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A huge chunk of gaming revolves around the mechanics of progression and getting new things. There will be an audience for the game, because they like this type

A huge chunk of gaming revolves around the mechanics of progression and getting new things. There will be an audience for the game, because they like this type of game. MMOs have been wildly popular in the general community, precisely because there are no significantly complex mechanics. Yes, there can be, but a very small portion of the player-base are engaged at that level. You don't need amazing aim. You just press a sequence of buttons. The plot is often totally incoherent and a lot of people skip it. And plot can be supplied by the player's imagination, fitting in with existing fantasies they hold (writing fantasy dialogues for your virtual pet, or I'm the king of the realm, building it by clicking things). Even FPSes are changing, in Blizzard's Overwatch, the most loved/despised hero Mercy[1] is "skill-less". You're not trying to get head shots or twitch aim or anything, you're keeping 5 bars full while moving around with very simple mechanics. And love it or hate it, you can't deny it's brought in a lot more diverse set of players to the game, I've never heard so many female voices in an FPS. It make me think that games can be thought of as combinations of several elements, plot, progression, mechanics, difficulty, etc.. Some people like parts part of that. They hate other bits of it. The progression thing seems to be one that's very easy to "exploit" through gambling mechanisms, it seems to be some sort of built in congitive mechanism that probably benefited us when you needed to plan ahead to build a shelter, or go on a hunt, or go out and get X berries, or anything that required a multi-step process for future planning. [1]Overwatch is a 6 v 6 first person shooter team game where there are lots of different characters to choose from that have very different weapons, skills, and roles, including healers. Mercy is a healer who can heal using a beam that requires extremely basic aim and can fly from player to player. This has allowed players without highly developed aim or positioning skills to enter the game and enjoy it, and then gradually develop those other skills to move to different heroes. The general consensus in the community is that this has allowed it to be much more accessible and fun for people who haven't been playing Halo/CoD/Battlefield from the age of 12.

Noos 9y ago
Mercy is as skilless as Reinhardt or Winston though. Winston's gameplay is absurdly simple; find a healer or squishy, jump in, chase them around, and then jump out before you die. Reinhardt is just keeping a shield up, and knowing when it's safe to do your easily telegraphed rush. The reason why they are easier is because you need effective tanks and healers in the game, and hard healers or tanks as the only option will make players just be DPS instead. This is why Ana always sucks and never solved the problem of adding more healers; if you like sniping, widowmaker or hanzo is better, and if you like healing, Ana is really hard to heal effectively with due to lack of defense and the need for precision much more than any other healer.
- mattmanser 9y ago
  Yes, I just used her as an example of one of the low-aim heroes. I think Winston/Rein are bad starter heroes though as they require you to lead the push[1], which is a stressful job for a new player. I think the Hanzo/Widow problem might be your personal view more than anything, there are lots of players who like winning games and did play Ana over them. The Hanzo/Widow "I want to DPS"[2] problem wasn't too bad until the disastrous Mercy re-balance caused a lot of problems including marginalising Ana players. Those sort of players don't like playing Mercy, so ended up as DPSers or, at best, Zenyattas. Personally, I think the whole game would be simply better if they deleted Hanzo and Widow. I don't think snipers should be in a team-based, objective game. [1] For the benefit of others, these characters are known as tanks (soak damage but don't deal as much) and usually initiate a full team fight, a match can be seen as a series of fights and knowing when to "push" is a key skill of Rein/Winston. [2] A DPS is damage per second player, they do a lot of damage but are easier to kill. They can attract some players who aren't good at playing the objective and are just trying to get kills. A lot of people consider this role to be the most fun in Overwatch.

Noos 9y ago

Mercy is as skilless as Reinhardt or Winston though. Winston's gameplay is absurdly simple; find a healer or squishy, jump in, chase them around, and then jump out before you die. Reinhardt is just keeping a shield up, and knowing when it's safe to do your easily telegraphed rush. The reason why they are easier is because you need effective tanks and healers in the game, and hard healers or tanks as the only option will make players just be DPS instead. This is why Ana always sucks and never solved the problem of adding more healers; if you like sniping, widowmaker or hanzo is better, and if you like healing, Ana is really hard to heal effectively with due to lack of defense and the need for precision much more than any other healer.

mattmanser 9y ago
Yes, I just used her as an example of one of the low-aim heroes. I think Winston/Rein are bad starter heroes though as they require you to lead the push[1], which is a stressful job for a new player. I think the Hanzo/Widow problem might be your personal view more than anything, there are lots of players who like winning games and did play Ana over them. The Hanzo/Widow "I want to DPS"[2] problem wasn't too bad until the disastrous Mercy re-balance caused a lot of problems including marginalising Ana players. Those sort of players don't like playing Mercy, so ended up as DPSers or, at best, Zenyattas. Personally, I think the whole game would be simply better if they deleted Hanzo and Widow. I don't think snipers should be in a team-based, objective game. [1] For the benefit of others, these characters are known as tanks (soak damage but don't deal as much) and usually initiate a full team fight, a match can be seen as a series of fights and knowing when to "push" is a key skill of Rein/Winston. [2] A DPS is damage per second player, they do a lot of damage but are easier to kill. They can attract some players who aren't good at playing the objective and are just trying to get kills. A lot of people consider this role to be the most fun in Overwatch.