This is a game I quit on and off. This last expansion was garbage and they need Legion to be good, they really do.
But with how easy it is to get hype and funding for a MMO nowadays, there's no reason WoW should be the best MMORPG out right now. That is extremely sad for all other developers, seriously.
I just wanted to say that. Stop trying to make quick money and releasing garbage games, and make something GOOD. Also, stop supporting garbage games. Okay the rant's over.
>.>
"How easy it is to get hype and funding"??? Umm what?
WoW is best acording to what criteria exactly?
There is no reason why WoW should be the best because it's not the best - certainly not for me.
Destiny has more active players than WoW (no I don't play Destiny either).
League of Legends has more players than most games combined - so it's the best game on earth?
Silly way of proclaiming best
LoL is not an MMO and Destiny is a FPS so not sure where you going with that. As far as an MMOrpg goes, WoW is still king.
Personally I find FFXIV:ARR is the best WoW that is as far as quality goes. To me its just a far better game and by the time it reaches WoW's age it will eclipse it completely. Maybe not in numbers, but McDonalds has better numbers than Wendy's and I think Wendy's is ten times better than McDonalds as far as fast food.
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
In a gaming market populated with 13yo kids fresh off a bad call of duty match, I guess it is not surprise that WoW is the most popular. But as for "Best" not even remotely close. Having the most users with a game like WoW just implies that the industry is full of shallow, profiteering developers and even shallower consumers.
Well apparently there are some shallow minded posters who think they are so much better then others who don't share their distorted view on this site...
I dont think I am better than you, just obviously I have better taste in games. Most players doesnt make for the best game. WoW does not have immersion, does not have complexity or depth. It is literally one of those games like clicker heroes now. Push 1-5 to win, that is not what a good game is imo.
Some people like wow for its simplicity, its casual nature, and now there are 1000 other titles exactly like it. I like mmos that can offer an immersive environment with some challenge, that is the exact opposite of WoW, so that is why I dont like it.
This is a place for peoples opinions, get used to it, and to them being different that yours, especially when you support such absurd notions that one of the most shallow, money grabbing, games on the market is the "best".
Even blizzard is making bad games, diablo. So is FF14. People just give them enough time to recover. If it is some other company players won't give them a chance.
WoW is still the best MMORPG because the rest are either the same old tired formula in a different wrapper or just plain suxor or remain in Crowd Funding or Founders/Alpha Access forever. It comes as no surprise that people go back to Wow and play their toons, which have many years of time and in some cases money investment. I cannot imagine going back to WoW for any reason, but for many, it is really all their is to do in the MMORPG realm that is of a great quality, yet flawed.
In a gaming market populated with 13yo kids fresh off a bad call of duty match, I guess it is not surprise that WoW is the most popular. But as for "Best" not even remotely close. Having the most users with a game like WoW just implies that the industry is full of shallow, profiteering developers and even shallower consumers.
Well apparently there are some shallow minded posters who think they are so much better then others who don't share their distorted view on this site...
I dont think I am better than you, just obviously I have better taste in games. Most players doesnt make for the best game. WoW does not have immersion, does not have complexity or depth. It is literally one of those games like clicker heroes now. Push 1-5 to win, that is not what a good game is imo.
Some people like wow for its simplicity, its casual nature, and now there are 1000 other titles exactly like it. I like mmos that can offer an immersive environment with some challenge, that is the exact opposite of WoW, so that is why I dont like it.
This is a place for peoples opinions, get used to it, and to them being different that yours, especially when you support such absurd notions that one of the most shallow, money grabbing, games on the market is the "best".
There is a difference between opinions and fact. Nothing you stated is remotly close to facts, actually it's complete and utter trash.
Push 1-5 to win? There are 5 abilities for each class is WoW? This is incorrect and shows you have zero knowledge towards a video game you are crying about.
Please link your WoW battlenet account, I'd love to see how many normal raids (not worried about heroic or mythic as you probably haven't even done lfr) you have completed, sorry again WoW is not complex or has depth would be another comment that shows your lack of knowledge towards WoW.
Do I think WoW is the best game? No I do not, but I'm not about to spout absolute ignorance towards it or any game especially ones I don't play...which clearly is common place around here.
The only thing you clearly have over me is the ability to cry about a video game you don't play.
In a gaming market populated with 13yo kids fresh off a bad call of duty match, I guess it is not surprise that WoW is the most popular. But as for "Best" not even remotely close. Having the most users with a game like WoW just implies that the industry is full of shallow, profiteering developers and even shallower consumers.
Well apparently there are some shallow minded posters who think they are so much better then others who don't share their distorted view on this site...
I dont think I am better than you, just obviously I have better taste in games. Most players doesnt make for the best game. WoW does not have immersion, does not have complexity or depth. It is literally one of those games like clicker heroes now. Push 1-5 to win, that is not what a good game is imo.
Some people like wow for its simplicity, its casual nature, and now there are 1000 other titles exactly like it. I like mmos that can offer an immersive environment with some challenge, that is the exact opposite of WoW, so that is why I dont like it.
This is a place for peoples opinions, get used to it, and to them being different that yours, especially when you support such absurd notions that one of the most shallow, money grabbing, games on the market is the "best".
You need to actually show that the game you describe actually exist.
I'd like to play sword art online. Unfortunately that game dont' actually exist. It's a game that no one is able to make yet.
WOW is a good mmo but not the best. I'd place GW2 leaps and bounds ahead of WOW in almost every aspect. Rift,SWTOR,Tera,ESO all much better then WOW. It was a great game in its day but its day is long over for any seasoned mmo player.
WOW is a good mmo but not the best. I'd place GW2 leaps and bounds ahead of WOW in almost every aspect. Rift,SWTOR,Tera,ESO all much better then WOW. It was a great game in its day but its day is long over for any seasoned mmo player.
See I don't understand this...you were doing good until you try to lump in only "seasoned mmo players" agree with you. That's not accurate at all, sure you may be a seasoned mmo player who feels this way but I can guarantee not all feel the way you do...you potentially decent post just got shot to worthlessness by that failed logic.
It's difficult to imagine anyone considering a decade-old title as "best" at anything. Look around, every title that old is well past its prime (yep, even EVE).
That would make an interesting topic of its own: Is it possible for a individual members of a fan base to continue liking something they've overindulged in for years (a decade)?
Is the tolerance-level a normal curve?
It's still best in terms of the objective depth of its combat rotations. So far only FFXIV's Lancer class has been shown to have a rotation as deep as the better WOW rotations (of which there are more than one deep rotation.)
Being old and too familiar afflicts all older MMORPGs like you say, but other traits don't actually age.
Of course it's possible to enjoy a game for a decade. WOW's lasting popularity has shown that to be true. It's extremely unusual (WOW is up there with the short list of chess, poker, soccer, etc as one of the longest-lasting games of all time) but it's possible. We wouldn't imply one has to be excessively tolerant to enjoy poker for over a decade, so why would we do the same for WOW? It's known to be a very well-designed game apart from a vocal minority of detractors here in these particular forums.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Lol at the burger analogies. (at least put IN-N-OUT in your comparison if you're going to do it)
WOW got very popular because it was (and still is) a good MMO. And sorry to burst some bubbles but it isn't just a bunch of casual nooblets who play it - there are many hard-core gamers who still play it to this day.
It's not my idea of best any longer but that's just my opinion based on my current taste. But I know that every time a new expansion comes out, I still go back for a visit of a month or two. It's like favorite old pair of faded jeans to me.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
This is a game I quit on and off. This last expansion was garbage and they need Legion to be good, they really do.
But with how easy it is to get hype and funding for a MMO nowadays, there's no reason WoW should be the best MMORPG out right now. That is extremely sad for all other developers, seriously.
I just wanted to say that. Stop trying to make quick money and releasing garbage games, and make something GOOD. Also, stop supporting garbage games. Okay the rant's over.
>.>
"How easy it is to get hype and funding"??? Umm what?
WoW is best acording to what criteria exactly?
There is no reason why WoW should be the best because it's not the best - certainly not for me.
Destiny has more active players than WoW (no I don't play Destiny either).
League of Legends has more players than most games combined - so it's the best game on earth?
Silly way of proclaiming best
LoL is not an MMO and Destiny is a FPS so not sure where you going with that. As far as an MMOrpg goes, WoW is still king.
Definitely still the most popular, but not "the best" in my or others opinions.
The really great thing about this argument is we can't be proven wrong.
Isn't it amazing what you can do when you present subjectivity as objective?
WoW was and still is great. Can definitely understand why people say it is still the best MMORPG. However I have moved on to ESO and currently think that it is the best MMORPG now.
Tnc and wotlk is generally considered the peak of wow in terms of perceived quality and fun, and it is generally accepted that the expansions gave got progressively poorer than those old expansions with wod being lambasted for being the worst. Wow is defined by its current expansion since everything before us rendered moot by the advancement models it uses. This does not equate to being the 'best' even before you look at the modern titles that have released in the last few years.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
One area in which WoW isn't "the best" is in providing new content. In the first two years after it launched WoW had 1 major content patch every 2 months. 12 major content patches in 2 years. AND they released these whilst developing Burning Crusade.
Yes they released content patches and developed an expansion at the same time.
Recent history? After 5.4 the game went 21 months before it got another (non-paid) content patch. The pre-WoD being preparation; WoD being a paid drop and the 6.1 selfie patch Blizzard themselves subsequently said wasn't.
For new players though WoW might offer an enjoyable experience - it is subjective. And Activision Blizzard - clearly - took the view that having spent $X over the last 10+ years it would be more profitable having a smaller team; relying on new players + the inertia of existing players.
And I think they have "had a shock". And come November we will know the current extent of that shock.
It doesn't have the most players. It doesn't have the most content; biggest land mass; best graphics; most user friendly; most revenue; hardest content; hardest combat rotations; it isn't the oldest etc. etc.
It is however a good game that does most things very well but best is subjective
In a gaming market populated with 13yo kids fresh off a bad call of duty match, I guess it is not surprise that WoW is the most popular. But as for "Best" not even remotely close. Having the most users with a game like WoW just implies that the industry is full of shallow, profiteering developers and even shallower consumers.
Woe is me! There are immature and rude adolescents playing video games! These crazy times we live in.
Tnc and wotlk is generally considered the peak of wow in terms of perceived quality and fun, and it is generally accepted that the expansions gave got progressively poorer than those old expansions with wod being lambasted for being the worst. Wow is defined by its current expansion since everything before us rendered moot by the advancement models it uses. This does not equate to being the 'best' even before you look at the modern titles that have released in the last few years.
The generally accepted view tends to be unreliable.
I often point out how WOW's combat rotations offer objectively deeper combat than most MMORPGs offer (discovering the ideal rotation is much easier in most MMORPGs.) The rotations weren't always this deep though, and while WOTLK had pretty good rotations it's only been the last two expansions where things have moved up a step and really been impressive.
That's an example of one objective measurement among many (graphics, cool tech like phasing, etc) where each expansion has definitely gotten better.
The problem is that each expansion is still WOW. So you have players with 5+ years in the same game and they realize they're bored and they choose the closest scapegoats ("the expansion screwed it up!" or "they changed the game! I hate change!"). But they're actually bored because they've spent 5+ years in the same game, and that's just how our minds work.
So the result is the accepted view tends to be very unreliable as to the actual quality of any given expansion.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Tnc and wotlk is generally considered the peak of wow in terms of perceived quality and fun, and it is generally accepted that the expansions gave got progressively poorer than those old expansions with wod being lambasted for being the worst. Wow is defined by its current expansion since everything before us rendered moot by the advancement models it uses. This does not equate to being the 'best' even before you look at the modern titles that have released in the last few years.
The generally accepted view tends to be unreliable.
I often point out how WOW's combat rotations offer objectively deeper combat than most MMORPGs offer (discovering the ideal rotation is much easier in most MMORPGs.) The rotations weren't always this deep though, and while WOTLK had pretty good rotations it's only been the last two expansions where things have moved up a step and really been impressive.
That's an example of one objective measurement among many (graphics, cool tech like phasing, etc) where each expansion has definitely gotten better.
The problem is that each expansion is still WOW. So you have players with 5+ years in the same game and they realize they're bored and they choose the closest scapegoats ("the expansion screwed it up!" or "they changed the game! I hate change!"). But they're actually bored because they've spent 5+ years in the same game, and that's just how our minds work.
So the result is the accepted view tends to be very unreliable as to the actual quality of any given expansion.
@Axehilt I think the "Rotations" themselves killed the game. I have tried to play WOW / GW2 / Rift / (anything like it) several times and end up so bored with the mundane tab target / watch the cool down / get the right rotation so i can program my G15 to fight for me so i can make a sandwich combat mechanic!
@Axehilt I think the "Rotations" themselves killed the game. I have tried to play WOW / GW2 / Rift / (anything like it) several times and end up so bored with the mundane tab target / watch the cool down / get the right rotation so i can program my G15 to fight for me so i can make a sandwich combat mechanic!
Well these are RPGs, which means combat isn't supposed to be heavily about twitch skill, and instead it's about tactical decisions, so managing limited resources and making good decisions to achieve victory is sort of what these games are about. So they create a difficult to master rotation, and then design encounters to deliberately disrupt the ideal rotation, and group you with players whose actions can change up the ideal rotation too, so things are overall quite dynamic.
But yeah, if you weren't really interested in RPGs about tactical decisions and you want something more like a FPS then you're going to lose interest fast.
Also GW2 and RIFT were relatively fun games, but neither offered the same depth of rotation that WOW did (which is why they got boring faster than WOW.) So I'm not necessarily defending those rotations. In many threads discussing combat depth FFXIV's Lancer has been the only class someone has brought up which achieves WOW-like depth to its rotation. Pretty sad really.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Tnc and wotlk is generally considered the peak of wow in terms of perceived quality and fun, and it is generally accepted that the expansions gave got progressively poorer than those old expansions with wod being lambasted for being the worst. Wow is defined by its current expansion since everything before us rendered moot by the advancement models it uses. This does not equate to being the 'best' even before you look at the modern titles that have released in the last few years.
The generally accepted view tends to be unreliable.
I often point out how WOW's combat rotations offer objectively deeper combat than most MMORPGs offer (discovering the ideal rotation is much easier in most MMORPGs.) The rotations weren't always this deep though, and while WOTLK had pretty good rotations it's only been the last two expansions where things have moved up a step and really been impressive.
That's an example of one objective measurement among many (graphics, cool tech like phasing, etc) where each expansion has definitely gotten better.
The problem is that each expansion is still WOW. So you have players with 5+ years in the same game and they realize they're bored and they choose the closest scapegoats ("the expansion screwed it up!" or "they changed the game! I hate change!"). But they're actually bored because they've spent 5+ years in the same game, and that's just how our minds work.
So the result is the accepted view tends to be very unreliable as to the actual quality of any given expansion.
Or maybe, just maybe the depth of the combat rotations have little bearing on how much fun most players have in a game?
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Depth of combat as an argument in this case is rather misleading any ways. The strategic qualities of games come on many levels and the complexity of such varies as well with each game's focus.
Some people find rotations to be lacking in "tactical" decision making because ultimately it's a matter of memorizing a finite pattern of behavior and mimicking it ad-nauseam. There might be some variances depending on what abilities a monster has or a team member has, but in the end, it's a rather controlled set of options with a narrow scope of efficiency.
Similarly, people may criticize "action" and FSP gameplay as non-stragetic, and depending on title and focus they would be right. CoD for example does not have much emphasis on any high-end strategy and instead focuses on the same thing as any other general lobby shooter with the twitch gameplay.
This says nothing of the alternative options like that of Rainbow Six where the gameplay has a slightly slower pace and takes advantage of a lot of secondary elements to it's action to provide a lot of tactical depth within an FPS. The reality in this case being that people prefer different pacing, different gameplay, and different ways in which it engages their brain or that the depth of gameplay expresses itself.
Ultimately as Kylerain points out, the average gamer probably isn't even parsing all that stuff. They will break down game mechanics, strategies, etc, but mostly they are looking at it from a relatively unified perspective of a given title.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
It's worth noting "pattern mastery" is not itself a definition of a specific form of play, but is a fundamental manner in which we break down and understand things.
For games, this games in a massively splayed context in which finite and global components are all adherent to utilizing some kind of pattern to operate, and therefore be understood. Some things are more esoteric in the difficulty of recognizing the patterns, other things are essentially laid out for people to pick up and go.
Pattern recognition also does not come with a absolute governance of how invested an individual is. As there are those that will "just play" and then there are those what will spend their time practicing and tweaking rotations specifically. Some of that will naturally happen as a result of regular play, but the amount of focus or obsession an individual dedicates to a title, it creates a strong variance.
As such, talking about exceptionally high end game concepts to look for a game's entertainment value tends to be the wrong place to really be looking. It's the more fundamental level of strategy and comfort of the gameplay, and the strategy on that level already has a strong degree of potential and variance.
A good point on this...
"Different genres of game present different problem types [GDCA: Games Are Math slides posted]. These often cluster around specific things such as estimation of trajectory, odds calculation, solving NP-hard problems, and so on. People will come to these different games and different problem types with their existing pattern libraries, and therefore have “built in” skills in dealing with one type of game versus another."
(Koster, 2013)
Also worth noting that Koster admitted "I intentionally excluded a lot of stuff we call 'fun' from the definition." (GDC Vault "A Theory of Fun 10 Years Later")
In this diatribe he actually refers to the fact that his game theory only applies to a single component of what forms of entertainment engage people, calling it "kfun" as it only applies to the release of dopamine in relation to satisfaction of figuring out a problem. This is followed with a reference to research by Irving Bierdman and Edward A Vessel of "Research says that dopamine can release for 'richly interpretable' systems." to which he relates there is a considerably broader spectrum for things to engage one than singularly "kfun".
Just a fun point to be made about the changes in perspective, definition, and spectrum of entertainment forms.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
As far as the rotation argument goes, I just fail to understand how people can say the game is easy, when they purposely play the easy difficulties and are unwilling to learn.
From somebody who learned PvE at a pretty high level, and tried to learn as much as I could, in a short amount of time, the amount of things you can do to increase your efficiency (and like I said, especially during MOP and previously) is really crazy.
It put the game in a whole other perspective for me, because I was always just a PvPer and laughed at PvErs because I thought it was easy.
I would seriously recommend anybody who has the time to learn, do it. And the more you study what you're doing on certain bosses, and what to do during trinket procs, when to use CDs, where to place yourself in the raid, while doing boss mechanics, it's a ton of fun, and you can keep digging and learning more and more.
I guess the thing I really liked the most was the competition, playing with people who had raided for years, and trying to beat them on every boss, and figuring out how to be #1 on every boss, and then trying to improve your score on parses.
Eventually though, I was raiding on 2 characters, Tues/Wed/Thurs 7pm-1am and Sat 10pm-1am. And I got burnt out, and this expansion with 20m Mythic and a bunch of other things, made a lot of good guilds and players quit.
--
Oh, and I will be trying Wildstar again once there's no 4 hour queues and 30 second delay on actions. Btw, the guilds that moved over from WoW to hardcore raid in Wildstar didn't quit because it was hard, they quit because it was broken and the devs didn't listen and didn't care. There is a difference.
When all is said and done, more is always said than done.
Comments
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
I dont think I am better than you, just obviously I have better taste in games. Most players doesnt make for the best game. WoW does not have immersion, does not have complexity or depth. It is literally one of those games like clicker heroes now. Push 1-5 to win, that is not what a good game is imo.
Some people like wow for its simplicity, its casual nature, and now there are 1000 other titles exactly like it. I like mmos that can offer an immersive environment with some challenge, that is the exact opposite of WoW, so that is why I dont like it.
This is a place for peoples opinions, get used to it, and to them being different that yours, especially when you support such absurd notions that one of the most shallow, money grabbing, games on the market is the "best".
Even blizzard is making bad games, diablo. So is FF14. People just give them enough time to recover. If it is some other company players won't give them a chance.
It comes as no surprise that people go back to Wow and play their toons, which have many years of time and in some cases money investment.
I cannot imagine going back to WoW for any reason, but for many, it is really all their is to do in the MMORPG realm that is of a great quality, yet flawed.
Push 1-5 to win? There are 5 abilities for each class is WoW? This is incorrect and shows you have zero knowledge towards a video game you are crying about.
Please link your WoW battlenet account, I'd love to see how many normal raids (not worried about heroic or mythic as you probably haven't even done lfr) you have completed, sorry again WoW is not complex or has depth would be another comment that shows your lack of knowledge towards WoW.
Do I think WoW is the best game? No I do not, but I'm not about to spout absolute ignorance towards it or any game especially ones I don't play...which clearly is common place around here.
The only thing you clearly have over me is the ability to cry about a video game you don't play.
You need to actually show that the game you describe actually exist.
I'd like to play sword art online. Unfortunately that game dont' actually exist. It's a game that no one is able to make yet.
Being old and too familiar afflicts all older MMORPGs like you say, but other traits don't actually age.
Of course it's possible to enjoy a game for a decade. WOW's lasting popularity has shown that to be true. It's extremely unusual (WOW is up there with the short list of chess, poker, soccer, etc as one of the longest-lasting games of all time) but it's possible. We wouldn't imply one has to be excessively tolerant to enjoy poker for over a decade, so why would we do the same for WOW? It's known to be a very well-designed game apart from a vocal minority of detractors here in these particular forums.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
WOW got very popular because it was (and still is) a good MMO. And sorry to burst some bubbles but it isn't just a bunch of casual nooblets who play it - there are many hard-core gamers who still play it to this day.
It's not my idea of best any longer but that's just my opinion based on my current taste. But I know that every time a new expansion comes out, I still go back for a visit of a month or two. It's like favorite old pair of faded jeans to me.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Yes they released content patches and developed an expansion at the same time.
Recent history? After 5.4 the game went 21 months before it got another (non-paid) content patch. The pre-WoD being preparation; WoD being a paid drop and the 6.1 selfie patch Blizzard themselves subsequently said wasn't.
For new players though WoW might offer an enjoyable experience - it is subjective. And Activision Blizzard - clearly - took the view that having spent $X over the last 10+ years it would be more profitable having a smaller team; relying on new players + the inertia of existing players.
And I think they have "had a shock". And come November we will know the current extent of that shock.
It doesn't have the most players. It doesn't have the most content; biggest land mass; best graphics; most user friendly; most revenue; hardest content; hardest combat rotations; it isn't the oldest etc. etc.
It is however a good game that does most things very well but best is subjective
Woe is me! There are immature and rude adolescents playing video games! These crazy times we live in.
I often point out how WOW's combat rotations offer objectively deeper combat than most MMORPGs offer (discovering the ideal rotation is much easier in most MMORPGs.) The rotations weren't always this deep though, and while WOTLK had pretty good rotations it's only been the last two expansions where things have moved up a step and really been impressive.
That's an example of one objective measurement among many (graphics, cool tech like phasing, etc) where each expansion has definitely gotten better.
The problem is that each expansion is still WOW. So you have players with 5+ years in the same game and they realize they're bored and they choose the closest scapegoats ("the expansion screwed it up!" or "they changed the game! I hate change!"). But they're actually bored because they've spent 5+ years in the same game, and that's just how our minds work.
So the result is the accepted view tends to be very unreliable as to the actual quality of any given expansion.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
But yeah, if you weren't really interested in RPGs about tactical decisions and you want something more like a FPS then you're going to lose interest fast.
Also GW2 and RIFT were relatively fun games, but neither offered the same depth of rotation that WOW did (which is why they got boring faster than WOW.) So I'm not necessarily defending those rotations. In many threads discussing combat depth FFXIV's Lancer has been the only class someone has brought up which achieves WOW-like depth to its rotation. Pretty sad really.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Some people find rotations to be lacking in "tactical" decision making because ultimately it's a matter of memorizing a finite pattern of behavior and mimicking it ad-nauseam. There might be some variances depending on what abilities a monster has or a team member has, but in the end, it's a rather controlled set of options with a narrow scope of efficiency.
Similarly, people may criticize "action" and FSP gameplay as non-stragetic, and depending on title and focus they would be right. CoD for example does not have much emphasis on any high-end strategy and instead focuses on the same thing as any other general lobby shooter with the twitch gameplay.
This says nothing of the alternative options like that of Rainbow Six where the gameplay has a slightly slower pace and takes advantage of a lot of secondary elements to it's action to provide a lot of tactical depth within an FPS. The reality in this case being that people prefer different pacing, different gameplay, and different ways in which it engages their brain or that the depth of gameplay expresses itself.
Ultimately as Kylerain points out, the average gamer probably isn't even parsing all that stuff. They will break down game mechanics, strategies, etc, but mostly they are looking at it from a relatively unified perspective of a given title.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
But the most common way games are enjoyed is pattern mastery (Koster, 2004), so in the long-term if a game isn't deep it's discarded for a new game.
Also it doesn't have to be combat rotations specifically, but the depth of the most common gameplay activities that matters.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
For games, this games in a massively splayed context in which finite and global components are all adherent to utilizing some kind of pattern to operate, and therefore be understood. Some things are more esoteric in the difficulty of recognizing the patterns, other things are essentially laid out for people to pick up and go.
Pattern recognition also does not come with a absolute governance of how invested an individual is. As there are those that will "just play" and then there are those what will spend their time practicing and tweaking rotations specifically. Some of that will naturally happen as a result of regular play, but the amount of focus or obsession an individual dedicates to a title, it creates a strong variance.
As such, talking about exceptionally high end game concepts to look for a game's entertainment value tends to be the wrong place to really be looking. It's the more fundamental level of strategy and comfort of the gameplay, and the strategy on that level already has a strong degree of potential and variance.
A good point on this...
"Different genres of game present different problem types [GDCA: Games Are Math slides posted]. These often cluster around specific things such as estimation of trajectory, odds calculation, solving NP-hard problems, and so on. People will come to these different games and different problem types with their existing pattern libraries, and therefore have “built in” skills in dealing with one type of game versus another."
(Koster, 2013)
Also worth noting that Koster admitted "I intentionally excluded a lot of stuff we call 'fun' from the definition." (GDC Vault "A Theory of Fun 10 Years Later")
In this diatribe he actually refers to the fact that his game theory only applies to a single component of what forms of entertainment engage people, calling it "kfun" as it only applies to the release of dopamine in relation to satisfaction of figuring out a problem. This is followed with a reference to research by Irving Bierdman and Edward A Vessel of "Research says that dopamine can release for 'richly interpretable' systems." to which he relates there is a considerably broader spectrum for things to engage one than singularly "kfun".
Just a fun point to be made about the changes in perspective, definition, and spectrum of entertainment forms.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
As far as the rotation argument goes, I just fail to understand how people can say the game is easy, when they purposely play the easy difficulties and are unwilling to learn.
From somebody who learned PvE at a pretty high level, and tried to learn as much as I could, in a short amount of time, the amount of things you can do to increase your efficiency (and like I said, especially during MOP and previously) is really crazy.
It put the game in a whole other perspective for me, because I was always just a PvPer and laughed at PvErs because I thought it was easy.
I would seriously recommend anybody who has the time to learn, do it. And the more you study what you're doing on certain bosses, and what to do during trinket procs, when to use CDs, where to place yourself in the raid, while doing boss mechanics, it's a ton of fun, and you can keep digging and learning more and more.
I guess the thing I really liked the most was the competition, playing with people who had raided for years, and trying to beat them on every boss, and figuring out how to be #1 on every boss, and then trying to improve your score on parses.
Eventually though, I was raiding on 2 characters, Tues/Wed/Thurs 7pm-1am and Sat 10pm-1am. And I got burnt out, and this expansion with 20m Mythic and a bunch of other things, made a lot of good guilds and players quit.
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Oh, and I will be trying Wildstar again once there's no 4 hour queues and 30 second delay on actions. Btw, the guilds that moved over from WoW to hardcore raid in Wildstar didn't quit because it was hard, they quit because it was broken and the devs didn't listen and didn't care. There is a difference.