It is recognised that dev's would appear to be making games that are too easy (you too can be godly/can win like X person), and therefore if a Raid (or Raids) is hard, and only a few people (can) do it, but it has great rewards, then why take it out. I would not argue that statement. but conversely I dont agree that they should make games too simplistic. Raiding is clearly the way for certain games, but it does not have to be the only way.
It is recognised that dev's would appear to be making games that are too easy (you too can be godly/can win like X person), and therefore if a Raid (or Raids) is hard, and only a few people (can) do it, but it has great rewards, then why take it out. I would not argue that statement. but conversely I dont agree that they should make games too simplistic. Raiding is clearly the way for certain games, but it does not have to be the only way.
Yeah, that's rather the problem that he's not getting, he keeps arguing a topic no one is disagreeing with, and is avoiding the topic that has been repeatedly brought up of "Why shouldn't we bring in challenging content and appropriate rewards to other components of the game?"
Instead he keeps focusing on the idea of making raids the only endgame, which is directly counter to the logic of letting people branch out into their own niches of a game. Like this last post of @Scot , he straight up suggests just adding more tiers to raids, as if that solves any problem around the fact that raids are only a small sliver of an MMO's content and play options.
So instead of exploring the subject of what other common facets there are of gameplay and how we can have extra tiers of content introduced across them to keep people engaged, we keep getting a broken loop that misses the point.
Anyway I look forward to the next thread where people who don't want to put the time in want all the rewards, sorry guys but that's what this sounds like when you boil it down.
Ya, im done here too. Alot of these posts are just plain retarded. The original question was should gear be locked, yes. Thats it. Those stats on said gear are needed to push content, not kill mobs. Don't like it? Don't play it? I know I don't play games I dont enjoy. Know what I don't do? Run to a forum to knock a fair system. If you don't think its fair, your entitled. All these games offer accesible gear thats far more powerful then you need as a non raider.
These nay sayers are scorned for some reason. Its a shame, that they cant just be happy for others. Most games dont require you to raid at all, and have a plethora of activities to keep people logging in. Since WOW is forever brought up, crafting is important in WOW (I know cause that was my gold income for years) cause it enables gearing alts easy or selling said gear for gold or to make pets/mounts/toys, to maybe even buy raid runs, pet collection, achievement hunting, fashion shows.......the list goes on. Many other mmo's follow suit because its a great formula, if it doesnt work for you thats on you. Theres a couple posters here just like to read what they write cause they consider it intelligent and informative, when the reality is there not actually applying anything. They keep screaming "Be innovative devs" when there already working hard on keeping the current system maintained. Running in circles with there heads cut off screaming the sky is falling. Were talking mainstream games, im sure theres some indie games that will suit your needs.
Im a believer in not knocking something unless you can do it better. (within reason) Maybe this band of entitled people should ban together, get there own ip and make there kinda game. Leave the developers to decide, cause obviously how huge the market is, how huge its growing, its working.
JELLO has been enjoyed for a very long time, same formula,still enjoyed. Not everyone likes JELLO, theres been nothing revolutionary about JELLO over the years, but its still great stuff. Enjoyed by millions. How does this relate? Because why mess with a formula that proves effective?
Honestly, a few people in here need to leave mmo's behind. Or gaming in general.
Lol, you guys are the only one who sound scorned. Not much to be said to a long rant about it claiming others are. Just keep clutching your purse.
I don't really think there should be alternate paths to the best gear for raiding outside raiding. It is a huge mistake that WoW made and continues to make. I think that the best gear in any MMO should come from the hardest content to complete, so typically raiding. I don't really think dungeons should ever give the best gear personally, but they should have their own viable progression path for those who want to just do dungeons. (Multiple tiers of them, NOT M+ style though) PvP gear should only really be strong in PvP, but should still be reasonable enough to do some easier PvE content with to work towards the other gear in those types of content. But PvP gear should also always be the best gear in PvP as well. Raid level gear should be on par with pretty good PvP gear though, but it should never be the best.
Raids exist as a really strong way to create social groups and I don't really think that you can get that kind of experience with smaller numbers of players just due to the sheer nature of everything that takes smaller numbers being much more puggable. Sure, you can pug raids as well, but most people would probably rather have a guild then deal with that if they are challenging enough.
One common misconception these days is that gear "shouldn't matter" and that it should only be cosmetic type rewards for the hardest content. I STRONGLY disagree with this concept. Not everyone can get the best gear or should be able to. There is nothing wrong with that at all. Just like how not everyone should be able to do the hardest content in the game. (AKA, Raids shouldn't have 4 difficulties, they should have 2 at the most)
UO and SWG had strong communities and practically no forced group content. Maybe there are lessons.
One thing you keep hearing here is how raids are for the minority of players, sure and that's not a bad thing. Making a game for the lowest common denominator is the design philosophy of todays MMORPG's. It encourages classes with no difference between them, no meaningful choices, solo to top level and the likes of dailies...preferably dailies that can be done in ten minutes.
It encourages poor design in my eyes which caters to those who can be in game the least amount of time and gives nothing to those who can spend longer. By all means have some difficult solo player quests at top level and so on, just don't use those to replace the only solid grouping gameplay left in MMOs.
The only time I have crafted in a MMORPG is when the guild needed a crafter, it is not to my taste. But I won't come on here saying how we need to do away with crafting or replace it with something more "fun", well more "fun" to me anyway regardless of what all the crafters think.
That rather misses the point yet again, that other elements of the game should have comparative focus, not genericization or lowest "common denominator".
How many times in posts now have others stated increasing the standards and challenges other elements of the game can present? How do you go from that often stated preference to claiming it is asking for the "lowest common denominator"?
Do you have an honest argument?
I mentioned what the design philosophy of MMOs mostly now is
as it seems to be something some posters are leaning to here. I saw the remarks
about challenges, that’s why I said "By all means have some difficult solo
player quests at top level and so on", but I am concerned that the OP
wants to ditch raids, he uses expressions like "boys club" and so on.
For me we could make raids better, how about more stages making it easier for
players to get into raiding, that's a direction you will find most raiders favour.
I think my arguments on here have all been honest, but you seem to think I am
talking to every poster on here equally that is not the case.
The increasing challenge you talk of is not a direction MMO designers will be
happy to go in, they do seem to accept the handed down wisdom that games must
get ever easier. That affects those launched too and is why the classic servers
now coming out are all harder.
I liked the idea of some solo hard questing, it is just an extension
of normal questing though and as such should not be on a par with raids
but might be good for making you raid ready. Lotro did some good 3 avatar group
scenarios, they had some decent rewards but were an adjunct to raiding, that
sort of thing works well.
Finally, the history of MMOs has been to take away game play
that was once thought essential and not give us much or indeed anything in
return. Many MMOs now do not have raids, housing, crafting of any note or grouping.
What have we got in return for that? I doubt many of you out there think the
likes of dailies are a good return on such lost content but maybe you do?
The problem remains that your logic continues to revolve around how to make the user experience better for 10% of the user base, continuing to neglect the other 90% that the conversation on introducing more elements to the other components of the game is meant to help engage.
Do you honestly expect to support an MMO's community by ignoring it?
You may claim your arguments are honest, but when every time you make a comment it's at the complete dismissal of anyone outside the narrow band of "raiders" it just reaffirms you aren't giving any thought or credence to the subject that keeps being brought up.
And plenty of designers are fine with challenge. The flaw is approachability and staying power in many cases. a poorly implemented idea, even if interesting in theory, will not retain people. Focusing on trying to tweak content that most users don't care about in the first place, does not help that to any measure. You want to support having a community in games? Then you need to give many of them a reason to stay.
And that then cycles to the point that's been made time and time again. When no one but the dungeon runners, the "raiders" have endgame content to run, then it's killed it for the rest of the community, and that community and consequently that game will dwindle as it has over and over again.
Also, what's with that questing comment? "It's just an extension of normal questing."
Yeah, and raids are just an extension of normal dungeons.
There is no reason solo questing should not be on par with raids. As Ver even suggested in his opening post, rewards need not be the same either for every end-game track, but can instead carry gear that serves to enhance further progression withing the track it's earned from.
And most major MMOs that currently stand have the things you claim are missing. This commentary of yours reflects more on the state of WoW, which has lost it's way in regards to the fact that they already neglected and lost a good chunk of their playerbase to focusing too much on raiders, and their later compromises to try and get them back simply did not work and only alienated the remaining userbase further.
You'd be better off looking at more modern titles like FFXIV or ESO, with more relevant crafting systems, ESO having pretty decent housing and personalization systems, and raids being a present, but finite component that exists alongside continued progression of questing and endgame achievements spread across the game's mechanics.
Which all leaves me with repeating the same question I have of your arguments as I posed last time.
It is recognised that dev's would appear to be making games that are too easy (you too can be godly/can win like X person), and therefore if a Raid (or Raids) is hard, and only a few people (can) do it, but it has great rewards, then why take it out. I would not argue that statement. but conversely I dont agree that they should make games too simplistic. Raiding is clearly the way for certain games, but it does not have to be the only way.
Yeah, that's rather the problem that he's not getting, he keeps arguing a topic no one is disagreeing with, and is avoiding the topic that has been repeatedly brought up of "Why shouldn't we bring in challenging content and appropriate rewards to other components of the game?"
Instead he keeps focusing on the idea of making raids the only endgame, which is directly counter to the logic of letting people branch out into their own niches of a game. Like this last post of @Scot , he straight up suggests just adding more tiers to raids, as if that solves any problem around the fact that raids are only a small sliver of an MMO's content and play options.
So instead of exploring the subject of what other common facets there are of gameplay and how we can have extra tiers of content introduced across them to keep people engaged, we keep getting a broken loop that misses the point.
Correct me if I'm wrong. You can get raid equivalent gear from doing mythic+ dungeon in wow. So there are progression from non raid content.
The question is about "the best" gear in the game. Which wow make it drop from the hardest raid.
If only a tiny percentage of people manage to beat the hardest raid (1%) and get the best gear. Do you think only 1% of crafter or 1% of dungeon crawler should be reward the best gear in the game?
That become a question of entitlement. Or should everyone be handed a trophy. (The irony. sandbox player like to mock themepark player about entitlement and being a game where everyone wins)
It is recognised that dev's would appear to be making games that are too easy (you too can be godly/can win like X person), and therefore if a Raid (or Raids) is hard, and only a few people (can) do it, but it has great rewards, then why take it out. I would not argue that statement. but conversely I dont agree that they should make games too simplistic. Raiding is clearly the way for certain games, but it does not have to be the only way.
I agree, I would see more challenge at all levels, but not sure we will ever get that. And lets be honest ((one tries )), even raids get easier over time, nothing escapes the ever easier mode direction.
Limnic, I am not saying every MMO is as simplistic as the majority, the examples you gave show there is some variety out there. I don't think that there are many MMOs like ESO and FFXIV (two of my top five) out there though, the majority have been stripped down. If you listen to how gaming studios justify such gameplay removals they use words like "streamlining". It is loss of content, but I don't think we differ much in this area so leaving that there.
You do seem to mistake my not agreeing with you as my "ignoring" of the argument, no I just don't see this as you do. Perhaps it is time to get past that, if we don't agree it is not the end of the world, can you accept that though I wonder?
I am all for giving players a reason to stay in end game, just wary of those new gameplay reasons effecting the one thing that has been able to retain players, raids. I have seen some decent ideas on here how that could be done, but my ideas revolve around those which do not effect raids. The solo questing on a par with raids clearly does, so I am against this.
You could have crafting quests like Vanguard, even if you only introduced them at top level (less work for the studio). These would be quests where issues are resolved by crafting, that seems to really appeal to crafters, I don't even like crafting and liked the idea. This could be for the making of better housing and might even have bonus effects but as you can see it does not supplant raiding.
Because if you have any knowledge of MMOs you will know that players always take the easiest route, and the easiest route would be top level solo questing for raid gear not raid questing for raid gear. Now the suggestion has been made this gear need not be raid gear, if not, what it would be used for? I could understand cosmetic outfits, or even something that was part of a pvp outfit, perhaps making you more PvP ready?
So I hope you can see I am open to ideas just not all of your ideas, which is not the same as ignoring the issue.
It is recognised that dev's would appear to be making games that are too easy (you too can be godly/can win like X person), and therefore if a Raid (or Raids) is hard, and only a few people (can) do it, but it has great rewards, then why take it out. I would not argue that statement. but conversely I dont agree that they should make games too simplistic. Raiding is clearly the way for certain games, but it does not have to be the only way.
Yeah, that's rather the problem that he's not getting, he keeps arguing a topic no one is disagreeing with, and is avoiding the topic that has been repeatedly brought up of "Why shouldn't we bring in challenging content and appropriate rewards to other components of the game?"
Instead he keeps focusing on the idea of making raids the only endgame, which is directly counter to the logic of letting people branch out into their own niches of a game. Like this last post of @Scot , he straight up suggests just adding more tiers to raids, as if that solves any problem around the fact that raids are only a small sliver of an MMO's content and play options.
So instead of exploring the subject of what other common facets there are of gameplay and how we can have extra tiers of content introduced across them to keep people engaged, we keep getting a broken loop that misses the point.
Correct me if I'm wrong. You can get raid equivalent gear from doing mythic+ dungeon in wow. So there are progression from non raid content.
The question is about "the best" gear in the game. Which wow make it drop from the hardest raid.
If only a tiny percentage of people manage to beat the hardest raid (1%) and get the best gear. Do you think only 1% of crafter or 1% of dungeon crawler should be reward the best gear in the game?
That become a question of entitlement. Or should everyone be handed a trophy. (The irony. sandbox player like to mock themepark player about entitlement and being a game where everyone wins)
Correct you if you're wrong? Sure thing.
Well I can point out that Mythic+ is fundamentally the same kind of pocket dungeon as raids, just stepped in scale. You're basically just replacing raids with mini-raids. IE, raiding with more raiding.
Next correction.
The question was not simply "best gear in game". The first post even posed the notion that gear should be more specialized so "best in slot" became entirely dependent on the track of game content you chose to focus on. IE, the best gear for raids would be rewarded from raids, but would not be the same as best gear for public events, PvP, quest-tracks, etc.
And consequently to your question.
End game content is for end-game players. The point would be that people that want to progress by playing content they enjoy, should have a venue for that instead of culling the gameplay down to a single track. A tiny percentage of people beat the hardest raid content because a tiny percentage enjoy that specific form of gameplay.
Next correction.
And that's not a question of entitlement, because it's not asking for handouts in the first place. That's only a straw-man provided by people who want to bullshit without giving what's being said proper consideration. Why should everyone be handed a trophy? What part is that remotely relevant to wanting other aspects of the game to have equivalent rewards for respectively equivalent effort?
The answer is, it's not because that claim of entitlement is a fundamentally false argument created because instead of addressing the idea of equivalent tracks of progression, people like you are apparently making a leap in assumption right past the point of making the rest of the game's system relevant instead of forgotten. The rest of the userbase the ultimately bleeds away from the game because they are ignored for the sake of dungeon grinds and raids.
There is no such thing as wrong genre as far as MMORPG go.
I think this is your basic problem. You want something other than MMORPGs, but labeled as such.
I think your problem is you think mmorpg's must be played the way you think they should be played.
I didn't say anything about "playing" an MMORPG. I'm talking about the basic mechanics that makes a game an MMORPG.
Care to try again?
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
That depends. Are MMORPGs "games where you can only murder things in a linear instanced environment" Or "massively multiplayer role playing games you play one of a variety of roles in"
If it's a Role Playing Game, what are the roles you are playing? Is the "holy trinity" the only choice? Is it a RPG or a stilted ARPG?
One thing you keep hearing here is how raids are for the minority of players, sure and that's not a bad thing. Making a game for the lowest common denominator is the design philosophy of todays MMORPG's. It encourages classes with no difference between them, no meaningful choices, solo to top level and the likes of dailies...preferably dailies that can be done in ten minutes.
It encourages poor design in my eyes which caters to those who can be in game the least amount of time and gives nothing to those who can spend longer. By all means have some difficult solo player quests at top level and so on, just don't use those to replace the only solid grouping gameplay left in MMOs.
The only time I have crafted in a MMORPG is when the guild needed a crafter, it is not to my taste. But I won't come on here saying how we need to do away with crafting or replace it with something more "fun", well more "fun" to me anyway regardless of what all the crafters think.
You have to cater to the lowest common detonator. Doesn't mean you have to make everyhting easy but why would you not cater to a majority of your player base? If some guys want easy mode and relax after work they should get content geared to that
At the same time there are people who are interested in challenges that have no interest in raids. Not because they are hard but it just waste too much time, boring and boys club mentality. You guys make it seem like raids don't have much of a leg to stand on without gear locked behind it.
Would raiding die if solo and small group content got the best gear to do solo and small group activities? Would raids die if explorers got the best gear to travel, find resources and etc. Would raids die if crafters had their own means to make the best gear for others through their own trials? If so maybe raiding needs something done.
To be honest I never liked the way themepark content was setup in the first place. I would setup everything based on challenge than level based. Light challenge near major cities, medium challenge, hard challenge, solo classes/small group challenge, full group challenge, multiple group/challenge raid challenge. It's just far more natural and meaningful than 1 to 1 leveling 1-50.
There is no such thing as wrong genre as far as MMORPG go.
I think this is your basic problem. You want something other than MMORPGs, but labeled as such.
Tell me what are the requirements for a MMORPG?
Well, a Massively Multiplayer game which is Online would be a good start, yes? Even the massively part can be different for different players. Generally, though, the capability to have 100's or 1000's of players simultaneously online is a good start.
The RPG portion can get a little tricky, though. One basic fundamental of roleplaying games is progression. Another basic tenet for me is playing the role of someone else, not "AlBQuirky in another land." This is why I refuse to call MMOs with action combat, where MY twitch skills count, not my characters actual skills, an RPG. Action adventure? That fits here. Others will disagree
As to raid gear, the topic, it's neither here nor there. Yet you said:
There is no such thing as wrong genre as far as MMORPG go.
Basically, MMORPG defines a genre, just like puzzle games and platformers do. If you call a game an MMORPG, players expect certain features in the game. That expectation is the whole purpose of genres.
MMO is an umbrella term which then separates into RPG, FPS, ARPG, and so on. Would you also say, "There is no such thing as wrong genre as far as Autobiographical books go?"
When does an MMORPG stop being an MMORPG?
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Limnic, I am not saying every MMO is as simplistic as the majority, the examples you gave show there is some variety out there. I don't think that there are many MMOs like ESO and FFXIV (two of my top five) out there though, the majority have been stripped down. If you listen to how gaming studios justify such gameplay removals they use words like "streamlining". It is loss of content, but I don't think we differ much in this area so leaving that there.
You do seem to mistake my not agreeing with you as my "ignoring" of the argument, no I just don't see this as you do. Perhaps it is time to get past that, if we don't agree it is not the end of the world, can you accept that though I wonder?
I am all for giving players a reason to stay in end game, just wary of those new gameplay reasons effecting the one thing that has been able to retain players, raids. I have seen some decent ideas on here how that could be done, but my ideas revolve around those which do not effect raids. The solo questing on a par with raids clearly does, so I am against this.
You could have crafting quests like Vanguard, even if you only introduced them at top level (less work for the studio). These would be quests where issues are resolved by crafting, that seems to really appeal to crafters, I don't even like crafting and liked the idea. This could be for the making of better housing and might even have bonus effects but as you can see it does not supplant raiding.
Because if you have any knowledge of MMOs you will know that players always take the easiest route, and the easiest route would be top level solo questing for raid gear not raid questing for raid gear. Now the suggestion has been made this gear need not be raid gear, if not, what it would be used for? I could understand cosmetic outfits, or even something that was part of a pvp outfit, perhaps making you more PvP ready?
So I hope you can see I am open to ideas just not all of your ideas, which is not the same as ignoring the issue.
Unless you're including churned out titles, there's not many MMO's in general.
Even as much of a dull grind the core progression track of Black Desert is, people forget that game has a rather broad housing, crafting, and community/economy systems that offer alternative play tracks for example.
I do not see this same "majority" you are making such clams about, unless again you are trying to include the cheap churn titles. The problem is that these alternative tracks are neglected, which is the crux of so much of this conversation. They are there, but when they are ignored for the sake of making raids and mini-raids into the only endgame track, then all those other components no longer have sufficient meaning to players and they will begin to leave until it's only the small community of diehards with their endgame niche left.
And I do not mistake anything here. Your own comments shows how you continue to ignore things. Either by a willful choice of refusing the logic, or by simply not being able to understand something that's been bluntly stated.
Point in case. Raids have not been able to retain players. The MMOs that have focused raids as their only end-game content have all bled users. Many titles that have tried to encapsulate the raid experience by itself have similarly floundered out by virtue of never having enough users to sustain them.
This is again an example of where you are ignoring things. Because you make a statement that in order to be made, has to assume that giving greater depth to other elements of the game to offer other choices for play in end-game somehow is to the detriment of raids. Like that solo questing comment of yours.
Why do you think solo questing would be to the detriment of raids? Because your path of least resistance argument, that ignores that a single player focused experience can retain a high challenge ceiling?
Which is ironic since the solution is something you touch upon following in your comment on crafting, yet you forget it again right after when you try your path of least resistance argument again. You assume that solo questing would be fundamentally less time or effort intensive than raids, which is a false assumption by itself, and then stack that with the blatant act of ignoring the thing that's been brought up multiple times, that different types of end game progression can have different reward tracks that benefit those specific tracks. IE, solo quest chains offers gear that is tailored to progressing through the next stage of the chain, and raid rewards are more unique to gearing for specific elements of the raids (like unique abilities or counters to specific elements present in the raid used as a way to unlock the path to the next raid tier).
So I can see that you are ignoring things. Quite brazenly even. Whether you are doing it consciously or not is the only unknown.
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
"Maelstrom may have been the hardest PVE content I’ve ever done. I was one of the first 75 to clear it. It took two weeks, 4 hours maybe 6 a day and 1000’s of lives lost."
i agree Maelstorm was hard, i couldnt get past level 7 but it was easier to do with top tier crafter gear and weapons and spell weaving exploit
Are you guys arguing for alternate but equal progression paths starting to feel like you're talking to a brick wall yet? Ya....I've been having these arguments since Everquest.
Here's the thing: The people who think of themselves as "hardcore raiders" will never agree to any other form of high end progression. Ever.
Why? Let me try to make this as clear as I can.
1. For the raider types, the joy they get from the game does not come from playing, it comes from having high end loot.
2. In order to enjoy having the high end loot they need to know that other people don't have it. The more who don't have it the happier the e-peen raider is.
3. Because they play only for e-peen and not to enjoy the content----they actually want the high end content to be as unenjoyable as possible because this discourages other people from doing it which makes the rewards more exclusive, which increases the e-peen value of said rewards and that is all they care about.
4. Any "alternate progression path" is a threat to the exclusivity of their high end e-peen loot and as such will be attacked and ridiculed no matter how sensible and intelligently thought out it is. This goes back to point number 2. It doesn't matter if the rewards are different. If the alternate progression satisfied other people with their own form of high end advancement it would devastate the e-peen raider because he needs for other people to be unhappy in order to feel happy himself.
This is the reality guys. You can't have a reasonable discussion with those people. Just give up on it.
There is no such thing as wrong genre as far as MMORPG go.
I think this is your basic problem. You want something other than MMORPGs, but labeled as such.
Tell me what are the requirements for a MMORPG?
Well, a Massively Multiplayer game which is Online would be a good start, yes? Even the massively part can be different for different players. Generally, though, the capability to have 100's or 1000's of players simultaneously online is a good start.
The RPG portion can get a little tricky, though. One basic fundamental of roleplaying games is progression. Another basic tenet for me is playing the role of someone else, not "AlBQuirky in another land." This is why I refuse to call MMOs with action combat, where MY twitch skills count, not my characters actual skills, an RPG. Action adventure? That fits here. Others will disagree
As to raid gear, the topic, it's neither here nor there. Yet you said:
There is no such thing as wrong genre as far as MMORPG go.
Basically, MMORPG defines a genre, just like puzzle games and platformers do. If you call a game an MMORPG, players expect certain features in the game. That expectation is the whole purpose of genres.
MMO is an umbrella term which then separates into RPG, FPS, ARPG, and so on. Would you also say, "There is no such thing as wrong genre as far as Autobiographical books go?"
When does an MMORPG stop being an MMORPG?
Which why I say there is no wrong genre because the setting can demand anything. I see nothing in what you say that a MMORPG must have raiding. Imply that not wanting the best gear being locked behind raids.
It is always easy to say someone should play something else. Like saying you want pure roleplaying you should play PnP. Maybe dice rolling is too twitchy though.
MMORPG to me is about the role you play in the world with other players. It is hybrid of RPG and online gaming. Doesn't have to be quite like a typical single player. But people are very dogmatic in their ideals.
Are you guys arguing for alternate but equal progression paths starting to feel like you're talking to a brick wall yet? Ya....I've been having these arguments since Everquest.
Here's the thing: The people who think of themselves as "hardcore raiders" will never agree to any other form of high end progression. Ever.
Why? Let me try to make this as clear as I can.
1. For the raider types, the joy they get from the game does not come from playing, it comes from having high end loot.
2. In order to enjoy having the high end loot they need to know that other people don't have it. The more who don't have it the happier the e-peen raider is.
3. Because they play only for e-peen and not to enjoy the content----they actually want the high end content to be as unenjoyable as possible because this discourages other people from doing it which makes the rewards more exclusive, which increases the e-peen value of said rewards and that is all they care about.
4. Any "alternate progression path" is a threat to the exclusivity of their high end e-peen loot and as such will be attacked and ridiculed no matter how sensible and intelligently thought out it is. This goes back to point number 2. It doesn't matter if the rewards are different. If the alternate progression satisfied other people with their own form of high end advancement it would devastate the e-peen raider because he needs for other people to be unhappy in order to feel happy himself.
This is the reality guys. You can't have a reasonable discussion with those people. Just give up on it.
You forgot people are more traditional and dogmatic than they are willing to believe.
"You want to put ranch dressing on a burger. Just eat a salad and leave my burgers alone!"
I'm curious to know where this info came from that only a small percentage of players used to raid in the past? According to Ghostcrawler (the wise guy who implemented LFR), it wasn't that a low number of people were participating in raids, it was the fact that a low percentage of players could clear raid content. Even then, people were still garbage, so thunderforging/warforging came into the game around mop (again you can thank ghostcrawler for that) to help push clears because wow raids/dungeons were simply 'too difficult' for the average player. I mean the guy has a whole write up somewhere (I think preach went over this around last year when talking about the existence of warforging/titanforging), so he might know what he's talking about since he's the reason people hated him for so long.
I'm curious to know where this info came from that only a small percentage of players used to raid in the past? According to Ghostcrawler (the wise guy who implemented LFR), it wasn't that a low number of people were participating in raids, it was the fact that a low percentage of players could clear raid content. Even then, people were still garbage, so thunderforging/warforging came into the game around mop (again you can thank ghostcrawler for that) to help push clears because wow raids/dungeons were simply 'too difficult' for the average player. I mean the guy has a whole write up somewhere (I think preach went over this around last year when talking about the existence of warforging/titanforging), so he might know what he's talking about since he's the reason people hated him for so long.
The 1% number comes from ghostcrawler and it was related to the people that took part in a single naxxramas and sunwell raids.
The number that actually took part in raids were quite high due to the low requirements of doing entry level raids like zul'gurub and kharazan.
The idea of having to be elitist to do raiding has always been a ludicrous idea, it was only true for groups that did serious progression in naxx and sunwell.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
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Instead he keeps focusing on the idea of making raids the only endgame, which is directly counter to the logic of letting people branch out into their own niches of a game. Like this last post of @Scot , he straight up suggests just adding more tiers to raids, as if that solves any problem around the fact that raids are only a small sliver of an MMO's content and play options.
So instead of exploring the subject of what other common facets there are of gameplay and how we can have extra tiers of content introduced across them to keep people engaged, we keep getting a broken loop that misses the point.
Do you honestly expect to support an MMO's community by ignoring it?
You may claim your arguments are honest, but when every time you make a comment it's at the complete dismissal of anyone outside the narrow band of "raiders" it just reaffirms you aren't giving any thought or credence to the subject that keeps being brought up.
And plenty of designers are fine with challenge. The flaw is approachability and staying power in many cases. a poorly implemented idea, even if interesting in theory, will not retain people. Focusing on trying to tweak content that most users don't care about in the first place, does not help that to any measure. You want to support having a community in games? Then you need to give many of them a reason to stay.
And that then cycles to the point that's been made time and time again. When no one but the dungeon runners, the "raiders" have endgame content to run, then it's killed it for the rest of the community, and that community and consequently that game will dwindle as it has over and over again.
Also, what's with that questing comment? "It's just an extension of normal questing."
Yeah, and raids are just an extension of normal dungeons.
There is no reason solo questing should not be on par with raids. As Ver even suggested in his opening post, rewards need not be the same either for every end-game track, but can instead carry gear that serves to enhance further progression withing the track it's earned from.
And most major MMOs that currently stand have the things you claim are missing. This commentary of yours reflects more on the state of WoW, which has lost it's way in regards to the fact that they already neglected and lost a good chunk of their playerbase to focusing too much on raiders, and their later compromises to try and get them back simply did not work and only alienated the remaining userbase further.
You'd be better off looking at more modern titles like FFXIV or ESO, with more relevant crafting systems, ESO having pretty decent housing and personalization systems, and raids being a present, but finite component that exists alongside continued progression of questing and endgame achievements spread across the game's mechanics.
Which all leaves me with repeating the same question I have of your arguments as I posed last time.
The question is about "the best" gear in the game. Which wow make it drop from the hardest raid.
If only a tiny percentage of people manage to beat the hardest raid (1%) and get the best gear. Do you think only 1% of crafter or 1% of dungeon crawler should be reward the best gear in the game?
That become a question of entitlement. Or should everyone be handed a trophy. (The irony. sandbox player like to mock themepark player about entitlement and being a game where everyone wins)
Limnic, I am not saying every MMO is as simplistic as the majority, the examples you gave show there is some variety out there. I don't think that there are many MMOs like ESO and FFXIV (two of my top five) out there though, the majority have been stripped down. If you listen to how gaming studios justify such gameplay removals they use words like "streamlining". It is loss of content, but I don't think we differ much in this area so leaving that there.
You do seem to mistake my not agreeing with you as my "ignoring" of the argument, no I just don't see this as you do. Perhaps it is time to get past that, if we don't agree it is not the end of the world, can you accept that though I wonder?
I am all for giving players a reason to stay in end game, just wary of those new gameplay reasons effecting the one thing that has been able to retain players, raids. I have seen some decent ideas on here how that could be done, but my ideas revolve around those which do not effect raids. The solo questing on a par with raids clearly does, so I am against this.
You could have crafting quests like Vanguard, even if you only introduced them at top level (less work for the studio). These would be quests where issues are resolved by crafting, that seems to really appeal to crafters, I don't even like crafting and liked the idea. This could be for the making of better housing and might even have bonus effects but as you can see it does not supplant raiding.
Because if you have any knowledge of MMOs you will know that players always take the easiest route, and the easiest route would be top level solo questing for raid gear not raid questing for raid gear. Now the suggestion has been made this gear need not be raid gear, if not, what it would be used for? I could understand cosmetic outfits, or even something that was part of a pvp outfit, perhaps making you more PvP ready?
So I hope you can see I am open to ideas just not all of your ideas, which is not the same as ignoring the issue.
Well I can point out that Mythic+ is fundamentally the same kind of pocket dungeon as raids, just stepped in scale. You're basically just replacing raids with mini-raids. IE, raiding with more raiding.
Next correction.
The question was not simply "best gear in game". The first post even posed the notion that gear should be more specialized so "best in slot" became entirely dependent on the track of game content you chose to focus on. IE, the best gear for raids would be rewarded from raids, but would not be the same as best gear for public events, PvP, quest-tracks, etc.
And consequently to your question.
End game content is for end-game players. The point would be that people that want to progress by playing content they enjoy, should have a venue for that instead of culling the gameplay down to a single track. A tiny percentage of people beat the hardest raid content because a tiny percentage enjoy that specific form of gameplay.
Next correction.
And that's not a question of entitlement, because it's not asking for handouts in the first place. That's only a straw-man provided by people who want to bullshit without giving what's being said proper consideration. Why should everyone be handed a trophy? What part is that remotely relevant to wanting other aspects of the game to have equivalent rewards for respectively equivalent effort?
The answer is, it's not because that claim of entitlement is a fundamentally false argument created because instead of addressing the idea of equivalent tracks of progression, people like you are apparently making a leap in assumption right past the point of making the rest of the game's system relevant instead of forgotten. The rest of the userbase the ultimately bleeds away from the game because they are ignored for the sake of dungeon grinds and raids.
All of what I just wrote would have already been addressed had you just read the post right above yours.
Care to try again?
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Are MMORPGs
"games where you can only murder things in a linear instanced environment"
Or
"massively multiplayer role playing games you play one of a variety of roles in"
If it's a Role Playing Game, what are the roles you are playing? Is the "holy trinity" the only choice? Is it a RPG or a stilted ARPG?
At the same time there are people who are interested in challenges that have no interest in raids. Not because they are hard but it just waste too much time, boring and boys club mentality. You guys make it seem like raids don't have much of a leg to stand on without gear locked behind it.
Would raiding die if solo and small group content got the best gear to do solo and small group activities? Would raids die if explorers got the best gear to travel, find resources and etc. Would raids die if crafters had their own means to make the best gear for others through their own trials? If so maybe raiding needs something done.
To be honest I never liked the way themepark content was setup in the first place. I would setup everything based on challenge than level based. Light challenge near major cities, medium challenge, hard challenge, solo classes/small group challenge, full group challenge, multiple group/challenge raid challenge. It's just far more natural and meaningful than 1 to 1 leveling 1-50.
The RPG portion can get a little tricky, though. One basic fundamental of roleplaying games is progression. Another basic tenet for me is playing the role of someone else, not "AlBQuirky in another land." This is why I refuse to call MMOs with action combat, where MY twitch skills count, not my characters actual skills, an RPG. Action adventure? That fits here. Others will disagree
As to raid gear, the topic, it's neither here nor there. Yet you said:
Basically, MMORPG defines a genre, just like puzzle games and platformers do. If you call a game an MMORPG, players expect certain features in the game. That expectation is the whole purpose of genres.
MMO is an umbrella term which then separates into RPG, FPS, ARPG, and so on. Would you also say, "There is no such thing as wrong genre as far as Autobiographical books go?"
When does an MMORPG stop being an MMORPG?
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
Even as much of a dull grind the core progression track of Black Desert is, people forget that game has a rather broad housing, crafting, and community/economy systems that offer alternative play tracks for example.
I do not see this same "majority" you are making such clams about, unless again you are trying to include the cheap churn titles. The problem is that these alternative tracks are neglected, which is the crux of so much of this conversation. They are there, but when they are ignored for the sake of making raids and mini-raids into the only endgame track, then all those other components no longer have sufficient meaning to players and they will begin to leave until it's only the small community of diehards with their endgame niche left.
And I do not mistake anything here. Your own comments shows how you continue to ignore things. Either by a willful choice of refusing the logic, or by simply not being able to understand something that's been bluntly stated.
Point in case. Raids have not been able to retain players. The MMOs that have focused raids as their only end-game content have all bled users. Many titles that have tried to encapsulate the raid experience by itself have similarly floundered out by virtue of never having enough users to sustain them.
This is again an example of where you are ignoring things. Because you make a statement that in order to be made, has to assume that giving greater depth to other elements of the game to offer other choices for play in end-game somehow is to the detriment of raids. Like that solo questing comment of yours.
Why do you think solo questing would be to the detriment of raids? Because your path of least resistance argument, that ignores that a single player focused experience can retain a high challenge ceiling?
Which is ironic since the solution is something you touch upon following in your comment on crafting, yet you forget it again right after when you try your path of least resistance argument again. You assume that solo questing would be fundamentally less time or effort intensive than raids, which is a false assumption by itself, and then stack that with the blatant act of ignoring the thing that's been brought up multiple times, that different types of end game progression can have different reward tracks that benefit those specific tracks. IE, solo quest chains offers gear that is tailored to progressing through the next stage of the chain, and raid rewards are more unique to gearing for specific elements of the raids (like unique abilities or counters to specific elements present in the raid used as a way to unlock the path to the next raid tier).
So I can see that you are ignoring things. Quite brazenly even.
Whether you are doing it consciously or not is the only unknown.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
i agree Maelstorm was hard, i couldnt get past level 7
Here's the thing: The people who think of themselves as "hardcore raiders" will never agree to any other form of high end progression. Ever.
Why? Let me try to make this as clear as I can.
1. For the raider types, the joy they get from the game does not come from playing, it comes from having high end loot.
2. In order to enjoy having the high end loot they need to know that other people don't have it. The more who don't have it the happier the e-peen raider is.
3. Because they play only for e-peen and not to enjoy the content----they actually want the high end content to be as unenjoyable as possible because this discourages other people from doing it which makes the rewards more exclusive, which increases the e-peen value of said rewards and that is all they care about.
4. Any "alternate progression path" is a threat to the exclusivity of their high end e-peen loot and as such will be attacked and ridiculed no matter how sensible and intelligently thought out it is. This goes back to point number 2. It doesn't matter if the rewards are different. If the alternate progression satisfied other people with their own form of high end advancement it would devastate the e-peen raider because he needs for other people to be unhappy in order to feel happy himself.
This is the reality guys. You can't have a reasonable discussion with those people. Just give up on it.
It is always easy to say someone should play something else. Like saying you want pure roleplaying you should play PnP. Maybe dice rolling is too twitchy though.
MMORPG to me is about the role you play in the world with other players. It is hybrid of RPG and online gaming. Doesn't have to be quite like a typical single player. But people are very dogmatic in their ideals.
"You want to put ranch dressing on a burger. Just eat a salad and leave my burgers alone!"
The number that actually took part in raids were quite high due to the low requirements of doing entry level raids like zul'gurub and kharazan.
The idea of having to be elitist to do raiding has always been a ludicrous idea, it was only true for groups that did serious progression in naxx and sunwell.