Curse

JR · Mar 15, 2010, 02:27 PM // 14:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by esthetic

I think what he is saying is... The difference in results from an "expert" pvper and "novice" pvper is too much now, under the current format you get a good team v. a bad team you will get the good team winning 99 out of the 100 matches, ... If you lessen the effect of "good" play you will get the good team winning 90 out of the 100 matches. This does not mean "good" play will not be relevant, just means it wont be as dominating.

I have to agree that this kind of tweak would be a good thing to get more people in PvP play, especially if you are trying attract a new crowd. Losing 99 out of a 100 would turn anyone off lol.

In an ideal world you wouldn't play against anyone of a much higher or lower skill level anyway. A robust matchmaking system and a large playerbase will take care of that.

4thVariety · Mar 17, 2010, 01:37 PM // 13:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

In an ideal world you wouldn't play against anyone of a much higher or lower skill level anyway. A robust matchmaking system and a large playerbase will take care of that.

In the real world, people still resent what the most perfect matchmaking does to your win/loss ratio. If the fun was in playing, then yes, equal strength opponents are fine. But once people are just in it for the winning, or the rewards winning carries with it, losing half the time is not appealing anymore; no matter how fun the game once was. Player then switch to a game that is new, not more fair or better balanced.

JR · Mar 17, 2010, 02:41 PM // 14:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4thVariety

In the real world, people still resent what the most perfect matchmaking does to your win/loss ratio. If the fun was in playing, then yes, equal strength opponents are fine. But once people are just in it for the winning, or the rewards winning carries with it, losing half the time is not appealing anymore; no matter how fun the game once was. Player then switch to a game that is new, not more fair or better balanced.

Your logic is contrary to everything I've learned in eight years of being involved in competitive gaming.

- Good players get bored playing against bad players, because it's a waste of time. There is no challenge, they aren't testing their abilities or improving, and they will just have to queue back up for another match a few minutes later.

- Bad players get frustrated, because they are continually thrown into matches where they get rolled too quickly to enjoy the experience, or appreciate why they are losing and improve.

If you are into a competitive game because you want to roll your way through easy matches, then you are simply playing the entirely the wrong game. The absolute ideal for a competitive gamer would be consistently facing guilds that are on the same skill level or slightly better. Occasionally playing a worse opponent to score an easy win can be a boost to morale, but it's just a fleeting moment of fun with no long term benefit.

Riot Narita · Mar 17, 2010, 03:19 PM // 15:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

Your logic is contrary to everything I've learned in eight years of being involved in competitive gaming.

What you said is largely true... however I think 4thVariety makes a good point:

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4thVariety

If the fun was in playing, then yes, equal strength opponents are fine. But once people are just in it for the winning, or the rewards winning carries with it, losing half the time is not appealing anymore

Too many people may no longer be the ideal "competitive" players you described. They may instead be farmers... doing it for titles, faction rewards, whatever... rather than for the sport.

It all comes down to what you think the relative populations are, "competitive" players vs farmers.

JR · Mar 17, 2010, 03:37 PM // 15:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riot Narita

Too many people may no longer be the ideal "competitive" players you described. They may instead be farmers... doing it for titles, faction rewards, whatever... rather than for the sport.

It all comes down to what you think the relative populations are, "competitive" players vs farmers.

The farmers are simply a side effect of decline; not really a relevant factor.

Xenomortis · Mar 17, 2010, 03:56 PM // 15:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riot Narita

Too many people may no longer be the ideal "competitive" players you described. They may instead be farmers... doing it for titles, faction rewards, whatever... rather than for the sport.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

The farmers are simply a side effect of decline; not really a relevant factor.

Farmers will only crop up in relevant numbers once the competitive aspects start dying away.
If PvP is kept healthy with a decent matchmaking system then you really shouldn't have a problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4thVariety

But once people are just in it for the winning, or the rewards winning carries with it, losing half the time is not appealing anymore; no matter how fun the game once was. Player then switch to a game that is new, not more fair or better balanced.

Competitive people won't bother trying to stomp over newbies and only the competitive people become really good PvPers. If someone is trying to compete then they should realise that they have nothing to gain from slaughtering those much less inexperienced than themselves and it would be a waste of their time doing so.
Anyone obsessing over a Win/Loss ratio doesn't have the right mindset to be truly competitive - they don't want to take the risks to improve, they just want to push one number as high as it will go to caress and soothe their insecure ego.

If you want a competitive PvP setting then you cater to those who want to improve, those who want to compete. You don't cater to those who's interest lies e-peen stroking.

4thVariety · Mar 17, 2010, 07:26 PM // 19:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

Your logic is contrary to everything I've learned in eight years of being involved in competitive gaming.

The absolute ideal for a competitive gamer would be consistently facing guilds that are on the same skill level or slightly better.

While I have no doubt this being the truth for you, it is not the truth for the mainstream gamer causing millions in sales. Try to wipe that whole competitive idea from your mind for a second. Try to remove that personal perspective for a second.

What really happens in GvG, is 16 people being thrown into one map, they are two teams and the match ends with one team winning. The game tries not to find a way to entertain all 16 player. It does its best to be in a state wherein no team is favored by the game itself. The game hopes that the options available to the 16 players on their common map are enough to keep them interested in revisiting this place. The rules of HA, GvG, etc, limit those options into different directions and mold them into Game-Modes. After that, the gamer is basically abandoned. This does not make GvG into a competitive mode, it is a set of rules, nothing more.

What happens now is a compatibility check. Each player needs to answer for himself what interaction would entertain him being thrown into such battles. Does GvG, this set of rules, allow gamestates which I define as entertaining? The answer for J.R is Yes, GvG is compatible to my competitive points of view on 16 players interaction. But only a small fraction of all players will be competitive for the sake of the competition. You are one of them J.R., but you are not necessarily grouped with persons of the same psychological makeup. You are paired with other groups exploring the GvG ruleset in the pursuit of fun. Most player just want to have fun playing a game, having a close match against another human being can be one sort of fun, but it does not have to be the only sort of fun existing within a set of rules. If some other fun is suddenly more readily available than GvG, with its convoluted preconditions to having fun through competitiveness, players will go for that. Doing something dirt cheap and see you rage is fun as well. ArenaNet perceives that as violation of their ruleset for GvG and then fixes it. Not because you have the righteous competitive anger, but because the ruleset became unstable.

Most players you sit down in front of a board game and question after they played the board game will tell you that they played the board "together". Even if they played against each other from the perspective of the rules. This is not a linguistic slip-up, this is really their perception. This is also bad news for all people betting on a natural competitiveness arising in social environments. It won't. If your board game does not focus test right in this "together" department and is perceived as purely "we played against each other", then it is halfway up the chopping block.

Board games had this forced evolution during the 90ies. Now people even play on the same team (Pandemic), or they play against each other while pretending not to (Shadows over Camelot, Junta!). The overall focus of the design is on the shared experience. If an event happens in the game, all players are expected to be "wowed" and not just the one person smiting another. This is the very reason Settler of Catan is distributing resources the way it does. It could easily have made each player roll his resources privately at the beginning of his turn while retaining the same balance. But it did not, this 1vs1 competitiveness had to be removed because it hurt the game.

Some might call CoD killstreaks cheap, but it is never about absolute competitive balance, it is about precisely hitting that "we played together and a Nuke killed us all" moment. Prepackaged togetherness. I reckon some people will still be all about the narrow wins and narrow losses, but this is not what is going on in games by a longshot. It is no longer about the winning team having fun, it is all about the losing team ALSO having fun. Or nobody perceiving to have lost at all. Which ironically is the definition of an ideal GvG session J.R. pulls out of his pocket. Winning and loosing dissolved in a cloud of shared competitive experience that draws more from its narrowness than its result or potentially even fairness. From that perspective, the GvG ruleset serves only a very particular taste and those people only have more demands to what should happen before "fun" pops into existence. You cannot toss everybody into that ruleset.

The single-minded focus on competitiveness and execution of player skill, never fails to kill a game. It has to branch out as much as it cans, not by offering iterations of game-modes favoring the same players, but by trying to entertain as many different people as possible. Even if that mean some sorts of "PvP" will be resented by GvG-Pros and vice versa. A process GW stopped after Factions for no reason.

JR · Mar 19, 2010, 01:26 PM // 13:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4thVariety

...

Thanks for the response, there's a lot of nuance and insight there. Particularly enjoyed your points on the importance of a sense of togetherness, and your rather abstract way of looking at game design. Great post.

In response I'd present the following points:

- You say it is the community and not the rule set that makes a game competitive. I'd agree entirely, and simply add that the community is influenced by the rule set.

- There are games that demonstrate a purely competitive focus can be successful. People who draw their fun from balanced, challenging opposition aren't as much a minority as you imply.

- There are games that demonstrate casual minded players having fun within a strict competitive rule set. Indeed there are games demonstrating competitive minded players having fun within a very open and non-competitive rule set.

That all said, I think we are arguing from slightly different positions. My perspective is one of preserving ArenNet's goals for competitive play, because it was well executed and successful. You are coming from the other side of the same issue, not necessarily looking at how good what they had was, but the weaknesses implied by what they didn't have.

Simply, I think our posts simply demonstrate the importance of inclusive design in games. Trying to create formats or environments to suit everyone will always compromise on benefits as much as it does on negatives. Your last paragraph particularly reminds me of a great post I read on GW2G a couple of weeks ago:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick Batman

I agree with this completely. One thing among many MMO gamers I don't understand is little brother syndrome, where players don't want anyone else to do anything that they, themselves, don't like. The key to doing this correctly is to let players opt in or opt out as they choose.

If PvP can be played as a separate game type, then put it in completely. Players can ignore it.

If there is some elite gear grind that helps you be a little better at PvE, then put it in, as long as it's not required to complete the game.

There's this culture of not understanding what the word "optional" means. In GW1, much of the grind stuff was optional, but it's perceived that it's because the elite gear never upgraded you statistically. I wonder if it's actually just because you could beat the game without doing it, and it was something players could choose to do or not do.

What makes that change if the power progression were included? Why do players need the "best stuff" if it's not required? Isn't that then optional?

Killed u man · Mar 19, 2010, 05:35 PM // 17:35

Being too tired to throw out big words (Had to clean the intire house today

), and not understanding many of the points being made by both JR and 4ThVariety in this thread, I have a couple of questions:

-Wasn't it already established the day competitive gaming became a reality, that competitive gaming and casual gaming don't fair together well, simply because they have different goals as an objective.

I know you guys know this already, but I'm going to throw what I believe are the definitions of the last 2 out there for easier comparison:

-Casual Caming: The gaming here is nothing more than a pass-time. You win, you loose, but you don't care. The focus here purely is on the entertainment value you get from said game. Though, winning all the time (because you're good at the game) can be an outcome of casual gaming, but is not the goal.

-Competitive Gaming: The gaming here is more of a hobby than it is a pass-time. It's something you (have to) do daily, where you want to improve in and eventually match your skills with others. (Just like skateboarding, bmx, football, etc) The focus here purely is on improving at the game, with as goal obviously winning. Though, the entertainment value obviously still is important, I don't think anyone would disagree that the game no longer is way of "relaxing", but rather something people get very emotional (and even stress) about. When you see 2 top teams (Be it in GW tournaments, Shooters, etc) duking it out, noone of them want to enjoy the game, they all want to win. (Because the victory = enjoyment)

*Though do note that with competitive gaming, competitive is a keyword. Meeting people of the same skill level is a basic given.

So then I see both of you guys arguing that GW is/should be competitive or not competitive, whereas the truth is that it's both.

4thVariety · Mar 20, 2010, 12:50 PM // 12:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

- There are games that demonstrate a purely competitive focus can be successful. People who draw their fun from balanced, challenging opposition aren't as much a minority as you imply.

A good point forcing my theory on GW everything to adjust for contradictions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

- There are games that demonstrate casual minded players having fun within a strict competitive rule set. Indeed there are games demonstrating competitive minded players having fun within a very open and non-competitive rule set.

Essentially those games cannot target the "casualness" of people then, can they? There has to be something more. But is wasn't until Kille U Man's post that I tried to crunch it and got an idea. The polydimensional player. Just like any object has three dimensions independent from each other, competitive and casualness are independent dimensions. They are not +5-5=0, they are more like coordinates in two dimensions (+5/-5). So even if I am more casual, I can still play with people of the same competitiveness, because our "player coordinates share one value". But I cannot play with people who have a different competitiveness, since that coordinate would not be equal with mine and we'd have nothing in common. Save only for those people who are equally casual about their difference in competitiveness and can agree based on that. Sounds complicated? There is more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

-Wasn't it already established the day competitive gaming became a reality, that competitive gaming and casual gaming don't fair together well, simply because they have different goals as an objective.

That was easy to say when Quake 3 was the pinnacle of competitive gaming and there were no other motives to enter an arena other than to shoot everything that moves. At that time you went to a Lanparty and most people were on the same page about why they played Q3. This created this sense of a community. You wanted other people to play against you.

But in an MMO environment (GW in particular), your reasons to enter a PvP arena are wildly different from player to player. This strains their relationships quite a lot. Some players might still enter PvP simply to compete against another team and draw their fun from that. Others want to farm Faction because it's the fastest way or something. Others want to earn Z-Keys and get rich. Some want the status of being high on the ladder. Some what their name acknowledge by the game after winning the hall. (These would be different values in one of the coordinate's dimensions) All those players are competitive but in wildly different fields, they are no longer on the same page as the Q3 community once was (The Q3 community's coordinates where basically the same in one dimension, which resulted in "togetherness").

All those players enter the GW arenas with and hate on each other because suddenly Team B does not add to the enjoyment of Team A by being an opponent. Team B becomes an agent of denying them the very thing they were seeking in this PvP place (Z-Keys, Fame, Titles, E-peen). This marks the shift from a welcome opponent to a resented enemy. Game-modes do not recover from that. Random Arena flourishes mainly because the people there are all on the same page although being on wildly different skill levels. One coordinate is the same, this common denominator makes them stick together. Which you cannot say for the players in HA, they stopped enjoying each other and only enjoy the reward. The more ArenaNet drowned PvP modes in rewards to pull players in from all angles, the more they tore each other apart. Once you play with people who agree with you, the game-mode itself becomes secondary and unimportant. But with different skill levels, different definitions of fun and different definitions of fair play (i.e. street rules imposed on top of the hard-coded rules; also see Battlefield Grenade Spam rules), the game evaporated because people were not adding to each other's fun, they were subtracting from it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

Casual Caming: The gaming here is nothing more than a pass-time. You win, you loose, but you don't care. The focus here purely is on the entertainment value you get from said game. Though, winning all the time (because you're good at the game) can be an outcome of casual gaming, but is not the goal.

Everybody who turns on a specific game, already made a series of conscious decisions to optimize the entertainment value of his spare time. If he was 100% whatever all the time, then he might as well have turned on the TV or hit some "Random Game Now" Button on Steam. But if you turn on a specific game, select a character and then move to a PvP area, you already decided to be in the pursuit of one specific form of entertainment. The problem is then if the game randomly groups you with people who have come for other motives than your own. Players might hate the single-mindedness of Team-Deathmatch + Grind of CoD4, but at least the players are all there for the same reason, that's why they feel togetherness and come back. Which is why so far everybody has failed by trying to copy that and add on top of it. Because Infinity Ward's competition has not understood yet that it is not about the rewards and not about the number of game-modes and weapons. It is about shaping the minds of the players to a homogeneous mass that enjoys each other's company and agrees on why they play this game. This is also why CS players are fine with playing Dust, Office and Dust2 until kingdom come. We look at them from the outside willing to generalize them, but the game itself is popular because it exposes its players to similar other players, not random pricks, not odd couples.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

-Competitive Gaming: The gaming here is more of a hobby than it is a pass-time. [...] (Because the victory = enjoyment)[/I]

Most clever games manage to package "victory" into very tiny single-serving portions and have them ready at all times. You do not have to be super-competitive and aim for the super reward. There is also the micro-reward scratching the tiniest of competitive itches in every person. When your mother-in-law suddenly start to tell you about what she reaped in Farmville, then it is not because she is casual, but because something addressed her level of competitiveness right.

Needless to say, that GW attracts few micro-competitive players and a lot of "I want it all players" for whom there is no shortage of large rewards after highly ambitious goals and grinds. This whole micro-rewards thing has not yet penetrated all levels of play. GW is very top heavy with some things at the bottom and no middle-ground rewards.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

So then I see both of you guys arguing that GW is/should be competitive or not competitive, whereas the truth is that it's both.

As weird as it sounds, but to draw in more players, GW has to do a better job at preventing you being exposed to "incompatible players". This sounds like it violates the first rule of social gaming, but as I believe that this move can help make the game more attractive to more people. Imagine you doing what you enjoy doing in the game. There is no gain to being grouped with a person who is doing it for a different reason than you. Because as soon as this other reason fizzles, he might just quit your group because he expected faster run-times, or more aggressive builds, or, or, or.