TL;DR: DPSMetres Encourage Selfish Play

DPS metres!

Something I’ve gone back to really enjoying not having to deal with.

DPSmetres are… horrible things. Or well. A single factor that can turn slowly into a Horrible Thing. One of the glaring differences (and Recount was always one of the first addons I downloaded!) I’m seeing now in GW, after a month to see Cataclysm then going home is… what a horrible effect DPSmetres have on mindsets.

With DPSmetres, suddenly being good is doing more damage than everyone else, and damn the consequences. No! Can’t waste time CCing or anything, can’t buff anyone else, because that might take away time from my almighty DPSmetre score!

Yes, I’m exaggerating – but that DPSmetre stuff is also something that particularly struck me about WoW, and WoW’s entire combat architecture, when I was running Domain of Anguish with 2 friends in GW last night.

That is, even though WoW encourages team play on the surface, the very construction of the classes and builds encourage solo play. That is, everyone plays as an autonomous unit within the group, caring only for their own cooldowns and buffing their own roles. Tanks and healers too.

I’m not explaining this very well, I’m afraid. But it’s things like… how GW has a spell called ‘Splinter Weapon’ that when cast on a target, makes each of their physical attacks hit 4 other targets, for x number hits. And the damage/DPS boost is attributed to the target, not the caster. This sort of spell is VERY common in GW. And really, all you have to give up to bring it is one slot on your 8-skill skillbar.

In WoW, the only thing I can think of that comes readily/easily to mind, that buffs someone else, and gives them the benefit in terms of numbers, is Power Infusion. And you have to go pretty deep into the Disc tree to get that. Basically, (I don’t think) you would have that without being a Disco-preet.

I guess what I’m trying to say is one of the things I didn’t like about WoW was how, when it comes down to the actual nitty-gritty of it, team play is NOT built into the system and NOT encouraged on a truly fundamental level. (Bear in mind, I played WoW for 3 years – Vanilla to end of TBC – before moving to GW.) And it’s this very obsessive individuality built into the system that, paired with DPSmetres, encourages mindsets which are counterproductive to achieving team play and spirit.

This is something inherent in the architecture itself though, and there’s no point or purpose in railing against it. Either you can accept this kind of play, and enjoy it, or you can’t.

Hope this gave a slightly different perspective as to why DPSmetres can be da ooky. =)

TL;DR
DPSMetres tend to encourage selfish play.

*waddly nugget waddles off, leaving another crumbly battery wall of text in her wake*

Long spammy comment I wrote on the whole Social Responsibility of tanks and healers storm in a teacup that's been storming around in the MMO portion of the blogosphere recently.

I spammed up poor Spinks' place, then realised my readers might perhaps be interested in the perspective, too.

The fling is over, I'm going home.

*snuggles Rotty*

Cataclysm is beautiful, but it ultimately brought home to me how much I hate WoW's combat architecture, and how I disagree with almost all of Blizzard's game design choices. And so, in what was probably a foregone conclusion in the first place, I've cancelled my subscription again.

That being said - Cataclysm is truly polished work. If this had been the first expansion I'd played, rather than the Burning Crusade, I might never have left.

But now, it's time to catch up with Gwen and Keiran, and to get back to feeding toes to Rotty!

Priming, Consistency, Cheating, and Being a Jerk at The Psychology of Video Games; My Basis for Social Experimentation with WoW's LFD Tool

Bargh, Chen, and Burrows also did another experiment where some people unscrambled sentences with words related to rudeness (bold, bother, brazen) and some worked with words indicating politeness (patiently, courteous, unobtrusively). All subjects then walked in on a staged scene where they had to interrupt a conversation to get some needed information. Those in the “polite” condition waited 9.3 minutes on average. Those in the “rude” condition jumped in after just 5.5 minutes on average.3

These are examples of what psychologists called “priming,” which is basically getting people in a particular state of mind or getting them to think about what you want them to. It’s a staple of advertising and surprisingly easy to do. I’ve been thinking for a while that game developers should take better advantage of it.

What if, for example, certain words of phrases were thrown around on loading screens between levels or in the matchmaking lobby for a multiplayer shooter? Would simply showing words like “sportsmanship” or “communication” or “fairness” prime people to behave themselves during games? If you didn’t want to be that transparent, you could include little stories, vignettes, or even comics or movies that included those words or illustrations of them. Or maybe you could use real data, like the number of heals provided by players in the previous game or awards for best defense.

This makes me wonder...

...I think I shall now try greeting every crappy LFD group (by now, I despise the dungeon finder) with some happy, perky bounces, and see if that works with priming the groups to act more decently in general, thereby improving my LFD grouping experiences.

I do usually try to greet people with at least a, 'Hullo!' However, for the purposes of this experiment, I think I'll try to be a little bit odder, and work in 'polite' words for killing everything in sight, and see if that works better.

E.g.: Woohoo! Hi guys! Lettuce go forth and politely divest all the mobbies of their tasty loot with civility and gentleness!

(Assuming they have a certain level of mastery of the English language, it should at least be 'ha, this person is odd' even if it's not actually amusing - and it will hopefully, prime everyone with polite words.)

Certainly, when I made mistakes when I started tanking again (even though only low level) for the first time in 2 years, and I explained exactly that, the group was a lot more forgiving than it would have been had I said nothing.

Pair that with how apology has the tendency (if perceived as sincere) to cancel out the effects of annoyance...

...I shall run my little social experiment and report back inna bit!

More observations:
This is the line I've been using. I've had to macro it, because groups are so gogogogogo these days I don't have TIME to type it... and I type really fast.
/p Hi guys! The PUG runs I've had from LFD lately have been great. Good, polite folk - let's hope this is one of them too.

Unfortunately, I can only do this once per run. This is a problem because of folks dropping out / being kicked, etc, and it would be suspicious to keep saying it every time someone new shows up.

Only have one sample so far, so can't really comment - off to get more!

Samples (I may split this off eventually or this will get awfully long)
With Priming
1) RFK - good
2) RFK - good
3) DM - good

4) ZF - good
5) BRD - neutral
6) BRD - bizarre. group was really good. tank was really bad. pally who would not consecrate 'it takes too much mana', could not hold aggro, and ninja'd a haste cloak from me because 'it has stamina' XD
7) BRD - neutral - tank dropped group when Angerforge didn't drop her item
8) ST - bad
9) BRD - bad, tank pulled whole bar way over thaar, while we were smashing barrels. then had a hissy fit. also, another pally tank who wouldn't ever ever EVER consecrate. Not even when I was tanking all the adds (healer).
10) BRD - good - great tank, great group, some loldeaths in the bar, but really nice in general
11) Ramparts - good
12) Slave Pens - good
13) Blood Furnace - good (all three by same group - so could be skewed here)

Without Priming
1) DM - N/A incompetank, didn't have time to hit the macro, didn't stay past the first 2 pulls. Yes, that bad. 
2) ST - Good
3) BRD - bizarre. So many wipes. But people were good natured. Accidentally pulling Drakkisath cause tank didn't SEE him... is classic. XD
4) Ramparts - Good... but - idiot WotLK babies for DPS. Tank was the best I've had in 60 levels, and she was only 59. Extremely tough, amazing aggro (idiots pulled boss, no problems), and she was marking kill target as it came up. Professional. And they were making fun of her for it.
5) BF - Good
6) BF - Bad/bizarre - incredibly INCREDIBLY squishy DK tank. Like healing a mage. He needed shield AND renew at all times, and penance always on CD, with flash heal spamming as well. Couldn't hold aggro so good - I kept being silenced because he wasn't holding the attention of the silencing mobs. And to top it all off, he was wearing a skirt. A skirt. Blizzard doesn't put tanks in skirts, that I remember, unless it's druid leather... So glad I got gear upgrades and talents. -_-
7) UB - Neutral
8) AC - Good

...going to have to stop this for now. the BC section, and I'm told WotLK section is so faceroll that I never run out of mana no matter how stupid the group is being. Makes it very hard to judge.

Greedy goblin - WoW Cynicism at Its Finest

As I wrote, Blizzard designed an ingenious mechanic for heroics: there is huge pressure on tanks and healers to do great job, while little pressure on damage dealers. While good damage dealers can speed up the fight, killing the boss before healer is OOM, can avoid damage to make his life easier and watch aggro, if they don't do it, the immediate reason of the wipe will be healer OOM or healer unable to keep the party alive. So arthasdklol, while wipe to red, can maintain the self-image of "l33t guy" who just wiped due to that noob healer. The same way he can't raid but blame the tanks and healers for not being in his guild or leaving it. Arthasdklol will keep playing as he feels good about himself while losing (and feels bad about the healer or tank).

...I wonder what it says about me, that I agree with him.

Welcome Back for One Month, Nugget! We're Sure Content Will WoW you! a.k.a. Hell is Other People - GIVE ME LIVIA BACK!

So I'm one of those people who's gone back to WoW for a month (at least, that's the plan), to poke around the new old world, then waddle off again. It's partly due to a good friend making HOOOOGE PUPPY EYES at me, Blizzard's US$20 deal for Vanilla, Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King, and some life in general happening. I didn't buy Cataclysm, I don't intend to stay, and I most certainly don't EVER want to raid again.

However, on with the story!

It's funny - I've read on other blogs that they find it a bit unnerving that Blizzard basically simply went - CUT!  

Five years later...

...because as a returning player, that's precisely it is! In my case, 2 years, not 5, but still.

The baby troll experience is much more streamlined now, and it's even entertaining, with a nice dash of variety.

The UI has improved vastly. I've only downloaded 2 addons (Omen, Recount), and don't feel the need to download anything else.

I'm running a Discipline smite-atonement healer build (similar but not identical to the link), and having fun with it after the initial readjustment needed to the pace of combat / style of combat of WoW, vs GW. As an example, in GW, a 2 second cast (unless you're an elementalist (mage)) is something you'd better have a damn good reason for casting, because that's so SLOW; in WoW, a 2 second cast is fast/normal. 

Azshara, though some silly part of me hates to say it, rivals Guild Wars: Eye of the North for beauty. I petulantly say to myself that well EotN was out YEARS ago! But still, I know I'm being silly. =)

But the main problem is culture shock.

Culture shock from coming from Guild Wars; culture shock from the WoW I left, which is not - 5/2 years later - the WoW I've come back to.

What culture shock, you ask? Well, even if you didn't, too bad!

Here's wall-of-text rant to a poor friend this morning:

like why mages don't make water anymore, don't decurse anymore (not that they ever really did but still), why no one knows how to LoS pull anymore, why no one moves out of green goo anymore, why tanks no longer seem to understand that tanking is more than standing there like a lump, (although more of them can now hold aggro), and that no one seems to realise even after a wipe that careful pulls are better than charging into the centre of the room and wiping.

I was healing in Scholomance last night.

I was the only one who remembered it, until a warlock at the end.

And we wiped in the first room. Of course.

'it wasn't my fault I was feared!' Well, Yes it was. Because you ran to the centre of the fucking room. XD

And stood there and fought. -_-

Scholo hasn't changed at all - well okay, it's gotten easier - but I think they moved it down so that it would be more like the old Vanilla days when it was challenging - it's level 40ish now.

The bright side is tanking (at low levels) seems piss easy now.

I've only had one tank who couldn't hold aggro - incompetanks used to be the bane of my existence.

The dark side is they're used to seeing their tank friends pull the whole instance *while outgearing it*, but forgetting/not counting the top part. ~_o

Anyway it felt like old scholo, only at 40 I don't even have prayer of healing yet. Well okay, it was easier, because no one died even though some parts were REALLY CLOSE, and everything I said above happened.

When I started pulling the second room (summoner + skeleton room) sanely, one person ragequit.

'We're going too slow! I don't have time for this!' *quit*

And because the tank had no idea how to pull, had no idea what an los (Line-of-Sight) pull was - I was like, 'Look, STAY HERE. I will pull.' Group, 'Why don't you let the tank do his job.' Oh yes, because the first room went so well, oh yes. Because you know if you run into the centre of the library and fight and get feared and pull the whole room and we die, obviously it's not your fault, because you were feared, yeah! No, I didn't say that, but I sure was thinking it. XD

There's even less skill than I remembered, and that's impressive. XD

Tanks NEVER wait for healer mana anymore. I realise most people are heirloomed out the wazoo, but I am not (I started with a fresh PC version instead of upgrading my old mac one), and I don't want to be.

That scholo I drank 40 waters because they would never let me drink.

So it was, 4 seconds of drink, stand up chase the tank.

Who is of course pulling a whole room. Again. XD

It was nice seeing scholo again though.

Oh yeah they were all standing in the green, of course.

I stopped even trying to explain things, noone was interested in mechanics - they just wanted to make shiny lights and … lol.

The tank did listen to me on one thing though.

I was so fucking amazed!

On the boss who does the aoe knockback, I despairingly said as everyone poinged off in all directions, 'It's easier to tank that against the wall so you don't get knocked back.'

And god in heaven, he listened.

How shocking.

Well, at least he listened to that.

At least I taught one idiot something.

...this post isn't going to make me very popular with WoW players, is it? XD Oh wells! Soon I shall have lovely luscious Livia back. *Worships Livia* AI forever!

Clarification:
This build doesn't use Heal, ever. It uses Smite in place of Heal. Obviously, I'm still a baby, but I've heard reports of it working fine in heroics as well. It's in raids where it fails - the bosses are often fatter than 8 yards, alas for obese bosses!

Why? Couple of reasons:
1) With a full stack of Evangelism, Smite-Atonement costs just a little more than Heal, and casts faster.
2) Smite (with talents) can reduce the CD of Penance.
3) Unlike Heal - where you have to wait for the damage to hit, then heal it, with an additional 0.5s tacked on top of that - you are constantly smiting. Because you are constantly smiting, you're healing the damage the moment it happens. So far, I've found that Smite-Atonement healing can cover anything but Shit Has Hit the Fan (SHHtF) situations, where you go into overdrive. If you have time to cast Heal, you have more than enough time to heal with Smite-Atonement instead.
4) Evangelism is almost always up at 5 stacks. I have Archangel macroed to Penance, and I ONLY use Penance to heal. That means in SHHtF situations, my Penance packs a real punch, and so do my Flash Heals, and whatnot. I do not use Archangel for energy management - I find the constant cost reduction of Smite-Atonement for me to add up more than what I'd need to spend to rebuild 5 stacks.
5) Smite-Atonement is a 'smart heal'. It'll heal anything within 8 yards of your target with the lowest health. I've read complaints about not being able to 'direct' it, but the truth is, in a 5man (and that's all I'm interested in), you can. With a judicious Renew+PW:S, or, depending on the situation, just a Renew, you can more or less make certain that the person with the lowest health (even by a fraction), is the tank. This also makes it more interesting - to me, anyway.
6) Right now, at level 42, tanks are more or less in Non-SHHtF situations, taking almost exactly the amount of damage that Smite-Atonement heals. Obviously it differs a little between tanks, but the general rate has been amazingly reliable and constant.
7) It's just plain fun (to me), especially when it comes to making sure that Smite-Atonement hits the tank, just like you want it to.
8) It adds (acknowledgedly sad, but still existent!) DPS without any negative effects - always good.

The Artificial Ape a.k.a. Once You Start Seeing Parallels in Virtual Environments, You Can't Stop

There may, in fact, be a choice to be made. Although Robin Torrence is right to contrast the flexible responses of people in resource-rich, unpredictable environments with the highly logistical survival routines of those in high-latitude, harsh environments, the correlation is only general. As the archaeologist Everett Bassett has pointed out, the farther north or south you get, the more risk-reduction strategies are forced to diverge. The orthodox strategy is to become ever more specialized, going big on sleds, kayaks, harpoons, fall-traps, summer gear, winter gear, big-game gear, small trapping gear, and so on. As things become harder to find and hunt, water and wind get colder, and light and dark shift from a twenty-four-hour cycle to a twelve-month alternation. Investment in the insulating, adaptive technology is attractive. This is the "life-pod" approach, where getting food and staying warm are guaranteed by technological fixes at every point. The alternative strategy is a dramatic opposite and involves extreme opportunism. It is unorthodox, because in such demanding environments you need to be really good, divesting yourself of every encumbrance for maximum flexibility, weighing energy costs with potential risks at every moment. In the orthodox case it can be fatal if the gear fails, in the unorthodox case, if you do.

[...]

Perhaps this explains the expedient technology of the Tasmanians. Instead of sitting down for a long time to make a complex tool that you might lose or damage, you hardly break stride to knap a sandstone blade edge and deal with that seal. The Tasmanians were highly skilled land hunters, yet they used neither spear thrower nor stone-tipped projectiles. They did not have ground stone tools because grinding stone is very laborious, whereas efficient knapping can be a matter of a few highly skilled strikes. Everything was quick, and replicable. If a blade was lost, you made another one, or picked up an old one and refreshed the edge. Being without clothes reduced your other possessions, so that what you owned was yourself. Entailment was minimized. This was Hermann Buhl's logic on Nanga Parbat: not naked, but with an absolute minimum of gear. It could be described as reverse entailment.

The Artificial Ape
Timothy Taylor

The basic premise of The Artificial Ape is that technology has evolved us, as much as we've evolved it. The technologies we've come up with present a third force, together with environmental/natural selection, and culture, that are even now changing how humans evolve. We're smaller and weaker than our ancestors, simply because with the technologies we have at hand now, we don't need to be larger, or stronger, or even the same as they were. It's a fascinating book, and very persuasively argued.

However, as nuggets are wont to do, this is where I tangent off from what Taylor talks about. Reading the two quoted paragraphs above, I couldn't help but feel as if he were describing World of Warcraft (orthodox) and Guild Wars (unorthodox) in anthropological terms, with going big on specialised technologies being the veritable smorgasboard of add-ons available for WoW, vs GW's very, very minimalist, pared-down system. The statement, 'In the orthodox case it can be fatal if the gear fails, in the unorthodox case, if you do.' was the nail in the coffin - or the icing on the cake, if you prefer.

The second paragraph also rings very true for me when juxtaposing these two MMOs. Many's the WoW-player I've heard lament in GW that 'there's nothing to DO at 20!' There is - but it's all about yourself. What you own is... yourself. There's no sense of, 'Oh I should be raiding now, I need more stuff so I can get more stuff...' GW gives you an immense amount of freedom in terms of deciding what you want your endgame to be about - and it's that exact freedom that can lead to people not knowing what to do, just like how it's easier to create a project if you're told the goal and purpose, rather than being just told to go and do whatever you like.

I'm not trying to say that one type of design is necessarily better than the other - just that they're different, and work along different lines.

I hope ArenaNet remembers that, while they develop Guild Wars 2.

Pink Day in Lion's Arch 2010!

Earlier today, I switched to International District to sync Vizunah Square with someone, then, like most senile people, forgot to change it back.

A couple of hours later, I wandered over to Lion's Arch, and found a whole bunch of pink-clad people bouncing around, dancing and whatnot. Now, spontaneous strange dancing does happen (I think) in every MMO where there IS a /dance in the first place. However, spontaneous strange dancing of people all dressed in varying shades of pink is... not so common. Add this to the fact that random people kept asking when the 'Pink Dye Guy' would show up, only to be told, 'In 8 hours', I decided to investimagate!

And this is what I found. O.o
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Pink_Day_in_LA/PinkDayArchive

Introduction

Well, guys and gals, it's about that time of year again. Saji here and I'm going to give you a little information about this year's, Pink Day in LA.

We're going with the theme that, "Gamers Care Too." Why? Well, with all the recent news stories about how people who play video games, especially violent ones, are bad people, and when a crime is committed, such as a shooting, you will no doubt hear about how the person was playing the newest Grand Theft Auto game, or some other violent game. But, obviously, not everyone who plays games is violent or bad. We're doing this event this year to show others that an online community with players from around the world can get together and support a worthy cause. We want to show the world that GAMERS CARE TOO!

Now, remember last year, where I gave a little speech on the subject of Breast Cancer? Well, it was awkward, trying to get people's attention with others constantly spamming. So, this year, there won't be any big speech on the subject, but instead, DRGN is making a site dedicated to informing gamers about Breast Cancer risks, treatments, and more. Check it out over at the Pink Day in LA Website.

"But what about in-game?" - I hear you ask. Well, to show support, like last year, we want everyone to get their armor decked out in brilliant pink. We want to see everyone in the district wearing pink, but, you'll have to supply your own dye! Sadly enough, last year we had many people take the free handouts of dye for granted, along with the fact we had rude players who interfered with other aspects of the event (such as the end photo-ops).

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reply to this post or email me at, mastersaji@pinkday.draconus-united.com or you can reach me on AIM or Yahoo IM at, Tooker311

And they've done it for 2 years already. O.o

As a former WoW player, all I can say is... wow. Not without respect for BBB's Raid from the Heart recently, I never saw anything even vaguely like this when I was playing WoW. Player-run events, sponsored by guilds, for no other reason than they find something important. Just... wow.

I think it helps greatly that in GW, as opposed to WoW, you can switch servers whenever you like. So there's no, 'Oh I would love to but I'd have to organise it on MY server, or I can't make it on YOUR server because I don't have a toon there that's high level enough, that can get there, etc'. I had a poke around another player-run event earlier this year - Mantlecon, which was rather fun as well.

Somewhat related is GW's Canthan New Year, where alliances will sponsor districts... just because. They'll go farm up all the stuff the chefs need, so all people have to do (if they don't want to / care to / haven't farmed enough to help) is stand around and chatter and get presents.

This is one of the things I really love about Guild Wars, that I don't think I ever experienced in World of Warcraft.

It's strange, really. How is it that an MMO where you can choose to spend almost all your 'gaming' activity time with your own AI encourages so much more player-run social interaction than one where people are forced to group with each other? Or did I just answer my own question?

In Which Gevlon Succinctly Sums Up the Essence of the Holy Trinity of Tank/Heal/DPS

Tank and healer needs SOME skills. Not much, but still. DPS doesn't need ANY skills. 5-mans from RFC to HC-HoR can be done even if 1-2 DPS are facerolling in ungemmed-unenchanted gear. And that's exactly what they do. If they would be tanks or healers, the group couldn't get past the first trashpack.

The game consist of
10% tanks
10% healers
30% DPS
50% Utter crap who queue up as DPS.

 

A comment from Tobold's post Nobody Wants to Play With You!

~_o The goblin strikes!

Guild Wars 2, please don't break my heart. :(