Robert,
First, thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback and thoughts. I’m posting as a casual-to-moderate player and I deliberately have not read the other replies as I don’t want them to influence my input/feedback.
I just found out via your post that “rez-rushing” was being removed. I understand the reasons and agree with the theory; that said, I want to share with you that my overall experience in dungeons to date has largely been a variant the old “Tootsie Roll Pop” commercial: “How many deaths does it take to complete the dungeon?” Even with “experienced people”, there are often fights that you simply do not win without at least one death in the process…. particularly if you’re running to try and acquire gear that you need to live through those fights.
It’s going to be interesting to see how/where adjustments have been made, but I strongly suspect that multi-layered requirements (i.e., keep moving, don’t let X get you, remember to Y if Z shows up, and oh yeah, tap dance through the berserk grubs that attack in randomly-directed waves by spitting poison anywhere the boss ISN’T laying down his own ‘circle of stupid’) is a bigger issue than pure HP.
I suppose it’s worth mention that most of my dungeon attempts are with people who are new, who haven’t dungeon’ed a lot. Also that most people tend to rush in rather than try to be strategic. But I would also say that this behavior is largely in response to convoluted and often complex mechanics that cause most to find “rez-rushing” the path of least resistance (i.e., I’m going to die repeatedly anyway… may as well just run back).
Myself? I’m not someone who has a lot of dexterity so, by and large, I wind up avoiding dungeons because I’m just not that good at balancing eight competing critical priorities and timing all my spells… just…. right. (This does seem to be the new cookie cutter mold and I admit, I dislike it.)
Complexity as mechanic, to me, isn’t very enjoyable. And complexity as primary mechanic across the whole of the dungeon experience, frankly, is frustrating and eventually, boring. If the goal is to drive team-work (and the underlying community upon which it is founded), these encounters should reward that community so that team-work (even of clearly less dexterous folk, or those who are learning) is REWARDED, not punished.
I note you provide multiple ways for people to attain those “hearts” in the world; if you prefer to kill/collect, then do that. If you prefer to find/dismantle/repair, then do that. If you prefer one on one combat, talk to NPC X and they’ll oblige you.
I suppose my question is… why can’t this be possible in dungeons, too? (It is possible, but I’ve yet to see many games really explore it.)
As for rezzing… Personally, I began play of this game with the expectation that players would rezz you when you fall in action. I find it rarely occurs. I suspect forcing the matter will help (some), but the greater help would be a dungeon-specific boost to resurrection or at least dumping the aggro/hate of the downed/defeated player correctly.
(Of course I realize that if the rezzer is the next up on the ol’ hate list, that likely won’t seem much help, but that just brings me to my next concern… )
I am concerned that if waiting until everyone is out of combat is the “fix”, then it’s essentially going to turn into an “everyone die and we’ll try again” scenario and that doesn’t tend to support commitment to pick up groups OR new players; those who have better reflex/twitch/insight on fights will quickly prefer those who do and now, you have an entire second class citizenry who lose access to the “trial and error” learning method that has been foundational to MMO gaming since its inception. (Or who are relegated to the frustration of running with people like me, who frankly suck at “the dance” and, either way, have a much less enjoyable experience as the ultimate result.)
I do realize that a lot of dungeon content is intended to be exclusionary as a means of introducing “status”… but I’d like to think that it’s possible to compromise in a way that allows even new players and dexterity challenged fools like me the possibility of achieving the same rewards… even if at a slower pace over time.
Again, thanks for listening. I look forward to see what is next to arrive.
(edited by Chade.9235)
