Are hardcore players ruining mmos?

fatears

The content locusts who force lazy game mechanics in order to increase longevity, whose playstyle results in dailies, tedious gear grinds and endless repetition of the same dungeons and raids. Is their insatiable appetite for content and overly-serious devotion to obtaining a meaningless trinket in a game ruining the fun for the rest of us?

delete5230

So you like the given 30 day easy games that are barely mmos that are cash shop driven?

Do you think ANYONE has any influence on what developers are making anyway ?

cameltosis

Short answer: No

Hardcore =/= content locusts. Hardcore is an attitude, it is a desire to master any given game through learning the mechanics, the systems and playing through the content. Casual players who sink a lot of time into MMOs are just as bad at consuming content and asking for more.

Secondly, lazy game mechanics are a result of bad game design. You cannot blame the players, be they hardcore or casual, for developers releasing crappy code. Nobody wants shitty grinds, why would they? You think raiders want to play the same raid for 6 months to get minor improvements to their gear? No, of course not, they just want to play the game they enjoy, with their friends, but due to poor game design they have no real options for what they can do except grind raids / dailies etc. 

Ultimately, what you are talking about is simply the result of the themepark paradigm. Themeparks rely 100% of developer made content so regardless of the player type, eventually the game will run out of content because developing content is difficult, time consuming and expensive. Themeparks can only release enough content if they have a crazy amount of money coming in, but even WoW never managed to release enough content quick enough. 

Developers simply need to go back to the drawing board. Revisit the sandbox concepts that increase longevity and apply modern design practices and polish to them. Consider building hybrid games, using themepark elements (scripted quests and dungeons ) to tell the stories, but use the sandbox elements (crafting, economy, player housing, pvp, hobbies, event systems etc) to keep people playing for longer. 

kitarad

Although I loved Everquest to bits how is sitting in Guk or Sol B for ten hours straight to get 1/2 level any better. I do not see that as longevity yet it is oft quoted that older games kept players by making levelling slow. I think gamers have moved on to a different mindset and they no longer devote their time to only one game and as a result games do not have much longevity.

Nicco77

Yes,some people should get a life.

Phry

If anything, hardcore players ruin games for themselves, they race through content and rarely stop to 'smell the roses'  so they breeze through games and eventually leave, not a problem for anyone but themselves imo. ps. sorry for the errors but white text on a white backbround complicates thigns a huge deal.

Syanis

Hardcore players ruining the genre? Really? Slow down leveling and cut out so many candy drops making drop rates rare and crafting time consuming but rewarding. Make going to endgame content another progression thing that takes time working on step after step and not where you hit max level and the next day your into raiding and a week later into the hardmode raids. Remove maps to areas you have never been or simply remove maps and end leading quest chains that lead you from start to finish.  Don't tell players what is next and make them find it. Have hidden *secrets* all around the world.

None of this really requires additional content but to stop swarming players with quick content. Hardcore players aren't just looking to beat the game but just stay ahead of the curve and be more involved. It only seems that they fly through content because the devs make the content so very quick to finish with no difficulty and guide you from step to step. This is due to casual's as we call them which aren't exactly casual players but what were considered casual raiders before who whined on not getting that rare drop over someone who shows up every day for months.

Dullahan

Designing mmos for casuals is what harmed the genre. The fact that the hardcore players now consume content in a matter of weeks is only the result and is only indicative of how little games really offer.

LumiLumi

Hmmm it's hard. Hardcore players would say casual ruin MMOs because content needs to be watered downed and simplified to keep casual players happy.

Though at the same time there are some unnessesery grinds and RNG things that make being hardcore really depressing xD

fatears

The OP is talking shit. Hardcore players aren’t ruining MMOs, it is the casuals, the pvp gankers, the pve carebears, the F2P freeloaders, the whales, the group players and the solo’ers, the raiders, the grinders, the traders and the crafters, and if you disagree then your definition of the term is wrong and we should descend into semantics for the remainder of the thread.  

sanshi44

This video sums up alot of the problems with MMO's atm imo

CrazKanuk

I think it's always important to blame someone else. That way, if nobody takes responsibility for it, then we won't think we had anything to do with it ourselves when it dies. Just remember, you should always make sure that you've got someone else to blame. Never take responsibility for anything you may have done yourself. 

FlyByKnight

Are forum trolls ruining MMOs. Yes I am.

Phry

fatears said:

The OP is talking shit. Hardcore players aren’t ruining MMOs, it is the casuals, the pvp gankers, the pve carebears, the F2P freeloaders, the whales, the group players and the solo’ers, the raiders, the grinders, the traders and the crafters, and if you disagree then your definition of the term is wrong and we should descend into semantics for the remainder of the thread.  

Infame, infame, everyone has got it infame.
All joking aside, but do you really think its literally everyone else, that is ruining games? not that i am saying that hardcore players do ruin games, i don't think they hang around long enough most of the time to have that much impact anyway, as there is always 'another mountain to climb'.

bentrim

One simple thing has ALMOST ruined MMOs,... PVP, the ABSOLUTE worst thing you can put into MMOs. Content locust...gankers...hackers, all comprise this group as a whole.

FlyByKnight

bentrim said:

One simple thing has ALMOST ruined MMOs,... PVP, the ABSOLUTE worst thing you can put into MMOs. Content locust...gankers...hackers, all comprise this group as a whole.

PVE'ers should be banned from MMORPG.com until we figure out why ^ this keeps happening.

Hatefull

fatears said:

The content locusts who force lazy game mechanics in order to increase longevity, whose playstyle results in dailies, tedious gear grinds and endless repetition of the same dungeons and raids. Is their insatiable appetite for content and overly-serious devotion to obtaining a meaningless trinket in a game ruining the fun for the rest of us?

No one group of players are ruining the hobby. The hardcore, the freeloaders, the casuals etc none of them would exist without the game(s) to support their play style.

I think trying to shoe horn all play types into one game is ridiculous.  The game developers more so than any player are ruining games, imo.  Here is what I say;

Game developers are terrified of being labeled as 'big business' and I get that but the reality of the situation is; the game industry is big business.  Face fact a multi-billion dollar industry that less than ten years ago was in the low millions has seen a growth spurt that would rival that of Microsoft and google.  But the development side of things has failed to mature with the business side of things.

What is need is a triple A MMO producer that can speak to the business types and convince them to forget the bottom line and go with what is going to keep players interested and invested in the game for the long term.  Some say Blizzard got lucky with WoW I think they were incredibly smart (and numbers tend to back up what I think) As was NCSoft with Lineage 1 (still one of the most profitable and played MMO"s on the Planet after more than 15 years).  They saw what people enjoyed doing and they put it all in one place, inside a big shiny easy to open package and they made Billions.  What's more is people were pleased as well. Again, numbers.

I think the future will require another Developer/Producer that can see what is popular and rinse/repeat what Blizz did. It may end up being Blizzard or NCSoft again, I am not here to debate that.

So the Independent developers took this idea, decided what they liked and they make what they want without the nasty inconvenience of the business types bothering the creative process.  And that is great! Free market at it's best.  The only issue is; They have yet to deliver on any type of scale worth talking about. It seems there may be a delivery here soon but I am not holding my breath.

Another vision of the future would be an independent studio, financially backed by an entity that would assume a lesser return on it's investment, lead by a leader with some business savvy and the ability to establish realistic times lines and enforce them that does what Caleltosis say's above.  Create a game, a hybrid that can deliver what is currently desired by what seems the majority of the gaming community (I have no metrics to back that up other than what I have been reading) wants.

Will it please all?  No and it is immature in the extreme to hope it would, but I think it would be a good way to finally see some innovation and ground breaking systems put to the test. So we can finally break this WoW type dominance that is currently gripping the genre. The WoW model makes money, we all support it and the business minds love it.

We need that cycle to be broken if we are ever going to see true innovation and the ability to move forward with this hobby.

Sadly with shady kick starter practices, indies that have no concept of business, and big business unwilling to risk a loss, I don't see it happening any time soon.

Again, my 2 creds.

Amathe

Who ruins the swimming pool? The guy playing with an inflatable duck in the shallow end, or the guy diving off the diving board?

Neither, until you make the high diver dive into the shallow end, or push the guy with the inflatable duck off the 30 foot diving board. 

Arclan

LOL nice retort to the other thread.  Yes absolutely content locusts kill MMORPGs; though I think the blame falls on the game companies who show no imagination whatsoever in dealing with this problem.  My personal view is that players should be pushed along from server to server as they advance.  Want higher level content?  Migrate to the next server.  We should never have max level players 'farming' equipment to sell to players who are the appropriate level to obtain the gear for themselves.

Flyte27

I don't think it's the content locusts that kill MMOs.  This is all a matter of perspective though.  For someone who preferred the old style MMO where quests were a side attraction, you weren't guided around, things were difficult to find, and leveling was something that took a lot out of you if you wanted to level fast because you had to grind a lot and had to pay attention so that you wouldn't wipe your group and get them angry at you.  You also had to be aware someone might try to steal the camp you were at and sabotage you.  It was a different type of MMO that required a lot of patience and time to play.  Content locusts are usually casual players as they enjoy playing through quests instead of grinding monsters solo or with groups.

GeezerGamer

And here I had thought that MMOs were getting ruined by developers making forgettable games

syriinx

I cant figure out who modern MMORPGs exactly are designed for.

Everyone loves to look for WOTLK era WoW for inspiration (this is what you see in games like Rift and SWTOR).  Problem is, WOTLK may have been the peak of WoW in terms of subs, but also when the newness of dailies began to wear off and only the lore (pun intended) of Arthas kept the dislike many people had of the endgame from having a negative impact on the population.

Modern MMOs seem to take little of what made Vanilla WoW (and the games before it) have long term appeal in the first place.

sunandshadow

cameltosis said:

Developers simply need to go back to the drawing board. Revisit the sandbox concepts that increase longevity and apply modern design practices and polish to them. Consider building hybrid games, using themepark elements (scripted quests and dungeons ) to tell the stories, but use the sandbox elements (crafting, economy, player housing, pvp, hobbies, event systems etc) to keep people playing for longer. 

This, so much this.  Sandparks are the kind of game I want to design and play.

(Although I'm kind of boggling at considering pvp a sandbox element, since, you know, there are lots of single-player sandboxes, otherwise known as the sim genre, while pvp's lineage descends from the unrelated fighter genre, games like Mortal Kombat.)

syriinx

Robokapp said:

fact: at the time of WolK there were already disasters.

Tier 7 was a rehash at a level of difficulty insulting the original.
Tier 8 was one of the greatest raids of all time and the introduction of Hardmodes.
Tier 9 was the most hated raid of all time. It also introduced the most hated hardcore mechanic of all times: Limited attempts.
Tier 10: limited attempts became worse. Guilds geared entire alt raidgroups to compete in the world race. The most pathetic change of all times: Stacking nerf was also introduced. Semi-hardcore guilds got ravaged by the mentality of "let's wait for next 5% nerf before progressing".

WolK had one glorious raid and 3 very disputable raid tiers. A very rushed tier 9, and a good quality bad implementation tier 10.

Meanwhile Burning Crusade...so good.

The wotlk raids were actually great for the casual guilds that wanted to dabble in raiding.  Ulduar was brilliant for the hardcore crowd.  ICC had some good encounters at least.

It was the non raid endgame that really became a mess though.   

In BC dungeons required groups to actually work together, but the majority of them were not difficult.  There were a few that were (for the non hardcore).  In WOTLK the dungeons were significantly easier with no higher difficulty options at all.  

But the real killer was dailies.  Reputations in BC were varied in ways to grind them, everything in WOTLK was gated behind dailies.  On top of that you had the ridiculous joust mechanic which just wasnt fun (for most people).  And the daily currency nonsense too.  

On top of that WOTLK is where talent trees really lost their luster.  Any kind of fun hybrid builds were gone.  Even casuals ended up min/maxing because there just wasnt a lot of depth to choices.

And the removal of specialization in professions and some of the cool BoP crafteds.  What little good there was in WoWs crafting system (which sucked to begin with honestly) was gone.

Ulduar was pretty damn awesome though...

GeezerGamer

Robokapp said:

syriinx said:

I cant figure out who modern MMORPGs exactly are designed for.

Everyone loves to look for WOTLK era WoW for inspiration (this is what you see in games like Rift and SWTOR).  Problem is, WOTLK may have been the peak of WoW in terms of subs, but also when the newness of dailies began to wear off and only the lore (pun intended) of Arthas kept the dislike many people had of the endgame from having a negative impact on the population.

Modern MMOs seem to take little of what made Vanilla WoW (and the games before it) have long term appeal in the first place.

fact: at the time of WolK there were already disasters.

Tier 7 was a rehash at a level of difficulty insulting the original.
Tier 8 was one of the greatest raids of all time and the introduction of Hardmodes.
Tier 9 was the most hated raid of all time. It also introduced the most hated hardcore mechanic of all times: Limited attempts.
Tier 10: limited attempts became worse. Guilds geared entire alt raidgroups to compete in the world race. The most pathetic change of all times: Stacking nerf was also introduced. Semi-hardcore guilds got ravaged by the mentality of "let's wait for next 5% nerf before progressing".

WolK had one glorious raid and 3 very disputable raid tiers. A very rushed tier 9, and a good quality bad implementation tier 10.

Meanwhile Burning Crusade...so good.

Didn't think WOTLK was that good at all. I mean it was good by Cata/MoP/WoD standards, but by Vanilla and TBC? No. Well, TBC 2.1 and TBC 2.2. 2.3, IMO was the start of the decline.

mbrodie

GeezerGamer said:

Robokapp said:

syriinx said:

I cant figure out who modern MMORPGs exactly are designed for.

Everyone loves to look for WOTLK era WoW for inspiration (this is what you see in games like Rift and SWTOR).  Problem is, WOTLK may have been the peak of WoW in terms of subs, but also when the newness of dailies began to wear off and only the lore (pun intended) of Arthas kept the dislike many people had of the endgame from having a negative impact on the population.

Modern MMOs seem to take little of what made Vanilla WoW (and the games before it) have long term appeal in the first place.

fact: at the time of WolK there were already disasters.

Tier 7 was a rehash at a level of difficulty insulting the original.
Tier 8 was one of the greatest raids of all time and the introduction of Hardmodes.
Tier 9 was the most hated raid of all time. It also introduced the most hated hardcore mechanic of all times: Limited attempts.
Tier 10: limited attempts became worse. Guilds geared entire alt raidgroups to compete in the world race. The most pathetic change of all times: Stacking nerf was also introduced. Semi-hardcore guilds got ravaged by the mentality of "let's wait for next 5% nerf before progressing".

WolK had one glorious raid and 3 very disputable raid tiers. A very rushed tier 9, and a good quality bad implementation tier 10.

Meanwhile Burning Crusade...so good.

Didn't think WOTLK was that good at all. I mean it was good by Cata/MoP/WoD standards, but by Vanilla and TBC? No. Well, TBC 2.1 and TBC 2.2. 2.3, IMO was the start of the decline.

uhh blizzard reached peak numbers in WotLK and to many people it was the greatest xpack, there was fun raids in TBC but a lot of broken bosses too, 



most of the people i still play WoW with or knew back in vanilla days, loved vanilla and TBC but really thought WoW came into it's own during wrath, that being said wrath could also be considered the downfall, when things started to take a turn for the worse and getting over simplified...

it's a rock and a hard place really...

but as someone who cleared 10 and 25 man ICC on heroic well before any nerfs came in, it was a fun and enjoyable raid.. but ulduar was definitely a pinnacle for WoW raiding.

Edit - to clarify, i also raided in vanilla and TBC.. but i feel the raids actually felt a lot less broken and worked better during wrath. TBC had a lot of broken bosses we started running silly compositions for and such to kill things.