Blizzard's success with equalizing content
by Mike Schramm 
May 15th 2009 at 1:00PM
Kinless Chronicles talks about something I think Blizzard has done exceptionally well with the latest expansion: "equalized content." Their story is about taking control of a Blightblood to finish off Drakuru, but there are countless examples of this in Northrend, from the last fight of Drak'theron to the encounter in Eye of Eternity with Malygos. World of Warcraft (and MMOs in general) has always been about levels and gear -- get better gear or level up, and you can cast more spells, swing an axe harder, and move on to more epic encounters. But Blizzard's "equalizing content" means that gear isn't always an issue -- by putting you in control of something else, whether that be a mind-controlled Troll or a siege vehicle, you can have extremely epic encounters without worrying about whether you're powerful enough for them or not. The limiter becomes not gear but skill (and/or the knowledge of how to use those skills).Obviously they can't do nothing but equalized content, otherwise we're all just playing the same game (and, under pressure from players, they've even moved on to a mix of both, where gear does affect how you play in a vehicle). But Blizzard has really hit on something brilliant with what we're calling "equalized content" here, and used in a balanced way, it can allow players of all kinds of different skill levels to do even more epic things than they'd normally be able to do.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Blizzard, Instances, Expansions, Bosses, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Desmentia May 15th 2009 1:09PM
We're going to have to agree to disagree.
I didn't work to gain and master my abilities to not use them, and vehicle combat is anything but epic. It feels more like you found a way to fix the I.W.I.N. button. >.>
Netherscourge May 15th 2009 1:55PM
I hate vehicles.
I hate having my level 80 character that I spent hundreds of dollars on over the past 4 years be stuck in some dumb vehicle and not be able to use any of his own abilities and skills that I spent tons of gold on, including the countless respecs.
And gear-scaling is pointless too - I don't get any bonuses from my gear in a vehicle - I get is a Health boost. Yay?
All I get in a vehicle is the 4 or 5 buttons that everyone else in the same vehicle has.
That's not an MMORPG - that's a GIMMICK.
It's sucks and it's a waste of time.
MMORPG's are about progression and using your skills and gear to advantage. When Blizzard neuters our accomplishments and gear to make everyone "fit it", the game loses it's focus and it's replay value.
Kanuris May 15th 2009 2:53PM
I think the vehicle combat is actually pretty fun coming from the perspective of a melee main with no high level alt. Having a ranged attack is fun.
Although i don't call the vehicles and "equalized content" a success considering you can count all the people who like Occulus on one hand.
Although the achievements were a lot more bareable than Less-rabi, which still taunts me. Infact, downing the last boss on 5 Amber Drakes is a tough encounter that gives you the same kind of satisfaction as downing a boss like Vashj or Kael, not as much satisfaction, but the same kind.
The "Holy smeg that was hard as hell but we finally did it! Yeah were awesome!" feeling.
Raze May 15th 2009 1:10PM
Brilliant for an MMO, maybe.
Unfortunately, it seems MMO's (specifically WoW) is all people are familiar with sometimes, given all the hellfire and brimstone I've seen spewed concerning heroic Occulus.
OHNOES, I'M CONTROLLING SOMETHING THAT'S NOT MY CHARACTER! OHNOES, IT HAS A WHOPPING THREE ATTACKS. WHATEVER WILL I DO?
Raze May 15th 2009 1:14PM
I'll elaborate a bit on this, as I should of.
Take someone out of their comfort zone in this game and suddenly things are alarmingly difficult to them, case in point the drakes of Occulus mentioned above. No matter how brief the encounters or how little of the content focuses on vehicles (admittedly, the amount is increasing throughout the game to the point that it's getting a tad overdone, but not so much in instances or raids that it's worth crying about for the 'hardcore' crowd) people seem dead set against vehicles as a means of variety.
Yeah, yeah, you're not controlling the character you leveled to 80. Last I checked, variety in a video game is a good thing.
Desmentia May 15th 2009 1:29PM
Occulus is fine, (probably because I've only ran it a handfull of times) but the seige event in Ulduar is rapidly growing stale.
Anyway, vehicles or not, it's not variety if it's the same crap week after week.
M May 15th 2009 1:41PM
Ulduar siege vehicles growing stale? Wow, no way! After five weeks now, I still love it. And guildies experiencing it for the first time also love it. I wish there were more vehicle bosses/encounters of increasing difficulty, including aerial assaults. Optional bosses, of course, but still more.
Now, if I could just convince everyone to start leaving some towers up *sigh*
Timoteo May 20th 2009 12:53PM
I'd thing that this is less of a gimmick, and more of an immersion tool. Vehicles have always been a big part of the Warcraft RTS games. Assaulting a city with an actual siege engine makes a whole lot more sense than being on foot and stabbing a wall.
Gimmicks arn't always bad for RPG's, so if they are done right they could be good for MMORPG's as well. How many people here spent hours and hours breeding chocobo's in FF7? At the end of that time you got a shiny new spell.
It works the same way for WoW, after mastering the vehicle "gimmick", you can get some shiny new loot from FL.
ladrondelanoche May 15th 2009 5:11PM
If I wanted variety I'd make an alt, like I did, twice. What I don't want is all the effort I've put into learning my class and how to play effectively reduced to nothing and having to use a poorly conceived vehicle instead. Its boring and obnoxious.
nbcaffeine May 15th 2009 1:10PM
I understand their wish to equalize content (normalize might be a slightly better word), however I personally do not like the alternative fights. I rolled my toon because that's what I wished to play. Getting in a tank or on a dragon or whatnot is not me casting my spells or stabbing with my weapon. I understand the draw that most people enjoy from it, however, for me, I'd rather use the abilities I have rather than new and gimmicky ones.
Dharmabhum May 15th 2009 1:13PM
Agreed. While I don't think vehicles broke the game exactly (their use in the Wintergrasp open-PvP setting was really a great idea to enhance the situation), I do think vehicles and control-of-character events can be tedious and certainly less-than-epic. Its great that it scales with gear, but it only skirts the question of were vehicles necessary in the first place?
Dharmabhum May 15th 2009 1:18PM
I should add that yes, these vehicles are ok in small doses. For quests here and there, it does break the monotony of having to just kill x of y. But when you need them for certain encounters in raids or dungeons, I do think it steals from our affinity to our class and instead of equalizing (normalizing works better anyway) it just simplifies it to the point where its not as much fun as if Blizz figured out how to do it with our own abilities. Thinking of Malygos, maybe giving each player a pedestal that they can use to move around in three dimension while giving Malygos an uber-huge hit box so both melee and ranged could work together in the same circumstances as the dragons are now.
damn is that as confusing to you all as it was to me? i gotta get back to work...
Raze May 15th 2009 1:20PM
Everything in this game is tedious. If you're honestly going to tell me with a straight face that using the same DPS rotations and moving out of the way when your fourteen addons or whatever all else Blizzard already has in the game alerts you to any boss in this game's televised super attack isn't tedious, than you're nuts.
The only situations I can think of in which vehicles make things more tedious is when they're used in events that drag on far too long (Battle for Undercity and any of the ones where you're tasked with killing 100 mobs with a super vehicle). It's like the rest of the game with a different moveset.
Dharmabhum May 15th 2009 1:29PM
touche
Isak May 15th 2009 1:33PM
When I was a kid, our local diner had something called pinball machines (Raise your hand if you remember these). My favorite pinball machine had lots of loops, bonus rounds and thing-a-ma-jingies, and was, in my opinion close to an epic pinball machine. But my mates never played on that, but chose the neighboring machine, which had much fewer loops, bonus rounds and thing-a-ma-jingies. I never understood why it was so, but one of my mates enlightened me: "your machine only goes up to 999,999 points, and this one goes all the way up to 999,999,999, so its way cooler than yours."
Is it really much funnier to pit your 20k health toon against a 40k health mob, than it is to pit a 2k health toon against a 4k health mob? Does it really make for a much more "Epic encounter"?
Malkavos May 15th 2009 2:40PM
The encounters are epic or not based on their mechanics, loot, and how fun they are for players. The increasing health pools, etc are just part of scaling. It rewards and necessitates progression to the new level cap / tier of rating gear before encounters become possible, and make sure that old encounters are obsolete.
Radiophonic May 15th 2009 2:58PM
Silly question; no.
Isak May 16th 2009 8:41AM
The author of the article seems to think otherwise:
"...by putting you in control of something else, whether that be a mind-controlled Troll or a siege vehicle, you can have extremely epic encounters without worrying about whether you're powerful enough for them or not."
Desmentia May 15th 2009 1:32PM
@Raze
...yeah, DPS is boring.
That's by I'm not one. Also, basic UI ftw.
QQInsider May 15th 2009 1:34PM
"Everything in this game is tedious"
Then why are you paying Blizzard to play it? Sucker.