Community: Less about Fantasy more about numbers and performance

[Echo of Soul]

I think any popular multiplayer game with gear and/or class differences that affects gameplay is going to end up with this type of behavior.

Yet in FFXIV it doesn't

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I just watched this video about addons and MMO's
(you dont have to watch it, i dont think is a very good video 6/10)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjtP...l=XillinXillin

Anyway

I enjoyed the part where the person on the video tells how "DPS meters" work in Knights of the Old Republic MMO

Basically, you press a button on the games interface...and a FILE will happear with your combat log outside of the game
And there is a program you can download to check this file and analyse it.

Also
With this program you can join a "room" and check the DPS of everyone who chose to be in the "room"

What ends up happening is:
No one knows anyone elses DPS
Only Guilds who decide to join this "programs room" will know the DPS of the raid they are doing

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Very interesting stuff...kinda cool

That's actually brilliant. Organized groups can evaluate their performance but you can't harass random people based on their performance

[Thirtyrock]

Yet in FFXIV it doesn't

I find that hard to believe but I'll take your word for it. Let me put it this way, I've never played a popular multiplayer game with the types of differences I've talked about where a "meta" didn't eventually emerge. The level of toxicity was different, depending on the game, but "lol N00bZ" has been a thing in every multiplayer game I've ever experienced, especially as you move into upper middle/lower upper levels of performance.

[Nynax]

1)

Numbers are 100% essential for a RPG to exist but is anyone else getting the feeling the community of WoW turned into something weird?

My question is:
"Do you feel like WoW turned more into a numbers and performance check than a fantasy game?"

Im not saying this people are enjoying the game wrong.
To some this is the best part of the game.

But does anyone else feel weirded out by it a little?

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2)

If you dont mind, i also have another question

"Addons"

Do you think they are the reason why the WoW community ended like this?

honestly, I've been playing this same game for 14 years now. How can I not be more performance focused? This shit is my backyard, I know the ins and outs of almost all of WoW's systems, I know how and when a quest starts and ends and what stuff is worth doing. I know where they hide chests and what nooks and caves to investigate.

Exploration for me is seeing just how far I can push my performance (as much as my real-life time allows, anyway). 14 years, yes I'm going to notice when X class/spec/player is making my gameplay harder than it needs to be.

[Uko]

People care more about numbers because the entire story in wow is 100% predictable and one dimensional. The story is an afterthought and mostly ridiculous most of the time. Take BFA for example it started out being faction war then went to crazy naga stuff then to old god. The progression is so fast you would be excused if it caused you whiplash because of how incoherent it gets. That and blizzard deciding to tie power to story with covenants. When all the endgame content is about pumping big numbers to beat raids on harder and harder difficulties or a timer on m+ or pvp its hard to go I like x story but its power is like super bad for my class but Ill take it anyway.

[Argorwal]

I also think how popular and obsessive warcraftlogs and parses is to people has had an impact.

Classic is relatively easy, yet I feel there is “parse PvP” every raid.

[clevin]

1)

Numbers are 100% essential for a RPG to exist but is anyone else getting the feeling the community of WoW turned into something weird?

My question is:
"Do you feel like WoW turned more into a numbers and performance check than a fantasy game?"

Im not saying this people are enjoying the game wrong.
To some this is the best part of the game.

But does anyone else feel weirded out by it a little?

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2)

If you dont mind, i also have another question

"Addons"

Do you think they are the reason why the WoW community ended like this?

1 - yes it's more about numbers, BUT it was even in TBC and LK. At some point you're not beating a boss if people aren't performing.

2) Addons just expose how someone is doing. The community decides to (over)focus on them. For example, I've been in groups where we carry someone in low M+ keys to get them some gear because we can do them fine even with a marginally geared DPS doing 50% of a geared player's damage. We usually time t hose but if not, we don't care because it's a friend. Which brings me to something you didn't mention.

PUGs. The intro of LFG drastically damaged guilds and friends lists. When people PUG, they aren't carrying a pal, they're being slowed down and might fail and they get no benefit out if helping the under-performer. I might be fine depleting a key to help a pal. I'm not thrilled to do that for some random whom I'll never see again. So we try to screen using Raider.io, item level etc.

[cparle87]

Which is a discussion of itself. Should the game be about performance first or fun first?
If we look at Classic for example I would argue it was designed around fun first, you could bring a healthy mix of good and bad players into the highest level of content and still win.

But that only takes you so far. For instance, as you said, things like MC could be done with 10-20 people who knew what they were doing and the rest being afk. But the same wouldn't work for BWL let alone Naxx. If we carried that forward using say the BC tier system transplanted onto Legion the easy raids like EN and ToV would be all most people had to do for the entire xpac, as the higher tiers would be something they couldn't even attempt. And that wouldn't jive with today's entitled playerbase.

[Jastall]

It always was that way, because MMORPGs are just third class RPGs at best.

It's been my view ever since I temporarily stopped playing WoW back in 2005 and got into single-player RPGs as well. Sure, when I was 15 I was sometimes impressed by the few more involved questlines in vanilla (such as the Warrior questline that ends with you getting the Whirlwind weapon)... then I played games like KOTOR 1 and 2, Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment or later on Dragon Age and I wondered how a bunch of fetch quests calling for me to trek all over the planet because reasons and strung together with the barest pretense of a story could ever have truly interested me.

Hell, I can play Breath of the Wild and that probably has more RPG elements than WoW ever had, and I won't consider BOTW a complex RPG by any means. I don't miss WoW's RPG elements because they were always barebones at best and the game being multiplayer denied you the best part of RPGs, having your choices influence the story in fairly meaningful ways. WoW's group content is its actually unique selling point and strength as far as I'm concerned. With a challenging multiplayer mode naturally comes expectations of performance, so the playerbase will naturally care more about that over time.

And besides that here's a reason 2004 vanilla had a lot of goofing around and more of a sense of adventure to it while for many players, 2019 Classic was the land of boosted leveling, absolute BiS lists, world buff meta and speedruns. Fantasy doesn't last 15 years.

[MoanaLisa]

Numbers are 100% essential for a RPG to exist but is anyone else getting the feeling the community of WoW turned into something weird?

My question is:
"Do you feel like WoW turned more into a numbers and performance check than a fantasy game?"

It's sort of the inevitable response to the popularity of the site Elitist Jerks back in the day and the rise of theorycrafting used to squeeze every last ounce of performance out of the game. That, in itself, isn't necessarily a bad thing but see my answer to your other question. For anyone that would question EJ's influence and importance to the game please remember that when best build information came down from on high it was generally followed by all of those that wanted to get along in the game.

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"Addons"

Do you think they are the reason why the WoW community ended like this?

Pretty much. It clearly exposes and aggregates performance numbers into something that can be analysed. Let the dick-measuring begin.

The point about EJ is that it was run by Ion Hazzikostas who is now, along with other folk that worked at EJ, in charge of the game. So what you get now is more of a spreadsheet-first, creative-second form of design that is in reality more like engineering than creative writing.

You have to put the two together. EJ would have never existed without a way to collect and analyse data. Now the overlords of EJ are in charge of the game. It's inevitable that we ended up here. Yes, the playerbase is obsessed with numbers but it's only following what has been very clear signals over long periods of time that numbers are much more important to the design than anything else.

And then people say that the game has lost its soul. Yep. That follows.

[Wraethion]

For the first point: I think people do put an excessive amount focus on numbers.

Whats the highest amount of damage I can deal? What is the most efficient leveling method per hour? What is the fastest gold making method and how much does it offer? Is my damage top of the charts?

On the surface level this obsession with numbers doesn't seem that bad and perhaps like legitimate questions. However the deeper you go, the more demystification of the game occurs. As its less about trying to have fun in a game, instead its about 'how do I optimize [x]'? And soon its less just a hobby, and more into a 9-5 job based on the type of optimization being done such as grinding for gold or levels or mats.

And I feel at liberty to say that, as it takes one to know one.


As for the second talking point: Addons are 3rd-party software and are part and parcel for the aforementioned number obsession.

[Soon-TM]

If they wanted to defeat an addon, they could either make the function part of the UI or they could just break the addon period. They've done both plenty times.

They will never do it with things like WA though. Imagine if all those butthurt pseudo pros who think who are God's gift to WoW suddenly found out that addons were doing a substantial part of the work in defeating all those raid bosses. Irvine would be #$&@ing flooded by their tears.

[MoanaLisa]

They will never do it with things like WA though. Imagine if all those butthurt pseudo pros who think who are God's gift to WoW suddenly found out that addons were doing a substantial part of the work in defeating all those raid bosses. Irvine would be #$&@ing flooded by their tears.

The most direct solution to getting people to stop obsessing over numbers is to remove the ability for players to read the combat log. That's extreme and would never happen but it would likely be better for the game over the long run. Most addons that effect what is being discussed here die without a combat log.

[Progenitor Aquarius]

Some people do care about numbers a lot and it sometimes giving me a headache. I do care about lore and fantasy; I don't mind a bit of numbers as long as it's not too much. I don't know what addons do you have in mind that "made WoW community to end up like this". I do find most of addons helpful, some still need rework because they are bugged and cause errors. If you are referring to raider.io then sometimes I'm happy with it, sometimes not. I have been experiencing problems before, for example being instantly kicked for playing Arcane from m+ groups, but now it no longer appears to be a problem.

[Cosmic Janitor]

It's been my view ever since I temporarily stopped playing WoW back in 2005 and got into single-player RPGs as well. Sure, when I was 15 I was sometimes impressed by the few more involved questlines in vanilla (such as the Warrior questline that ends with you getting the Whirlwind weapon)... then I played games like KOTOR 1 and 2, Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment or later on Dragon Age and I wondered how a bunch of fetch quests calling for me to trek all over the planet because reasons and strung together with the barest pretense of a story could ever have truly interested me.

Hell, I can play Breath of the Wild and that probably has more RPG elements than WoW ever had, and I won't consider BOTW a complex RPG by any means. I don't miss WoW's RPG elements because they were always barebones at best and the game being multiplayer denied you the best part of RPGs, having your choices influence the story in fairly meaningful ways. WoW's group content is its actually unique selling point and strength as far as I'm concerned. With a challenging multiplayer mode naturally comes expectations of performance, so the playerbase will naturally care more about that over time.

And besides that here's a reason 2004 vanilla had a lot of goofing around and more of a sense of adventure to it while for many players, 2019 Classic was the land of boosted leveling, absolute BiS lists, world buff meta and speedruns. Fantasy doesn't last 15 years.

Agreed. I just don't have it in me anymore to complain about the RPG side when WoW was never even that good with it. Back then in 2005 it was just the thinnest veneer over other games where grinding was the only activity, but in hindsight that was a very low bar. And even then, other games let you actually make your character, distribute stats, skill points, etc. So while the questing was a big improvement for MMOs in the vanilla era and got Blizzard alot of customers, other parts were already RPG ultra-light. Since then I've seen that even single player action adventures have regularily more RPG-depth than WoW, let alone CRPGs or TTRPGs. The multiplayer part alone costs alot of RPG-esque features, blowing it up to an MMO limits most of the remaining.

But as you said, that is okay. These games are paper thin RPGs with multiplayer inactions as their primary goal. While I think they need a certain minimum standard to keep up the pretense and paint a proper background, I don't think focusing on these features is worth it. Certainly not in a game like WoW where the ship has sailed over one and a half decade ago. Trying to force some (often misunderstood) RPG features back into the game will just backfire, see covenants. I certainly play these games to hang out with people I've got to know over the years, not because they offer their strong RPG gameplay.

Oh btw, I will absolutely complain about the bad story though, as there is no excuse for that.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

DPS meters led to DPS rankings led to Min-Maxing being substantially easier. Eventually this snowballed from the world first chasers down to basically the entire playerbase. Now players are more concerned about a .1% DPS gain than they are about anything.

[Razion]

1)

It has always been this way. Since when I started one of my earliest memories of the game was rolling into Goldshire with a Gnome Mage and being told Arcane was terrible. I was literally in the lv10-20 bracket at the time, and already I was being told by people in epics that I was playing wrong and I wasn't even hitting content that would require any checks yet.

Even when there aren't checks, people are always looking to optimize moment to moment play. Even in turn-based RPGs it's normal to want to have the best turn possible. Choose the best moves, use the best strategy -- it's kind of part of the genre. But even in WoW the elitist "you can only be these races, or these specs," was always there. It's why people cried for buffs and nerfs so much in those days, and why we still have a legacy of people campaigning for changes even now.

2)

Addons seemed more rare in earlier expacs. Nowadays addons are more common, and sure the mentality has spread around to more of the community like addons have, but it's not exactly responsible but it's not like it helps the situation either. Generally addons are for making people's lives easier, by having convenience that the game won't offer you or making things obvious that normally aren't -- fixing the game, kind of.

In a way trying to make things easier is elitist, but it's also kind of casual in a way. You can argue addons are for allowing people to push more and squeeze as much out as possible but you could also argue they're for making insurmountably unfair things more accessible to everyone. Addons are kind of for both parties...

... But, I guess if I had to argue for a side, I'd argue while most addons made total are casual and kind of visual or convenience and not performance altering, the ones most downloaded and used like DBM sure as heck are for performance so to that end it does seem like an elitist thing nowadays.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

Yet in FFXIV it doesn't

It does, but only for people who are in statics doing EX content. They're a much quieter bunch than Mythic raiders because it isn't a part of the game you're going to stumble across by accident and Square is very much against people posting number requirements in-game (so all of the chatter for it is in discord servers, which you're not going to see if you're not in the discord for theorycrafting or a high-end raiding).

The meta absolutely exists, it just doesn't matter for the majority of the content in the game and most players can safely ignore it (I think one of the biggest reasons for that is tuning and the fact that rezzing someone in combat just limits their performance, in FF14 you can have 18/24 die and still clear the content via a LB to rez the whole party, it'll just add 2 minutes or so to the fight instead of causing a wipe). Now this doesn't apply to EX cause the dps can be too large of a hit for you to be able to meet the berserk timer.


So yeah, for FF14 it really does boil down to most of the number intensive content isn't particularly widely known and/or appealing to people who weren't already seeking it out.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Literally nothing forces you to play WoW in an organized way.

If you wanna reap the fruits of the organized gameplay, then shape up and at least perform at a bare minimum. Simple. I know players of this game that do nothing but RP, tend to the MoP farm (!) and never set foot in instances if they can avoid it. Are they called "carebears" and "casuals" in a derogatory way? Sure, and they couldn't care less. They're playing the game as they see fit, within the realms of what's possible in-game.

I've never come across an MMORPG that did the RPG-part better than the MMO-part though. But I've never had a single-player RPG give me 11 years of non-stop content neither.

[aceperson]

numbers have always mattered in wow. there were dps addons even in vanilla. i think the biggest change is the leadership of wow. i know hating on ion is a bit of a meme but i believe he and his management team perpetuate this numbers first direction they've been taking. they think that the only thing that matters is a persons output. covenants for role players? nope, gotta have 2 (soon to be 3) systems tied to them that drastically affect dps. play torghast for the fun of it and try to casually compete with friends? nope, gotta change it from something loved in alpha to a crappy rogue lite (emphasis on lite) and make it mandatory to do twice a week if you care about your dps.

the reason i think it's more to do with leadership than the community is because there have been thriving rpg groups throughout wows history. but as people find wow less fun because it's all about your output, the friends of role players leave the game. that leaves them with two options. make other role playing friends, or quit. it also doesn't help that because numbers has become the focus, the world has taken a huge backseat and the lore has become filled with plot holes.

[erifwodahs]

Literally, every MMO I've played the last five years or so, other than WoW, does not have the numbers-focused behavior as the be-all/end-all. There's always some small handful of people that obsess over such things but it's not prevalent in any of those games the way it is in WoW. And, consequently, I've found all those other games to be much more fun and relaxing ... the entire point of a "game" in the first place

"game" is stimulating and challenging for some if not the most and that is the entire point of it as how it exists in nature. We, humans, might have developed other purposes for it, but main point is still the same.

WoW has a ton of activities where metes don't matter.

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Yet in FFXIV it doesn't

It absolutely does. Most of FF streamers use it too and they advice to use to to gage performance, with strong emphasis that you will get banned if you will mention someone else DPS to shit on them. Same with parsing. FF is also infested with zealotry and toxic positivity. Kinda polar opposite of WoW