F.A.T.E.: Free Advancement Through Easymode

[mooney6023]

I'm kinda confused, how is doing 500 dungeons better than doing 2000 FATEs?

I don't understand the argument of "FATEs are too easy, you'll get bored".

Well by that logic, I'd rather be bored 12 weeks down the road than being bored RIGHT NOW doing the same dungeon again, with minimal progression.

FATEs are a symptom, not the disease.

MMOs need grind. If they don't have it you finish content well before a reasonably sized development team could possible finish developing more.

Grind used to be party based open world monster grinding or dungeon runs in the "old" days. Sure, it was repetitive and even tedious but slow enough even compared to our current slow 1.5sec global cooldown that a party could communicate constantly through keyboard (pre-teamspeak days). Believe it or not, social interaction alleviated boredom, sort of like playing a table top RPG or poker with your friends.

WoW began the downward spiral. A portion of MMO players and non-MMO gamers didn't like MMOs precisely because of the slower less intensive combat, party requirement, and learning curve.

Initially WoW was notably easier than EQ, EQ2 (launched at same time roughly), and FFXI. It leveled faster, it had more solo content. This brought in more new players who were attracted to the Blizzard name and the concept of a "casual" MMO. Blizzard noted the phenomena and proceeded to at various times lower the difficulty, speed up the leveling, and add more solo content.

Over time Sony (EQ, EQ2) and others saw the revenue Blizzard was producing and ignored their previous experience like lemmings. They knew that maintaining a lead in content while removing the grind would exponentially increase development costs or be impossible. Nonetheless, $$$$$. So a chicken or the egg problem was created. In order to get large sub numbers you make the game casual and quick to level. But, if you do that everyone reaches max and leaves unless you add more content quickly. This is much harder to get funding for and as more MMOs try and fail it just gets harder.

Meanwhile, the developers and the players lose touch with the original poor yet surprisingly effective solution that worked for a smaller but sustainable player base. Social interaction.

At this point I don't think it is a recoverable solution. Investors are no longer interested in minor profits from a sustainable small scale MMO. Graphics and eye candy have significantly raised development costs. The players have been trained to expect the carrot (levels, gear) without the stick (grinding, party play, harsh penalties for failure).

Even if EQNext or FFXIV ARR were built like graphically overhauled old-school MMOs despite investor misgivings, they would fail. FFXIV 1.0 and Vanguard being prime examples of attempts.

There may not be a solution anymore. You can't go back in time. So we will see the continuing trend of MMO launch after MMO launch failing after 6 months or a year as a player based trained by the industry jumps onward to the next game and sustained revenue becomes the domain of cash shop swimsuits and vanity gear.