Curse

Garbad_the_Weak · Nov 06, 2009, 06:40 PM // 18:40

http://lostgarden.com/2009/11/testos...tive-play.html

Quote:

Yet there are clear tradeoffs that occur when we go down this design path. Losers leave. First, they know that they cannot gain status by pursuing the game, especially against the winning players. Second, if there is some way for winners to communicate, losers are subjected to degrading displays of status. Losers may react in turn with defensive behaviors if they feel they cannot escape. Especially in games where only a few people can be winners, your player retention will suffer.

The result is an intriguing purification of the community. Only the elite winners stay around. This elite community creates an even more competitive environment that in turn creates and drives out more losers. New players attempting to enter into the community are inevitably of low skill compared to the hardened veterans and are immediately classified as losers. They also leave. Competitive games slowly boil their community down to an elitist core that actively resists and inhibits audience growth.

This seems to me to be the history of guild wars in a nutshell. Yes, there were problems with gimmickry and vod and such, but the real issue was that GvG, the capstone of guild wars, wasn't fun or rewarding to casuals. For us hardcores, it was the best experience ever, but to casuals it was a certain loss and and humiliation and thus the gvg population steadily declined from the birth of obs mode to today. I hope GW2 fixes this and makes gvg more fun to more people without harming how awesome it was at the top.

What do you think?

QueenofDeath · Nov 06, 2009, 07:01 PM // 19:01

Quote:

This seems to me to be the history of guild wars in a nutshell. Yes, there were problems with gimmickry and vod and such, but the real issue was that GvG, the capstone of guild wars, wasn't fun or rewarding to casuals. For us hardcores, it was the best experience ever, but to casuals it was a certain loss and and humiliation and thus the gvg population steadily declined from the birth of obs mode to today. I hope GW2 fixes this and makes gvg more fun to more people without harming how awesome it was at the top.

What do you think?

It's very simple to solve the elitists problems and get casuals and competitive players alike to play side by side. In fact the game already has it in several places. JQ, FA, and RA. When you disallow organized clans or cults in these types of games and pvp activity you rid yourself of the riffraff and elitists because these people (unless they cheat sync and should be banned for that) can't ever organize into a powerhouse. Thus everyone gets to play every team pretty much has a chance and nobody stays king of the hill for very long.

I like RA and JQ and FA and am starting to like AB a little more since you really don't have any control what the other 8 players are in your groupings. I think these are the best and most fun PVP areas of the game. Nobody tells me what build I can use, everybody has a great time and there's no elitist crowd to look down upon others.

The way Anet has set things up I think gives a good balance for everyone though. If you want elitist activity you GVG or HA, if you want good fun and don't care about balance and who's got what on their skill bar then RA, FA and JQ will be more for you. AB and SD give a little to both worlds you can't really be an elitists in them because you don't have control over everything and the skills change either daily or week to week in SD.

Even the Costume Brawl is another fun PVP arena where you can't really become an elitists because you don't get to organize your teams. It's pot random luck if you win several in a row and once again nobody stays king of the hill for long.

The only other thing Anet needs to add is a Random HA type arena where players can earn rank without being subject to elitists and will still have opportunities for the end game content of it. Once they eliminate that I got a rank and you don't attitude that will end another bunch of elitists in this game. Then only GVG will have that type of gamer and since GVG is probably the least played PVP in the entire game it won't really matter.

moriz · Nov 06, 2009, 07:21 PM // 19:21

in my experiences, the ones who complains the loudest about so called "elitism" are those who are not good enough, and don't realize that they aren't good enough.

the best way to fix this problem, is to have a clear end game in mind. in GW pvp's case, that would be GvG. then, you structure every lower end arena in a stepwise feeder system. as in, have arenas like RA, the down defunct TA, etc as training arenas, where the best players eventually graduate to play in GvG. the biggest problem with GW gvg is that new players go into it and get thrashed, and then have no idea what they did wrong. asking more experienced players for help only goes so far, because not all of them are willing to teach, and even the ones that do teach don't have infinite time. they'd rather play with their equals, and i can't blame them for it.

so in conclusion, GW's main failing with competitive pvp was that there wasn't enough support in the training aspects, not so much because of player attitudes. those who advocate that the playerbase be split into different segments will only worsen the problem.

Benderama · Nov 06, 2009, 07:34 PM // 19:34

like Moriz said maybe there should be an arena that after winning 5 consecutive battles (or something) you graduate from and can never return to. this would give newer players a chance to learn in the real game (unlike zaishen) without being killed thousands of times. i'm not a great PvPer so i dunt know if this works (please dont troll me to death if its dumb) D:

Eragon Zarroc · Nov 06, 2009, 07:37 PM // 19:37

Agree with the quote completely. It's inevitible, especially over the long period of time that GvG has existed. I doubt much will be different in GW2 GvG. That is the nature of the lvl of competiveness that GvG entails. But hopefully GW2's world PvP format will help to provide an excellent, more casual pvp environment for those that are not as entrenched in elitism as those who GvG.

moriz · Nov 06, 2009, 07:42 PM // 19:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Benderama

like Moriz said maybe there should be an arena that after winning 5 consecutive battles (or something) you graduate from and can never return to. this would give newer players a chance to learn in the real game (unlike zaishen) without being killed thousands of times. i'm not a great PvPer so i dunt know if this works (please dont troll me to death if its dumb) D:

no, all arenas should be open to everyone. just because a player is a top level gvger should not be a reason to ban him/her from playing random arena. the intrinsic reward of playing with and against better players is reason enough to improve. likewise, if a beginner wants to dive straight into gvg, he/she should be allowed to do so.

Johny bravo · Nov 06, 2009, 08:15 PM // 20:15

I think the real problem here is to address peoples inability to take failure and learn from it. We are, at least in the US, creating a generation of children that don't know how to fail or react to failure. From scoreless t-ball games to delayed successes on test in school the system is quickly removing anything they feel damages someones self-esteem.
This translates to this discussion as people who get thrashed in GvG by better more experienced teams get turned off from it completely. These people don't understand that in reality to succeed you must first fail and sometmes fail hard. This applies in many circumstances from science and sports to competitive gaming.
There is no way to create a PvP atmosphere that is forgiving because there will always be a winner and a loser. In a good system the loser learns from the loss and improves eventually becoming the winner. The problem in GW is that the losers start whining about how bad they lost, don't look at why they lost, and instead complain that the "elitists" won't let them in.
Look around at the world today, anything that is competition work to sports has requirements. You don't graduate high school into a CEO position, just as you don't graduate RA into a top 100 guild. The only thing wrong with the PvP system now(leaving out skill discussion) is that most of the experienced players have moved on to other games.
As for a more casual PvP experience what do you want, you have FA, JQ, AB, and RA it doesn't get anymore casual than that. GvG and HA are competitive environments and therefor by definition are not casual.

cognophile · Nov 06, 2009, 08:23 PM // 20:23

For me, the most interesting part of the article is that it points out a distinct difference between playing with friends and playing with strangers. Essentially, people tend not to act like elitists when playing with friends.

Vazze · Nov 06, 2009, 08:28 PM // 20:28

The guy's focus on testosterone levels is a bit off but the examples and their background: luck, being friend/stranger, acceptance of loss/victory are spot on.

In GW there are a number of things that counterbalance the "testosterone loss".
Luck: so called lower lvl pvp arenas are very much luck based.
Ladder/tournament system: by careful selection of opponents, the win loss ratio can be nearly unity for a stable performance.
Titles: Titles are cumulative and reflect experience, not performance.

Don't think anet is not aware of these things (mostly) and there is a lot more to competitive gaming than what was covered in that blog.

Another Child · Nov 06, 2009, 09:05 PM // 21:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johny bravo

I think the real problem here is to address peoples inability to take failure and learn from it. We are, at least in the US, creating a generation of children that don't know how to fail or react to failure. From scoreless t-ball games to delayed successes on test in school the system is quickly removing anything they feel damages someones self-esteem.

While I agree with you, they're trying to sell a product. It's not the customer's fault if your product drives them away, it's your products. No one wants to spend 500 hours losing at a game. Whether you or I think it's good for them or not is irrelevant.

Oh, and I'd add, the ELO system is largely to blame. It's a great system, but new people automatically get turned off by their rating settling downwards as it inevitably does. The alternative is just as bad, like the rank system, where playing more inevitably means higher rating, you just get there faster if you have a higher win percentage.

Some genius needs to come up with something else, a system where players can see constant improvement (in their numbers not their playing ability) that doesn't automatically reward grinding. I suspect there's quite a lot of money in it for anyone who can, as I can tell you right now that games developers alone are desperate for it and have been since the MUD days. The closest I have seen is a system that punishes losing to a lesser degree than winning, puts a hard cap on top, and adds a secondary line of improvement that works in the reverse, with no hard cap. There's a lot of reasons why that worked so well but it would take me pages and pages to explain.

ELO punishes new players for being bad, rank type systems punish them for being new, both limit a games lifespan.

I loved this btw:
'There is only one class of player that is alienated by bonding oriented play: pro-dominance players that are not able or willing to play amicably with friends. This is arguably a big group (upwards of ~50% of males age 14 to 39)'

Johny bravo · Nov 06, 2009, 09:26 PM // 21:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Another Child

While I agree with you, they're trying to sell a product. It's not the customer's fault if your product drives them away, it's your products. No one wants to spend 500 hours losing at a game. Whether you or I think it's good for them or not is irrelevant.

Yes but if you spend 500 hours losing a game, you either don't have the necessary skill sets to play this type of game or you fail to learn from you mistakes. How many times do you have to stand in the courtyard and get killed by the catapult to learn that is a bad place to stand if the catapult is active.

If people learned how to embrace their failures and learn from them instead of complaining that things are unfair they would eventually get better. The problem with many from the current generation is that they haven't experienced true failure so when they are faced with it they don't know how to react. The reason the high level teams are so much better then the rest is that they learn from their mistakes and don't tend to repeat them.

It is impossible to make a competitive game where everyone wins. Competition requires both a winner and a loser, if everyone wins there is no achievement.

In response to you additional comments:
Why would you reward someone for losing? It only makes sense that your rating would decrease if you lose and go up if you win. This not only allows you to see if you are getting better it also allows grouping. Lower rated players would play other lower rated players. Eventually learning the basics tactics and some of the things they are doing wrong. This would push their ratings up where they would play better teams and have to face new challenges eventually learning how to deal with advanced tactics.

I don't understand why someone starting a game off would expect to be competitive at a high level. The only way to do that is to put in place a handicap system where the playing field is not level, whether that be health, effects, or win conditions. I don't like that scenario because you are penalizing the skilled players to put them at the same level as the new players which they aren't.

I won't disagree that it is inevitable that you will push people away as there will always be people who just can't get any better. This is so in everything competitive not just games

Another Child · Nov 06, 2009, 09:51 PM // 21:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johny bravo

Yes but if you spend 500 hours losing a game, you either don't have the necessary skill sets to play this type of game or you fail to learn from you mistakes. How many times do you have to stand in the courtyard and get killed by the catapult to learn that is a bad place to stand if the catapult is active.

If people learned how to embrace their failures and learn from them instead of complaining that things are unfair they would eventually get better. The problem with many from the current generation is that they haven't experienced true failure so when they are faced with it they don't know how to react. The reason the high level teams are so much better then the rest is that they learn from their mistakes and don't tend to repeat them.

It is impossible to make a competitive game where everyone wins. Competition requires both a winner and a loser, if everyone wins there is no achievement.

Look, I agree with you, but like the quote says, when that bottom 2% that can't figure that stuff out leave, then the guys who were just above them become your new bottom 2%. They know not to stand in front of catapults, but they don't know something else, and keep losing because of that. When those guys leave, the guys above them become the next 2%, so on and so on until you're left with 20 guys stroking each others ahem, egos, about how pro they are. Nature of the beast.

It's very possible to make a competitive game where everyone wins sometimes. Take game, add luck, problem solved. That's RA and AB.

It's also possible to make a competitive environment where everyone can earn the rewards given enough time, no matter how bad they are, so you don't need the same amount of luck to keep people interested. That's HA.

And of course, you can make an environment that only rewards players who win more. That's GvG.

The solution is to create a system where the skilled types can't deride your game for involving luck, everyone can get the rewards, everyone wins sometimes, yet skilled players earn more/better/faster rewards.

To be honest, catering to the top 10% has been the end of many games, but they have to do it because the top 10% are the ones who get so involved that they spend time hanging out on forums talking about your game when they are not actually playing it. Word of mouth, hype, viral marketing, whatever the latest name ad execs have come up with for it is, it's done by your top 10%.

Another Child · Nov 06, 2009, 09:54 PM // 21:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johny bravo

Why would you reward someone for losing? It only makes sense that your rating would decrease if you lose and go up if you win. This not only allows you to see if you are getting better it also allows grouping. Lower rated players would play other lower rated players. Eventually learning the basics tactics and some of the things they are doing wrong. This would push their ratings up where they would play better teams and have to face new challenges eventually learning how to deal with advanced tactics.

I don't understand why someone starting a game off would expect to be competitive at a high level. The only way to do that is to put in place a handicap system where the playing field is not level, whether that be health, effects, or win conditions. I don't like that scenario because you are penalizing the skilled players to put them at the same level as the new players which they aren't.

I won't disagree that it is inevitable that you will push people away as there will always be people who just can't get any better. This is so in everything competitive not just games

I can't stress enough how much I agree with the principles you're expressing. But it's a business not a philosophy class. You don't try to sell shit and say 'hey it's an acquired taste, you'll love it if you eat enough', you sell candy and say 'don't worry our doctors say it's good for you'.

People don't like seeing their rating drop. It's that simple. They'll queue up for blocks to get in the ring with Tyson if you tell them they can have a dollar every time they land a punch, but they'll stop queuing pretty fast if you tell them they lose a dollar every time he does. Same principle.

cognophile · Nov 06, 2009, 10:05 PM // 22:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Another Child

To be honest, catering to the top 10% has been the end of many games, but they have to do it because the top 10% are the ones who get so involved that they spend time hanging out on forums talking about your game when they are not actually playing it. Word of mouth, hype, viral marketing, whatever the latest name ad execs have come up with for it is, it's done by your top 10%.

Problem being, if the top 10% continually shrinks, you might end up with lots of forum chatter about how the game is dead or dying.

As a new GvG player, what is my value proposition for investing the time necessary to play at a high level? Why not do something actually useful instead, like learn a musical instrument or foreign language?

Greedy Gus · Nov 06, 2009, 10:11 PM // 22:11

While reading that article, the elephant in the room seems to be chess (or even more specifically, online chess). It's strictly a competitive game with no luck element, with barely any social interaction, and seems to be extremely popular with insane staying power with new players constantly coming in. I think some of the problem is distilling the spectrum of player skill down to simply 'winners' & 'losers', where you start to miss that in a healthy population, each person is going to be only relatively better & worse than others around them. Elo ladder play (assuming a well-populated skill spectrum) specifically maintains a balance where each person or team is primarily competing with others of similar skill, and the reward for winning or penalty for losing is already properly moderated.

At least in guild wars history, the biggest problems for a well populated ladder across the entire skill spectrum arose right around the introduction of ATs when ladder play was devalued almost completely. First, there was a huge exodus of the top guilds (for whatever reason), which the ladder never seemed to recover from (some middle-tier guilds rose up to replace the vacuum, fewer guilds rose up to replace them, etc.) leaving a larger chasm than ever between the 'winners' & 'losers'/casual. Secondly, the AT system split the modes of play between ladder & tournament, and casual guilds got absolutely crushed when they tried to enter the first ATs, which caused most to stop trying. But prior to this, I think casual guilds seemed to have enough fun playing on the ladder in 05/06 and the game was fairly healthy.

Another Child · Nov 06, 2009, 10:15 PM // 22:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

While reading that article, the elephant in the room seems to be chess (or even more specifically, online chess). It's strictly a competitive game with no luck element, with barely any social interaction, and seems to be extremely popular with insane staying power with new players constantly coming in. I think some of the problem is distilling the spectrum of player skill down to simply 'winners' & 'losers', where you start to miss that in a healthy population, each person is going to be only relatively better & worse than others around them. Elo ladder play (assuming a well-populated skill spectrum) specifically maintains a balance where each person or team is primarily competing with others of similar skill, and the reward for winning or penalty for losing is already properly moderated.

Distinguishing between 'chess' and 'online chess' is probably why you're finding that to be an elephant. You're right about ELO though, it really is a great system.... aside from the fact that it doesn't offer people what they want.

Johny bravo · Nov 06, 2009, 10:24 PM // 22:24

I have to agree you make very good points. Especially on the lower end PvP we have in GW. Those arenas are the only way to keep bad players playing. GvG will eventually force them out as they continue to lose and not improve. This will push them away and towards these lower end areas.

At the same time while those areas are competitive they are not serious. Winning in RA is like winning in the minor leagues, sure you won but your not going to have a parade for it. They also do reward the losers a little compensation in the form of faction so there is some gain for them. So in this setup they mitigate the players they lose because they just can't win. This is a good business solution to the problem how do we still make a highly competitive game that also appeals to casual players

The only thing I disagree with is that eventually that lower 2% becomes skilled enough to win sometimes. The more that get pushed away because they can't win the smaller pool of bad players you have. This eventually creates a situation where there is always a possibility of a victory.

Bob Slydell · Nov 06, 2009, 10:25 PM // 22:25

GOod article, but I'm glad I nor no one I know gets that into online game matches.

amber dawn · Nov 06, 2009, 10:28 PM // 22:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garbad_the_Weak

http://lostgarden.com/2009/11/testos...tive-play.html

This seems to me to be the history of guild wars in a nutshell. Yes, there were problems with gimmickry and vod and such, but the real issue was that GvG, the capstone of guild wars, wasn't fun or rewarding to casuals. For us hardcores, it was the best experience ever, but to casuals it was a certain loss and and humiliation and thus the gvg population steadily declined from the birth of obs mode to today. I hope GW2 fixes this and makes gvg more fun to more people without harming how awesome it was at the top.

What do you think?

well i am not near the level or playing as most ppl in pvp, imho ppl that are humiliated by a game says alot about there real life. And those that log off gw for the night with the feeling of superiority after beating the crap out of someone in a game, well that says alot about their real life as well.
I'm not trying to flame or whatever u call it. If u feel the need to flame someone like me for writing this go ahead, your opinion of me is of supreme indifference, as im sure mine is to those who want to flame.

I like the article, thanks for posting it

Amber

Another Child · Nov 06, 2009, 10:43 PM // 22:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johny bravo

The only thing I disagree with is that eventually that lower 2% becomes skilled enough to win sometimes. The more that get pushed away because they can't win the smaller pool of bad players you have. This eventually creates a situation where there is always a possibility of a victory.

Well 2% is just the number I was using as an example of the ones who are pushed away, obviously arbitrary.

I mean, it's ELO. The bottom 50% all have losing records, but obviously they don't all leave. The majority try to improve, and the closer they are to winning records, the more motivated they are to do so.

It's the bottom 2% who don't understand why they are losing, thus don't know what they need to be working at improving, and never see a victory who I would consider the ones most likely to move on to something more suited to them. The issue is just that by leaving they create a vaccuum.

The lowest ranked player is the foundation of an ELO ladder, and also the most likely to stop playing. When he does, you have a new lowest ranked player, and a new candidate for 'most likely to leave'. Everyones rating drops too. Guilds that were 1900 rated 2 years ago are nowhere even close to that now, obviously not because they got worse, but because there are less points to go around.

You're right, eventually you're left with players who know that they need to improve, but a lot of them have already been playing for 4 years and start to feel like they've run into a brick wall, especially when their rating drops despite obvious improvement in their personal ability, or they're still stuck with losing records after years of play. The game starts to get 'boring' and 'stale' and they get very excited about whatever new releases are on the horizon.