Keeping the game basic for new players?

[JimmyDean]

I was reading through the last live letter notes and came across this.

Q: Do you plan on adding buffer or debuffer roles?

A: At the moment we plan on continuing with the three current roles: tank, DPS, and healer. If we added more roles to these three, it would become more complicated to decide which job fits into which role, and I believe new players will be joining the game in 3.0 so we don't want to make it difficult for them to understand. For the time being we would like to keep the number of roles as it is as we move forward.

Really?? Keep in mind the question asked is irrelevant. The answer is where the problem lies "In Bold". Is the dev team assuming that new players are incapable of figuring anything out? This is not the mindset that i am looking forward to in the evolution of this game. That's fine if he wants to keep these 3 roles but his reasoning for doing so is not a good one.

[ElHeggunte]

I dunno, even current players seem to have a hard time grasping our simplistic combat system without anything else more complicated being thrown into the mix. You give your average modern day gamer too much credit.

[Zarzak]

You give your average modern day gamer too much credit.

Pretty much this.


I remember one of the quotes about why they took away our ability to check/uncheck quests in our log to show up on the hud was because "it confused people when their quest disappeared from the hud"

REALLY!? (for those who don't know until... phase 3 or 4. You could use the check boxes next to quests (like they ones they added in 2.1 but they were actually useful) to totally hide quests from your UI. Instead of the current system where if you have less than 4-5 quests you can't do anything about them showing up)

Also don't say "you can hide that UI element" it is also used as the timer/score board for every instance.

[Magis]

Pretty much this.


I remember one of the quotes about why they took away our ability to check/uncheck quests in our log to show up on the hud was because "it confused people when their quest disappeared from the hud"

REALLY!? (for those who don't know until... phase 3 or 4. You could use the check boxes next to quests (like they ones they added in 2.1 but they were actually useful) to totally hide quests from your UI. Instead of the current system where if you have less than 4-5 quests you can't do anything about them showing up)

Also don't say "you can hide that UI element" it is also used as the timer/score board for every instance.

Yeah, I recall that post. That's the bar that has been set, ugh. As an "alternative" they made the recommendation window... which is totally worthless. Thankfully the tracker returned, though it's kind of dumb that the tracker will always track quests, I'd rather have it clear unless I am doing something important.

[SevValen]

I dunno, even current players seem to have a hard time grasping our simplistic combat system without anything else more complicated being thrown into the mix. You give your average modern day gamer too much credit.

This I ran too many titan ex with people who just suck , there was this one group where 3 peopele would die constantly form the first plume , they wouldn't stack tight behind titan`s booty, they would put gangolas real close together, after 4 wipes you would think they'd get the flow but nope, I even told them that they sucked, they did respond but saying I sucked which threw me off when I was always the last one alive

[Mugiawara]

It's because it's a "baby's first time" game, that's why. They got this game as simplified as you can get...
Semi off-topic but I remember in Beta forums, a lot of us asked for Cura - Curaga - Curaja x Fire - Fira- Firaga spells
instead of Cure I, II and III and they responded because they didn't want it to be to complicated to understand.
It's a little insulting to be honest and the games already watered down to even a caveman can play this game...
so that's a sad reasoning.

[KizunaBlade]

Yeeaaah that reason seems a bit....wonky. If his reasoning for not adding a new role is to not confuse NEW PLAYERS...then why not remove everything ever? Even tho I have played many MMO's I was confused when I started this game....every new player will be confused by SOMETHING when starting a new game. Even more so if this happens to be their first game, in which case the existing three roles will already confuse them anyway. I dont see the logic in this.....the "i don't wanna confuse new players" thing never stopped any other MMO from pumping out as much new content/roles/races as they could.

So I agree with you, the reasoning for not adding a new role makes little to no sense, I would like a more legit reason XD.

[Armell]

I'm sure they also said that they'll be keeping the same sort of stats on the gear, without having any sort of 'gear set attributes' because it would be too complicated. They must think we're all thick as shit...

[TheRogueX]

I'm sure they also said that they'll be keeping the same sort of stats on the gear, without having any sort of 'gear set attributes' because it would be too complicated. They must think we're all thick as shit...

Err.. I bet a huge percentage of the playerbase has spent a tremendous amount of time playing WoW. Gear sets are sorta the norm over there. Hell, it's the Gold Standard of MMOs and, uh, it's 1000000x more complex than this game.

As for the lack of buffing... it makes me sad. I remember playing a priest character in other games and standing on the corner in noobville just so I could buff the crap out of lowbie characters as they ran out into the world for the first time. It was great.

[JimmyDean]

Yeah. It's not just about the roles. That method of thinking goes into whatever new content they think about introducing. Straight from the horses mouth.