Curse

hallomik · Jan 11, 2007, 03:41 AM // 03:41

As a disclaimer, I don’t actually know that GW if dying or if my idea will really do anything to stave off any problems, but it seems like provocative thread titles get a lot more responses.

That being said, I do actually think there are some fundamental problems going on in GuildWars that are detracting from the game’s long-term viability and that I think can be addressed in several ways. I can summarize my thesis as follows:

For the GuildWars business model to prosper, it needs to both attract new customers and retain existing players to purchase future expansions.

The game must therefore simultaneously provide a welcoming environment for new players, and a continuously challenging but fun experience for existing players.

Those two goals are made difficult to reconcile and otherwise hard to achieve with the current design for several reasons:

Players play for different reasons at different times.
Both the best experiences and worst experiences in the game involve interaction with other people.
The key to getting a good experience versus a bad one is grouping with people with compatible goals and mindsets.
Factions’ alliances rendered the ability of guilds to facilitate this goal much more difficult.
Removing alliances is not feasible or desirable
Nightfall’s introduction of Heroes rendered the ability of PUGs to facilitate this goal much more difficult.
Removing Heroes is not desirable or feasible.
Scammers can ruin the game for new or careless players.
Outright bans of all players engaging in behavior that could be considered scamming is not feasible.
Leechers, AFK’ers can ruin the game for other players.
There are many problems associated with automatically identifying deliberate abuse of the system by players versus innocent situations that resemble planned cheating.
Behavior annoying to some made possible by the anonymity inherent in GuildWars is common and arguably more prevalent than in other MMOG’s.
The freedom to behave as one chooses is part of the appeal of a fantasy environment and any constraints should be applied extremely carefully.
The best way to handle most of the above is to give the players information and choice.

Whether you are going to be open to my suggestion depends a lot on of you agree with the above. If you don’t agree with it, feel free to disagree (or 1. flame, or 2. say “I stopped reading when…,” or 3. read only one or two sentences (maybe just the title) from the post and respond to what you imagine I’m saying, or 4. attach your unrelated idea to my thread instead of starting your own, or 5. Imply that I am deficient in some way because through your superior gameplay, you have rendered my concerns moot). These are all very common approaches to responding to provocative threads and I would not want to deprive anyone from these excellent rejoinders.

With the legal stuff out of the way, let me first provide some backup for each point.

1) Players play for different reasons at different times. I think this is trivially true, but my point is that it is even true for the same person over time and with different characters. When you first start, you are playing to learn – both the mechanics and conventions of the game. Sometimes you’re playing to progress the plot. Sometimes you’re playing to achieve a particular goal: Masters, Bonus. Sometimes you’re playing for human interaction. Sometimes you’re playing to cooperate. Sometimes to compete. Sometimes to show off your cool gear. Sometimes, you’re working on your survival title. Sometimes you’re there to explore a few fuzzy map areas. Sometimes to share your wisdom with others. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

2) Both the best experiences and worst experiences in the game involve interaction with other people. I think this is fairly inarguable, too. The most fun missions (for me) were with full human groups working together like a well-oiled machine or finding a good player with a good sense of humor. The most unpleasant (for me again) involved very annoying behavior by other players. Yes, succeeding or failing a mission with hero/henches can be satisfying or frustrating, but never quite on the same level as when other players are involved.

3) The key to getting a good experience versus a bad one is grouping with people with compatible goals and mindsets. Again, obvious, right? If you are there to learn a particular mission, but others are there get a Master quickly as possible, and still others are there to have some amusing interaction with other players, this group will be an exercise in frustration for all. The new player will wonder why the master player is yelling at him. The master player will be frustrated by the novice and annoyed by the casual player. The casual player will be mystified by the, to him, overly goal-driven master player. None of these players is playing the game wrong. What is wrong is for them to play together and expect the group to function to their liking.

4) Factions’ alliances rendered the ability of guilds to facilitate this goal more difficult. My experience with guilds has been less than stellar since the introduction of Factions. My typical experience is as follows. A new guild is formed looking for members – advertised as low-pressure, friendly, casual, helpful, etc. I join guild. Leadership positions are highly sought after by others for Alliance Chat, but not by me. Guild starts off as advertised. Sometimes people ask for money, help, items, materials. I always help guildies if asked and almost never ask in return. Guild eventually reveals that it wants to either join or maintain its status in an alliance. In order to achieve that goal, faction is required. All members are expected to supply X amount of faction per Y unit of time. This is not my idea of a good time, as I already have a job, so guild and I agree to part ways. Repeat. I’m sure PVP guilds still work out fine, but it seems that PVE guilds are not holding together as they did pre-Factions.

5) Removing alliances is not feasible or desirable. The concept of an alliance is very clever and a now fundamental part of GuildWars, and there is nothing really stopping guilds from ignoring the faction competition aspect to it. I am not proposing that ArenaNet change it, although others have suggested changing how control of the Deep and Urgoz work. These changes could take some of the faction-grind pressure away from guilds and I would support such changes. On the other hand, I respect if people enjoy the PVE competition between guilds.

6) Nightfall’s introduction of Heroes rendered the ability of PUGs to facilitate this goal much more difficult. I have immensely enjoyed outfitting and controlling and experimenting with my heroes. This has allowed me to avoid PUG’s almost entirely. I’m about to take my 6th character thru the Realm of Torment and I’ve done it nearly all alone excepting the last two missions. I have to admit the game has gotten rather lonely, despite the nearly utter elimination of bad experiences. I’ve sacrificed the high’s and low’s of PUGs for the now boring certainty of heroes. As most experienced players are finding success with heroes, the success rates among the remaining pool of players looking for human groups has worsened which pushes ever more players to go for heroes or to get frustrated. I think that if Nightfall was my first campaign how disappointed I might have been. With Prophesies, there were always other good players forced to group with us new players and show us the ropes. (Confession: my first character was a healing breeze Whammo.) I doubt the first-time player to Nightfall has anywhere near the number of early-in-the-game good group experiences that I had. I further doubt that I’d still be playing GW if my first experience was that of new players these days.

7) Removing Heroes is not desirable or feasible. I would personally go on strike if they tried to remove heroes now. There are so many times when you can’t get enough players otherwise, or you’re in a hurry, or you want to experiment. There would be a revolt of epic proportions if ArenaNet tried to reverse this gameplay element and I would grab a pitchfork. As much as heroes have tended to isolate players, there is no going back. Especially considering that each expansion will spread players ever more thinly (if the overall base growth fails to keep up), Heroes are here to stay.

8) Scammers can ruin the game for new or careless players. I remember the first time I stepped into Ascalon City. The atmosphere reminded me of a sleazy carnival with all the barkers trying to take advantage of new players, but I was smart enough to avoid all of the come-ons. Not all players are so lucky and finding that the black dye sold for 100g is worth many times that is an all-too-common experience. Right now, it’s the law of the jungle out there with little but a healthy dose of skepticism to protect oneself.

9) Outright bans of all players engaging in behavior that could be considered scamming is not feasible. There are simply too many players for ArenaNet to police trades. Also, sometimes a player is willing to take less that the theoretical market value of an item in the interest of time. Cheating should be deplored (e.g. the gold for platinum trick – swapping items with similar skins, etc.), but trying to get a good deal is also part of the game. An auction house would help a lot – or traders for everything, but a certain amount of risk makes trading fun. The key is to protect the players from the truly unscrupulous.

10) Leechers, AFK’ers can ruin the game for other players. Is any elaboration here really required?

11) There are many problems associated with automatically identifying deliberate abuse of the system by players versus innocent situations that resemble planned cheating. Sometimes a player really does need to go AFK because of an emergency. Some people can use a bot to simulate a live player, which could avoid the detection by an automated AFK detector. On the other hand, the other players, unlike an automatic system, usually can tell the innocent act from the deliberate cheat.

12) Behavior annoying to some made possible by the anonymity inherent in GuildWars is common and arguably more prevalent than in other MMOG’s. Whereas games like WOW dedicate a server to a small subset of the gaming universe and therefore players are much more likely to encounter each other repeatedly, any two players of the X million GuildWars gamers could find a way to play with each other. This means there is an anonymity factor far greater than that of similar games. Also, because it’s a one-time investment per chapter and characters can be leveled to the max rather quickly, the price of entry is low and there is generally less concern over one’s in-game reputation. Just like people are more likely to whoop it up when they go out of town, so are GW gamers more likely to act crazily with so few social constraints. Does the same thing go on in the other games? Sure. Does it go in at the same level as GuildWars. From my experience, it does not.

13) The freedom to behave as one chooses is part of the appeal of a fantasy environment and any constraints should be applied extremely carefully. Not all would say this freedom is a bad thing. Being able to be someone else for a while is part of the appeal of the RPG format. If the possibility of making a bad trade, for example, was totally eliminated, the game would lose something. Also, GuildWars has implemented all sorts of things to give players choices – both to play and behave as they like and to choose their interaction with others. Players can go PVE or PVP. High level areas act as a filter for poorer/newer players. Henches, heroes, friends lists, ignore lists, guilds are all tools to allow the player to choose exactly how to interact with the gaming world. The problem is all of these tools have tended to isolate players more and more. Collectively, with all of these improvements and the continued expansion of gaming real estate, some human element has been lost, and the game is suffering.

14) The best way to handle most of the above is to give the players information and choice. Ultimately, allowing the player to make choices is critical and fortunately, GW does an admirable job of providing choices. What it doesn’t give players is enough data to always make the best choice and that leads to frustration. My proposal is to provide a structure to give that information to the players. With that choice, players will be better armed to deal with scammers, new players, weak players, leet players, afk’ers, leechers, and rage-quitters.

The proposal: In-game user profiles and a player rating system.

The system would work as follows. Like titles, you would be able to tell others about your gaming style and desires for a particular mission, such as:

Skill Level (PVE):
1 - From “Be nice, I’m learning” to
2 - “I’m getting the hang of this”
3 - “I’m bringing another character through the game”
4 - “I’m skilled if I do say so myself”
5 - “Hardcore Veteran – Watch and learn”

SKILL Level (PVP):
1 - “I love a game that let’s a brand new player create a level 20 character!!!”
2 - “I’m getting the hang of this”
3 - “win some, lose some – but mostly win some”
4 - “Grizzled Veteran”
5 - “Gladiator Champ”

Openness to suggestions:
1 - From “I’m always looking for tips” to
…
5 - “I know what I’m doing, keep your opinions to yourself”

AFK probability
1 - From “My Life is GW” to
…
5 - “Sadly, Real Life often intrudes”

Cool Under Fire
1 - From “cool as a cucumber” to
….
5 - “Serenity now! Now I say!”

Tolerance for inexperienced players
1 - From “we all have to learn sometime” to
…
5 - “today is not the day I help the newbie”

Mission/Quest knowledge
1 - From “What’s a mission again?” to
…
5 - “My other 7 characters already have Masters”

Mission/Quest Expectation
1 - From “let’s see what happens” to
2 - “let’s just finish it please” to
3 - “let’s go for the bonus/Masters” to
5 - “Masters Only – I have already done this mission”

Other Considerations (checkboxes)
I’m a survivor.
I need to uncover the map.

These simple tags would allow the leet player and the new player to avoid each other. The guy who demands dedication can avoid the potential afk'er etc. It's all great, unless people communicate false information.

Shockingly, people in GW do not always tell the truth.

Next, the Player Ratings come into play, but only after successfully completing a mission or a quest or winning a PVP match. If you have self-rated yourself higher than a 2 on a 5 point scale, other players can provide feedback on your skill level. Using the same scale of options, they will assess your skill, tolerance, mission expertise, etc. Again, this applies only if you have made claims about yourself. Further, if the mission fails or if the battle is lost, no ratings will be allowed. Emotions always run high following a failure, so this negative skew is eliminated. Rage-quitters, however, will be subject to ratings if the other players complete the mission without him.

After a sufficient number of votes (200?), these ratings from other players will become available to you as an averaged number – a kind of community scorecard. You will then have the option to display your scores to others if you choose. No once is forcing you, but your claims about being a leet player once the ratings have been in effect for a long time might not be taken seriously if you don’t “show your cards.”

To prevent vote farming, multiple votes between two players will result in only the latest vote counting. Votes from members of your guild count as a .1 vote and votes from within your alliance count as a .2 vote to further discourage farming. All votes from members of a guild you’ve just joined will be striken from your tally. Missions and quests in the beginner regions/islands and pvp areas will not count. The last 5 missions of any campaign will have a doubled value and successful completions of elite missions will result in triple value votes.

Repeatedly running the same mission will cause the value of the votes for you to diminish and diminish – much like the anti-farming code affects drops. People will still be able to rate your mission knowledge, but not overall skill for repeatedly completing the same mission.

As skill levels vary by character, and some players share an account, each character will have separate ratings for all player-communicated/rated attributes.

For random arenas, PVP Skill player ratings will be treated as a kind of handicap. Players will be put together so that competing teams are evenly matched and all players equivalently skilled. This will be done based on the availability of players, of course, but for example, new players will be more likely teamed up with and play against other new players. If you are an unrated player or self rate yourself low, and you’re actually an experienced player, you will likely win a lot but your rating will rise until the matches begin to be more competitive. Over time, you can then use a high rating to get into highly-competitive PVP guilds. Let me admit that I don’t play PVP, so if something like this already exists, please keep the flaming to a low sear. This is just what makes sense to me from an outsider perspective.

Similar to player skill ratings, players will be able to rate each other upon the completion of a trade. If you were scammed, let your rating be a warning to others. Note that some forms of scamming are cause for banning (e.g., selling an account), so feel free to take screen shots to send to ArenaNet if you suspect a player is really underhanded. Your trader rating will accrue over time as well, and there be the option of the trader to display his player-rated title or not. For high dollar trades, players may insist on seeing the other person’s rating, but this is still the option of the each player. You may take a person’s unwillingness to share into consideration before a trade is made.

My biggest hope (hope, I said, not expectation) is that the subtle pressures of a player rating system will cause players to think a moment before tearing into someone. Nothing would really force anyone to change anything, but given the lengths people go to to acquire titles, I’ve got to believe this would have a positive effect on the overall community in ways that would make the initial and ongoing experience of players a lot more positive.

Anticipated negative responses to proposal and my responses:

A) Jerks will rate me poorly for kicks – no thanks! You don’t have to display your rating, and you don’t have to even allow yourself to be rated if you maintain a beginner status. If you are already so down on the user community, you’re probably only playing in guilds or with heroes anyway. Why worry? In general, I think this fear is overblown. It only seems as if every player is a tool. In reality, most players are actually pretty cool, but it only takes a few bad apples to ruin it for a lot of people. Cool people outnumber the not-so-cool. The ratings will be fine and fair over time.
B) The subtleties of my class will make it difficult for player to properly rate my skills. Other classes (MM’s & Monks) will have it easy. You play a mesmer, don’t you? Seriously, ratings will be comparable between classes, but likely not across classes. That means a “3.5” assassin may be recognized as a better player than “4.0” Monk. Players are smart. They take these kinds of biases into consideration.
C) All this math is too complicated. Relax. The people at ArenaNet are quite bright, indeed. It doesn’t have to work exactly as I’ve laid out. Players will figure it out quickly enough.
D) Your system is too complicated and subject to abuse. Can’t we just have a player kick system within missions? Player kicking is far more subject to abuse than this system. Imagine getting to the end of tombs with your PUG only to be vote-kicked before the greens dropped. Vote kicking only works after the experience has been nearly ruined anyway. No thanks to vote kicking. That being said, nothing says you couldn't do both. I just like mine better, natch.
E) You just don’t know how to play. I’ve pugged the hardest missions and never had a single mission fail once. If you were a good (leader/player/planner/sizer-upper of people) this wouldn’t happen to you. Go cry somewhere else luzor. Mom, I’ve talked to you about trolling on my game forums.
F) You really expect players to shape up because of your system? Get real. I only hope players will shape up. What this really allows is for players of like minds to find one another in this great big world we call GuildWars.
G) GuildWars isn’t dying and it’s irresponsible of you to suggest otherwise. It’s people like you who will ruin things with your constant negativity. Admit it. You didn’t get past the title of the thread, did you?
H) What we really need is more storage space and an auction house. Umm, I agree with you, but that isn’t what this thread is about.
I) I like French fries. C’mon Mom. Please!
J) I stopped reading when… If you couldn’t be bothered to read the post, why in the world would you spend time responding to… Oh, that’s right it’s because you’re a troll. Mom!
K) Shouldn’t this be posted in Sardalac? Umm, that is where I posted it.