Ordination

[Isen]

combat balance really suffers when there is no way to get accurate readings of a skill's effect in battle, because nobody knows what the hell the skill should be doing.

yes. This, a thousand times over.

There are good games where all the combat mechanics are laid bare, and even then not everyone bothers to study all the skills and their interplay.  Players who do apprise themselves of the mechanics still have to work on execution, timing and strategy. 

The question shouldn't be, "what cures or is a defense for X?" but rather "when is the best time for or what might sully my attempt to use this defense?" Likewise players shouldn't be asking, "against what affliction is this guy least likely to know how to defend?" but rather "in what scenario, under what conditions is an opponent most vulnerable to this affliction?"

I have sometimes wondered if Genesis was worried that transparent combat mechanics would cause players to lose interest.  I don't think they would. Balance, however, would be more easily scrutinized, and that might take away from his mystique.

[Ender]

Read every combat log.
Invest fifty hours a week for six months just studying combat.
Focus on one profession at a time.
Get a member of that profession to work with you for hours on end.

In short.  Get of your ass and start studying the game and less time asking the game designer to open up the rule book for you.  This is NOT D&D - Thank god (Genesis in this case).

[Narissa]

Eh, that was fun in college. And I did that work. I really don't have the time to do that kind of gameplay anymore, and things have changed so much that it nearly requires an investment along those lines again.

However, you've somewhat missed my point. I'm talking more about balanced changes, updates and skill tweaks - this isn't learning about how to fight, it's being able to assess if changes introduced to the game are well implemented ones. Genesis is not perfect, nor does he approach the game from a player's viewpoint, and the whole closed-book mystery of updated skills makes it very hard to get accurate feedback from the playerbase.

I think there are definitely skill changes that have gone in that aren't optimal, and I think one of the primary reasons Genesis keeps the mechanics of these changes a "mystery for players to discover" is mostly just smoke, mirrors and bullshit - people can't pick apart imbalance if they are only acting on observation and the claim of "you just haven't figured the skill out well enough" smells fishily like "I can't be assed to balance this out fully" or perhaps "I think all my ideas are perfect and I will just feed players lines to placate them until they agree!"

A more practical example - I've been working on a FPS for my latest project. One of the basic test cases I ran was to determine functionality of various guns in the game. Now, in order to know if these guns were working as intended, I was given some info from the devs sketching out how each one was intended to work.

The next text case, however, was to check night vision. I noticed that sprinting and proning don't work with night vision enabled. There was no info from the devs about how night vision was supposed to work. Without this info, all I could do was report a "potential" bug, but for all I knew it was an intended feature to gimp players on night maps (ironically, it was, one that was later hated so much by the player base that they ended up changing it in later patches).

The latter is how it feels to play Avalon sometimes. You have no idea if things are meant to be unbalanced, if they are a result of some oversight, or if Genesis thinks they will implement vastly different than they do, and never actually sees what he codes in full on practice.

[Ender]

Eh, that was fun in college. And I did that work. I really don't have the time to do that kind of gameplay anymore, and things have changed so much that it nearly requires an investment along those lines again.

So, your life has changed and your requirements no longer fits with the requirements of Avalon. What's more you are suffering from having 'been there, done that' syndrome which plagues all old Avalon plays.  Avalon is not wrong - you are.  (As am I, for that matter)

However, you've somewhat missed my point. I'm talking more about balanced changes, updates and skill tweaks - this isn't learning about how to fight, it's being able to assess if changes introduced to the game are well implemented ones. Genesis is not perfect, nor does he approach the game from a player's viewpoint, and the whole closed-book mystery of updated skills makes it very hard to get accurate feedback from the playerbase.

The reasons I missed your point was that I was actually replying to Isen about his request to make  the Avalon mechanics open book.  Which, for the same reason I hate people who put up skills wikis, I feel completely breaks the experience for new and mid-life players.

The basic concept is simple:  cheats and guides are short-term fun and kill long term game enjoyment.  This is an old game design truth.  However, most players are too stupid and short-sighted to realise that cheat and guides break destroy the fun and will quite happily use them anyway.

I think there are definitely skill changes that have gone in that aren't optimal, and I think one of the primary reasons Genesis keeps the mechanics of these changes a "mystery for players to discover" is mostly just smoke, mirrors and bullshit - people can't pick apart imbalance if they are only acting on observation and the claim of "you just haven't figured the skill out well enough" smells fishily like "I can't be assed to balance this out fully" or perhaps "I think all my ideas are perfect and I will just feed players lines to placate them until they agree!"

I agree - I'm sure one of the reasons Genesis keeps to blackbox testing rather than whitebox testing is to avoid looking like he doesn't know what he's doing all the time... and because many of these systems are broken on implementation.

Oddly enough the same is true across the majority 'AAA' MMOs; Blizzard (who we normally cite as providing balanced content) always release their end-game content in a 'broken' state which they patch after launch. I would go so far as to say that they 'boost' character classes to drive emotion (negative and positive) and with it engagement in their games. 

The other reason he should blackbox test is that YOU are NOT QA.  You are a player.  The example you list is where you are actually working for the developer in a quality assurance and testing role.  You should therefore be asked to test in both a blackbox and whitebox environment - depending on the focus of the testing.  In Avalon you shouldn't be testing at all.

A more practical example - I've been working on a FPS for my latest project. One of the basic test cases I ran was to determine functionality of various guns in the game. Now, in order to know if these guns were working as intended, I was given some info from the devs sketching out how each one was intended to work.

The next text case, however, was to check night vision. I noticed that sprinting and proning don't work with night vision enabled. There was no info from the devs about how night vision was supposed to work. Without this info, all I could do was report a "potential" bug, but for all I knew it was an intended feature to gimp players on night maps (ironically, it was, one that was later hated so much by the player base that they ended up changing it in later patches).

The latter is how it feels to play Avalon sometimes. You have no idea if things are meant to be unbalanced, if they are a result of some oversight, or if Genesis thinks they will implement vastly different than they do, and never actually sees what he codes in full on practice.

And the latter is what I prefer.  Or, more accurately, when I was young and fresh in the world of Avalon and had 70+ hours a week to play the game... the latter is what I preferred.  And the latter is what is best for the majority target audience of Avalon.

Yes, it sucks to be you, but then you should either have been Ordained by now or have a job/relationship/kids/adult commitments which preclude you from playing a lot.  That sounds a lot nastier that I want it to sound - and I hope you don't take it personally or negatively - as it's exactly where I am too.

[Narissa]

I agree with pretty much all of your points. I suppose I'm partially just dismayed about it. I put a lot of time in, and had some really fun times in the game. Heck, I'd even say my character has fame, of a sort, so it's kinda sad to have that come to naught.

I haven't quit mudding, and I still actively play IRE games, but Avalon is just hard to find my way back into again, due to the reasons I stopped playing - it just takes too much time and I balance gaming out these days with work, a pretty busy social life, and a boyfriend on a whacky work schedule. A lot of the frustrations in the game tend to be balanced out by the feelings of immersion and success, but a big time investment is needed for play to feel fulfilling in that way, I think.

The thing that frustrates me is that I could sense the change in my priorities happening when I moved back here to CA, which is why I was really upset to lose that sands to Kodiak. Part of me knew there probably wouldn't be another go. I talked to Genesis about appointing me, because I did and DO have the interest to play at the level of a divine character, but he didn't want to lose me as a player and org leader. He said yes, I could be made a divine, but kept naming checkpoints I had to achieve and things he wanted first - basically stalling tactics - but I just didn't have the motivation or time to keep leading a guild and city like I had been doing. The end result was that he lost me as both, I guess. That's how it goes.

[Narissa]

The other reason he should blackbox test is that YOU are NOT QA.  You are a player.  The example you list is where you are actually working for the developer in a quality assurance and testing role.  You should therefore be asked to test in both a blackbox and whitebox environment - depending on the focus of the testing.  In Avalon you shouldn't be testing at all.

Just a minor thing I disagreed on. Yes, for a large game company, a QA team or focus group or any of that is necessary. However, Avalon is a tiny business. IREs routinely use a team of hand-picked players to assist with combat development and balance. I've been on such teams for two games (Aetolia and Lusternia) and the process is not a bad one. Obviously there can be bias at times, but the players go in there knowing that it's an OOC role and maturity is expected, and the results are beneficial to the game. Not only do the players help check new things before and after implementation, they assist with pinpointing areas of combat and game design that are overlooked or have shifted out of whack over time.

Ideally, yes, an admin team would be doing all of this and we'd just get to sit back and happily play - but MUDs are poor games with low budgets. I think using players as resources like this is an intelligent decision and one that benefits gameplay.

P.S. And no, I'm not offended or upset by your post.

[Ender]

Ideally, yes, an admin team would be doing all of this and we'd just get to sit back and happily play - but MUDs are poor games with low budgets. I think using players as resources like this is an intelligent decision and one that benefits gameplay.

I agree with that.  I also think it comes at a cost, Avalon (mostly because it's so complex and that complexity is actively hidden from the players) is a very 'hard-core' gaming experience.  I would wager (though you know significantly more about this than I do) that IRE are more accessible gaming experiences - which endeavour to offer a fairer, safer and a broader commercial experience.

I'm not saying that IRE is better (I would say that it's more commercially viable), it's just different.  Different experiences for different players, wanting different things from their games.

It's sad but it's true... Avalon players have a handful of years to progress, to 'win' the mortal game and move on to the divine game or they will tire and leave.  Obviously there are exceptions to this, but I suspect they are few and far between.

We just weren't good* enough.

*If your ego requires, you can substitute the word good for lucky.

[Narissa]

Actually, last night, I came to this food for thought:

How much of our game experience and expectations are affected by how close our relationship and interaction are with its developers?

In console gaming, devs are like god - anonymous, invisible, something only abstractly thought about. However in muds, devs are real people, and we know this. Even moreso in Avalon, when Genesis asks you about where to buy the best sausage and openly lets you view his...let us say, quirks.

In all kinds of service industries, the end-product and, more relevantly, the consumer's perception of the end-product, is skewed if consumer and producer interact. If you go to a restaurant and you and the chef sit and chat for a bit before the meal, the chef's gonna be a lot more reluctant to spit in your dish (or perhaps more compelled to) and you're going to feel a lot more guilt about sending it back.

Avalon's homespun style is very much the latter, for better or worse - and I've definitely experienced both. No overall comment on it, really, though. Just tossing this out as something to chew on and think about.

[Isen]

I hesitate to respond to you, Ender.  You have seen more than I have  seen.  I failed to reach the endgame.  Allow me this short, heretical  response.

Read every combat log.

I received  great satisfaction from parsing through combat logs.  It is an activity  I would hope the game continued to encourage.

Invest  fifty hours a week for six months just studying combat.

The  basic concept is simple:  cheats and guides are short-term fun and kill  long term game enjoyment.  This is an old game design truth.  However,  most players are too stupid and short-sighted to realise that cheat and  guides break destroy the fun and will quite happily use them  anyway.

Here, I think you miss something, Ender. 

Take  chess.  This is a bit unfair, I admit, as MMOs and MUDs pale in  comparison to games like chess and go.  Chess hasn't had a patch, so to  speak, in quite awhile, but the game itself has certainly evolved.   Indeed, the culture became more sophisticated through exposure to its  own growing body of research.  If you look at chess games played a  hundred years ago they look silly, particularly the openings.  It's  worth emphasizing that there is a considerable history of recorded games  available to anyone who wishes to look.  Does that cause the game to  degenerate into tic-tac-toe?

It's more difficult to judge if  there's been a similar honing of player skill in World of Warcraft  arena, as there are constant changes to game balance.  Most top players  agree, however, that what was an incredible display of skill in the past  is usually taken for granted in competitive play today.

Cheats  and guides destroy only games that lack elegance.  After reading a chess  guide, I will learn more the next time I play a clever opponent.  In  Warcraft, skill catalogs, public discussion of strategy, and video logs  also serve to increase the level of play.

Think back to your  prime.  How many rivals did you have?  Were there more than two or  three?  Were they skillful players; did they all study and grow, or were  some reliant on an imbalance in their favor?  (These questions are not  rhetorical or disingenuous.  I would like to know.)   

I posit  that opacity has hindered the game's refinement by limiting

• the  collective and cumulative growth of player skill, and
  
• the  regular formation of an informed lobby of players empowered  to press  for balance changes when necessary.

Consider the  following related examples: (1) It's worth a chuckle the first time you  kill someone with Yarl who doesn't know the cure.  However, when it's  difficult to find an opponent your size that knows how to identify and  cure Yarl, your own growth stagnates.  (2) A player browsing a skill  wiki discovers an order that can easily debilitate another profession.  The order requires no ingenuity to execute and the victim has no  recourse. Is there not an issue with game balance?

I am not  arguing for a reduction in the necessary hours to be competitive in the  end game, per se.  The best players will always be the most assiduous  and creative.  Rather, more time at the intermediate level should be  spent studying tactics, and more players should be at this level.   Instead, most minds are leagues behind and struggling to uncover the  basics.  Furthermore, it's frequently unfair to attribute this lack of  knowledge to a lack of effort on the player's part, unless of course the  sheer superiority of his class has actually induced him to work  less on understanding mechanics.

Raise the bar.  Discuss  strategy.  Share logs.  Populate wikis, dare I say.  Abide not  gimmicks.  By the way, what's D&D?

Love,
Isen

[Ender]

You are right.

I am right.

We're just different people.

I did not say that cheats and guides destroy the game, I said they "kill the long term game enjoyment".  Potentially what I should have said is that guides and information destroy MY long term enjoyment of the game.  Something that I am aware of and yet I still read them, oddly enough.

For me, one the 'magics' of Avalon was the discovery.  Discovering that could offer a herb/poison from the ground (allowing me to clear pick the land in two days).  Discovering that you could order someone with stealth to hide an item they are wearing and they will put it on the ground.  Discovering (just a few weeks ago - after 15 years of playing) that trip breaks fullparry (omg!) and then spending the next two days to DISCOVER the defence to that.

A guide specifically strives to remove that discovery.  Which, for me, is so much of the fun.

You mention PvP in WOW I think... I loved PvP in WOW.  I hated the fact that even if I played 100 hours a week, the chances of me actually discovering something NEW were basically zero.

The game of discovery became a game of knowledge (reading guides) and tactical 'Simon-Says' (I swear, if you flash up 'hurls some green dust at you blah blah blah' when I'm in the middle of a word document I'll punch Alt-MinusKey - my Kelventari macro).

Out of the MILLIONS of chess players in the world, about 5 of them actually DISCOVER new tactics (I'm not talking about using a known tactic which their opponent doesn't know or fails to spot - I'm talking about world breaking NEW).  That's a fairly low ratio.

In Avalon, it is possible for you, for anyone... to discover something new - skill changing new - game breaking new - gem winning new.

Don't take that away from us.

[Ender]

I realised that I failed to reply to one of your points.

My other issue with wikis, with any written documentation, is that they actively discourage social interaction in the game.

Some of my enjoyable times in Avalon where when I was training someone new (or being trained by someone old for that matter).  For example, Damocles spending hours with me in the underworld so I could learn how to fight in double speed rits.  Spending a lot of time with Narissa, Arturo and Elmak hopefully teaching them how to fight a little better.

Hell, even discussing fighting with Dunccan - swapping ideas and guidance.

Don't move that to a wiki.

[Isen]

I think you discount a certain type of discovery that exists in Chess,  and even WoW. 

I can memorize as many openings or end game  scenarios as I like and in spite of that, there will be opportunities to  test something new in almost every game against an evenly matched  opponent.  I will have not created anything, but I will have  discovered something for myself, and that is always exciting.  It was  not Simon Says, it was not acquired knowledge, and no amount of either  of these could prevent this type of discovery from happening.

Similarly,  In WoW you could read as many guides, and watch as many videos as you  like - though it's worth pointing out, there have been very few PvP  guides - and you will still have to discover for you self what good  positioning is, and how to maintain it while you peel, or pressure, or  whatever.  You won't be the first one to discover good positioning, but  it is a discovery that only you can make.

I agree, there is  nothing like the rush of a virginal discovery.

I think the  possibility for discovery of absolutely new material in Avalon is  largely a result of the size of the player base.  Let's be generous and  say that at any given time there were 50 players active in Avalon.  How  many of them were fighters? How many of those fighters were creative?   (By the way you didn't answer my other questions.  I cried.)

Chess  is an ancient and static game so, as you point out, very few people  have the opportunity to add to the game.  To the contrary, I think there  is space to discover absolutely new tricks and tactics in WoW.  It's  just that fewer people are making discoveries relative to the size of  the player base.

The first person to discover Expose over Gouge,  Sap, or Blind, must have freaked the fuck out.  Then later, someone  figured out the perfect way to macro it, though it can be done without a  macro.  Arena in the 3v3 bracket has become sufficiently complex that  there can be new discoveries every content patch.  It happens in other  brackets and in dueling as well, but the 3v3 bracket is less rife with  counter-comping or the preponderance of a particular class. 

Blizzard  wants the 3v3 bracket to be elegant, which is to say they don't any  amount of player research to cause it to degenerate into tic-tac-toe;  they want it to be more than memorizing skills and reacting to debuffs,  colors, and sounds.

I should be so cruel to point out that in  Avalon there is no way to know, for most, if your putative discovery is  truly new.  This is precisely because acquired knowledge is often  not inherited.  Like I've said, this shouldn't devalue honest, though  unoriginal discoveries.

How am I to know I was the first to  realize that STUN and movement as a result of HUNT didn't break  HAMMERFIST?  I suspect I was, because it was changed shortly after i  posted it to my guild forums (teehee).  That still doesn't mean that  Narissa or yourself didn't notice it and think, "If I use this it will  be removed, so I won't bother."  The thought of prior discovery  certainly didn't dampen my excitement.  I was fucking thrilled. OMG.

I  agree wholeheartedly that socializing that occurs between fighters is a  huge part of the game.  I just don't feel this would change if a more  information were available about basic mechanics.  The same discussions  would take place, just starting at a higher level of understanding.

Cheats   and guides destroy only games that lack elegance.

This  isn't true for all solitary games.  In particular, puzzles are ruined  when completed with a guide. 

I would say the Rubik's Cube is an  elegant game.  Although, even then we must ask what the goal is.  Do  you wish only to solve the cube? Do you aim to figure out a set of  algorithms to arrive at a solution?  Do you want create your own  solution (have they all been enumerated)?  If you do do you want a low  number of twists or a low number algorithms?  Do you want to prove  (understand) why a particular set of algorithms yield a solution?  In  the last sense mathematical proof becomes a game, insofar as it is  puzzle.

Tetris remains unscathed.  (I lost even with Game-Genie).

[Isen]

All that said, you have excellent sensibilities, Ender, and that is  obvious.  What I strikes me about the guidance you offer is that it  encourages the player to learn for herself.  She is allowed the  satisfaction of discovering what you might have simply directed her to  do. At the same time, you are also cultivating a keen player that is  eager to make new discoveries. 
 
 

[Ender]

I'll get round to a real reply later - as there is much to debate in your post.  But, in quick and direct reply to your last post/compliment... I don't just encourage players to learn for themselves because I know it is more enjoyable. 

I do it because I've yet to meet a good Avalon fighter who hasn't invested their whole heart, body and soul singularly into the pursuit of their excellence for at least six months, at the expense of everything else.

The guide is really rather immaterial.  The cure order is meaningless.  The order in which arms and legs break and are healed by various attacks and curse is in itself of little value.  BUT - making someone go through the process of finding the answer to all of these questions IMPLIES they are able to invest enough energy to really learn to fight.

Wax on, wax off.  Paint the fence.  Sand the floor.

[Lukien]

@agree with Ender.

I think a good example of this: I'm a JJ'er, which at an early point in the game gives me a fairly fast affliction rate compared to MOST other professions. Now, my opponents can have a state of the art trigger system, curing, etc. but since they truly have little to no experience with it, sooner or later, their mine. You can ask anyone, especially Lightfingers, I've truly worked for my curing, and do it all manual, no triggers automatically curing me, etc. I DO use a set of settings that tell me WHEN i'm afflicted with something, but that's all. I've sat there with people spitting at me to high heavens, with no Kelventari up to truly hone my curing skills. I don't think very many people do this anymore, most seem to like Panning better. Then when their first fight rolls around, they fail.

Just my little two cents worth...

Lukien Torinaiden