Basically, what you've done is taken the leveling game (which we both agree is terrible) and extrapolated it to the endgame.
We don't disagree that the modern design of an easy leveling game that you can't possibly fail at is terrible. But if you're going to make generic statements that build doesn't matter and that no one can to better, then you can at least qualify that what you're actually saying is that even a bad build can survive casual content. Yes, RIFT has in recent years been re-designed to allow 1-2 good players to carry 3 400 DPS children through a 5-man, given enough time to complete it. But those 3 bad players aren't just playing differently because they haven't done their homework. They're actually playing terribly, and it's entirely because they don't research builds. Speaking just from a DPS standpoint, you're talking about many multiples of damage greater on a well-crafted build. A bad tank is just unusable. The only case where I might agree would be for healers, because until the raid level you can very easily get by with just about any build/focus. To say that that's how "these games" work is ludicrous. Did you think Diablo II builds were all just about the same as well?
To even suggest that you didn't gain experience in RIFT through hours of painful raid wipes. Wow. Sicaron and Grugonim would like to have a word with you. And my notes on HK/ID bosses were pages long sometimes. We'd go in blind with extra tanks and extra healers just because we didn't know what was coming. We'd use parsers (P.S. your guild leaders in EQ did this as well) to even figure out what was happening to us when we died, because there are no strats the day a dungeon comes out.
I like old games too. A lot. But you seem to have crafted a worldview that modern games require nothing of the player, and you're sticking to it. Is a training dummy a useful tool? Sure. Did it mean I didn't have to stealth through HK ambushing bosses to find out whether Trion had increased armor for t3 raid bosses (by the way, they had)? Nope. Regardless, character building is meant to be a cerebral process. Like I said before, this is an RPG, not an action game. The fact that we got a team of people together cooperating and experimenting and sharing findings should be enough.
You really are speaking from nostalgia. Casting spells on yourself to see what they did? Even Ultima Online published spell formulas. You just played a game that didn't and you really liked those memories. Most of the experiences you're looking for (see my point above about hours/days of raid wipes) are even still there, they're just repackaged.
We don't disagree that the modern design of an easy leveling game that you can't possibly fail at is terrible. But if you're going to make generic statements that build doesn't matter and that no one can to better, then you can at least qualify that what you're actually saying is that even a bad build can survive casual content. Yes, RIFT has in recent years been re-designed to allow 1-2 good players to carry 3 400 DPS children through a 5-man, given enough time to complete it. But those 3 bad players aren't just playing differently because they haven't done their homework. They're actually playing terribly, and it's entirely because they don't research builds. Speaking just from a DPS standpoint, you're talking about many multiples of damage greater on a well-crafted build. A bad tank is just unusable. The only case where I might agree would be for healers, because until the raid level you can very easily get by with just about any build/focus. To say that that's how "these games" work is ludicrous. Did you think Diablo II builds were all just about the same as well?
To even suggest that you didn't gain experience in RIFT through hours of painful raid wipes. Wow. Sicaron and Grugonim would like to have a word with you. And my notes on HK/ID bosses were pages long sometimes. We'd go in blind with extra tanks and extra healers just because we didn't know what was coming. We'd use parsers (P.S. your guild leaders in EQ did this as well) to even figure out what was happening to us when we died, because there are no strats the day a dungeon comes out.
I like old games too. A lot. But you seem to have crafted a worldview that modern games require nothing of the player, and you're sticking to it. Is a training dummy a useful tool? Sure. Did it mean I didn't have to stealth through HK ambushing bosses to find out whether Trion had increased armor for t3 raid bosses (by the way, they had)? Nope. Regardless, character building is meant to be a cerebral process. Like I said before, this is an RPG, not an action game. The fact that we got a team of people together cooperating and experimenting and sharing findings should be enough.
You really are speaking from nostalgia. Casting spells on yourself to see what they did? Even Ultima Online published spell formulas. You just played a game that didn't and you really liked those memories. Most of the experiences you're looking for (see my point above about hours/days of raid wipes) are even still there, they're just repackaged.
