My unpopular opinions on modern mmo

[linay]

A powerful lore weapon became a common object and lost significance as a result

That's why I think lore weapon (or object) should stay in the hands of NPC, or only usable by player character in the story, not be carried around outside of story as actual gear.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Not everyone can put in the effort though? Depression can make you not want to do anything, which means you physically can't put in the effort because of neurotransmitters in your brain going haywire. Meritocracy is a lie. The top 1% are largely neuro-typical, meaning they don't suffer the same issues that neuro-atypical players do.

Didn't you just do they very thing you hate? Assuming depressed people can't work hard to fight through their issues? I'm sure a lot of people will take offense to that.


We all knew you were a troll, but this just makes you a horrible person. Plus, I don't think you have a clue on what you are talking about. At all. Lol.

[HyoMinPark]

Not everyone can put in the effort though? Depression can make you not want to do anything, which means you physically can't put in the effort because of neurotransmitters in your brain going haywire. Meritocracy is a lie. The top 1% are largely neuro-typical, meaning they don't suffer the same issues that neuro-atypical players do.

This is likely a troll post but...

Hello. I have suffered from clinical depression and generalized anxiety disorder for most of my life. I was still able to clear UwU (one of the Ultimate fights), and I have raided since Creator. I have progged UCoB on three different jobs and I progged TEA up until I decided it was better to take a break from the game for a little bit when life got busy and my mental health started to decline.

Depression is a serious thing. But anyone, even those who have it, can still clear if they find the will and the drive to pursue their goal. Implying that people without depression can’t do high-end content just makes you look like a tool. And implying that high-end raiders don’t suffer from mental illnesses just makes you look ignorant.

[Lersayil]

That's why I think lore weapon (or object) should stay in the hands of NPC, or only usable by player character in the story, not be carried around outside of story as actual gear.

While that is one option, I strongly disagree with this one. That is how we get Cataclysm Thrall (blessed be His name).

In WoW the issue was more noticable since the pcs there are handled like faceless... what? Mooks? Soldiers? Basically its written as if the characters aren't even there. Handing an important artifact to them sort of rubs in the issue.

In FFXIV we are a core part of the story and interract with NPCs, villains and the world. We ARE the heroes that you would expect wielding artifacts of legendary power. Artifacts are also made a lot less important overall to the world and story, so it doesn't stick out as much. Given that we also have to work for them, and its not a free Ashbringer handout, they are also a lot more rare.

That being said, I do like some story behind my artifact weapons, and disagree with everything the Eureka weapons stand for (and look like, but thats another question).

[Annoynymoose]

Not everyone can put in the effort though? Depression can make you not want to do anything, which means you physically can't put in the effort because of neurotransmitters in your brain going haywire. Meritocracy is a lie. The top 1% are largely neuro-typical, meaning they don't suffer the same issues that neuro-atypical players do.

Words can't even describe how angry I am with this. Please just shut up.

To think that you would stoop this low. I think it's about time you stop checking the forums. The nonsense you spew is getting ridiculous. You're far from being a troll at this rate.

[PyurBlue]

I'll pitch in.

The way leveling is implemented in most modern MMOs (and by extension, most RPGs and JRPGs) makes no sense...

Maybe that's the problem with today's MMO. They shouldn't be trying to make players feel uniquely powerful in an environment where we're intended be working cooperatively with other players on a regular basis if we're to succeed.

I agree with these posts so much. Many things in MMO's feel like they're tacked on because they've been done before whether or not they actually fit. Levels all feel the same no matter how high they go and the disparity between level is so needlessly huge that it divides the playerbase. If you're an invested player trying to get a friend to join the game you either trivialize anything they want to do with your overleveled character or you have to put up with being shackled by something like level sync.

Likewise in lore, being the one true hero just doesn't work in an MMO. I've always felt the strength of this type of game was being able to create a living world, with other players as part of this world. I don't have to be the greatest of them all and I don't want the game pretend that I am especially if it's blatantly untrue (like if I'm the one being carried through content by better players).

[linay]

I agree with these posts so much. Many things in MMO's feel like they're tacked on because they've been done before whether or not they actually fit. Levels all feel the same no matter how high they go and the disparity between level is so needlessly huge that it divides the playerbase. If you're an invested player trying to get a friend to join the game you either trivialize anything they want to do with your overleveled character or you have to put up with being shackled by something like level sync.

Likewise in lore, being the one true hero just doesn't work in an MMO. I've always felt the strength of this type of game was being able to create a living world, with other players as part of this world. I don't have to be the greatest of them all and I don't want the game pretend that I am especially if it's blatantly untrue (like if I'm the one being carried through content by better players).

There has to be some concessions made. It's difficult to create a story that accounts for thousands (maybe millions) of players.

WoW did it by ignoring the player character altogether in the lore, but that creates its own problem where it can massively contradict the gameplay experience, especially if you're trying to say that the player character is just an "ordinary foot soldier" that still beats some of the most iconic bosses in the game's lore.

FFXIV does it by having a focus on your player character and alluding to others that help you along the way. What happens in the fight doesn't matter because the story and lore only care that the player character beats the fight. You can do it synced, unsynced, with full party, solo, undersized, carrying the party, or be carried. None of those are part of the lore, as they're a reflection of the player, not the character. The player character, regardless of how the player does it, beats those fights as heroically as the story wants.

[PyurBlue]

There has to be some concessions made. It's difficult to create a story that accounts for thousands (maybe millions) of players.

Sure it doesn't have to be perfect, but I think if the game tries to make the player into the greatest hero ever in a game where many people will accomplish just as much, the issues will be obvious.

WoW did it by ignoring the player character altogether in the lore, but that creates its own problem where it can massively contradict the gameplay experience, especially if you're trying to say that the player character is just an "ordinary foot soldier" that still beats some of the most iconic bosses in the game's lore.

The player doesn't need to reduced to being completely ordinary either though. A game can aim for the middle ground, the player can be a hero among many, and there doesn't have to be a definitive ranking of every hero.

FFXIV does it by having a focus on your player character and alluding to others that help you along the way. What happens in the fight doesn't matter because the story and lore only care that the player character beats the fight. You can do it synced, unsynced, with full party, solo, undersized, carrying the party, or be carried. None of those are part of the lore, as they're a reflection of the player, not the character. The player character, regardless of how the player does it, beats those fights as heroically as the story wants.

FF14 does acknowledge other players which I like. Shadowbringers has a good example and I was glad to see that part of the story. At the same time, I still remember falling off the platform when I fought Titan for the first time only to be hailed as the hero of the event. At the time I already wasn't taken in by ARR's story and that just made things feel contrived. Praise without merit comes across as hollow. Perhaps my failings aren't a part of the lore like you suggest, but that just made it harder for me to feel immersed.

[SieyaM]

Funny enough, this was something that the alpha/early beta testing base argued HEAVILY against when Blizzard went to a system that jacked up the effect of ilvl on stats by roughly 45%. They felt at the time that players "didnt feel more powerful" by getting +1 or +2 to stats every few levels while leveling.

Aaaaaand then they made stat calculations depend on player level, so you needed MORE stats per level just to have the same relative power.

Ilvl is not a good way to design gear, and there have never been good arguments that it is, but it certainly is the easiest.



As for modern MMO's, I tend to enjoy that they're almost kind of figuring out how crafting should work (theres a LOOOOOOOOONG way to go), but they've butchered the concepts of dungeons, raids, and explorable worlds.

EQ will always be my idea of what an ideal MMO base would look like, because it managed to have the right feel for exploring and farming in both overworld and instanced areas, had viable solo and group content, and raids felt epic. You could get out of it what you put in.

What I liked most about EQ was how immersive the world was. Everything was planned out to operate in such a way that lent itself to the belief that this was a real place that could have existed. There were factions that prohibited you from going to certain cities if depending on your race and there were a plethora of skills and spells that in modern day worlds are simply seen as a waste of time. They might have been, but they made it better for me that everything my character did wasn't a combat spell. I played a magician for a long time and there were lots of things I could summon that I probably only did once to see what it was but at least my entire spellbook wasn't just increasing damage spells. And as an Enchanter you had an enormous amount of spells that were not directly combat related. As much as I like FFXIV, your jobs only do one thing and there is no crossover. While you can be anything on one character, it feels so compartmentalized that they might as well be different characters.

[linay]

While that is one option, I strongly disagree with this one. That is how we get Cataclysm Thrall (blessed be His name).

In WoW the issue was more noticable since the pcs there are handled like faceless... what? Mooks? Soldiers? Basically its written as if the characters aren't even there. Handing an important artifact to them sort of rubs in the issue.

In FFXIV we are a core part of the story and interract with NPCs, villains and the world. We ARE the heroes that you would expect wielding artifacts of legendary power. Artifacts are also made a lot less important overall to the world and story, so it doesn't stick out as much. Given that we also have to work for them, and its not a free Ashbringer handout, they are also a lot more rare.

That being said, I do like some story behind my artifact weapons, and disagree with everything the Eureka weapons stand for (and look like, but thats another question).

While our character is more prominent in FFXIV, the story is also more focused. We don't need to be carrying some lore-significant weapon because the story is more centered on our immediate surrounding. Even Shadowbringer's story, which starts to expand the scope of the story, is still primarily about people, not weapons of lore/object. Our player character's greatest strength is ourselves (being able to master all types of combat even), not necessarily the weapons we carry.

And I like that. The problem with having legendary weapons is that it doesn't work in a game that provides you better weapon in the next major patch or two, unless you want to stick with one weapon forever. Weapons can have some backstory, sure, but in the end, it'll be replaced anyway, so if there are weapons that are significant to the immediate story, then they should be used for the purpose of the story only to keep their significance.

FF14 does acknowledge other players which I like. Shadowbringers has a good example and I was glad to see that part of the story. At the same time, I still remember falling off the platform when I fought Titan for the first time only to be hailed as the hero of the event. At the time I already wasn't taken in by ARR's story and that just made things feel contrived. Praise without merit comes across as hollow. Perhaps my failings aren't a part of the lore like you suggest, but that just made it harder for me to feel immersed.

But again, that's a reflection on you, the player, not necessarily on your character as far as the story is concerned. If you're really that hardcore about it, you can quit the duty as soon as you make a mistake. It may not help for those times where you die right at the end, but it's something.

In the end, there has to be some separation between gameplay and story, unless you want to delete your character as soon as you die the first time.