what makes an MMO fell dead

[Wanzzo]

(Please, don't think what i'll say here is about a game in specific. Instead, it's some toughts about MMOs in general, ok?)

The MMO genre is supposed to be something you play to interact with others and earn progressions and rewards through that.

Today, many MMOs are becoming "single player within an online environment" with those self-sufficient solo player systems where you don't need to do a lot of things together but only do some few things (like raids, dungeons and... when you decide to RP). In fact, in some cases you will see true social interactions ONLY when you RP, but that's not as rewarding as a main game systems could be (though, it's rewarding for our memories xD)

The world could be rewarding for group explorations (with less teleports and more dangers for groups, puzzles that needs to be done by groups), dungeons could feel more "open" for different paths to take, and all crafting/gathering could be more tied into other players activities instead of only one do everything from gathering to crafting everything.

Social interactions could be more part of the game, with more synergies between classes, combos made by classes as well as the possibility of doing quests together, as we see in the old ones (as we see in SWTOR, for example. There you can talk to a quest giver and a roll decide which character will talk to him making you feel part of a group).

Overall, we are losing social interaction systems to be less dependent to others within "MMOs" and I feel really sad about that. The more devs go for self-sufficiency, the less "MMO" aspects we see in the game.

This explains why we MMO lovers fall easily for hypes about upcoming new MMO titles that promises more social interactions or more synergy between classes or even more reliable actions with different classes or aspects ingame - to be disappointed after the developers decide to make p2w features or go to the same old self-reliance road >.<

But, to make "MMO" more solo friendly is more catchy for their greedy pockets, so it's worth for them to go this way =/

Sometimes, I wonder where this industry will lead us...

"To like MMO is to suffer" u.u

[Ranhansha]

so by 9.0 or so we get something decent?

If they want to realise. Remember this is S-E. People have been telling them to cut the NFT bs and they don't seem to care.

[Payadopa]

Words

I agree. One thing I really dislike is all the QoL stuff that, in isolation, is good and therefore you're not allowed to say anything negative about it, but once you take a step back you realise how shallow everything has become.

I don't want to go back to LFG in Jeuno in XI but the instanced nature, the solo-ness, the boring, unthreatening overworld, the uninspired DPS only jobs... they all contribute. At some point SE should stick to a vision and commit.

And for the love of Zodidaddy implement Bozja-like CEs into the overworld along with the potion system. Nobody cares if you break the game there. I want fun jobs outside of current savage.

[MonteCristo]

I agree. One thing I really dislike is all the QoL stuff that, in isolation, is good and therefore you're not allowed to say anything negative about it, but once you take a step back you realise how shallow everything has become.

I don't want to go back to LFG in Jeuno in XI but the instanced nature, the solo-ness, the boring, unthreatening overworld, the uninspired DPS only jobs... they all contribute. At some point SE should stick to a vision and commit.

And for the love of Zodidaddy implement Bozja-like CEs into the overworld along with the potion system. Nobody cares if you break the game there. I want fun jobs outside of current savage.

Yes please ^^^^

[Barwara]

No open world content.

My main beef with FFXIV is that it is built upon repeatable content: dungeons and all combat content, fates, hunts, grinds of any kind...
MSQ is good but finite until next patch / expansion, and side quests are essentially fetch quests until you've done them all and then you're out of things to interact with in a given zone (except crafting, but to me that's a grind of it's own).

I'd like to see Runescape style quests: which can take you a couple of hours to complete, maybe even a couple of days, with puzzle and enigmas to solve on the way, without the game showing you exactly where to go and where to click.

Sometimes I find there's very little to explore in the game and I tend to log in just to the daily stuff.

I've started island sanctuary and maybe this will feel a bit more immersive?

[Rilifane]

I agree. One thing I really dislike is all the QoL stuff that, in isolation, is good and therefore you're not allowed to say anything negative about it, but once you take a step back you realise how shallow everything has become.

I don't want to go back to LFG in Jeuno in XI but the instanced nature, the solo-ness, the boring, unthreatening overworld, the uninspired DPS only jobs... they all contribute. At some point SE should stick to a vision and commit.

And for the love of Zodidaddy implement Bozja-like CEs into the overworld along with the potion system. Nobody cares if you break the game there. I want fun jobs outside of current savage.

Indeed, it comes down to the bigger picture. No QoL on its own is bad, it's just when too much supports the same that it can turn into something harmful.
I don't want to spend my time in cities shouting for parties again but neither do I want to feel like the world is full of bots just poofing in and out faster than you can read their names because everyone has a teleport button without cooldown, cost or cast time that can take them anywhere they want with a simple click on the map, no restrictions. And the latter could be considered QoL since it cuts down travel time, it's convenient, no more having to unlock aetherytes and currents. It's great, no? It probably appeals to someone who has to return to the Waking Sands for the umpteenth time but they forget that it doesn't just affect them - it affects the entire world.

The issues around the strict 2min burst meta is another good example. It's a combination of things, like hilariously high burst potencies, automatically aligned 2min buffs, every class being on a strict burst and massive hitboxes and only addressing one will not solve it; you'd need to crack up all of it to a degree. Not remove but lessen the emphasis on each individual issue contributing to a larger issue.

I also know that admitting that maybe something wasn't as good as you initially thought is difficult and I have certainly made my fair share of mistakes there by supporting something that I later wanted changed again because it wasn't as great as I thought. It sounded good in theory but paired with too many other similar things, it was the final change that turned the bigger picture from good to shallow and empty.

[magitekLuna]

No open world content.

My main beef with FFXIV is that it is built upon repeatable content: dungeons and all combat content, fates, hunts, grinds of any kind...
MSQ is good but finite until next patch / expansion, and side quests are essentially fetch quests until you've done them all and then you're out of things to interact with in a given zone (except crafting, but to me that's a grind of it's own).

I'd like to see Runescape style quests: which can take you a couple of hours to complete, maybe even a couple of days, with puzzle and enigmas to solve on the way, without the game showing you exactly where to go and where to click.

Sometimes I find there's very little to explore in the game and I tend to log in just to the daily stuff.

I've started island sanctuary and maybe this will feel a bit more immersive?

Runescape style quests?? at the top of their game SE never made any thing even close to Runescape style quests. show me one game were it was not some linear questing

[True-to-Caesar]

Sometimes I find there's very little to explore in the game and I tend to log in just to the daily stuff.

I've started island sanctuary and maybe this will feel a bit more immersive?

I’m having the same issue as you. Been a month now I have been logging in just for a Frontline achievement, which I can only do every 4 days. Checking Island Sanctuary real quick, retainers and one dungeon if I feel like it, oh and losing housing lottery for Larges.

The fact there’s 0 sense of exploration, discovery and pretty much every aspect of the game is railroaded makes it genuinely dull.
Having stuff like Bozja or Eureka but being more dynamic than just FATE farming simulator would help the game (imo).

But currently the mindset is to make everything piss easy : solo dungeons with bots, quests telling you where to go all the time etc.
I honestly think of playing WoW again for a bit to keep me entertained for a short while. But yea, on the MMO side it’s pretty meh nowadays.

As for Island Sanctuary, it’s still not an alternative to housing. It’s very timegated, only way to make proper sense of what items to craft to make some island currency is to check a weekly guide on Reddit to max profit, the buildings to create are basically plots like in Skyrim, that you upgrade without doing much of anything other than bring the materials. You don’t place anything.

Runescape style quests?? at the top of their game SE never made any thing even close to Runescape style quests. show me one game were it was not some linear questing

I believe Bozja and especially Eureka had quests that told you roughly where you should go to find X or Y but the UI had no markers, you had to check your map and guess with the directions told by NPCs.

Outside of them, only one quest : the one with the chest on a bench in Sharlayan.

That’s pretty much it.

[Zakuyia]

If this is pertaining to ff14 being dead o. o then you never played mmo outside this one lets list the following

-Lack of support from dev side ( Case in Point Anthem)
-Always on maintenance mode (Case in point Base Pso2)
-Player Base falling off with no chance of recover (Case in point Tera Online)
-Decisions that are not improving the game but constantly pushing the game in horrible directions with no form of improvement (Case in point All live service games of current generation)
-Player base vs Dev mentality and no sense of self improvement on dev side making the players feel the venture Is not worth it.

There are more to the case of what makes a game dead. This game just to point out is far from dead O. o in case this is aimed. You can always look at steam player count and go from those numbers, then to stare at a good idea of how active player base is go to BALMUNG if your screen having trouble loading people in means the player base is booming pretty good. That's a smaller example but its a sign.

[Giyari]

MMO developers have to develop content that appeals to the majority, if content doesn’t require a lot of time to invest in, perhaps it is the community that has to change before developers dedicate resources to content that lasts longer.

As to those who wonder why people are quiet in public chat in game, we live in a world where people can report you if you even slightly upset them, is it really a surprise people are less chatty in game.

So if you wonder why FFXIV is in its current state, you might want to look into in the mirror.