How large of a part does power play into longevity?

Distopia

The thought occurred to me while thinking about what made it hard to move on from my favorite MMORPG . While the community was a large part of it, the other part was what the body of players I was closest to represented in terms of my experience in game. Power... Together we were a reasonably effective group in PVP. Individually most could still hold their own in our guild, but together we worked really well together. . It brought with it  server recognition. Which in MMO terms is a form of power. Look at goon swarm they're hated because of the fact that they are hard to stop. IN PVP that is power. 

On deeper thought, I thought about what causes the biggest exodus from these games? It's typically when the balance of power is interfered with, be it small scale with class nerfs or large scale like what happened with DAOC, ( gear grinding became needed to be competitive in PVP). Another example is the NGE in SWG, the entire game's balance was uprooted and turned on it's head. 

I just wonder how big of a role regaining former glory has to do with moving into a new longterm commitment in a game, would those who experienced some form of power have a harder time than others moving on from it? 

khanstruct

While longevity is certainly a concern in MMOs, they actually survive more on the influx of new players. If things remain top heavy for too long, the game atrophies and dies. It's a touchy balance that's not easy to maintain.

SpottyGekko

I have had "power" in some of the MMO's I've played, but that power wasn't the thing that kept me playing. I play because I enjoy the game play, not because I have "power" or "influence" over other players.

Once I get tired of playing a particular game (can take years in some cases), I'll just stop playing and look for new challenges. Building an empire is far more fun than maintaining one  

Vermillion_Raventhal

I think a sense of adventure you can't predict day to day is what keeps longevity.  Many games suffer from the formula that leads to predictable gameplay.  

Quizzical

Longevity for whom?  If people at the top expect to stay at the top indefinitely, they might well stay around longer because of that.  But you know who gets frustrated that they'll forever be inferior and quits?  Everyone else.

Phaserlight

If I'm honest about this, influence is a reason I've stuck with my current MMORPG for so long.  It's not the only reason, but if I really meditate on it, it is a pretty big reason (unfortunately!).  It's an uncomfortable truth.

Taking myself out of the equation is a practice I've been trying to implement more.

Velifax

*EDIT* - I thought the topic was about the power increase from level 1 with one ability to level 100 with God's Armor.

For me this effect is rather substantial.

The main reason I still play Elite Dangerous and EQ is because both offer nice slow power ramps to meander my way up. In EQ it's a fight just to become competent, let alone powerful. There is also lots of horizontal things to learn, which slows down upward progress. In Elite Dangerous they don't fling new ships at you willy-nilly so I'm still working my way up the big ol' ladder. When I have a station full of different ships I'll likely burn out (although hopefully ship attrition will slow that).

A non-MMO game I play, X-Rebirth, offers a huge ramp from lone trader to trade empire CEO, and I'm taking my sweet ass time there as well. Unfortunately I have to actively refuse opportunities that are so profitable they wildly skew the money game.

In order to slow my progression (and thus enjoy the power increase longer), I...

In EQ - refuse to buy or sell to or from other players. I sell to merchants only and either purchase from merchants or rely on drops that I myself get, WITHOUT TWINKING or without associating with anyone who twinks.
In Elite Dangerous - here I'm just not very skilled, this is my third joystick game ever so I'm just learning everything. Although by now my method of slowing myself, heavy exploration, is actually becoming so profitable I may have to lose a ship to slow down.
In X-Rebirth - I skip most missions, they are absurdly out of scale in terms of rewards. You can get more profit from a 10 minute delivery mission than from 5 trades with a trade barge, each of which takes 15 minutes. Totally broken. So I skip those and I also skip the "boarding" mechanic, where you steal an enemy ship. You can board a ship then turn around and sell it for millions of credits, earning in 10 minutes what would take several hours via trading.
In Banished - a single player town building/resource management game, I refuse to use the time gauge, which can speed up time about 10x or so. You basically get your village running then just leave it on high speed for an hour and come back and you're rich. Totally broken. I play it in real time and early on I killed off most of my population (accidentally) so recovering from that has taken quite some time.

Velifax

To address the actual topic:

In my early WoW days, BC and Lich King, I was in a top tier guild and raided hard. We were good enough that we got into some training raids with the second best guild on the server for some help (and to cull/poach )

That certainly boosted my enjoyment of the game substantially. Eventually I couldn't hack it, just wasn't interested inputting that much time/effort in, but it was some of my favorite times in gaming. Actually did a similar thing with Halo.

I've no doubt the increased recognition/power contributed to my enjoyment substantially.

However, to this day I haven't found a game wherein I would care to sustain that level of power/fame. It's only a minor factor.

Distopia

Velifax said:

It appears I've misunderstood the intent of the topic. Ignore me.

Rather fine input IMO, as power can mean different things to different people, for me it was success in PVP more or less, for you it seems to be feeling more powerful through progression. That makes sense toward the overall topic.

cameltosis

In my experience, it's not a shift in power that causes those with power to leave, its the shift in mechanics / gameplay that led to the shift of power. 

For the NGE for example, I'm sure there will be a decent chunk of players who left because all their previous hard work had been undone, but I expect the majority left because the game no longer played the same.

Also, with regards to power, I expect the larger influence is the amount of time/skill/money it takes over overcome power gaps. For example, when playing WAR, I had a hell of a lot of casual and semi-hardcore friends that left because they recognised that they'd never overcome the massive power gaps in the game. 6 months into the game playing on their own timescales and they were R40RR30-40 with level appropriate gear, but coming up against R40RR60-80 players who would cream them every time. These players calculated that it'd take them another 2 years of gameplay before they reached the same gear levels as the top players and they weren't willing to be disadvantaged for that long. 


Like others have said, having power has certainly kept me in games for longer. Being recognised for pve / pvp / raiding / crafting / leading / guild achievements was a nice little bonus for simply playing the game in my own way. The only time having power has been a problem was a short period in sw:tor. Me and 3 friends used to pvp as a 4man premade nearly every night and after a short while we'd find ourselves winning virtually every battleground unless we came up against another good premade. It made things a bit boring. 

Kopogero

I doubt few had to actually experience true power as I have. From becoming the most fearful and powerful as well as wanted light jedi knight on the most populated server, to leading the most important attacks, raids because I made that difference in the galaxy, being able to survive and dominate squads of coverts and overts chasing me while others watched in entertainment....to defeating the 2nd most powerful jedi in front of the audience of some of the largest guilds.....

I also remember how amazing it felt when I was powerful, but not a full knight yet, still training the force on this abandoned, remote planet, and then far away from my house....while on my mission I see this massive swarm of red dots pop on my radar. TONS OF BOUNTIES WITH COVERTS+OVERTS....lucky I grab my swoop bike asap, I managed to hide in my home and wait for my back up, which was few friends with 1-2 jedis...and after an epic war outside my home vs 20+ players, we made a graveyard outside my place....

I was the content in that game. I was the boss players tried to raid for massive bounty reward...and I knew exactly how much it hurt to see a massive exp loss or be backstabbed by a traitor while I was vulnerable and weak, who posed as my friend. SWG is just one example of a game at least for some time to understood how to allow players to be the focal and most important point in the game, not some NPC's and mobs they keep adding.

I also remember finding this krayt dragon and be able to out damage a squad of 4-5 players to get a right on loot. What SWG simple allowed is for those who put the most time, dedication, effort to separate themselves from the masses. It allowed players to have truly unique experience based on their own abilities and decisions.

Gaming.Rocks2

Besides age or false hype only exodus I have experienced was back in the Sunwell days of TBC. That raid killed way too many good guilds. So i guess you can say hard content can be cause as well

Octagon7711

Power is the ability of a player or players to adapt to the mechanics of the game as needed to achieve a goal or series of goals.  Those who successful adapt, succeed, which is a very good feeling indeed. :-)