Is It Possible to Defeat the Time Sink?

[AfuroNubyaan]

So I've just come out of a 4 hour party built up of 4 people. The plan was to go around to the beastmen strongholds and get the Key's off the NM's that we could handle. We figured we could get the chest items that we wanted for all four of us. I wanted it to be a 4 man party because its bad enough with a party of 8 guys, all wanting a drop.

2 of us got the ring-band they wanted. Me and another guy, didn't get anything after an obscene amount of tries. I already know that Final Fantasy is notorious for low drop rates. I learned that in my days of FFXI. But when the party came to an end, (due to a link, wipe and disconnection) I realised I had grinded through hoards of enemies for 4 hours only to walk away with nothing. One could say that there is a satisfaction found in seeing my party members gain a drop, but the taste quickly becomes bitter once you don't get anything for yourself. At the end of the day, you sat there for four hours with nothing to show for it.

I can understand that a tight knit Linkshell could be willing to put up with this to fully equip the endgame team with dope gear but what of those who aren't deep into the game like that?... It's really made me question the whole ethos of an MMO. Let's not kid ourselves, we all know these games are designed in a way that demands repetition, time and luck. If this wasn't the case, then people would stop playing much sooner which would result in canceled subscriptions and loss of money for the company. They have to keep our interest and that hunger to be stronger so they cast Time Sink in order to keep us trying, playing, hoping, wanting, etc.

tl:dr below

My question is, do you think it's possible to design a super successful MMO without it being a time sink? Is it a better idea to have a super hard monster let go of its rare drop 100% of the time in order to reward the players for simply defeating it in the first place? Because in reality, the way these games are right now, every piece of awesome rare loot that we own is not because of our "hard work", "great strategies" or "skill". It's only because we had some time, a bit of of trail and error, a pinch of dedication and a whole bottle of lucky sauce.

Those Unique/Untradable Pair of Boots that are keeping you warm at night is more thanks to your lucky stars than it is to the great team you assembled. Because if it hadn't dropped, your competence as a strategist wouldn't have made a difference.

Some may not agree with that, but honestly, it's the truth... In my opinion...

What do you think?

[syntaxlies]

I didnt read your whole post but I'll tel you my findings. I run SH events often 8 people and we do several events til everyone gets first piece. Average drop rate with full party is 2 hours. Sent feet dropped on first kil. And siphon gloves had worst drop rate. 6 hours no drop. Mask turban and ring and all drop 1.5-2 hours for us. The gear really isn't worth it though. I get it hoping they lift the materia ban on it.

[Estellios]

Honestly, with any luck-based thing I would just say pace yourself and try to get multiple things done. When Stronghold camping I always simultaneously spiritbond so at the end of the day something productive happened. Also helps if you don't go for 4 hours straight and instead do it in smaller bursts if at all possible, since luck is extremely finicky sometimes.

Now don't get me wrong, I'd love for "drop-rate based rarity" to go the way of the dodo as much as you, but in the meantime if you are after these items that might help.

The reason MMOs go this route is because it helps pad out content, but hopefully this team can produce enough to keep us genuinely busy eventually.

[AfuroNubyaan]

The story about the party was just me giving back story to my issue lol. I know 4 hours straight is a bit riDONKculous just to get those drops.

The reason MMOs go this route is because it helps pad out content, but hopefully this team can produce enough to keep us genuinely busy eventually.

True, but I have a strong feeling that even once this game has been out for 3 years and has much more content, the base of the game will still be a time sink in that most of the activities we will be able to do will be designed for us to spend lots of time doing it. But thats the thing, that's just part of what MMO's are. My question is; if it's possible for an MMO to exist without that design philosophy and still be played as much as whatever popular MMO's that are out now?

[DeadRiser]

I totally feel you about this.

After pulling the wolf for an exp party about 30 times... I got annoyed. After his awful drop of his actual key, I had to go to the awful drop of the chest. Opened that chest about 15 times total before the mask actaully dropped. After I got it, I let two other people get keys. They both got the mask on their first try. Really? All the work I did for this exp group, and THEY get the mask faster than me. /endrant

I do feel your pain. Time sink is kind of stupid. If you can beat the mob, I say go for it. I mean they could even make you rqquire to do certain stuff to make it drop. Like while fighting the wolf, you have to break his "head" (his dog collar) twice and it will make the key drop. Not just by killing them. That same thing could also apply for all other NM's... It would also help with getting more than just one type of job in a party.

[DeadRiser]

Also hated how on Ifrit, a guy got his second cudgel in a row and didn't want it. He died three times the entire run, and HE got rewarded. Not for his skill, but by luck.

[AfuroNubyaan]

This whole thing takes me back to my days playing Monster Hunter for hours on end. If I wanted to get a Silver Rathalos Ruby for example (an Item with an extremely low drop rate) at least I didn't have to do it with a group of 3 other people. Ideally, you would get faster Silver Rathalos kills with a band of hunters but If you were skilled and patient enough, you could kill him on your own.

That way, I could get awesome gear in my own time if I wanted to catch up with my friends who had awesome gear. Then when I got my awesome gear I could join them in the much harder quests where you have to group up.

For me that kind of approach compromises the time sink because at the very least you can do the annoying drop runs by yourself instead of having to bring along a bunch of dedicated guys to help you get a pair of boots that might not drop. TERA is intriguing me and I hope I get into the closed Beta. It's pretty much an online Monster Hunter that emphasizes skill over luck of a drop and potency of gear.

[Estellios]

True, but I have a strong feeling that even once this game has been out for 3 years and has much more content, the base of the game will still be a time sink in that most of the activities we will be able to do will be designed for us to spend lots of time doing it. But thats the thing, that's just part of what MMO's are. My question is; if it's possible for an MMO to exist without that design philosophy and still be played as much as whatever popular MMO's that are out now?

It really just depends on how it's implemented. If something takes a long time just because it has a low drop rate, I'd say thats a poorly implemented time sink. If an item takes a long time to get because it requires progress through something like a multi-tiered dungeon, than I feel it's an acceptable time sink since you are making progress towards your means, especially if the dungeon progresses and changes up/gets more difficult somehow. IMO it just boils down to how much repetition you have to go through in order to accomplish what you set out to do that determines whether or not it is implemented well or not.

I don't know if you've played FF11 but I can explain one of the most frustrating time sink gameplay experiences I've ever done: Salvage. At the time, it housed the absolute best gear in the game.

It had a lot of things going for it that made it interesting and fun while masking the time sink aspect of it:

• There were four Salvage zones total, each with different "rules" for progressing through the floors.
• You needed 3 parts to complete each piece of gear, and each part came from a different zone, while one part required an item from the fourth zone to pop a monster that dropped it.
• Zones had branching paths or strict time limits so you couldn't get everything in one go and had to pick what you were aiming for.
• You started off with your stats, gear, and abilities all locked and in some zones you needed to prioritize unlocking certain things before others and going after specific enemies in order to accomplish this.

However this was all brought down immensely by the stupid crap they made you go through:

• Entering Salvage required you to use points from the Assault Missions, of which you got one allowance per day and could hold up to 3 (Technically 4, with some hoop-jumping). These Assault missions weren't exactly easy to complete in most cases and unless you were really high in rank in them you had no surefire-win missions to get these points easily. You had to grind 2-3 of these missions to get enough points for a Salvage run.
• Some things you had to do to access alternate routes or other things were pretty bullshit. Most notably, one zone boss was weakened by killing specific enemies on a previous floor. Without killing 9/10 or 10/10 of them the boss ranged from extremely difficult to impossible. These enemies could see through sneak/invisible, aggro'd against magic, and if they aggro'd they would warp away instantly and not count as a kill. On top of that, if you didn't kill them within a couple seconds they would just warp out anyway. That would honestly be OK on its own, except if the random wind weather showed up by pure bad luck in zone their aggro range DOUBLED and pretty much meant you were SOL. Even worse if your puller is getting ready to grab one, wind weather shows up, they get aggro and you are screwed.
• Drop rates on some parts were beyond abysmal. Each piece of gear had one part that was a rare drop from usually a single enemy in the run, with a drop rate counting in the single digit percents. It's infuriating running a single, difficult event for a few weeks taking an hour-2 hrs each time for a single chance at 1 enemy and never getting what you need from it. Also say goodbye to the chance at pickup groups happening since no one will want to risk this item going to a random person.

I think if content can take some time to complete but completely avoid the idocy of that 2nd list, it would be a meaningful time sink that would feel far away from one.

Reading your Monster Hunter example, I think low drop rate, low effort time sinky stuff might be ok to kill time here or there when you are waiting for people to long on and can give players stuff to do while solo. It's when you have to waste other peoples' time doing these things only to not make any sort of progress at all that it becomes unacceptable.

[Forerunner]

tl:dr below

My question is, do you think it's possible to design a super successful MMO without it being a time sink? Is it a better idea to have a super hard monster let go of its rare drop 100% of the time in order to reward the players for simply defeating it in the first place? Because in reality, the way these games are right now, every piece of awesome rare loot that we own is not because of our "hard work", "great strategies" or "skill". It's only because we had some time, a bit of of trail and error, a pinch of dedication and a whole bottle of lucky sauce.

Those Unique/Untradable Pair of Boots that are keeping you warm at night is more thanks to your lucky stars than it is to the great team you assembled. Because if it hadn't dropped, your competence as a strategist wouldn't have made a difference.

Some may not agree with that, but honestly, it's the truth... In my opinion...

What do you think?

Post shortened because long post was long.

A Magic Crit Power+ Materia'd Ringband of Storms is better anyways.
Hopefully the peeps that you helped, will help you out regardless. GL for next try at the coffer,

[MeowyWowie]

So I've just come out of a 4 hour party built up of 4 people. The plan was to go around to the beastmen strongholds and get the Key's off the NM's that we could handle. We figured we could get the chest items that we wanted for all four of us. I wanted it to be a 4 man party because its bad enough with a party of 8 guys, all wanting a drop.

2 of us got the ring-band they wanted. Me and another guy, didn't get anything after an obscene amount of tries. I already know that Final Fantasy is notorious for low drop rates. I learned that in my days of FFXI. But when the party came to an end, (due to a link, wipe and disconnection) I realised I had grinded through hoards of enemies for 4 hours only to walk away with nothing. One could say that there is a satisfaction found in seeing my party members gain a drop, but the taste quickly becomes bitter once you don't get anything for yourself. At the end of the day, you sat there for four hours with nothing to show for it.

I can understand that a tight knit Linkshell could be willing to put up with this to fully equip the endgame team with dope gear but what of those who aren't deep into the game like that?... It's really made me question the whole ethos of an MMO. Let's not kid ourselves, we all know these games are designed in a way that demands repetition, time and luck. If this wasn't the case, then people would stop playing much sooner which would result in canceled subscriptions and loss of money for the company. They have to keep our interest and that hunger to be stronger so they cast Time Sink in order to keep us trying, playing, hoping, wanting, etc.

tl:dr below

My question is, do you think it's possible to design a super successful MMO without it being a time sink? Is it a better idea to have a super hard monster let go of its rare drop 100% of the time in order to reward the players for simply defeating it in the first place? Because in reality, the way these games are right now, every piece of awesome rare loot that we own is not because of our "hard work", "great strategies" or "skill". It's only because we had some time, a bit of of trail and error, a pinch of dedication and a whole bottle of lucky sauce.

Those Unique/Untradable Pair of Boots that are keeping you warm at night is more thanks to your lucky stars than it is to the great team you assembled. Because if it hadn't dropped, your competence as a strategist wouldn't have made a difference.

Some may not agree with that, but honestly, it's the truth... In my opinion...

What do you think?

The reason why there are time sinks in MMO is exactly what you described. For pay to play MMOs, the game needs to keep players playing and paying month after month to keep subscriptions active and turn a profit. Without time sinks and carrot on the stick type designs, pay to play games will not succeed.

What you are asking for is exactly what Guild Wars 2 is like. You are rewarded for everything you do, there are no time sinks in the general sense. There is no carrot on the stick mentality.

Keep in mind, GW2 will be released as a buy to play game, no monthly fees. It won't be advertised as an MMO that you'd spend month after month playing, simply because they don't need you to play every single month between expansions. They make their profit from initial box sales, plus a little extra from a cash shop (most likely just vanity items).

Because of this, they don't expect people to play it like pay to play MMOs. If you play for a few months, achieve everything you wanted to, then stop until the next expansion, that's fine with them. As long as you had fun during those few months they know you're likely to buy the expansion, generating more revenue for them.

So it's up to you to make the decision. Do you want to play an MMO that keeps you busy indefinitely or do you want an MMO that you can essentially "complete", put it down for a few months, then continue after an expansion releases?