What is one aspect of MMO design past or present that wish was added or taken away.

[Assirra]

I wish for the large cities from 1.0 to come back and the ability to skip cutscenes in main story quest roulette.

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.

[Assirra]

In WOW, the failed 16 year old model of MMO, you spend 85% travel and 15% ( if even that ) DOING anything

This is 100% false.
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.

[Theodric]

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.

[Shurrikhan]

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.

I agree with most of what you've said here, Theodric, but just some food for thought / my $0.02...

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.

[Soge01]

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.

[Vyrerus]

Going to Dungeon Entrances is *whispers* very expensive.

I 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.

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.

[Shurrikhan]

I 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.

But again, regardless of whether or not you teleport to them, are the dungeons part of the open world?

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"?

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.

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.

________________________________________________

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.

[Vyrerus]

Beeg Yoshi Question

Dungeons 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.

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.

[Gabadabs]

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.

The 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?
It just shows the huge variety of types of players that enjoy this amazing game!

[Fyrebrand]

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...