OK I’m not sure if what I’m about to say makes any sense or if it is a real thing, but I want to talk about gaming content online and specifically “How To” style gaming content.
Does anyone else think we need more posts/videos teaching us how to get good at the games we play? And since I’m not sure I phrased that well, let me go into more detail on what I mean. Take as an example a game where you need a “build” for your character. I’m using that as an example because it is something I’m in the midst of with Guild Wars 2. (The header image is the “build” interface for my current GW 2 character.) I could easily google Guild Wars 2 guilds and find a pattern to copy and then my character would, I assume, be much more effective than it currently is, and there is a lot of value in that. But personally, what I would rather find is content that tells me what goes into creating a build. Give me the tools that I can use to put together my own build. Even if it turns out to be the same build everyone else is using, I still think it would be more rewarding to figure it out myself.
I do find some content like this, most often in videos. Probably because YouTubers (apparently?) get paid based on the length of time you watch their video, so they tend to go into a little more detail on why they did something, just to extend the length of the video. (Is my cynicism showing?) This is how I came up with my Fallout 76 build. It isn’t super unique but I did put it together myself. But I’d like to see this kind of content for more games!
An event that got me thinking about this is the Guild Wars 2 interaction I had with the puzzle expert. This person didn’t just say “Go here, now go there. Then go there.” Instead they gave me tools, from where to look (“Remember to watch your character’s feet…all that matters is where their feet land.”) to mechanically how to make the jumps (“Hold down the right mouse button, then when you hit your left button your character starts to move. Then use your other hand just to do the jump.”) and lots more besides. How to exploit glitches in the game’s geometry and things like that. The next time I played I was using these new skills not just to do puzzles but in general to navigate difficult terrain in a more fluid way.
Another inspiration for this post is a loose conversation we’ve been having on Mastodon about what kind of mouse we use for MMOs and how we set up our bindings. No one is saying “Here, use THESE bindings” but instead it’s more a collection of tips that work for each of us, or mice that seem to work well.
So I want to find the equivalent of that kind of knowledge for other aspects of this and other games. Not just walkthroughs, but real how-tos. Instructional content that give us the tools we need to blaze our own path, rather than just to follow the same path everyone else took.
Does this even make sense? If so, is this something anyone else would be interested in? Or does this kind of content already exist and I’m just missing it. I’d love to hear what others think about this because, again, I’m not even sure if I’m making sense at this point!! 🙂 For some reason it’s a hard thing for me to articulate, but I’m wondering if this is a niche some clever content creator could fill to expand their audience.
If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say you’re more likely to find this type of instruction for single player games rather than MMOs. I think a lot of people who create content around MMOs assume that, like them, you are only interested in what is the mathematical very best of the best, and they’ve already done the math. In fact, doing the math is why they enjoy whatever measure of success they have, so it’s absolutely not in their best interest to teach you how to figure it out yourself.
After all, if you already knew how to figure out your “top build”, that’s one less view for them.
Now who’s cynical, eh?
That is actually a really good point. Why would they give away their secrets? Better to have you come back every time you get the itch to try a new build or whatever… Just because it’s a little bit cynical doesn’t mean it isn’t correct!
There was (Probably still is.) a guy on what used to be the Yak’s Bend server in GW2 before megaservers came along, who constantly – and i mean constantly – used to promote his videos on how his super-secret builds let him do all kinds of stuff he claimed no-one else could do. He was very happy to show videos of him doing it but how he did it was supposed to be a secret because obviously if we knew, we’d all be doing it. He was very annoying but he had a huge presence on the server, with people both idolizing him and detesting him.
I’ve seen the same kind of thing in a few games. I think the lure of being internet famous heavily outeighs any desire to be helpful.
“I think the lure of being internet famous heavily outeighs any desire to be helpful”
Sadly, I think you are probably correct. Plus I suppose it’s a lot easier to say “Look how awesome I am” than it is to explain how you came to be awesome.
I’ve complained about this kind of “nu-learning” as well, but in non-gaming form. A lot of outlets tell you what “buttons” to push, but not WHY, or how the person telling you to press the buttons got to have that knowledge themselves (probably just a game of Telephone, but someone, somewhere, had to do the dirty work to get The First Build).
Games have so many systems and so many numbers, and the actions and combos of actions we have available to us are a factor of, and have a bearing on, how those numbers are applied.
There’s usually things like physical attack, magical attack, physical defense, magical defense, critical hit, critical damage, and a bunch of others. To know HOW to build a character a player would need to know how those attributes are applied to targets, how the actions modify those values, and how those targets can mitigate those values. Then there’s GEAR on top of all of that. So to really know how to build a character, a player needs to understand the WHOLE GAME from the perspective of their character and class, but since MMOs have so many numbers and different systems (or like GW2, different systems between classes), it’s a MASSIVE amount of learning and application.
I’m personally there to enjoy myself, not launch a rocket, so I’m OK with either following a build that someone else made, or just derping along and doing “well enough for my taste”.
I suppose in part I’m being lazy since, as you say, someone figured it out at some point, so why can’t I on my own?
I’m often pretty OK with just following a build too… that’s what I always did in ESO for example. But in other games I feel like the build is half the game. Diablo for example. Like (maybe I’m about to annoy a ton of people) that actual gameplay feels like just mashing buttons; how well you do seems determined by your build and your gear rather than how good you are at playing. So for games like this I feel like figuring out the build is half the gameplay. Otherwise it’s like playing an Adventure Game using a detailed walkthrough of what to do when and how… you’re just doing paint by numbers at that point. Not that paint by numbers can’t be really relaxing, too…
I think the primary reason this sort of content is less available is that it takes additional time and effort, both on the content creator’s and the user’s part, to go one step more ‘meta’ about the learning process, if you will.
I had a bit of this feeling when I was going through some of those similar GW2 build guides, more related to the process of learning skill rotations. I struggled to know where to start, and muddled my way through, often thinking “if only someone could actually explain how the heck they learn these rotations or how and why they are built the way they are, it might make my life easier.”
At the time, I had to invent my own strategy, and it mostly consisted of translating the skill names into the way I thought about weapon skills “F1, greatsword 4, greatsword 2, weapon swap, etc.” and repeating bits and chunks on them on open world mobs until they became more muscle memory, and then putting the whole sequence to the test on PoF bounties. (I could only stay in the raid golem room for so long before I got bored out of my mind and questioned why I was doing so much ‘homework’ for a game.)
I also made some half-hearted attempts at calculating optimal skill rotations (or at least skill priorities) by assuming that power builds wanted to use the most damaging skills in the shortest amount of time while waiting for the first to come off cooldown and ditto condi builds except using skills that had the most damaging conditions for that build. I mostly realized that it was not at all easy because besides skill activation times and cooldown times, animation times might also affect the rotation. I balked at sitting around recording video of all the skills and creating a timed record of each one, which is where I stopped in my attempt and decided to outsource it to the pros (or at least those with the time to do more than me.)
I certainly don’t know enough to write a general how-to, because I only dabbled at an amateur-ish level. Even many of the pros specialize in a single class profession. It needs someone at a more expert level with broad knowledge to create a more meta how-to-learn-this-stuff-in-general type of guide and those are few and far between, making such guides rarer. Even scarcer still are those experts who can even remember how they were at the learning/amateur stage and bring things down to that level.
Then there’s the question of how many people have the time and effort available to use said guides. About five years later, when I’m less interested in GW2, I see Mukluk on Youtube documenting a whole series on himself going through these builds giving them a try, demonstrating how he learns skill rotations. Honestly? I haven’t had the time or will to watch a single one to completion nowadays. Maybe someday.
As to your specific build question, my personal take on that is that’s probably the simplest part of the equation to figure out. Each trait specialization usually has something they favor more, e.g. power or condi, some type of survivability. A damage focused build prioritizes specializations that maximize damage, given the assumption that boons are provided as part of a group already. An open world build may prioritize a variant that produces boons themselves or balances out with added survivability. A PvP or WvW build takes ideas from the above and may introduce their own found synergies or builds around some kind of gimmick that works well for stuff vs players (e.g. perma stealth, confuse spam, etc.)
Then after the specializations are chosen, it’s about picking the best of 3 trait options for whatever you want, over and over, keeping in mind when to tweak and swap between the traits as needed for a situation. (e.g. Parasitic Contagion for necromancers gives dang good survivability, but usually at the cost of some damage. In a raid build, I always had to take the other option for more damage, except for when one encounter’s mechanics needed me to prioritize staying upright rather than contributing small amounts of additional damage. These days, in an open world build, I’m permanently using it for survivability, it just makes life so much easier.)
Wow, that is comprehensive; thank you for that. Also thanks for linking to Mukluk because I’m going to watch the heck out of his videos!
There’s a lot of terminology you used that goes right over my head still. Like I have to stop and think about these terms, partially because Guild Wars 2 seems set on using it’s own terminology (eg Professions instead of Class, and when I hear “Profession” I think crafting, or boons instead of buffs).
I guess at the end of the day I’m just looking for shortcuts and really I just need to put in the time to learn. Mind you I’m a filthy casual who is group averse so mostly I just want to be able to not suck when roaming around solo. Up to where I am now (level 65ish) none of the content has actually been too hard unless I do something dumb like not pay attention to the fact that an event is GROUP oriented and here I am by myself sauntering in and poking some mobs!! 🙂