What are the impediments to designing the ultimate game?

I think everyone has experienced playing a new MMO and finding themselves disappointed because certain features were lacking or outright omitted. I also suspect that there are a lot of MMOs out there that have done at least one or two things amazingly well and have been acknowledged by their players to be exemplary in those aspects. My question to all of you is this: Is it not possible to combine the best features of various games into a single brand new game that fulfills the desires of the player community?

Think about a game that would have the glam and storage system of GWII, the detailed storylines and world building of FFXIV, housing from whatever game is considered tops in that aspect, and the combat system from a game that excels in that aspect. I think if you polled the playing community, you could easily drum up a shopping list of features and the games which do them best. On the surface it seems so easy a task with the best features all staring us in our faces. So what is the issue preventing the ultimate game from being created?

Is it development cost? Is it matters of IP? Is it that all these features might rely on coding tricks that would render them incompatible with each other? Is it lack of interest on the part of companies? After the disaster that was New World, I am seriously wondering if it is even possible these days for companies to take on such a task without messing it up. So, folks, what do you think? What is preventing the ultimate MMO from being created?

The problem is difference of opinions. People want different things from a game, so you cannot satisfy everyone without extremely bloating the game. And not just players, but the developers as well.

A company also has a limited number resources; be it money, people, or simply time. You can only throw so much money and people at a game before it all starts to bottleneck. You want the game to be a quality product and not riddled with bugs and other issues. The more that gets added at once, the more testing is required.

The main impediment is that there is no such thing. By creating the 'ultimate' game you imply your game will please everyone, or at least the majority of people and this is just in the MMO crowd. You bring up some points, however, you never looked at the main component, the combat. What game would you base it on? Everyone has different opinions on what they want the combat to be, how it should play etc. With such a broad range of expectations, you cannot please everyone and so you cannot make the ultimate game just by its very definition.

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Originally Posted by Espon

The problem is difference of opinions. People want different things from a game, so you cannot satisfy everyone without extremely bloating the game. And not just players, but the developers as well.

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Just to ass an example here:

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Originally Posted by Eraden

the detailed storylines and world building of FFXIV

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This is already a "controversial" feature of FFXIV since there are a lot of people who dont care about the story and want to jump straight to endgame - at the same time there are a lot of people who enjoy the story or play mainly because of the story (and care less about endgame). Trying to really sastify both cmaps seems like not such a great idea to me - I mean: Why would you if you could just make to different games that excel in their respectives aspects (story/endgame) while sprinkling in a little bit of the other.

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

The main impediment is that there is no such thing. By creating the 'ultimate' game you imply your game will please everyone, or at least the majority of people and this is just in the MMO crowd. You bring up some points, however, you never looked at the main component, the combat. What game would you base it on? Everyone has different opinions on what they want the combat to be, how it should play etc. With such a broad range of expectations, you cannot please everyone and so you cannot make the ultimate game just by its very definition.

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Surely you could poll the player community and find out if there is some kind of consensus on these various features. Even if there were no clear choices in terms of popularity, the raw data from such a survey should probably provide some insight into what most of the players would want. I guess in this context, for me, the ultimate game would be the one that could satisfy the largest amount of players.

I'd say the first and biggest one is Knowing who you want to build the ultimate game for. (know your audience).
Building the ultimate game for "everyone" is basically Impossible.
Building the ultimate game for lets say "Final Fantasy Fans" is easier.

Been a lot of articles around lately about how Elden Ring is teaching the industry this lesson... It doesn't try to cater to EVERYONE It just tries to be the best game it can for its target audience and it's success has not only smashed that but also spilled over into players who are new to that style of game.. It's not the only gsameto do this either. God of War did the same thing not so long ago and there's another big one I forget the name of as well.

SE's biggest problem is it tries to csater to everyone and thats disasterous in every aspect of life and business.

You would never open a restaurant that caters to everyone and has Chinese food, Indian food, Italian food, traditional English food, Steaks, Turkish food, Polish food etc etc
Having a menu of over 1,000 dishes but all pretty average. You'd go out of business very very quickly..

Open a restaurant that caters to a specific style of food though where you may have only 15-20 items on the menu but all of a super high quality and business will be booming...

SE is much the same with FFXIV in trying to cater to everyone it ends up boring and unimpressive. Which is why player retention is such a big issue.

The industry will learn eventually though, especially when basically every so called "mainstream" AAA franchise released recently flops and fails to hit sales targets but more "niche" titles like Elden Ring and God of War. blow away all expectations and are hugely popular..

The impediment is the consumers xD Its impossible to have the ultimate game because for every like there's a dislike and the attempt to please everybody in general isn't good business sense because its extremely resource intensive to produce and maintain.

Also due to maximizing profit reasons, there will hardly be any real innovative products in the near future. Profit margins are tight and companies wouldn't risk venturing into new territories . This is why so many mmo players fall to those scam kickstarter mmo's that promises the best of everything because they want to believe. All we will be getting from big corporations will be the safe, familiar and tested products

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Originally Posted by Eraden

Surely you could poll the player community and find out if there is some kind of consensus on these various features. Even if there were no clear choices in terms of popularity, the raw data from such a survey should probably provide some insight into what most of the players would want. I guess in this context, for me, the ultimate game would be the one that could satisfy the largest amount of players.

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Blizzard actually researched this. Their conclusion was that there was no dominant niche. What they did find was that most players played a variety of content types. Ironic considering they let Hazzikostas gut everything casual. Even before the revelations about their toxic work environment their player population was trending downwards because of this.

It depends.
It's possible to make a game that most people like. Your approach can get something like this.
It's impossible to make a game that most people love. I imagine any ultimate game needs to reach this goal, but because of differing tastes, it is out of reach. To use XIV, lots of people love this game, but more people only like it. Using myself as an example, I love it, but the abuse of veteran healers threatens that, which came about due to attempts to cast a wider net.

It is much more possible to have a many "ultimate games" each serving a small community, but MMO logistics make that impossible; scale is the name of the game.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

I'd say the first and biggest one is Knowing who you wantto build the ultimate game for. (know your audience).
Building the ultimate game for "everyone" is basically Impossible.
building the ultimate game for lets say "Final Fantasy Fans" is easier.

Been a lot of articles around lately about how Elden ring is teaching the industry this lesson... it doesnt try to cater to EVERYONE it just tries to be the best game it can to its target audience and it's success has not only smashed that but also spilled over into players who are new to that style of game..

SE's biggest problem is it tries to csater to everyone and thats disasterous in every aspect of life and business.

you would never open a restaurant that caters to everyone and has chinese food indian food italian food traditional english food, steaks, turkish food polish food...
having a menu of 1,000 dishes but all pretty average. you'd go out of business very very quickly..

open a restaurant that caters to a specific style of food though where you may have 15-20 items on the menu but all of a super high quality and business will be booming...

SE is much the same with FFXIV in trying to cater to everyone it ends up boring and unimpressive. which is why player retention is such a big issue.

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So you are saying that there is just too much diversity amongst players to allow for a game that could fulfill the needs of most of them? That's an interesting perspective and one which I had not fully embraced before but now you have me really thinking about it. Thanks for putting things in that perspective! I suppose, based on what you have said, that to formulate such a game would indeed require code of prodigious proportions, sort of like the restaurant analogy you had provided. It might not be possible after all to make such a game. Still, it would really be nice to survey the player community and try to glean some information out of the data to find out just what the player community is really like. It would be the first step in learning about who you could be making the game for and just how big of a community you could fit under your tent. I would assume that the need for collecting this kind of data should be a no-brainer for companies planning to make games but then again, when you see games like New World fail miserably, you really have to wonder about what kind of planning some companies are really doing.

Wow, thanks for some very illuminating responses, folks. I appreciate this input because it is making me think about aspects of MMO games that I hadn't really considered before.

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Originally Posted by Serious-Cat

The impediment is the consumers xD Its impossible to have the ultimate game because for every like there's a dislike and the attempt to please everybody in general isn't good business sense because its extremely resource intensive to produce and maintain.

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Honestly, as a consumer I dont think I'd even want The One Game To Rule Them All, aka the one game that caters to everyone because I dont see any benefit in that for me - quite the opposite: different likes attract different crowds of people and when it somes to MMOS, chosing a game also means choosing a crowd of people.
Now lets say one is a real hardcore-player, very focused on raiding/endgame and pushing their numbers to the limit - that person would pick a game that caters to that taste and theres a good chance that most of the others players are there for the same reason. They all have a good chance that most of their fellow teammates share the same goals and ideas of what an enjoyable experience is so getting a like minded group together is easy.
Lets also assume that we have some whos more casual and intrested in experiencing a story, but not as intrested in hardcore-raiding - that person would probably enjoy a game that caters to that taste and would enjoy it even more when they can play it with like minded people who prefer to talk about lore for hours instead of beating a dummy to squeeze out that little bit extra.

...now what would anyone gain from lumping these two groups together? To some degree you already see this with FFXIV when people talk about gameplay-features or job balance in a very "technical" way and others reply to them with lore reasons why things are like they are. Or you see people requesting ways to exclude those who they deem "to bad" from DF-runs with automatig rating systems and the like.
But imagine this on a larger scale - whats the benefit, specially for me, as player?
Whats the benefit for someone whos into hardcore-raiding to share a game-world with people who are absolutly not intrested in that?
Whats the benefit for someone who just wants to experience a story and chat with friends about lore to share a game-world with people who couldnt care less about it and only want to see bigger numbers?
Wouldnt it be better to have two different games at this point?

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Originally Posted by Serious-Cat

The impediment is the consumers xD Its impossible to have the ultimate game because for every like there's a dislike and the attempt to please everybody in general isn't good business sense because its extremely resource intensive to produce and maintain.

Also due to maximizing profit reasons, there will hardly be any real innovative products in the near future. Profit margins are tight and companies wouldn't risk venturing into new territories . This is why so many mmo players fall to those scam kickstarter mmo's that promises the best of everything because they want to believe. All we will be getting from big corporations will be the safe, familiar and tested products

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I disagree, the King is dying, I think because of that we will see a lot of small mmo ideas trying to get the bleed off from Blizzard. some will work, some wont, but a lot of experimentation out there trying right now

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Originally Posted by Vidu

Wouldnt it be better to have two different games at this point?

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Yes its important to design the best product for the targeted consumer. Most of the issues I see in this forum is due to the SE attempt to get as much consumer groups in for perceived maximum profit and while that might initially attract consumers, they wouldn't stay because there's just not enough substance. Yup there's pvp in ff14 but its shallow and basic, there's high end raids in ff14 but it only take memorization to get it done and as long one remembers the way it can be cleared repeatedly with no issues, causing it to be just a repetitive grind for BIS.

I watched the documentary on how Yoshi P saved the game by focusing on the core of ff14 franchise which is the story. Final fantasy is all about the story and a place for you to immerse yourself in however it conflicted with the subscription monetization of the game and the attempt to add value to a subscription is just various tidbits that over time developed a following and after a decade, we have vocal parts of the game demanding changes and stuff. PVP players wanted more robust and engaging PVP, Raiders want more difficult fight sequences, crafters want more puzzles and chances in their crafting, rpers want more stuff to rp with and more, rpg players that just want to play their final fantasy rpg an hour a day/with friends and more

Over time the demands of each category of players will increase in scope and its just not sustainable in the end as anything new will be repetitive eventually. I can see the vision of trying to go back to more like a single player game. Its a cry to return back to its roots and at the same time because of a conflicting business model, Yoshi P and team will just have to meet the demands in the most cost effective way because every corporation mantra is "lower cost and maximize profits every year"

It would be much better to monetize different products accordingly but its a bit too late now. FF14 is that meeting that could have been an email xD

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

I disagree, the King is dying, I think because of that we will see a lot of small mmo ideas trying to get the bleed off from Blizzard. some will work, some wont, but a lot of experimentation out there trying right now

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The MMO market is very niche and is not that profitable in the greater entertainment business but have the most passionate and dedicated players but one thing that is very clear is MMO players want a world they can escape into and Im not sure what part you are disagreeing with but a lot of fake kickstarter mmos are promising everything to scam mmo genre players.

As for corporations, how many versions of FPS/Match 3/MOBA is in the market? Its a lot of the same old same old recycled content but it sells. An indie developer can take the risk of making an action scroller platformer, the worst that can happen, said indie developer get some boos and go bankrupt or many people play that new cool game but the expectations, reputation and funds establish corporations wield is much harder and complex thus just going for the same old same old familar game people played before.

To be fair, there have been some amazing games in the past. FF14 and WoW used to be one. I've even played F2P MMO's that used to be great. You don't have to achieve perfection or please everyone, you just need something that is solid fun and then stick with it.

The biggest problem I've seen is developers. I don't mean to be judgmental, making an MMO is highly complex, I couldn't do it myself and I respect anyone who has any sort of success with it. But invariably good MMO's seem to reach a point where most players praise the game and all it needs is to polish and refine what they have ...and they always seem to ruin it.

A big part is that developers are human. They want to leave their mark on their game. They get too confident at their success and think "they love my work, I'll go all out!". They get greedy and see a potential market and pour everything into attracting that audience. They overthink. They're like the sculptor who made a beautiful marble statue but just can't settle with it and keep chipping away until it's destroyed.

Making a perfect game is impossible, but for me personally a game like ff14 could absolutely be better. I'm a former WoW player at heart and if there was a game with WoW's (past) combat, achievements, glamor system, toybox, pet battles, minion/mount tabs and FF14's level of story telling, old Crafting and gathering, all jobs on one character, anti-harassment policies and developer attitude, no endless treadmills or wow tokens, I'd happily accept any small flaws it had and jump ship to that game without hesitation.

Honestly even when you have an aspect of the game that hits really well, it can still become too much. A lot of people may like the story of 14 for example. But there's a lot of it, and even if you were to go through the whole thing, no skips, it might not have the same kind of impact it would had you played through it over the course of a year or two.

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Originally Posted by Vidu

Just to ass an example here:


This is already a "controversial" feature of FFXIV since there are a lot of people who dont care about the story and want to jump straight to endgame - at the same time there are a lot of people who enjoy the story or play mainly because of the story (and care less about endgame). Trying to really sastify both cmaps seems like not such a great idea to me - I mean: Why would you if you could just make to different games that excel in their respectives aspects (story/endgame) while sprinkling in a little bit of the other.

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I really think if they would design more substantial and long lasting content that wasn't done in 2 or 3 days like bozja a lot of people like me would be satisfied, it doesn't take many resources to do stuff like that.

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Originally Posted by Minarisweet

I really think if they would design more substantial and long lasting content that wasn't done in 2 or 3 days like bozja a lot of people like me would be satisfied, it doesn't take many resources to do stuff like that.

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I'm kind of concerned that given all the "new" content on the table like the Criterion dungeons and Island Sanctuary that we're not going to get a new exploration zone, as those historically have been some of the best content for keeping people occupied at length, and I loved the large scale raids like Baldesion Arsenal personally.

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Originally Posted by Eraden

Surely you could poll the player community and find out if there is some kind of consensus on these various features. Even if there were no clear choices in terms of popularity, the raw data from such a survey should probably provide some insight into what most of the players would want. I guess in this context, for me, the ultimate game would be the one that could satisfy the largest amount of players.

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The problem with polling the community is that you will only get the people who respond. There will always be many more who don't bother, or completely forget to answer in time. Think about a reporter out asking people for their opinions, how many say something about "don't have time" or "don't care"? The reporter could ask 300+ people, but only get half that responding. Polls, while they do give some insight, wouldn't provide a complete picture, so some people will always be left dissatisfied with the results of what happens due to a poll.

So honestly, the players themselves are the impediment to a "perfect" game because some will not like what the devs themselves created, or will dislike what the community has asked the devs to adjust/add/remove - especially if one of those things greatly impacts what they do enjoy in the game.

The closest we get to a game for everyone is Roblox...

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Originally Posted by Dzian

Open a restaurant that caters to a specific style of food though where you may have only 15-20 items on the menu but all of a super high quality and business will be booming...

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Watched Kitchen Nightmares much?

You're not wrong. :)



I guess I'm just lucky; this is my Ultimate MMO. If they made housing available to everyone and opened up being able to glamour all items regardless of the job, it would be my perfect MMO. I've played a number of different MMOs that I enjoyed substantially in their time, but none of them grabbed me quite the same way as XIV has. Vanilla WoW was my first MMO, and you never forget your first love, but everything that XIV is and everything that it isn't, keeps me in love with it and always coming back when I've had to take breaks.

The only impediment is the fact that it just isn't possible.

This has been a topic for years and the same conclusion is always reached. MMOs are among the most difficult to put out and keep fresh. Everyone has a different idea of what they'd want in a game, but nobody actually knows what they want. Technical and financial barriers on both sides are always a problem. Perfection is a pipe dream, but the real winners out there work on making things less of a slog than they used to be.

XIV has one of the better (best?) update schedules I've ever seen and the philosophy of encouraging breaks seems to work well enough. They also keep even the oldest content fresh and easy to fill.

IMO one of the biggest things negatively impacting games in general is that companies keep trying to aim for this delusion that they can build a game that will appeal to everyone. This leads in drastic changes to the game formula on running franchises that cause them to lose fans from the franchise while often failing to attract enough new players to make up the difference. Additionally because they're piling other stuff they saw other games do into the title as well it often ends up a mess that drives players away as the new title is a hollow shell of what the previous games were. Some companies have also gone as far as to allow feedback from streamers direct major changes in direction their game take which generally ends poorly.

The only real negative thing of this game to me for an FF title is it's over simplified to the point it no longer feels like an FF series RPG. Elemental resistances are gone, damage resistances are gone, so basically outside of a handful of specific boss battles what you hit the monsters with makes no difference at all, you can burn a fire elemental to death with fire spells, beat a slime to death with a greatsword, stab a skeleton to death with a knife, drain HP from undead etc... Gear is literally just a power creep of raw numbers, there's no set effects, no passive bonuses outside of something specific like eureka/bozja gear. I'd really like them to bring back something like FFXI with a total overhaul to the game engine for better visuals and a smoother UI that wasnt based around macro keys and menu commands where there wasn't a singlular meta used for all content because certain jobs did better vs certain monster types and a huge amount of horizontal progression where lots of options existed at endgame providing different bonuses that didn't just contribute to number bloat. I'd even go as far to ask for the title to also go back to not automatically populating your maps with markers when you take quests so that some of the NPC dialogue actually matters since they tell you what they need or where you need to go.