Entertainer Archive
Thread: Healing XP slowing to a snail's pace?
Page 19 of 19
Kameckobe
Mon Jul 11, 2005 6:23 am
#235
So with no BF anymore this means one less skill the Jedi Healer tree has in an already weak Jedi tree. The Healer tree will really need to be revamped after this to add more value to it...
I will be looking forward to seeing more information on this subject and I will reserve my opinion until I see more details. I do have some concerns however that the game continues to be overly simplified as acost to balancing the game but do enjoy having the devs bounce ideas off us more(the more interaction the better). Balance is needed but not appriciated by the player base if it involves continuely nerfing everything to achieve that balance.
Awwww, poor J3d1...one tree you have is useless? 3 FRIGGIN PROFESSIONS ARE USELESS. And dont worry, you and you j3d1 buddies can go whine for 3 days and get your healing line replaced by some uber buff while our buffs are "coming soon"
Chessack
Mon Jul 11, 2005 11:32 am
#236
I hate to necropost but I just noticed this excellent comment by Beswa:
I have the answer for you... it seems to be the same all over. Pick your MMO, and it's all the same. City of Heroes -- Interaction == mission grouping. No other need for it. (No crafting, no healing, etc). DnD Online -- Interaction == quest grouping. No other need for it. (No crafting, no healing, etc) (that game is in development but that is how it sounds). And now SWG is doing the same thing.
It's amazing how important and yet neglected at the same time fundamental principles can be. The problem, from start to finish, with the CU and every other change, both major and minor, to this game since the current set of Devs took over, is that as a funadmental principle, their definition of interaction is the "mission group" or "quest group" -- i.e., the user-interface convenience of the "group." With this as your perspective, and not accepting any other form of interaction as "interaction", it is very easy to see why the changes made, were made.
For example, there's no real "big game" I can think of that takes, or has ever taken, double-digit numbers of people. So again, if your definition of interaction == "the quest group", then you would not see any reason to keep large 20-man teams in the game.
Similarly, if your definition of interaction == the quest group, you would consider App Points an un-necessary annoyance, because teaching someone is not a quest group activity and therefore does not count as interaction.
You'd also see no problem with putting loot drops in of items better than any crafter could make (Katarn knuckles anyone?), because after all, the loot drops are obtained by doing the one valid type of interaction (quest grouping) that you accept, and buying things from crafters does not count because it is not a quest group, so it is therefore not "interaction" as you are defining it.
By the same token you don't see any problem with "forced" or encouraged grouping because "this is an MMO -- it's all about interaction." You're impervious when people point out that getting healed or shopping from vendors is interaction because your definition of interaction == the quest or mission group, and if you are not mission grouped, you are not interacting.
And you'd see no reason why it matters that the med centers are empty and people can't get wounds healed, because sitting in a med center talking to a doc and being healed by him is not an interaction as you are defining it -- it's not a mission group. You'd say, "Hey docs get plenty of interaction" because they get their experience from, you guessed it, the mission group.
See how this works? The current batch of devs has a very narrow, almost Diablo-online style definition of interaction -- "the mission group" (and they are not alone; it's the SAME definition Cryptic uses for COH and Turbine apparently uses for DDO) -- and nothing else counts. So if they take all that other stuff (BF anyone?) out of the game, they don't think it's a problem because it doesn't count as an important interaction -- only the mission group does.
The game of course was designed from a totally different fundamental perspective, which was that there are many kinds of interactions, from image designers changing your hair style to entertainers and medics healing you, to chefs giving you food to buff yourself, to combat medics healing you in combat to, yes, the mission group. The mission group in this context was seen as a subset of the interaction types -- just ONE type -- not the be-all and end-all of interaction. In this design, as the game was envisioned, soloing is not a problem because there are other kinds of interactions to be had. Sure you might solo your missions, but after (or before) you do that, you have to interact with docs, entertainers, chefs, tailors, armorsmiths, weaponsmiths, etc, etc, etc.
Not anymore. They changed it -- they'd say, they "streamlined" it so you could "get into the action" better. But what really happened is, since they define interaction as "mission groups" what they did was, severely restrict the amount of "non-mission group interaction" you neeed to do, so you can get to (what is, in their opinion) the "important" type of interacting -- mission groups.
As long as the fundamental design principle implicitly calls for the mission group as THE interaction type, all other types won't just be ignored, they must be winnowed out and eliminated, because by definition, they slow down or restrict your mission group interactions (it slows down mission grouping to have to stop and get an ent heal, for instance).
This is the basic reason why the game has changed the way it has, and why interaction isn't a 10th of what it was on launch. The basic design of the original group that built this game was "there are lots of types of interactions and we want to support and encourage them all", and the current team's design philosophy is much more limited, to "mission groups == interactions == mission groups."
For my $15/month, I prefer the original design -- with all its flaws. I like all forms of interactions, not just mission grouping. And it's sad to see them all being, one by one, winnowed out of the game.
C
Beswa wrote:
It seems you are taking interaction out of the game ..
non existant shuttle waits
No need for camps to pull pets/bikes
No Apprentiship XP
8 insted of 20 in a group
No need to go to Med centers to heal wounds
and now no BF?
This is where people spoke to other toons the most as the rest of th etime they were out hunting, and what made the game much better then others of the same type. It was a aplayer driver game, now people are just out hunting all the time and there is very little if any PC interaction other than with th e4-5 people you are off hunting with.
I have the answer for you... it seems to be the same all over. Pick your MMO, and it's all the same. City of Heroes -- Interaction == mission grouping. No other need for it. (No crafting, no healing, etc). DnD Online -- Interaction == quest grouping. No other need for it. (No crafting, no healing, etc) (that game is in development but that is how it sounds). And now SWG is doing the same thing.
It's amazing how important and yet neglected at the same time fundamental principles can be. The problem, from start to finish, with the CU and every other change, both major and minor, to this game since the current set of Devs took over, is that as a funadmental principle, their definition of interaction is the "mission group" or "quest group" -- i.e., the user-interface convenience of the "group." With this as your perspective, and not accepting any other form of interaction as "interaction", it is very easy to see why the changes made, were made.
For example, there's no real "big game" I can think of that takes, or has ever taken, double-digit numbers of people. So again, if your definition of interaction == "the quest group", then you would not see any reason to keep large 20-man teams in the game.
Similarly, if your definition of interaction == the quest group, you would consider App Points an un-necessary annoyance, because teaching someone is not a quest group activity and therefore does not count as interaction.
You'd also see no problem with putting loot drops in of items better than any crafter could make (Katarn knuckles anyone?), because after all, the loot drops are obtained by doing the one valid type of interaction (quest grouping) that you accept, and buying things from crafters does not count because it is not a quest group, so it is therefore not "interaction" as you are defining it.
By the same token you don't see any problem with "forced" or encouraged grouping because "this is an MMO -- it's all about interaction." You're impervious when people point out that getting healed or shopping from vendors is interaction because your definition of interaction == the quest or mission group, and if you are not mission grouped, you are not interacting.
And you'd see no reason why it matters that the med centers are empty and people can't get wounds healed, because sitting in a med center talking to a doc and being healed by him is not an interaction as you are defining it -- it's not a mission group. You'd say, "Hey docs get plenty of interaction" because they get their experience from, you guessed it, the mission group.
See how this works? The current batch of devs has a very narrow, almost Diablo-online style definition of interaction -- "the mission group" (and they are not alone; it's the SAME definition Cryptic uses for COH and Turbine apparently uses for DDO) -- and nothing else counts. So if they take all that other stuff (BF anyone?) out of the game, they don't think it's a problem because it doesn't count as an important interaction -- only the mission group does.
The game of course was designed from a totally different fundamental perspective, which was that there are many kinds of interactions, from image designers changing your hair style to entertainers and medics healing you, to chefs giving you food to buff yourself, to combat medics healing you in combat to, yes, the mission group. The mission group in this context was seen as a subset of the interaction types -- just ONE type -- not the be-all and end-all of interaction. In this design, as the game was envisioned, soloing is not a problem because there are other kinds of interactions to be had. Sure you might solo your missions, but after (or before) you do that, you have to interact with docs, entertainers, chefs, tailors, armorsmiths, weaponsmiths, etc, etc, etc.
Not anymore. They changed it -- they'd say, they "streamlined" it so you could "get into the action" better. But what really happened is, since they define interaction as "mission groups" what they did was, severely restrict the amount of "non-mission group interaction" you neeed to do, so you can get to (what is, in their opinion) the "important" type of interacting -- mission groups.
As long as the fundamental design principle implicitly calls for the mission group as THE interaction type, all other types won't just be ignored, they must be winnowed out and eliminated, because by definition, they slow down or restrict your mission group interactions (it slows down mission grouping to have to stop and get an ent heal, for instance).
This is the basic reason why the game has changed the way it has, and why interaction isn't a 10th of what it was on launch. The basic design of the original group that built this game was "there are lots of types of interactions and we want to support and encourage them all", and the current team's design philosophy is much more limited, to "mission groups == interactions == mission groups."
For my $15/month, I prefer the original design -- with all its flaws. I like all forms of interactions, not just mission grouping. And it's sad to see them all being, one by one, winnowed out of the game.
C
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