Its all about character skill. That's what an RPG is. The player skill comes in building the character and strategizing how to use the character.
So..."60% of the time it's about character skill every time"
Again...;
"Saying any and all decision making is some form of player skill, while semantically true, is not a useful argument and fails to grasp the point that there is a distinction between games where "character skills" are the dominant means to overcoming a game's challenges versus interactive skill challenges being the dominant means."
Even taking your jab of "60% of the time", it would dictate the majority of play is driven by character skill challenges rather than interactive player challenges.
"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
Fairly straightforward, what should be considered the linchpin upon which a game session revolves, the player's abilities or the character's?
Well it appears that it is not straightforward since you failed to define your terms and people are arguing about what player abilities (skills) mean.
I was going to define it sooner, but the discussion thus far has proven interesting so, I declined to do so in the interest of what was happening organically.
In a MMOFPS it is easy but even in a more traditional MMO using the right skill at the right time should be more important then stats.
I certainly don't think that 2 players rotating skills and the one with best stats win have anything to do with roleplaying. I been playing P&P RPGs since '84 and MMOs since '96 and I promise you, that is not what makes a game a RPG.
Even none action or FPS combat MMOs should put far more focus on tactics, how and where you move during the fight, time the right skill at the right moment and work together with your groups.
If the skill that wins the fight just is my characters then why bother fight at all?
But in a MMORPG thinking fast should be more rewarding then reflexes, picking that specific skill at just the right moment should be more important then actually dodging or whatever. Being smart and outhink your opponent is the RPG way but that doesn't happen if your focus in on character skill instead of players.
I'm curious, if people took PvP out of the equation and rethought their answer, would it change. An MMORPG comprises of so much more than just PvP/combat.
A game that doesn't have both is a pretty poor MMORPG.
Even in traditional TAB target MMOs knowing your skills and your enemies skills, how they interact and how/when to use them is extremely important. A mage that didn't know when to counterspell in early Vanilla WoW could never kill a priest. Every mage had that ability as part of their character's power, but it was the player's skill that made it a powerful ability.
A well designed game has that mixture. You gain powerful abilities but you have to use them skillfully to actually make your character powerful. A game that just makes you powerful no matter what the player does is a crap game.
I'm curious, if people took PvP out of the equation and rethought their answer, would it change. An MMORPG comprises of so much more than just PvP/combat.
Not in my case, strategy should beat stats any day no matter if you PvE or PvP.
Player skill does not just mean twitch based system, thinking is also a player skill.
I played Shadowrun P&P today, the reason my players survived were not because they had better stats then the opposition, they worked together, fought tactical and used their characters skill tactical. You don't rotate skill or just roll dice in RPGs, that would be far less fun. MMORPGs shouldn't be that different. (I did get one of them pretty good though, he will spend a month in a hospital because he had lousy luck and a Yakuza thug got in a lucky autofire but risk Vs reward is as important in P&P as in MMOs).
Anyways, a good player team that works well together and thinks fast should always be better then a lousy playing team that grinded up good gear when you run dungeons or raids.
Sometimes its fun to win purely from player skill, to win what you know is a challenge like when you are lower level and beat a higher level person, but its also fun to solo a group of people without much of a problem sometimes on some twink super character or something.
NEWS FLASH!"A bank was robbed the other day and a man opened fire on the customers being held hostage. One customer zig-zag sprinted until he found cover. When questioned later he explained that he was a hardcore gamer and knew just what to do!" Download my music for free! I release several albums per month as part of project "Thee Untitled" . .. some video game music remixes and cover songs done with instruments in there as well! http://theeuntitled.bandcamp.com/Check out my roleplaying blog, collection of fictional short stories, and fantasy series... updated on a blog for now until I am finished!https://childrenfromtheheavensbelow.blogspot.com/Watch me game on occasion or make music... https://www.twitch.tv/spoontheeuntitled and subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUvqULn678VrF3OasgnbsyA
Fairly straightforward, what should be considered the linchpin upon which a game session revolves, the player's abilities or the character's?
Well it appears that it is not straightforward since you failed to define your terms and people are arguing about what player abilities (skills) mean.
Some posters here bitch about the meaning of any and all words to drive their agenda. One in particular spends 90% of their time "telling others" what words mean. At least in their own mind.
An MMORPG is a genre, not a combat system. You can and should make MMORPGs with all different kinds of combat systems.
I'm not sure I agree. While I think there should be MMOs (no secondary qualifier) with as many combat systems as players want, I hesitate to classify "all" of them as MMORPGs. Where I would draw the line would be how character-centric vs player-centric those systems lean. "RP" for me means character-centric, but that's just me.
While the combat may not solely define the genre, it certainly is a factor, isn't it?
I don't think there is an overarching "should" here that applies to all mmorpgs. Both methods are valid depending on the game and the audience.
People with twitch skills and less patience will probably prefer more player-skill based games. (This is my generalization, but I will say "younger gamers.")
People who want to sink a lot of time into a game, who don't mind grinding and gradually developing their character, who want to think about long-term character development strategies, monitor cool downs in tactical situations, etc. will prefer character skill. These characteristics seem to me to be more common among older people.
However, I dislike character-skill based game design where high level characters can flaunt their power over low level characters. WoW pvp for example. If you want a game with open world pvp and no safe zones, then the game "should" be more player skill based, in my opinion.
Agreed, pvp doesn't really fit in a pve oriented game without some means to keep that kind of behaviour in check, whether it be different rulesets, arenas, etc. Should a player just want to pvp with twitch/action controls there are plenty of choices for that kind of gameplay that doesn't alienate a whole community of fellow players.
GW2 is good example, it have almost instant large scale PVP and you get structured pvp right after prologue plus it have ALOT pve content when you buy heart of thorns expansion and player skill matters alot.
Comments
"Saying any and all decision making is some form of player skill, while semantically true, is not a useful argument and fails to grasp the point that there is a distinction between games where "character skills" are the dominant means to overcoming a game's challenges versus interactive skill challenges being the dominant means."
Even taking your jab of "60% of the time", it would dictate the majority of play is driven by character skill challenges rather than interactive player challenges.
"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
In my opinion, in PvP every mmorpg should be based on the ability of the player to play the game and have all characters' stats equalized .
I certainly don't think that 2 players rotating skills and the one with best stats win have anything to do with roleplaying. I been playing P&P RPGs since '84 and MMOs since '96 and I promise you, that is not what makes a game a RPG.
Even none action or FPS combat MMOs should put far more focus on tactics, how and where you move during the fight, time the right skill at the right moment and work together with your groups.
If the skill that wins the fight just is my characters then why bother fight at all?
But in a MMORPG thinking fast should be more rewarding then reflexes, picking that specific skill at just the right moment should be more important then actually dodging or whatever. Being smart and outhink your opponent is the RPG way but that doesn't happen if your focus in on character skill instead of players.
A MMOFPS is a different matter of course.
An MMORPG comprises of so much more than just PvP/combat.
Even in traditional TAB target MMOs knowing your skills and your enemies skills, how they interact and how/when to use them is extremely important. A mage that didn't know when to counterspell in early Vanilla WoW could never kill a priest. Every mage had that ability as part of their character's power, but it was the player's skill that made it a powerful ability.
A well designed game has that mixture. You gain powerful abilities but you have to use them skillfully to actually make your character powerful. A game that just makes you powerful no matter what the player does is a crap game.
Player skill does not just mean twitch based system, thinking is also a player skill.
I played Shadowrun P&P today, the reason my players survived were not because they had better stats then the opposition, they worked together, fought tactical and used their characters skill tactical. You don't rotate skill or just roll dice in RPGs, that would be far less fun. MMORPGs shouldn't be that different. (I did get one of them pretty good though, he will spend a month in a hospital because he had lousy luck and a Yakuza thug got in a lucky autofire but risk Vs reward is as important in P&P as in MMOs).
Anyways, a good player team that works well together and thinks fast should always be better then a lousy playing team that grinded up good gear when you run dungeons or raids.
Sometimes its fun to win purely from player skill, to win what you know is a challenge like when you are lower level and beat a higher level person, but its also fun to solo a group of people without much of a problem sometimes on some twink super character or something.
NEWS FLASH! "A bank was robbed the other day and a man opened fire on the customers being held hostage. One customer zig-zag sprinted until he found cover. When questioned later he explained that he was a hardcore gamer and knew just what to do!" Download my music for free! I release several albums per month as part of project "Thee Untitled" . .. some video game music remixes and cover songs done with instruments in there as well! http://theeuntitled.bandcamp.com/ Check out my roleplaying blog, collection of fictional short stories, and fantasy series... updated on a blog for now until I am finished! https://childrenfromtheheavensbelow.blogspot.com/ Watch me game on occasion or make music... https://www.twitch.tv/spoontheeuntitled and subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUvqULn678VrF3OasgnbsyA
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That may not be tabletop RPG, but players min-max CRPG all the time. Don't tell me you think CRPG is a faithful translation of tabletop RPG.
While the combat may not solely define the genre, it certainly is a factor, isn't it?
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