You don't just want group content,you want the game to be designed around grouping.Linear questing is a solo ,single player game design,does not belong in a mmorpg.Now questing not related to xp and just random is quite alright and then it doesn't need to be all grouping either.
Too much focus now a days is on instance raiding for loot,way too shallow of game design for my liking.What do we need,more character customization "well beyond visuals" and better more fun combat "not silly ideas,like somersaults and flying into the air then coming down with a massive AOE,killing 10 mobs ".
We need more systems,so the game feels like a living world.That means an eco system,active npc's,more AI etc etc.We need far less automation and more perhaps mini game like events that make our player look like a real person in a world.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Iselin said:
MMOs need a world populated by many NPC factions with their own agendas and goals. A game that, in a sense, plays itself with interesting conflicts and world changing events without the need for player interaction.
Once you have that, you then add players who can interact with some or all of those factions in ways that can also change the world and the factions.
There is nothing in MMOs that is more immersion busting than static quest arcs that are simply there to provide the illusion for an individual player that he has contributed in a meaningful way only to have that arc repeat itself forever for the next players in the queue as if nothing had happened.
Everything else is details.
___________________________________________
Very true.
It baffles me that AI in these games has remained so stagnant over the years. NPCs almost exclusively have no actionable personality- only flavor text. Mobs are dishearteningly predictable in their reactions to player interaction and battle tactics. The only major changes to this formula have been boss battles- and I'm sorry, but that's not good enough. Every group of mobs in the game should have the same type of unique combat AI as bosses do. Too much focus is being spent on creating "unique" player characters. FPS games have thrived since the advent of 3D graphics not on the ability of players to create a unique character, but the ability of developers to constantly create unique situations and challenges for players to tackle. The most successfully innovative of those titles incorporate simple, straightforward character customization with unique, open-ended challenges that can be solved in a variety of ways.
This tendency to focus so exclusively on the player character is a fatal flaw. Allow me to create a physically unique avatar, let me make a few straightforward choices about how I wish to play him/her, then completely focus your efforts on ensuring I do not encounter the same exact challenge multiple times.
Iselin said:
MMOs need a world populated by many NPC factions with their own agendas and goals. A game that, in a sense, plays itself with interesting conflicts and world changing events without the need for player interaction.
Once you have that, you then add players who can interact with some or all of those factions in ways that can also change the world and the factions.
There is nothing in MMOs that is more immersion busting than static quest arcs that are simply there to provide the illusion for an individual player that he has contributed in a meaningful way only to have that arc repeat itself forever for the next players in the queue as if nothing had happened.
Everything else is details.
___________________________________________
Very true.
It baffles me that AI in these games has remained so stagnant over the years. NPCs almost exclusively have no actionable personality- only flavor text. Mobs are dishearteningly predictable in their reactions to player interaction and battle tactics. The only major changes to this formula have been boss battles- and I'm sorry, but that's not good enough. Every group of mobs in the game should have the same type of unique combat AI as bosses do. Too much focus is being spent on creating "unique" player characters. FPS games have thrived since the advent of 3D graphics not on the ability of players to create a unique character, but the ability of developers to constantly create unique situations and challenges for players to tackle. The most successfully innovative of those titles incorporate simple, straightforward character customization with unique, open-ended challenges that can be solved in a variety of ways.
This tendency to focus so exclusively on the player character is a fatal flaw. Allow me to create a physically unique avatar, let me make a few straightforward choices about how I wish to play him/her, then completely focus your efforts on ensuring I do not encounter the same exact challenge multiple times.
The absence of good AI is even more glaring when you play a good single player game that focuses on NPC and mob AI at least a little bit.
I've been playing Fallout 4 recently and it's great to wander around and see different factions fighting each other without any intervention from me. I've wandered into areas where Supermutants are fighting with The Gunners, or raiders with the BOS... sometimes there is even a 3rd faction like a beast also fighting them both. This happens frequently enough that the game gives you the impression that there is fighting going on everywhere all the time whether you're there or not. It doesn't matter that it's an illusion and that the game is actually doing nothing other than in your presence. The important thing is that they pull off giving us that impression.
Themepark MMOs on the other hand, stage repeatable canned events and then clean up and reset ready for the next player to come by and trigger the whole thing over again.
The funny thing is that even the better self-respecting MMORPGs that at least try to be different in how you develop characters, how the crating is done, how the combat happens... are quite happy to just copy all the other ones in this one respect that undermines every other attempt to be different. The most they ever do to try to enhance the illusion is to add before and after phasing to pretend that something world changing did happen.
It's all part of the same misguided desire to shoehorn a single player story line into a multiplayer environment. It puts way too much onus on us to suspend disbelief and ignore the fact that everyone else nearby is going through the same steps to kill that local mini-boss that just resets forever. We shouldn't need to do that. They're multi player games and every part of the design should keep that in mind.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
The absence of good AI is even more glaring when you play a good single player game that focuses on NPC and mob AI at least a little bit.
I've been playing Fallout 4 recently and it's great to wander around and see different factions fighting each other without any intervention from me. I've wandered into areas where Supermutants are fighting with The Gunners, or raiders with the BOS... sometimes there is even a 3rd faction like a beast also fighting them both. This happens frequently enough that the game gives you the impression that there is fighting going on everywhere all the time whether you're there or not. It doesn't matter that it's an illusion and that the game is actually doing nothing other than in your presence. The important thing is that they pull off giving us that impression.
Themepark MMOs on the other hand, stage repeatable canned events and then clean up and reset ready for the next player to come by and trigger the whole thing over again.
The funny thing is that even the better self-respecting MMORPGs that at least try to be different in how you develop characters, how the crating is done, how the combat happens... are quite happy to just copy all the other ones in this one respect that undermines every other attempt to be different. The most they ever do to try to enhance the illusion is to add before and after phasing to pretend that something world changing did happen.
It's all part of the same misguided desire to shoehorn a single player story line into a multiplayer environment. It puts way too much onus on us to suspend disbelief and ignore the fact that everyone else nearby is going through the same steps to kill that local mini-boss that just resets forever. We shouldn't need to do that. They're multi player games and every part of the design should keep that in mind.
Haven't played Fallout 4 yet, but a good friend of mine has it and that's the same type of story I'm hearing from him. Specifically, he mentioned a battle between the Brotherhood and Super Mutants. The Mutants were holed up in a building the Brotherhood was attempting to flush them out of/capture. He stumbled upon this scene already in action. As he was watching (and helping the Brotherhood), the soldiers brought in an aircraft of some sort (never played so not sure what exactly) to drop more troops/engage the Mutants. This was working, he said, until a Mutant stood up on the roof of the building and shot the aircraft down with a rocket. All of this would have went down, in some shape, even without his intervention on the part of the Brotherhood. Yet he could influence the outcome with his actions, which would in turn affect the two factions' opinions of him. That is a living, breathing world.
The closest I've ever seen any MMORPG come to something so significantly "alive" were the random base invasions of Tabula Rasa. That was a long time ago, and it was much more basic version of the Fallout story, but that just further reinforces the point: considering TR and Fallout and the time that has passed and the technologies that have advanced, why in the hell are we still dealing with such stale, wooden, and archaic NPCs and AI design in MMORPGs??
Why has it gone so largely ignored for so long? MOBAS are popular, in no small part, because the opponents faced are rational individuals who are largely unpredictable, resulting in unique experiences.. While no one asks that such a level of complexity be achieved here, why does it seem no one is even interested in working on it?
Comments
Too much focus now a days is on instance raiding for loot,way too shallow of game design for my liking.What do we need,more character customization "well beyond visuals" and better more fun combat "not silly ideas,like somersaults and flying into the air then coming down with a massive AOE,killing 10 mobs ".
We need more systems,so the game feels like a living world.That means an eco system,active npc's,more AI etc etc.We need far less automation and more perhaps mini game like events that make our player look like a real person in a world.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
MMOs need a world populated by many NPC factions with their own agendas and goals. A game that, in a sense, plays itself with interesting conflicts and world changing events without the need for player interaction.
Once you have that, you then add players who can interact with some or all of those factions in ways that can also change the world and the factions.
There is nothing in MMOs that is more immersion busting than static quest arcs that are simply there to provide the illusion for an individual player that he has contributed in a meaningful way only to have that arc repeat itself forever for the next players in the queue as if nothing had happened.
Everything else is details.
___________________________________________
Very true.
It baffles me that AI in these games has remained so stagnant over the years. NPCs almost exclusively have no actionable personality- only flavor text. Mobs are dishearteningly predictable in their reactions to player interaction and battle tactics. The only major changes to this formula have been boss battles- and I'm sorry, but that's not good enough. Every group of mobs in the game should have the same type of unique combat AI as bosses do. Too much focus is being spent on creating "unique" player characters. FPS games have thrived since the advent of 3D graphics not on the ability of players to create a unique character, but the ability of developers to constantly create unique situations and challenges for players to tackle. The most successfully innovative of those titles incorporate simple, straightforward character customization with unique, open-ended challenges that can be solved in a variety of ways.
This tendency to focus so exclusively on the player character is a fatal flaw. Allow me to create a physically unique avatar, let me make a few straightforward choices about how I wish to play him/her, then completely focus your efforts on ensuring I do not encounter the same exact challenge multiple times.
I've been playing Fallout 4 recently and it's great to wander around and see different factions fighting each other without any intervention from me. I've wandered into areas where Supermutants are fighting with The Gunners, or raiders with the BOS... sometimes there is even a 3rd faction like a beast also fighting them both. This happens frequently enough that the game gives you the impression that there is fighting going on everywhere all the time whether you're there or not. It doesn't matter that it's an illusion and that the game is actually doing nothing other than in your presence. The important thing is that they pull off giving us that impression.
Themepark MMOs on the other hand, stage repeatable canned events and then clean up and reset ready for the next player to come by and trigger the whole thing over again.
The funny thing is that even the better self-respecting MMORPGs that at least try to be different in how you develop characters, how the crating is done, how the combat happens... are quite happy to just copy all the other ones in this one respect that undermines every other attempt to be different. The most they ever do to try to enhance the illusion is to add before and after phasing to pretend that something world changing did happen.
It's all part of the same misguided desire to shoehorn a single player story line into a multiplayer environment. It puts way too much onus on us to suspend disbelief and ignore the fact that everyone else nearby is going through the same steps to kill that local mini-boss that just resets forever. We shouldn't need to do that. They're multi player games and every part of the design should keep that in mind.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
The closest I've ever seen any MMORPG come to something so significantly "alive" were the random base invasions of Tabula Rasa. That was a long time ago, and it was much more basic version of the Fallout story, but that just further reinforces the point: considering TR and Fallout and the time that has passed and the technologies that have advanced, why in the hell are we still dealing with such stale, wooden, and archaic NPCs and AI design in MMORPGs??
Why has it gone so largely ignored for so long? MOBAS are popular, in no small part, because the opponents faced are rational individuals who are largely unpredictable, resulting in unique experiences.. While no one asks that such a level of complexity be achieved here, why does it seem no one is even interested in working on it?