Originally Posted by
ActionMonkey
Wow, this one really took of, didn't it?
There's a lot of interesting arguments from both sides in this thread. There's also drama and flirting. Lively discussion, to say the least. And to many posts to qoute by far.
I agree, no one knows the exact impact this will have on the game. But ventilating worries, thoughts and feedback is what a forum is for, so simply complaining about people who give negative feedback on the wb-AI doesn't really add any value to the discussion in my opinion. Adding your own arguments, regardless of what side you are promoting, are of course a different thing alltogether. Arguments can be met, discussed and so forth - which again is a part of the purpose with a forum.
I really hope that some of the design-ideas mentioned in this thread will work. I have a few thoughts on my own of course, but I also think that it will be impossible to achieve the same level of security after the update. Hopefully I am wrong.
But one thing that I don't like is when a game-developer change one of a games' long standing fundaments months later, simply because their playerbase have been successful in using the troop AI to their benifit. I think it's philosophically wrong, as it rewards those who put in the least effort to understand and master the game as it was designed from the start.
I'm gonna give an example of the oposite. It's gonna be longish and possibly boring, but I'll give it anyway, because it fits so well here.
There's a game called EverQuest, which is the role-model of just about every MMPORG that exist today, WoW included. EQ was first in many ways. It actually still exists, but it's not nearly as big as it was back then.
When the game was released the dev's had no idea of how some things would turn out. They pictured raids (when a lot of players come together to kill, say, a dragon, or a god) to be chaotic events without much order. And they were at first, this was THE first raids in any MMPORG ever after all.
But you see, there was a healing spell in the game, called "complete healing" (CH), it had a long cast time of 10 seconds, and the idea was that it would be used during downtime, or at least not when things got really hot. So what happened?
The players put their heads together and the "Complete-healing-chain" was born. We used multiple healers, timing their heals with added pauses so that 5 healers could co-ordinate the CH's so that they landed on the tank every two seconds, even if the cast-time of the spell was 10 seconds.
The game developers was baffled. They had never thought about this. Never imagined it. This brought a level of order to raids they hadn't thought possible. But they didn't nerf it. They didn't even touch it. Their reaction was to applaud player creativity and take this new strategy into account when they released new content.
I have always liked that approach. I find it very respectful and friendly. I would have prefered something similar.
