I like to think that The issue is that there is to little to look forward to.
its not that the issue is some people get the sets and uniques, and some people dont, its that, that is all there is to get. and people notice. When people say I never get legendary items, it just seems like what they are saying is "I dont have a ring of royal grandeur. or thunderfury. or a one hander with 2400 DPS. or a maxim for my enchantress who is wearing a hellfire ring that I regret working for.
They are literally searching for the same pile of 5 or 10 items that the rest of the world is.
I think thats why this issue seems to really shine. because the pool of desirable items is so streamlined, and we know that the game would kill itself if it just gave those items to everyone, thats a no brainer.
Creating enough items to give everyone in the world their own individual set? obviously thats not really possible....
but that should not prevent new items from being created and released. and it should open the floodgates for new professions new character concepts and new items and most importantly new item interaction ideas.
their should be items that they fling into the game and dont even tell anyone about.
their should be uniques that can synergize with other uniques....I know I know....pure blasphemy
how many sets are their for Barb? IK set. oh. and Wichdoctor? Zunimassas. oh....so what 1 set or 2 per class? for the world? yup
well im gonna go ahead and say it. there should be more. the payoff for such and investment would be incredible I rekon...
They just put out a new expansion with new items. These things take time to develop. Will they add more legendaries to the game in the future? Yep. They've said as much. Will they add new sets with new interesting effects? I would put money on it. Some of them will probably even come without an expansion. Again,it's been two weeks.Give it time and you will see more stuff coming down the line. Who knows, maybe they have already put items into the game they didn't tell you about. Start looking
Lol I like your enthusiasm...!! cant wait for loads of new shit.....i have not bought the expansion yet and i am holding out for as long as possible...
Playing the Lottery is also RNG...doesnt mean you gonna win it. Ever.
Its a fucking Game, and without Rewards for 1000 Hours of playing, why go thru the hassle at all?
So noone ever wins the Lottery? Also you have played 1000s of hours of RoS? Enjoy the game for what it is. Item hunt, always has and always will be. Its the thrill of the hunt. What would happen if 2 weeks after the expansion you had every item you wanted, then you would complain there is nothing to do and quit playing.
I like to think that yes the item hunt drives us.
In D1 Id say I hunted rabbits
In D2 Id say I was given the opportunity to hunt rabbits and deer and the odd tiger.
In D3 I waited patiently thinking id get to hunt on a motherfucking African safari with a fucking spaceship.....but what it felt like was just deer after deer after deer. and the same ten lions that everyone else was hunting.
in short the "item hunt" in D1 was demolished by the item hunt in D2. the item hunt in D3 was supposed to demolish the D2 item hunt....but according to some people fell woefully short.
so while D3 is absolutely peppered with incredible features, it is also peppered with features that hold it back from really blasting to the moon.
D3 was supposed to be the item hunting trip of the fucking century, and it sure does not feel like it. at least certainly not for the first 2 fucking years of the games life which are arguably the most important.
does it feel like it today? well...im afraid to pay money to access the new wildlife preserve....I fear its just 8 million deer with bells around their necks......
but yes I totally agree and hope that the hunt in its ideal form without the junk holding it back...lasts a long long LONG time. that much is certain...
I like to think that The issue is that there is to little to look forward to.
its not that the issue is some people get the sets and uniques, and some people dont, its that, that is all there is to get. and people notice. When people say I never get legendary items, it just seems like what they are saying is "I dont have a ring of royal grandeur. or thunderfury. or a one hander with 2400 DPS. or a maxim for my enchantress who is wearing a hellfire ring that I regret working for.
They are literally searching for the same pile of 5 or 10 items that the rest of the world is.
I think thats why this issue seems to really shine. because the pool of desirable items is so streamlined, and we know that the game would kill itself if it just gave those items to everyone, thats a no brainer.
Creating enough items to give everyone in the world their own individual set? obviously thats not really possible....
but that should not prevent new items from being created and released. and it should open the floodgates for new professions new character concepts and new items and most importantly new item interaction ideas.
their should be items that they fling into the game and dont even tell anyone about.
their should be uniques that can synergize with other uniques....I know I know....pure blasphemy
how many sets are their for Barb? IK set. oh. and Wichdoctor? Zunimassas. oh....so what 1 set or 2 per class? for the world? yup
well im gonna go ahead and say it. there should be more. the payoff for such and investment would be incredible I rekon...
while it would be extremely easy to read your post and say something along the lines of:
"oh that would not work because something something set items blah blah to plentiful........."
it would be a stupid reply. Any post, like yours above, in my opinion is awesome and should, alongside the countless other similar posts, fuel the fire of intrigue. Sadly they never get the chance. And its due to players and developers and forum posters all extinguishing these fires and saying that they do so for the good of the game and in the name of proper and reputable game design.
They smash peoples Ideas on the rocks. or just leave them to die. just because they can pick something about the idea that they don't like or might not pan out....and that's the end of hope.
Instead, and we can use Kadala as an example, We get one fat bitch drawn onto the landscape, with 1 window of items with just a handful of item types to choose from all of which will be a mix of a seemingly small list of properties.....using a boiled down pool of statistics....and every one just leaps out the window with 40 bucks in their teeth begging for it....
so please id love to hear more about what you think and what Ideas you can come up with.
from what I have heard, lowering the difficulty to begin with is at times a wise choice when hitting level 70. the move up into the torment layers is not as quick as one might anticipate.
your blend of stats is VERY high healing and toughness with comparatively low damage.
id start by lowering the difficulty, farming a bunch of crap at a mediocre pace, and at the same time check out other peoples profiles to see what stat mixes deliver what types of results.....then go kill kill monsters and fight for fun, and spend gold one what you will soon know, rather than spending gold to learn...
The list of what is wrong with weapons and items is lengthy and embarrassing to say the least.
blue mighty belts and quivers....have been a running joke among players since the game was released...and are yet again being looked into for dropping to often...
2 handed weapons have been bombarded with issues since as far back as I remember...just issue after issue that makes them as unrewarding as can be....
End game sets are a complete joke. There is one set per class and many of those pieces are completely ignored by players.....the off class sets are ridiculous. they are not fun or intriguing in anyway....did they add class sets in RoS? I'm not even sure....
It's just example after example of the entire player-base is after "this item" and "these stats" regardless of class or "build"...which sucks big time.
and these several dozen items are virtually unused in the game by anyone, anywhere...which also sucks.
literally hundreds of items painstakingly designed consuming hundreds of hours of a professional artists or programmers time.......and thrown in the trash by players. literally left right where they fell....INSTANTLY worthless....almost 100% of the time.....
an now today? post expansion? many legendary items are just items with bumped up stats....many 2 handed weapons are not build inspiring and that list of gripes is ALSO long.......
They should be thankful that players actually want to right the ship....
It's really sad to see a game with such beautiful graphics and such seamless game-play not to mention the other aspects of the game that are jaw dropping continue to drop items that actually anger and discourage players....and its sad that a portion of that anger and discouragement are legitimate....
when I read about a playerfrustratedabout crap legendary items or infrequent legendary items.... I don't think "oh he just mad that he don't see that beam of lightoften enough....."
I just think about to the issues in the game thatplagueitems....of which there are several.....
lol.....I cant believe this is still an issue....sorry about your luck over you know...getting a....... legendary.......two handed weapon.......for set that probably has a bugged set bonus........
I think you're right there is a good mix of mud in the math of D3. Certainly not a crazy shortage...thank fucking christ....
reading how you've highlighted that theorycrafting generally meshes better with games that can command more of a players' time? that makes sense.....
how messing around with the visible numbers could very well be harmful to the overall reception of the game? yep im inclined to agree with that as well.
if we examine these specific applications its easier to come to an agreement.
my posts seem to stretch out to the edges of what has been created or experienced so far...citing very niche games, niches scenarios to describe a large looming way of admiring complex games from a damp basement. It's hard to really deny about 95% the specifics of your last post.
How crazy you bring up Steam; what I love about steam is when I scan through its catalogue It appears the floodgates have been blasted open for RPGS of all shapes and sizes.....enough strategy games to make me vomit.......8 bit roguelikes popping up like tulips........
In WoW I was absolutely furious about shaman's Windfury having a hidden cooldown. to my recollection it was kind of shoehorned into the game at somepoint in TBC, when I began playing long after 2 hand Enhancement fighters ran roughshod over the battle grounds with that particular skill.......My stance on that topic was why the fuck would they not reveal that info alongside the probably hundreds of other skills in game where it was listed? lol there was no trace of elitism in that situation....
The change I was referring to was the change of removing some of the existing calculations from the game, proposed in Shaggys thought exercise.
I feel that the amount of people who would admire or be in support of such a change would be very low in number compared to the amount of people who would prefer either keeping the calculations we have now or even those who categorically wish for even more calculations. and that last group I feel could be split again (people who long for more updated and accurate calculations and a group who wants NEW calculations providing new information)
I feel that each of those 3 groups wouldSTILL outnumber the first group of people who might be classified as "hardcore ruthless number geeks"
All of the Diablo websites and spreadsheets and armor charts and strategy guides, I looked at and the ones I created for Final Fantasy 3 exist because of want. not because of need.
Don't get me wrong, that stuff is GOOD and I greatly respect your past as a gamer and why that colors your present. But there has to be some kind of moderation. Ceasing your play session for 30 minutes to go look up some WD builds? Not an issue to me. Having to pull out a spreadsheet every time you find an item because you cannot tell if it's an upgrade or not? Major issue to me.
One is not very disruptive and can be considered "educating" oneself. The other is alt-tabbing to put the SAME numbers into an online calculator/spreadsheet to spit out a number that is necessary for your understanding of the game but that the UI doesn't provide. What do people actually gain from that? Disjointed gameplay? The feeling that they're copying numbers from the in-game interface into a website or spreasheet to get values that they need to make decisions but aren't supplied?
A basic tenant of game design is that players should be presented with all the information they need to make decisions WITHIN the game. WoW had this problem, and still does to a large degree. How would anyone EVER know what buttons to press in which order without going to a 3rd party site and reading about it? That doesn't give the average player a sense of accomplishment. It gives them this sense of overwhelming failure when they realize they've been playing the game "wrong" for months.
This is actually why they're removing reforging in WoW. Reforging is a lot like enchanting, but you can only move 40% of a stat as a tradeoff for being allowed to select the "destination" stat without randomization. Most people used websites and in-game addons to basically automate this process. It didn't make them any "smarter" than anyone else. All it did was make them aware of a resource that would go through all the permutations for them. It didn't actually add "depth" to the game despite greatly increasing complexity. It simply increased the number of resources you needed. If you weren't using a website or addon to do your reforging you were playing sub-optimally. Your skill had nothing to do with it. Your ability to find a resource that did the calculations for you was what made you a "better" player. To me that kind of thing MUST be avoided.
Thought exercise:
Would it be better if Blizzard removed the damage stat and you had to plug in your MH/OH damage, primary stat, weapon APS, IAS from non-weapon items, crit chance, critical hit damage bonus, and paragon bonuses into a spreadsheet just to find the stat we currently call "damage?" Or would that be considered "tedious" and a distraction from gameplay?
If you answered "yes" would it then be better if the UI didn't even sum these things and you had to enter them on a per-item basis?
What I'm trying to understand is what level of number-crunching has to be done EXTERNALLY for the game to be considered hardcore enough for everyone? Why does the number-crunching have to be done by a spreadsheet or website and why can't it be done by the UI? Ultimately I cannot wrap my head around why these stats have to be "muddied" by not being displayed on the in-game UI so that people can just make a spreadsheet that (unofficially) does the same damned calculations and spits out an answer. Why is it so evil if information is presented by the UI but so "awesome" if the same information is presented by a website/spreadsheet?
fuck me, im trying to answer this is as streamlined a fashion as possible LOL..
its taken all morning......:P
Lets try some bullet points.
- To answer your question? No I do not think it is better if you make players hope outside the game to do math is better. in that very specific request I am indifferent either way, however I feel that removing those calculations you mentioned would be a very drastic move hated by many more people than it might impress.
- The group of people who would support or desire such a change is alarmingly small. I think we are almost in the same boat here. you mentioned you appreciate the "research side" of things as do I. I agree that these decisions about layering in more math must be made very carefully as you say.
But I feel its really hard to pick a fucking stance as you mentioned in posts prior :P:P
The only stance I can pick will only be a personal preference. I can't assert that it is correct, nor accept that it is incorrect according to some universal rule (no matter how likely, heavily adopted or convenient) or pillar of video game design lore. I've enjoyed to many games that only just scratched the surface of RPG design andI've spent too much money on music that sounds like a brick being pulled across a parking lot for 25 minutes for that to be the case...and that music was being created long before I was ever born.
I suppose if your goal is to make money than yes patterns definitely emerge....but not so much when making an artistic statement.
I'm sure Robo Pit was a complete financial ass fucking...
so you can see that this is all gilded with my personal preference of generally unforgiving and obscure video games over polished ones.
My appreciation of complexity for the sake of complexity is proven a supported stance with the existence of Eve,the Campaign for North Africa, the Paradox Interactive back-catalogue....
You appreciation of streamlining the data displayed and delivered is proven true with...oh God....many titles, the evolution of the AD&D pen and paper rule-sets.......humanbehaviour....tetris....just countless examples everywhere.........
As far as wrapping your head around "why stats have to be muddied".
I don't believe you should be looking for a "have to be muddied";
you should be looking for a "could be muddied" and I sure you will find people who express "we like and sometimes even love when its muddied "
and once you have found that, and I'm sure you have long ago, you search is most likely over.
its apparent we view this differently so I guess each to his own.
I remember back in the mid-nineties I created a ledger of Arena rewards for Final Fantasy 3. Typed it up on a Tandy 1000 computer with 5.25inch floppys.
so I guess veering away from the game to do research on the game is something I have always enjoyed.
The alarming part is that compared to some people out there? im a lightweight. im nobody.
Today we have gamers who create games, who are professional gamers, who live in gaming communes and who are sponsored.
We have gamers who pump several thousand hours into any game they lay their hands on
we have board games that take teams of 14 people about 1200 hours of paper work to finish one single game
when I was 7 years old an older kid explained to me Dungeons & Dragons could be played "forever". I wrote him off as nuts. now I understand completely. the rules and the camplaigns are virtually limitless.
Stories like this are spattered througout my life and I love it.
what I hated was growing up reading about how all the good games were in Japan and America was living off of table scraps.
Countries outside Japan did not typically get the overload of Roleplaying/ strategy games that Japan did. instead we got action and fighting games.
I remember describing with glee to my mother that Ultima Online would have a thriving economy and social structure, and that this was a real landmark in gaming history. what I meant was "role playing fantasy games. She did not even give a shit.
I remember how the paltry and simplified Diablo, enjoyed by grandmas around the world, had more weapons and armor than any game I had ever seen up to that point.
and I remember slogging through the internet looking up weapons and armor and thumbing through strategy guides whenever I had the chance.
so today when I read about those things I grew up looking for, being on display, blooming and being villified to a degree, I remember my youth. I remember what it was like when number intensive games were rare and any other game was a dime a dozen.
I remember how they were not famous on a national level and as such were rarely released. All due to the niche "weirdness" associated with all the math-laden fantasy bullshit.
I remember how thirsty I was for a game with hundreds of weapons and types of armor when diablo 1 was released because for many years the games we were given featured far less.
All of the Diablo websites and spreadsheets and armor charts and strategy guides, I looked at and the ones I created for Final Fantasy 3 exist because of want. not because of need.
so while the stance that a person is not interested in those things cannot be refuted, the stance that people are interested in those things cannot be refuted either.
and when you apply that thinking to Role playing games as they have existed for the past 40 years....even though games Like PoE or Eve or Dwarf Fortress are unforgiving and raw examples of what a person might hate, they are also examples of what people love.
So I guess we're at a stale-mate and thats OK i guess.....I mean personally its a tiny bit discouraging....but ...its OK.
Your argument was that allowing people to see numbers is akin to flashing a huge warning if a DH attempts to use int gems in their armor. Your analogy, not mine.
And then you have the audacity to tell me that I'm the one exaggerating to make a point? You know what a hypocrite is right? I'm not disagreeing with your point. I'm disagreeing with the idea that they have anywhere close to the same magnitude. One would easily be seen by a huge majority of the players as too much hand-holding, the other is topic that has reasonable legs to be debated and clearly is nowhere near as cut-and-dry as you'd like to insinuate it is.
Ok teach me then Shaggy. lets all agree that my example of the things my wife does wrong are ok to leave in the game as is. You give me an example of another hidden number system that can fit in the game Diablo 3 and it makes things more confusing and you would agree with it being written into the game.
Can you think of one? using what you consider the best design concepts of the game?
Are you saying that the addition of a muddy number system of ANY kind is a negative trait?
I know from what your saying it will be subtle but can you describe one?
I never played starcraft 2 actually....tell me roughly how the debate went down?
In SC1, you can only select 1 building at a time, and hotkey only 1 building on 1 control group. You cannot rally your command center to minerals so that they automatically mine. I forgot to add that your control group size was at most 12 back then. (From what I heard, WC1 had 4!!) When these features were added to SC2, old school gamers raged against it pretty hard, about how it will kill the competitiveness of the game and what-not, despite the fact that many of these features already existed in WarCraft 3. (Yes, WarCraft was not always an MMORPG. In fact, if we want to go back to the roots of WarCraft, then WoW must die, so must DotA. Another reason that the argument about the "roots" of a game/idea should never be used as an arbiter on why something is right.) In the end, Blizzard added some minor "macro mechanics" to make macro a little harder, but the features stayed. The ragers remained a minority, and that's pretty much that.
And no, even after these features are introduced, most people still cannot produce units at maximum efficiency, or anywhere close to it.
interesting. id love to ask a few questions but the thread might become locked...:(
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In D1 Id say I hunted rabbits
In D2 Id say I was given the opportunity to hunt rabbits and deer and the odd tiger.
In D3 I waited patiently thinking id get to hunt on a motherfucking African safari with a fucking spaceship.....but what it felt like was just deer after deer after deer. and the same ten lions that everyone else was hunting.
in short the "item hunt" in D1 was demolished by the item hunt in D2. the item hunt in D3 was supposed to demolish the D2 item hunt....but according to some people fell woefully short.
so while D3 is absolutely peppered with incredible features, it is also peppered with features that hold it back from really blasting to the moon.
D3 was supposed to be the item hunting trip of the fucking century, and it sure does not feel like it. at least certainly not for the first 2 fucking years of the games life which are arguably the most important.
does it feel like it today? well...im afraid to pay money to access the new wildlife preserve....I fear its just 8 million deer with bells around their necks......
but yes I totally agree and hope that the hunt in its ideal form without the junk holding it back...lasts a long long LONG time. that much is certain...
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its not that the issue is some people get the sets and uniques, and some people dont, its that, that is all there is to get. and people notice. When people say I never get legendary items, it just seems like what they are saying is "I dont have a ring of royal grandeur. or thunderfury. or a one hander with 2400 DPS. or a maxim for my enchantress who is wearing a hellfire ring that I regret working for.
They are literally searching for the same pile of 5 or 10 items that the rest of the world is.
I think thats why this issue seems to really shine. because the pool of desirable items is so streamlined, and we know that the game would kill itself if it just gave those items to everyone, thats a no brainer.
Creating enough items to give everyone in the world their own individual set? obviously thats not really possible....
but that should not prevent new items from being created and released. and it should open the floodgates for new professions new character concepts and new items and most importantly new item interaction ideas.
their should be items that they fling into the game and dont even tell anyone about.
their should be uniques that can synergize with other uniques....I know I know....pure blasphemy
how many sets are their for Barb? IK set. oh. and Wichdoctor? Zunimassas. oh....so what 1 set or 2 per class? for the world? yup
well im gonna go ahead and say it. there should be more. the payoff for such and investment would be incredible I rekon...
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"oh that would not work because something something set items blah blah to plentiful........."
it would be a stupid reply. Any post, like yours above, in my opinion is awesome and should, alongside the countless other similar posts, fuel the fire of intrigue. Sadly they never get the chance. And its due to players and developers and forum posters all extinguishing these fires and saying that they do so for the good of the game and in the name of proper and reputable game design.
They smash peoples Ideas on the rocks. or just leave them to die. just because they can pick something about the idea that they don't like or might not pan out....and that's the end of hope.
Instead, and we can use Kadala as an example, We get one fat bitch drawn onto the landscape, with 1 window of items with just a handful of item types to choose from all of which will be a mix of a seemingly small list of properties.....using a boiled down pool of statistics....and every one just leaps out the window with 40 bucks in their teeth begging for it....
so please id love to hear more about what you think and what Ideas you can come up with.
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your blend of stats is VERY high healing and toughness with comparatively low damage.
id start by lowering the difficulty, farming a bunch of crap at a mediocre pace, and at the same time check out other peoples profiles to see what stat mixes deliver what types of results.....then go kill kill monsters and fight for fun, and spend gold one what you will soon know, rather than spending gold to learn...
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blue mighty belts and quivers....have been a running joke among players since the game was released...and are yet again being looked into for dropping to often...
2 handed weapons have been bombarded with issues since as far back as I remember...just issue after issue that makes them as unrewarding as can be....
End game sets are a complete joke. There is one set per class and many of those pieces are completely ignored by players.....the off class sets are ridiculous. they are not fun or intriguing in anyway....did they add class sets in RoS? I'm not even sure....
It's just example after example of the entire player-base is after "this item" and "these stats" regardless of class or "build"...which sucks big time.
and these several dozen items are virtually unused in the game by anyone, anywhere...which also sucks.
literally hundreds of items painstakingly designed consuming hundreds of hours of a professional artists or programmers time.......and thrown in the trash by players. literally left right where they fell....INSTANTLY worthless....almost 100% of the time.....
an now today? post expansion? many legendary items are just items with bumped up stats....many 2 handed weapons are not build inspiring and that list of gripes is ALSO long.......
They should be thankful that players actually want to right the ship....
It's really sad to see a game with such beautiful graphics and such seamless game-play not to mention the other aspects of the game that are jaw dropping continue to drop items that actually anger and discourage players....and its sad that a portion of that anger and discouragement are legitimate....
when I read about a playerfrustratedabout crap legendary items or infrequent legendary items.... I don't think "oh he just mad that he don't see that beam of lightoften enough....."
I just think about to the issues in the game thatplagueitems....of which there are several.....
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You want to see quantum mechanics at play? watch me fling sugar-mix onto a piece of hot buttered bread....
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I think you're right there is a good mix of mud in the math of D3. Certainly not a crazy shortage...thank fucking christ....
reading how you've highlighted that theorycrafting generally meshes better with games that can command more of a players' time? that makes sense.....
how messing around with the visible numbers could very well be harmful to the overall reception of the game? yep im inclined to agree with that as well.
if we examine these specific applications its easier to come to an agreement.
my posts seem to stretch out to the edges of what has been created or experienced so far...citing very niche games, niches scenarios to describe a large looming way of admiring complex games from a damp basement. It's hard to really deny about 95% the specifics of your last post.
How crazy you bring up Steam; what I love about steam is when I scan through its catalogue It appears the floodgates have been blasted open for RPGS of all shapes and sizes.....enough strategy games to make me vomit.......8 bit roguelikes popping up like tulips........
Steam is a number crunchers' wet nightmare......
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interestingly enough;
In WoW I was absolutely furious about shaman's Windfury having a hidden cooldown. to my recollection it was kind of shoehorned into the game at somepoint in TBC, when I began playing long after 2 hand Enhancement fighters ran roughshod over the battle grounds with that particular skill.......My stance on that topic was why the fuck would they not reveal that info alongside the probably hundreds of other skills in game where it was listed? lol there was no trace of elitism in that situation....
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I feel that the amount of people who would admire or be in support of such a change would be very low in number compared to the amount of people who would prefer either keeping the calculations we have now or even those who categorically wish for even more calculations. and that last group I feel could be split again (people who long for more updated and accurate calculations and a group who wants NEW calculations providing new information)
I feel that each of those 3 groups wouldSTILL outnumber the first group of people who might be classified as "hardcore ruthless number geeks"
Was that what you were referring to?
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fuck me, im trying to answer this is as streamlined a fashion as possible LOL..
its taken all morning......:P
Lets try some bullet points.
- To answer your question? No I do not think it is better if you make players hope outside the game to do math is better. in that very specific request I am indifferent either way, however I feel that removing those calculations you mentioned would be a very drastic move hated by many more people than it might impress.
- The group of people who would support or desire such a change is alarmingly small. I think we are almost in the same boat here. you mentioned you appreciate the "research side" of things as do I. I agree that these decisions about layering in more math must be made very carefully as you say.
But I feel its really hard to pick a fucking stance as you mentioned in posts prior :P:P
The only stance I can pick will only be a personal preference. I can't assert that it is correct, nor accept that it is incorrect according to some universal rule (no matter how likely, heavily adopted or convenient) or pillar of video game design lore. I've enjoyed to many games that only just scratched the surface of RPG design andI've spent too much money on music that sounds like a brick being pulled across a parking lot for 25 minutes for that to be the case...and that music was being created long before I was ever born.
I suppose if your goal is to make money than yes patterns definitely emerge....but not so much when making an artistic statement.
I'm sure Robo Pit was a complete financial ass fucking...
so you can see that this is all gilded with my personal preference of generally unforgiving and obscure video games over polished ones.
My appreciation of complexity for the sake of complexity is proven a supported stance with the existence of Eve,the Campaign for North Africa, the Paradox Interactive back-catalogue....
You appreciation of streamlining the data displayed and delivered is proven true with...oh God....many titles, the evolution of the AD&D pen and paper rule-sets.......humanbehaviour....tetris....just countless examples everywhere.........
As far as wrapping your head around "why stats have to be muddied".
I don't believe you should be looking for a "have to be muddied";
you should be looking for a "could be muddied" and I sure you will find people who express "we like and sometimes even love when its muddied "
and once you have found that, and I'm sure you have long ago, you search is most likely over.
0
its apparent we view this differently so I guess each to his own.
I remember back in the mid-nineties I created a ledger of Arena rewards for Final Fantasy 3. Typed it up on a Tandy 1000 computer with 5.25inch floppys.
so I guess veering away from the game to do research on the game is something I have always enjoyed.
The alarming part is that compared to some people out there? im a lightweight. im nobody.
Today we have gamers who create games, who are professional gamers, who live in gaming communes and who are sponsored.
We have gamers who pump several thousand hours into any game they lay their hands on
we have board games that take teams of 14 people about 1200 hours of paper work to finish one single game
when I was 7 years old an older kid explained to me Dungeons & Dragons could be played "forever". I wrote him off as nuts. now I understand completely. the rules and the camplaigns are virtually limitless.
Stories like this are spattered througout my life and I love it.
what I hated was growing up reading about how all the good games were in Japan and America was living off of table scraps.
Countries outside Japan did not typically get the overload of Roleplaying/ strategy games that Japan did. instead we got action and fighting games.
I remember describing with glee to my mother that Ultima Online would have a thriving economy and social structure, and that this was a real landmark in gaming history. what I meant was "role playing fantasy games. She did not even give a shit.
I remember how the paltry and simplified Diablo, enjoyed by grandmas around the world, had more weapons and armor than any game I had ever seen up to that point.
and I remember slogging through the internet looking up weapons and armor and thumbing through strategy guides whenever I had the chance.
so today when I read about those things I grew up looking for, being on display, blooming and being villified to a degree, I remember my youth. I remember what it was like when number intensive games were rare and any other game was a dime a dozen.
I remember how they were not famous on a national level and as such were rarely released. All due to the niche "weirdness" associated with all the math-laden fantasy bullshit.
I remember how thirsty I was for a game with hundreds of weapons and types of armor when diablo 1 was released because for many years the games we were given featured far less.
All of the Diablo websites and spreadsheets and armor charts and strategy guides, I looked at and the ones I created for Final Fantasy 3 exist because of want. not because of need.
so while the stance that a person is not interested in those things cannot be refuted, the stance that people are interested in those things cannot be refuted either.
and when you apply that thinking to Role playing games as they have existed for the past 40 years....even though games Like PoE or Eve or Dwarf Fortress are unforgiving and raw examples of what a person might hate, they are also examples of what people love.
So I guess we're at a stale-mate and thats OK i guess.....I mean personally its a tiny bit discouraging....but ...its OK.
-Shurgosa
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Can you think of one? using what you consider the best design concepts of the game?
Are you saying that the addition of a muddy number system of ANY kind is a negative trait?
I know from what your saying it will be subtle but can you describe one?
or are you saying no to the whole Idea?
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