AOE Spam Fest <Please remove it>

[Hyrist]

Lol exp party doesnt prepare anyone for endgame, its the same as school. They only teaches you basic, but it entirely different lesson once u get out to endgame/worklife. That is why there are still many terrible players even if they level "legit" and there are also some that get PL'd the whole way and still play better than most, it comes back to the person itself.

That's a rudimentary flaw in the education system. They try to teach you how to 'learn' but the truth of the matter is they're just teaching to the tests. There's rarely any valuable substance in the construct of your common US education system. Why the hell would we duplicate it here when it been shown as heavily flawed in practice in real life?

There are persons with above average skills, yes, but if the average skill is failure then why teach in that method? Instilling the basics and the situation awareness gained by raiding early will instill a 'muscle memory' into players on top of giving those who enjoy EXP parties the greater depth they desire. Doing so with a system that allows a variety of objectives that can be chosen (like the Leve system) also allows those of differing tastes the ability to pursue their preferences.

But field mob grinding itself is fundamentally flawed as a basis because it is, by design, and exploitative process - find the place that yields the best XP, then dominate that area as best you can until you tire out or reach your goal - hoping that no competition for the camp arrives and harms your success. That's the wrong kind of competitiveness to encourage.

[Alhanelem]

As I just said in another thread, EXP does not and is not meant to teach you how to play endgame. EXP grinding and endgame are fundamentally different. Endgame battles are much more elaborate and scripted= Even in the games with the most sophisticated character advancement mechanics, endgame is still different from what you spend your time doing while growing your character. The best way to teach endgame is to experience it, try something, fail, and try again. That's the best way to learn in general.

[Hyrist]

And as I retorted in that thread, that's a flawed system to build upon.

Experience point parties, though they are currently a mundane practice, don't have to be.

You can teach the basics of raiding, rather than mindless mob culling (And even if the battles are slightly more dynamic, it will become mindless.) by giving a more dynamic XP system that is similar to raiding or boss running. Players will then be accustomed to it when those said raids do happen, and they'll be able to handle the chaos better.

Your comparison is: "It's ok to teach a child how to walk, then throw him into a deep running river so he can learn to swim." It might work for some people, but for others, you just traumatized them into never wanting to do it, or, because they have to learn the basics in an environment that everyone is going to be stressed out in, they're going to be frustrated by their slower learning rate.

Why not ease them into the process and give the people who are calling for more in depth combat an avenue to do, for their experience.

Those who still want a mindless grind will still get it if we leave most the field mobs alone. And those who want to skip the 'practice' already have many ways of doing so.

[Xikeroth]

They just really need to add some content you can do in the meantime for leveling, an alternative to xp parties and levequests(since newer players are kind of screwed when it comes to starting this game... levequest allowances kind of doesn't cut it)

If people had more ways to level, more fun ways to level then AoE grind parties may not be around as much. I too find them boring.

I made a post with a concept idea regarding something that could greatly help this game, but the funny thing about these forums is people would rather flame each other then contribute to ideas to improve the game across the board.

The flat fact is we need more things to do from 1-50 that will reward us both with items and xp. Otherwise people just abuse the mindless AoE grinds as much as they can since that's the only way they will see content.

SE calls it success, other MMO developers call it a flaw, and since SE currently has the lowest MMO population out of all pay-to-play MMOs and even a lot of free-to-play MMOs it kind of says something.

[KujinRen]

Just for the record, there is a difference between a normal AOE encounter and an AOE spam fest. My main concern is regarding the spam fest.

[Alhanelem]

And as I retorted in that thread, that's a flawed system to build upon.

There's nothing flawed about learning from mistakes. It's the most basic and effective way to learn. Besides, anything you really need to know can and should be explained by the people you're running with. Any smart person is going to ask questions and learn how it works. If you get people who don't do this, EXP would never teach it to them- they're not willing to learn.

[Shurrikhan]

That's a rudimentary flaw in the education system. They try to teach you how to 'learn' but the truth of the matter is they're just teaching to the tests. There's rarely any valuable substance in the construct of your common US education system. Why the hell would we duplicate it here when it been shown as heavily flawed in practice in real life?

But if endgame were to be the only thing worthwhile in the end, then nothing but teaching to the tests will really be applicable to the game. Until there are actual ways to play once fully leveled as approximately lucrative in multiple aspects as raiding, there will only be one very narrow set of tests to measure one's learning. All of the true learning will go to waste.

That said, I think the solution lies in some breakthrough concept somewhere on pseudo-freeform gameplay, or whatever it takes such that leveling is not just gaining levels, but lively and inventive character progression -- and not just along the exact same lines as everyone else. And it must exist in such a way that it isn't bottle-necked through such closed-in and unoriginal MMO conventions as raiding alone. Raiding's fun--don't get me wrong--but I feel like this game definitely needs more, if not the whole of the MMO market soon enough.

[Shurrikhan]

They just really need to add some content you can do in the meantime for leveling, an alternative to xp parties and levequests(since newer players are kind of screwed when it comes to starting this game... levequest allowances kind of doesn't cut it)

If people had more ways to level, more fun ways to level then AoE grind parties may not be around as much. I too find them boring.

I made a post with a concept idea regarding something that could greatly help this game, but the funny thing about these forums is people would rather flame each other then contribute to ideas to improve the game across the board.

The flat fact is we need more things to do from 1-50 that will reward us both with items and xp. Otherwise people just abuse the mindless AoE grinds as much as they can since that's the only way they will see content.

SE calls it success, other MMO developers call it a flaw, and since SE currently has the lowest MMO population out of all pay-to-play MMOs and even a lot of free-to-play MMOs it kind of says something.

This. Heading to your post now, Xikeroth.

[Lux_Rayna]

But if endgame were to be the only thing worthwhile in the end, then nothing but teaching to the tests will really be applicable to the game. Until there are actual ways to play once fully leveled as approximately lucrative in multiple aspects as raiding, there will only be one very narrow set of tests to measure one's learning. All of the true learning will go to waste.

That said, I think the solution lies in some breakthrough concept somewhere on pseudo-freeform gameplay, or whatever it takes such that leveling is not just gaining levels, but lively and inventive character progression -- and not just along the exact same lines as everyone else. And it must exist in such a way that it isn't bottle-necked through such closed-in and unoriginal MMO conventions as raiding alone. Raiding's fun--don't get me wrong--but I feel like this game definitely needs more, if not the whole of the MMO market soon enough.

The problem is the games used to rely on players for that. Players made levelling fun (or not) because the "character" was a lot more important to gamers back then. They didn't need the game to give them anything but cities, caves/dungeons, and monsters. But nowadays, for whatever reason, the culture has changed a lot and gamers now *need* the game to provide things it didn't have to before. As a developer you're scratching your head trying to figure out "how" you can mimic what gamers used to invent themselves. Blizzard found a temporary answer with quest-chains and raids. After all, in the days of EQ, Asheron's Call, and the like, players used to group up with friends and go on "adventures". Creating quests-chains seemed like a pretty good way of recreating that. So far so good. Next was Raids, which was an amped-up version of the dungeons players would go explore. Sweeeet. No wonder WoW became such a huuuge and instant hit. It adapted to the change in culture.

But now, that isn't enough, people are bored of that. As a developer its back to scratching your head. People want fun, dynamics, all of the things players USED to provide themselves with no guidance from the game. Now the game has to provide it. But how? ANET (GW 2) actually had a really good idea imo in terms of level progression. Everything from quests, to level-synced zones/content, to pvp would provide you xp towards your levels. That seemed somewhat related to your suggestion so i threw it out there. It's freeform in that you do what you want, and all of it contributes to leveling. Even crafting/gathering xp goes towards your character's levelling progression. Seems like a good step in the right direction to me.

[indira]

people rush to cap to do boss fights = boring as xp'ing. all mmo's for the past 8 years been doing the same thing over and over.
there needs to be more stuff to do that make you setup like a XP party, caravan & hamlet was a nice idea but horribly executed, hope there fixed in 2.0. strongholds sound epic but just turned into a xp spam fest and no one wants the gear anymore but there sentinel gear.
be nice if 2.0 adds alittle bit of game to the garbage they have in version 1.