(Opinion) (Rant) My issue with recent MMORPGs

Jakkss

It's been almost 5 years since I've been playing an MMO called "TERA", which there is a lot of aspects to really enjoy about this game. Over the years this game has become incredibly easy to the point you don't even need certain classes to equalize and bring success to the party. I've been wanting to find new MMOs to play to really bring back a real experience of being a part of the game, but instead the search for this MMO has been unsuccessful. 

With a lot of new MMOs opting for race/gender locks, and the fact that the only main type of class you can play now of days is a DPS; I find it really hard to be a class I enjoy being, which is a healer. Growing up, I've come to enjoy the concept of becoming who you want to be in a virtual environment with your own looks, skills, stats and experience. A lot of the games I used to play didn't restrict players from changing their weapons, and you were able to enter your own stats as you leveled up, really designing a class that would be perfect for your playing style. With the MMORPG market trying to keep up the high demand for the next great "AAA" MMORPG, we get left with rushed ideas, restricted game play and even unfinished areas that will never be added to the game; and it reaaaally bothers me.

So, what happened? That's one of my biggest questions. In the early 2000s, everyone had built a hype for mobile games really allowing players to connect, VR allowing people to really dive in, and building social connections in MMOs that let us help or abuse one another. Now it's 2017 and all I've been seeing in these next gen MMOs are solo dungeons, solo instances, solo quests, solo fields... Isn't a MMO suppose to be "Massively Multiplayer"? Looking at games like ArcheAge, Black Desert Online, and even TERA now, nothing seems to really fit what the genre used to be.

As of now, no aspect of a MMO is really unique anymore, from the game play, events, quests and even the story. Sometimes I feel like I'm watching a interactive movie more than actually being a part of the MMO itself. Some of my older MMOs never really had a "story quest line" to begin with. When you played the game, you were your own player, to make your own story. If a NPC needed help, you had the choice to help them or not. If a group needed you to be there and you did that final blow to save the community from an evading world boss; that's a story to tell. You were your own player that didn't need to be the hero of the entire game; and having to be the hero because you can't  progress otherwise just seems wrong. It just makes me sad to me that a lot of MMOs are just a giant story line instead of having lore scattered about the land for you to build together.

Another one of my issue I have lately with MMOs is the ones that are upcoming. Every year that passes by and we say "Oh, this is DEFINITELY going to be the next "AAA" MMORPG, and you guessed it, we're wrong. Developers that create MMOs try really hard to fit the old concept of MMOs that it used to be, to the point that it gets really boring over time. Even if you brought gathering and crafting, upgrading and enchanting gear, skills and techniques, etc, it isn't isn't exactly fun if we played this type of MMO before. When you expect a new MMO, it'd be much more unique than our history textbook, and experience a second life that you just can't have in the real world. In the end a lot of these upcoming MMOs just looks like another Everquest/Dungeons&Dragons/Skyrim remake with their brand name slapped on the title. It isn't a new experience, it's boring.

So what can we do about it? Absolutely nothing. Just like how hardware went from becoming 'entirely new hardware' to 'minor upgrades' saying "All New!" on the advertisement, I believe MMOs will head into the same direction (and everything else). The problem rests in financing and time, and since it isn't time consuming to just remake the same system as every other MMO, it's easy to make a fast couple million dollars while preparing for another money-making MMO. It's a lost fight, in my opinion; even if we sit on our butts to complain at a computer screen, things just won't change how they are. Eventually, allowing player to do just whatever they want will be a thing of the past, as things would slowly come out with episodically (instead of experiencing the game full with expansions), and your story would be the same as the hundreds of of thousands of other players who play the game and all you can do is experience the game from your characters PoV instead of your own.

I'm just really tired of MMOs being to old fashioned or to easy to complete. I don't want to play another medieval RPG, I want to play a fantasy world where every area is unique, breath taking and really gives life in the world. Where there is no invisible walls, you're not restricted to one weapon and you didn't have to play the same story as everyone else. I want to be unique. Oh well...

Quizzical

If you think too many MMORPGs are too similar to each other, then maybe the problem is the games you're choosing.  Uncharted Waters Online, for example, is a counterexample to nearly any "all MMORPGs do X" statement that you might plausibly come up with.  A Tale in the Desert is also quite strange, as the game doesn't have combat at all.

If grouping is what you're looking for, then the traditional problem is that early MMORPGs often assumed that players would magically get a group of suitable levels and classes without really considering where that group would come from.  So they made grouping mandatory while still being impractical, which made it impractical to play the game at all.  So most people didn't, as people don't like spending half of their gaming time waiting for a group.  Grouping is still around in games like Elsword that have robust grouping tools so that you only wait a minute or so for a group, rather than half an hour.

beebop500

   Our gaming experiences have been somewhat different, but I empathize with much of the spirit of your post, OP.  I used to love the genre too, but it has become such a shadow of its former self that I find myself almost completely disinterested in MMOs now.  I still hop a few forums, hoping to see something that will rekindle the old flame, but as you said: how many "next big things" have we seen now?  Too many to count, and yet all of them have failed.  Failed in the sense that the biggest player bases still belong to older games, more than one of which is subscription-based.  Those 800,000 F2P crapfests you read about last week?  None of them will last longer than the next batch of "free" games.

   Much as it pains me to say this, I suspect that I, like many other old vets, will simply stop playing MMOs entirely.  Not only has the genre deteriorated, but the society around it has become uneducated and full of whiners, therefore we are unlikely to see any positive changes.  As our culture becomes centered around special snowflakes who file lawsuits every time they are "bullied", you most certainly will not ever see a return to more difficult content, or content that requires thinking and communication, neither of which are  welcome, or needed, in any modern MMOs.  You didn't really expect the "bosses" in a game like BDO to require any sort of cohesive effort, did you?  They tend to "require" that you spend money in the game's cash shop, which is yet another reason why you will not see the genre revitalize itself.  (And no, BDO is not the only offender, it is simply the most blatant, imo.  Fanbois, you can bitch all you want.)

    I remember, too, when we used to be able to be unique in MMOs.  When classes had distinct advantages and disadvantages, and certain skills/talents were treasured due to their rarity or usefulness.  Nowadays talent trees are going the way of the dodo, as players have become too stupid to understand or use them properly; group content is going the same route as players' attention spans become exactly 140 characters long; anything needing any level of communication beyond emojis is being abandoned, as the games are geared for younger and younger players who grow up with tablets in their hands and expect everything to be shown to them all at once, since they do not read.

   TL;DR:  MMOs have become terrible and ain't getting any better.  Might want to consider the jump to single-player games.

kitarad

Come back when things change. In the meanwhile play single player games. I still play MMORPGs since I seem to have a higher threshold than most for the things that annoy others easily.

Jakkss

For both Quizzical and Beebop500,
I've tried all kinds of games out there, trust me my house is covered in games of all genres and platforms. When I build a mental image of each game out there, I will try to relate them to similar games I either own or plan to obtain upon release. Just like Project Genom and Conan, they share similar concepts to other games I played like Space Engineer and Minecraft; which both could even be related to Skyrim and No Man's Sky (and so forth).

 Even if I went to experience more single player games, they still feel like they are slowly sharing more and more similarities than being unique from each other. Look at the older line for example of Spyro, GTA, Everquest and so on. When you see these games, you can connect Spyro's game play design with Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter, Every TV Show/Move Game out there on the market. You can connect GTA to many games out there, I don't even need to list them, and the same goes with the original Everquest. I could own all the games in the world, even the ones that aren't english and still feel the same of the MMO and game genre slowly changing. It's not really open anymore, it's just a movie, a story. 

But again, that's just how I feel. I have a passion for games, even if they are just flat out horrible, I love the genre behind it and that's what always brings me back.  I just don't want to see something I love fall into something that isn't even the shape of it's former self. I'm worried.

kitarad

People should support the games that they like. If you have an old game that you enjoyed go back and pay and play it. That is how you make sure that you do not lose the things you love but people were too greedy when they had a chance they stopped supporting the games and started asking for F2P and now you have the mess you have. Congratulations.

Next time make sure you don't leave the games you like even if they put out a patch you dislike . When the games struggle they become worse so place part of the blame on the players themselves for what has happened to this genre. In the absence of companies that created good high budget games we now have many Indie companies. Pick one and support it.

Quizzical

beebop500 said:

   Our gaming experiences have been somewhat different, but I empathize with much of the spirit of your post, OP.  I used to love the genre too, but it has become such a shadow of its former self that I find myself almost completely disinterested in MMOs now.  I still hop a few forums, hoping to see something that will rekindle the old flame, but as you said: how many "next big things" have we seen now?  Too many to count, and yet all of them have failed.  Failed in the sense that the biggest player bases still belong to older games, more than one of which is subscription-based.  Those 800,000 F2P crapfests you read about last week?  None of them will last longer than the next batch of "free" games.

   Much as it pains me to say this, I suspect that I, like many other old vets, will simply stop playing MMOs entirely.  Not only has the genre deteriorated, but the society around it has become uneducated and full of whiners, therefore we are unlikely to see any positive changes.  As our culture becomes centered around special snowflakes who file lawsuits every time they are "bullied", you most certainly will not ever see a return to more difficult content, or content that requires thinking and communication, neither of which are  welcome, or needed, in any modern MMOs.  You didn't really expect the "bosses" in a game like BDO to require any sort of cohesive effort, did you?  They tend to "require" that you spend money in the game's cash shop, which is yet another reason why you will not see the genre revitalize itself.  (And no, BDO is not the only offender, it is simply the most blatant, imo.  Fanbois, you can bitch all you want.)

    I remember, too, when we used to be able to be unique in MMOs.  When classes had distinct advantages and disadvantages, and certain skills/talents were treasured due to their rarity or usefulness.  Nowadays talent trees are going the way of the dodo, as players have become too stupid to understand or use them properly; group content is going the same route as players' attention spans become exactly 140 characters long; anything needing any level of communication beyond emojis is being abandoned, as the games are geared for younger and younger players who grow up with tablets in their hands and expect everything to be shown to them all at once, since they do not read.

   TL;DR:  MMOs have become terrible and ain't getting any better.  Might want to consider the jump to single-player games.

If you want to make a really unique character, then try a game like Tree of Savior, which has 60 classes, of which a single character can eventually be 3-8 of them, depending on how high you want to level the classes you take.  Some of the classes are really weird, too, like Dievdirbys, Sadhu, Pardoner, Oracle, Kabbalist, Cataphract, Squire, Templar, Linker, Chronomancer, or Alchemist.

Or try my suggestion above of Uncharted Waters Online.  That has classes like Historian, Ocean Explorer, Interpreter, Yarn Dealer, Accountant, and Patissier.  There, you only play once class at a time, but change often, and your character is more about which combination of skills you've taken than what class you are that day.  There surely weren't many characters in the entire game that had both Violin Performance and Malay-Tagalog, as my character did.

If what you really want to complain about is not filling a needed group role, then that's on the way out and not coming back because it has never worked well.  If 5-man groups require one healer and only 10% of the playerbase is healers, then it's not possible to partition more than 50% of the playerbase into groups.  That works fine for healers who are in high demand and can readily get a group, but doesn't work for the rest of the players.  Required group compositions that don't match the playerbase is likely the primary culprit for the decline in an emphasis grouping in MMORPGs.

Jakkss

For Kitarad,
I do, I even put my money into projects I thought would change the gaming market, and they either cancelled or failed to provide promised content. TERA was P2P and I put my money into it every month because of how much I loved it. The games I would love to put my money into are long gone as people have changed publishers and developers, as well as the games just have gotten too old and shut down, especially my online DS/PS2/Dreamcast games.

At this moment I haven't really put time into a F2P game, including apps because it doesn't feel like a true game to me. It feels rushed. Only reason why I stuck to TERA this long is because I want it to be what it was suppose to be, despite it's previous lawsuits. It was something I was willing to support.

I'm just holding onto my past because it's something I don't want to let go. It's something I just can't give up.

Quizzical

NPCPak said:

For both Quizzical and Beebop500,
I've tried all kinds of games out there, trust me my house is covered in games of all genres and platforms. When I build a mental image of each game out there, I will try to relate them to similar games I either own or plan to obtain upon release. Just like Project Genom and Conan, they share similar concepts to other games I played like Space Engineer and Minecraft; which both could even be related to Skyrim and No Man's Sky (and so forth).

 Even if I went to experience more single player games, they still feel like they are slowly sharing more and more similarities than being unique from each other. Look at the older line for example of Spyro, GTA, Everquest and so on. When you see these games, you can connect Spyro's game play design with Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter, Every TV Show/Move Game out there on the market. You can connect GTA to many games out there, I don't even need to list them, and the same goes with the original Everquest. I could own all the games in the world, even the ones that aren't english and still feel the same of the MMO and game genre slowly changing. It's not really open anymore, it's just a movie, a story. 

But again, that's just how I feel. I have a passion for games, even if they are just flat out horrible, I love the genre behind it and that's what always brings me back.  I just don't want to see something I love fall into something that isn't even the shape of it's former self. I'm worried.

If you haven't played Uncharted Waters Online, then you haven't played anything remotely like it unless you've played the old Uncharted Waters console games.  Koei lives in their own universe and completely ignores most gaming conventions to do things their own way.  That makes for a steep learning curve, but it also means that you're not 90% of the way to being sick of UWO based on similarity to other games.

You seem dead set on declaring that there is nothing new under the sun, so if you were to try UWO, you might well decide quickly that it's similar to some other game that has virtually nothing in common with it on the basis of superficial similarities.  But the unique games that you're supposedly seeking are out there.  It's just up to you whether you want to play them or whether you'd rather whine that they don't exist.

WarEnsemble

I'll tell you what happened, World of Warcraft happened. The ruined the holy trinity (tank dps healer grind) by making everything into 7 second long "run errand" quests.

Wizardry

Well op,people wonder why i keep mentioning FFXi.

FFXI is the last of the old school mmorpg's,where a true CLASS player can be that class and be noticed.However even FFXi has changed a lot,the entire industry has changed ions in a very short time.

I would not believe a single developer that claims to have spent years on their games,most of these games are fly by night,barely a year spent and slapped onto the market/Steam.

I mention this a lot....
When you start out to design a Triple A game,you obviously need a budget,timeline,employees and a well thought out design.Well how on earth can you properly design a game based on Crowd funding?Case in point Star Citizen,he never expected to come remotely close to 100 million.He was looking at 6 million when the CF began,can you imagine what kind of game SC would be if he was relying on that 6 million?My god,it would be a short pile of code and nothing more.

Then look at what Smedley tried to sell us..roflmao a complete pile of crap.This business is just full of used car salesmen,they will rip you off for every penny in your pocket and tell you how great your purchase was.
Point being,with an industry full of deceiving con artists,how can we possibly expect to see a passionate great game design?
Let me roll back to my first paragraph..remember that game i mentioned FFXI,it took them 5 years to break even,you think one single developer right now would operate under those terms,not a chance in hell,they all want profits now before the games are even built.

Jakkss

For Quizzical, 
I haven't tried that game nor heard of it. I'm definitely not saying I know everything about video games and that every single one are the exactly the same. Just at this very moment I feel that the market feels a bit barren and I don't want another video game crash. If it will make you happy, I will try out this game, but it isn't exactly my point in this topic. It's about how companies choose use similarities to cash on the video game industry, and that I don't want to see future games go into this direction.
That's what worries me.

Jakkss

For Wizardry, 
Your comment is exactly how I feel and what I tried to express in my rant. 
Thank you for understanding what I was meaning to state.

Quizzical

NPCPak said:

For Quizzical, 
I haven't tried that game nor heard of it. I'm definitely not saying I know everything about video games and that every single one are the exactly the same. Just at this very moment I feel that the market feels a bit barren and I don't want another video game crash. If it will make you happy, I will try out this game, but it isn't exactly my point in this topic. It's about how companies choose use similarities to cash on the market industry, and that I don't want to see future games go into this direction.
That's what worries me.

If 1000 games launch in a year, 980 of which are stupid clones, and only 3 of the other 20 are something I like, then I'm happy because I have three fun new games to play that year--at least if I can find them.  Don't focus so much on the mass of terrible or uninteresting games.  Pick out the games you like, play those games, and ignore the rest.

Jakkss

Quizzical said:

NPCPak said:

For Quizzical, 
I haven't tried that game nor heard of it. I'm definitely not saying I know everything about video games and that every single one are the exactly the same. Just at this very moment I feel that the market feels a bit barren and I don't want another video game crash. If it will make you happy, I will try out this game, but it isn't exactly my point in this topic. It's about how companies choose use similarities to cash on the market industry, and that I don't want to see future games go into this direction.
That's what worries me.

If 1000 games launch in a year, 980 of which are stupid clones, and only 3 of the other 20 are something I like, then I'm happy because I have three fun new games to play that year--at least if I can find them.  Don't focus so much on the mass of terrible or uninteresting games.  Pick out the games you like, play those games, and ignore the rest.

I like your point of view, maybe I should do the same instead of having to try to make an equal opinion for each game I come across. Thank you.

Quizzical

If you want a couple of other oddball games, you could have a look at Trove and Atlas Reactor.

The basic thesis of Trove is that it doesn't matter if a game is coherent; all that matters is if it is fun.  So the developers are free to do wacky things.  One of the main character statistics in Trove is how many times you can jump before you have to touch the ground to reset the counter, so you can jump, then jump again while in mid-air to go higher, and so forth.  But how many jumps you can have is limited by the jumping attribute--which can be greatly improved with suitable gear choices.

Atlas Reactor is probably technically a MOBA, but it's nothing like League of Legends or your other standard MOBAs.  It's 4 on 4 and turn-based with 20-second turns, and a lot of complexity with how various skills will interact in particular situations.

sunandshadow

NPCPak said:

With a lot of new MMOs opting for race/gender locked classes, it seems that the only main type of class you can play as is a DPS. Where as being a player who enjoys healing other players, this has become impossibly hard to be.

I am confused, how do gender or race locked classes make it impossible to be a healer??? Although I don't like locked classes either, they just don't have anything to do with the existence or functionality of a healer class...?

I'm just really tired of MMOs being to old fashioned or to easy to complete. I don't want to play another medieval RPG, I want to play a fantasy world where every area is unique, breath taking and really gives life in the world. Where there is no invisible walls, you're not restricted to one weapon and you didn't have to play the same story as everyone else. I want to be unique. Oh well...

From the point of view of a designer you seem to be asking for two contradictory things here. You sound like you want an open world, sandoxy game except for having carefully pre-created areas (which by definition aren't sandboxy).

Jakkss

For Sunandshadow,
I'm not good at English, I'm still working on how to communicate effectively to the community. That first statement should say "With a lot of new MMOs opting for race/gender locks, and the fact that the only main type of class you can play now of days is a DPS; I find it really hard to be a class I enjoy being, which is a healer." 

So in general, I enjoy customization quite a lot, and not just general ascetics of the character, but having unique abilities, stats and general functionality as a healer role. But because you get limited to being a certain race to have this role, or even a certain gender that you're not comfortable playing as, you get limited to playing other classes all together. But again, this doesn't affect my overall experience, just my opinion when comparing it to similar MMOs in this current market.

For the second statement, it's the same as it was said. I want an open world with quests I can chose to do or not; they are open to complete when ever, and completing quests could unlock another string of quests not originally offered. I can compare this idea with games (of their original concept, not recent) like Perfect World, TERA, Everquest II, World of Warcraft, and so on. I don't request everything to be custom, I just want a decent MMO.

Kyleran

kitarad said:

People should support the games that they like. If you have an old game that you enjoyed go back and pay and play it. That is how you make sure that you do not lose the things you love but people were too greedy when they had a chance they stopped supporting the games and started asking for F2P and now you have the mess you have. Congratulations.

Next time make sure you don't leave the games you like even if they put out a patch you dislike . When the games struggle they become worse so place part of the blame on the players themselves for what has happened to this genre. In the absence of companies that created good high budget games we now have many Indie companies. Pick one and support it.

Agreed, have been playing EVE pretty steady for the past 10 years, and now have returned to an old school version of a classic MMORPG and have a blast. Even has healers in the traditional fashion.

Stick with what works is my motto these days, I no longer chase every shiny new title out there, they always disappoint.

Jakkss

kitarad said:

People should support the games that they like. If you have an old game that you enjoyed go back and pay and play it. That is how you make sure that you do not lose the things you love but people were too greedy when they had a chance they stopped supporting the games and started asking for F2P and now you have the mess you have. Congratulations.

Next time make sure you don't leave the games you like even if they put out a patch you dislike . When the games struggle they become worse so place part of the blame on the players themselves for what has happened to this genre. In the absence of companies that created good high budget games we now have many Indie companies. Pick one and support it.

Well at this moment I'm still sticking with TERA because of how much time and money I've put into the game. Even though they removed a lot of the crafting aspects of the game, I still try to perform my best when it comes to helping players. 

Quizzical

NPCPak said:

kitarad said:

People should support the games that they like. If you have an old game that you enjoyed go back and pay and play it. That is how you make sure that you do not lose the things you love but people were too greedy when they had a chance they stopped supporting the games and started asking for F2P and now you have the mess you have. Congratulations.

Next time make sure you don't leave the games you like even if they put out a patch you dislike . When the games struggle they become worse so place part of the blame on the players themselves for what has happened to this genre. In the absence of companies that created good high budget games we now have many Indie companies. Pick one and support it.

Well at this moment I'm still sticking with TERA because of how much time and money I've put into the game. Even though they removed a lot of the crafting aspects of the game, I still try to perform my best when it comes to helping players. 

This is the sunk cost fallacy.

If you think the game is still fun, then certainly, keep playing it.  But don't stay just because you've already spent a lot of time and money.

Jakkss

Quizzical said:

NPCPak said:

kitarad said:

People should support the games that they like. If you have an old game that you enjoyed go back and pay and play it. That is how you make sure that you do not lose the things you love but people were too greedy when they had a chance they stopped supporting the games and started asking for F2P and now you have the mess you have. Congratulations.

Next time make sure you don't leave the games you like even if they put out a patch you dislike . When the games struggle they become worse so place part of the blame on the players themselves for what has happened to this genre. In the absence of companies that created good high budget games we now have many Indie companies. Pick one and support it.

Well at this moment I'm still sticking with TERA because of how much time and money I've put into the game. Even though they removed a lot of the crafting aspects of the game, I still try to perform my best when it comes to helping players. 

This is the sunk cost fallacy.

If you think the game is still fun, then certainly, keep playing it.  But don't stay just because you've already spent a lot of time and money.

I do have fun.

Scorchien

OP .. FF14..............Go be a Healer .........

bigtime102

hi

Abuz0r

I pretty much completely agree with the OP.  Although our preferences inside the game differ, we seem to have similar frustrations.  I've figured out I really enjoy Project Gorgon.