Flow in Gaming

I caught myself thinking about capping the S/L defence on my dominator recently.

*Fiddle fiddle on build designs*

"Let's see...I already have too much recharge, if I switch this and that, do this and that...tada! S/L cap!"

But then I caught myself and wondered, "So what?"
So what if I can perma-dom, perma-hasten, and S/L cap?
So I can try to solo all content?
If I am soloing all content, who am I showing off the "leet build" to?

...To show off the "leet build" to other people, would be to get onto a team content with them, and run off to solo the team spawns, or survive while they all die...which actually proves how much I suck since my job is to control the mobs?

Is it fun being a tank mage?

I think it's fun trying to build a tank mage. Every little piece of enhancement you get into place gives you a little achievement buzz. You designed something, you're seeing the design fall into place. Yay!

Then you finish the build, and you look at the completed whole with a satisfied sigh, take it out for a spin and marvel at how wonderfully it plays.

Then you get bored and go play something else.

* * *

Was moving a lowbie through all the tip missions to see the different ones they've created. Some are pretty funny. Caught myself thinking "but constantly switching alignments doesn't give any rewards!".

Doh. But I'm playing to see the different alignment tips.

Getting hooked on rewards. Got to stop.

* * *

There is something wrong with the game. During regular gameplay, everything is running so smoothly because everyone is so "leet", and or every strategy is so in place, or death is nothing to be feared, that there is no challenge.

Now there is the challenge of Master of -. I went for a few and it was such a military style affair. The leader would be barking out instructions. You were expected to follow or you were screwing everyone else up. Same thing for those "raid"-style events. It's fun to coordinate like this a few times. After that it's just no longer interesting.

Sometimes the leader would be someone who was considered a "community leader" or something. Seems like a leader of another type of community rather than the one I want to be in.

* * *

It's the hard situations that I remembered having "fun" in. Trying to clear Infernal with two people. Trying to survive the crazy Hess TF ambush on a blaster. Etc. Trying to keep people alive, trying to stay alive, because it was hard, and dying was a Big Thing. (Not because it was actually a Big Thing, but it was viewed as a Big Thing and so nobody wanted a Big Thing to happen.)

It's not grinding to leetness. And then having everyone feeling so leet they can only boast about their leetness -- screw the rest of the team I'm charging ahead yar yar yar I soloed everything you better keep up cos I want max-rewards at max-efficiency.

It's not going on team content where everyone is only thinking about the rewards they are getting at the end -- and so are you because this content is actually boring and offers no risk.

It's not following a military style operation every time you want to do some team content. If I wanted to do that I would have joined the military.

* * *

Ironically, wasn't this what we've always wanted. We wanted an end to punching bag AVs.

But somehow the feeling isn't of using skill to overcome challenges. It's the feeling of grinding to overcome challenges. The sheer numericals of a horde of +4s smacking you is just that. Grind military style to get your shards or threads to build your leetness and "level up" so those enemies become easy then you win!

Let's see how I20 turns out. If it gets worse, I'll have to quit.