Greedy Goblin

Saturday, May 7, 2016

BDO: I'm so down

I knew that after level 40 the game slows down. But killing trolls was extremely slow.
I was pretty fine with previous monsters. The quests to kill trolls were level appropriate, I wasn't lost and trying to kill to high monsters. I didn't accidently replaced my +6 gear to random drops, I checked it dozen times. I tried to optimize my skills to squeeze out a little DPS increase and I found a guide.

Only this guide informed me about "states". For example a target turning away is in "back" state and receive extra damage. I usually opened with Celestial spear, because it gives crit buff and it knocks down the targets and it's easier to place Sword of Judgement on them if they aren't moving. What I didn't know, because the game never told me that Sword of Judgement is a "down" attack, therefore does extra damage on knocked down targets.

Trolls are immune to knockdown, which seemed to be only an inconvenience, while in reality it cut my DPS to half. If I knew about "down attacks", I never went anywhere near them. After I learned it, I went on and in the Abandoned Quarry I was fine again.

Down with bad NPE in BDO! Down with it!

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

What server are you on?

Gevlon said...

EU, Jordine

Tithian said...

Yeah, the game needs better tutorials badly. Also the ability tooltips are abysmal. Even people that played in the Korean servers before the western launch cannot 100% explain things to you.

Anonymous said...

ehm. press [k] (skills) top right corner click the '?' symbol. and you get exactly the information you just linked.

I don't know how the hell you could make this easier NPE or otherwise. should the question mark pulse in rainbow colours to get the attention of the player? please feel free to give constructive feedback.

Gevlon said...

@Anonymous: linking a Wiki by a generic ? is the opposite of good NPE. How about a quest that tells you to do a knockdown and then a down attack?

maxim said...

TBH, this seems like just enough handholding for me.

Learning that presence (or lack of) a specific animation of a monster can have significant gameplay consequences seems to me like the kind of knowledge that anyone playing an action game can be simply expected to have.

If a person is not willing to go through even the basic trouble of learning this bit, he is likely not an action game customer to begin with and should just go play some other, less action-oriented, kind of game. Catering to THAT level of game illiteracy simply cannot be justified.

Though i do agree that the game would probably get better if it played a little bit more with these kinds of mechanics (f/ex gave you a damage-based time trial, which you could only complete by abusing damage states). Seeing as how you haven't even encountered this mechanic for 40 levels leads me to question why it is even there.

And yes, i am suggesting that Gevlon lacked action-game literacy when he encountered the trolls.

Gevlon said...

@Maxim: BDO is an MMO. In WoW animation is just a "cool favor". Raiders unzoom the screen so much that individual avatars are barely dots on a "minimap" and respond only to UI elements.

I know that BDO isn't WoW, but it's reasonable to expect that people with WoW background and no action game background try out BDO and there is absolutely nothing in the game to help the transition. People with WoW experience will play BDO wrong and most probably quit since it's "bugged" or "UI sucks", without noticing that these differences are purposeful and actually interesting game parts.

maxim said...

@Gevlon
Somewhere here lies the line between being usable and user-friendly and dumbing the game down to M&S level.
WoW crossed that line and devolved into dance.

Gevlon said...

@maxim: dumbing down refers to game mechanics. I'm talking about teaching the mechanics, whatever they are!

maxim said...

@Gevlon
Some game designers (myself included) think that even the hardest mechanics can become a feeding ground for M&S if they are just spoonfed to players.
The process you went through is usually the ideal learning process. A game like Dark Souls generated legions of devoted fans simply by approaching the mechanic-teaching part in exactly this way.

Less than comfortable for the player? Sure. But if a player quits just because he wasn't pampered, then keeping him around would usually cost more than having him anyway.

Smokeman said...

I'm with Gevlon on this one.

Apparently, the mob's health bar flashes to tell you the attack was successful, and you can then use follow up attacks based on the new state... but that doesn't explain the states.

How hard would it be to have the skill trainer NPC have a response explaining it to you? You're about to get a skill from this guy, you'd think he'd want to explain the particulars to you.

Gevlon said...

@Maxim: but this learning process need that I actually assume that
- there is a better way doing what I'm doing
- I find resources explaining

Most players would just:
- assume that the game is a shitty grindy game where you have to kill trolls that slowly and quits
- "idc lol itz fun" and remain oblivious (after all I managed to get to 40 without having a clue)

Halycon said...

@Maxin

Knowing the mechanic and being able to capitalize on that knowledge are two very different things. Being able to actually use it is called skill, and that's something very different from this discussion.

Provi Miner said...

Just an FYI no "new jita" built, they tried one in perimeter its dead now. No "plantene Keepstar" worth trillions has been built. PL has not yet won eve.

Unknown said...

I know it's a bit out of context, but if you'd do a live stream, or youtube videos of BDO or any other project you have in mind, I'd watch that.

Samus said...

@Gevlon

Many players (and developers) want to win the racing game not because they are more skilled at racing, but because the track is unmarked and no one else knows where it is. They believe if all the information is available to players, all the players will do the most optimal thing all the time. You and I know that most will not.

Tithian said...

@maxim

If, as a game designer, you built something that requires for people to go to out-of-game resources to find out what's happening, then you failed 100% at your task.

Anonymous said...

No. just no. how many videos and tutorials to get people to switch on their brain? this is just wow whining again.
people seem to be to young or have a very weak gaming CV. Just to make this whining stop. please play _other_ games especially older games. yes _other_ and _older_ not newer! really. start some emulators and just play classics. castlevania even resident evil.
If there was no downstate dmg modifier, isn't it just natural to have your enemy as often as you can in that state? Going back to EVE. transversal optimal dmg modification is way much more complicated than BDOs CC states. I fail to remember anything remotely ingame that explained it to me. no NPC that taught me how angular velocity and transversal translate in poor or good damage.

I'm sorry to see that you lack the urge to want to know game mechanics. Don't get me wrong I'm just as lazy. I don't buy skills or invest in skill until the game get morbidly hard. I find it the best way to keep expenses low and don't invest in shit I don't need later on. Also it forces me to play well with the given mechanics rather then outdmg the need to play well.

Vanilla wow had some player skill. people are lazy no one plays their druid to it's potential it is just _the_ OP class and still is and still will be until they cut mid combat shifting. but only in the right shapeshifting hands. today only seen by some koreans and back in the vanilla day by some west top nolifers. unstoppable killing machines simply based on the mechanic to negate most CCs. did they learn it from an NPC? I highly doubt it.

JackTheManiac said...

@ maxim and "Anon08 May, 2016 14:40" & the others

You need to consider that if the game won't explain anything, there is the Internet that will now. That's the reality of 2016, so Game Developers should try and take that into account.

But, people can play their game well however how they want. Cheat (cheatengine, action replay) walkthrough, guides, wikis, summoning in Dark Souls, etc... You consider they didn't clear the game? Good for you. But nobody cares. When they get into your game (in multiplayer) there's a problem with using cheating devices, but the rest is okay (guides & such).

Therefore is no such thing as a "gaming cv". People own you nothing. They don't have to "switch on their brains" for you if they don't play with you.


By the way maxim, That's not what a M&S mean. A M&S would see no explanation, call the game stupid, and quit.

A non M&S would go and look for information online to be able to perform correctly, that the game doesn't explain well. Then the M&S would improve and become a good player, able to compete with other players of similar skill level. Not knowing the mechanics can, in a multiplayer game, give you losses after losses after losses, even though you have the skill to perform the task. The task doesn't include "finding out the cryptic mechanics to perform the task".

Well, that's two schools of thought. Yours, and Gevlon's. I refer you to the 2nd paragraph if you think that looking up mechanics online makes one a bad player.

There are multiple sources of difficulty. Reflexes, pattern learning, logic/problem solving, etc...



I do hope however, that you follow what you preach and go into MMO bosses BLIND, without looking up guides, if you play those kinda games. Well, in any games, really, that you do not use the internet to get any information at all.

Anonymous said...

"A non M&S would go and look for information online to be able to perform correctly,
that the game doesn't explain well. "

Maybe that's a way to nurish communication - people asking in game or on forums
how to deal with certain in game mechanics (trolls).

Anyway nowadays not reading wikis won't really work out too well I guess.

And then there is the downside of wasting ressources on tutorials and
tooltips that won't be read by those who need them the most.

Cathfaern said...

You always compare BDO to WoW but they are apple to orange. WoW is a Western MMO, and BDO is a "korean" MMO. If you would have ever played other big korean MMOs like Lineage2, Ragnarok Online, Aion, etc. you wouldn't be so suprised on these things.
You could say that "but this way they can't get WoW players to play BDO". I really think they can't either way. WoW is so different to BDO that if a player really like WoW's playstyle (even if they bored with it or angry at Blizzard or don't like the newest expansion) then that player would never really like an korean style MMO especially one with "real life like" elements. Just think which feature was removed most from vanilla WoW: which resemble any "real life" things: arrow for hunters, crafting poisons for rogues, getting reagents for spells, need of drinking and eating, going to dungeon by running/riding, need of other professions' materials for crafting items (if there are some metal/leather part in a cloth gear how can you craft it with only cloth?), any need for exploring by yourself (you just follow the "shiny arrow" now, no need to even understand what you doing while questing, or there is ingame bossguide), and the list is much longer. I didn't play too much with BDO but what I saw is that it's full of this RPGish, lifelike or sandboxish elements which not only missing from WoW but was consciously removed from WoW.
So please don't compare BDO too much to WoW. It's not the same playerbase, not the same category. They are both a multiplayer game where many player can play at once and both have a fantasy settings but the similarity between the two games mostly ends here.
So if you try to play like in WoW and expect WoWish things in BDO you will be disappointed. As you already was when you started to play and like you are now.

By the way the combat system is more similar in EVE and WoW than in WoW and BDO.

Kurtizzle said...

Most none ranged classes struggle a little at least on trolls, anyone that says otherwise is either geared from another character or fibbing.

They have higher AP than most mosters of comparable level, in fact go back there at 45-50 and you'll still find killing them slow if your gear hasn't improved.

I skipped trolls and went back at 45 for the SP, from the quests and for my own muct complete everything ness :)

Trolls are brutal as a berserker without any hp on hit.