I also have to agree, when a game comes out that requires you to group, it should be anyone you want. Too much we need a healer, we need a tank we need this we need that in games thesedays. you can spend 1-2hrs getting teh required combination only for one of them 2 minutes in to say i have to go, i didnt know it was going to take this long (like yes asshole, when does it take 2 mins to run an instance). Also instances, these should be killed off too in my opinion, it detracts from the gameplay as well and games are starting to rely too much on this.
Trying to actually summarize a lot of this into something worthwhile, I think it is clear that the "community" as represented here really falls into three categories... Those who want it even easier to solo and less grouping content than is found now in the main titles; Those mostly okay with how things are now ; and Those who want a more solidly group-dominated game. All of that is based on preferences and although I clearly have an opinion on which I want, no one can be *right* or *wrong* about it. Given that I think the new trend of MMOFPS will be catering ever more towards the first group and the 2nd claim to be okay with where we are now...I think the relevent part here is that there is clearly a niche open in the market for a "harder", group-dominated, "old school" MMO - provided it had updated graphics, all the modern chat/ui features we have come to expect and solutions other than pointless timesinks to make it "difficult". That's actually something I hope some dev team twigs onto and does something with. There is nothing wrong with endless variation in the market and it would be nice to see more playstyes supported.
I don't really agree with this catagorization. I think there are some people that aren't happy with the current situation. I would not call myself "mostly ok", but I don't think there should be a lot less or more grouping content than there is currently either. I think you've framed the attitudes in a way that misses one of the core problems. The BIG problem, imho, with current games (at least the ones I have played) is that grouping is a pain to set up. FFXI for instance, has a nice mechanic when you are in a group (though I am not advocating it as a perfect game even group-content-wise), but it takes too long to get a group. Frankly, this should be unsurprising, as any tank-healer-dps game always has tank or healer problems. The other side of the coin is level differneces, but that can be handled via a side-kick system as some games have (I think CoH started it). The real thing that needs to be done is for the games to change so that you dont' have to be in pain when setting up a group, so that it is easy to put one together. MMORPGs should be placing the challenges for the group once it is together, not a time-sink/challenge in forming a group itself.
Beyond that, all games start solo, and I don't think I've been in one that does a good job of teaching players how to work as a team. It is left for people to muddle through. Games would gain a LOT by having some sort of system for teaching group behavior. Perhaps, like Guild Wars, early on you can get some group quests with NPCs to fill those group slots, and the quests teach you how to work with your teammate (I haven't played guild wars, I am just taking the fact it has NPCs from there, I don't know if it has quests to teach you grouping). That would make a lot more players group-competent.
Anyhow, I don't think I want less group content or more per se as a percentage of the game. I DO want the grouping mechanics to be a heck of a lot better than they are now. Forming a group and learning how to be a good teammate should flow very easily from playing, neither should be a chore. Beyond that, I'd like it more if you could more easily find challenges for small groups, such as two or three people, rather than having to get 5 or so together. If you run across one other person and help them, then they help you, and you decide to group, you shouldn't be punished by having all the content you come across made trivial -- that's a bit of a trickier problem to solve, however.
Obviously there are lots of other things we'd all love to "fix" about the current gen of MMOs, but thats not what were really talking about. I'm sure people in all three categories could find many things to agree (heh and more to disagree) on that need fixing.
I think my categories are pretty valid when you are only looking at the group vs solo question...but of course I would...I made it up after all.
Lineage 2 private server (cant say name..) is the best!!
has a balanced pvp with pve
anyway lineage2 Rocks!
Basically clicking away text windows ruins every MMO, try to have fun instead of rushing things. Without story and lore all there is left is a bunch of mechanics. Reply Add Multi-Quote
Obviously there are lots of other things we'd all love to "fix" about the current gen of MMOs, but thats not what were really talking about. I'm sure people in all three categories could find many things to agree (heh and more to disagree) on that need fixing. I think my categories are pretty valid when you are only looking at the group vs solo question...but of course I would...I made it up after all.
The catagories are bad because it's basically asking the question: How do you feel about the broken group mechanics? Do you want more of them, more solo content, or are you happy?
This is the wrong question to ask (don't take this personally). Anyhow, we certainly are talking about grouping and what might need to get fixed regarding it in current MMOs. Considering the thread title is "problem with todays mmorpgs is too much soloing," then I think discussing the PROBLEMS with grouping mechanics in current MMOs is extremely relevent.
Why can't 6 different dps classes group up? Why do we need 2 classes dictating the pace of the game? Disagree and agree at the same time .. I like the tank/healer/DPS trinity, it's structured, it's proven and it works .. it allows for strategy in fights, (admittedly with some suspension of disbelief) and prevents the element of "gank" that a 6 DPS group would play as. I think that the next advancement in group-friendly MMOs will be in the area of hybridisation; moving away from rigid class structures and towards flexibility. Imagine if every player could easily "respec" from a DPS to a Healer to a Tank, for example. One of the goals of the Blizzard developers is "Bring the player, not the class" in group content. They'll never truly achieve if, of course .. there are too many classes in WoW for that to be possible; but they've made a reasonable attempt; 40% of the classes can now tank, 40% can now heal. I'd love to see that expanded to 100% in some manner. EVE has that; your abilities are determined chiefly by whatever ship you're in rather than any choices you made at the character creation menu. Healers do exist in EVE, by the way .. there are modules designed to "heal" other ships though it is apparently a faux pas to refer to such specialists as "healers" as the preferred EVE term is "logistics".
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Why can't 6 different dps classes group up? Why do we need 2 classes dictating the pace of the game? Disagree and agree at the same time .. I like the tank/healer/DPS trinity, it's structured, it's proven and it works .. it allows for strategy in fights, (admittedly with some suspension of disbelief) and prevents the element of "gank" that a 6 DPS group would play as. I think that the next advancement in group-friendly MMOs will be in the area of hybridisation; moving away from rigid class structures and towards flexibility. Imagine if every player could easily "respec" from a DPS to a Healer to a Tank, for example. One of the goals of the Blizzard developers is "Bring the player, not the class" in group content. They'll never truly achieve if, of course .. there are too many classes in WoW for that to be possible; but they've made a reasonable attempt; 40% of the classes can now tank, 40% can now heal. I'd love to see that expanded to 100% in some manner. EVE has that; your abilities are determined chiefly by whatever ship you're in rather than any choices you made at the character creation menu. Healers do exist in EVE, by the way .. there are modules designed to "heal" other ships though it is apparently a faux pas to refer to such specialists as "healers" as the preferred EVE term is "logistics".
Easy respecs or the like doesn't fix the problem. Too few people are willing to heal. Some people only heal so that the group can run. Overall healing just doesn't appeal to enough people, and hence you have same massive problems with getting sufficient numbers together. The same is true with tanking (though a little less so, ime). There's also the whole thing that the tank-healer-dps system makes all bosses into complete morons, which doesn't help the case for keeping it. Keeping THD is just an excuse to keep monster AI at an insanely low level. That doesn't need to be done anymore, and so it should be done away with. To go back to the topic at hand, doing away with this would make forming groups a LOT easier, and fights would be a bit more realistically hectic and unpredictable (ideally), so you'd have to react in the moment to what was going on. That should increase replayability quite a bit. It does NOT decrease tactics, and if done well it could increase tactical considerations (narrow areas in the terrain and other geographical features could become important considerations for instance). Overall there is a ton to be gained by moving away from THD, even if it requires a bit more work.
Easy respecs or the like doesn't fix the problem. Too few people are willing to heal. Some people only heal so that the group can run. Overall healing just doesn't appeal to enough people, and hence you have same massive problems with getting sufficient numbers together. The same is true with tanking (though a little less so, ime). There's also the whole thing that the tank-healer-dps system makes all bosses into complete morons, which doesn't help the case for keeping it. Keeping THD is just an excuse to keep monster AI at an insanely low level. That doesn't need to be done anymore, and so it should be done away with. To go back to the topic at hand, doing away with this would make forming groups a LOT easier, and fights would be a bit more realistically hectic and unpredictable (ideally), so you'd have to react in the moment to what was going on. That should increase replayability quite a bit. It does NOT decrease tactics, and if done well it could increase tactical considerations (narrow areas in the terrain and other geographical features could become important considerations for instance). Overall there is a ton to be gained by moving away from THD, even if it requires a bit more work. I don't really want to get into a debate on the pros and cons of THD; it's been done to death on these forums lately and opinions are pretty intractable on it; we either like it or we don't and nothing the other guy says will change that opinion. I will concede that the role of healer, (at least in the MMOGs I've played) tends to be dull and badly done. I never really enjoyed being a healer in WoW; I raided as a holy priest for several years at level 60 and saw more of the green bars than I did of the content. I wasn't a healer, I was a healbot .. and while some people love that playstyle, I pretty much just tolerated it as WoW didn't offer an alternative style of healer class. WAR does it a bit better; there are the traditional healbot classes as well as some hybrid reactive healers like the Warrior Priest/Disciple of Khaine. Dual targetting and the ability to heal while doing damage was much more enjoyable to me than my previous experience of spamhealing. Variety in MMOGs is seldom a bad thing; every niche has its following.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Well, I read most of this thread and I am torn on the subject. Group vs solo. I love to solo but over the years I have gotten to where I dont want to group with anyone that is not my real life friend in game.
You ever get in a group and everything just runs smoothly? I mean everyone knows how to play their classes correctly and knows how to communicate through the battles and at the end of your gaming session, you thought to yourself, I will never ever find a group as good as this again? This does not happen often. Usually the only time you get something like this is by pure luck! You have just entered into a group of veteren MMO players. And more than likely ones that have all played eq1 when it was at its hardest (the early years).
The problems with todays MMO's are many and have been touched on by most in this thread, however there are a few things that I feel need to be talked about.
First off, lets talk about the creatures. If it takes you more than 10 seconds to kill an even level con creature, people get pissed and complain how boring the combat is. What happens with this is that devs keep speeding up the battles to the point of insanity and then you end up having groups wipe simply because someone took longer than 1/10th of a second to blink and didnt get that heal off before the fight was starting up and boom everyones dead. of course nobody cares in todays games because death penalties are absolutely almost non existant so they dont care if they die over and over again.
Combat times are just insane now. In EQ1, a fight with an even con could last you up to 5 minutes and could either way depending on if you have a bad streak of misses. But heck, at least during that time, you had time to make decisions, should I run now? should I holler for help, will I get enough mana back for one last heal, etc... The problem with that type of combat system was that you got next to nothing in terms of exp for your time. So now instead of killing 1 creature in 5 minutes, people want to kill 100 creatures in 5 minutes. What needs to be done in todays games is actually slow down the combat pace but give much bigger exp rewards. Make that one fight worth the amount of exp you would have gotten from fighting 100 of something in the same amount of time.
This gives several things back to the players. Now they have time to actually look at what they are fighting at, You get to see the true details of the creatures and environments. You have time to actually talk to your fellow players and best of all, you have a better chance of making good decisions during the battle.
Now, there is one other aspect of creatures that has really gotten under my skin with todays mmo's and that is the stupid leash systems they put on all the creatures. They need to bring back the follow you till you die or zone creatures. And no more of this flashing back to their spawn point. TRAIN TO ZONE! That means that train of creatures is going to be coming back from the zone and if your not carefull, they will jump you. That was one of the most frustrating but at the same time, most challenging aspects of the MMO's of old. I could tell you stories of fights that lasted for 30 minutes because creatures would jump in on your fight because you were to close to them when they were wandering back to their spawn location. I could also tell you horror stories of what happens when that train does go to the zone. I will never forget the time in unrest that my single group caused over 100 people in the zone to be killed. I spent the next 30 minutes rezzing everyone over that. It was one of the proudest and sadest events that ever happened to me. But my point to this is, with the current leash systems and ignoring others or simply teleporting back to their own spawnpoints, it has made the worlds much much less dangerous. About a year ago, I reactivated my eq1 account for a month. I was walking my level 49 cleric around in the revamped lavastorm zone. I didnt hardly remember what my spells did and afterwards realized, I didnt even have the right spells loaded. But in just running around the zone checking out how they changed it, I had a veritable shitload of (gray) creatures running after my butt. If it was not for the Jboots my cleric had, he would have surely died. heck, it took me almost 10 minutes to find the zone to get out and probably a quarter of the zone chasing me the entire time. I had forgotten all about that and even after being gone for years, I felt that little twinge of fear that my character might die and to gray creatures no less. Something that I have not felt for many many years in todays mmo's.
Think about that for a moment. I havent played EQ in many years, and yet, the fear of death in that game was so great that many years later, You still feel it even if you no longer cared about your characters, you did not want to see them die. I dare anyone to show me a MMO today that can make you connect with your characters on that deep of a level. You can't, because None exist today.
I know the feelings about rose colored glasses. I had many things that I hated about eq as well and still do, but compared to todays mmo's, they are but a shallow copy of what was once a great and exciting world to explore. Where Danger actually meant something. Death meant something, exploring was the greatest challenge of them all because death was something to fear. Corpse runs sucked ass and I hated them, but without them, the danger would have not been present. the fear would have not been present. The overwhelming joy of victory would not have been present or the overwhelming sadness of defeat would not have been present. These elements are but a shallow reprensentation in todays mmo's. People talk about how hard raids are in todays mmo's. I wont deny you that, but here is some food for thought.
To get a glimpse of the above feelings pretty much requires you to already be at the end game of the mmo. Where the devs have scripted such unfathomable bullshit that people have to go through to achieve victory on a raid. Where there is only 1 or if your lucky 2 ways of possibly ever killing a raid boss. So, you spend many hours figuring out how to kill that boss and when you do, WOOHOO! you have achieved something great and feel awesome.
Back in our day. You got that feeling and probably way more intensely through out the entire game. You didnt have to wait till the end game to feel like that. You got that from simply winning a fight with what people today would consider yard trash just going to a dungeon.
See, that is why the mmo vets keep harping on this. Its not to bash WoW or any other game. I played wow for 2 years and enjoyed its simplicity and ease of playing. But not once did it truely invoke intense feelings of accomplishment or joy or sadness. It was enjoyable but nothing great (and I even played on a pvp server in wow). That is what the MMO devs of today have lost and I seriously doubt it will ever return and that should make everyone sad because many of you will never know how good you could have it.
I'm not against solo content at all, but a decent proportion of it should be challenging.
There should be content available that differentiates a good player from an average player. If all solo content is run-of-the-mill stuff that anyone can plough through, then I get throroughly bored.
I, like most people, want to differentiate myself from the masses, when the only way of doing that is through time investment (rep-grinding, for instance), not through skill or clever thinking, then the game design isn't good enough.
Easy respecs or the like doesn't fix the problem. Too few people are willing to heal. Some people only heal so that the group can run. Overall healing just doesn't appeal to enough people, and hence you have same massive problems with getting sufficient numbers together. The same is true with tanking (though a little less so, ime). There's also the whole thing that the tank-healer-dps system makes all bosses into complete morons, which doesn't help the case for keeping it. Keeping THD is just an excuse to keep monster AI at an insanely low level. That doesn't need to be done anymore, and so it should be done away with. To go back to the topic at hand, doing away with this would make forming groups a LOT easier, and fights would be a bit more realistically hectic and unpredictable (ideally), so you'd have to react in the moment to what was going on. That should increase replayability quite a bit. It does NOT decrease tactics, and if done well it could increase tactical considerations (narrow areas in the terrain and other geographical features could become important considerations for instance). Overall there is a ton to be gained by moving away from THD, even if it requires a bit more work. I don't really want to get into a debate on the pros and cons of THD; it's been done to death on these forums lately and opinions are pretty intractable on it; we either like it or we don't and nothing the other guy says will change that opinion. I will concede that the role of healer, (at least in the MMOGs I've played) tends to be dull and badly done. I never really enjoyed being a healer in WoW; I raided as a holy priest for several years at level 60 and saw more of the green bars than I did of the content. I wasn't a healer, I was a healbot .. and while some people love that playstyle, I pretty much just tolerated it as WoW didn't offer an alternative style of healer class. WAR does it a bit better; there are the traditional healbot classes as well as some hybrid reactive healers like the Warrior Priest/Disciple of Khaine. Dual targetting and the ability to heal while doing damage was much more enjoyable to me than my previous experience of spamhealing. Variety in MMOGs is seldom a bad thing; every niche has its following.
While I agree healing in WoW lead to some serious burnout on the raid end of things, druid healing took far longer to hit that point. More to the point, PVP healing in WoW was always a blast for me on my druid, and my girlfriend's paladin. Nothing in that game PVP-wise was much more satisfying than knowing you were making the difference in your team winning a BG by the sheer number of heals going out especially if the other team lacked them.
People may hate the classic 'THD' setup, but in the end these are *role* playing games, and I've always been one to defend tanking and healing because I thoroughly enjoy being on the support end of things in most games. I love being the guy that makes groups work, or makes them better, and allows the over-glorified DPS classes actually get to make use of their abilities and enjoy them rather than dread not choosing a class that heals/tanks themselves because their current one sucks. Nothing beats making the folks you enjoy playing with enjoy their time played, at least from where I sit.
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." George Bernard Shaw
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Oscar Wilde
If you want a game where it doesn't matter what class you are for groups, try The Chronicles of Spellborn. Every damn class in that game is a hybrid. And everybody has at least some kind of heal, just in different ways.
I like it, it's very refreshing from normal MMOs -- kinda FPS style with a weird skill bar (or should I say, "wheel"). Not much to do other than PVP and level up, but I'm having fun, moreso than most MMOs I've been playing.
It's not exactly heavily grouped based either, at least I've soloed most of the time myself, but people are always chatting in zone-chat for groups to tackle the strong named mobs in the area.
As for death penalty, it actually makes me not want to die. In addition to normal exp points, you gain pep points. After five levels of pep it caps. Each level significantly either raises your stats or makes you attack faster, do more damage, and run faster. Each time you die, you lose a level of pep. Every encounter I'm not sure on, I get a sense of risk assesment. The game has long aggro ranges, so if I'm fighting 1 vs 1 and suddenly two wolves aggro on me, I've gotta make a decision to fight or flight. It's almost like a feeling of accomplishment and pride having your pep level high as everybody can see it. When I was first playing, I went AFK and someone trained a bunch of mobs on me (yes, EQ style trains). That sucked. But now I feel a little sense of danger no matter where I am and I like that.
I'll stop here before I go infomercial on everybody. Anyway, check it out if you want. Not for everybody, but it's something new.
Easy respecs or the like doesn't fix the problem. Too few people are willing to heal. Some people only heal so that the group can run. Overall healing just doesn't appeal to enough people, and hence you have same massive problems with getting sufficient numbers together.
The funny thing is for me my first MMO was Ultima Online.
So this whole concept of "must have tank, healer .. dps" was alien to me and why I really didn't like EQ1 when it came out. Yes I always ran back to UO and only came (kicking and screaming) back to EQ1 when my old UO guild cried enough. Then I'd make it a max of 2 weeks and be back in UO.
I honestly can't stand the "core game mechanics" most MMO's have chosen to go with. This isn't to say UO was perfect.. far from it. Yet I think it was closer than the endless EQ clones (yes sorry to me WoW is actually an EQ clone because of the same "core mechanics".) I'll apologize up front if M59 or NwN on AoL used those mechanics as I never played them.
There were certainly mobs in UO that you needed other people to kill. Tho most things could be solo'd if you were willing to learn the game.
Which comes back to in todays MMO's most people don't learn the game. You follow the lemming pack around until you have all the shiny toys aka uber loot and/or specail abilities etc (I win buttons yay)... The entire game is based on having this gear etc but not on learning how to play...
I would love to see difficulty brought back into a game... where the people who really learn the game can excel. Don't confuse that with todays games where its how many hours you can put in (back to gear etc). Learning is something that will come much faster to some... even if you are casual your ability to learn is not limited by anything other than yourself.
Group content to me is something that should exist either because there is a monster that hard or an area that would just be impossible due to the amount of mobs. I really hate the entire arguement of solo versus group as I think grouping should be something you do because you are social.. making friends or have a guild etc I don't think its something that should be forced..
And even beyond that many of the mechanics of todays games actually make grouping a negative.
Anyway sorry for the ramble.. but to me the perfect MMO would have been an evolution of UO...
The only thing that came close was SWG Pre-CU and that was far more limited than UO was (class kill system as opposed to open skill system among other things). I call SWG Pre-CU a class skill system because its the easiest term I can come up with in comparison to UO.
I think the main reason I've not seen this and maybe never will is because... The vast majority of "customers" only know MMO's as:
1) Levels
2) Uber Loot
3) I win buttons or special abilities
So making a game based on player economy, crafting and actually having to know how the game works... well anyway.
I wish there was an mmorpg with the main focus was grouping and exploring. People like to solo and thats fine there should be classes designed for people who like to solo, i think EQ had the best idea with this with the necromancer/Beastmaster. But I find myself lately in every mmorpg getting very bored because I am soloing all the time and when its time to group its either at the very end of the game just raiding the same end content for loot. What ever happened to when mmorpgs were about grouping with others and exploring?
The problem is not too much soloing, the problem is too little group action.
EQ2 for one have a lot of grouping. There is soloing enough for people that prefer that too but the focus is grouping. Games from the last few years could learn from that.
If people want to solo, no problem. And sometimes I play odd hours, when I can't get a group I solo. If that option wasn't there I would be forced to not play those hours.
I like to be the one who chooses if I want to group or solo in my mmorpg. Most of the time I play with my RL friends and solo when none of them are online. I HATE picking up random groups, I have no interest in waiting for everyone going afk every 5mins or group breaking in the middle of instance or long quest chain. With my friends I know they don't pop in and out every once in a while or bring their RL sh*t into game.
It's a shame, I know. I must have missed tons of good guys/friends but I just find it easier this way.
Exactly the same here, Mortemia. I never, ever group with people I don't already know in RL. It's a waste of time and ultimately pointless to team up with strangers.
Exactly the same here, Mortemia. I never, ever group with people I don't already know in RL. It's a waste of time and ultimately pointless to team up with strangers.
No your wrong. Grouping with people you do know is the best way to get to know new people, sure you going to have to deal with your fair share of morons but you will gain alot of good friends.
Its not a waste of time to get to know new people. It sad when people think the way you do, how in the world are you going to deal with RL if you can't even make new friends online?
I mostly group with guild mates but in EQ1 I did a ton of Pick up groups and I loved it, I met some great people that I still talk to today.
No your wrong. Grouping with people you do know is the best way to get to know new people, sure you going to have to deal with your fair share of morons but you will gain alot of good friends. Its not a waste of time to get to know new people. It sad when people think the way you do, how in the world are you going to deal with RL if you can't even make new friends online? While I also disagree wth Dibdabs statement, I don't think insulting his/her social skills is justified.
I'll be honest and say that in the ~10 years I've played online games I haven't made any new friend online.
I've met a lot of people, some of whom I still stay in touch with from time to time, but that's not friendship, at least not as I apply the term to my interpersonal relationships. I didn't attend any of their weddings, I wasn't invited to their birthday celebrations and I don't drop around their houses for cups of tea.
I don't consider them friends .. just informal acquaintances with whom I share a hobby.
Personally, I prefer to join a decent guild so that I have people I (sort of) know to group with when my RL friends aren't online or we need extra people to flesh out a group.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Deeper classes in WoW? This alone makes me think you never played EQ1 a day in your life, the classes in EQ1 had alot more depth then then ones in WoW. You need alot more brain power to figure out raids in EQ then you did in WoW. Try breaking into fear with the average WoW player and tell me that WoW is harder.
Let's compare. I play a Wiz in EQ from beta and a mage in WOW.
In EQ, grinding mob for a wiz is very boring. You essentially root, and nuke. Nothing else. You only use your main nuke and it has a cast time.
In WOW, the mage class has a mix of cast-time nukes, and instances, and also procs. There are also fun spells like mirror image and getting of out a jam spell like invis (i remember you can't use invis in EQ during combat, but that was a while back). In fact, WOW requires the mage to use much more complex spell rotations that EQ.
Oh, and WOW does not require the mage (wiz) to sit there for 10 min after each fight.
Well, I read most of this thread and I am torn on the subject. Group vs solo. I love to solo but over the years I have gotten to where I dont want to group with anyone that is not my real life friend in game. You ever get in a group and everything just runs smoothly? I mean everyone knows how to play their classes correctly and knows how to communicate through the battles and at the end of your gaming session, you thought to yourself, I will never ever find a group as good as this again? This does not happen often. Usually the only time you get something like this is by pure luck! You have just entered into a group of veteren MMO players. And more than likely ones that have all played eq1 when it was at its hardest (the early years). The problems with todays MMO's are many and have been touched on by most in this thread, however there are a few things that I feel need to be talked about. First off, lets talk about the creatures. If it takes you more than 10 seconds to kill an even level con creature, people get pissed and complain how boring the combat is. What happens with this is that devs keep speeding up the battles to the point of insanity and then you end up having groups wipe simply because someone took longer than 1/10th of a second to blink and didnt get that heal off before the fight was starting up and boom everyones dead. of course nobody cares in todays games because death penalties are absolutely almost non existant so they dont care if they die over and over again. Combat times are just insane now. In EQ1, a fight with an even con could last you up to 5 minutes and could either way depending on if you have a bad streak of misses. But heck, at least during that time, you had time to make decisions, should I run now? should I holler for help, will I get enough mana back for one last heal, etc... The problem with that type of combat system was that you got next to nothing in terms of exp for your time. So now instead of killing 1 creature in 5 minutes, people want to kill 100 creatures in 5 minutes. What needs to be done in todays games is actually slow down the combat pace but give much bigger exp rewards. Make that one fight worth the amount of exp you would have gotten from fighting 100 of something in the same amount of time. This gives several things back to the players. Now they have time to actually look at what they are fighting at, You get to see the true details of the creatures and environments. You have time to actually talk to your fellow players and best of all, you have a better chance of making good decisions during the battle.
Now, there is one other aspect of creatures that has really gotten under my skin with todays mmo's and that is the stupid leash systems they put on all the creatures. They need to bring back the follow you till you die or zone creatures. And no more of this flashing back to their spawn point. TRAIN TO ZONE! That means that train of creatures is going to be coming back from the zone and if your not carefull, they will jump you. That was one of the most frustrating but at the same time, most challenging aspects of the MMO's of old. I could tell you stories of fights that lasted for 30 minutes because creatures would jump in on your fight because you were to close to them when they were wandering back to their spawn location. I could also tell you horror stories of what happens when that train does go to the zone. I will never forget the time in unrest that my single group caused over 100 people in the zone to be killed. I spent the next 30 minutes rezzing everyone over that. It was one of the proudest and sadest events that ever happened to me. But my point to this is, with the current leash systems and ignoring others or simply teleporting back to their own spawnpoints, it has made the worlds much much less dangerous. About a year ago, I reactivated my eq1 account for a month. I was walking my level 49 cleric around in the revamped lavastorm zone. I didnt hardly remember what my spells did and afterwards realized, I didnt even have the right spells loaded. But in just running around the zone checking out how they changed it, I had a veritable shitload of (gray) creatures running after my butt. If it was not for the Jboots my cleric had, he would have surely died. heck, it took me almost 10 minutes to find the zone to get out and probably a quarter of the zone chasing me the entire time. I had forgotten all about that and even after being gone for years, I felt that little twinge of fear that my character might die and to gray creatures no less. Something that I have not felt for many many years in todays mmo's. Think about that for a moment. I havent played EQ in many years, and yet, the fear of death in that game was so great that many years later, You still feel it even if you no longer cared about your characters, you did not want to see them die. I dare anyone to show me a MMO today that can make you connect with your characters on that deep of a level. You can't, because None exist today. I know the feelings about rose colored glasses. I had many things that I hated about eq as well and still do, but compared to todays mmo's, they are but a shallow copy of what was once a great and exciting world to explore. Where Danger actually meant something. Death meant something, exploring was the greatest challenge of them all because death was something to fear. Corpse runs sucked ass and I hated them, but without them, the danger would have not been present. the fear would have not been present. The overwhelming joy of victory would not have been present or the overwhelming sadness of defeat would not have been present. These elements are but a shallow reprensentation in todays mmo's. People talk about how hard raids are in todays mmo's. I wont deny you that, but here is some food for thought. To get a glimpse of the above feelings pretty much requires you to already be at the end game of the mmo. Where the devs have scripted such unfathomable bullshit that people have to go through to achieve victory on a raid. Where there is only 1 or if your lucky 2 ways of possibly ever killing a raid boss. So, you spend many hours figuring out how to kill that boss and when you do, WOOHOO! you have achieved something great and feel awesome. Back in our day. You got that feeling and probably way more intensely through out the entire game. You didnt have to wait till the end game to feel like that. You got that from simply winning a fight with what people today would consider yard trash just going to a dungeon. See, that is why the mmo vets keep harping on this. Its not to bash WoW or any other game. I played wow for 2 years and enjoyed its simplicity and ease of playing. But not once did it truely invoke intense feelings of accomplishment or joy or sadness. It was enjoyable but nothing great (and I even played on a pvp server in wow). That is what the MMO devs of today have lost and I seriously doubt it will ever return and that should make everyone sad because many of you will never know how good you could have it.
Wow, I could not of said it better myself. Although I never played EQ, (and after reading this I regret not playing it) I played Ultima Online, and from how you described the game, I can relate to what you're saying.
One thing I loved about UO was: Dying was a horrible experience, because whatever you had on you, consider it gone (that's if you were killed in PvP). And you could do the same to other players and take whats theirs. More rewarding then just getting points or something of that sort.
I wouldn't go as far as to say WoW was easy. I remember many challenging times playing that game. I used to quest with a friend of mine and we'd go do some quests, just me an him, that normally take a couple more people. I was an orc shaman and he was a troll warrior. There were many times when we just barely pulled it off and it felt pretty rewarding. Wouldn't get me nearly as emotional as when I used to play UO (and I'm talking about UO pvp not PvE because imo the PvE in UO was nothing great). And yes, dying didn't really bother me, other than the fact that it just wasted time running back to my body.
Some of the 5 man instances were pretty challenging too, and many times I would get annoyed with the group I was in because the players just weren't on point. I remember I grouped with 4 other people I had never grouped with, they were a guild called Purple Haze and needed one more person, so I said ok. They turned out to be the best group I had ever been with. We all knew how to play our roles to the fullest, after we were done, they instantly recruited me and we had lots of fun doing 5 man instances.
I never really did like doing raides because it just took too many people and was sloppy. I enjoyed 5 man instances more because it gave you a chance to really see the skill level of the people you were with, and every person really makes a contribution. So either you can shine or... just suck.
What I'm looking for in an MMO is one where there are no factions, like Horde & Alliance. One where you could either be an outcast loner killer, or join a guild and run with them. Similiar to UO, but with better PvE. And naturally taking on harder enemies you'll be forced to group up. But when it came down to it, you could kill whoever you wanted to(players). And to implement something like UO, if you were a murderer you couldn't enter some of the main cities and were forced to go to other cities where there were no guards, but you weren't safe from other murderers.
I also thought crafting in UO was so fun, and rewarding. You could own a house, have a anvil go mining return home smelt your ore, then create some pretty nice stuff. And it wasn't like WoW where you had to go to certain spawn points to get ore, you could just go in a mine and start mining away.
Man, I miss those UO days..
EDIT: Wow, I forgot one thing. THE thing I liked most about UO was it was NOT class oriented. You could make either an all-around guy who was mediocre in a lot of things or specialize in a couple. You could make your character so many different things.
Easy respecs or the like doesn't fix the problem. Too few people are willing to heal. Some people only heal so that the group can run. Overall healing just doesn't appeal to enough people, and hence you have same massive problems with getting sufficient numbers together.
The funny thing is for me my first MMO was Ultima Online.
So this whole concept of "must have tank, healer .. dps" was alien to me and why I really didn't like EQ1 when it came out. Yes I always ran back to UO and only came (kicking and screaming) back to EQ1 when my old UO guild cried enough. Then I'd make it a max of 2 weeks and be back in UO.
I honestly can't stand the "core game mechanics" most MMO's have chosen to go with. This isn't to say UO was perfect.. far from it. Yet I think it was closer than the endless EQ clones (yes sorry to me WoW is actually an EQ clone because of the same "core mechanics".) I'll apologize up front if M59 or NwN on AoL used those mechanics as I never played them.
There were certainly mobs in UO that you needed other people to kill. Tho most things could be solo'd if you were willing to learn the game.
Which comes back to in todays MMO's most people don't learn the game. You follow the lemming pack around until you have all the shiny toys aka uber loot and/or specail abilities etc (I win buttons yay)... The entire game is based on having this gear etc but not on learning how to play...
I would love to see difficulty brought back into a game... where the people who really learn the game can excel. Don't confuse that with todays games where its how many hours you can put in (back to gear etc). Learning is something that will come much faster to some... even if you are casual your ability to learn is not limited by anything other than yourself.
Group content to me is something that should exist either because there is a monster that hard or an area that would just be impossible due to the amount of mobs. I really hate the entire arguement of solo versus group as I think grouping should be something you do because you are social.. making friends or have a guild etc I don't think its something that should be forced..
And even beyond that many of the mechanics of todays games actually make grouping a negative.
Anyway sorry for the ramble.. but to me the perfect MMO would have been an evolution of UO...
The only thing that came close was SWG Pre-CU and that was far more limited than UO was (class kill system as opposed to open skill system among other things). I call SWG Pre-CU a class skill system because its the easiest term I can come up with in comparison to UO.
I think the main reason I've not seen this and maybe never will is because... The vast majority of "customers" only know MMO's as:
1) Levels
2) Uber Loot
3) I win buttons or special abilities
So making a game based on player economy, crafting and actually having to know how the game works... well anyway.
That's kinda scary, I just replied to a comment on page 14, then I go to the next page to continue reading and you say pretty much exactly the same thing I've said.
Deeper classes in WoW? This alone makes me think you never played EQ1 a day in your life, the classes in EQ1 had alot more depth then then ones in WoW. You need alot more brain power to figure out raids in EQ then you did in WoW. Try breaking into fear with the average WoW player and tell me that WoW is harder.
Let's compare. I play a Wiz in EQ from beta and a mage in WOW.
In EQ, grinding mob for a wiz is very boring. You essentially root, and nuke. Nothing else. You only use your main nuke and it has a cast time.
In WOW, the mage class has a mix of cast-time nukes, and instances, and also procs. There are also fun spells like mirror image and getting of out a jam spell like invis (i remember you can't use invis in EQ during combat, but that was a while back). In fact, WOW requires the mage to use much more complex spell rotations that EQ.
Oh, and WOW does not require the mage (wiz) to sit there for 10 min after each fight.
You are right in that in combat, root and nuke was the way of the wizard. But for all your "extra" spells in wow, it still boils down to the same thing. You got to use invis to get out of a jam. The eq wiz used root and ran like hell. Same difference. The EQ wiz also got group teleports to spires (an extra way to earn cash from players in game). They also had some teleports to go to the planes that only they could cast to get parties up there. Invis in EQ was much different than in wow. If you had a bad rep in a city, you could use invis to get through that city without getting killed. You dont really have that in wow. What you did in EQ had consequences and serious ones at that. You could get yourself KOS to many cities if you did the wrong things.
You are absolutly right about the down time though. WoW has no more than 30 seconds of downtime for pretty much any class. They used food and drink as a way to regain everything quickly. Where as EQ used food and drink as something that kept you alive. If you ran out of food, your health couldn't regen, No water, your mana couldn't regen either. That was a big deal in EQ. But, for downtime, you could get buffs from other classes that significantly lowered your downtime but you still had a crapload more downtime than compared to wow or pretty much any other mmo. The big thing about downtime back in EQ was it gave you time to socialize with your group and others that were in the zone. Here is just a small example of what made the community aspect of the game so much more appealing than anything today.
One zone called solusek B (SOL B for short) had many different creatures in it and was absolutely huge. No instancing, everyone going after their own things. But when you got deep enough, you started coming upon Fire giants. When fighting them, they would summon your ass to them when you did to much damage or if you tried to rest to regain mana during the fight. And everyone in the zone knew when those battles where going on because the fire giants would do a zone yell "You will not evade me DoomsDay!" and then summon you right to him. Yells from many of the people in the zone not even relating to the fight is encouraging you on. "DONT LET THAT FIRE GIANT WIN, GET HIM DOOMSDAY!" It was an awesome feeling to see people encourage you on like that. You dont really have that in most mmo's today. They have taken the social aspect away from the game. So yes, there is little to no downtime in most mmo's today. But the overall health of the game and the community suffers because of it.
As for the depth statement that was made. You have to remember that eq had lots of spells in the game for every class. yet you could not just use everything at anytime you wanted. You could only use a limited number of them (I think it was 8) without sitting down and memorizing different ones (Which took time). You had to be knowledgable about your class and the situation you were going into and pick the right spells. Having access to all spells all the time is almost a WIN button for todays mmo players.
Ahh, happy days of EQ until Sony mangled it. I still remember the actual fear a lot of players had - myself included - when your character was in a new zone, or being about to die in a fight. Death was a hell of a disaster sometimes, simply because you had to spawn at your Bind point, sometimes several zones away, and head back to your corpse with no gear whatsoever. In the days before ingame maps this could result in yet more deaths as you blundered around an unfamiliar zone, losing XP with each death. Death in games like WoW is purely trivial, to the detriment of the game, at least in my opinion.
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I also have to agree, when a game comes out that requires you to group, it should be anyone you want. Too much we need a healer, we need a tank we need this we need that in games thesedays. you can spend 1-2hrs getting teh required combination only for one of them 2 minutes in to say i have to go, i didnt know it was going to take this long (like yes asshole, when does it take 2 mins to run an instance). Also instances, these should be killed off too in my opinion, it detracts from the gameplay as well and games are starting to rely too much on this.
I don't really agree with this catagorization. I think there are some people that aren't happy with the current situation. I would not call myself "mostly ok", but I don't think there should be a lot less or more grouping content than there is currently either. I think you've framed the attitudes in a way that misses one of the core problems. The BIG problem, imho, with current games (at least the ones I have played) is that grouping is a pain to set up. FFXI for instance, has a nice mechanic when you are in a group (though I am not advocating it as a perfect game even group-content-wise), but it takes too long to get a group. Frankly, this should be unsurprising, as any tank-healer-dps game always has tank or healer problems. The other side of the coin is level differneces, but that can be handled via a side-kick system as some games have (I think CoH started it). The real thing that needs to be done is for the games to change so that you dont' have to be in pain when setting up a group, so that it is easy to put one together. MMORPGs should be placing the challenges for the group once it is together, not a time-sink/challenge in forming a group itself.
Beyond that, all games start solo, and I don't think I've been in one that does a good job of teaching players how to work as a team. It is left for people to muddle through. Games would gain a LOT by having some sort of system for teaching group behavior. Perhaps, like Guild Wars, early on you can get some group quests with NPCs to fill those group slots, and the quests teach you how to work with your teammate (I haven't played guild wars, I am just taking the fact it has NPCs from there, I don't know if it has quests to teach you grouping). That would make a lot more players group-competent.
Anyhow, I don't think I want less group content or more per se as a percentage of the game. I DO want the grouping mechanics to be a heck of a lot better than they are now. Forming a group and learning how to be a good teammate should flow very easily from playing, neither should be a chore. Beyond that, I'd like it more if you could more easily find challenges for small groups, such as two or three people, rather than having to get 5 or so together. If you run across one other person and help them, then they help you, and you decide to group, you shouldn't be punished by having all the content you come across made trivial -- that's a bit of a trickier problem to solve, however.
Obviously there are lots of other things we'd all love to "fix" about the current gen of MMOs, but thats not what were really talking about. I'm sure people in all three categories could find many things to agree (heh and more to disagree) on that need fixing.
I think my categories are pretty valid when you are only looking at the group vs solo question...but of course I would...I made it up after all.
Lineage 2 private server (cant say name..) is the best!!
has a balanced pvp with pve
anyway lineage2 Rocks!
Basically clicking away text windows ruins every MMO, try to have fun instead of rushing things. Without story and lore all there is left is a bunch of mechanics.
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The catagories are bad because it's basically asking the question: How do you feel about the broken group mechanics? Do you want more of them, more solo content, or are you happy?
This is the wrong question to ask (don't take this personally). Anyhow, we certainly are talking about grouping and what might need to get fixed regarding it in current MMOs. Considering the thread title is "problem with todays mmorpgs is too much soloing," then I think discussing the PROBLEMS with grouping mechanics in current MMOs is extremely relevent.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Easy respecs or the like doesn't fix the problem. Too few people are willing to heal. Some people only heal so that the group can run. Overall healing just doesn't appeal to enough people, and hence you have same massive problems with getting sufficient numbers together. The same is true with tanking (though a little less so, ime). There's also the whole thing that the tank-healer-dps system makes all bosses into complete morons, which doesn't help the case for keeping it. Keeping THD is just an excuse to keep monster AI at an insanely low level. That doesn't need to be done anymore, and so it should be done away with. To go back to the topic at hand, doing away with this would make forming groups a LOT easier, and fights would be a bit more realistically hectic and unpredictable (ideally), so you'd have to react in the moment to what was going on. That should increase replayability quite a bit. It does NOT decrease tactics, and if done well it could increase tactical considerations (narrow areas in the terrain and other geographical features could become important considerations for instance). Overall there is a ton to be gained by moving away from THD, even if it requires a bit more work.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Well, I read most of this thread and I am torn on the subject. Group vs solo. I love to solo but over the years I have gotten to where I dont want to group with anyone that is not my real life friend in game.
You ever get in a group and everything just runs smoothly? I mean everyone knows how to play their classes correctly and knows how to communicate through the battles and at the end of your gaming session, you thought to yourself, I will never ever find a group as good as this again? This does not happen often. Usually the only time you get something like this is by pure luck! You have just entered into a group of veteren MMO players. And more than likely ones that have all played eq1 when it was at its hardest (the early years).
The problems with todays MMO's are many and have been touched on by most in this thread, however there are a few things that I feel need to be talked about.
First off, lets talk about the creatures. If it takes you more than 10 seconds to kill an even level con creature, people get pissed and complain how boring the combat is. What happens with this is that devs keep speeding up the battles to the point of insanity and then you end up having groups wipe simply because someone took longer than 1/10th of a second to blink and didnt get that heal off before the fight was starting up and boom everyones dead. of course nobody cares in todays games because death penalties are absolutely almost non existant so they dont care if they die over and over again.
Combat times are just insane now. In EQ1, a fight with an even con could last you up to 5 minutes and could either way depending on if you have a bad streak of misses. But heck, at least during that time, you had time to make decisions, should I run now? should I holler for help, will I get enough mana back for one last heal, etc... The problem with that type of combat system was that you got next to nothing in terms of exp for your time. So now instead of killing 1 creature in 5 minutes, people want to kill 100 creatures in 5 minutes. What needs to be done in todays games is actually slow down the combat pace but give much bigger exp rewards. Make that one fight worth the amount of exp you would have gotten from fighting 100 of something in the same amount of time.
This gives several things back to the players. Now they have time to actually look at what they are fighting at, You get to see the true details of the creatures and environments. You have time to actually talk to your fellow players and best of all, you have a better chance of making good decisions during the battle.
Now, there is one other aspect of creatures that has really gotten under my skin with todays mmo's and that is the stupid leash systems they put on all the creatures. They need to bring back the follow you till you die or zone creatures. And no more of this flashing back to their spawn point. TRAIN TO ZONE! That means that train of creatures is going to be coming back from the zone and if your not carefull, they will jump you. That was one of the most frustrating but at the same time, most challenging aspects of the MMO's of old. I could tell you stories of fights that lasted for 30 minutes because creatures would jump in on your fight because you were to close to them when they were wandering back to their spawn location. I could also tell you horror stories of what happens when that train does go to the zone. I will never forget the time in unrest that my single group caused over 100 people in the zone to be killed. I spent the next 30 minutes rezzing everyone over that. It was one of the proudest and sadest events that ever happened to me. But my point to this is, with the current leash systems and ignoring others or simply teleporting back to their own spawnpoints, it has made the worlds much much less dangerous. About a year ago, I reactivated my eq1 account for a month. I was walking my level 49 cleric around in the revamped lavastorm zone. I didnt hardly remember what my spells did and afterwards realized, I didnt even have the right spells loaded. But in just running around the zone checking out how they changed it, I had a veritable shitload of (gray) creatures running after my butt. If it was not for the Jboots my cleric had, he would have surely died. heck, it took me almost 10 minutes to find the zone to get out and probably a quarter of the zone chasing me the entire time. I had forgotten all about that and even after being gone for years, I felt that little twinge of fear that my character might die and to gray creatures no less. Something that I have not felt for many many years in todays mmo's.
Think about that for a moment. I havent played EQ in many years, and yet, the fear of death in that game was so great that many years later, You still feel it even if you no longer cared about your characters, you did not want to see them die. I dare anyone to show me a MMO today that can make you connect with your characters on that deep of a level. You can't, because None exist today.
I know the feelings about rose colored glasses. I had many things that I hated about eq as well and still do, but compared to todays mmo's, they are but a shallow copy of what was once a great and exciting world to explore. Where Danger actually meant something. Death meant something, exploring was the greatest challenge of them all because death was something to fear. Corpse runs sucked ass and I hated them, but without them, the danger would have not been present. the fear would have not been present. The overwhelming joy of victory would not have been present or the overwhelming sadness of defeat would not have been present. These elements are but a shallow reprensentation in todays mmo's. People talk about how hard raids are in todays mmo's. I wont deny you that, but here is some food for thought.
To get a glimpse of the above feelings pretty much requires you to already be at the end game of the mmo. Where the devs have scripted such unfathomable bullshit that people have to go through to achieve victory on a raid. Where there is only 1 or if your lucky 2 ways of possibly ever killing a raid boss. So, you spend many hours figuring out how to kill that boss and when you do, WOOHOO! you have achieved something great and feel awesome.
Back in our day. You got that feeling and probably way more intensely through out the entire game. You didnt have to wait till the end game to feel like that. You got that from simply winning a fight with what people today would consider yard trash just going to a dungeon.
See, that is why the mmo vets keep harping on this. Its not to bash WoW or any other game. I played wow for 2 years and enjoyed its simplicity and ease of playing. But not once did it truely invoke intense feelings of accomplishment or joy or sadness. It was enjoyable but nothing great (and I even played on a pvp server in wow). That is what the MMO devs of today have lost and I seriously doubt it will ever return and that should make everyone sad because many of you will never know how good you could have it.
I'm not against solo content at all, but a decent proportion of it should be challenging.
There should be content available that differentiates a good player from an average player. If all solo content is run-of-the-mill stuff that anyone can plough through, then I get throroughly bored.
I, like most people, want to differentiate myself from the masses, when the only way of doing that is through time investment (rep-grinding, for instance), not through skill or clever thinking, then the game design isn't good enough.
While I agree healing in WoW lead to some serious burnout on the raid end of things, druid healing took far longer to hit that point. More to the point, PVP healing in WoW was always a blast for me on my druid, and my girlfriend's paladin. Nothing in that game PVP-wise was much more satisfying than knowing you were making the difference in your team winning a BG by the sheer number of heals going out especially if the other team lacked them.
People may hate the classic 'THD' setup, but in the end these are *role* playing games, and I've always been one to defend tanking and healing because I thoroughly enjoy being on the support end of things in most games. I love being the guy that makes groups work, or makes them better, and allows the over-glorified DPS classes actually get to make use of their abilities and enjoy them rather than dread not choosing a class that heals/tanks themselves because their current one sucks. Nothing beats making the folks you enjoy playing with enjoy their time played, at least from where I sit.
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."
George Bernard Shaw
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Oscar Wilde
If you want a game where it doesn't matter what class you are for groups, try The Chronicles of Spellborn. Every damn class in that game is a hybrid. And everybody has at least some kind of heal, just in different ways.
I like it, it's very refreshing from normal MMOs -- kinda FPS style with a weird skill bar (or should I say, "wheel"). Not much to do other than PVP and level up, but I'm having fun, moreso than most MMOs I've been playing.
It's not exactly heavily grouped based either, at least I've soloed most of the time myself, but people are always chatting in zone-chat for groups to tackle the strong named mobs in the area.
As for death penalty, it actually makes me not want to die. In addition to normal exp points, you gain pep points. After five levels of pep it caps. Each level significantly either raises your stats or makes you attack faster, do more damage, and run faster. Each time you die, you lose a level of pep. Every encounter I'm not sure on, I get a sense of risk assesment. The game has long aggro ranges, so if I'm fighting 1 vs 1 and suddenly two wolves aggro on me, I've gotta make a decision to fight or flight. It's almost like a feeling of accomplishment and pride having your pep level high as everybody can see it. When I was first playing, I went AFK and someone trained a bunch of mobs on me (yes, EQ style trains). That sucked. But now I feel a little sense of danger no matter where I am and I like that.
I'll stop here before I go infomercial on everybody. Anyway, check it out if you want. Not for everybody, but it's something new.
//
The funny thing is for me my first MMO was Ultima Online.
So this whole concept of "must have tank, healer .. dps" was alien to me and why I really didn't like EQ1 when it came out. Yes I always ran back to UO and only came (kicking and screaming) back to EQ1 when my old UO guild cried enough. Then I'd make it a max of 2 weeks and be back in UO.
I honestly can't stand the "core game mechanics" most MMO's have chosen to go with. This isn't to say UO was perfect.. far from it. Yet I think it was closer than the endless EQ clones (yes sorry to me WoW is actually an EQ clone because of the same "core mechanics".) I'll apologize up front if M59 or NwN on AoL used those mechanics as I never played them.
There were certainly mobs in UO that you needed other people to kill. Tho most things could be solo'd if you were willing to learn the game.
Which comes back to in todays MMO's most people don't learn the game. You follow the lemming pack around until you have all the shiny toys aka uber loot and/or specail abilities etc (I win buttons yay)... The entire game is based on having this gear etc but not on learning how to play...
I would love to see difficulty brought back into a game... where the people who really learn the game can excel. Don't confuse that with todays games where its how many hours you can put in (back to gear etc). Learning is something that will come much faster to some... even if you are casual your ability to learn is not limited by anything other than yourself.
Group content to me is something that should exist either because there is a monster that hard or an area that would just be impossible due to the amount of mobs. I really hate the entire arguement of solo versus group as I think grouping should be something you do because you are social.. making friends or have a guild etc I don't think its something that should be forced..
And even beyond that many of the mechanics of todays games actually make grouping a negative.
Anyway sorry for the ramble.. but to me the perfect MMO would have been an evolution of UO...
The only thing that came close was SWG Pre-CU and that was far more limited than UO was (class kill system as opposed to open skill system among other things). I call SWG Pre-CU a class skill system because its the easiest term I can come up with in comparison to UO.
I think the main reason I've not seen this and maybe never will is because... The vast majority of "customers" only know MMO's as:
1) Levels
2) Uber Loot
3) I win buttons or special abilities
So making a game based on player economy, crafting and actually having to know how the game works... well anyway.
Thanks for the good read.
thats why ive been playing this mini online games to refresh my "boredom"
we need more party/social oriented mmo
MyBrute = addicting mini online game!
The problem is not too much soloing, the problem is too little group action.
EQ2 for one have a lot of grouping. There is soloing enough for people that prefer that too but the focus is grouping. Games from the last few years could learn from that.
If people want to solo, no problem. And sometimes I play odd hours, when I can't get a group I solo. If that option wasn't there I would be forced to not play those hours.
I like to be the one who chooses if I want to group or solo in my mmorpg. Most of the time I play with my RL friends and solo when none of them are online. I HATE picking up random groups, I have no interest in waiting for everyone going afk every 5mins or group breaking in the middle of instance or long quest chain. With my friends I know they don't pop in and out every once in a while or bring their RL sh*t into game.
It's a shame, I know. I must have missed tons of good guys/friends but I just find it easier this way.
Exactly the same here, Mortemia. I never, ever group with people I don't already know in RL. It's a waste of time and ultimately pointless to team up with strangers.
No your wrong. Grouping with people you do know is the best way to get to know new people, sure you going to have to deal with your fair share of morons but you will gain alot of good friends.
Its not a waste of time to get to know new people. It sad when people think the way you do, how in the world are you going to deal with RL if you can't even make new friends online?
I mostly group with guild mates but in EQ1 I did a ton of Pick up groups and I loved it, I met some great people that I still talk to today.
Sooner or Later
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Let's compare. I play a Wiz in EQ from beta and a mage in WOW.
In EQ, grinding mob for a wiz is very boring. You essentially root, and nuke. Nothing else. You only use your main nuke and it has a cast time.
In WOW, the mage class has a mix of cast-time nukes, and instances, and also procs. There are also fun spells like mirror image and getting of out a jam spell like invis (i remember you can't use invis in EQ during combat, but that was a while back). In fact, WOW requires the mage to use much more complex spell rotations that EQ.
Oh, and WOW does not require the mage (wiz) to sit there for 10 min after each fight.
Wow, I could not of said it better myself. Although I never played EQ, (and after reading this I regret not playing it) I played Ultima Online, and from how you described the game, I can relate to what you're saying.
One thing I loved about UO was: Dying was a horrible experience, because whatever you had on you, consider it gone (that's if you were killed in PvP). And you could do the same to other players and take whats theirs. More rewarding then just getting points or something of that sort.
I wouldn't go as far as to say WoW was easy. I remember many challenging times playing that game. I used to quest with a friend of mine and we'd go do some quests, just me an him, that normally take a couple more people. I was an orc shaman and he was a troll warrior. There were many times when we just barely pulled it off and it felt pretty rewarding. Wouldn't get me nearly as emotional as when I used to play UO (and I'm talking about UO pvp not PvE because imo the PvE in UO was nothing great). And yes, dying didn't really bother me, other than the fact that it just wasted time running back to my body.
Some of the 5 man instances were pretty challenging too, and many times I would get annoyed with the group I was in because the players just weren't on point. I remember I grouped with 4 other people I had never grouped with, they were a guild called Purple Haze and needed one more person, so I said ok. They turned out to be the best group I had ever been with. We all knew how to play our roles to the fullest, after we were done, they instantly recruited me and we had lots of fun doing 5 man instances.
I never really did like doing raides because it just took too many people and was sloppy. I enjoyed 5 man instances more because it gave you a chance to really see the skill level of the people you were with, and every person really makes a contribution. So either you can shine or... just suck.
What I'm looking for in an MMO is one where there are no factions, like Horde & Alliance. One where you could either be an outcast loner killer, or join a guild and run with them. Similiar to UO, but with better PvE. And naturally taking on harder enemies you'll be forced to group up. But when it came down to it, you could kill whoever you wanted to(players). And to implement something like UO, if you were a murderer you couldn't enter some of the main cities and were forced to go to other cities where there were no guards, but you weren't safe from other murderers.
I also thought crafting in UO was so fun, and rewarding. You could own a house, have a anvil go mining return home smelt your ore, then create some pretty nice stuff. And it wasn't like WoW where you had to go to certain spawn points to get ore, you could just go in a mine and start mining away.
Man, I miss those UO days..
EDIT: Wow, I forgot one thing. THE thing I liked most about UO was it was NOT class oriented. You could make either an all-around guy who was mediocre in a lot of things or specialize in a couple. You could make your character so many different things.
The funny thing is for me my first MMO was Ultima Online.
So this whole concept of "must have tank, healer .. dps" was alien to me and why I really didn't like EQ1 when it came out. Yes I always ran back to UO and only came (kicking and screaming) back to EQ1 when my old UO guild cried enough. Then I'd make it a max of 2 weeks and be back in UO.
I honestly can't stand the "core game mechanics" most MMO's have chosen to go with. This isn't to say UO was perfect.. far from it. Yet I think it was closer than the endless EQ clones (yes sorry to me WoW is actually an EQ clone because of the same "core mechanics".) I'll apologize up front if M59 or NwN on AoL used those mechanics as I never played them.
There were certainly mobs in UO that you needed other people to kill. Tho most things could be solo'd if you were willing to learn the game.
Which comes back to in todays MMO's most people don't learn the game. You follow the lemming pack around until you have all the shiny toys aka uber loot and/or specail abilities etc (I win buttons yay)... The entire game is based on having this gear etc but not on learning how to play...
I would love to see difficulty brought back into a game... where the people who really learn the game can excel. Don't confuse that with todays games where its how many hours you can put in (back to gear etc). Learning is something that will come much faster to some... even if you are casual your ability to learn is not limited by anything other than yourself.
Group content to me is something that should exist either because there is a monster that hard or an area that would just be impossible due to the amount of mobs. I really hate the entire arguement of solo versus group as I think grouping should be something you do because you are social.. making friends or have a guild etc I don't think its something that should be forced..
And even beyond that many of the mechanics of todays games actually make grouping a negative.
Anyway sorry for the ramble.. but to me the perfect MMO would have been an evolution of UO...
The only thing that came close was SWG Pre-CU and that was far more limited than UO was (class kill system as opposed to open skill system among other things). I call SWG Pre-CU a class skill system because its the easiest term I can come up with in comparison to UO.
I think the main reason I've not seen this and maybe never will is because... The vast majority of "customers" only know MMO's as:
1) Levels
2) Uber Loot
3) I win buttons or special abilities
So making a game based on player economy, crafting and actually having to know how the game works... well anyway.
That's kinda scary, I just replied to a comment on page 14, then I go to the next page to continue reading and you say pretty much exactly the same thing I've said.
UO FTW!
Let's compare. I play a Wiz in EQ from beta and a mage in WOW.
In EQ, grinding mob for a wiz is very boring. You essentially root, and nuke. Nothing else. You only use your main nuke and it has a cast time.
In WOW, the mage class has a mix of cast-time nukes, and instances, and also procs. There are also fun spells like mirror image and getting of out a jam spell like invis (i remember you can't use invis in EQ during combat, but that was a while back). In fact, WOW requires the mage to use much more complex spell rotations that EQ.
Oh, and WOW does not require the mage (wiz) to sit there for 10 min after each fight.
You are right in that in combat, root and nuke was the way of the wizard. But for all your "extra" spells in wow, it still boils down to the same thing. You got to use invis to get out of a jam. The eq wiz used root and ran like hell. Same difference. The EQ wiz also got group teleports to spires (an extra way to earn cash from players in game). They also had some teleports to go to the planes that only they could cast to get parties up there. Invis in EQ was much different than in wow. If you had a bad rep in a city, you could use invis to get through that city without getting killed. You dont really have that in wow. What you did in EQ had consequences and serious ones at that. You could get yourself KOS to many cities if you did the wrong things.
You are absolutly right about the down time though. WoW has no more than 30 seconds of downtime for pretty much any class. They used food and drink as a way to regain everything quickly. Where as EQ used food and drink as something that kept you alive. If you ran out of food, your health couldn't regen, No water, your mana couldn't regen either. That was a big deal in EQ. But, for downtime, you could get buffs from other classes that significantly lowered your downtime but you still had a crapload more downtime than compared to wow or pretty much any other mmo. The big thing about downtime back in EQ was it gave you time to socialize with your group and others that were in the zone. Here is just a small example of what made the community aspect of the game so much more appealing than anything today.
One zone called solusek B (SOL B for short) had many different creatures in it and was absolutely huge. No instancing, everyone going after their own things. But when you got deep enough, you started coming upon Fire giants. When fighting them, they would summon your ass to them when you did to much damage or if you tried to rest to regain mana during the fight. And everyone in the zone knew when those battles where going on because the fire giants would do a zone yell "You will not evade me DoomsDay!" and then summon you right to him. Yells from many of the people in the zone not even relating to the fight is encouraging you on. "DONT LET THAT FIRE GIANT WIN, GET HIM DOOMSDAY!" It was an awesome feeling to see people encourage you on like that. You dont really have that in most mmo's today. They have taken the social aspect away from the game. So yes, there is little to no downtime in most mmo's today. But the overall health of the game and the community suffers because of it.
As for the depth statement that was made. You have to remember that eq had lots of spells in the game for every class. yet you could not just use everything at anytime you wanted. You could only use a limited number of them (I think it was 8) without sitting down and memorizing different ones (Which took time). You had to be knowledgable about your class and the situation you were going into and pick the right spells. Having access to all spells all the time is almost a WIN button for todays mmo players.
Ahh, happy days of EQ until Sony mangled it. I still remember the actual fear a lot of players had - myself included - when your character was in a new zone, or being about to die in a fight. Death was a hell of a disaster sometimes, simply because you had to spawn at your Bind point, sometimes several zones away, and head back to your corpse with no gear whatsoever. In the days before ingame maps this could result in yet more deaths as you blundered around an unfamiliar zone, losing XP with each death. Death in games like WoW is purely trivial, to the detriment of the game, at least in my opinion.
I disagree. Its your preference of gamer... find a game that does requires grouping... like for example.. Final Fantasy XI Online.
Kain_Dale