So much tension and all this before we have any confirmation on how this issue will be handled in game. I read about 65% of this thread which I think was enough to conclude that Equinox is against people being able to examine another player's gear without their permission (not trying to call you out, or flame you, just noting that it appears that you are championing the side of hidden gear).
Among the points raised for being opposed to gear visibility is the concept of players with non-cookie-cutter/-mainstream/-uber gear having their game experience negatively affected. This is a bunch of worry and stress over nothing. Allow me to ramble.
Some people act like assholes in life and in online games. Diablo III is supposed to have cooperative online PvE. If the people you are playing with don't have any interest in cooperating with and helping you and the team move forward in the game and/or as characters, simply don't play with them! If someone joins a game, sees that another player has what is in their opinion sub-optimal gear and then leaves: that's great, now nobody has to play with that jerk! Also, trolls will give everyone shit for nothing; it's just something to expect when one enters the interwebs. I don't advocate putting up with them, instead, avoid them.
Lots of fuckwits play online games. Blizzard appears to have already taken away a number of ways that they can be obnoxious (separating PvE from PvP, for example). I really think that hiding gear for the sake of avoiding discrimination, rudeness, etc. is bizarre especially in a "mature" game for adults. If someone is so shallow, stupid, and close-minded that they wouldn't try to participate in cooperative play with someone because the person had "bad gear," I would so much rather figure that out before I started playing with them. Why not let those who aren't going to be fun people to play with naturally select themselves? Hiding one's gear so that one has the opportunity to spend more time playing with dicks is kinda silly...
It appears that in playing through normal and maybe nightmare, the difficulty will be such that suboptimal or even crappy gear will be just fine. Even if one is forced to play with random strangers, it shouldn't be impossible to then make friends with the people who are there to have fun and treat people nicely. With millions of players and good fansites like diablofans with genuine people who are there to enjoy the game and help everyone out, a normal person shouldn't find it impossible to find up to 3 others who can act and treat others like adults and enjoy playing a video game together...
To summarize, something which could potentially allow assholes to reveal themselves earlier than they otherwise would is not necessarily bad on the basis of that trait.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
All science is either physics or stamp collecting.
- Ernest Rutherford
One has to wonder... which are the "cookie-cutters" skill builds when there are 97 million options per class?
If we turn gaming history's clock back, it's been pretty evident that most gamers prefer to be told how to become leet haxor, without having to iterate themselves. It's human nature to follow the path of least resistance in order to obtain your goal.
Now, I'm fine with sharing gear, as long as I have the option to turn that visibility off. But allowing people to snoop my builds is where I draw the line. Why? Two reasons.
1. I want to PvP, and if my opponent knows my build, I've just lost an important competitive advantage. Hopefully everyone will agree with that.
But more importantly,
2. Precisely because there are so many build possibilities. If more experienced gamers allow the less experienced to actually learn how to build chars, rather than just telling them where to put points so they can be like Mike (teach a man to fish vs. give a man a fish, respectively), two things will happen: first, more of the 96 quadrillion builds will be examined, adding variance and replayability to the game; second, those gamers who would have just copy/pasted a min-max build, and thus would remain dilettantes in D3, would instead feel more ownership of their character(s) and thus be more immersed in the game for longer. That difference in experience adds life and longevity to the Diablo universe, and I think we can all agree that's a good thing.
Don't get me wrong.. I plan to talk about my builds with other players constantly! I just want to do it on my terms, so that less experienced gamers can at least have the chance to grow and learn.
It's like a parent that refuses to let their child take chances, make mistakes, or fail. Ultimately it's bad for the kid, because you learn the most from making mistakes yourself. They weren't allowed learn how to make choices, adapt, and be successful in life.. they just wait for someone else to do everything for them, because that's all they know. Then they wake up one day and think to themselves, "Who the fuck amI, and what am I doing with my life?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions."
-Thomas Jefferson
I stated mine. You were the one who challenged them. I replied to you with what you replied to me, you sure you don't want to come back and read your posts?
Now you're turning this into a pissing contest with your "I'm Masters on professional team ya-ya-ya".
And calling me a troll on my home turf? Good luck with that.
That can't be slowed down. You take it out of the game they just make skill calculators and guides, or even gear calculators like I've seen for a lot of games. Taking it out of the game will just encourage people to go to fan sites to look for it. (yay for us? :P)
With a 4 player only game, it'll be a lot less effective actually to go through games looking at people's builds than it would be to just go online. Especially if there is an armory feature.
I don't think the amount of players makes a difference. If I come in a game and I see someone doing well I'll record what they did.
I really think that hiding gear for the sake of avoiding discrimination, rudeness, etc. is bizarre especially in a "mature" game for adults. If someone is so shallow, stupid, and close-minded that they wouldn't try to participate in cooperative play with someone because the person had "bad gear," I would so much rather figure that out before I started playing with them.
Maybe you should play WoW and see how it is in there.
I was also at times amazed by the pure... amount... of players with that mentality. Let's just say it's about 80% of the playerbase. As much as I would love to add 80% of the playerbase to an ignore list, it's probably not that big. And if I have to exclude that many people I may as well not play Coop at all, which is probably not great for Blizzard. Going into a game and having to ignore and ignore and ignore (this happens to me all the time in WoW, the people I get in instances are just awful), why even bother at that point. If they don't know what I'm doing we can at least normally play because most people won't notice your spec is "wrong" just from you playing.
In fact, inspect/armory features is what makes it so bad. If you add it, the amount of people who care increases drastically. It's just a sociology issue.
I HAVE to play with dicks who else is out there?
Yeah, I can get a few people from dfans but knowing how these things go chances are they won't be online all the time.
To summarize, something which could potentially allow assholes to reveal themselves earlier than they otherwise would is not necessarily bad on the basis of that trait.
To summarize, inspect features turn people who are neutral into dicks way too often.
I've never seen WoW's negativity in other games even building games due to gear/spec and I think it has a lot to do with inspections/armory. I've also never seen people speaking on other forums and then going "oh you are speaking on an alt we shouldn't listen to you" or "your gear sucks we shouldn't listen to you".
I've never seen WoW's negativity in other games even building games due to gear/spec and I think it has a lot to do with inspections/armory. I've also never seen people speaking on other forums and then going "oh you are speaking on an alt we shouldn't listen to you" or "your gear sucks we shouldn't listen to you".
This. I saw it all too often in WoW, both forums and in-game. It's like your words aren't judged by their content, they're judged by what gear you're wearing, and LOL you're destro? should be affl.
At one point I was apparently number 1 most geared on my server (by those laughable rating sites), and people started INCESSANTLY inspecting me, whispering me in-game asking "hey dud wherd u get that gear" or "hey man can I have a gud sword?" or "hey can I have 10g" or "hey, dual me, dual me dude dual me i bet i can kill u." All because the inspect feature turns a game into a dog and pony show.
But I did get to beat the hell out of plenty of smart-mouth kids who though they could beat a geared ass prot warrior in a duel. So that was good.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions."
-Thomas Jefferson
Get real, folks, the diablo you all knew is dead, a few years ago i said right here in this forum that D3 had a pretty good chance of being blizzard first bust (i was flamed to death ofc), and what you know, its not even beta and its already looking that way.
this thread for me serves only one purpose: to state and protect my opinion, irregardless of any company decisions.
not a word! this 'word' is kind of a pet peeve of mine, sorry.
Haha, I hate that too. From "Grammar Girl" :
Some people mistakenly use irregardless when they mean “regardless.” Regardless means “regard less,” “without regard,” or despite something. For example, Squiggly will eat chocolate regardless of the consequences.
The prefix ir- (i-r) is a negative prefix, so if you add the prefix ir to a word that's already negative like regardless, you're making a double-negative word that literally means “without without regard.”
Language experts speculate that irregardless comes from a combination of the words regardless and irrespective and that another reason people might say "irregardless" is that they are following the pattern of words like irregular and irreplaceable. But regardless already has the -less suffix on the end, so it's not like those other words.
I'm secretly hoping that my off-topic grammar douchery will kill this thread.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions."
-Thomas Jefferson
It has nothing, NOTHING to do with new players whatsoever. Nobody gives a crap about new players. It's entirely for pros and people who watch them. If you think any of this is for new players you're kidding yourself.
I really wish that were true. But having a single +attack stat for increasing magic and physical damage speaks volumes to the contrary in my estimation.
But having a single +attack stat for increasing magic and physical damage speaks volumes to the contrary in my estimation.
I think that's made for the min maxers.
I am not talking about bad players. I'm talking about _new_ players. Generally, they're left to their own devices while dumb players are supported.
An interesting viewpoint, tailor made to those who want to get every stat maxed, you mean that it's one less stat you have to worry about getting all the way up? I hadn't thought of that.
I think it might... I'll take this to another thread.
More on topic, I think 2 mechanisms are required to keep everyone happy.
Firstly there needs to exist inside of the options screen a drop down menu labeled "Player Inspect" with 3 choices:
Off (No inspecting of your characters without your permission including on any "D3 Armory" feature)
On (Everyone can inspect you at will)
Friends only (Players on your friends list can inspect you at will)
And secondary when either the Off or Friends only options are selected, Inspection can still be offered to non-allowed individuals. But only via an offer originating from the player being inspected, sort of a reverse inspection. In stead of an obnoxious box appearing and shouting at you "Please let me inspect you!" the only way to inspect someone from whom you do not have permission is for them to offer it to you.
This reversal of the proposed "inspection invite" system would remove the annoyance of people being able to spam you with request for inspections, while still allowing you to show off your build without mucking about with your settings.
This reversal of the proposed "inspection invite" system would remove the annoyance of people being able to spam you with request for inspections, while still allowing you to show off your build without mucking about with your settings.
Why not just a build display tool ala EVE? (fits, currently you can't display EVE skills except through this website they made)
I was a new player for WoW.
I have not seen anywhere in WoW, anywhere, ANYWHERE a guide on how to tank.
I was also a new player in WoW and I learned all of that while playing the game. I guess it just comes down to if you'd rather have the information showed to you, or learn through experience.
The starting areas have become multiple times better, the quests have becomes easier, the classes have become smoother to level, the talent trees are less overwhelming. All of this is aimed at new players.
I was also a new player in WoW and I learned all of that while playing the game. I guess it just comes down to if you'd rather have the information showed to you, or learn through experience.
Is that why half the people PUGing heroics fail?
Learn through experience? WHAT experience? The only "experience" you may get is through going straight into an instance, it's like sticking a civilian on the battlefield.
The starting areas have become multiple times better, the quests have becomes easier, the classes have become smoother to level, the talent trees are less overwhelming. All of this is aimed at new players.
None of this has to do anything with the actual game.
Real game - trinity, tank, healer, DPS. That is not explained by the game in the slightest. In fact, the things you describe are kind of a problem. You don't need to understand anything at all to level from 1 to 8(5) and then you start doing instances and you're like "wtf". That's what happens with a lot of new players.
There's a very strong disconnect between WoW's leveling and WoW's instancing/endgame. So I would say it's adapted for casuals (who do not plan to end game) or for min-maxers (who will read 30 websites before doing anything), but for the new player who has no idea what the term "tank" means it's quite horrible.
That's the players fault. If you want to be a decent tank, you use a tank spec. If you want to heal, you use a healing spec. It may be slower but that's how you learn a spec. Having a leveling only spec slows you down in the end. Then when you get to dungeons it's like you are playing a whole new class. You can't do dungeon finder until 10 or 15 now I can't remember, and that's how you should learn the game, through practice and experience. How else would you learn how to tank for people?
If you want to be a decent tank, you use a tank spec.
You realize that tank is a counterintuitive concept and the logical way to advance your character in a non-trinity game is that of a balanced character, i.e., character effective in leveling?
that's how you should learn the game, through practice and experience. How else would you learn how to tank for people?
Throwing a person into a dungeon with the "tank" label is a horrible learning experience. For all intents and purposes, it's pretty much useless. You won't tank well if you don't know what a Taunt is, or what Threat is, or why does the healer matter, or why are the DPS made of paper. And if you do learn from it, you will do so incredibly slowly and painfully. I don't call that learning.
Furthermore, nobody forces people into dungeons or presents dungeon mechanics in quests or tutorials, so people may never even hear about them until they hit level 85 and go "huh what now what are these instance thingies?"
No offense, but you're talking exactly like a min-maxer or a raider typically talks, thinking anyone who doesn't understand a playstyle they have NEVER seen instantenously is an idiot, so I really don't think you qualify as a new player at all.
While it's true that in many games the terms "tank", "healer", "dps" aren't very clear while leveling, there are always instances for lower levels aswell. It's the player's choice to actually try them or not. Just as it's the player's choice to do that in end-game. I'm not sure how it got so off-topic, however, wasn't this thread about the "inspect" feature?
Among the points raised for being opposed to gear visibility is the concept of players with non-cookie-cutter/-mainstream/-uber gear having their game experience negatively affected. This is a bunch of worry and stress over nothing. Allow me to ramble.
Some people act like assholes in life and in online games. Diablo III is supposed to have cooperative online PvE. If the people you are playing with don't have any interest in cooperating with and helping you and the team move forward in the game and/or as characters, simply don't play with them! If someone joins a game, sees that another player has what is in their opinion sub-optimal gear and then leaves: that's great, now nobody has to play with that jerk! Also, trolls will give everyone shit for nothing; it's just something to expect when one enters the interwebs. I don't advocate putting up with them, instead, avoid them.
Lots of fuckwits play online games. Blizzard appears to have already taken away a number of ways that they can be obnoxious (separating PvE from PvP, for example). I really think that hiding gear for the sake of avoiding discrimination, rudeness, etc. is bizarre especially in a "mature" game for adults. If someone is so shallow, stupid, and close-minded that they wouldn't try to participate in cooperative play with someone because the person had "bad gear," I would so much rather figure that out before I started playing with them. Why not let those who aren't going to be fun people to play with naturally select themselves? Hiding one's gear so that one has the opportunity to spend more time playing with dicks is kinda silly...
It appears that in playing through normal and maybe nightmare, the difficulty will be such that suboptimal or even crappy gear will be just fine. Even if one is forced to play with random strangers, it shouldn't be impossible to then make friends with the people who are there to have fun and treat people nicely. With millions of players and good fansites like diablofans with genuine people who are there to enjoy the game and help everyone out, a normal person shouldn't find it impossible to find up to 3 others who can act and treat others like adults and enjoy playing a video game together...
To summarize, something which could potentially allow assholes to reveal themselves earlier than they otherwise would is not necessarily bad on the basis of that trait.
- Ernest Rutherford
If we turn gaming history's clock back, it's been pretty evident that most gamers prefer to be told how to become leet haxor, without having to iterate themselves. It's human nature to follow the path of least resistance in order to obtain your goal.
Now, I'm fine with sharing gear, as long as I have the option to turn that visibility off. But allowing people to snoop my builds is where I draw the line. Why? Two reasons.
1. I want to PvP, and if my opponent knows my build, I've just lost an important competitive advantage. Hopefully everyone will agree with that.
But more importantly,
2. Precisely because there are so many build possibilities. If more experienced gamers allow the less experienced to actually learn how to build chars, rather than just telling them where to put points so they can be like Mike (teach a man to fish vs. give a man a fish, respectively), two things will happen: first, more of the 96 quadrillion builds will be examined, adding variance and replayability to the game; second, those gamers who would have just copy/pasted a min-max build, and thus would remain dilettantes in D3, would instead feel more ownership of their character(s) and thus be more immersed in the game for longer. That difference in experience adds life and longevity to the Diablo universe, and I think we can all agree that's a good thing.
Don't get me wrong.. I plan to talk about my builds with other players constantly! I just want to do it on my terms, so that less experienced gamers can at least have the chance to grow and learn.
It's like a parent that refuses to let their child take chances, make mistakes, or fail. Ultimately it's bad for the kid, because you learn the most from making mistakes yourself. They weren't allowed learn how to make choices, adapt, and be successful in life.. they just wait for someone else to do everything for them, because that's all they know. Then they wake up one day and think to themselves, "Who the fuck am I, and what am I doing with my life?
-Thomas Jefferson
Now you're turning this into a pissing contest with your "I'm Masters on professional team ya-ya-ya".
And calling me a troll on my home turf? Good luck with that.
I think that's wonderful.
I don't think the amount of players makes a difference. If I come in a game and I see someone doing well I'll record what they did.
Why do you people have to say this instead of just admitting the simple fact that opinions differ?
Maybe you should play WoW and see how it is in there.
I was also at times amazed by the pure... amount... of players with that mentality. Let's just say it's about 80% of the playerbase. As much as I would love to add 80% of the playerbase to an ignore list, it's probably not that big. And if I have to exclude that many people I may as well not play Coop at all, which is probably not great for Blizzard. Going into a game and having to ignore and ignore and ignore (this happens to me all the time in WoW, the people I get in instances are just awful), why even bother at that point. If they don't know what I'm doing we can at least normally play because most people won't notice your spec is "wrong" just from you playing.
In fact, inspect/armory features is what makes it so bad. If you add it, the amount of people who care increases drastically. It's just a sociology issue.
I HAVE to play with dicks who else is out there?
Yeah, I can get a few people from dfans but knowing how these things go chances are they won't be online all the time.
To summarize, inspect features turn people who are neutral into dicks way too often.
I've never seen WoW's negativity in other games even building games due to gear/spec and I think it has a lot to do with inspections/armory. I've also never seen people speaking on other forums and then going "oh you are speaking on an alt we shouldn't listen to you" or "your gear sucks we shouldn't listen to you".
This. I saw it all too often in WoW, both forums and in-game. It's like your words aren't judged by their content, they're judged by what gear you're wearing, and LOL you're destro? should be affl.
At one point I was apparently number 1 most geared on my server (by those laughable rating sites), and people started INCESSANTLY inspecting me, whispering me in-game asking "hey dud wherd u get that gear" or "hey man can I have a gud sword?" or "hey can I have 10g" or "hey, dual me, dual me dude dual me i bet i can kill u." All because the inspect feature turns a game into a dog and pony show.
But I did get to beat the hell out of plenty of smart-mouth kids who though they could beat a geared ass prot warrior in a duel. So that was good.
-Thomas Jefferson
Being able to see the gear, can be interesting for pvp if there's some sort of league/tournament implemented.
It's like all those tutorials they keep putting into WoW which serve no purpose at all.
Haha, I hate that too. From "Grammar Girl" :
I'm secretly hoping that my off-topic grammar douchery will kill this thread.
-Thomas Jefferson
I really wish that were true. But having a single +attack stat for increasing magic and physical damage speaks volumes to the contrary in my estimation.
I am not talking about bad players. I'm talking about _new_ players. Generally, they're left to their own devices while dumb players are supported.
I think it might... I'll take this to another thread.
More on topic, I think 2 mechanisms are required to keep everyone happy.
Firstly there needs to exist inside of the options screen a drop down menu labeled "Player Inspect" with 3 choices:
And secondary when either the Off or Friends only options are selected, Inspection can still be offered to non-allowed individuals. But only via an offer originating from the player being inspected, sort of a reverse inspection. In stead of an obnoxious box appearing and shouting at you "Please let me inspect you!" the only way to inspect someone from whom you do not have permission is for them to offer it to you.
This reversal of the proposed "inspection invite" system would remove the annoyance of people being able to spam you with request for inspections, while still allowing you to show off your build without mucking about with your settings.
I have not seen anywhere in WoW, anywhere, ANYWHERE a guide on how to tank.
I've learned tanking through forums, friends, and websites, but not through the game. Why not just a build display tool ala EVE? (fits, currently you can't display EVE skills except through this website they made)
I was also a new player in WoW and I learned all of that while playing the game. I guess it just comes down to if you'd rather have the information showed to you, or learn through experience.
The starting areas have become multiple times better, the quests have becomes easier, the classes have become smoother to level, the talent trees are less overwhelming. All of this is aimed at new players.
Learn through experience? WHAT experience? The only "experience" you may get is through going straight into an instance, it's like sticking a civilian on the battlefield.
None of this has to do anything with the actual game.
Real game - trinity, tank, healer, DPS. That is not explained by the game in the slightest. In fact, the things you describe are kind of a problem. You don't need to understand anything at all to level from 1 to 8(5) and then you start doing instances and you're like "wtf". That's what happens with a lot of new players.
There's a very strong disconnect between WoW's leveling and WoW's instancing/endgame. So I would say it's adapted for casuals (who do not plan to end game) or for min-maxers (who will read 30 websites before doing anything), but for the new player who has no idea what the term "tank" means it's quite horrible.
You realize that tank is a counterintuitive concept and the logical way to advance your character in a non-trinity game is that of a balanced character, i.e., character effective in leveling?
Throwing a person into a dungeon with the "tank" label is a horrible learning experience. For all intents and purposes, it's pretty much useless. You won't tank well if you don't know what a Taunt is, or what Threat is, or why does the healer matter, or why are the DPS made of paper. And if you do learn from it, you will do so incredibly slowly and painfully. I don't call that learning.
Furthermore, nobody forces people into dungeons or presents dungeon mechanics in quests or tutorials, so people may never even hear about them until they hit level 85 and go "huh what now what are these instance thingies?"
No offense, but you're talking exactly like a min-maxer or a raider typically talks, thinking anyone who doesn't understand a playstyle they have NEVER seen instantenously is an idiot, so I really don't think you qualify as a new player at all.