You Get Out What You Put In
Even (if not especially) in gaming.
That's the conclusion that comes to mind thinking about recent (and old) games. Certainly, it's more widely applicable than that, and the relationship is not a simple 1:1 thing, but I'm convinced it's there.
WoW this weekend was less productive than, perhaps, I expected. About three hours of hanging out among guildmates resulted in one hastily-formed, chaotic kill of the Sha of Anger (with a whole bunch of non-guild, naturally), two heroic dungeons, and two non-heroic dungeons. I have to say I dislike the Sha fight, though it could go a lot more smoothly if people were coordinated and had an idea what was going on - still, I'm glad to have done it and even if I didn't luck out and get tier pants like someone else did, I'm happy to have gotten the quest boots out of it. The heroics were done with a couple "gogogo, do this for the achievement" types whose attitude does not aggrevate me as much as it does some people, but I don't find it terribly enjoyable either. And the non-heroics were done for people leveling alts and/or not at max level yet - taking my paladin through those dungeons doesn't really net me any advantage, but it's good for someone else at least. I also hit exalted with Klaxxi (yay, ring!) and I'm close with Golden Lotus (yay, neck!). Between that and some Headless Horseman runs, my item level has crept up enough to qualify for LFR, something I may try in Ret to have a look at things.
It was not the gearing-up I had envisioned. I'm... well, to say "annoyed" at guildmates overstates things. I'm not that strongly emotional about it. I do, however, wish that some people would spend more time getting their mains able to tackle harder things (perhaps to raid someday?) rather than leveling alts or whatever else. It feels like a number of people hit level 90 and just went to do other stuff, so they don't even qualify to queue for random heroics, much less have the gear to do decently in them. I don't want to rush people or burden them, but it makes me feel my own efforts are sort of wasted.
Of course, in GW2, I'm in a little closer to the opposite position. The down-leveling system makes it easier to play together regardless, but it's still a factor. By the end of Sunday night, I'd gone from level 68 to 70 (or 80) with my thief. I haven't played much since MoP came out. It hasn't been much of an issue until ye ol' guildleader compulsively grouped everyone up and started asking me if I have waypoints and skill points and seen the airships and... "Dude, I haven't even set foot in this zone because everything here is higher level than me." Then he wanted to run a dungeon some people didn't have a waypoint for and things degenerated into the old situation of waiting for people to get their shit together and be ready to do something as a group. It happens in every game, but somehow I usually feel it more in GW.
We ran Twilight Arbor, the third (in story chronology) dungeon and my second experience with them in the game. Results? Well... not unlike the Catacombs, the dungeon felt long and had one boss that was incredibly frustrating. One person theorized I dislike that experience more than WoW simply because it's "harder," which may be a big factor. But so far, when I've hit these roadblocks in GW2 and overcome them (after several wipes), I have not felt like I succeeded in a challenging fight or the mechanics of the encounter have "clicked." Rather, I've felt like I lucked out or brute-forced the situation. And that isn't rewarding. I don't think I spent as much time downed as I did in Catacombs, but it still isn't fun in my book, especially with the AOE poison clouds in the instance that often make it lethal to sit in one space for long (like when reviving). Story-wise, I think I enjoyed watching Rytlock and Logan for the minute or two at the beginning more than any of the interactions with the corrupt sylvari throughout afterward.
I also have to say, thief feels much more fun to me in the world than in dungeons. Why? Well:
1) Thieves have very little group utility. I can throw down an area of 3-second stealth and minor heal. And... uhh... errr... Yeah. That seems to be it. Basically every other skill is directed at the opposition. Sometimes there are useful effects in there like blinding and crippling, but conditions are so brief and I've not seen any of them be very useful in boss fights.
2) Meleeing seems to suck. I prefer to fight with daggers, with opportunity to stack a lot of bleed effects fast and get in some backstabbing. But most bosses (in dungeons or world) I've seen are punishing up close. I find I survive so much better if I switch over to pistols and just shoot at medium range. While there are just as many abilities with pistols, they feel positively boring by comparison.
3) Stealth kinda sucks. To start with, it's agonizingly short duration. While I had some good experience stealthing to revive people in the world, everytime I tried that in the dungeon last night, there was either still something trying to eat my face in spite of the stealth or AOE effects that made staying in place to do that suicidal.
Feh. I certainly don't want to have to level up another character for group play. We'll... see how it goes, I guess.
And back to the original topic, I have that feeling in rereading the Exalted logs I have. When people were not so into the game, they seemed to sort of fade into the woodwork. I also feel it personally in our offline Aeranos game - after two weeks, I have sort of a "meh" attitude when I sit down and look at my character sheet with a bunch of unspent points. I genuinely think I would be more into my character, into the game, and enjoying the sessions more if I put a little more effort into it between sessions. MUCKs too. The more distraction and less between-scene discussion of things, the less into a scene I am. At my height, I was discussing rules and plans via email several times a day and I was very much into the game, looking forward to playing come night. That's a little rarer now.
It applies pretty much everywhere, but... hell, who's got the time to think about everything like that?
That's the conclusion that comes to mind thinking about recent (and old) games. Certainly, it's more widely applicable than that, and the relationship is not a simple 1:1 thing, but I'm convinced it's there.
WoW this weekend was less productive than, perhaps, I expected. About three hours of hanging out among guildmates resulted in one hastily-formed, chaotic kill of the Sha of Anger (with a whole bunch of non-guild, naturally), two heroic dungeons, and two non-heroic dungeons. I have to say I dislike the Sha fight, though it could go a lot more smoothly if people were coordinated and had an idea what was going on - still, I'm glad to have done it and even if I didn't luck out and get tier pants like someone else did, I'm happy to have gotten the quest boots out of it. The heroics were done with a couple "gogogo, do this for the achievement" types whose attitude does not aggrevate me as much as it does some people, but I don't find it terribly enjoyable either. And the non-heroics were done for people leveling alts and/or not at max level yet - taking my paladin through those dungeons doesn't really net me any advantage, but it's good for someone else at least. I also hit exalted with Klaxxi (yay, ring!) and I'm close with Golden Lotus (yay, neck!). Between that and some Headless Horseman runs, my item level has crept up enough to qualify for LFR, something I may try in Ret to have a look at things.
It was not the gearing-up I had envisioned. I'm... well, to say "annoyed" at guildmates overstates things. I'm not that strongly emotional about it. I do, however, wish that some people would spend more time getting their mains able to tackle harder things (perhaps to raid someday?) rather than leveling alts or whatever else. It feels like a number of people hit level 90 and just went to do other stuff, so they don't even qualify to queue for random heroics, much less have the gear to do decently in them. I don't want to rush people or burden them, but it makes me feel my own efforts are sort of wasted.
Of course, in GW2, I'm in a little closer to the opposite position. The down-leveling system makes it easier to play together regardless, but it's still a factor. By the end of Sunday night, I'd gone from level 68 to 70 (or 80) with my thief. I haven't played much since MoP came out. It hasn't been much of an issue until ye ol' guildleader compulsively grouped everyone up and started asking me if I have waypoints and skill points and seen the airships and... "Dude, I haven't even set foot in this zone because everything here is higher level than me." Then he wanted to run a dungeon some people didn't have a waypoint for and things degenerated into the old situation of waiting for people to get their shit together and be ready to do something as a group. It happens in every game, but somehow I usually feel it more in GW.
We ran Twilight Arbor, the third (in story chronology) dungeon and my second experience with them in the game. Results? Well... not unlike the Catacombs, the dungeon felt long and had one boss that was incredibly frustrating. One person theorized I dislike that experience more than WoW simply because it's "harder," which may be a big factor. But so far, when I've hit these roadblocks in GW2 and overcome them (after several wipes), I have not felt like I succeeded in a challenging fight or the mechanics of the encounter have "clicked." Rather, I've felt like I lucked out or brute-forced the situation. And that isn't rewarding. I don't think I spent as much time downed as I did in Catacombs, but it still isn't fun in my book, especially with the AOE poison clouds in the instance that often make it lethal to sit in one space for long (like when reviving). Story-wise, I think I enjoyed watching Rytlock and Logan for the minute or two at the beginning more than any of the interactions with the corrupt sylvari throughout afterward.
I also have to say, thief feels much more fun to me in the world than in dungeons. Why? Well:
1) Thieves have very little group utility. I can throw down an area of 3-second stealth and minor heal. And... uhh... errr... Yeah. That seems to be it. Basically every other skill is directed at the opposition. Sometimes there are useful effects in there like blinding and crippling, but conditions are so brief and I've not seen any of them be very useful in boss fights.
2) Meleeing seems to suck. I prefer to fight with daggers, with opportunity to stack a lot of bleed effects fast and get in some backstabbing. But most bosses (in dungeons or world) I've seen are punishing up close. I find I survive so much better if I switch over to pistols and just shoot at medium range. While there are just as many abilities with pistols, they feel positively boring by comparison.
3) Stealth kinda sucks. To start with, it's agonizingly short duration. While I had some good experience stealthing to revive people in the world, everytime I tried that in the dungeon last night, there was either still something trying to eat my face in spite of the stealth or AOE effects that made staying in place to do that suicidal.
Feh. I certainly don't want to have to level up another character for group play. We'll... see how it goes, I guess.
And back to the original topic, I have that feeling in rereading the Exalted logs I have. When people were not so into the game, they seemed to sort of fade into the woodwork. I also feel it personally in our offline Aeranos game - after two weeks, I have sort of a "meh" attitude when I sit down and look at my character sheet with a bunch of unspent points. I genuinely think I would be more into my character, into the game, and enjoying the sessions more if I put a little more effort into it between sessions. MUCKs too. The more distraction and less between-scene discussion of things, the less into a scene I am. At my height, I was discussing rules and plans via email several times a day and I was very much into the game, looking forward to playing come night. That's a little rarer now.
It applies pretty much everywhere, but... hell, who's got the time to think about everything like that?
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