New MMORPG?

[Elissar]

Games like New World proved that those sort of graphics need something good behind it or it won't work.

I would like to add Lost Ark..i hyped that game for so much time....lovely physics details, character movements, skills impact...and questionable progression ruined it all.
---
back to the topic

The first gen of MMORPGs was famous because online interaction was a novelty. They didnt have to do much stuff. A world free of critical bugs and open exploration was good enough to create a community able to have fun. Back in the day, manuals were popular in videogames, including not-so-complex single player ones. We can use Ultima as example.

The second gen tried to add more challenges, quests and some narrative. We can use WoW as example.

The third gen tried to add more complex mechanics in terms of combat. Later on, "3.1" gen tried to add naval stuff. We can mention Arche Age, Black Desert, Tera, C9, Vindictus.

FFXIV tries to be something between the second and the third gen with a classical japanese formula of instance everywhere and tight control over many of our actions (to be fair, Guild Wars 2 use instances too). Talent tree in FFXIV is just a dream, for example. Your character is not yours, to be honest, your character is its job. A black mage is a black mage, isn't person X black mage with a differentiated talents from other black mage because person X like this way.

I imagine the next gen of MMORPGs as something between FFXIV, Guild wars 2 and Lord of the Rings Online: open dungeons, strong optional narrative, epic music, open exploration, open world progression, minimal loading screens, respect for the trinity (tank, healer, DPS), classes/jobs identities are preserved, choices that affect outcomes in side quests...all while keeping instance contents relevant like we have now. FFXIV could learn a thing or two from Lost Ark. Right now, MMORPGs are just fine convincing people that they don't have to waste their lives to progress (creating casual friendly content), however, now they need to make it fun again.

Each famous MMO has a weird problem:

FFXIV - Open world doens't matter that much except for hunt, fates and initial stages of relic grinding. Loading screens everywhere. Yoshi P did an amazing job but FFXIV will be like this forever. We won't lose our invisible and weird walls or loading screens. Inconsistences in actions with weird excuses, for example: we can't sleep in our apartments, we can decorate our houses but we can't do much stuff except for gardening.

Guild Wars 2 - Strong open world progression, acceptable story, dungeons doens't really matter until fractals. Better combat than ESO. Inconsistent in terms of character design.

Elder Scrolls Online - Most immersive with choices that matters, interesting builds to create, epic lore. Limited combat and questionable monetization model.

WoW - Copy/paste of anything that works somewhere else.

[Jeeqbit]

I imagine the next gen of MMORPGs as something between FFXIV, Guild wars 2 and Lord of the Rings Online: open dungeons, strong optional narrative, epic music, open exploration, open world progression, minimal loading screens, respect for the trinity (tank, healer, DPS), classes/jobs identities are preserved, choices that affect outcomes in side quests...all while keeping instance contents relevant like we have now. FFXIV could learn a thing or two from Lost Ark. Right now, MMORPGs are just fine convincing people that they don't have to waste their lives to progress (creating casual friendly content), however, now they need to make it fun again.

Problem with open dungeons is not being able to control how difficult the content is. Take hunts in FFXIV, designed for a party or alliance to fight and people just bring 100 to melt them. They aren't scaled for that many at all. Then they could sync your power level or their power level accordingly, but then you have the argument that gear progression no longer matters.

The benefit of required narrative is making you care about the world. Frankly, when I look at games like New World or Ashes of Creation, I simply don't care. I have no attachment to their world. Story helps to create that.

[Elissar]

Problem with open dungeons is not being able to control how difficult the content is

I agree 100%. However, over designed dungeons like we have here kills some of our creativity. Wall to wall pulls are extremely restricted in many of our dungeons. Open dungeons could work attached to a synced system like FATEs and predeterminated routes in a map. Take POTD as an example, during the opening cinematic they present POTD as a cavern where the entrance is hidden underground...would be great if we could simply walk there, do some challenges and exit somewhere else.

I loved ShB Raktika arc because the feeling of exploration.

[PEANUT]

Problem with open dungeons is not being able to control how difficult the content is. Take hunts in FFXIV, designed for a party or alliance to fight and people just bring 100 to melt them. They aren't scaled for that many at all. Then they could sync your power level or their power level accordingly, but then you have the argument that gear progression no longer matters.

The benefit of required narrative is making you care about the world. Frankly, when I look at games like New World or Ashes of Creation, I simply don't care. I have no attachment to their world. Story helps to create that.

That's something that to me would be INCREDIBLY fun and enjoyable, big monsters or NM's for example, that could come out of nowhere(or maybe there is lore involved in them and why they come out), to attack a city-state, actually damaging the city state, and players have to fight to protect it, and if they lose part of the city stays ruined for actual real-life days while the town works to rebuild it. There could be challenging combat, quests, etc. for people who are hardcore, want to form alliances and take on challenges, and then tons of medium content for casual players who want to play with a friend of 2 or alone, crafting, fighting smaller monsters, accumulating small comfort wealth. I think if they could create an open world with tons of hard level and casual level content that could be expanded over years and years, they would have something special. Interactive worlds and changing/dynamic environments, just imagine it, it would be incredible. If they started planning something like this in the next few years, it would be a while before a game like this would come out, and it would probably release into the PS6's lifecycle(and equivalent Xbox and PC's) to make sure it can happen on a hardware level too