Cities sure but the main story roulette is never going to change. It was skippable for years and there is a very good reason it's now not anymore.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eris4494
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08-08-2021, 10:04 PMAssirra
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08-08-2021, 10:07 PMAssirraThis is 100% false.Quote:
Originally Posted by VelKallor
If anything it's the complete opposite. You got so many teleporters and flightpaths you never even see the world anymore.
It's 1 of the main gripes old wow players like me have actually. I still remember waiting for that zeppelin or boat to travel to my next destination. It made the world feel big and alive. -
08-09-2021, 12:58 PMTheodric
It's a matter of personal taste, ultimately. Personally I enjoy it when a game has a big world to explore so long as there's things to do and players to meet along the way. A sense of scale, especially in a fantasy game, can also make things feel much more immersive.
I also think players were generally more reliable and less prone to flakiness back when people had to physically show up to a dungeon's entrance in order to enter. Quality of life changes can be neat, but they're often a double edged sword. -
08-09-2021, 03:02 PMShurrikhanI agree with most of what you've said here, Theodric, but just some food for thought / my $0.02...Quote:
Originally Posted by Theodric
I feel like of all the things that contributed to sense of scale and place, having to go to dungeon entrances had the most cost for the least reward.
Think about it terms of alignment. Does the process (having to traverse the overworld) fit the intent (wanting to do content which is specifically not part of the overworld)? I imagine there are ways by which dungeons can certainly feel strongly situated and therefore still part of the overall overworld 'experience' despite being instanced content, but I can't draw any examples from the MMOs I've played. (The closest examples I could manage would be what we might very distinctly call "delves" or the like instead, wherein there's a much harder but still open-world area within a given zone that may have unique environmental mechanics, more complexly scripted than average mobs or rares, etc., but those very obviously are not the dungeons of XIV, at least since 1.x's Sashtasha, Tam-tara, or Copperbell.)
Think of many a complaint heard about WoW's forced content loops, like having to do Assaults (open world content) to be able to do Torments (side-content with 6 difficulty levels and its own progression system) in Battle for Azeroth, or being forced to PvP in order to gear up quickly for PvE raids or Mythic+ at the start of Shadowlands. Or heck, consider the AP grind in Legion that had people spamming Maw of Souls nonstop for fear of being benched from raid.
The problems there were rather similar to what we'd face with this: people would be forced to do something that doesn't necessarily (or even likely) have anything to do with their interests, just to get to what interests them.
If the open world experience were truly ingenious, polished, and cohesive enough to appeal to everyone, I could see being teleported to dungeons as doing more harm than good, but short of that (i.e., within realistic expectations for most MMO developers, let alone any currently working for or with Square Enix) I feel this particular case will favor convenience. Open-world gameplay must, after all, be gameplay -- appealing in itself -- not merely a fetter, and at that point I see no reason to fetter the one appeal to the other as if by some sacrosanct rule. -
08-09-2021, 03:29 PMSoge01
Unpopular opinion: I wish Dark Knight didn't have The Blackest Knight shield ability, as lore wise, it just doesn't really fit the class. I'd prefer Paladin to have that sort of ability, while Dark Knight focused on doing crazy amounts of damage with its giant sword, absorbing HP from enemies and healing itself based on the amount of damage it does per attack.
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08-09-2021, 03:49 PMVyrerusI don't have a lot of MMO variety experience, but imo, that's(Dungeon entrances) because what dungeons were changed first compared to what they used to be. Think of that cost as a growing pain which further lead to a more segregated/teleport oriented world.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
In FFXI, there were dungeon zones that differed from the overworld zones in that monsters took anywhere from 9 to 16 minutes rather than 3~6 or whatever overworld spawn time was, and they usually were tied to beastmen or some other flavor of monster. They represented unique traversal problems, such as door puzzles with monster level ranges more closely squished together, such that the monsters on the entry floor were multiple level tiers lower than those on the middle/higher/lower/deeper floors. The Mute / The Curse totems in Beadeaux will be forever cemented in my head.
The confined space and risk associated with pushing in further meant that if you died or wiped, then you were likely up shit creek without a paddle in terms of getting raised to reduce your EXP loss/stay in the dungeon.
Of course, FFXI leans way too hard in the direction of almost no instances. Not even the huge content that everyone wanted to do had instances, and things like Dynamis needed third party sites to organize such that people weren't stepping on each other's toes by trying to run it all of the time. Instanced dungeons/content especially good in this regard.
I think that the change over to instanced dungeons was good, overall, as most people wouldn't be caught dead(literally) going to farm in them as the risk to reward ratio was too high, and nobody wants to have to pay attention most of the time, especially for something as mundane as farming. Of course, once dungeons became instanced, then having to travel to them to enter, while realistic, got people wondering why they couldn't just teleport in from anywhere, since you didn't actually like, open the door and walk in.
On the other side of the coin, instanced dungeons whether you have to go to the entrance or not are far less immersive. Designed to reach the endpoint quickly without much exploration, if any, as is the case in FFXIV. Most people find convenience and getting to the point the most appealing, especially contrasted with the difficulties inherent in making something more immersive/realistic. It's rather easy for me to remember just how many times we'd have a full party going into the heart of a dungeon like Castle Oztroja in FFXI, only to find out that a member or two forgot their quest sequence trigger, and we would have to leave and climb all the way back to the top, solving all of the daily reset door puzzles all over again.
Or trekking through the jungle into Temple of Uggalepih down into the Den of Rancor for the RoZ Tonberry fight, only to find that half the party hadn't reset Tonberry Hate. Of all the things people hate about world traversal, being responsible for what you need prior to the traversal is imho what weighs down most for folks involved. Even for those who enjoy such traversal.
Since MMOs have hit the mainstream, we lose such demands to the mainstream players. Such players will never find such things appealing, because they're not here to get invested in the world merely invested in the game. -
08-09-2021, 04:10 PMShurrikhanBut again, regardless of whether or not you teleport to them, are the dungeons part of the open world?Quote:
Originally Posted by Vyrerus
If previously you had to PvP to keep up in PvE, or you had to do gathering for attunement items to get into a raid, and now you don't... would we likewise call that "cost" a "growing pain"?
Same for the aforementioned XIV 1.x open-world "dungeons" like the original Sastasha, Tam-tara, or Copperbell Mines. They were neat, and honestly I would love to have some shortcuts or areas that influence zone mechanics among similar delves, so long as it doesn't ultimately just feel like a chore that's done every 30-90 minutes and between which everyone goes their own way for grinding.Quote:
They represented unique traversal problems, such as door puzzles with monster level ranges more closely squished together, such that the monsters on the entry floor were multiple level tiers lower than those on the middle/higher/lower/deeper floors.
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I guess my biggest question is that for so much extra potential for aggravation before the run even starts or having to do content you didn't want to do... what's the gain? I enjoyed WoW Classic plenty, or even Ragnorak Online and XI, but there's very little, if anything, about having no matchmaking and having to navigate to dungeon entrances to do said dungeons that I can put my finger my finger on and say, "Yes, this adds to the dungeon experience!"
Even what advantages I might think of in terms of having, say, no matchmaker could perhaps better be provided simply through network features, like... a better friend's list and Quick Join interface, being able to see who was in your recent group and whisper them (say, if they commended, or perhaps even just didn't report / 'de-commend', you and/or vice-versa), and having the display of how many party finder entries are up for the given duty be further filterable or also show friends in queue, soon to queue (countdown feature), or in party-finder, etc. -
08-09-2021, 04:51 PMVyrerusDungeons are part of the world, yes, even in FFXIV. They're segregated though by their instance boundary. The old dungeons were part of the world too, but only separated by their zone line. You could enter them alone, even if you stood no chance against what was inside, but you could exit just as easily.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
The potential for extra aggravation stems from the fact that the developers hadn't yet experienced what people don't want. They planned some content, put it down, and collected the data on how it was received.
I guess what I'm driving at is that it's a completely different experience. Vis a vis, the dungeon experience in modern MMOs is not the dungeon experience in old MMOs. The wealth of time's changing eliminated one type of experience completely, in favor of the new experience.
What the new experience lacks is preemptive commitment. In old MMO dungeoneering, you had to commit to even get to the dungeon. This lent itself to the experience, and was directly part of said experience, and the more out of the way the dungeon was, the more locked in people were to complete the task at hand. Compare/contrast with the modern experience of, unlock dungeon > Queue > Wait on Queue > Do dungeon > Leave.
In the old experience there was a shared experience for each individual dungeon and associated mission that you knew every other person in your group was going through, same as you, and even if this process felt like a gip or a slight against you as a player, you had communal experience with it. Modern experience you have no idea what people did before getting in that dungeon with you, whether their goal is the same as yours, or if they even care about what's going on in the course of the dungeon. All you know is they unlocked it, and they queued for it. In the old experience you could get to know your party before you even arrive at the dungeon, and foresee some problems that might arise based on how they talk/behave before reaching the destination. You could also bond with them slightly before hand, and this might induce you to try even harder/go the extra mile for them should a fail state come about. Basically old experience was more conducive to forming bonds/making friends, while new experience is "instant" gratification with a far higher probability of never seeing said people again. Old experience is far more memorable too, because you're more likely to remember something that took you a long time to get done/took a lot of effort and tedium than you are something that's nearly instant and more or less the same every time. For instance, I can remember almost every time I delved into a dungeon in FFXI vs. only remembering the first time/problem runs in FFXIV. I make the comparison all the time, but one is very much living in the other world whereas the other is very much killing time with a game.
As for horizontal gear progression/maintenance being required to do things you care about... mmm... I can only speak so much to that. In old MMOs there was often a way to get equivalent gear or gear that almost as good as the best stuff you could pursue, if you did a different piece of content. This sometimes lent itself to getting you a foot in the door of a group doing said content that you want to do. I don't like that as a design route, but it wasn't always a bad thing. Certainly another growing pain sort of thing, with devs trying something, and then finding that people hate it. But you could also say, in some cases anyway, that it was a playerbase driven route anyway. Like in FFXI, for instance, it was entirely possible to enter into any of the endgame scenarios in gear you could purchase from the Auction House, but the number of Linkshells that would take you to content right away were either ones just forming or ones desperate for members or desperate for your job. The closest analogue to this now is iLvl restriction in PFs. Though all of the extreme/savage content doesn't require more than semi-skilled i510 geared people, people often request higher iLvls because they're looking to be fast and efficient and let mistakes be made up for by gear. -
08-09-2021, 04:58 PMGabadabsThe whole concept of a player being reliable or unreliable is so foreign to me honestly. I've been pla ying MMO's for at LEAST 6 or 7 years now and it's never been a concern. Guilds/FC's I've been in have always focused on a less intense, more casual experience I guess?Quote:
Originally Posted by Theodric
It just shows the huge variety of types of players that enjoy this amazing game! -
08-09-2021, 05:07 PMFyrebrand
Oh wow, I'm going to have so many features stolen from Guild Wars 2... but for this post, I'm going to stick to just the "Wardrobe" system:
- Any gear skin you get is permanently unlocked for any character on your account. You don't have to keep or store that item, to continue to use its "glamour." It's yours forever, with no inventory space requirements of any kind.
- When you open up the Wardrobe, you can preview every armor and weapon skin in the game on your character, whether you have it unlocked or not.
- Dyes are done in a similar fashion, where you have unlimited use of any dye you've unlocked on your account. Also, as of now, there are over 600 dyes in the game and most pieces of gear have multiple "dye channels" (that is, different parts of each piece you can dye separately.
- You don't have to go to a separate instanced room to change your "glamour." You can do it anytime, anywhere. It does cost an item called a "transmutation charge," but if you play regularly these are thrown at you for free like candy as log-in rewards. I only run low if I'm not playing much and go on a mad spree of re-designing multiple characters. Still, even that small restriction can be done away with ideally.
- I shouldn't even need to say this, but any cosmetic item you buy from the Gem Store (think "MogStation") is permanently unlocked for all characters on your account, not just one. I have a lot to say about how much better GW2's Gem Store is compared to MogStation, but that is a post for another time...
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08-09-2021, 05:39 PMShurrikhanSee, what I find odd there is I typically had slightly more parties fall apart from leavers back when I had to run to the dungeons than when simply match-made and teleported to. What with the time to FP and ride and wait for XdoUrdenX or Caticus Majesticus to finish up some quest on the way, etc., the added punishment (in terms of time lost/wasted) for failing/disbanding was still faintly outweighed by their added annoyance going in. Maybe I just got consistently unlucky for those ~four years, but I didn't really see that preemptive commitment paying off, since as much as the investment time increased -- and, one would think, the added pressure to actually complete the run -- so, too, did tensions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vyrerus
Personally, my favorite dungeoning experiences were variously late night matchmaking queues here, in Wrath of the Lich King, and in Blade & Soul. On average, a third of my party would be people I'd run with last time, and half of them from within the last two runs, but the runs themselves felt very low-stress, with plenty of chat between fights despite having no additional pressure to work with one another; I might even say it felt more friendly because we didn't feel in any way like a captive audience/cohort.
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Additionally, I feel like we have a slight disconnect here (my fault, though):
(Gets a bit long)Quote:
Originally Posted by Vyrerus
Perhaps I should have specified dungeons in the larger, more experiential or holistic sense. Admittedly, though, perhaps I'm subconsciously hedging or muddying this question more than I should...
For me, the question is how sort of tied the experiences are together, in the same sense as "characters" or "lore" might be tied back to the open world, or not. It's not really a yes-no question so much as one of degree.
When the open world is rich with clues, its scale seems appropriate for what the lore says is happening there, we can say that the open-world and lore are very well tied together. When those clues instead come primarily from external/auxiliary sources and/or there seems poor alignment between the lore and what one actually sees (e.g., a three-village nation-state like Doma, a small caldera in which so many warring Au Ra clans can manage not to kill each other when only a few minute's jog apart, etc.), that relationship is far more tenuous.
We can always say that in a sense characters are, yes, technically part of the open world because we interact with them in that space, and lore is, yes, part of the open world in that every clue can be thought to have ultimately come from or through some location tied to player-visible zones (even if perhaps future ones instead), but is that enough to say that characters or lore "are a part of the open world"? If our thoughts about a given character are inseparable from the open world or its sort of encapsulating experience, and the "stuff" (motivations, settings, etc.) that intersect in a character also intersects with the open world (e.g., when we think about Hien's motivations, we cannot help but think about similar thoughts we had when going through Doma), then to me that's sufficient to say "characters" as implemented in the game "are part of the open world". After all, they'd then be adding to the open world experience, and the open world experience not only adding to them but also being requisite for anywhere near their full experience.
But dungeons? That's been hit and miss. I can't say South Shroud did a damn thing to situate Toto-rak, for instance, except to introduce part of its color palate. Doma Castle, on the other hand? Decently situated. It could be better, but I can't say the dungeon would be any better for it. And perhaps that's the more essential criteria: Do dungeons share criteria for success that would seem iconic to the open world? Does our perception of the dungeon vary with those prior successes in the open world? Or are they largely separate -- their relationship little more than arbitrary (like one's relationship with a city when their house sits at its edge but one only ever really eats out or meets with anyone near their work, several cities away)?
I don't know. If that earlier came off as a trick question, I didn't mean it to be. If it has now come off as a very murky, confusing, or otherwise existentialist question, it wasn't meant to be that either, but I can't argue with the description. -
08-09-2021, 06:35 PMShurrikhanApologies for the split replies, but this is its own bucket of worms, imo, so I thought it might be best discussed separately.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vyrerus
To me, the goal of horizontal progression should primarily be to give a sense of incidental commitment. A bit of a paradox, I know. But consider:
When a game is new, horizontal progression tends to work nicely in that people become the best at something gear-wise merely in the course of becoming the best at something knowledge-wise.
Especially in a game with incredible attention to open world cohesion (ideal/theoretical example here -- bear with me), just as you grind such and such area in Monster Hunter, you're also learning the attacks and behaviors of those mobs from which their predators and those predator's predators attacks and behaviors derive, along with the environment and pathing that might allow you to beat a given rare or boss. It's not-quite-generalizable progression, and while that can feel bad in certain senses, it can often form a net positive in player satisfaction. It acknowledges your mastery and your time spent in a particular space, among particular mechanics and/or characters, activities, etc.
Moreover, it makes the game a bit less linear on the whole, in that there is more overlap in power necessary (i.e., gear-checks) as one moves up and through zones or similarly packaged activities. Horizontal progression can therefore help a game avoid that attention-deficient or thin-spread feeling of, say, retail WoW before Chromie time, in which people would barely have started experiencing a zone before moving onto another (or, even afterwards, if one fully optimizes that experience into a single leveling path each time -- albeit for greatly increased boredom at minor efficiency gains).
But consider the opposite ends, when (1) the game is older and all mathed out -- especially if it's not highly balanced -- and/or (2) doesn't merely concern different takes on a similar gameplay loop (as per zones) .
By then we know where we should go at each step, and while the horizontal progression can still help us from seeming to spend too large a portion merely traveling or otherwise feeling too touch-and-go, it's still adding a sense of static friction that, once everything's laid out before you anyways, players will perceive as holding them back more often or greatly than they perceive it as rewarding their engagement/efforts. Worse, if it separates altogether different gameplay loops, then it, naturally, would seem to separate your Dungeon-runners from your Rare-hunters from your PvPers from your Crafter-Gatherers, etc., such that a player feels they have less freedom to explore the world as they please, since they'd be held back by those gear requirements and the added time investment required to progress in each path.
Now, to an extent, that can still be reasonable. For instance, gear-checks can be a good thing if (and perhaps only if) they have very strong correlation with other things we wish to check. This is in part what I mean by "incidental". If the gear is merely something to make visible an altogether different and more necessary/fundamental sort of progression, such as learning, then that's progression one would have had to spend time towards either way. So long as that is clear to the average player, the playerbase isn't likely to begrudge that process of gearing up. They'd likely even appreciate finding fellow hunters or body-guards or PvPers or dungeon-crawlers or the like out in the open world, and knowing where, approximately, their teammates stand in terms of relevant knowledge just from the gear they're wearing. Heck, it can add to immersion, too.
But that is an awful lot of things that have to right. You'd need to have deep systems that make those rewards pertinent, gear would have to be capable of enough detail to match said systems (rather than a T4 of one path being better than T3 of another even in the latter's path), the gear cannot for the average player be the primary reward sought after, the gear can't be the markedly best option for something outside its own path (else you force people to play something their not directly interested in), etc. etc. That's not to say we shouldn't ever attempt something like this, but there's an awful lot going on beneath the hood. We can't rightly say "horizontal progression good" and call it a day -- not that you have, of course.
And, hell, even vertical progression is still rather worm-ridden. My post from before wasn't exactly joking when I requested that we
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
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08-09-2021, 10:12 PMVyrerusThis is where my lack of variety in MMOs fails me, as I've only experience specific subsections of specific MMOs. I've only ever really played Runescape when it was 2D into a couple years of it being 3D(3D is now considered classic, which is very odd to me). FFXI, FFXIV, Guild Wars 1 ever so slighty, and about 45 minutes of Everquest before my friend kicked me off and got back to his grind lol.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
In FFXI, quest design was so obtuse that there wasn't often multiple lumpings of quests or missions. Like, if I went and shouted for 5-3 CoP Mithran Trackers fight, that is literally all the group would be focused on doing, with literally nothing else in mind (except more CoP progression if the group stuck together after). Perhaps if we ran into a Notorious Monster along the way, and were actually of level to kill it... an incidental pause might occur, but in general stuff like that rarely happened. Getting to most boss arenas or fight entrances usually took your group through very dangerous monster grounds, so you had to stick together, ideally using sneak/silent oil/prism powder/invisibility spells/items and fighting anything that could detect through those. Not saying I never had groups disband, but it was fairly uncommon. Anecdotal, I know, but I've had far more abandoned duties in FFXIV, though this is partially due to how fast we can cycle through the content and how fast people can get back into it.
I think one of the biggest weaknesses of convenience based MMO design is that it gives players the impression that they can have it all if they're efficient. I guess I can't 100% say old MMO dispelled that illusion, but I knew a sight less people who tried to do it all in older MMOs.
As for dungeons being part of the world, uhh... we're given in game descriptions of what they are, where they are, and how they fit into the world. If you do the zone sidequests, then they generally fit in nicely with what you learn about each area. I will say that their visibility does hinder some of them, as some of them seem like they are not entrances to what the dungeon actually is, but then again, why design an elaborate dungeon entrance that gives the dungeon a presence in the overworld, if all it is to most players is a queue box checked or not?
Also to be fair, the modern day scenario for dungeons is quite a bit better, given that they actually have explanations as you certainly unlock them. In Ye Olde days, dungeon entrances were either very obvious or not. A lot of dungeon entrances in FFXI were literally just sudden zone lines in caves or between trees that you never saw until you hit them. There was no such thing as unlocking a dungeon, except for the super special endgame story mission related ones, but I guess it's also true that these old dungeons often had multiple entrances, some of which affected where you could actually go in the dungeon. This gave those particular dungeons a feeling as though they were innately part of the world, since said dungeons often were the subterranean area beneath overworld zones.
FFXIV basically gives us holes in the wall or dungeons as connecting tunnels(Sohm Al, loosely Ala Mhigo, Drowned Skalla, Hell's Lid). Most are holes in the wall, but they can't really be designed in many other ways due to the need for dungeons to be short and punchy as dictated by convenient design. I prefer when they connect us to something, both by story or physically, but it's just not meant to be with how convenient design eschews the overworld anyway. -
08-09-2021, 10:12 PMDzianChanging the focus doesn't necessarily change the epicness or mean your character is less involved.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gabadabs
This is one if the biggest differences between xi and xiv. Xi is very workd centric. Vanadiel is the centre of the universe and everything in game rotates around vanadiels rules.. eorzea is just a lifeless world that bends to the player consistently. And serves as little more than a lobby for the next instance battle. Because on xiv you the player are the centre of everything. In a big way. Those 3 7 or 21 other people in your party are all nobodies as far as the world is concerned. And if you can't succeed at something the world changes the rules and makes it easier for you...
However the differences don't necessarily change your involvement. Or epicness. I still have fond memories to this day of that epic battle verses the shadow Lord back in the day in xi.. and I could name every person that was in the party when we did it. Or beating other epic fights like tenzen in cop or Alexander in toau. All still epic moments despite the world being centre stage and not the player. XIV the only thing that ever cameclose to feelingepic was smashing bahamut in ARR. everything else basically feels handed to you on a platter. Theres msq instances you can go afk and still win.
If anything xiv being player centric often ruins things. It's been said many times that it makes no sense that you as the player are the slayer of gods and mighty primals. So why in the world are we killing a bunch of bugs destroying some random farmers crops..
but id love to see crowd control, exploitable weaknesses and vunerabilities and all that stuff come back add some actual depth to the comabt instead of this shallow mindless zerg till dead.. mobs are so boring.. a level 80 has the exact same defence toughness and resistances as a level 1 ladybug in thanalan.. easily tested by goin out there tossinga spell and then using the same spell against a level 80 boss. exact same damage.... the only difference between mobs is how much hp they have.. which is lame and boring.. variety and diversity wouldbe so cool. mobs that are tough as nails heavily armored but slow, mobs that are soft and squishy but agile and fast as hell. as well asvaryingelemental properties and stuff... would open the door for somereal job identity anddiversity and get rid of this homogenized boring af system we have now where eveything is exactly the same..
final fantasy 14 where you can play every job on one class but they all play the exact same so what does it matter. -
08-10-2021, 03:27 AMShurrikhanSame, more or less. I wouldn't want them all to be that way, but between a totally optional dungeon and an MSQ one, especially where it feels like a necessary and iconic step in that storyline, the latter's going to have an almost inherent bump in quality for me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vyrerus
I think that's what felt so pivotal/iconic about many a single-player FF dungeon. And while I'm sure some would be quick to, just because those dungeons happened to be in single player games, pretend those designs would be impossible in an MMO, I'd argue there's nothing inherently different about them outside of the ability to further overgear them (albeit as an inefficient use of time) in single-player; they're both just MSQ dungeons after all, with very similar concerns as to accessibility and unique challenges.
Those design constraints are also why I've been thinking a lot over the years about how the daily roulette systems (especially the likes of Expert), etc., might be doing more harm than good, at least as presently implemented, in that any flat reward will tend to either homogenize the content it applies to or disappoint whomever randoms a dungeon that's slower than the quickest possible option.
A quick but far from comprehensive improvement, for instance, might be to (1) have the dungeon rewards themselves become scaled towards the best reward-per-minute possibility -- such that when you do a 50/60/70/80 roulette, even doing a 50 dungeon would still give an average party the tomes per minute of having done the most rewarding 80 dungeon -- and (2) show the number of people already specifically queued for a given dungeon, including whether there'd likely be a Sprout bonus to pick up.
Eh, that's still a decent sample size, if maybe a bit skewed towards tab-target games (not that such changes the dynamics of the dungeoning group experience in terms of party retention -- only in how teamwork likely functions).Quote:
This is where my lack of variety in MMOs fails me, as I've only experience specific subsections of specific MMOs.
Mine isn't that much more expansion, though a bit more shifted towards the modern: WoW, XIV, some XI (own and friend's account, mostly DRK, RDM, WAR, RNG), GW2, Path of Exile, Blade & Soul, Vindictus, Aion, Tera, Warhammer Online, Secret World, Neverwinter Nights, a bit of ESO, some Lineage II way back when, Archeage (not much), Black Desert Online (again, just enough to really get a feel for the combat and world, not the near-endgame grind). That puts "action" MMOs as the larger sample space, slightly, but I've ultimately far, far more hours on tab-target ones. That's enough to make me an unhealthy MMO addict, but it still leaves me far from having any sort of comprehensive understanding of the genre.
This is true, but I'd say it has more to do with perceivable reward thresholds than convenience itself. By those, I am referring to, say, our daily roulettes or weekly challenge logs, etc., for which completion offers (or at least appears to offer) greater reward per minute spent. This can make them feel, to some players, obligatory. While those thresholds give you a bit more to work towards or look forward to at the start, they also work a bit like any fatigue system thereafter. (To be fair, systems of bonus reward/experience up to a set point and decreased reward/experience after a set point are just two sides of the same coin -- identical so long as they scale evenly.) More importantly, they also reduce your own agency, sort of instilling a certain pacing in place of whatever you'd prefer. In some cases that can be good, as you might otherwise not care to play at all without that carrot dangled in front of you (or the stick, via the threat of falling behind on the leveling/gearing treadmill), but I feel that's an issue already largely mitigated by just having a game that's inherently fun to play, and the more you saturate those intrinsic rewards with extrinsic ones, the more the prior's appeal is muddied and caused to rust.Quote:
I think one of the biggest weaknesses of convenience based MMO design is that it gives players the impression that they can have it all if they're efficient. I guess I can't 100% say old MMO dispelled that illusion, but I knew a sight less people who tried to do it all in older MMOs.
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08-10-2021, 03:40 AMGabadabsI mean... I enjoy having things handed to me on a platter? It's not like I'm doing high level raiding or really much multiplayer content outside of the occasional dungeon.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dzian
For me XIV is a game that I go to to feel like a superhero and relax, I don't feel that I should need to "earn" that. My sub should be enough payment for me to continue to get what I like out of this game.
It reminds me of when everyone told me how much better classic WoW was VS retail, and I always felt that the opposite was true. Grinding through it's cobbled together zones doing massive quantities of menial chores, essentially, wasn't fun.
You had to earn cool gear, and work a lot. Which isn't why I play these games. -
08-10-2021, 04:28 AMUltaniku
I wish, which i know won’t happen in XIV, they had the classes that were a little more diverse. Example, like a dps who in general had weak damage but could like debuff and such. Or flip it, a job who’s main goal is to buff and support their party members and have lower damage themselves. I don’t mean dancer or bard style of support either. I know this isn’t how XIV will ever work, but it’s just wishful thinking.
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08-10-2021, 04:30 AMPuremallace
MMO Design? I hate RMT cash shops with a passion. EA made them acceptable but there was a long period of time where an MMO would lose a VERY large percent of their playerbase for putting things in the cash shop.
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08-10-2021, 06:48 AMReynTimeI agree with most of the sentiment here, but I actually never played XI.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dzian
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08-10-2021, 06:56 AMElladie
I wish they would lose the Duty Finder and go back to the old days when you put up your flag and waited for an invite to a levelling party. You earned your levels with other people on your server so you couldn't behave badly or else you got a reputation for being a dick. Ahhhh the nostalgia. I made some great friends in those old levelling parties, people I'm still friends with today, people I play XIV with. Yes I know it won't happen, but I do truly wish it would. Not that I ever use DF anymore, I run with Trusts or friends if I really need a dungeon
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08-10-2021, 07:10 AMReynTime
Not going to answer directly to that person who got super offended I wanted the game's overworld to feel less like a glorified uninteresting oversized lobby room, but I just want to clarify when I said "no teleporting everywhere" I meant I actually prefer when games impose a more rigid restriction on where and when you can.
I actually thought the Anima system people oh so hated was nice. The time it took to recharge was too long but I legit think anima + gil should have been the way to go. It would encourage players to use their teleportation wisely and still push for better map design/overworld content since maps would be important beyond MSQ theatre stage. "Oh no muh Porta Praetoria" - Use your anima. "Oh I'm in Gridania and I need to go to Limsa" - Use the freaking airship that's 20 seconds away from where you are.
Furthermore the critical paths in XIV's silly overworld aren't that long.
Some of the arguments against this miss the point completely, because the overworld being designed the way it's been since Heavensward is a consequence of how traveling works in XIV since then. ARR zones are a lot more filled with points of interest, lore to see or to read, NPCs, etc because flying wasn't a thing then.
Maps are oversized, barren and with a huge lack of verticality in 3.0+ onwards with like 2 exceptions because they know players will have flying real soon and not explore anything after except for FATE clearing.
When a game is designed around traveling back and forth by ground/limited teleporting more content is expected to be in the overworld.
The "themepark" analogy works perfectly for XIV's map design because most of the time you're basically having short guided tours from point A to B. And for that approach convenience is all that matters.
TBH I never played XI. It's legally impossible for me (thanks SE...)Quote:
Originally Posted by Payadopa
It sounds like a game I would enjoy a lot more than XIV though. -
08-10-2021, 07:16 AMShougunOver a few threads I tried to help the feeling of the idea, though it's difficult to go full classic without huge shifts in design. For example in a dark healer thread suggested offensive 'heals' (oGCD for balance reasons) and damage boost debuffs (curses), that were balanced on the nature of their total potential output. Like a curse that prevents a boss to deal 1000 potency of damage (for your party specifically, could use % to spread it out too like prevents 25% outgoing damage up to 1000 potency, an enemy target 'shield'), or a curse that says players deal 10% more damage up to 900 potency (of the player). These allow a job to not have balance issues you would have otherwise, like if you imagine I increase the damage dealt to a boss by 10%. 4 players, 8 players, 20 players, it changes the 'power' of that debuff (especially if it stacks). What was worth 500 potency may become 5000, and then 50000. By setting expectations (limits) I think you can get some more leeway, of course this makes it more of a 'feeling' of design over maybe the more classical "bard sings a song and buffs everyone". Alternatively adding a support role could help, if they redesigned everything such there were something like 5 roles, then each party has a support job (though this far late that is pretty serious suggestion over just one or two jobs with twists). Of course we have some of these abilities (Ninja) already, but that's one ability- when you give these designs limits you could give a job a lot more of them. En-fire target weapon adds 100 potency to the next 3 weaponskills (300 potency total, rather than saying "adds 20% bonus damage" and it's much harder to know what'll happen exactly, and of course use cooldowns to manage expectation even further).Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultaniku
In a blue mage thread on discussing potential main job concepts was that blue mage could have a lot of enfeebles, fun things to mess around with basic monsters, but when it came to a lot of non-trash content (like bosses) the idea would normally fall apart. However the idea was failed buffs automatically become a generic blue debuff (that may have a dot in it, to further compensate from the idea that there is no nice debuff effect, or maybe even successful debuffs become this generic debuff once they complete their cycle so you can see short debuffs function in the kit smoothly). Then the overall kit of the job is applying effects and then interacting with those effects (so if they have some spell that increases their mp regen based on number of active buffs and debuffs, or then they have another skill that deals huge burst by consuming all debuffs- things that would work on bosses then).
Anyway, not exactly the classic ideas, but I think you might be able to capture the idea partially in a job here and there without having to make an entirely new role.
I figured that's what you meant, like it reminded me of early WoW where there were some teleports but mostly not (even current WoW appears to have less instant travel than FFXIV, but certainly more than it used to). And I agree if there were few teleports and a huge world of nothing, "what was the point? Why?" lol. One doesn't want nothing for long stretches, the idea was to have an enhanced journey but not a great journey of nothing (or at least that's also what I was trying to say, and fairly certain Shurrikhan was saying).Quote:
Originally Posted by ReynTime
While the whole game isn't exactly in my tea I do really like the GW2 mount system as it adds a sort of gamification to movement when traveling about, one that lets you think about your approach to the world (and doesn't have to be super long hours of boring nothing, heck it might only be 30 more seconds in some cases), I would appreciate that too. When looking at the landscape it's fun to think about how you're going to get places, and you sort of get to do that here in FFXIV it's rather limited and then entirely gone forever once you get flying. I don't want to see travel be annoying (or barren), but I do believe "a game" could have more in it in terms of the fun of journeying and the general interaction vibes with the world itself. Like someone who posted the GW2 video of the jungle, watching that was a small mental puzzle and because of how the game has movement mechanics it's not just "whatever hold W and spacebar and win". -
08-10-2021, 06:18 PMVelKallor100% true, 8 years worth of experience says so.Quote:
This is 100% false.
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08-10-2021, 06:20 PMVelKallorMMO developement superceded that outdated and archaic system years ago. No one has that kind of time to waste.Quote:
I wish they would lose the Duty Finder and go back to the old days when you put up your flag and waited for an invite to a levelling party
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08-11-2021, 12:56 AMThe_Schwartz
I wish they would add a class that mimicked a Creature Handler from Star Wars Galaxies. I enjoy playing pet classes and FF14 lacks pet classes. Also, with all the different NPCs in the game, it would be great to be able to charm a random monster to be your pet.
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08-11-2021, 02:24 AMKurokaExactly that is the problem with everything here... sadly...Quote:
Originally Posted by VelKallor
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08-11-2021, 04:30 AMFrogDogI wonder how true this actually is. People don't seem any busier than they were 10+ years ago, there are just more forms of entertainment vying for their attention - and the makers of this entertainment want to extract as much money from people with as little engagement as possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by VelKallor
People still waste tons of time playing MMOs, the experience is just less social in a lot of ways.
There's at least one upcoming MMO that is looking to do away with the duty finder equivalent and I hope it's successful in doing so. You can design systems that make it easier to find and connect with people that want to run the same content you do without making it a matchmaking system with people who you'll never see again. There's something to be said for meeting people organically through content and for the sake of doing content. -
08-11-2021, 09:02 AMVelKallorYes.Quote:
Exactly that is the problem with everything here... sadly...
Ive said this elsewhere but Ill restate
Demographics drive game design.
The average gamer is in their 30's, married, kids, job. So that changes how games are designed, how they are paced, who they are aimed at. The average gamer isnt some pimply faced teenie in school..they are adults, with busy lives and little patience for stupidity.
NO ONE wants to waste hours screaming for a group, running there, having people quit or having to leave then start that cycle all over again. BTW WHO do you know wants to do ONE dungeon in an entire day?
By your method no one could get their roulettes done in a single day,..to say nothing of trying to corral 24 people for an Alliance raid.
Time is a precious commodity.and isnt something to throw away.
Shift workers, time split shifts, early shifts, late shifts, overtime.... no one works 9-5 anymore..
It wont be.Quote:
There's at least one upcoming MMO that is looking to do away with the duty finder equivalent and I hope it's successful in doing so
MMO's that didnt have a dungeon finder crash and burn. Tell a player he or she has to waste three hours trying to get a group for one instance and they will tell you "Thats way too long , I dont have that kind of time to waste doing nothing...and I sure as hell aint PAYING for it."
Ill also add that in a PAY TO PLAY MMO they have even less patience, as there is the financial factor to consider. People are PAYING, and that HAS to be respected. Taking a customer and their money for granted is a huge mistake.
This is 2021. Not 2004. Game design of that type is out of date by a light year.
Social by whose metric? I do a lot of socialising in and out of instances, and then again, its a question of whether they WANT to be social with you or anyone else. You cannot force it.Quote:
People still waste tons of time playing MMOs, the experience is just less social in a lot of ways.
In a day, I may want to get some dungeons done and get some outer world stuff done and I dont feel like being "social"..I have too much to get done.
I dont have any social media. None. Zero. Zip. None of them and quite frankly, they are cesspits. I socialise on MY terms when I want to, the same can be said of everyone. Lastly, when you mention "being social", I am, reminded of guilds I used to be a member of...that cut all ties with me the moment I left. if they are as friendly as they say, if they want me to be "social", its funny isnt it that all of a sudden they dont want to know me after Im not a member of their little clique?
Hate to say this, but MMO doesnt mean social in the way you think it does.
is it content I want to do? Are these people someone I want to know? Do they want to know me or are they there to just get the instance done?Quote:
There's something to be said for meeting people organically through content and for the sake of doing content.
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08-11-2021, 09:09 AMTaleraRistainYou can thank "The Vision" in EverQuest for that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramesses
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08-11-2021, 09:16 AMTaleraRistainYou forgot that at any point when on a boat or airship the game could bug, drop you into the sea/air, and you start all over again after you locate your corpse naked and retrieve your items.Quote:
Originally Posted by DPZ2
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08-11-2021, 10:31 AMVelKallorTheres an airship that goes from Limsa to Porta Pretoria?Quote:
"Oh no muh Porta Praetoria" - Use your anima. "Oh I'm in Gridania and I need to go to Limsa" - Use the freaking airship that's 20 seconds away from where you are.
Where? -
08-11-2021, 11:34 AMReynTimeWhere did I say you were going from Limsa to PP? It took you more than half a day to read my post and you still did it wrong. My point was that there are more than enough means that do not require aetheryte teleporting to go anywhere in Eorzea and that don't require necessarily walking by foot.Quote:
Originally Posted by VelKallor
And for the record it takes less than 20 minutes to get to PP by foot. Close to 10 minutes or less if you ride a mount on ground. And close to 16 if you sprint on cooldown. -
08-11-2021, 06:00 PMShurrikhan<See Vel's post below> (I have moved this post's original post to the hide-block below, as it's no longer needed.)Quote:
Originally Posted by VelKallor
Vel, read. Or, assuming you understood what you've read, don't flagrantly replace it with what was never stated.
Again:
I'll even put it into simpler code for you:Quote:
Originally Posted by ReynTime
_____________________________________To Porta Praetoria -> Anima.
To Limsa (from a capital) -> Airship.
Put simply: Vel, your strawmanning is getting out of hand. -
08-11-2021, 08:34 PMThe_SchwartzI agree with the majority of this post as an older working adult with family. Games were able to survive prior to the dungeon finder systems by using LFG tags. I just find dungeon finder modules improved the User Experience (UX). Too many companies depended on their customers to design add-on's to improve the UX. Companies often disregard, ignore, or place great ideas of improvement on the backburner too often. The issue I find in most MMOs that have failed over the years is "Cookie Cutter" or "META" classes, jobs, and specs. These player's become stuck because they lack the tools of a class, job, or spec. They are often found yelling in a chat system waiting an hour+ to do a task or gain experience. Add in the rush to the top domino effect and you have created a very toxic enviroment.Quote:
Originally Posted by VelKallor
I still believe games that encourage grouping / raiding over other methods to gain prestige, gear, etc. will no longer be popular as they once were. Games need to become more sandbox style of play to grab a larger audience. MMORPGs should always have a business/crafting road to victory and I still find it amazing at launch up to the launch of NGE in SWG how "Entertainers" were so popular. I have been waiting for another great sandbox experience and "New World" is not it. You should be able to improve your character in some method of playing for two to three hours a night. If the average players can play 20 hours a week thats a pretty good part time job just right there. If there is no road to improve your character within this time period without the need of raiding or partying up why even play in MMO? You could gain much more in other styles of gaming in every other style of play. -
08-11-2021, 09:09 PMVelKallorYeah I misread that one. My bad.Quote:
Put simply: Vel, your strawmanning is getting out of hand.
Sorry. -
08-11-2021, 11:56 PMShurrikhanAnd my apologies then, for thinking the worst.Quote:
Originally Posted by VelKallor
I agree with about 95% of this. However, I think this discourse often obfuscates something:Quote:
Originally Posted by VelKallor
Though developers change to meet demographics, that adaptation isn't nearly so clean or aligned as we might imagine. Nor is all that sees change, even in a larger shift towards a particular demographic or set/intersection thereof, necessarily part of that. A great deal gets changed indirectly or even unintentionally, as if by a domino effect.
To be clear, I don't think a lack of matchmaking is some unfortunate casualty of convenience. I think it's almost purely a boon. Nor, even, is incidental socialization likely to be one such casualty.
But there's a lot to be said, on the other hand, for the sense of location, identity, character, role-play, etc., that can have its footing undercut by changes elsewhere, especially when developers lack foresight. And if there's one commonality among every MMO dev team, it's a shortage of foresight.
Similarly, we can't say that just because those elements (sense of location, world-ness, identity, etc.) can be ill-affected by convenience that they are necessarily opposed to convenience, let alone that casual players aren't interested in them.
For my part, when I was stressed out from 50+ hours of work and a painfully bipolar superior, leaving me short on both time and mood for gaming, WoW Classic was the one game I could play. That was mostly because I enjoyed the moment-to-moment experience, at least for that time, for itself and therefore felt no fear of missing out nor obligation to do anything I didn't want to. (Note here than I am a compulsively optimization-minded person in many things. When that optimization need only entail what I want to do anyways, such as engaging with combat mechanics, it's great, but when it doesn't, I quickly burn out. The only reason I don't still do each roulette each day in XIV is that I know if I let myself go back to that, I'd quickly burn out of MMOs altogether, or at least any with similar reward thresholds.)
Now, did the lack of a dungeon finder necessarily contribute positively to that? No. Though it wasn't a large deficit, either, as I could usually general chat a party together quickly enough. Travel? Maybe. I enjoyed my flights well enough, and more importantly, I enjoyed that I could really kind of pick a place to level without optimizing my time requiring, due to the low opportunity costs of drastically changing location, that I ping-ponged about the globe.
While some here are 100% waxing nostalgia on an older era, since this thread has to some degree evolved towards hot takes anyways, and others are 100% just satirizing their position (not particularly well, but /shrug), I think that's what the more serious posts here are getting at: there's a lot of charm that happened to be in older designs that can still be achieved today if it wasn't cast down by mere association. Yes, it would take more cleverness, and perhaps new forms of contextualization, to draw that charm of out of a sense of a living world, of connection to a particular place, etc., but it almost certainly can happen, and a lack thereof in recent developments cannot prove that the benefits of those aspects are, themselves, incompatible (only certain past ways of providing the contexts for them). That's especially the case when looking at a genre with few great successes and a common ground in low-development-hours-spent-per-player-hour-played.
To be fair, though, recent developments don't even necessarily lead away from aspects like joy of movement or immersion through sense of place and scale. Look at GW2 since its Path of Fire expansion. Look at BDO, its lack of instant travel, and its zone networks. Look at New World and its zone bonuses. Within the genre, XIV already stands at an at absolute extreme in its enabling one to instantly move to one of multiple sections of any particular zone. It can hardly be called representative of the larger trends in the genre. -
08-12-2021, 12:18 AMGabadabsAs much as I do really prefer duty finder - there's a reason that things like WoW classic have been a success. A very different focus on how the game functions makes it less appealing to the masses, but for those dedicated to it's content, it's a much more... well... social experience.Quote:
Originally Posted by VelKallor
I play MMO's as a single-player affair (and have horrible social anxiety) so I hate it as a feature, but I wouldn't say it's archaic or outdated. It just fulfills a different need for a different demographic IMO. -
08-12-2021, 01:26 AMShougunThere are so many, imo as well, really memorable charms of old design but also and I think maybe this is the key part that might be easy to miss if quickly summing up each person's post is not everyone is trying to recreate Ever Quest 1 or Mortal Online 3. From some of us is that we're not trying to recreate miss a boat takes 2 hours to get to location get nothing done that whole day because you finally get there and one person forgot invisible potions and another has their mom screaming at them in the background of their mic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
I do have strong memories of missing the boat, I do remember the first like 20+ minute journey in some of those mmos, I remember traveling with a group for 30 minutes to get to location and then having a great time (but also remember some times where it was like "you wasted me entire day" lol). There are some extreme memories I still have and laugh about. I believe, like you, that many of these can have some of their essence recaptured without having to go full hardcore full body loot 14 hour travel waste your day oh did you de-level and lose a week of exp progress???? gameplay.
I agree that DF has probably had some negative impacts on the social elements of the game, but I personally I also greatly appreciate the freedom and ease of access. So I agree there was a cost, and I can see how some people think that was too much, but for me I think 'something' that is very easy to access is nice (and actively advertising or competing for postings is not particularly what I'd like, even though that's going to clearly be the more social option). Each person here does have a variation of the goals while we remember old systems, a few posts have been a bit 'too hardcore for me!' lol, but I still know why they were wanting or reminiscing on what they said. As you point out there are definitely some people who are satirizing and some waxing on the good old days before the youngin's ruined everything, but the thread does welcome reminiscing since it basically asks one too. So that's not that weird to see, if anything I think it's surprising so many are like "oh yeah I liked this element, but I don't want it as strong as it was before, just give it a bit more of a twist into the mix". VelKallor obviously being the main replier to us, but I think he should realize that we're not all trying to raise a copy of an ancient zombie, but rather take our best joys condense them into concepts that can then still function in a modern market (though there are some that are probably envisioning a mortal online like game lol, yet it's important to realize that not every person is making exactly the same point, though I do think we're closer to the same page). I think this is largely where he and I and you and I have had a lot of miscommunication, as responses to me clearly were more on the "DONT BRING THE ZOMBIE BACK" and I'm trying to say "I don't want the zombie back, but I do think this one attack strategy it used is valuable enough we should improve it, keep our neat systems too, and marry them together- here look at these games that have done this, this is possible man, don't worry this isn't an attempt to make The Walking Dead MMO".
Like when we (maybe slightly different angles but I felt symbiosis/symmetry in ideas) mentioned traveling, it wasn't simple "yeah so like.. increase travel time by 10 fold but keep the exact same game design on everything else- it'll be great guys". It's a wish thread so we get to have profound impacts on the game when wishing lol. Like if we imagine having the GW2 mount system where mounts have what amounts to basically mini-games and opportunities for more extreme bursts of movement (some mounts jump crazy high, others really fast, tokyo drift, flying when well timed, etc).. it's entirely possible that you might remove some teleports and a walk that could have taken 5 minutes (which isn't.. extremely egregious but obviously if you do that walk 40 times a day and nothing is there but holding down W and aiming your camera it's not that fun after a while) then you give it a complimenting movement system and terrain design such that you're mentally pathing out your travel, making engaging movements, and overall turning that 5 minute walk into 2 minutes of engagement. I would much rather have still relatively simple situation of engagement (2 minutes) over 45 seconds of holding w and holding / releasing spacebar (which is our current travel algorithm to get pretty much anywhere in the game). Yet that's not the end of opportunity, with an elongated presence on the map you can spend more time adding interactivity (which GW2 tries to do as well, some of them, like the better local / world events, are quite ingenious). Now you've an engaging movement that due to it's design marrying terrain will likely change from each location, allowing you to soak the environment visually and gameplay wise, and the extra moments adds further value to ensuring each space feels more interactive in gameplay (more time in some, more value in producing higher quality worlds pace where more activities can take place).
As you mention in your last bit the fact we can reference current modern, not crazy hardcore, games, with systems that are relatively well liked by the people using them, is helpful to show no "this isn't Ever Quest 1 designs copied and pasted directly into FF", we can achieve these desires without stealing hours of your time- not only does it sound (mentally plausible, which isn't always perfect for sure) it's just plainly something we've straight up seen work. This is achievable without causing you to twiddle your thumbs for hours while you wait for the dude who forgot to bring the right potions and then instead of hoping onto the boat on time took that precious second to scream at their mom for an Oreo smoothie.
Like when I bring up roleplay elements that are pervasive throughout the game, making sure crafts, jobs, abilities, gear, places, general sense of things that have things because it 'just makes sense / it's just fun identity building'. This idea was more common in the past surely, but to say it doesn't exist now-- well clearly not, just go look at WoW which is quite full of them. Long ago before FFXV I was like "man we should have some camp sort of mechanic at these fire pits you keep putting into the game, I think it would be a really cool world building and nod to previous older FF mechanics"- then FFXV came around and I was like YEAH!! Even if it was technically more plot driven journey vibe, it doesn't have to beat the player up.
Anyway long post to say I particularly agree lol. Some of this old charm people are scared of because they remember wasting their entire day (I have done that, I don't want that again), but at least seeing a number of people it was clear that wasn't the intent but to collect some of that distilled charm and use that (not the whole bottle lol, and we /know/ that at least on some elements this is entirely possible to achieve). Those known ones of course show that at least on those elements even the developers find value in their systems. Like when I referenced Red Dead 2 it was just because they had an obsessive level of care to making sure everything felt grounded in activities, which some MMOs do better or worse at certain elements, like GW2 has great movement, imo, and WoW has pretty great interactive roleplay (which might be kind of what the essence of our old desires are coming from, trying to ground as much as possible, yet also we're trying not to lose all the modern convivences within a reasonable cost gain relationship- like for me 2 more minutes but far more engaging two more minutes is way worth losing 30 seconds of travel, but if you said "how about 2 hours" I'd be like "how about no" lol). -
08-12-2021, 01:29 AMVelKallor
Ill just touch on this specifically:
For a very limited time. Whilst it did have a lot of success at the start, attrition has set in, the nostalgia has worn off and more than a few of the servers are ghost towns. Blizzard DID say at the start that they would keep the servers even if people left..but I think they knew that the novelty would wear off.Quote:
there's a reason that things like WoW classic have been a success
Heres a list.
https://www.gamepur.com/guides/world...er-populations
Nostalgia is great, its a good place to visit, a good place to wander around and remember, to smell the roses. But only a select few want to live in yesterday.
WOW Classic survived because of brand name, history , visibility, an established, long term committed, eager fanbase. WOW itself is, and was, a giant in the industry and was, in all truth, what put MMOs on the front foot.
But.
In today, in this market as it stands, a game based on Classic principles with Classic gameplay and mechanics that was also a pay to play MMO, no fanbase, no brand, no history..would have a shelf life of maybe 4 weeks..........if anyone wanted to stump up the cash to develop it in the first place. I mention pay to play as a defining factor because it is.
Not just sunk cost , but the continued financial expense of the game would have to provide a reward AND appeal to a larger audience.
MMOs cost millions to develop, design and then market. Investors want a return on their investment, shareholders the same. 2004 game design, whilst attractive from a nostalgic POV, is not viable in the modern marketplace.......... and definitely not commercially viable. -
08-12-2021, 05:43 PMTaleraRistain
I think people also forget even those old school MMOs grew and changed and progressed to what we consider these QoL improvements over time. EQ added instanced dungeons with Lost Dungeons of Norrath to help ease leveling so people weren't dependent on being lucky enough to get into a group in one of a zone's limited camp spots. EQ added a hub location like the Plane of Knowledge with teleporters to the Planes because people had given feedback that no they didn't like having to take an entire night to travel to a location, camp, and finally get to fight at it the next day (which is what is what happened if you were from Qeynos and wanted to go see Unrest, for instance). EQ also eventually had to add mercenaries not just because of age or the game being dated but because it does still have insistence on older MMO ideas that modern MMOs have moved past, putting it into a niche game situation and making players leave for other more accessible games. EQ still gets expansions, but it's not really a thriving MMO and someone trying to break into the MMO market now on similar concepts (remember WildStar?) is more than likely going to fail and have to shut things down if they do not keep these QoL improvements in mind.