represented is dungeon or raid level difficulty in solo play, as that has some pretty difficult design problems to overcome. However, we have a vast array of options before us catering to all manner of group size and playstyle. The biggest problem is that there is a drive to make all of this variety go away, to make a dungeon no more difficult than a shiphand and to make group mechanics not much different than soloing. It's done in the interest of generating more content at a certain playstyle, but it ignores that every single level of content is filling a role that is enjoyed by some measure of the playerbase. That's why Carbine is introducing different, introductory content rather than changing the difficulty level of the content they have; there are a lot of people that enjoy that content. Most of the people who leave are leaving without having ever even attempted a dungeon. Most people leave not because there isn't enough stuff to do, but because they have a very narrow playstyle. If all you ever want to do is play solo in an instance, you've got Omnicore and Shiphands. Soon, you will have vet Shiphands. If that was 'all there was to the game' for you, you'd run out of things to do. People who utilize the breadth of the game, not just figuring what level of progression they're on and judging what level of progression they can see as their upper limit (in fact, there is nothing in this game out of reach to even the most casual player, given time), know that you can go back and run shiphands if you just feel like playing in a smaller group and not dealing with it. You do dailies if you feel like dealing with nobody and nothing else, or you run an alt. When you feel like that epic group play, you get into whatever level of progress you're on and push your limits. If you aren't married to a certain area of the game, Wildstar is the best MMORPG ever made because it does have a sweeping variety of styles you can play built into the game. If you are, whether you're exclusively a hardcore raider that doesn't care about shiphands or a solo player that just doesn't feel like he'll ever even be ready for an adventure, you will burn out. The game's seven months old and none of these singular branches have enough content to be a game of their own (yet, at least). The best advice I give every person who asks are the three most important methods to dodge telegraphs, but the second most important is to shake up your play. Never feel like something is beyond your reach, and never feel like something is beneath your notice. Do what you feel like doing, and you'll never be bored.


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Thanks for clearing that up! Regardless, this:


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Wow. Yeah, sorry, I don't view you as some kind of community-minded humanitarian deserving of special rewards for playing group content in a video game, while being so community-minded that you advocate that the majority of the game's players be excluded from an equally rewarding game experience if they prefer not to play group content. Unless you personally hate raiding but do it because you're so committed to spending your time helping other, that sounds like an incredibly egocentric perspective to me. So just to be sure, you do raid because you personally enjoy raiding, right? If not, since committing time to others and being accountable to others is so important to you as a criterion for reward, I eagerly await your proposal to hand out the best gear in the game for being helpful in chat channels, answering advice, being friendly, explaining mechanics, teaching people to run content, not skipping out on both PvE and PvP teams the instant you're not going to get what you want, not using exploits, and not excluding everyone else from having fun to appeal to your own personal preferences. Ooooh, that last one's going to hurt your chances at the best gear. That's a shame, but I'm sure you'll understand since it's all about others to you. :rolleyes:

I agree completely that there are several raid mechanics that simply cannot be scaled down. This is not to say that there are no mechanics that that a solo player could be realistically expected to execute that a 20-person team couldn't be. The mechanics are not going to be the same, and a Trinity-based design is going to fail completely--which is part of why OMNIcore-1 had kid-gloves on. They tried to force the support roles rather than the common elements available across classes like interrupts, recharge timers, buffs and debuffs that are common to all classes that have DPS/tank or DPS/healer. But with all due respect, the whole concept of [paraphrase]it couldn't possibly be a comparable investment of time and effort[/paraphrase] is either overvaluing your time and effort, or undervaluing mine.

EDIT: replaced quotation marks with [paraphrase][/paraphrase] tags to ensure that it's clear that Zoomie did not, in fact, say all of the exact words in the paraphrased restatement. Thanks to Zoomie for pointing out the possible confusion.


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{| style="width: 100%;" Quote #1

Quote #2

Quote #1 was in direct response to quote #2 was it not? Please indicate for me in quote #2 where I said the words, "It couldn't possibly be a comparable investement of time and effort". You've made it clear that you're capable of dissecting a sentence with exacting detail. How exactly am I supposed to interpret you changing my words to means something I did not say?

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============== As you've said you're looking for rewards equivalent to the hardest group content lets use System Daemons (Datascape 1st boss) as an example: 4-5 Tanks 4-6 Healers 29-32 Dps Those tanks all have different jobs and some have very specific specs for the niche jobs they perform. Those healers all have different jobs and some have specific niche specs for the niche jobs they perform. Those Dps are split into a 6 different groups with very specific jobs that require specific utility skills to be used in a specific way at a specific time. Now get all 40 of those players on the same page and to all execute the strategy properly and at the same time. This isn't even taking into account the astronomical effort involved in even getting 40 capable players into Datascape in the first place. I simply don't understand how that can be boiled down into an equivalent solo encounter. Sure you can remove the 39 other players and somehow make it a "solo" encounter but I believe that their required presence and simultaneous execution of the fight adds challenge and as result reward. I'm not suggesting that content cannot be created that, on an individual level, incorporates similar challenges and deserves significant rewards. What I am saying is that the sheer scale of raiding involves a time investment and a set of challenges that are intrinsic and exclusive to group play.


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