What can SE learn from Bioware's failing Star Wars MMO?

[Sylfa]

Challenge isn't a remenant of the past. Challenge due to game design defects is. Everquest and FFXI weren't successful because of punishing death penalties or hours of walking. ...

...MMOs fail because they get half-assed in a genre where there are already too many to choose from...

I agree with these sentiments completely


As a person who did hardcore endgame in both FFXI and World of Warcraft, having cleared the endgame hard-mode raids in SWTOR once, and having casually played Rift, Age of Conan, and WAR, I feel like I have a unique ability to contribute on this topic.

Casuals (by far the lion's share of all MMO players) keep playing because of immersion, discovery, plot and flashy explosions. Casual players dislike losing, and are more prone (than non-casual players) to give up and go somewhere else when things are too buggy, or get too challenging.

non-casuals keep playing for titles, challenging bosses that the casuals will never kill, and oh yeah - gear. Gear that promotes emergent content. The gear you get is meaningless if it doesn't bring about new ways to play the game. Gear needs to enable you to do things once thought impossible, or make previously unplayable specs viable for anyone to care about it.


SWTOR's colossal mistake is they aimed at the casual gamer while giving them none of the high-quality window-dressing they wanted, while utterly neglecting the non-casual player:



(my) SWTOR Casual Perspective: There was no immersion; the graphics were well-done (considering the low system requirements) but cut and pasted buildings and uninspired geography and in-game architecture made the world seem bland. The game and its animations were buggy, a turn-off for everyone - but especially to casuals.

(my) SWTOR non-casual perspective: Hardcore gamers found the game without challenge - many of the hardest hard mode raids were too easy to keep them interested, the gear was too easily obtained, and no new ways to play emerged from acquiring it. I finished the content in a few weeks, discovered that the gear was meaningless, and moved on.


I think FFXIV is in a much better spot, and is on the way to a magnificent recovery.


(my) FFXIV Casual perspective: I think FFXIV has nailed the immerson and discovery points. By the time my first class was 4/5ths leveled in any mmo (besides the FF series and WoW), I'd already been nearly everywhere and done nearly everything. I've just reached 40 in my first class, and I think I've seen less than a quarter of all there is. It might could use more explosions, but the ones we have are pretty good.

(my) FFXIV non-casual Perspective: Here is where I'm not especially qualified to answer, as I'm not at endgame yet. I can tell there's quite a lot of achievements to get, and I've seen that the endgame gear is no picnic to acquire - which is a plus to me. On the other hand, I've also heard that the endgame bosses are really easy - So I'm hoping this changes


While I do adore the FF series for its uniqueness, I don't think FFXIV should abandon every concept that WoW and its clones brought to the table.

-Nobody is going to complain if grouping was, in the style of WoW, easier and more encouraged (note that I mean grouping encouraged, not soloing discouraged) at low levels, especailly not the casuals.

-Nobody would complain of a wow-like sense of direction (breadcrumb quests) to point you where you might want to level at next

-Nobody would complain if there were slightly more WoW-like auction-house functionality (level and stat filters, for example).

-Nobody would complain if ability strengths and stat coefficients were more transparent, so one could make informed gear choices without spending an hour with a spreadsheet and a theorycrafting website.


TL;DR -WoW clones do some things better than FFXIV, and some things much worse. They made mistakes, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater-