AFK and passive skilling in MMORPGS, What's the point?

udinthrik

This has really been bothering me lately because it seems to be a trendy feature in games right now.

To me it just seems like an easy way to add an illusion of depth to a game, rather than being creative and adding actual content.  Why not just start with those skills maxed out?

I know some people have to like this kind of thing, or it wouldn't have such a presence in games today. I'm curious why? Does it feel like your accomplishing something or staying productive knowing that while watching youtube videos... your character is auto running into a wall raising your run skill? I can kind of understand that thinking, but it's still an illusion.

Any thoughts?

FlyByKnight

[Insert Picture of Mounts Running Around In A Circle from Archeage]

XxPriestxX

Companies don't have a target market anymore.

Back in the day, there was just us old people (we were young once =P), we played the hell out of everything because it was new and we had all the time in the world. Well, now a lot of us sit and whine about not having time to play because of X or Y.

Then you have this younger crowd who had an xbox for a babysitter and ended up with ADD instead of discipline and/or patience.

At this rate I totally wouldn't be surprised if 10 years from now people will pay a sub to get an email telling them they got an achievement from a game they've never once logged into lol.

fearu

Eve is a big one for this and I'm of two minds about it.

On one hand it forces diversity and means you can't jump in whatever expensive ship straight away and go pop without laying down a ton of the the real world $$$.

On the other I find it stupid and arbitrary that I can't use things e.g. a slightly better T2 gun just because I have to wait until a timer ticks down.  

Nilden

Call me crazy but I think a game should reward players for playing it. Why would you reward players for not playing the game?

Perplexing.

Like single player MMORPGs. To me it's as mind boggling as watching someone trying to play tag alone.

Kyleran

fearu said:

Eve is a big one for this and I'm of two minds about it.

On one hand it forces diversity and means you can't jump in whatever expensive ship straight away and go pop without laying down a ton of the the real world $$$.

On the other I find it stupid and arbitrary that I can't use things e.g. a slightly better T2 gun just because I have to wait until a timer ticks down.  

EVE's passive training model is a big reason why I play it exclusively now.

Despite being casual in play time one aspect of my progression has been equal to everyone else in the game.  

Cash can be used if desired to equal out other areas though wealth acquisition is my real progression motivator.

craftseeker

xXPriestXx said:

Companies don't have a target market anymore.

Back in the day, there was just us old people (we were young once =P), we played the hell out of everything because it was new and we had all the time in the world. Well, now a lot of us sit and whine about not having time to play because of X or Y.

Then you have this younger crowd who had an xbox for a babysitter and ended up with ADD instead of discipline and/or patience.

At this rate I totally wouldn't be surprised if 10 years from now people will pay a sub to get an email telling them they got an achievement from a game they've never once logged into lol.

As someone who was probably older than you are now in 1999 you may well find that you have more time to play a few years from now than you had ten years ago.

H0urg1ass

Honestly, the way that EVE does this is brilliant.  As long as you have an active sub, your character isn't falling behind.  I've literally not played for a year at a time but kept a sub running so that I wouldn't be behind in skill points when I came back.

Personally I like a hybrid system of offline and online progression.  If I'm using a skill, then I think it should train faster due to practical application.  However, I also want my character to be training when I'm not playing.

Ramajama

xXPriestXx said:

Companies don't have a target market anymore.

Back in the day, there was just us old people (we were young once =P), we played the hell out of everything because it was new and we had all the time in the world. Well, now a lot of us sit and whine about not having time to play because of X or Y.

Then you have this younger crowd who had an xbox for a babysitter and ended up with ADD instead of discipline and/or patience.

At this rate I totally wouldn't be surprised if 10 years from now people will pay a sub to get an email telling them they got an achievement from a game they've never once logged into lol.

Which generation raised those kids? The one that played EQ for 17hrs a day and gave kids xbox so they don't bother them? 

XxPriestxX

craftseeker said:

xXPriestXx said:

Companies don't have a target market anymore.

Back in the day, there was just us old people (we were young once =P), we played the hell out of everything because it was new and we had all the time in the world. Well, now a lot of us sit and whine about not having time to play because of X or Y.

Then you have this younger crowd who had an xbox for a babysitter and ended up with ADD instead of discipline and/or patience.

At this rate I totally wouldn't be surprised if 10 years from now people will pay a sub to get an email telling them they got an achievement from a game they've never once logged into lol.

As someone who was probably older than you are now in 1999 you may well find that you have more time to play a few years from now than you had ten years ago.

Go to bed old man!

I'm actually pretty much at the point you speak of, but it's because I started my own business in a market where the money is good enough that I pay rent and bills off 3 days of work, so I don't have to put in the 40+ hours a week most people do unless I need more vacation money or a new toy.

nariusseldon

Kyleran said:

EVE's passive training model is a big reason why I play it exclusively now.

Wait .. you like to play a game where you don't have to do anything to advance?

Albatroes

Companies are going the route giving characters 'maxed' out. Blizzard gives you a level 100 character boost if you buy legion. Rift sells boosts. Even XIV is considering selling level boosts in 4.0. Do I personally think its great? No. But the defense is "I'm too busy to grind." Why even play an mmorpg then if you dont have time to actually play it? lol, better off with a moba or fps if you want faster gratification.

craftseeker

xXPriestXx said:

craftseeker said:

xXPriestXx said:

Companies don't have a target market anymore.

Back in the day, there was just us old people (we were young once =P), we played the hell out of everything because it was new and we had all the time in the world. Well, now a lot of us sit and whine about not having time to play because of X or Y.

Then you have this younger crowd who had an xbox for a babysitter and ended up with ADD instead of discipline and/or patience.

At this rate I totally wouldn't be surprised if 10 years from now people will pay a sub to get an email telling them they got an achievement from a game they've never once logged into lol.

As someone who was probably older than you are now in 1999 you may well find that you have more time to play a few years from now than you had ten years ago.

Go to bed old man!

I'm actually pretty much at the point you speak of, but it's because I started my own business in a market where the money is good enough that I pay rent and bills off 3 days of work, so I don't have to put in the 40+ hours a week most people do unless I need more vacation money or a new toy.

You forgot to allow for the timezone difference it's mid afternoon here. 

FlyByKnight

xXPriestXx said:

Go to bed old man!

I'm actually pretty much at the point you speak of, but it's because I started my own business in a market where the money is good enough that I pay rent and bills off 3 days of work, so I don't have to put in the 40+ hours a week most people do unless I need more vacation money or a new toy.

Y'all mf'ers hiring?

waynejr2

udinthrik said:

This has really been bothering me lately because it seems to be a trendy feature in games right now.

To me it just seems like an easy way to add an illusion of depth to a game, rather than being creative and adding actual content.  Why not just start with those skills maxed out?

I know some people have to like this kind of thing, or it wouldn't have such a presence in games today. I'm curious why? Does it feel like your accomplishing something or staying productive knowing that while watching youtube videos... your character is auto running into a wall raising your run skill? I can kind of understand that thinking, but it's still an illusion.

Any thoughts?

Don't play games that have features you don't like if it is going to bother you so much.  If you were to remove feature from games based on someone disliking it, then we wouldn't have any games to play. 

iixviiiix

I rather use gold to raise skill system than using something like use skill to raise skills .

cameltosis

It really depends on what can and can't be leveled offline. It needs to make sense within the games ecosystem. 

Good Example: Estate Management

Lets say you had an MMO where you could build your own estate. You could build a house, crafting stations, fields for farming, maybe a mine. Whatever - its your estate, your choice for what you want it to do. You can hire helpers to work your estate if you have something to work. 

Something like this should continue to work whilst you are offline. It should continue to generate money / materials or whatever it's setup to do when you're offline because it makes sense. It creates a nice meta-game of estate management and provides you with rewards over time so that when you are in game, you can do the fun things (combat, tweaking your estate, spending your money etc) rather than the tedious things (such as farming your fields, mining ore). 


Bad Example: Combat XP

In most MMOs, the main focus is earning XP via questing and combat. It is the main form of progression and gameplay. It doesn't make sense to bypass this progression whilst you are offline as you are bypassing the content. The only time this would make sense is if your level/xp isn't tied directly to specific content (so leveling up offline wouldn't skip content).

SpottyGekko

It seems that the "AFK skilling" mechanism is very popular in Korean F2P games.

I seem to remember reading that this could be because so many people in Korea play MMO's at "PC Bang's" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_bang) where you pay to play per hour.

The game dev companies then get kickbacks from the PC Bang owners because players are spending more to keep their game accounts online.

Perhaps it's not true, but it certainly seems feasible...

Kyleran

nariusseldon said:

Kyleran said:

EVE's passive training model is a big reason why I play it exclusively now.

Wait .. you like to play a game where you don't have to do anything to advance?

Yeah, leaves me free to "live in my virtual world" even when I'm not actually logged in.

COEs proposed offline activities is a more advanced version of this concept of having your character grow (or even die) whether you are actively playing the game or not.

kitarad

Sitting in Qeynos or Freeport hitting that spell over and over because your divination was at zero and you had to get that skill up or you fizzled when you needed it most. So you sit there and hit that spell over and over and over..... real value in that gameplay. I rather have some method of gaining that skill while I go do some housework then come back and actually use that skill in gameplay instead of finding some value in hitting a damn button every minute and then wait like 20 minutes for mana to regenerate to do that all over again.... quality gaming.

Mardukk

I really don't like Eve's offline system.  I don't as much dislike the semi afk approach Darkfall harvesting as you have to be logged in and checking every couple of mins.  I really don't understand why you wouldn't want progression to come through actually being logged into the game, though.

Dullahan

AFK progression was the obvious next step in the casual paradigm.

GeezerGamer

Years ago, My 1st introduction to EVE was like this:
I went to a forum.....I believe it was the official, but don't really recall. One of the popular threads for new players something along these lines..........
Purchase 2 accounts and, then, let your accounts mature a few months before you start playing...............
To this day, I still chuckle a bit when I think about that.

patlefort

Definitely don't like it. It's a way to limit progression just like dailies and login rewards because they want you to play a little everyday and not rush through the game in a few days. You can't reserve a weekend to do some hardcore grinding, you gotta play everyday.

Loke666

Well, rewarding players for not playing is a bit strange...

There are certainly activities your character could do while you are offline that would be realistic and do make sense though. For an instance you could have offline crafting, allowing players to spam out swords is rather unrealistic and do affect the games economy badly.  
If making a good weapon or similar took a few hours and you character stood and worked while you work or sleep you would get a healthier economy (as long as equally good drops at least are pretty rare so you can't just farm 10 or 100 weapons in the same time it takes to craft one.)

Standing in the market or at a player owned store and selling stuff is another good offline activety that makes the game a bit more alive without.                         

Actually gaining experience for not playing do somewhat defeat the purpose of the game. It do pace leveling (like Eve does) but gaining power as you play should actually be a fun experience instead of a boring grind or you could as well skip the experience part altogether and put the work into gear progression instead.

If playing isn't as fun as it should be the solution is to make it more fun, not just add ways for you to better your character by not playing.

Well, at least that is how I see it.

Kyleran

kitarad said:

Sitting in Qeynos or Freeport hitting that spell over and over because your divination was at zero and you had to get that skill up or you fizzled when you needed it most. So you sit there and hit that spell over and over and over..... real value in that gameplay. I rather have some method of gaining that skill while I go do some housework then come back and actually use that skill in gameplay instead of finding some value in hitting a damn button every minute and then wait like 20 minutes for mana to regenerate to do that all over again.... quality gaming.

I guess that's what the OP was saying, instead of either of those options, afk skilling or making you sit there and do it, why not just let you start out with those skills and dismiss all of that unnecessary effort.