Kaucukovnik
Cipher
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2009
- Messages
- 488
I have come to an interesting conclusion. Too many RPG players deliberately sacrifice all enjoyment they could have out of a game in favor of efficiency.
I think this is most visible in the MMORPG sub genre. The games do not suck on their own, but the players make them shit. Ultimately all characters of a single class become clones, because everyone is after the most optimized build and ultimate gear. Who cares if the lv999 necromancer armor is pink with purple dots - it gives huge stat bonuses, so everyone loves it. Extreme example, but this is how it works, from what I've seen.
Every MMORPG has some best way to become stronger and stronger. Sooner or later most players will take that exact path, and the rest of the game ceases to exist for them.
Anyone who plays a suboptimal build or generally weaker class, because he finds it fun, is called a n00b, because he is obviously too stupid to follow the successful crowd.
The situation with skill based MMOs even worse. I've been looking at some Darkfall forums, and 99% of gameplay consists of farming resources for macroing your skills. While most characters end up doing the same, most efficient things, maxing out the most efficient skills. And again, whoever choses sub-optimal skill set for the sake of roleplay is just considered stupid.
Making interesting combat in these games is waste of time, because the only thing the players value is phat lootz and exp. In the end they will avoid bosses that give an interesting fight (or get them stuck in scenery or whatever), because it just slows down their farming.
Players will rather spend all their time in one ugly dungeon that gives phat exp, than roam the game world knowing they are getting less than best time/exp ratio. I see tons of players who powertrain to the max level only to find the character boring, because there is nothing else to do.
I've read about some battlegrounds in WoW, where nobody is even trying to win, since the most time-efficient way to gain reward points is a certain way of defeat. Really funny - they are trying to get stronger, because they want victories, but they keep losing in order to achieve that one day. And WoW is very polished and balanced among MMOs, as far as i know.
Single player RPGs are a bit better in this regard, because there is no competition that would force you towards the mentioned cookie cutter builds and must-have gearz.
But still - how many of us had, for example, an axe fighter in BG1, after we found out that the Drizzt's scimitars are the shit and axes suck big time (because they are not +3, but only +1, maybe 2, OH MY GOD)?
The players seem to be able to always find a way to ruin their fun in favor of effectiveness. We rather watch the animation of the single best skill over and over, just not to waste skill points in less effective way.
Add a tedious, but rewarding (exp, lootz again) activity and most people will will prefer it to any enjoyable option without a reward.
In this regard i find many games that are not considered RPGs much "cleaner" for roleplaying, because there is no long-term benefit for doing things "the best way", instead of your own way.
The biggest challenge for an RPG developer is how to force the player to have fun while achieving that efficiency they can't live without. When we bitch about not enough roleplaying options, often we just want the devs to force us to roleplay, since we cannot do it on our own.
The best way to remove incentive for optimization at the expense of roleplaying and general enjoyment is removing any numerical information. Do we seek roleplaying, or number crunching? Are we fond on having a character with some personality, or on being able to count the highest possible damage? Which is easy anyways, it just gives us the feeling how smart we are that we figured it out.
And I must admit I'm guilty of this general playstyle too, even though not to the degree I described above.
I think this is most visible in the MMORPG sub genre. The games do not suck on their own, but the players make them shit. Ultimately all characters of a single class become clones, because everyone is after the most optimized build and ultimate gear. Who cares if the lv999 necromancer armor is pink with purple dots - it gives huge stat bonuses, so everyone loves it. Extreme example, but this is how it works, from what I've seen.
Every MMORPG has some best way to become stronger and stronger. Sooner or later most players will take that exact path, and the rest of the game ceases to exist for them.
Anyone who plays a suboptimal build or generally weaker class, because he finds it fun, is called a n00b, because he is obviously too stupid to follow the successful crowd.
The situation with skill based MMOs even worse. I've been looking at some Darkfall forums, and 99% of gameplay consists of farming resources for macroing your skills. While most characters end up doing the same, most efficient things, maxing out the most efficient skills. And again, whoever choses sub-optimal skill set for the sake of roleplay is just considered stupid.
Making interesting combat in these games is waste of time, because the only thing the players value is phat lootz and exp. In the end they will avoid bosses that give an interesting fight (or get them stuck in scenery or whatever), because it just slows down their farming.
Players will rather spend all their time in one ugly dungeon that gives phat exp, than roam the game world knowing they are getting less than best time/exp ratio. I see tons of players who powertrain to the max level only to find the character boring, because there is nothing else to do.
I've read about some battlegrounds in WoW, where nobody is even trying to win, since the most time-efficient way to gain reward points is a certain way of defeat. Really funny - they are trying to get stronger, because they want victories, but they keep losing in order to achieve that one day. And WoW is very polished and balanced among MMOs, as far as i know.
Single player RPGs are a bit better in this regard, because there is no competition that would force you towards the mentioned cookie cutter builds and must-have gearz.
But still - how many of us had, for example, an axe fighter in BG1, after we found out that the Drizzt's scimitars are the shit and axes suck big time (because they are not +3, but only +1, maybe 2, OH MY GOD)?
The players seem to be able to always find a way to ruin their fun in favor of effectiveness. We rather watch the animation of the single best skill over and over, just not to waste skill points in less effective way.
Add a tedious, but rewarding (exp, lootz again) activity and most people will will prefer it to any enjoyable option without a reward.
In this regard i find many games that are not considered RPGs much "cleaner" for roleplaying, because there is no long-term benefit for doing things "the best way", instead of your own way.
The biggest challenge for an RPG developer is how to force the player to have fun while achieving that efficiency they can't live without. When we bitch about not enough roleplaying options, often we just want the devs to force us to roleplay, since we cannot do it on our own.
The best way to remove incentive for optimization at the expense of roleplaying and general enjoyment is removing any numerical information. Do we seek roleplaying, or number crunching? Are we fond on having a character with some personality, or on being able to count the highest possible damage? Which is easy anyways, it just gives us the feeling how smart we are that we figured it out.
And I must admit I'm guilty of this general playstyle too, even though not to the degree I described above.
