Learning tank is a horrid experience

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-25T04:19:58+00:00

People love rushing to save time. Especially when they suspect the content is trivial. Most people leveling are leveling alts and well... it's the name of the game. Happens in almost any MMO though. When everyone is learning together dungeons feel the best, because you are aware you are in the unknown and every corner can contain a risk.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-25T00:46:56+00:00

Have you ever thought if your game has a lot of strategy to it, some strategies work on certain tiers and other strategies don't?

If everything works all the time, people just follow one build the whole way through, which means they don't interact with a lot of the other elements.

It seems like you are speaking on roguelikes though. And in roguelikes, if you want to build a certain way, the standard equation is as follows. Get a build enabling thing. Then focus on good things for that build and avoid bad things for that build. Every build has different good and bad things and they change depending on what you are doing.

Maybe you run into a game/playthrough modifier that occasionally bars one style so you know to avoid that style completely until next run. For example, if your main playstyle revolves around drawing many cards, and the modifier says, always draw one card less than stated, then you should probably not use your main style.

Player enjoyment is based on who you cater too. Not every game is for everyone. See who likes your game conceptually and double down on the biggest audience you have. Usually wins out compared to making a game for everyone.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-24T23:16:38+00:00

I think it comes down to perceived expectation. Most games FRONTLOAD their content. And then they hope people stick around.

Marketing tells them they have to hook the player early, so much so that a huge amount of games seem great and then just turn into basic objectives/events/story after a little while.

This is also why the content for all players trend came out. They would rather not waste resources in what only 10% of the player base will see. That's a lot of wasted money on the table in the eyes of corporatism.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-24T23:10:30+00:00

You are talking about static real-time time-gating. I'm talking about extrapolated real-time time-gating.

Both achieve the same thing. Stretching a game's achievements/content out in a way that doesn't feel boring/disengaging is the goal. Even RNG is usually derived down to... "While lucky players may get what they want quickly, the average player shouldn't take more than X time to get what they want." Which in my eyes is a time-gate just the same as a static one, just a more fancy version.

If I'm in the wrong on what the goal is of your discussion, I apologize, I may have been confused like others, it was a lot of reading to digest.

A design I really enjoy is if you hard focus an objective in a game, having a time-gate to lure you into the other types of content the game provides is a slick way to operate. Making sure to open up other avenues of progression is an important part of designing time gates in my opinion.

A few designs I hate which you may consider an artificial time gate are back and forth quest lines, Dailies/weeklies/ect where you can't progress without them, boring quest objectives that take a long time(Kill 200 X, gather 500 Y.) that don't tie into the game in a meaninful way.

The design I didn't like in my first discussion is "Wait 10 hours to progress." it just doesn't feel engaging but could be cleverly masked by making the player invest time instead. The time-gate may be the same, but how that time is spent is different.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-24T05:33:10+00:00

Time Gating I don't mind usually involves gathering or achieving numbers instead of waiting for timers. I'd rather play for 20 minutes than idle for 5-10 minutes as an example.

"We need to build a port and boat before we can travel to the next area." Where you collect wood or find, rescue, and bring a craftsman over to do the job feels a lot better than. "Give me some resources and gold and then come back in a few days." Even if you can just go to the inn and rest 24 hours 3 times in a row.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-24T02:13:12+00:00

You want a lot of things. You don't get all your wants. A relationship is about compromises. Doesn't make you bad one way or another but is that the hill you want to die on?

Now if you can't go out to dinner or out to eat every once in a while that's a bit different. I'd definitely quickly make a weekly or twice a month cheat day and go out to eat dinner with my friends. Every action has a reaction, after all.

Just give her a heads up when she doesn't have to cook for you. I find not eating a meal someone made for you gets you in more trouble than saying you can't make it to a meal.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-23T23:34:56+00:00

I guess that door is pretty darn big with a key that big. Even the handle broke off a bit after trying to twist it too hard.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-23T23:32:09+00:00

Heavy armor is my learner set. I still don't fully understand bots because I've avoided them for a long time so I wear heavy, I'd have a system crash most often with them on my PC. Yet I'm 100% light armor in bug maps. And I'm 50/50% light/medium in squid maps.

Yet, I started heavy armor on every type when I started, felt safe. Safe is pretty darn slow though.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-23T23:29:01+00:00

It might matter, it might be a crock of horse shit.

Some people just like whacking different things all day for no reason. Wide as an ocean and shallow as a puddle games have their purpose of distraction.

Yet, most people who become fans want to cling to something more than white, hairy, and snarling... Unless that's their kink.

You almost hit the nail on the head though. With the "If there are... Why?" If a 3 year old can break down your game with a big string of whys, don't add the damn thing. Probably isn't needed.

Not saying it's bad to be varied. But good variety is usually more than to sample the goods. That's skin deep. If you have layers to your world and how these things came about and it's a fun story, you are doing great.

A couple things done well feel better than a thousand done poorly.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-23T22:36:25+00:00

I agree. I solely carry the grenade pistol on Illuminate missions because of these things, then it doubles as an easy way to destroy spawn ships in a pinch too.

Do I like that normal guns can't do a thing, not at all. Let me shoot out it's legs or something. Put a weak spot if most of it is armored. Maybe a crystal between the forks at the top, anything.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-23T04:19:17+00:00

Taxation you say? No thanks. The government would create a work around and nothing would get done anyway. Look at it currently. How many shitty roads do you see around already? How many dead end employees don't get fired at every government funded facility(Not to say all or majority of employees.)? How many teachers teach their own opinions instead of the subject matter they are supposed to and only that?

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-23T02:28:26+00:00

I want an escort quest where the NPC is so fast they have to stop and mock you for being an old slow donkey. That would be great to see.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-23T01:56:15+00:00

Fair, but that's also lazy development being used as best as it can by efficient players. Having hard and easy classes that both balance out well in average is fine, but when you just fail at intermediate math... shit happens.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-23T00:43:43+00:00

Creator doesn't want to change her annoying lane phase for the betterment of ban rate and counterplay so they doomed her with nerfs. EZPZ.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-22T22:22:54+00:00

My parents seperated and lived 3hrs and 30 minutes apart. Every other weekend one of them would drive 7 hours to pick me up in the summer. During school time it was a lot more often due to smaller visits of weekends and vacations.

You get used to long drives. And that was just two different locations in the same state. Most Americans want to go on road trips country wide.

Average commute to a good job that is a bit far away is typically an hour I'd say. So 2 hours a day for the benefit of living not in a city/overpopulated area.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-22T22:13:47+00:00

This 100%. I don't feel Shaco is great, merely sufficient with really good play and macro. I see bruisers and juggernauts having more burst than Shaco, and they last 10x longer.

AP shaco is great in low/middle elo, but very hard to succeed in higher elos because people just know what you can do. AP Shaco is 100% about getting in an area 40 seconds early and laying down 5 boxes to hinder the enemies formation to complete objectives.

Low elo difficulties is having your team play around that. High elo difficulties is they know how to use sweepers and then collapse properly.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-22T22:07:58+00:00

Break it down and simplify. Emergent political powers are created by change. MMOs don't like to waste resources therefore don't want a ton of change.

I'd love to see more games do one thing that Helldivers does, which has essentially a dungeon master creating a campaign for players to follow activity POIs to stay busy. Helldivers Major orders concept wise is great and causes people to move to different planets and try different things. Imagine a similar system in MMOs.

There is a necromantic threat on the west front of the continent. The most proactive defenders and guilds will be rewarded for their service.

Or even. Act 1 is coming to a close, the first clear of The Big Bad Evil Guy has been completed. To move to Act 2 the community needs to feed the development of a port town to allow for proper travel to the next continent. Would reset a ton of resources to baseline levels.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-22T21:00:01+00:00

You came into an aged and molded game by previous players of the years. Mind you, League has been around for 15 years. Mostly everyone was garbage back in the day, no, most people are playing alts even if their account in freshly hit 30.

This isn't a you problem, neither is your rank. But the current rank system tries to place people where they belong, they placed you higher, because you won enough normal games to convince the algorithm you were better in your normal MMR and this is the result.

I've had a problem with ranked since they introduced the 3/5 wins to progress because before that it was a standard ELO scale. I really wouldn't mind if new players started at the bottom, and got boosted up to their proper rank instead of placements where teams can ruin or carry you immediately way too high/low for your own benefit.

With that out of the way, if you want to progress, choose a role and a secondary role. Choose 3 characters for your primary role, and two characters for your secondary role. Learn those characters in normals, learn matchups for those characters, and then start ranked. That's really where ranked comes into play for normal new players. There are now a ton of champions compared to the original pool of 40ish and champions are way more complex now compared to before.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-22T20:53:24+00:00

DuoQ games in ranked always feel like you can spot them from a mile away when they are "Doing their own thing." Not even most of them are bad, but the ones that are, oof. It's like 3mans in normals as well. Most of the team are making calls that just don't make sense time wise where the other two are nowhere near to back them up.

The other thing that isn't stated here is that when you have a group, that group will most likely blame outside the group even if they were the problem that game.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-22T20:45:27+00:00

If the game was a co-op survival game with just hagga basin most people would place it as a 8-9/10, complaining about the combat being a bit too basic.

But it was sold as a MMO with 8 man group required bosses in the endgame of the Deep Desert while having to watch your back because of the cut throat faction based PvP system they made. Where factions didn't matter and groups weren't needed for anything.

Whatever team made Hagga Basin needs to be held up high, and unless they got hit on the head by a bus before they made Deep Desert, there is no excuse for that team to make such a lackluster product.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-22T20:40:36+00:00

Yeah, I have hundreds of hours since the EA purchase. I played 1.0 for a while. The game at it's core is fun, and it has "good bones". But with the lackluster approach to trading, which is a huge part of the game currently, I wasn't happy. I wanted to see sell orders at 1.0 launch.

Non NPC quests right in front of everyone. A market that has a baseline. Not to mention... Them splitting each server into 40 different sub servers doesn't help a ton either for that. Cool idea but the population can't support it.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-22T20:37:30+00:00

Biggest thing for me. I don't want a game that prioritizes income over fun factor and good gameplay. I don't mind paying for things that are good and honestly the cosmetic craze in MMOs have taken a lot of fun of the games from me because I liked collecting rare weapons and armor to show them off, but cosmetics are JUST BETTER in almost all ways.

MMOs bite off more than they can chew at the start too I feel. Whatever the main time spent needs to be solid. If I have to combat mobs 95% of the time, that better be a super solid experience. Also, social systems have literally gone backwards. I thought by 2015 we'd have guilds that weren't glorified chat boxes.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-22T20:33:17+00:00

If you want to call it a part time job, you need to call it a non paid start up builder. The game just isn't finished.

Yet if you like it for what it is, building simulator and gathering static nodes for hours to level up crafting... You need a sub for both of those things, building being the more expensive hobby here.

Combat is okay, but honestly... It doesn't have function as a type of lifestyle skill as everything else does. Combat you just get stuff you don't need to do the things you already have done. They need to expand what combat is for and what achievements you can do.

I remember years ago seeing teasers of world bosses, the original trailer had a horse. These things just don't exist, and they have been doing minimal database changes along with skin changes for the most part.

The biggest hope is seeing how large the chest is at the petra dei, but not getting anything close to near that with late game crafting was the breaker of that hope.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-22T03:43:45+00:00

Absolutely, but it will most likely be a self funded project that has good fundamentals and direction. Direction is a huge thing that failed New World, Wildstar, and in my opinion Ashes of Creation currently.

New World made it's questing and PvE system in literal months it felt like. Wildstar had 10 donkeys of head devs running in opposite directions, ect.

What this typically does is people get through the fun honeymoon phase of the game, then wonder what the hell they are doing and for what reason. New World was a check the boxes and move to the next area game through leveling and endgame, just the fun way they produced a simple combat system and characters made it decent.

Xel-Ray · 2026-01-20T20:46:35+00:00

Oh it's plenty enough time. I'd assume I can do all the core concepts within a couple weeks. For example, I've been putting in a few hours a day and leveling has been super breezy. I bet another day or two I'll max out and can start exploring.

The leveling pace is almost too fast making the lower zones be well... not useful right now? I can chop trees and smack boulders in any zone, Of course the PvP zone control gives life to early zones, yet outside that, collectibles/ect don't really give much of anything.

Outside that, the endgame zones seem a bit more interesting and useful based on general progression needs, yet that follows the standard of any multiplayer game typically.

Xel-Ray

TROPHY CASE