Why Casual Friendly Would Stop ARR From Dying

[NoctisXZ]

Let's face it. Modern MMOs don't last. LOTR, RIFT, SWTOR, GW2, TERA etc, have all essentially died down after a few months of release, to the point where some have gone free to play.

To me, the reason for all these failures is obvious. It's not the games that are bad. On the contrary, I would argue that SWTOR's gameplay is incredibly fun, as well as GW2's.

It's that they don't handle user experiences well.

When MMOs first came out, most of the people playing them were computer geeks, or series fans. For example, ffxi was my first mmo when i was around 14 or 15. A lot of people I played with at that time were my age (I started the game with a bunch of friends). Most of the people on the ffxi servers had quite a bit of time to devote to the long tedious leveling up process, but also was in no rush to do so.

I was in linkshells where people didn't hit 75 for years and didn't care. The fun part of ffxi was experiencing new zones, fishing, gathering, farming, talking to friends, doing missions and quests, etc.

It wasn't until WOTG came out that I noticed people rushing to the end.

But since then it seems to have become common place in MMO's to rush to the end, because for some reason, devs have created this formula that an MMO should be a "short rush to end game, and then lots of repetitive endgame stuff"

I personally believe this is a response to WoW's success. And in all honesty is the wrong way to look at MMOs.

MMOs are successful when they integrate a player and make the feel like part of the world. Connect them with friends. And give them something to work towards.

However, part of an MMO is variety. And thats where most modern MMOs fell short. I played SWTOR and loved it, but by endgame i was bored out of my mind. There were a few end-game raids and pvp. nothing else. Similarly I enjoyed GW2 for the most part, but by endgame it got repetitive.

My fear is that ARR is going in this direction. It sounds to me like it will be "spend 2 weeks questing to max level, repeat crystal tower and labyrinth 100 times"

My suggestions is a completely different path. One that focuses on casual players and not on the -few- people who play 24/7, make their voices heard, and essentially make up the core of "end game".

The first step here is to create something like a daily. Every day you log on and you have a quest or something to do that takes approx 30 minutes to an hour. Kind of like levequests. HOWEVER. You don't just get money and items out of this. You get special points which allow you to get one of the best gears in the game (for a specific slot) after 365 dailies completed.

Along the way you make money, and can get access to multiple other very good intermediary items.

For end-game content. Instead of leaving dungeons the same. Every time you create a new one you write the following for the old one
--for monsters in dungeon x
damage = damage / 2--
In other words, you cut the damage in the dungeon by half. This means people still need to spend time to get through it, but casual and Returning players, can easily accomplish it.

What i'm getting at here is simple:
Design the game for the MAJORITY of players who are working, have kids, have school, have girlfriends/boyfriends, have a life, etc.
Not for the -few- hardcore endgame players who can spend 8 hours a night raiding.

That doesn't mean you ignore the hardcore players. It just means that with every "new step" in the game, you easy-mode the old stuff, AND you create a serious incentive to still do the old stuff, so that casuals and returning players get access to all that cool gear without having to invest 1000s of hours of time.

And you also focus on pleasing people who only play a bit every day. By focusing more on the leveling process than the end game, creating a dynamic world with lots to do, having dungeons that aren't overly hard but entertaining to go through, and creating a daily system that rewards people for playing every day (you can add weekly or monthly bonus systems as well), and allows casuals, even 10 year old girls, to get the best gear in the game

By doing this, you tell all the people with lives that they can play this game and -still- be "elite". As long as they play a -bit- every day. It gives them something -concrete- to work towards rather that doing a dungeon 100 times and hoping for a random drop and hoping your ls will let you lot on it (one of the stupidest systems ever). And it allows people to actually explore and experience the entire world, rather than just port between the city and dungeons, or the city and 1 or 2 zones for farming.

TLDR:
In short what I'm suggesting is that instead of super hard raid and 1000s of deaths, you have a -FUN- game, that rewards all players just for playing and sticking with the game. Where people can still advance by doing something for 15min at a time. Then on top of that you have a bit of end-game raid stuff for the hardcores so they can be the -first- to get stuff. But eventually you make sure that even children playing with their parents can get through the dungeons at some point, and experience the game and content.

While I can appreciate everything that you've said in your post I'm going to have to disagree with you. All of the games you have listed aren't bad in the sense that they offer a mediocre playing experience.. but bad in the sense that they are virtually the same game repackaged for the most part.

A long while ago a point was reached where things became stagnate. You might not agree with what I have to say but I've seen it first hand as I'm sure everyone here has. Whenever a new game comes out literally everyone will flock to it except for the more avid players of whatever game everyone else came from. They'll have their fun in the first few months because everything is new and shiny.. but after a certain point, generally around the endgame point, that luster will wear off and a great deal of players will just abandon ship.

And honestly.. I think it's kind of childish to blame the developers for the current formula that's implemented. We have no one to blame but ourselves.. this is what the majority wanted, content that can be consumed in a matter of minutes. I really hate to bash World of Warcraft because it did bring in a whole new generation of players if you will. But at the same time most of those players are people who have absolutely no right to be playing these kinds of games in the first place.

Here me out before you start up your flamethrowers. First of all lets take a look at what an MMO is and stands for.. Massively multiplayer online. Simple, right? It must not be though because as the years pass I see more and more games pulling away from that and into a more solo oriented experience. Minimal interaction.. minimal cooperation. I just can not see the logic in it.. I can't see the logic in someone who plays these types of games casually, I'm talking maybe an hour a day, and demanding that they have access to everything the game has to offer by themselves. And when they don't.. the game is unfair and just sucks.

Now don't get me wrong. I believe that there should be content for every type of player regardless of if they play casually or hardcore. Variety is the spice of life after all.. but more and more I see, forgive me for the language, bitching and moaning because a certain type of player doesn't have the time to acquire a weapon or piece of gear that they want. It's extremely self-entitled behavior that I'm seeing more and more and I don't like it. Why? Because it's the reasons these types of games suffer a shorter and shorter life cycle.

I too played FFXI and I loved every minute of it. Now it did take awhile to level up and that in itself required a lot of time each night.. but when it came to endgame there was literally something for everyone. Dynamis, Limbus, Sea, Sky, Assault.. etc... I played for a lot of hours every night but you know what's the one event I didn't do? HNMs.. it required way to much time for my liking. But the thing is.. I didn't complain that I couldn't acquire the gear from doing HNMs because I could still play/enjoy the game without the things it had to offer. It didn't negatively effect my experience not having a piece of armor from one of those HNMs.. so my question is, what happened to that rational? As I said before.. way to much self-entitlement now a days.

What I see you effectively trying to do is cater even more so to those people who honestly have no right playing MMOs. I do agree that dungeons/raids should have different modes(Easy/Hard).. but what you're offering it to warp that kind of content into something completely different to suit those who only have maybe an hour a day to play. That's wrong... create NEW content for those types of players to consume.. don't change everything else to suit them because all you're doing is alienating the more moderate/hardcore audience, and those are the people who are going to stick around.

I know you're not really badmouthing those of us who can play for a longer period of time but it's kind of coming off that way. I'm sorry.. those who can only play for an hour or less a day have no business being "elite" in the gear sense. A lot of hardcore players have children and jobs to tend to as well but they still manage to be "elite". I don't like your idea of fun either, but that's what the majority sees it as anyway.. in order to have fun you HAVE to acquire something. That's not fun.. that's just wanting things.

I haven't really gotten my point across the way I'd like but I think you can get the general idea. The hardest content should offer the best gear. And you know what... if certain people can't do that content that's to bad. It's not going to kill them not having the best piece of gear the game has to offer. There should be endgame content for everyone.. ranging from 30 minute events to upwards of 3 hours.

Pretty much though the self-entitlement has to stop. Look at it this way.. you wouldn't buy a gym membership if you didn't have enough time in the day to go to the gym. So why would you buy an MMO, knowing they are time sinks, and expect different?

There should be content for anyone but not for everyone.