Combat rotations are what make gold botters possible.
On a technical level pretty much all games have combat rotations. In the long run there is a mechanically most optimized way to use a system, and players are going to work any game over as a collective until they find it.
Players could run into a MOB to MOB encounter while it's happening and things could get interesting.
So, basically, in modern MMO games, mobs have 1/8th of your health, do 1/8th of your damage, and stand still so you can hit them. Winning all the time is.. i guess.. fun, but not necessarily rewarding. Beating a boss on your first encounter, that everyone else beat on their first encounter, is quite forgettable. Attempting a boss 11 times and finally downing him feels super rewarding.
It would be nice to play a game where the mobs you're fighting actually want to live, and you have to employ pvp level skills to kill them. The average player doesn't want to let you finish them and will use all means necessary to escape. Chasing down mobs would suck, so you'd learn how to butter them up and burst at the end like in a pvp engagement. (from a dps perspective)
You can get to max level on 90% of new mmo games by rolling your face around on your keyboard.
The thing I'd add here is that if beating that Boss the 11th time gives you a sure fire way of beating it every time thereafter because it's static, that's bad too.
For me, I want to see games get away from simply respawning the same boss in the same place to be beaten in the same way. That's why I listed a system where changes come into play constantly. And I do believe that a dead Boss should stay dead. Let another MOB Boss move in to take it's place. Another thing the system I listed can do.
Ya one game I played had boss level mobs that sometimes would spawn with really amazing buffs, (berserker double damage), or (Resist all magic), or (Resist all physical damage), or other stuff like that... Players would either have to organize a really amazing group to take it down, or throw corpses at it sometimes even, or they'd just have to wait for a weekly server reboot and hope something else spawns LOL.
Open world group and elite mobs have mostly been removed from games in order to make things easier. We started out with all mobs being what is considered elite in MMOs. Then we moved to having a mix of solo and group mobs with labels to tell you if they are elite or not. Now things are sectioned of into all solo mobs (open world instances/phases), all group mobs in group instances, all raid mobs in raid instances. It's pretty difficult to deviate from the path the developer set for players to follow.
Difficulty is experienced subjectively by individuals.
A common mistake is assuming that a 50k hp mob designed to be fought by 5 players is actually harder than a 10k mob designed to be fought by one player. It's not. Each player still individually only has to contribute 10k damage to the fight over a certain period of time to win.
Deliberately fighting those elites solo doesn't make things harder either -- at least not in a way you couldn't achieve in modern MMORPGs by entering dungeons solo.
It usually does. I pointed out the kiting tactics in EQ, but even in Vanilla WoW when I would kill elites designed for groups in the open world I had to come up with a more effective strategy to take them down. I couldn't just go through the motions and win the fight (DPS rotation). The closer the fight is in terms of weather you win or lose the more effective a strategy you need in most cases.
It usually does. I pointed out the kiting tactics in EQ, but even in Vanilla WoW when I would kill elites designed for groups in the open world I had to come up with a more effective strategy to take them down. I couldn't just go through the motions and win the fight (DPS rotation). The closer the fight is in terms of weather you win or lose the more effective a strategy you need in most cases.
Those mobs still exist in dungeons. You still need a different strategy to kill them.
"It's pretty difficult to deviate from the path the developer set for players to follow." Nope, just walk into a dungeon. Not difficult.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
It usually does. I pointed out the kiting tactics in EQ, but even in Vanilla WoW when I would kill elites designed for groups in the open world I had to come up with a more effective strategy to take them down. I couldn't just go through the motions and win the fight (DPS rotation). The closer the fight is in terms of weather you win or lose the more effective a strategy you need in most cases.
Those mobs still exist in dungeons. You still need a different strategy to kill them.
"It's pretty difficult to deviate from the path the developer set for players to follow." Nope, just walk into a dungeon. Not difficult.
As mentioned those dungeons are made for a certain level and a certain amount of people. Generally you can't go in and even if you can you can't get very far on your own.
That's the advantage of having those types of mobs mixed into the open world. People can join up and duo them or try to come up with strategies to take them down solo.
I remember using the Druid to kill some dungeon bosses in WoW solo, but that is getting increasingly impossible as developers don't want you to do it and are good at preventing it from happening. They usually want you to follow a very specific path and do it in a specific way.
As mentioned those dungeons are made for a certain level and a certain amount of people. Generally you can't go in and even if you can you can't get very far on your own.
That's the advantage of having those types of mobs mixed into the open world. People can join up and duo them or try to come up with strategies to take them down solo.
I remember using the Druid to kill some dungeon bosses in WoW solo, but that is getting increasingly impossible as developers don't want you to do it and are good at preventing it from happening. They usually want you to follow a very specific path and do it in a specific way.
What on earth are you talking about?
Many early MMORPG mobs were designed to be killed by a group.
Modern dungeon mobs are designed to be killed by a group.
It's literally the exact same thing. If you can't get far on your own, that comes down to your skill and your class.
I haven't seen developers do much to specifically eliminate that playstyle (except when it was really broken, like when farmers repeatedly farmed Dire Maul with a teleport cheat in Vanilla WOW.) There are one-off encounters that can put a much higher pressure on having multiple players (first encounter in BWL is still hard to solo even with modern WOW gear,) but those are done to create a more interesting encounter, not to specifically eliminate soloing it.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
As mentioned those dungeons are made for a certain level and a certain amount of people. Generally you can't go in and even if you can you can't get very far on your own.
That's the advantage of having those types of mobs mixed into the open world. People can join up and duo them or try to come up with strategies to take them down solo.
I remember using the Druid to kill some dungeon bosses in WoW solo, but that is getting increasingly impossible as developers don't want you to do it and are good at preventing it from happening. They usually want you to follow a very specific path and do it in a specific way.
What on earth are you talking about?
Many early MMORPG mobs were designed to be killed by a group.
Modern dungeon mobs are designed to be killed by a group.
It's literally the exact same thing. If you can't get far on your own, that comes down to your skill and your class.
I haven't seen developers do much to specifically eliminate that playstyle (except when it was really broken, like when farmers repeatedly farmed Dire Maul with a teleport cheat in Vanilla WOW.) There are one-off encounters that can put a much higher pressure on having multiple players (first encounter in BWL is still hard to solo even with modern WOW gear,) but those are done to create a more interesting encounter, not to specifically eliminate soloing it.
So, Axehilt, you seem to be the flag bearer of modern mmo game style. You come to the defense of every criticism of the state of the genre. That's okay, and I respect and enjoy hearing your opinion, so I want to ask you a couple questions yourself.
1) How much time per week do you spend playing mmos?
2) Do you wish you spent more or less time playing mmos?
3) Assuming(hypothetically) you currently spend as much time playing mmos as you want to, what could developers change to make you desire to spend more time playing?
4) If you found that you didn't have access to a game style that you previously enjoyed because the entire genre (498 out of 500 statistically) was adulterated by modern feature over-implementation, how would you most politely seek to bring it back without drawing the ire of people who are currently satisfied like yourself?
My goal isn't to insult people like youself. I just want to get off the theme park rails and play in a free world like the old games had. I don't want a survival sandbox or full loot pvp, just a game that is open and free where I can develop my avatar on a path or through grind or in a multitude of other manners of my own choosing. I don't care if there's a chore quest leveling path, as long as it's not this all invasive and efficient advancement path.
Devs want you to do their chores and they punish people who aren't interested with slow leveling and other types of inefficiency.
I just want to get off the theme park rails and play in a free world like the old games had.
Fair enough, but my big problem with that is that people use EQ as example for "free world games"... The only true "free world" games among the three first major MMORPGs were UO and AC1. EQ was heavily level dependent, therefore you were always restricted to stick to stuff around your level, therefore it wasn't a "free world".
Level dependency doesn't bother me as long as it's not enforced with curving experience and combat efficiency. For example if you get 10 experience from a mob at level 1, it should give 10 experience at level 32.. and if a level 1 does 15 damage to a level 2 mob with 80ish hp, a level 1 should be able to do 15 damage to a level 42 mob that has lots more hp. Damage mitigation is understandable, but if you're stabbing a naked mob it shouldn't mitigate your damage to death, maybe it takes forever and a lot of kiting to kill, that's ok. If damage mitigation is % based it makes more sense. 30% mitigation against a melee blow whether it is a 250 point blow or a 15 point blow. And so on.
Loot driven game, even crafting material was only only obtained by combat. Class driven and everyone in the same class was identical (almost anyway). No effect on the game world, couldn't change a single thing, not even instance housing. Everything created and done 100% by the developer, no player authorship at all.
EQ was a themepark through and through. A decent one yes, and different from today. Yes but still a themepark
No it didn't have quest hubs. No it didn't tell you where to go, but all the above is still true.
You can't use the argument that you could go anywhere at any level because you couldn't. Planes were level restricted. And if you talk original to Luclin, well with the exception of dungeons you can go anywhere in WoW too. It's just stupid to do so.
But bards were better there than in any other game. Monks too. Druids.... I go back and forth on that one.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
So, Axehilt, you seem to be the flag bearer of modern mmo game style. You come to the defense of every criticism of the state of the genre. That's okay, and I respect and enjoy hearing your opinion, so I want to ask you a couple questions yourself.
1) How much time per week do you spend playing mmos?
2) Do you wish you spent more or less time playing mmos?
3) Assuming(hypothetically) you currently spend as much time playing mmos as you want to, what could developers change to make you desire to spend more time playing?
4) If you found that you didn't have access to a game style that you previously enjoyed because the entire genre (498 out of 500 statistically) was adulterated by modern feature over-implementation, how would you most politely seek to bring it back without drawing the ire of people who are currently satisfied like yourself?
My goal isn't to insult people like youself. I just want to get off the theme park rails and play in a free world like the old games had. I don't want a survival sandbox or full loot pvp, just a game that is open and free where I can develop my avatar on a path or through grind or in a multitude of other manners of my own choosing. I don't care if there's a chore quest leveling path, as long as it's not this all invasive and efficient advancement path.
Devs want you to do their chores and they punish people who aren't interested with slow leveling and other types of inefficiency.
No, I'm the flag bearer of good game design. When I lift up WOW's demonology rotation as the bar to beat, it cuts both ways: thus far in all the threads I've mentioned it, the only non-WOW rotation of similar depth that someone has mentioned was the Lancer class in FFXIV.
This means modern MMORPGs also fail to provide deep gameplay like they should.
But apart from implementation details, broader broader concepts like quests are just a better design as they objectively result in more gameplay variety than games without quests where you're essentially encouraged to endlessly grind mobs (and actually penalized if you seek variety.) Not every quest implementation is perfect (some of them implement too little activity variety, and several have too little mob variety in their kill quests) but it still results in more variety than early MMORPGs where there was no reason to do anything but repetitively grind mobs in an area until you outleveled that area.
I play MMORPGs ~12 hours a week currently.
This is a really bizarre question. I don't latch onto a genre and "wish I spent more time in it". I look for good games.
I already covered one of many shortcomings of MMORPG design that limits my interest: Non-WOW games have consistently been shallower than WOW. Want to rip me away from WOW permanently? Create a deeper game.
Again, I feel it's completely backwards to pick a genre. You try a bunch of games, and pick a game. It's ridiculous to wall yourself into a specific genre, especially if you know you hate all the modern games of that genre.
If you honestly don't care if the questing path exists, why don't you just pick a MMORPG and grind? That option exists in literally every game.
There is literally no way to have an endless-mob-grind activity in a game which is balanced with a quest system, because players will choose the path of least effort, and (if both are equal XP/hour) sitting in one place is the least effort, and then the players will hate the game because of its excessive repetition, and leave. Few developers are stupid enough to make that really obvious mistake nowadays.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Loot driven game, even crafting material was only only obtained by combat. Class driven and everyone in the same class was identical (almost anyway). No effect on the game world, couldn't change a single thing, not even instance housing. Everything created and done 100% by the developer, no player authorship at all.
EQ was a themepark through and through. A decent one yes, and different from today. Yes but still a themepark
No it didn't have quest hubs. No it didn't tell you where to go, but all the above is still true.
You can't use the argument that you could go anywhere at any level because you couldn't. Planes were level restricted. And if you talk original to Luclin, well with the exception of dungeons you can go anywhere in WoW too. It's just stupid to do so.
But bards were better there than in any other game. Monks too. Druids.... I go back and forth on that one.
IMO there were some good and some bad classes in EQ. The good were mostly casters. There was a large variety of spells available to use and a lot of them were fun spells you don't see in other games. Thinks like shrink, grow, illusion (object, race, animal, etc). Most of the neat spells from D&D 2nd edition were represented in some form. I really liked the Druid, Necromancer, Enchanter, Mage, and Shaman. The Cleric was a bit one dimensional in terms of being mostly for healing, hp/ac buffing, and resurrecting.
Most of the melee classes were fairly bad. Monk was kind of fun as it got a self heal and feign death. The warrior had a fairly dull job and not much variety in terms of abilities. Some of the hybrids like Bard were really fun. The Ranger had a great idea IMO. The unfortunate thing was in reality it couldn't really solo well as it had really weak heals and was restricted to plate. In groups it wasn't very good DPS by comparison to others. The only upside it has was tracking/foraging. I really liked the way tracking was implemented in this game. Druids and Bards could track to a lesser extent unfortunately. The Shadow Knight was fairly versatile thanks to getting the same spells as the necromancer. The Paladin had the good armor and the Clerics good healing spells, but was a bit boring to play. The Rogue was fairly boring as well. It just back stabbed most of the time. It's biggest caveat was that it was the only class that could stealth and pull corpses out of dungeons for people.
So, Axehilt, you seem to be the flag bearer of modern mmo game style. You come to the defense of every criticism of the state of the genre. That's okay, and I respect and enjoy hearing your opinion, so I want to ask you a couple questions yourself.
1) How much time per week do you spend playing mmos?
2) Do you wish you spent more or less time playing mmos?
3) Assuming(hypothetically) you currently spend as much time playing mmos as you want to, what could developers change to make you desire to spend more time playing?
4) If you found that you didn't have access to a game style that you previously enjoyed because the entire genre (498 out of 500 statistically) was adulterated by modern feature over-implementation, how would you most politely seek to bring it back without drawing the ire of people who are currently satisfied like yourself?
My goal isn't to insult people like youself. I just want to get off the theme park rails and play in a free world like the old games had. I don't want a survival sandbox or full loot pvp, just a game that is open and free where I can develop my avatar on a path or through grind or in a multitude of other manners of my own choosing. I don't care if there's a chore quest leveling path, as long as it's not this all invasive and efficient advancement path.
Devs want you to do their chores and they punish people who aren't interested with slow leveling and other types of inefficiency.
No, I'm the flag bearer of good game design. When I lift up WOW's demonology rotation as the bar to beat, it cuts both ways: thus far in all the threads I've mentioned it, the only non-WOW rotation of similar depth that someone has mentioned was the Lancer class in FFXIV.
This means modern MMORPGs also fail to provide deep gameplay like they should.
But apart from implementation details, broader broader concepts like quests are just a better design as they objectively result in more gameplay variety than games without quests where you're essentially encouraged to endlessly grind mobs (and actually penalized if you seek variety.) Not every quest implementation is perfect (some of them implement too little activity variety, and several have too little mob variety in their kill quests) but it still results in more variety than early MMORPGs where there was no reason to do anything but repetitively grind mobs in an area until you outleveled that area.
I play MMORPGs ~12 hours a week currently.
This is a really bizarre question. I don't latch onto a genre and "wish I spent more time in it". I look for good games.
I already covered one of many shortcomings of MMORPG design that limits my interest: Non-WOW games have consistently been shallower than WOW. Want to rip me away from WOW permanently? Create a deeper game.
Again, I feel it's completely backwards to pick a genre. You try a bunch of games, and pick a game. It's ridiculous to wall yourself into a specific genre, especially if you know you hate all the modern games of that genre.
If you honestly don't care if the questing path exists, why don't you just pick a MMORPG and grind? That option exists in literally every game.
There is literally no way to have an endless-mob-grind activity in a game which is balanced with a quest system, because players will choose the path of least effort, and (if both are equal XP/hour) sitting in one place is the least effort, and then the players will hate the game because of its excessive repetition, and leave. Few developers are stupid enough to make that really obvious mistake nowadays.
I get what you're saying, I just don't agree that all players will do the same thing.
I think the whole perspective is messed up though.
MMO games didn't used to be a 'race to max level'... That's a relatively new phenomenon... The game and the leveling process and quests themselves used to be the game. Now the games have evolved into a level 1-60 training camp for raiding.. You rush through training camp so you can get to the action.
I get what you're saying, I just don't agree that all players will do the same thing.
I think the whole perspective is messed up though.
MMO games didn't used to be a 'race to max level'... That's a relatively new phenomenon... The game and the leveling process and quests themselves used to be the game. Now the games have evolved into a level 1-60 training camp for raiding.. You rush through training camp so you can get to the action.
It really makes the game shallow in itself.
Honestly I know few players in those early ~10 MMORPGs I played from AO to Ragnarok who weren't playing each game attempting to progress rapidly. So I'm not sure what you feel distinguishes a "race to max level", since players have always attempted to improve their characters as fast and efficient as possible.
The only difference is whether the game made that boring as hell (grind these 2 mob types for 8 hours) or varied and fun (do these 15 different activities, and kill these 20 different mob types.)
Naturally because early MMORPGs made it boring as hell, there were legitimately fewer gameplay-focused players playing those early games (and later with WOW we saw just how staggeringly big the population of those gameplay-focused players was compared with the tiny group who found earlier MMORPGs acceptable.)
Early levels functioning as a tutorial definitely doesn't make a game shallow. Classes in these games always gained new abilities over time, which meant low levels were always a tutorial. We've covered how early MMORPGs at their deepest (max level) offered shallower combat than the better modern games, but then the low-level portion of their tutorial levels (where combat is even shallower) was even longer due to the grind. If a game asks you to spend lots of time engaging in shallow activities, that further drags the depth of those games down. Meanwhile in "endgame" style MMORPGs you spend more time at max level than leveling, and max level is where the deepest gameplay is found.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I get what you're saying, I just don't agree that all players will do the same thing.
I think the whole perspective is messed up though.
MMO games didn't used to be a 'race to max level'... That's a relatively new phenomenon... The game and the leveling process and quests themselves used to be the game. Now the games have evolved into a level 1-60 training camp for raiding.. You rush through training camp so you can get to the action.
It really makes the game shallow in itself.
Honestly I know few players in those early ~10 MMORPGs I played from AO to Ragnarok who weren't playing each game attempting to progress rapidly. So I'm not sure what you feel distinguishes a "race to max level", since players have always attempted to improve their characters as fast and efficient as possible.
The only difference is whether the game made that boring as hell (grind these 2 mob types for 8 hours) or varied and fun (do these 15 different activities, and kill these 20 different mob types.)
Naturally because early MMORPGs made it boring as hell, there were legitimately fewer gameplay-focused players playing those early games (and later with WOW we saw just how staggeringly big the population of those gameplay-focused players was compared with the tiny group who found earlier MMORPGs acceptable.)
Early levels functioning as a tutorial definitely doesn't make a game shallow. Classes in these games always gained new abilities over time, which meant low levels were always a tutorial. We've covered how early MMORPGs at their deepest (max level) offered shallower combat than the better modern games, but then the low-level portion of their tutorial levels (where combat is even shallower) was even longer due to the grind. If a game asks you to spend lots of time engaging in shallow activities, that further drags the depth of those games down. Meanwhile in "endgame" style MMORPGs you spend more time at max level than leveling, and max level is where the deepest gameplay is found.
If your philosophy is that the only part of a game that is worthwhile is the endgame then why bother wasting money on making the rest of the game? There is no point making people follow a ! mark around for 60 levels that might take up a few weeks worth of time if the only content that has any challenge is at end game. These games are so simple that there is no need for a tutorial to teach people how to play or how optimally do combat.
You're right. There used to be leveled content for which people would even try to stay under leveled for, usually pvp. Tour make a long story short the game used to be about the adventure not the end game.
If your philosophy is that the only part of a game that is worthwhile is the endgame then why bother wasting money on making the rest of the game? There is no point making people follow a ! mark around for 60 levels that might take up a few weeks worth of time if the only content that has any challenge is at end game. These games are so simple that there is no need for a tutorial to teach people how to play or how optimally do combat.
What makes you feel tutorials aren't worthwhile? I'm pretty sure nobody here said anything like that.
There is a point to questing gameplay and I've explained it over and over to you. Players want variety. Quests provide it. So even though they'd be better with CoH-style difficulty sliders, these portions of gameplay are enjoyable even though they simultaneously serve as a tutorial for how to play.
These games aren't "all that simple" when it comes to the average gamer's ability to understand and enjoy them. When we assume our perspective -- with years of gaming experience having built up a tremendous knowledge base of how to play games well -- is the norm, that's when we start to make ridiculous assumptions about gaming and the direction it should go.
It's a little tragic that typical gamers are almost entirely unaware of usability studies, or they might make fewer ridiculous statements like that. Then again, if an avid gamer watched a study they would likely dismiss the participants as "idiots" and not understand that the point of gaming is entertainment and that if your game's rules aren't easily understood by players then those players can't have fun in your game and your game will do much worse as a result.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
If your philosophy is that the only part of a game that is worthwhile is the endgame then why bother wasting money on making the rest of the game? There is no point making people follow a ! mark around for 60 levels that might take up a few weeks worth of time if the only content that has any challenge is at end game. These games are so simple that there is no need for a tutorial to teach people how to play or how optimally do combat.
What makes you feel tutorials aren't worthwhile? I'm pretty sure nobody here said anything like that.
There is a point to questing gameplay and I've explained it over and over to you. Players want variety. Quests provide it......
nope for multiple reasons.
Questing just shows that development companies are afraid to change the forumla
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Questing just shows that development companies are afraid to change the forumla
You can't disagree with a truth someone states for "multiple reasons" and then fail to provide a reason. That's ridiculous.
Quests are not implemented out of fear. Quests are known to be a superior way to retain players (and the underlying reason it worked that way is it provided clear goal and provided variety.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Questing just shows that development companies are afraid to change the forumla
You can't disagree with a truth someone states for "multiple reasons" and then fail to provide a reason. That's ridiculous.
Quests are not implemented out of fear. Quests are known to be a superior way to retain players (and the underlying reason it worked that way is it provided clear goal and provided variety.)
It's quite obvious why "go kill 10 goblins who raid that farmer's cattle and you'll get a reward and bonus XP" along with "while you're at it, gather some crops for the farmer for additional bonuses" is more attractive than "go kill 100 goblins for no other reason than because they are supposed to be evil since they attack you on sight and give you pathetic amounts of XP so you need a lot to gain one level".
I just want to get off the theme park rails and play in a free world like the old games had.
Fair enough, but my big problem with that is that people use EQ as example for "free world games"... The only true "free world" games among the three first major MMORPGs were UO and AC1. EQ was heavily level dependent, therefore you were always restricted to stick to stuff around your level, therefore it wasn't a "free world".
UO you needed skill points and equipment to safely venture into harder areas. You could go anywhere though.
AC1 you needed skill points and equipment to safely venture into harder areas. You could go anywhere though
EQ you needed levels and equipment to safely venture into harder areas. You could go anywhere though
yeah old an antiquated design.
How Darkfall does its 'regions' is much better in that respect.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
It's quite obvious why "go kill 10 goblins who raid that farmer's cattle and you'll get a reward and bonus XP" along with "while you're at it, gather some crops for the farmer for additional bonuses" is more attractive than "go kill 100 goblins for no other reason than because they are supposed to be evil since they attack you on sight and give you pathetic amounts of XP so you need a lot to gain one level".
Isn't that depressing.
It shouldn't be.
Unless you're a lazy developer who wants to sell cheap content.
1. Implementing the farmer questline:
Level designer creates the Farmer's Refuge quest hub area.
Level designer fills the area with refugees who've fled from the goblins' raids.
Level designer creates the Farm area.
Level designer fills that area with Goblin spawns.
Level designer fills that area with crop spawns.
Narrative designer writes atmosphere snippets where a few NPCs in Farmer's Refuge express concerns in /say about the goblin raiders.
Narrative designer implements the two quests, setting up their objectives and triggers and hooks up their rewards.
Systems designer sets up both the quest reward and goblin loot tables.
2. Implementing the grind:
Level designer creates the Farm area.
Level designer fills that area with Goblin spawns.
Systems designer sets up goblin loot table.
Personally I wouldn't want to develop those types of games.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Questing just shows that development companies are afraid to change the forumla
You can't disagree with a truth someone states for "multiple reasons" and then fail to provide a reason. That's ridiculous.
Quests are not implemented out of fear. Quests are known to be a superior way to retain players (and the underlying reason it worked that way is it provided clear goal and provided variety.)
It's quite obvious why "go kill 10 goblins who raid that farmer's cattle and you'll get a reward and bonus XP" along with "while you're at it, gather some crops for the farmer for additional bonuses" is more attractive than "go kill 100 goblins for no other reason than because they are supposed to be evil since they attack you on sight and give you pathetic amounts of XP so you need a lot to gain one level".
I think action adventure advancement works better with themepark MMO than RPG grinds quest or NPC.
It's quite obvious why "go kill 10 goblins who raid that farmer's cattle and you'll get a reward and bonus XP" along with "while you're at it, gather some crops for the farmer for additional bonuses" is more attractive than "go kill 100 goblins for no other reason than because they are supposed to be evil since they attack you on sight and give you pathetic amounts of XP so you need a lot to gain one level".
Isn't that depressing.
It shouldn't be.
Unless you're a lazy developer who wants to sell cheap content.
1. Implementing the farmer questline:
Level designer creates the Farmer's Refuge quest hub area.
Level designer fills the area with refugees who've fled from the goblins' raids.
Level designer creates the Farm area.
Level designer fills that area with Goblin spawns.
Level designer fills that area with crop spawns.
Narrative designer writes atmosphere snippets where a few NPCs in Farmer's Refuge express concerns in /say about the goblin raiders.
Narrative designer implements the two quests, setting up their objectives and triggers and hooks up their rewards.
Systems designer sets up both the quest reward and goblin loot tables.
2. Implementing the grind:
Level designer creates the Farm area.
Level designer fills that area with Goblin spawns.
Systems designer sets up goblin loot table.
Personally I wouldn't want to develop those types of games.
I wouldn't want to develop either one of those. I wouldn't play either, either.
Questing just shows that development companies are afraid to change the forumla
You can't disagree with a truth someone states for "multiple reasons" and then fail to provide a reason. That's ridiculous.
Quests are not implemented out of fear. Quests are known to be a superior way to retain players (and the underlying reason it worked that way is it provided clear goal and provided variety.)
It's quite obvious why "go kill 10 goblins who raid that farmer's cattle and you'll get a reward and bonus XP" along with "while you're at it, gather some crops for the farmer for additional bonuses" is more attractive than "go kill 100 goblins for no other reason than because they are supposed to be evil since they attack you on sight and give you pathetic amounts of XP so you need a lot to gain one level".
I think action adventure advancement works better with themepark MMO than RPG grinds quest or NPC.
Why do you say that? They seem like the same thing to me. Is there a difference in your mind?
Questing just shows that development companies are afraid to change the forumla
You can't disagree with a truth someone states for "multiple reasons" and then fail to provide a reason. That's ridiculous.
Quests are not implemented out of fear. Quests are known to be a superior way to retain players (and the underlying reason it worked that way is it provided clear goal and provided variety.)
It's quite obvious why "go kill 10 goblins who raid that farmer's cattle and you'll get a reward and bonus XP" along with "while you're at it, gather some crops for the farmer for additional bonuses" is more attractive than "go kill 100 goblins for no other reason than because they are supposed to be evil since they attack you on sight and give you pathetic amounts of XP so you need a lot to gain one level".
I think action adventure advancement works better with themepark MMO than RPG grinds quest or NPC.
Why do you say that? They seem like the same thing to me. Is there a difference in your mind?
Action adventure generally your collecting better items, gizmos and abilities to conquer the world with combat. It's less about grinding out quest and no leveling.
With how leveling is now being trivial right of passage to the real game most don't feel like doing. Just as well remove them. Make them game more about the journey of quests and obtaining new game altering abilities and items at the end.
So instead of a starter area giving you doing generic task to get 5 levels... you would get a quest from your class leader and do a right of passage journey and get your first class ability. You could go on a quest that gives you a gliding item that now allows you to get over canyon and explore a whole new area.
Quest hubs outside of a few ultra expensive games with single player like content are pure filler.
Comments
"It's pretty difficult to deviate from the path the developer set for players to follow." Nope, just walk into a dungeon. Not difficult.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
That's the advantage of having those types of mobs mixed into the open world. People can join up and duo them or try to come up with strategies to take them down solo.
I remember using the Druid to kill some dungeon bosses in WoW solo, but that is getting increasingly impossible as developers don't want you to do it and are good at preventing it from happening. They usually want you to follow a very specific path and do it in a specific way.
- Many early MMORPG mobs were designed to be killed by a group.
- Modern dungeon mobs are designed to be killed by a group.
It's literally the exact same thing. If you can't get far on your own, that comes down to your skill and your class.I haven't seen developers do much to specifically eliminate that playstyle (except when it was really broken, like when farmers repeatedly farmed Dire Maul with a teleport cheat in Vanilla WOW.) There are one-off encounters that can put a much higher pressure on having multiple players (first encounter in BWL is still hard to solo even with modern WOW gear,) but those are done to create a more interesting encounter, not to specifically eliminate soloing it.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
1) How much time per week do you spend playing mmos?
2) Do you wish you spent more or less time playing mmos?
3) Assuming(hypothetically) you currently spend as much time playing mmos as you want to, what could developers change to make you desire to spend more time playing?
4) If you found that you didn't have access to a game style that you previously enjoyed because the entire genre (498 out of 500 statistically) was adulterated by modern feature over-implementation, how would you most politely seek to bring it back without drawing the ire of people who are currently satisfied like yourself?
My goal isn't to insult people like youself. I just want to get off the theme park rails and play in a free world like the old games had. I don't want a survival sandbox or full loot pvp, just a game that is open and free where I can develop my avatar on a path or through grind or in a multitude of other manners of my own choosing. I don't care if there's a chore quest leveling path, as long as it's not this all invasive and efficient advancement path.
Devs want you to do their chores and they punish people who aren't interested with slow leveling and other types of inefficiency.
EQ was a themepark through and through. A decent one yes, and different from today. Yes but still a themepark
No it didn't have quest hubs. No it didn't tell you where to go, but all the above is still true.
You can't use the argument that you could go anywhere at any level because you couldn't. Planes were level restricted. And if you talk original to Luclin, well with the exception of dungeons you can go anywhere in WoW too. It's just stupid to do so.
But bards were better there than in any other game. Monks too. Druids.... I go back and forth on that one.
This means modern MMORPGs also fail to provide deep gameplay like they should.
But apart from implementation details, broader broader concepts like quests are just a better design as they objectively result in more gameplay variety than games without quests where you're essentially encouraged to endlessly grind mobs (and actually penalized if you seek variety.) Not every quest implementation is perfect (some of them implement too little activity variety, and several have too little mob variety in their kill quests) but it still results in more variety than early MMORPGs where there was no reason to do anything but repetitively grind mobs in an area until you outleveled that area.
- I play MMORPGs ~12 hours a week currently.
- This is a really bizarre question. I don't latch onto a genre and "wish I spent more time in it". I look for good games.
- I already covered one of many shortcomings of MMORPG design that limits my interest: Non-WOW games have consistently been shallower than WOW. Want to rip me away from WOW permanently? Create a deeper game.
- Again, I feel it's completely backwards to pick a genre. You try a bunch of games, and pick a game. It's ridiculous to wall yourself into a specific genre, especially if you know you hate all the modern games of that genre.
If you honestly don't care if the questing path exists, why don't you just pick a MMORPG and grind? That option exists in literally every game.There is literally no way to have an endless-mob-grind activity in a game which is balanced with a quest system, because players will choose the path of least effort, and (if both are equal XP/hour) sitting in one place is the least effort, and then the players will hate the game because of its excessive repetition, and leave. Few developers are stupid enough to make that really obvious mistake nowadays.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Most of the melee classes were fairly bad. Monk was kind of fun as it got a self heal and feign death. The warrior had a fairly dull job and not much variety in terms of abilities. Some of the hybrids like Bard were really fun. The Ranger had a great idea IMO. The unfortunate thing was in reality it couldn't really solo well as it had really weak heals and was restricted to plate. In groups it wasn't very good DPS by comparison to others. The only upside it has was tracking/foraging. I really liked the way tracking was implemented in this game. Druids and Bards could track to a lesser extent unfortunately. The Shadow Knight was fairly versatile thanks to getting the same spells as the necromancer. The Paladin had the good armor and the Clerics good healing spells, but was a bit boring to play. The Rogue was fairly boring as well. It just back stabbed most of the time. It's biggest caveat was that it was the only class that could stealth and pull corpses out of dungeons for people.
I think the whole perspective is messed up though.
MMO games didn't used to be a 'race to max level'... That's a relatively new phenomenon... The game and the leveling process and quests themselves used to be the game. Now the games have evolved into a level 1-60 training camp for raiding.. You rush through training camp so you can get to the action.
It really makes the game shallow in itself.
The only difference is whether the game made that boring as hell (grind these 2 mob types for 8 hours) or varied and fun (do these 15 different activities, and kill these 20 different mob types.)
Naturally because early MMORPGs made it boring as hell, there were legitimately fewer gameplay-focused players playing those early games (and later with WOW we saw just how staggeringly big the population of those gameplay-focused players was compared with the tiny group who found earlier MMORPGs acceptable.)
Early levels functioning as a tutorial definitely doesn't make a game shallow. Classes in these games always gained new abilities over time, which meant low levels were always a tutorial. We've covered how early MMORPGs at their deepest (max level) offered shallower combat than the better modern games, but then the low-level portion of their tutorial levels (where combat is even shallower) was even longer due to the grind. If a game asks you to spend lots of time engaging in shallow activities, that further drags the depth of those games down. Meanwhile in "endgame" style MMORPGs you spend more time at max level than leveling, and max level is where the deepest gameplay is found.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
There is a point to questing gameplay and I've explained it over and over to you. Players want variety. Quests provide it. So even though they'd be better with CoH-style difficulty sliders, these portions of gameplay are enjoyable even though they simultaneously serve as a tutorial for how to play.
These games aren't "all that simple" when it comes to the average gamer's ability to understand and enjoy them. When we assume our perspective -- with years of gaming experience having built up a tremendous knowledge base of how to play games well -- is the norm, that's when we start to make ridiculous assumptions about gaming and the direction it should go.
It's a little tragic that typical gamers are almost entirely unaware of usability studies, or they might make fewer ridiculous statements like that. Then again, if an avid gamer watched a study they would likely dismiss the participants as "idiots" and not understand that the point of gaming is entertainment and that if your game's rules aren't easily understood by players then those players can't have fun in your game and your game will do much worse as a result.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Questing just shows that development companies are afraid to change the forumla
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Quests are not implemented out of fear. Quests are known to be a superior way to retain players (and the underlying reason it worked that way is it provided clear goal and provided variety.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Once upon a time....
How Darkfall does its 'regions' is much better in that respect.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Unless you're a lazy developer who wants to sell cheap content.
1. Implementing the farmer questline:
- Level designer creates the Farmer's Refuge quest hub area.
- Level designer fills the area with refugees who've fled from the goblins' raids.
- Level designer creates the Farm area.
- Level designer fills that area with Goblin spawns.
- Level designer fills that area with crop spawns.
- Narrative designer writes atmosphere snippets where a few NPCs in Farmer's Refuge express concerns in /say about the goblin raiders.
- Narrative designer implements the two quests, setting up their objectives and triggers and hooks up their rewards.
- Systems designer sets up both the quest reward and goblin loot tables.
2. Implementing the grind:- Level designer creates the Farm area.
- Level designer fills that area with Goblin spawns.
- Systems designer sets up goblin loot table.
Personally I wouldn't want to develop those types of games."What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Once upon a time....
Once upon a time....
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
With how leveling is now being trivial right of passage to the real game most don't feel like doing. Just as well remove them. Make them game more about the journey of quests and obtaining new game altering abilities and items at the end.
So instead of a starter area giving you doing generic task to get 5 levels... you would get a quest from your class leader and do a right of passage journey and get your first class ability. You could go on a quest that gives you a gliding item that now allows you to get over canyon and explore a whole new area.
Quest hubs outside of a few ultra expensive games with single player like content are pure filler.