This is not a rant but rather an observation so take it as such in case I make any fan boy to mad.

I like the engine so far and once the bugs are worked out it should give many of options that folks have been asking for.  I am in the group that makes the update more time consuming than wanted and will be making my final retirement from GD.  I know there is the "basic" options but I just can't see making a winner running the basic plans vs. a coach who micro manages every aspect (unless this engine ends up being totally random as well).  And before you flame, yes, the person who puts in more time should win and that gets me to WOW vs. Everquest.

EQ is an MMO that required MASSIVE amounts of time to play and "be the best" and the casual player never got to the point of the person who dumped massive amounts of time.  Now, this is GREAT for the player with the time the casual fan did not last to long.

WOW was the next generation of MMO where even playing casually you could do many of the same things as the hardcore player that pumped massive amounts of time.  WOW has been dubbed many things i.e. easy mode, no challenge, etc.

Why mention this, EQ in its prime had an estimated 200-300k subscribers....WOW in its prime had 10 million.  No game in the history of the MMO market has even came close to WOW numbers.

What is that time frame for GD and norbert, will this engine get it to WOW or will it fall to EQ (not literally but how about full worlds again?) where only the people with more time win?  I am not bashing the game or the engine as I was glad to see a change but I am not sure if this engine will raise populations long term any more than 2.0 did.  Initially yes as every new game sees a spike the first month or two but there are people now that the learning curve is to steep for, what will this do to casual joe? 

Anyway, just wanted to throw that out for discussion.  I am sure some of you will love this depth and for that I say enjoy as the point is to have fun.  For many like me I think the time required to be competative will be to great and will take our $10 elsewhere. 

I think back to when I first started playing GD. The amount of information I had to refine was intimidating, because it was new. As I played it became less of a hurdle as I tweaked rather than overhauled and had time to add more teams. This may be the situation here. I seems like a lot of work at first, but once it is set up only minor adjustments may be needed. The main feature to retaining coaches is that the engine perform how we want it to, with results contributing to fewer headscratching moments. But I understand what you mean duke, that is why I couldn't hang with HBD, where I thought the micro-mangement too time consuming.

I just hope it's not Anarchy Online.

In order to be competitive in WoW, you needed to basically invest your life.  As someone who played both games, I don't see the comparison.  The high level raiding guilds require you to have the best gear, enchants, and rotations which took endless amounts of time to gather/learn.  Most high level players quit WoW because they burn out, not because they are bored.  Burn out is never a sign of a casual game. 

I get the comparison you make even though I disagree, but shouldn't games reward players who invest more time?  If this new engine allows for enough control that people who invest in their teams can win, that is a sign the engine works, not that it is doomed.  Right? 

Posted by samson75 on 2/22/2013 4:00:00 AM (view original):
In order to be competitive in WoW, you needed to basically invest your life.  As someone who played both games, I don't see the comparison.  The high level raiding guilds require you to have the best gear, enchants, and rotations which took endless amounts of time to gather/learn.  Most high level players quit WoW because they burn out, not because they are bored.  Burn out is never a sign of a casual game. 

I get the comparison you make even though I disagree, but shouldn't games reward players who invest more time?  If this new engine allows for enough control that people who invest in their teams can win, that is a sign the engine works, not that it is doomed.  Right? 

I disagree slightly as a casual player could run every instance a hardcore raider could especially with the last 2 expansions it just may not be the heroic version but anyway I digress.  I agree that the player that invests the most amount of time should win, usually (idiots can invest all they want and they are still idiots).

I guess it is more looking at it from the business model and less the game itself, will it be only fo the high time and effort crowd (EQ) or will it have enough appeal to casual joe (WOW) to keep it succesful?

The engine can work wonderfully but if it takes 1-2 hours per night per team to get that control right how many "average" users are willing to invest that time?  Let's be conservative an back that down to just 30 minutes per team, that is still more than I have spent on a single game plan in years.  If that is the case I know it will make some users very happy and they will win and this will be their chosen method of entertainment but just like EQ and WOW the % of the player base that falls into the "no life" category is much smaller than average Joe looking for some fun.  Are there enough customers to keep worlds full who want to invest the full amount of time out there?  Heck, does WIS even care if the worlds are full at this point? 

I am not declaring doom or that that I hate the engine, etc.  It looks really cool and I wish it the best but it's probably not for me anymore as I don't want to invest the time it appears to require.  I may be wrong with the time thing but so far with all of the subtle settings each user can make you are going to have to spend some time scouting to win at the top levels and make some tweaks. 

Well, in some ways I agree Duke.  I have had the same thoughts, although I think someitmes those thoughts are just laziness on my part when it comes to learning something new rather than it taking too much time to learn.  I guess time will tell (or lack of it).   

Ok you may very well be right about WoW.  I forget the game moved forward after I stopped playing.  I was a Burning Crusade guy.  Back in the day, casual players hung out in Kara for their whole WoW lives while the rest of us progressed toward Illidan.  You are probably right though since the game has changed to allow more people to raid (10 man raids and heroic versions etc).  Regardless, I understand the intent of your argument anyway. 

I am thinking I will be learning on the fly as I also don't have the time to invest right now to read through the forums each week while tweaks are made.  Sometimes losing is the best teacher, and I am certain I will be doing a lot of it!  ;)   

You really don't NEED to do anything more than you do today.  The only difference is that there are a few settings on the playbooks that split some drop downs into multiple distribution text boxes, and we are looking for ways to make entering those easier.  You could use the default position role settings, the default formation settings, and with the Show Recs buttons on the Depth Charts, I really don't see how it would take much time at all.  We also plan on having a little more sophisticated global playbooks, so there is even the option of using those and not really having to set up a playbook if you don't want.  In fact, you can get a lot out of the default options by just adjusting your game plans before each game, which is pretty easy to set and even more so now that offensive and defensive playbooks are totally split from each other.

So you could use the default settings, and assuming you did some great recruiting, you could even be pretty successful.  However, the option is available for you to create custom settings and maybe try to build your game plans to your team's strengths.  Also, pretty much all these settings stick with you, so let's say you do spend a couple hours working on a playbook for a specific game plan.  That playbook doesn't go away, so you now have that playbook whenever you want it.  I would expect a casual user to expand their playbooks over time, but at a different pace than someone that might be a little more hard core.  Should a hard core user have an advantage over a casual user?  I think eventually they both have the same tool set when it comes to playbooks filling up their bag of tricks, but at different rates. What I think would set a hard core user above a casual user is the amount of time they take to analyze their opponent and set up a game plan especially for the next game.  So in that sense, I think a hard core user has an advantage over a casual user, but at the same time it doesn't mean the casual user should lose.  But I wouldn't expect a user to have to spend 1-2 hours per night just to set up their game plans.  What I would expect for a casual user to do each night, and I say this as a casual user, is to look at their opponent and see if they can tell their play style - same formations, more rushing than passing, etc. - and then set the game plan to do the best at countering the opponent.  I would also look at how I want my offense to play and in most cases it would be the same as that really has more to do with the strengths of my team.  Occasionally, I would spend some time to set up some playbooks and formations, so I would have more to pull from when setting up my game plans.  But I definitely don't plan on spending 1-2 hours per night.

It's also sort of comparing apples and oranges in comparing GD to WoW or EQ, because you keep mentioning your success level in GD compared to the time you spend, but in GD you are competing with others while in WoW and EQ you are competing in your own sandbox.  The closest comparison would be PVP in WoW.  I am/have been a casual player in both those games and I do play PVP casually in WoW and I know I'm not going to be the best.  But in that case, my enjoyment isn't in whether or not I win against another player, but in playing the game.  If you want to play GD casually and expect to take NCs, I doubt you will ever enjoy the game, but I think where the hard core user is going to beat the casual player in GD is going to be in recruiting, not because they spend more time setting up game plans.

It might just seem like there is so much more you HAVE to do because there is so much more you CAN do, but I would suggest taking small bites at a time.

Let me say first that I totally, 100% understand the time concern. I don't, however, think it's going to take as much time as some are thinking it will, at least once everything is set up. I believe the time it will take to set your team up will be high, maybe very high, but there is always a fairly long break between seasons when we basically have little or nothing to do. This is the time I plan on using to set my team up.
One answer to this problem, if it really ends up being one, is to have "Advanced" worlds and "Basic" worlds. I'm sure that can't/won't be done from day 1 but it could be done if/when Norbert and the other powers that be realize the problem truly exists. Once again, this is only my 2 cents worth, or maybe 1.5 cents?

25 cents Coach Deen!   Don't sell yourself short.  The time between seasons is downtime, and giving us new stuff to do during that time would be welcome.  So that is a good way to look at it.  I am responding here because my team in Yost is in that downtime atm...    

I like what Norbert said about using the defaults as well which is more or less what I planned to do at first, and as I get used to it, I will begin to explore the new options more fully.  Having too many options should never be a problem, especially since we collectively asked for more options.  I like that we can play the vanilla version if we face time/motivation constraints, or choose to go deeper into the rabbit hole once we are comfortable.  This should allow for all types of players to enjoy the game, or even to enjoy different aspects of the game at different points in their progression.