How Will Baddies Affect The Game?

[Acquiesce of Telara]

Haggerty,

I honestly believe that the game is/will be tuned around OK-quality players using all the tools at their disposal, instead of say, a 2400 rating Arena team in WoW. I've been watching a few more GW2 demo videos and I've been impressed at how quickly some of the players adapt to their characters. Sure, there's A LOT of nuance still missing in their play, and with limited weapons and company, they've barely scratched the surface of potential, but most of these players are adjusting to self-heals each cooldown, popping their elite skill, recovering from their downed state, and occasionally switching to a secondary weapon.

As someone posted upthread, the leveling experience alone might be enough to neutralize the baddies... which I'll try defining for the very last time: People who intentionally play like shit because they cannot be arsed to be a teamplayer; those who put their own 1-2-3-1-2-3 DPS above the welfare of the group.

When GW2 is released, I'll probably be categorized as a really really REALLY crappy player. Regardless of which profession I play, I'm going to be throwing every ability I have at mobs, and I'm going to be attempting every possible cross-profession combo I can. If there's a shiny animation, I'm gonna throw something through it. If someone is glowing, I'm gonna stand next to 'em and cast something. I expect to see at least 50 or more different combo unlocks blaze across my screen that first day of gameplay.

People are gonna be yelling "damnit Foreverlad, just hit the leviathan, quit dancing around!" and I'll be like "nononono if you cast #5 while dodging, and I switch from sword to torch and use #3 maybe we'll teleport to a secret lair!!!1!one"

S'gonna be awesome

[Deleted]

Haggerty,

I honestly believe that the game is/will be tuned around OK-quality players using all the tools at their disposal, instead of say, a 2400 rating Arena team in WoW. I've been watching a few more GW2 demo videos and I've been impressed at how quickly some of the players adapt to their characters. Sure, there's A LOT of nuance still missing in their play, and with limited weapons and company, they've barely scratched the surface of potential, but most of these players are adjusting to self-heals each cooldown, popping their elite skill, recovering from their downed state, and occasionally switching to a secondary weapon.

As someone posted upthread, the leveling experience alone might be enough to neutralize the baddies... which I'll try defining for the very last time: People who intentionally play like shit because they cannot be arsed to be a teamplayer; those who put their own 1-2-3-1-2-3 DPS above the welfare of the group.

When GW2 is released, I'll probably be categorized as a really really REALLY crappy player. Regardless of which profession I play, I'm going to be throwing every ability I have at mobs, and I'm going to be attempting every possible cross-profession combo I can. If there's a shiny animation, I'm gonna throw something through it. If someone is glowing, I'm gonna stand next to 'em and cast something. I expect to see at least 50 or more different combo unlocks blaze across my screen that first day of gameplay.

People are gonna be yelling "damnit Foreverlad, just hit the leviathan, quit dancing around!" and I'll be like "nononono if you cast #5 while dodging, and I switch from sword to torch and use #3 maybe we'll teleport to a secret lair!!!1!one"

S'gonna be awesome

Geek :-P

xx

[Deleted]

My eyes are bleeding with the amount of text in here. X_X

[Ronyx]

My 2c:

The game can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. You can look at it and say "I have 5 active skills and 5 utility skills, thats so easy" which should remove the amount of what is perceived to be 'baddies'. They only exist as a result of the base level complexities found in other games where some classes have upwards of 30 spells which can and should be used throughout gameplay and at times during a single encounter. Once you limit the amount of active spells a player has access to you greatly increase their chances of hitting one that's right/relevant (extreme example). Those who really want to take this game to the next level will see it as a game where in those 5 active weapon skills and those 5 utility skills lie a huge amount of variations which can be explored and experimented with, which inevitably requires you to learn a great deal about them to master and use them well.

TL;DR Only reason baddies exist is because you give them access to 30 odd spells.

Take that away and you limit the amount they need to learn to be good at their small, very limited role. You still preserve the capacity to OD on customisation for the elite. This way you bring the skill floor up while maintaining the same (if not a much higher) skill ceiling. That's just good game design.

[Questar]

an answer to this rhetorical question would be the same to "how do criminals affect society?"

[Ynna]

My 2c:
[...]

TL;DR Only reason baddies exist is because you give them access to 30 odd spells.

Take that away and you limit the amount they need to learn to be good at their small, very limited role. You still preserve the capacity to OD on customization for the elite. This way you bring the skill floor up while maintaining the same (if not a much higher) skill ceiling. That's just good game design.

While it's certainly a factor, it's far from the only one. The community also has a large effect on this: how much they expect you to know, how much they're willing to explain... And the way the tutorial is structured. And the rate in which players gain new skills and are confronted with new scenarios.

An answer to this rhetorical question would be the same to: "how do criminals affect society?"

Hardly. Baddies aren't on the same level as criminals. If I had to put a criminological term on it, I'd rather use incivilities, and that's also not it. You can't even compare the two.
I'd also like to address the attitude that speaks from that statement. With a mentality like that, you're fostering a community that shuns "baddies" instead of actively trying to coach them into becoming better. The latter is far better for the community and overall health of a game.

[Borzo]

So people who are not as good as you should be locked out and/or banned from the game?

I can't tell if you're being serious or joking/sarcastic?

[Questar]

Hardly. Baddies aren't on the same level as criminals. If I had to put a criminological term on it, I'd rather use incivilities, and that's also not it. You can't even compare the two.
I'd also like to address the attitude that speaks from that statement. With a mentality like that, you're fostering a community that shuns "baddies" instead of actively trying to coach them into becoming better. The latter is far better for the community and overall health of a game.

i apologise. i misinterpreted the word "baddie" as malicious/troll players, rather than lousy players.
as long as they are good/expert players, there will always be not-so-good/lousy players. they are a systemic part of the game. a statistic.
how baddies affect other players will depend on how other players are willing to accommodate. it is all subjective.
"how will old people crossing the road affect society?" some will say help them for god's sake. others will yell they are wasting my time!

[Verazh]

how can you be "pro" when the game isnt out yet? even if you have played GW 1 for years and years, you will still be a baddie when it releases :S

;/

By not being a clicker, by having extensive MMO experience, by watching vids and reading facts about the game extensively. This wont make you a "pro" per se, but you will learn the game much faster when it launches, also that works exponentionally.

[brirrspliff]

(I mean absolutely no offense to WoW Druids or Pallies, just using the stereotype for an example)

i just wanted to point out that druids/pallies are not a stereotype but actual classes. :-)

[Acquiesce of Telara]

i just wanted to point out that druids/pallies are not a stereotype but actual classes. :-)

Indeed, they are. My parenthetical was addressing the use of Rets and Ferals as an example of simplistic, straightforward gameplay. It's that old stereotype which I'm not even sure still exists today. My point was it's silly to stick with playing 1/4 of your class when all four trees are available at once.

[kendro1200]

I don't really like the term "baddie", I prefer "Unskilled". Because someone doesn't know how to do something doesn't make them bad, it just makes them unskilled. It's not bad to be unskilled, because there's always room to learn, and there's always other players to help the unskilled players learn.

Unskilled players will not effect the game. Elitist jerks and stubborn players will. You'll have the players who will refuse to teach, and tend toward kicking "baddies", and you'll have "baddies" who tend toward never taking advice because they think that what they're doing is fine. These are the players that'll effect the game. These kind of players are what we like to call "assholes". They should be shunned, spit upon, and treated with utmost prejudice that a human can express. The best way to help assholes is to drive them away from the game, or shove them in the cage of trolls where they can promptly be ignored.

Considering that this game is being built for skill from the ground up, the unskilled will cripple general interactions in the game. I think it'll be very difficult to create an EJ type community simply because A-net is working so hard to keep a lot of the theory crafting hidden, so we will be working largely off of playstyles.

Baddies is the perfect term to describe someone who plays poorly, because they've played and on a scale of 1 to 10 they've reached bad, aka the 1 to 3 range.

I think the forming of guilds and playing with people you know to perform well will be so crucial to having an enjoyable time is the dungeons of GW2. In the world encounters, there isn't much you can do. People will come in and leave whenever they please and there is nothing you can do to stop them.

[Brubear]

...

A player who wants to step into something above there head is fine by me. Someone walking into a heroic in all blue gear is obviously doing one of his first few heroics. If he does poorly then I will try to offer him some advice and give him some websites to look at. After I tell him that info I will carry him through the instance and let him decide for himself to either A) continue to be carried and become a true baddy or B) go read the website and do some research so he can fix his toon. Sadly most WoW players choose option A, but for everyone that chooses option B I have done the community a service. It doesn't matter how you would go about it because that player that chose A over B will continue to be lazy and as such they will continue to be bad whether they ran into you or into me. If you think otherwise you are fooling yourself.

Your effort comment makes me giggle. People who are bad and want to learn can put forth the effort by doing a few simple google searches to find relevant information about their class. Anyone who plays WoW or any other MMO knows this is 100% fact. And no, I don't expect people who play WoW to gain any skill at all from levels 1-max. WoWs leveling experience is truly unchallenging and pathetic. You can level any toon in WoW from 1-max spamming a single attack and never have to worry about dying. If you do die, so what? There is no penalty but a joke of a repair bill and a short run to your corpse. There is NOTHING about the WoW leveling experience that challenges people in any way, shape, or form except making sure they don't fall asleep. What I do expect is for people to hit max level and realize they are not doing as good as other players and then take some initiative to try to figure out why. If that is asking to much..... I just don't know what to say. It's a video game, why bother playing a game with a monthly fee if you don't want to be good at it?

...

These are the two particular paragraphs I wanted to address, with special emphasis on the the line in bold. You, sir, seem to be forgetting that we are talking about a video game. A medium which was developed as a leisure activity whose purpose is to provide a outlet for people to unwind, relax, blow off some steam and enjoy themselves. Believe it or not (and what I'm about to say is truly a radical notion) many people play these in their spare time. Their intention is to relax and enjoy themselves, maybe play the game with some of their friends. Their intention isn't to excel and be the best they can be because they may already have to put that much effort into their normal life at work/school/as a parent/etc. Why would they want to do the same thing when they're trying to relax and not think about their responsibilities, when they're just trying to clear their mind and pretend they're some super-powered avatar laying waste to their foe?

Perhaps people bother paying a monthly fee for a game because they enjoy the artistic style/play style/setting/lore of the game? Maybe they enjoy playing the game with people they know? Are these not reason enough to pay a monthly fee for something?

[Acquiesce of Telara]

Brubear,

While I do not necessarily disagree with anything you posted, I'd like your opinion on something: Would you argue your same point if a (n aspect of the) game was built around research, prep, expertise in play, etc?

Off the top of my head, the first example would be hard-mode raids in WoW. The casual non-research type of player who wants to step foot in HM raids either needs to really know her stuff, or get carried all the way through, be it in regards to strats or power. The game provides a lot of useful information, but I'd argue not nearly enough. The other example would be the dungeons in GW2. From what players have seen and what the developers have shared, it's going to take a lot of effort and know-how to get through them in any sort of timely manner.

Mind you, not all players want HM experiences, but I'm sure we've both seen/read about of many who have.

Anyway, there's bound to be more than enough content for those who don't put in the effort outside of the game itself or aren't trying to be elite-quality gamers, I was just curious.

[Brubear]

If it is the designers intent to have some things that do require a tad more planning and foresight to achieve in the game then that is alright with me. It is no different than having to use a strategy guide to find all of the hidden X to unlock Y in a console game and such. However, it is the attitude of players I have seen all too often in WoW (and it seems some people will carry it over into GW2) that if you don't research how to play the game then you're terrible and should go die in a fire.

If the intent of GW2 is to have all aspects of the game require research outside of the game itself to be able to advance through the game in any way, shape or form then more power to the folks making the game (Though I would agree with the person who pointed out that that would be a ill-advised game model if you're required to do homework just to play a game) However, if only certain aspects of the game require this sort of commitment, saying everyone who doesn't put in the same amount of time outside of the game advancing their capabilities in the other areas of the game are being ridiculous.

I do hope that they realize that having just one difficulty level for a game that has no finite end (IE single player campaign) is a bad idea in this day and age as it extremely restricts the appeal of your game to a niche audience. If that is your intention, whatever works for you. However, I don't get the impression that with the amount of effort being put into GW2 that they only want it to appeal to a small group of people.

[Speedy92286]

By not being a clicker, by having extensive MMO experience, by watching vids and reading facts about the game extensively. This wont make you a "pro" per se, but you will learn the game much faster when it launches, also that works exponentionally.

Define "clicker". I put my main buttons within reach but I put my lesser used button where I can click it quickly. The rest I agree with, but "clicking" is only bad if you take forever to drag the mouse to the button, then drag it to the target.

[Borzo]

Define "clicker". I put my main buttons within reach but I put my lesser used button where I can click it quickly. The rest I agree with, but "clicking" is only bad if you take forever to drag the mouse to the button, then drag it to the target.

A "clicker" is a person who uses the mouse to click on abilities on the screen/UI to activate/use them. The problem with clicking is that if you are clicking you can't be using your mouse to turn your character/camera and you can't use your mouse to target new enemies.

A clicker generally has slower responses and slower reactions than someone who is using the keyboard to perform actions. This is not always the case, obviously - especially in a game with a GCD - but it can often make a significant difference in some situations.

[Fencers]

Actually, no. The response time in clicking an icon will always be slower than hitting a key.

It's up to you to know how to set up an optimal UI and keybinds. Hint: If you are using say, S to walk backward, you are failing.

[Edge-]

Knock off the hostility with the keyboard vs. clicker argument.

[Speedy92286]

I started the debate, so I apologize, Edge.