I'm just asking, is allFollow

I think more people would have paid more attention to crafting if it wasn't so ridiculous in both trying to level and trying to make something.

I've literally seen this before:

Smithing 60

"I want to make a bronze sword today. I need... um, a bronze ingot and a giant femur. Okay... I have a tin ore in my house, the airship dock sells copper ore. And I found a giant femur earlier. Let's do this!"

1). Go to the Airship Dock. Buy 3 copper ores.
2). Go to make it......BOOM. Attempt failed, 2 copper ore lost.
3). Meh, buy 2 more copper ores.
4). Success! Yay, now I have the bronze bar.
5). Attempt to make the sword... BOOM. Bronze Bar lost, Giant Femur lost.
6). /ragequit

On a recipe that is no higher than level 5-10 with my Smithing on 60..... yeah.

No wonder people lost interest in crafting. *rolls eyes* I can't rightly remember the last time I somehow failed to properly cook ramen noodles, or the last time I failed to properly make a sandwich, or the last time I failed to properly cut a log in half with a saw.

Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant, then.

You kept saying "non-combat" this, and non-combat that, it gave me the impression you wanted a game with very little combat at all.

And to say that these other MMORPGs have "better" or "just as good" combat as WoW has, is like saying whether an apple or an orange is better.

TERA, for example, isn't that the MMO that advertises "real-time" combat where you can move around freely and do stuff in real time, etc? Some players might not like that. I played GW1, not sure how close #2 is to it, but meh. IIRC, it reminded me somewhat of Diablo/Torchlight. Some players might not like that style, either.

Adding more stuff to WoW that's different? Hey, that's awesome... but yet you need to give it a reason as to why it exists in the game. You have to make some kind of reward for it, otherwise players won't do it much. Look at Pet Battles -- some people do it, but I hear a LOT of players saying "meh...". Because there's no reward.

Sure, Raids/Heroics/Dailies get boring after awhile, but then that's only if you grind em out constantly and run out of things to progress before the next patch (hardcores tend to have this problem when they do all dailies every day, and raids until they're all locked out every week).

WoW continues to work fairly well, because (other than some WoW-clones) its combat is different than the other MMORPGs you mentioned in your post AFAIK (judging from videos/screenshots/etc). Different people like different things. And obviously, plenty of people seem to still like it.

MoP took a huge step in the right direction by giving us multiple ways to progress our characters, and it added Pet Battles and the Farm. Who is to say they won't add more stuff like this in the future?

Edit: I do agree that Blizz keeps dropping the ball on the crafting game. Whether it is the ridiculousness of trying to make a suit of Lv85 mail armor, or there being very few options of actual Lv90 weapons to make, or the hugely underwhelming gear you can actually make with crafting. But then if they make crafting too good, then why do anything but farm materials?

Edited, Feb 28th 2013 9:46pm by Lyrailis

[EDIT] Honestly, my rant after all this is more interesting than my responses, and actually goes to the core of the issue I'm talking about with combat-centric game design ultimately creating an experience that feels empty even when the world is immense. [/EDIT]

One thing that needs to be clear, It's too late for WoW to do much about this stuff. It's systems and the game are too old for such an extensive revamp.



That's also because it was issued to a bored population with a massive excess of gil and literally everyone did it. If breeders were the only source of mounts, and not everyone had the skill to train them (and certainly not to breed the fastest mounts), and it was part of a game at launch, it would certainly be a different story.



Why would you automatically reduce it to something like this? Why assume it has to be as empty and pointless as an internet poll? Make it necessary to cultivate votes in the local community by raising your reputation with them, only allow people with houses in the town vote (discouraging people from just getting reddit to win them the election), actually give the winner the ability to set the town laws and tax rate (and then utilize the funds, such as by increasing guards outside city walls so that farmers lose fewer crops to brigands, or authorize hunting parties to curb wolf populations, etc.). People will care really quickly when who they vote for actually affects their experience.



Again, why are we automatically using the same systems as a decade-old game? Crafting doesn't need to rely on an RNG and always have a chance for failure to be intricate? It needs cross-craft interaction (which WoW had, once upon a time). It needs more input from the crafter other than just selecting the materials and clicking on a recipe (why in the world can't crafters work to put their own effects on items, and train to get better at certain effects than others?) Why can't materials actually be harder to access than titanium ore? Why can't a sword actually break beyond repair, so blacksmiths don't run out of things to make two months after an expansion comes out? Etc.



That's REALLY stretching it. I think it's pretty clear I was talking about actual crafting materials, not random gates you need to get through. I mean like:

Scholar wants to make a transcript of a ballad which, when read in battle, reduces incoming damage by X% for Y seconds (those numbers set by his choice, and his skill).
To do so, he needs a quill, ink, velum, and a copy of the ballad. Ink requires an alchemist, who will require the goods produced by an herbalist and/or forester (LOTRO term, iirc). Vellum requires a leatherworker, who will require hides from a skinner, plants from an herbalist, and some basic chemicals from an alchemist. Quills require feathers from an adventurer, and can be prepared with a penknife by a scholar (and scholars can choose to invest in training with a penknife so that they can get more use out of each Quill).

And the quality of the final product will be based to the quality of the materials, modified by the skills of the Scholar. Truly experienced scholars might even be able to edit works to produce works superior to the original. Etc.

Any crafting system can be made vastly more dynamic and interesting. The only question is where you stop. I'm also a VERY strong proponent of no artificial limits on numbers of skills (a la EVE). If a Scholar wants to train to be fully proficient at producing or procuring all the materials necessary for their work, and to use them efficiently, they should be able to. The cost is that time spent developing those is time spent not developing other skills.



There was also never any reason to invite anyone into your house in FFXI. Say you are running for office in a game, and private chat channels are only possible between secure locations. Inviting people into your house for some scheming would be VERY appealing. Or maybe you want to run a crime syndicate? Same story. Maybe upgrading a house to include crafting stations you need would allow you to sell your wares out of your own home, instead of having to let the auction house take a cut (a big deal in a world where gold doesn't flow like water). If you bought a house in a less protected area of the world, you might be letting friends into your home for protection from the gangs that rule those towns. Etc.

Overall giving you a way to increase combat just feels natural as most MMOs are focused around it, and if your looking for other crafting systems there's other games out there to fit the niche. Its a tangible reward you can actually see advancing your character.



I'm not sure what niche market GW2 is filling? It's sold over 3 million copies, and every one of those is a permanent account (minus those banned). That's not really a niche so much as making it the 2nd or 3rd largest MMO on the market. Sure, we don't know how many are actively playing, but that's true with games like WoW as well. How many people in the 9 mill report haven't logged in for months, but have a sub because it let them get Diablo 3 for free (or whatever deals they're running), or just haven't cancelled their account? Mine usually always ran for about 3 months before I finally cancelled my sub from lack of use.

FFXI also was not a niche market, considering it was one of the largest MMOs when it was going strong, before WoW ever even launched. It isn't even a niche market now, since they aren't really actively trying to attract new players. It's still around because the people who have played it for a long time still want to play it and are willing to pay to do so.

It's not about getting rid of the gear grind, it's about giving players the way to advance their characters outside of raiding. That's a big difference.


[EDIT]

I actually think Skyrim is a good example for this, because Skyrim's wasted potential is so massive it's actually disturbing. Skyrim's a great game. I really enjoyed playing it, I still play it quite a bit, I just bought Hearthfire and can't wait to start building houses, I'll be getting Dawnguard (PS3 user, btw). There are things about Skyrim that are way better than earlier ES games. There are also things that are way worse.

Combat has gotten better, for sure. I know some people like (for some reason) the failures/misses of Morrowind, but I hate them. Graphics are better. The scaling and feeling of immensity of the world is better (imo). But a lot of people feel like Skyrim's towns feel empty, or that it's missing the soul of other games. The people are less interesting to watch, they don't really interact with each other like they did in earlier games (more banter, less approaching real conversation, or more mindless interaction). Their schedules tend to be less interesting and they go fewer places throughout the day, they mix it up less, etc.

But what I really want to talk about is the speech skill. I @#$%ing hate that this skill was even put in the game. Not because I don't want it, but because I find its implementation so insulting. Skyrim is this war-torn world, with each city its own faction, and then two master factions on top of that, and then the dragon threat above that. There are separate guilds, but none of them take any stance in the other story lines. You can become a Thane of holds, headmaster of the college, whatchamacallit of the Companions, etc. etc. etc...

But when you go to a new hold, you're just some random beggar coming to get work, and the jarl doesn't care about you at all until you wipe out some bandits for him. REALLY? You don't care that I can forge legendary armor for your guards? You don't care that I have a tongue that could sell lightbulbs to the mountian-Amish? You don't care that I am the head whatchamacallit of one of the most respected groups in Skyrim or that I'm the Dragonborn? All you care about is that you have some bandits in a cave 7 miles away from your stupid walled hold?

It drives me insane.

I want the speech skill to let me weasel my way up to the Jarls. I want to be able to manipulate them. I want to join the Thieves guild and convince the Captain of the Guard to change patrol patterns because I have him thinking it's a good idea. I want to join the Dark Brotherhood, but take out my target after making everyone at court trust me more than their own mother.

THAT'S what a speech skill should be. And it absolutely kills me that Skyrim ultimately boils down to "So, can you kill bandits?" Because the raw potential in that story and that world is massive. Why the hell can't I direct troops to strategic locations on the map (and join or NOT join them in battle)? Why can't I actually go after mill operators (physically, financially, or persuasively) to cut the supply lines to the Stormcloaks?

It's like Bethesda created the perfect world for such amazing gameplay, and then stopped short of adding any of it besides the combat (which is already easily Skyrim's weakest point). It's like they left the Speech skill in just because they felt bad for eliminating so much complexity from Morrowind.

The worst part is how dumbed down from Oblivion that aspect of the game is on top of it. In Oblivion and Morrowind, how much an NPC liked you actually affected what they would do for you, what information they would provide you, whether or not they'd lie to you, if you could buy a house from them (or access whatever service they provided), etc.

It was amazing. In Skyrim, it's basically they're your follower, they like you just fine, or they're trying to kill you. That's a LOT of missing gray area.

I mean, I completely ***** over that Bard in Riverrun and he'll still play me songs. For free.

It makes me furious.

Okay, sorry, I've been holding this rant in for an audience for a long time now.

Edited, Feb 28th 2013 10:27pm by idiggory

Edited, Feb 28th 2013 10:29pm by idiggory

Be careful, I just might do it.

Hey, look what I found!

Please for the love of god no more. Too much typing. Also See post #57

I'm assuming you haven't played EVE, because that's exactly how their system functions, and it works great. You can absolutely train to do everything. And getting decently proficient at it won't take that long in the grand scheme of things. But fully training everything? That's going to take you years. And I mean YEARS. The game has been out since 2003, and no one has trained everything yet.

Because there are hundreds of skills, and the shortest to train take 3 days (on an average skill modifier) to go from level 0 to 5. So players choose what to specialize in, figure out what else they want to do, and focus on those accordingly. And it works well, because training times to specialize are massive compared to just dipping your toes or getting proficient. To get a brand new pilot to a point where they have decent odds in frigate pvp combat would take a week. Sure, they'll be super limited in what builds they can use, and other pilots will be better, but they'll still do well enough to hold their own, maybe win a few fights, and actually learn. Another week or three, and there really won't be that large a gap between them and other frigates. The trade off is that they'll still only have trained to use that one setup, and they won't have the skills to do anything but combat, or use any larger ships than frigates (which isn't an issue, because all ships have strengths and weaknesses in EVE--frigates don't have many guns, and can only fit smaller models, but they're super fast and hard to hit by slower ships with bigger guns).

Training higher level skills also means meeting prerequisites for them. So getting to the point where you can fly a cruiser is awesome, because flying a bigger ship is just fun, but the skills you needed to fly that ship won't necessarily help you in pvp in frigate vs. frigate combat.

Within the context of a fantasy setting, say that sword skills progress from short sword -> schimitar -> longsword -> broadsword -> greatsword. (not trying to make that logical, it's just an example). Each class of swords has weaknesses and strengths. Like you can't use shields or offhand items with the last two, and short swords allow for a variety of movement, etc. So say that a new player has +15% swing speed with short swords, +15% riposte accuracy with short swords +15%... etc. A true swordsman has +25% with all relavant sword skill for all sword types. Thing is, the new little swordsman isn't that far behind him in situations where a short sword is superior. And because the swordsman has spent so much time specializing, he may have neglected other skills (like his armor and shield skills) that let the new guy close the gap even more.

My favorite part about this system is that the short sword newbie can solo content close to home, and still team up to do hard stuff further away, because his short sword will still fill gaps that broadsword users need filled. For instance, a broadsword user could never use a shield, so the short swordsman could, even as a newbie, be a tank in tougher zones by relying on the broadsword user to do most of the actual killing (that the broadsword user couldn't do otherwise with his current skills, because he's been relying on having a shield up to this point and hasn't trained too much into evasion or healing or parry or whatever.

And sure, a swordsmith could craft the same sword better than any amateur swordsmith could, though the amateur would be a source of less powerful, but cheaper items. Because it's not really an issue, because there isn't much incentive for a swordsmith to craft shortswords when he can craft a legendary longsword. Because, even though shortswords are often useful, their profit margin is lower. If he's going to take the time to gather all the materials and go through the process of creating a sword, he's going to create the sword that takes 20% more time to make, but generates 600% the profit.

The system I would personally love to see is something like EVE's system, where you have real time training, combined with an experience system (you get exp for what you do, regardless of whether or not that's what you're studying at the time), and maybe even throw in the ability for higher level characters to "train" you (but at the cost that they have to pause their own passive studying).

It really wouldn't be hard to adapt the system (well, design a similar one). And, in my experience with EVE, it's a really awesome one. There's clear content difficulty gradation, but nothing that's actually bound by your level of experience. It's bound by how useful the skills you've trained and the ships you have are, which means the experienced pilots have access to more content just because of their variety, but doesn't lock out newbies.

And I'm not saying that this is the best system, that it has to be like this sytem, etc. I'm just pointing out that you need to stop rejecting ideas because you're grounding them in what is typical of MMOs now. Because that's the point. There's no reason we have to keep holding to typical MMO rules, because most of them have never been challenged by a polished game actually able to have the potential to wow the market.


Great so as a new player, you not only cant compete against veterans for years. Or if i have real life obligations vs some guy that has all the time in the world I could never catch up? As for the parchment, if you put all that work into making it , when would you use it? How many RPGs have you played where you beat the end boss and have all your elixers because they were just to good to use. Or that outdated scrolls because you just didnt want to use it til you had too? Maybe you found a time, but regretted it next fight, or used it on a fight that was easier on accident. In this system you can create super items with enough time and effort but if it takes to long to remake it, your just grinding out to do the same thing that could be simplified, by making everything the same power. [/quote]

See last. You don't need to be the blacksmith who can make everything perfectly, you have to be the blacksmith who can make something good enough and charge a price reasonable enough that people want it.

I don't think holding onto items is an issue, because I think any game to have any economy that isn't absolute crap needs to actually allow for items to be damaged beyond repair. Even the super rare items need to be destroyable (even if it's harder to do so, like it can only happen on death). And maybe a good market solution to that is to sell legendary potions that bind the equipment to the player's soul for one death cycle. They'd be super hard to make, super expensive, and people would actually use them if they were going to rock their best equipment.

To bring this back to an EVE example, simply because they're the only MMO I've seen who actually has a functioning economy, players don't fly their best ships all the time. Hell, most people fly their best ships a small minority of the time. Because their best ships are expensive, and they don't want to lose them. IMO, I think a fantasy setting would work the same. If you are going into a situation you expect to break your gear in, you aren't going to bring your best gear. In WoW land, this means stripping naked for a moment. But why not create a game where you actually figure out what to bring for the situation (especially if every weapon type/item is balanced to have pros and cons).

People use their items when there's a threat of losing it all. In EVE, these potions are performance enhancing drugs called boosters. They're super expensive, they're a minor boost, but you're sure as hell going to use one if it means keeping your ship. You don't use your best items in single player games because you can always reboot. But I always use my items when I'm playing League of Legends.



Because obviously you want everyone you play with to have your personal information when they're perfect strangers even though it's so much easier to just zone into someone's house to talk. It's also fully possible that furniture would have an attunement, like in FFXI. But instead of just giving you a buff, it gave one to anyone who entered (and the maker could choose what attunement to give it), further incentivizing entering people's homes.


I really don't get why you keep assuming that all the systems have to work like they do in typical MMOs. It makes no sense to me. The point is to look at the systems and ask how else they could be implemented to make them more fun and immersive, not to wonder how you could change them slightly so they're still functionally the same.

And the thing is that these aren't even new systems. They're being used, incredibly successfully, by one of the most successful MMOs on the market. EVE generally has 30-40,000 people playing in their world at any time, all on one server. I think they have 500,000 subscribers. It's not an earth shattering number, but it's a tidy sum, considering the genre and fact that it isn't a flight simulator (and they have a RMT store too). I'd guess they're second in terms of profit behind WoW.

Another downside of having 6 hours in commuting time the same week I've been test driving some MMOs. A LOT of time to think about what does and doesn't work, what would be awesome, etc.

[EDIT] Okay I SWEAR I didn't think this was as long as it turned out being. God I have a problem.

The patch this week just added guild missions or something. I haven't really looked into what those are, though.

The Zam guild has been completely silent the few times I've logged on in the last few months, so I'd need to look for another guild anyway.

But I think you're right, Teacake. The problem with GW2 is that it was essentially a launch title. But because there was so much you COULD do, that it didn't really seem like that. No MMO launches with a big endgame. They've added some different dungeons, that use different systems, already. I don't know what they are though because I haven't really kept up with things.

We'll certainly see if ANet can keep cranking out content at a rate that will actually let people invest in the game. But I still worry that too much of their content is ultimately dependent on that. Crafting has an interesting system, but it's an absolute joke. Everything but cooking is almost 100% worthless in the context of the game. So no one really wants to bother leveling their skills, because the return at endgame is so low. And it's sad, because their systems are actually cool, but loot is just way too readily available in the game, and crafted goods are literally no better than the drops you find off monsters.

The exploration content is nice for people who enjoy that. But the problem is that it's only really fun to do once, since the world doesn't change enough to warrant more than that. It's a big world, but it's not THAT big. And there aren't Skyrim-level details here. You won't be stumbling upon an abandoned hut in the woods that has a little old later who turns out to be a powerful witch if you pry too much.

I really worry about the game, because it has/had so much potential. But it's like modern WoW/TOR--it's so obsessed with providing a new combat/questing system that it clearly stopped looking at the big picture too early in its development. You can't make a quality MMO if all you care about is combat. Because MMO combat is NEVER going to be the best on the market. They rely on the team aspect to make them interesting, but with every single single player game rolling out online MP modes, that just doesn't cut it anymore. In 2005, people didn't have that many options for online cooperative play in a fantasy setting. They do now. At the end of the day, regardless of how fun GW2's combat is compared to WoW's, Mass Effect 3's online multiplayer is going to be more fun, Dark Souls' cooperative play is going to be more fun, whatever online mode the next Dragon Age game includes will probably be more fun.

Not because these are better games, but because they don't have to split their focus like an MMO does. An MMO has to have a crafting system--people will scream if it doesn't. That's development time not spent making their combat better. Repeat for everything else an MMO has to do that a single player multiplayer mode doesn't. So if you're going to spend the time in development with these anyway...

Why not actually develop them into something worth building, instead of hitting a point where you can check it off a list? People demand crafting systems because people are legitimately interested by the potential to create items in a fantasy universe. Stop letting that be a gimmick, and let players really invest themselves in creating items. Let novice blacksmiths create some basic throwing knives. They may not be as well-weighted as their better cousins, but they can certainly have a place in the market due to how cheap they'd be (letting them be spammable, for instance).

Things like this. If you're going to bother implementing the craft and the marketplace, why not actually make those systems something worth a damn?

Edited, Mar 1st 2013 7:54am by idiggory

I do not have Facebook and have never played Farmville. Perhaps this is why I came to the farm in WoW with no hatred in my heart, and have found it so fun. I've seen a lot of people saying that it's nothing at all like Farmville and that the comparison has been unfortunate.

Whatevs, let the haters hate; I haz a dog! And sheep! And furniture! I love my farm so much.

Whaaaaaaaaat?

What are you smoking, exactly, may I ask? No offense, but... have you _played_ ME3/Dark Souls?

I have.

ME3 is basically the same thing over and over and over again (at least its multiplayer). You +2 random people turtle up in a small arena and kill waves and waves of mobs. That's it. No storyline, no lore, no "reason" as to why you're doing it other than "fight the enemy". There are several arenas, which have similar shapes and layouts and are kinda bland in general. There's two different sets of enemies (Reapers and Cerebus) but each set of enemies has the exact same enemies in the different waves. The enemies are chosen at random when the match is played unless you decide you want a specific set of enemies. It takes _forever_ to unlock anything "good" (they highly encourage you to spend real money to do so) AND your fruits of labor, the Galactic Readiness stat or whatever, degrades over time to force you to keep doing it constantly. I suppose if you really really like mindlessly shooting at things, I suppose it might be OK. Except when starting out, unless you're prepared to dump a lot of RL money (ontop of what was then an expensive game anyways), you are going to be useless as your equipment will suck and nobody will want you in their groups (getting kicked as a <Lv10 before the match even starts was common).

Dark Souls? It is hindered by ridiculous petty rules...

1). Your level ranges have to be similar.
2). You cannot have already killed the boss of an area. As soon as you do, their phantoms get sent home.
3). You have to turn yourself into a human to summon someone, this opens you up for unwanted PvP in a game that is already hard.
4). You cannot invite people by friendlist -- you have to coordinate with your friend (using 3rd party programs, calling them by phone, talking to them RL, etc), ask them to drop their summon sign in a specific location and pray you're on the same server region as they are so you can see it. Even when you do find their summon sign, the summon might fail if the game switches regions on you.
5). Lag. Sometimes you get stuck on server regions far away from your physical RL location, causing lots of lag. This is particularly annoying when the inevitable unwanted PvP happens; you go to swing at someone standing in front of you and then a split second later, they're stabbing you in the back and you die.
6). Oh wait... you died? You have to go collect your souls, spend _another_ Humanity point to become human again so you can try and summon again and hope you get your friend there, and step through the boss door within 15min before you get invaded again.

You're trying to say that those Multiplayer systems are better than WoW's multiplayer? Seriously?

Edit: Don't get me wrong; I love Dark Souls, but its multiplayer coop needed serious work. And ME3... okay, gameplay is OK... the Storyline is "meh" compared to the previous two and its endings absolutely kill the experience. Multiplayer? Why bother, you'll just lose the fruits of your efforts over time anyways.

Edited, Mar 1st 2013 10:29am by Lyrailis

Did you play ME3's MP for 3 rounds and then call it a day or something? Because your information is just wrong.

Matches are four players, and there are four difficulty modes. Platinum is HARD. Wave one spawning multiple banshees kind of hard, and clearing it without coordinating with team members is not going to happen unless you're absurdly skilled.

There are four types of enemies, Reapers, Cerberus, Geth, and Collectors. Each use different tactics, different defenses, different skills. All of them have had unit upgrades with subsequent patches, adding enemies like Geth Bombers and Cerberus Dragoons.

Weekend Challenges are generally easy to clear, and award an N7 weapon card, which makes gearing fairly simple. And even if you don't get something you want from those, veteran packs (two matches to earn the credits to unlock) have plenty powerful weapons in them. And the cheapest packs, which cost 5k credits, have a lot of weapon upgrades that you'll use until the end of the game. Even the weaker guns are going to be plenty strong if you have a level 5 barrel upgrade on them. The end result is that getting to a decent level of gearing is not hard at all. It'll take under a week of casual gaming to have sufficient gear to handle Silver difficulty (assuming you have the skill to back it up--if you need gear to make up for a deficit of skill, it's another story). With meh gear, but decent skill, Bronze is soloable. But most players need to play Bronze to actually build their skill at playing.

Every match is 11 waves, which increase in difficulty in each wave, but also use a RNG to generate the actual enemies. Sometimes, you'll get two banshees fairly early in the game. Sometimes, you'll face much easier foes. There are 5 different mission types that can send you around the map to complete on waves 3, 6, and 9. The faster you complete them, the larger the credit bonus you receive. There are 19 maps, including the 6 hazard variations of existing maps (which add environmental systems you have to contend with, like acid rain which obliterates your shields when you stand in it).

There are 10 adept classes, 10 Engineers, 10 Infiltrators, 9 Sentinels, 11 Soldiers, and 9 Vanguards for a total of 49 distinct class combinations, the vast majority of which use unique skills not available to Shepard in standard play and can handle very, very differently (skill with one DEFINITELY doesn't mean skill with another).

Sure, there are people who just played the multiplayer to get their galaxy rating up. But that was only necessary for the best ending if you didn't bother doing everything. You don't need to play MP at all to get the best ending--it's a way to expedite the process for people who prefer MP to side quests. A nice touch, so you don't need to decide between advancing your single player save and playing online. But that's all it EVER WAS. Galaxy Readiness was never the point of MP play. MP play was the point of MP play.

The reason it degrades doesn't have to do with single player it all, it degrades because your readiness can have an effect on your leveling speed IN MULTIPLAYER.

Yes, a lot of that has been in content patches since then. They added collectors, they added new maps, more guns, more classes. But those have been regular enough. About as frequently as you get map packs in CoD, iirc. I don't actually feel like looking that up. But the game launched with 6 maps, which all have hazard variations now. And they've since altered the layout of the base maps, making them more difficult.

I never had any issues with people leaving. For one, bronze isn't hard enough for that to really matter (and leaving isn't an issue anymore, since you can join started games now). I think I have the highest ranking on ME3 (or at least I did last time I checked) of all Zam players in my friends list (PC), and I may have seen 4 people kicked the entire time I've played. And that was only when they were afk for way too long, forcing us to wait to start the match, or they were queuing for gold/platinum as a level 1.

I also never had issue joining Bronze games. The system asked you to specify what difficult you wanted. Very, very rarely I'd be put in Silver. But 95% of the time, I was placed in Bronze if I was seeking Bronze. If you were having issues, you could just create your own match. It doesn't really matter if your teammates suck on Bronze, because you only really needed one other decently skilled player to clear the content, assuming you had nothing but base gear. And if you were highly skilled, you wouldn't even need that. Let the other people act as human decoys and use that to your advantage.

All recruit packs contain 3 consumables, and two upgrade cards. Upgrade card can be weapons, weapon mods, or classes. This general system is shared by almost every care pack type.

All players started with a base model of every weapon type, so you definitely had access to a SMG. They also aren't bad weapons, and have just as many pros and cons as an assault rifle. There are times when you'd prefer one or the other. As a human soldier, using a SMG instead of an assault rifle would have let you use your Concussive Shot and Adrenaline Rush abilities more frequently. They're also stronger at closer ranges than Assault Rifles typically are (and it's true of the Shuriken, the smg, and the Avenger, the AR). There's no one single way to build your character in ME3, and most weapons with any real bias for certain classes over others were added in updates. That wasn't the state of the game at launch.

So you could have built to use the best gun you had, if you really cared about a small increase in performance. That's no different than something like WoW. If you were planning to go Assassination Rogue in Wrath, but had access to some really strong Maces, chances are you were going to spec Combat until you found some competitive Daggers. You didn't have to, of course, that's up to you.

Not feeling like using something and something not being an upgrade are two different things.

And you aren't understanding the point of galactic readiness. You are looking at it as a single player system. It isn't. Galactic Readiness was extended to single player so that people could spend their time in multiplayer or with the ipad game just so people could experience the story at an appropriate pace even if they wanted to spend time doing other things than single player. The point of galactic readiness, more than anything else, was to affect the rate at which multiplayer could generate WAR ASSETS. It degrades because your characters level faster when your readiness is capped, which would mean adding 20 to your war assets at too fast a rate if it degraded.

War Assets DO NOT degrade. They're a permanent boost to your readiness.

All Galactic Readiness rating does is lower the threshold at which you obtain sufficient war assets for the better endings. Every single one of these is fairly easily obtainable just by playing the game. And playing multiplayer makes them permanently easier to access by introducing additional War Assets from unit promotion. Galaxy at War just acts to allow players to replace side quests in their game with multiplayer matches, without having to sacrifice story pacing. That's literally the only reason it exists.

You are imagining it's something that it isn't, and has never been, at all.

The biggest problem I see in MMOs these days is that by the time you can put out enough content to be competitive people have already left for the newer games on the market.

If you take the time to create a 'competitive' amount of content your game will be outdated before it's released. Or you release a half-finished game and hope to slow the mass exodus with sparkles, glitter, and promises of awesomeness. Either way it's a tough gamble, the "new best thing" is always a large draw and nearly impossible to compete with really. Everyone leaves for the new game regardless and you get labelled the latest "WoW killer" that failed. Once you have that label, you're going to be hard pressed to lure back people.

Edited, Mar 1st 2013 9:13am by someproteinguy