for ppl that complain about turn based combat in mmoFollow

Look folks it's simple, if it isn't on the official FFXIV youtube channel, don't post it. I don't want to ban anyone but I will if we keep posting this video. Thanks.

that sthe EXACT point I tried to make in the thread where we had said discussion.... so yeah someone please point me in the direction of teh MMO that plays like devil may cry because I WANT to see that lol

I'm a pretty naive kitty when it comes to these type of arguments. For instance I assume the whole 'turn base' stigma games like this receive is due to the timers. I hear non- turn base and I assume live action combo. IDK. I haven't seen a discussion. I've only seen one-liner arguments in derailing posts.

By no means am I calling anything turn base. It's simply my limited understanding of the argument that encourages me to assume.

By your account however, and forgive me if I'm wrong, people want a third person action game. Or a FPS. They want Bayonetta co-op.

What about it compared to argument? Please. Educate me.

~laughs~

I was being sincere with my question. "Class dismissed" indeed.

So this is what the modern mmo base wants? Button mashing? This is the argument? I'm honestly trying to understand. DCU is getting it right?

I know you were just kidding bud. I was simply playing off your "educate me" comment. Hence the emoticon after. As far as getting it right, I can't say. Too many people want different things, but I would like to see a little more interaction during combat. That system also seems to work primarily with a controller setup, so people with a mouse/keyboard might hate it or be ad a disadvantage.

Don't we have the cool down things you are speaking of? Barrage for Archer, 1min cool down, or 3, whatever....?

Also, if you are doing anything other than killing things too weak, you will have to watch what you're doing. Not curing, adding a dodge move, putting StoneSkin back on, not blinding or catching a TP Chain can get you killed. You also can't AFK on a too weak rabbit because you will need to kill another one or you will just sit there. Or do you mean something else?

Yeah, I was just trying to help you understand the argument. But yes, some people want a third person action game. Having said that...



A good action game (of which there are many) is much more than button mashing. It's real-time strategy. If you look at a classic series, Super Smash Bros... this is a series of fighting games. Sure, some people just mash buttons. They get completely creamed by experienced players, because in reality the game is more complex than your average MMO. You need to know which moves have priority over others, where the hitboxes are, which ways your character can effectively dodge... you have to be able to predict your opponent's moves and learn to fake them out. There's much more to it than button mashing. And understandably, some people want that higher level of stimulation that those games can offer.

Having said that, there are also concerns with ping and lag with that kind of game in an online environment. Having a fraction of a second of delay between what your opponent does and what you see can be a tremendous disadvantage. There's even screen output delay, and with some monitors or televisions, you effectively can't play.

For PVE, those concerns aren't as meaningful, and a lot of players would be happy to see more of them. Personally I wholly agree, but I also want to see a greater effort to facilitate communication in combat. That means you can't be pushing buttons 95% of the time.

coming from a guy who can beat the DMC and ninja gaiden games on the hardest difficulties without even getting scratched.. Id have to disagree slightly..


turn based combat to me is more about strategy, brainpower and planning... 100% brainpower.. its like a game of chess..

whereas games like smash bros, dmc or NG take SOME intelligence but Id say its 90% skill and reflexes.. it comes down to knowing the enemies attack patterns and being fast enough to avoid them... even if you do know the enemies tactics all that knowledge means nothing if youre not fast enough in teh reflex department to pull it off.. so id say its 90% reflex 10% strategy.. and I prefer to win my battles by outhinking/being more cunning than my opponents than being able to press a button faster than he can or before he does.. so Id prefer "slow turn based mmo" combat over monster hunter/guild wars 2 style anyday... even though i can do fine in either scenario.. theres just MORE than enough games out there already that rel y on reflxes as it is.. give us a few games for those of us who wanna use our brains too lol.

I don't think FFXI was turn based either.

If you ever played previous FF titles, you know that Square has messed around with it in the past quite a few times.

It might of been "Turn Based" at some point in time, I don't know, perhaps FF1 or FF2, I'm not really sure.

But Square introduced ATB (Active Time Battle, Charge Time Battle, Conditional Turn-Based Battle, Active Dimension Battle and Command Synergy Battle.

According to the FF wikia, FF14 is considered to be part of the RTB system, FF11 as well.

If anything, the closest thing that is similar to FF11 and FF14 RTB system is FF12's Active Dimension Battle system.

But in any case, neither FF11 nor FF14 is "Turn Based".

Gamers should have done their own extensive research before using words and phrases they do not understand completely. You would have to define the various systems Can's and Can'ts, before you can make a judgement on which category this game belongs to.

youre right real time STRATEGY does require strategy... but Age of Empires is on a whole different level than lets say call of duty... you can be wonderful in age of empires (which I am) but suck at lets say CoD..

but a I said before. in something like CoD its more reflexes than strategy because.. you could formulate the best strategy known to man.. and logically and or on paper it very much would work.. however if you lack the skill (i.e reflexes) to pull it off, then youre strategy is then useless... whereas in an rpg (which are usually not very reflex based) once youve figured out what to do.. youve already won.. theres no way at all you could lose.. whereas in CoD you can figure out what to do but theres the chance you wont be able to pull it off.


For example you fight an enemy in an rpg that uses lets say darkness attacks.. you have armor that can absorb darkness, you then come to the conclusion that if he uses darkness attacks he must be weak to light.. and you have light based attacks, and finally you have a way to quickly revive your party members IF by chance they actually should die. Ok now youre absorbing every attack this guy throws at you, hitting him for the most you can due to exploiting his weakness and you have quick revivals in the case something goes wrong... theres now 0% chance of you losing. Whereas in CoD you could figure out "xyz person(s) come here so ill hide in abc area to easily ambush or get the drop on them as they need to come here and have no idea Im waiting" ok but even with that your victory is not guaranteed.. you might catch him off guard and get the kill but theres also the chance that you wont OR you DO catch him off guard but he still pulls the trigger faster..

so in the later example you need both strategy AND reflexes.. whereas the former example only requires strategy.. as reflexes and or "being faster than the other guy" plays no role in the outcome of that fight.

Also as for this comment:

"FFT suffer from statistical inbalance which causes the strategic elements to be very iffy"

Id have to say the opposite, statistical imbalance is what makes the strategy.... strategic.. I find no greater joy in an RPG than taking down something 10+ levels higher than me that due to this "statistical imbalance" of yours.. I shouldnt be able to win... sure in doing so I just made a 5 minute fight into a 60+ minute one (ive been in plenty of 2-3 hour long fights in my RPG adventures lol.. and these werent 2-3 hours or game over screens and retrying... this was.. the one fight/attempt actually lasting awhole 2-3 hours before the battle was finally settled) and to me getting through a battle like that (especially if yo do it on your own without the help of any guides.. but instead coming up with a plan completely on your own) is in extremely great sense of accomplishment... Youd never have an epic battle/long standoff like that in something like CoD where both sides are so good the battle comes completely down to who screws up/makes a mistake first as opposed to whos the better player and it takes 2-3 hours before blood is finally drawn lol. I have however had PLENTY of 2+ hours battle sin Age of Empires

so yeah again RTS definitely DO require strategy.. but something thats more cation oriented or an FPS? yes theres some degree of strategy involved but reflexes are much more important

I always thought XII's battle system would be awesome with at least multiplayer, if not an MMO.

well white knight chronicles pretty much gives you just that :p FFXII's battle system (or at least the closest thing to it) with online multiplayer

You forgot 'Action-based with timer elements', my personal favorite

My problem is not with acknowledging that reflexes are important in action-games, or even with proclaiming that in some games, they're more important than the strategy elements (though that statement is untrue for a great many games). My problem is with not acknowledging that many of those games require more strategy. You could say that Tic Tac Toe is 100% strategy, and Smash Bros. is only 80% strategy... Smash Bros. still requires far more strategy than Tic Tac Toe (and Smash Bros. is an excellent example of a game where both strategy and reflexes are important, but strategy far more so).

As for the statistical imbalance in FFT, you had things the other way around if you ask me. For me, the game became way too easy, in part because it's easy to overlevel, but even if you don't, it's still easy because if you pick a halfway decent team formation, special tactics aren't really necessary. I would even have to impose artificial challenges before letting myself win just to make that game a bit tougher. Games like Fire Emblem at least don't give you the ability to overlevel since there are no random encounters, and it's at least a bit more difficult to build a universally good team.

This is the problem in a nutshell. Not just with video games, but with people's attitudes in general.

People look at their lives and realize that they aren't going to be a rock star, pro athlete, etc. They are disappointed. Some of these people decide to play an MMO. They want the MMO to give them what their real life can't- the ability to be a rock star. But guess what- if everyone is a rock star, there's no such thing as a rock star. It's like typing an essay in Microsoft Word and then making every word Bold. The original purpose is lost. All you've really done is changed to a thicker font.

I am a high school science teacher. I deal with kids every single day who think that they should get an A because they don't fall asleep in class. They do their homework, participate minimally in class etc. They don't blow off the tests, but they don't really study hard for them either. Those kids end up with high C's or low B's. It's called a bell curve and it's kind of how life works... I don't do anything special to make the bell curve exist. I just find the appropriate difficulty for the group as a whole and let statistics take care of the rest. Some people have a bit more natural ability. Some others work really hard. Those two types of people are rare and they make up the group that get A's. The kids that don't have the natural ability can get there through sheer desire. If you don't have one or the other- your ceiling is a B. Not because I said so, but because the difficulty sorts people into groups. That's why grades exist- to rank performance...

Honestly, this is what I want from an MMO as well. The difficulty should be set such that there is a bell curve of "rock star-ness" or "a$$ kicking jedi-ness". If everyone can have the best of everything with little effort, all you've done is recreate kindergarten in a video game. Everyone gets an award for participation. You've typed the essay in Bold. I can't play a game like that. It's too boring. I need a game that challenges me. I don't mind getting frustrated with it because when I succeed, I actually get a feeling of accomplishment. FFXI had some semblance of this. Granted it wasn't really that hard, but it did punish you if you didn't have your sh*t together. That's why PUG's were a hit or miss proposition for things like CoP etc- if you had a PUG that contained idiots, you would lose. These are the same kids that fail my class. They walk in and say "There's a test today??". They join a shout for a mission yet have never even read a wiki page on what must be done to win. They don't even know their own JA's let alone party mechanics.

tl;dr If you dumb down an MMO so everyone can have access to everything with little or no skill/effort, all you've done is @#%^ people who actually do give an effort. And a game like that will fail. Because getting something for nothing isn't actually fun...



Edited, Dec 5th 2012 5:24am by ChaChaJaJa

The internet is serious business.

Valid point, but you missed the gist of my comparison. My comparison wasn't about whether or not the goal was "fun" it was about the level of effort people are willing to put in to achieve an outcome. Perhaps I should be more specific about my context. I teach Physics to juniors and seniors and it is an elective. They choose to take the course and they do care very much about their outcome (grades). So the comparison, although not perfect, is still a reasonable generalization. If you want to pick it apart, that's your choice. The basic premise is fine for the broadness of my point.

Let me say it another way. My issue isn't with success rate, it's with the amount of effort people are willing to put in to achieve that success. One of my biggest challenges as a teacher is trying to get kids to try past the initial stumbling point. They do fine with easy questions, but the moment they struggle with something, they stop trying. They want me to just give them the answer. And honestly, it's not because they don't care... they want to succeed. It's because they are in disbelief that things should be anything other than easy. They aren't used to struggling, so anything that is a struggle is foreign to them. They don't want to have to try. They feel that their initial effort level (whatever that may be) ought to be enough to get them what they want.

Also, I agree with you about motivation. The kids prefer the easy questions because their motivation is for the grade, not the learning. But again, my point wasn't as much about the outcome itself, but the effort they are willing to invest to achieve the outcome. And this applies directly to the analogy of video games. The gamers I'm complaining about want to run around in UBERLEETZ GEARZ but they don't want it to be hard to achieve said gear.



Depends on what you consider immediate and what your goals are. If your goal is simply to casually play said game and experience content, then that's awesome. There is usually plenty of casual content for people to enjoy. If your goal is to have all the best stuff in the game and take down the hardest bosses- well, you should have to invest time and effort into that. Why? because there are people who value that also. That's their goal. If you make all the content easy enough for all the people, you haven't actually improved the game. You're just @#%^ing a different group.

It's similar to differentiated instruction. In theory, if you have 20 kids in a classroom, you have 20 different ability levels. And differentiated instruction says let's adjust the content to meet every child's ability level. It doesn't say "dumb down the material so everyone can 'master' it". It says make several difficulty levels so that kids can challenge themselves at their ability level. I agree with this in the classroom and in video games. But should the highest and lowest difficulty levels have the same rewards? No @#%^ing way. That's just dumb and there's no other way to say it. When I give a test, I am expecting a bell curve of test grades. This is because the content of the test has multiple difficulty levels, low, medium and high. The bell curve takes care of itself. If i make the test easy enough for everyone to get an A, then the kids who have more ability and the kids who are working their asses off get screwed because they weren't afforded the opportunity to show it. It's a way bigger crime to deny them that chance than it is to prevent a "casual student" from getting an A.

And if you can't follow my analogy at this point, let's just agree to disagree because I honestly don't have time to dissect your entire response.

P.S.


and

and


A few threads ago, you were a gaming lawyer... now you are a teacher... are you a person who teaches gaming laws? Or are you just another internet expert who thinks they know something about EVERYTHING...


P.P.S.


Speak for yourself, but that doesn't describe all of us...
The two nicest comments I've ever received from students:
"I don't really like physics, but I like coming to your class."
"I really like your tests. They are hard, but they really make me think about things."
Teaching is an art. And done correctly, can foster intrinsic motivation and unforced participation. That's why it's not that hard for me to make the gaming analogy. The gulf isn't as vast as you would attempt to describe it.


Edit: Just finishing up...


Edited, Dec 5th 2012 3:24pm by ChaChaJaJa

That was post of the month, for me: the rare, lengthy post that isn't simply a misguided rant.

I specifically said that I am not a lawyer; I'm a consultant. My background is in education--I have for many years and always will consider myself an educator, but I am not currently a teacher. My doctorate is basically in educational game design, if that helps clarify.

<---Misguided rant.

I work in education as well, and let me say that's its a luxury where I work to make kids "get it."

Motivation aside, here we scrap by on low budgets, behavior problems, apathetic parents, scapegoated by frustrated taxpayers, an academic and out of touch district. So please forgive when anecdotally I can't relate to any analogies in here.

It is our job to create that motivation, despite these odds, so in one sense I agree with Kachi that it's apples to oranges.

As far as motivation and gaming I can only really speak for myself. I prefer to play solo most of the time. FFXI while soloing (especially soloing AF) with DRG and NIN were some of the most exciting and challenging battles I have ever been in, including offline games as well. Managing adds in a good group also was exciting.

In these sorts of trials, no one knew I was a superman. I had no gear, despite the AF I solo'ed, showed that I was a skilled player.

Heck, just like a straight A student who copies or has their friends do their work for them, or buys their gear, or tags along on dungeon runs and ninjas gear. You can look the part, but not actually be the part.

I want a game where I can feel like a superman through skill, and if the gear comes, then it comes.

No, game at least MMO awards pure skill, and I don't think it ever has. Time, gear, and repetition and not being a moron, was all that was required to run instances.

The absolute quickest and first guilds/linkshells had to have some skill above the average player, perhaps, but you still need to make content accessible.

Some kids will always be C students. It may not be their bag. They may even try their hardest to get C's, but most of them still have a good time and some times their your boss.

Some kids are 7' tall and get scholarships from bouncing a ball around.

I like to solo, and "work" for something (in game) only if that something is worth working for. That motivation is always immediate, and almost always overlapping with other goals.

There needs to be content for all of them and a system that rewards skill; not just time and repetition.

Again this is a misguided rant so I'll end with this:

I really liked FFXII's battle system. I like the ability to macro things; to micro manage; if I choose. Sometimes I like to bash buttons. I didn't really mind FFXIII-2's battle system either; it seemed to fix some of the problems that XIII had. I liked GW2 battle system, like I said in another post, but it didn't provide a ramping up challenge like FFXI did.

In an RPG or MMO, you're always going to fight less powerful monsters to level and more powerful monsters to get the best gear. Give the option for some to solo a little more powerful monster for a little better gear, or give the option to kill a crazy amount of lower level guys for a little better gear.

Then again, if the game is sufficiently challenging and fun, then gear is irrelevant. Rewarding people for doing well when they are already having fun is well, called playing in the NBA.

Eh, not hostility. Annoyance, but not hostility. It came off rougher than I meant it to. One thing you have to realize Kachi is that sometimes when people post their opinions, they don't really want to debate them. I never said "everyone must see the world in this way", I was saying "this is the world through my lens."
And I don't mind discussion, but and then you type a 1000 word rebuttal to my post... That's not discussion. That's you trying to say "you're wrong and here's why you're wrong". That's you being an "internet lawyer." And you basically do it to everyone who posts. The majority of what you post on these forums in general has the overall tone of "I don't mean to be rude but what you are saying is incorrect and I'll prove it to you because I'm really smart." Maybe you don't intend it, but it's what happens. Once again, only my opinion. But I'm entitled to my opinion. And you can't beat it out of me with manifestos.



This one I'm going to address because it pisses me off. And I'm going to clarify how I'm reading it so I don't accidentally take you out of context. I'm going to keep it in the realm of education because the analogy to gaming won't hold up here.

I am a high school Physics Teacher. My primary job is not to teach Physics. Some people may react to this by saying "wait... what?". But any good high school teacher realizes that their content is actually the secondary curriculum. I am the last science teacher these kids see before going to college. It's my job to set the bar higher than they've ever seen it and when they say "that's too high" I don't lower it. I don't "Blame" anyone. But I do call things as I see them. That's just how I am in life. I have a college education. I know what it takes to get a degree. Those kids do not. I say at least once a week "I'd rather have you leave here hating me and go on to succeed then have you leave here loving me and be unprepared for what's next." It's my job to call them out. I AM a "results-oriented" professional, but my "results" are making better students. Thoughtful, hard-working students who are responsible and self disciplined. Kids who can go on to be successful. If I can help facilitate that, then I've done my job. I am hard on the kids, but I do it with love. And they appreciate it. I am a popular teacher, not because my class is easy but because I am clearly invested in what I do. And they take me seriously when I say "this isn't good enough, you can do better." They value my opinion.

You may think that calling someone lazy is blaming them. But if they are lazy, I see it as being the honest voice they need to help them self-evaluate and contrary to your "red herring" comment, it actually opens the door to improvement. Because the things that needs improving are the attitudes and habits of the student. I tell them what they need to fix, and then I show them how to fix it. And I've had enough students thank me for it after the fact to know that it's energy well spent.

Sadly, in an MMO you can't say to people "try harder" because it really is about recreation, and not self-improvement. But think for a moment (in keeping with my original example)- was FFXI really that hard? The only "hard" part was navigating time sinks. On the whole the game was pretty easy, and IMO pretty damn fun. My fear is that ARR will be so "casual" that the sense of challenge is lost entirely. I took two jobs to 50 in a matter of like 3 weeks. Their was no gear progression. In XI, I spent months getting BST to 75. And I didn't mind. I saw the whole damn world leveling that job up. It was fun. I can list about 500 other examples but there's actually not much point. In reality, it's just my opinion. I don't need to be right about anything.

I have a lot of opinions, I enjoy sharing them, and I don't have a problem disagreeing with people. Having said that, I'm not one to be upset by someone disagreeing with me as long as they do it respectfully. That doesn't mean they have to like me or be supportive of what I have to say, either. Believe me, I am the authority on my own shortcomings.

Typing out my response is just how I work out what I think about the issue, and frankly it's 90% for me. That's why the "manifestos." Not because I think you need or anyone else needs to be convinced by me... if that were the case, I would try to present a concise and persuasive argument. Like 99% of the posts on this forum, I'm just posting what I think and if anyone cares to comment, I might comment back if I feel like it.

I figure most people don't care what I have to say, and that's fine. I have to gather that the one's who don't like the way I post, but read it anyway, are the ones who really wish they were the kind of person who could just ignore what some random guy on the internet says, but can't, and that frustrates them.



I don't really disagree with anything you've said there, and don't really see how it disagrees with what I've said, either. So maybe we're just talking past each other a bit.



Was FFXI really that hard? It depended on what you wanted to do. To me, it's very "hard" to do something that isn't fun for very long periods of time during my recreational hours just to get a piece of equipment that makes me do .5% more damage. See, for you, that was fun enough (and BST is a good job for that). It provided the necessary stimulation to retain your engagement. For many players, it didn't. And that's what I'm driving at. In both gaming and in education, the goal is to promote engagement. And in both, there is no "one size fits all" approach, as you've probably heard a thousand times. What I'm trying to demonstrate is that there isn't this inherent conflict of interest between the lazy and the hardworking. That's the old-school view of motivation--emphasizing the extrinsic motivators. It's the stuff that falls in between the grades and the rewards that really determines engagement, and that includes decent challenges. The stuff that fell between the rewards in FFXI was boring! And if you messed up, you were punished for it with more boredom.

That's why people complained-- not because it was too hard, but because it was boring. People don't tend to get that upset when they lose against a boss in a video game if they can jump right back into things. But when they have to spend hours assembling a functioning party, spend lots of hard-earned gil, and recoup lost XP from death... then they get frustrated with how "hard" it is. Because all of that stuff was boring, and now they have to do even more of it. And again, I think you find a lot of the same in education. Kids can deal with a challenge. At the very least, they can learn to deal with failures easily enough with the right encouragement. But nobody handles boredom well except for the very-easily-stimulated.

I can't speak for everyone. But what I want in a combat system is fluidity, precision, knowledge, strategy, precognition, and non gimmick visibillity in some shape or form. If a game offers me that in combat, the speed or whether it's Auto attack or not matters not to me.

Fluidity: When I press a button, equip a gear, string a pattern of button presses, perform a move, perform synergistic moves with others, etc. The game recognizes this and the effect is determined by the cause. If something fails it is because I or a teammate failed to execute mentally and physically, not fail due to the system itself.There is a grace underlying the whole process, a song and dance where harmony converges.

Precision: A system beyond pressing a button whenever and watching an animation fire off. One that requires me to know my position, teamates positions, position of the enemy, the danger zones, the neccessity of using a skill at a precise moment in time to maximize the effect. What string of personal or synergistic skills are the best option to preread, maximize, or lessen the endured effect in a given situation. Perhaps a modifier, where I hold a button down and it charges or builds. And the desired effect is determined on when I release this button. Will my blow be a critical? Will my blow be a status inducing affair? Will my blow setup an opportunity for a teammate to capitalize on? How much momentum will It take to tear that horn off the dragons head? Will my spell focus on range? Will my spell focus on potency? Will my spell focus on mp conservation? Will my spell mix with another casters spell and become a force of nature much more powerful than when cast on it's own with no synergy? How many fire casts will it take to wear down the armor of this particular foe? A game that requires you play smarter, is kind of lenient in the beginning. But in the latter stages makes you want to murder babies. Not because it was unresponsive but because you failed. Screw how fast it is, give me precision. Take too long thinking about things and your hesitation breeds obliteration to your cause.

Knowledge: If i read up on or practice on an enemy. I learn what it takes to increase my chance of dominating the foe or foes.

Strategy: I take that knowledge and apply it but if someone has a better proven strategy. I consider it and take their track record into account. I would hope that SE creates monsters with a wide and diverse tendency/trait. And that nothing can ever be beat by brute force or spamming a single button over and over. Or at the very least, team coordination always trumps that method in terms of efficiency.

Precognition and Non gimmick visibility: A clear visible indicator of what the foe is fixing to do. No gamey UI that tells you how much hate you have, the monster is fixing to cast meteor, etc. I think Tera was doing this but I never played it so I can't comment on that. This might be argued that gamey stuff is good or better or that 3rd party apps would do this anyway. Or they might say have it as an option and you choose whether or not to use it. I'd agree to an extent on their points being valid.Social conditioning would rear it's ugly head trying to make you conform or be left at arms lengths in the hardcore community. Humans by nature tend to want the easier more efficient path to things. I'd agree in lots of cases. Where would society be if we didn't use and appreciate technology as it came to be?

But at the same time in my opinion at least. Sometimes techology might remove some of the wonder and fear of the unknown. Imagine a day in the future where technology advances so much. That many of the things just become instant, automated, or infused inside us where we no longer have to do much of anything manually or physically. Think of a food you want to eat and it appears perfectly cooked and prepared in seconds in front of your eyes. Want sex? Imagine your dream girl and one is fabricated in the flesh to do your bidding. A subservient being or entity that is exactly tailored to your needs. It might seem cool at first but I reckon it will become boring pretty quick.

Anyways, I went way off course towards the end there. And I think I'm going to get alot of ridicule or harsh replies. I don't give a fu%$. I said what I wanted to say and look forward to reading more in this thread. Have a great day everyone!