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General: PvP, Raids and Endgame
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
Community Manager Laura Genender takes a look at one of our new User Blogs that deals with the idea of PvP and raids as endgame for MMORPGs.
The casual gaming population has done nothing but grow, as new populations enter our midst and as the original "hardcore gamers" settle down with husbands/wives and children. This large population has a huge effect on what developers decide to put in their games, and what attracts the most player: for example, the casual player often isn't a fan of long grind-sessions for leveling up, and often doesn't have the time for hardcore raiding. With the casual uprising comes the need for easier soloing, faster levels, and a more accessible endgame.
In his blog ,"The "Semi-Casual" Gamer, user cmagoun explores some of the issues of endgame material pertaining to those who don't necessarily reach the "end" of endgames - max level - and discusses some of what he would like to see, as a semi-casual gamer.
Cmagoun begins by stating that he's looking for something different than the norm: raids and PvP aren't that interesting for him. Unfortunately, this eliminates the majority of MMOs from Cmagoun's radar.
Read the whole Spotlight here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
end game is not a mmorpg specific issue in fact it's a rpg issue.
or to be more acurate it's a level style rpg issue, cause whatever end game you give to a game that has an end the end of the end game will be reach too one day.
so in fact we have two distinct talk ahead, if endgame cant be avoided how to make it the less repetitive and the more rewarding and enjoyable as possible and doing that for all the styles of gamers.
is it posible at all to have games without endgame ?
the easiest non repetitive endgame is pvp due to the nature of the adversary but endless fighting can get repetitive and pvp dont fit for all players and even for those that get into pvp pointless pvp without some form of reward is not that fun.
the other well known endgame option the raid is no more aproved by all and once again the pointless search of loot is not a good goal.
those points are the same for mmorpg and rpg but what the mmorpg lack is an evolutive world. getting stronger and stronger to the point you cant go farther than looting the most powerfull items to go over that limit to the ultimate limit of power is useless if all that power is not to be used against a ultra powerfull oponnent, and that oponent is a master point in a rpg campaign when your adventurer group goes toe to toe with that demon lord and defeat it he's going to be really defeated ( until your game master is in desesperate seach of bad guys and bring him back) in a mmorpg world that demon lord is going to be back each time and so the mind game that permit you to make yourself beleave that the level 15 boss you killed is trully dead cause as you were gaigning levels you simply moved to some other area and content, is not posible here cause you dont move on you are max level and you stay in the same high level area !
usually in an rpg world when your characters have reached a top in power, fame or whealth they retire or become npc and you and your budies move to the next game or start new characters before, after or during the time of your retired char.
anyway the endgame to be enjoyed by player need the devs to keep adding content and the continual groth of the characters will face one day the fact that there is no reasonnable oponnent to be invented to face them( who may dare to opose those that have already killed a dozen demons half that numbers of gods ten time that of great dragons and armies of other potent giants wizards and such kind of ennemies ?)
the only option is to retire the characters that reach the power cap, and then open for the player a new world to start again a world that has been build by the actions of their retired char leaving those retired char the possibility to be coming back in a further extention to face new strong evil.
exemple lets say that we have a game that permit you to go from level 1 to level 50 in an area surounded by unfriendly or unknown and un reachable lands, at level 50 your character is ofered to go on raids to gather some rare loot and kill some powerfull mobs or/and to fight other players for fame and power till some limits earning maybe fame levels lets say 10 fame levels at that point you can go on for no real gain just killing over and over less powerfull players or gathering loot to sell to merchants to be richer and richer with nothing to buy, OR you retire your famous character and doing so you open for a new character one of those un reachable land and that is possible cause your and other powerfull character has defeated the lizard mage king and his dragons and so the south swamp and jungle lands are now free to be explored but exploration and crocodile or jaguar hunt is not a true job for such a legend as you are and the emperor as called you to take place in the council of braves that is to help him rule his land, so you build a new level 1 char and you start all over but in a new world. and after one year the devs bring a new extention live lets say the desert is now free to explore for the 3rd generation thanks to the deads of the 2nd generation but some evil new or old but strengthened evil has rose in the old empire and the emperor is calling all his braves to help him defeat it so for a short arc of quests and/ or rounds of pvp you can play again that old famous hero of yours that has not disapeard that, when the empire is once again secure you go back to sleep and concentrate on the new 3rd generation and so on ....
I do agree with a lot of points here, but I still find it hard to comprehend 'end game' in a game that technically doesn't 'end' - I understand max level, and things to do at max level need to be fun and compelling and not boring, there needs to be some point to it, I think that's the key, and what the article is talking about.
I have to disagree with the LOTRO issue of seeing Elrond at level 1, though - in each of the 'newbie' instances, you get to meet a different pivotal character, be it Dwalin, Gimli, Elrond, etc... - this is KEY to what makes LOTRO feel like a Lord of the Rings game and not 'just another fantasy MMO', and I think Turbine did it exactly right. You don't save Elrond, you don't even assist him - actually, in that instance, he saves your a$$ from a troll. You don't hang out with him, you dont' go adventuring with him - but that small interaction you get with him, to me, was one of those little moments that made this game 'feel' like Lord of the Rings, it's one of those little details that makes the game great. If I had to wait until level 10 or 20 to even glimpse a fellowship member, I'd kind of wonder what the point was...
When scary things get scared, that's bad...
If you want to feel special then play a single player game.
MMO's don't work that way. If you want to feel special then do something to earn it.
A lot of the trouble has to do with the way MMO's are design in the fact that different in level has a whole hugh impact on what you can interact where endgame only accessible to you once you reached the end of leveling. The "Power Curve" which is the overall different of power from level to level is designed to steep and causes a lot of the problem with why no one would do endgame type content while they are leveling because no one wants to put in usually the long time required to get a piece of gear or a weapon that you have "NO" choose but to replace in a few levels because it because totally useless because of the steep Power Curve.
Also caused be the Power Curve is the fact that players are so isolated from others not of their level. Again the Power Curve also causes different affects on areas where as low level areas are over crowded when a lot of games get released and short period when most people have passed those levels those areas become for the most part a useless waste of resources, where as a game that had a less of a Power Curve would be not need as big a starting areas as big groups of low level players would have a chance to take on mobs of much higher level making it so when people group they can move on to higher level areas where having a big group of low level players can be usefull.
Main problem with the Power Curve, Instances, Quest, Dropped Loot and the way EXP is gained when grouped is they are all factors that cause isolation which is the opposite affect of what "MMO" stands for.
So 1 of the way that i see to add new content for chrac progression is solo instance. Make use of old lvl60 instance, eg. zg, aq, mc etc.. from WoW example, and add quest and reason for ppl to go to them. But once you enter the mob will be scale down enough for a single player to complete. not only more people will be able to see what initially only hardcore raiders can see (thus more people playing also), the dev effort in designing these content will not go wasted. And when the next expansion hits, rinse and repeat....
Concerning whats the reward at the end? Points for your chrac strength or watever area that you can put to strengthen it, or armour or weapons. Ive never ask what armour or weapons that ive earn must be on par with those people that have put in hours of hard work to coordinate and learn to overcome the instance, what i need is just a bit better than what i currently have will do. This to me though is just a bit of progression, but it's still a progress....
Just my 2 copper.....
RIP Orc Choppa
At present, don't you think the trend towards more casual gameplay is geared towards younger players just as much as it is catering to veteran gamers who now have the responsibilities of careers, marriage, or families? I'll have to check Nick Yee's site to see if he's looked at age breakdown of gamers. I would think that the push towards more casual content is not only to appease older gamers with growing RL commitments, but also to make games more accessible to a younger, more mainstream audience who might be accustomed to the immediate gratification of more commitment-free, action-oriented titles, be they FPS or console games.
In my limited experience with an endgame guild, I found that there were actually more adults with kids and full-time jobs consistently involved with endgame raiding than there were high school or college students with more time on their hands. Granted, most of the "grown-ups" couldn't raid with the frequency of the younger folk because of social and familial commitments, but I think for many adults with kids, raiding was almost a night out for them where they could let loose and socialize a bit, since they were often homebound with their young children.
The big PvPers in my guild, did tend to be the younger folks. This could either be because PvP generally does give that immediate sense of achievement, or it could be that the adults in my guild were more interested in the laid back, adventuring/exploring/socializing elements of the game rather than the more frantic point-click-or-your-dead feel of PvP arenas or battlegrounds.
I realize I'm making broad generalizations here and my intention is not to pigeonhole anyone (young or old) but these are just my impressions from my guild experiences. For me personally, I was solely interested in PvE until I reached endgame at which point I liked the lack of regimentation involved in PvP vs. the time sink and monotony of endgame instances. Though I enjoyed endgame, as a single adult most times I was not willing to forsake RL plans on a consistent basis to spend night after night raiding, whereas if I was homebound with a child, I'd probably have been more willing to.
If anyone has read any decent articles or seen any good breakdowns of age of players in regard to endgame/PvP/etc., I'd be interested in taking a look at it.
I'm all for casual vs. hardcore and I think every game should give players the capability of reaching maximum level solo if they choose to do so. However, I don't like the idea of single-player instancing. When you solo world content, you still have to interact with other players in some capacity even if you're not grouped with them. Solo instancing, IMHO, takes the massive multiplayer out of MMORPG. You might as well be playing a single player game.
Sure, it sucks that solo players won't be able to experience all the content in a game, but in RL there's certain things individuals cannot achieve as well without the help of others, so I don't see a problem with this. Unfortunately, raiding is not a realistic or fun option for the vast majority of gamers and if it disappeared tomorrow, I would not miss it. But, the teamwork, politics, and interaction that occurs in 5-10 man groups, and that I've even experienced in 15-20 man groups on limited occassions, is what gives MMORPGs that unique life and dimension that single player games lack.
1. for me, when my character can not progress anymore, the game is ended. and by progress i do not admit gear or rank grinding.
2. i do not like to leave a character if i have expended a long time with him
=====> CONCLUSION: i do not play games with capped progression.
of course, that leaves me with a very limited playing range, actually, only EVE and Ryzom that i know about. Given my predilection for competitive pvp with consequences (player owned territories and looting), my already limited scope gets even narrower.
EVE is the only game for me. i have been playing 2 years and there are still many many things i have yet to try and enjoy. i could not play a game where my character is already maxed out in 5 months. for that i have offline RPGs that are just superior to any MMORPG on questing and leveling.
EVE is for me the perfect solution for end game. just get rid of it. no end game is much better than a good end game. if i want to play a game with an end line, i will play an offline one, and save 15 every month.
of course, with level&class&items based games it is very difficult not to have a limit to the progression of chars, but, whoever prefers level&class based games over skill based games deserves to have a boring endgame.
Why can't you just give me more of what I like (maybe harder/longer) or give me nothing at all?
I don't want to raid. I don't want to PvP.
Gimme more grouping/soloing or be gone. Making a raiding/PvP endgame will not only see me leave, it will anger me and make sure I don't even bother buying your game in the first moment, at the store. (It could also lead to 6k posts on MMORPG.com)
A new and foreign gameplay as the result of the main gameplay is a bad idea, an incredibly bad idea, you may amuse a minority (who benefit from it and shaft other players), such as the raiders, but it isn't worth it.
PS: I may still consider products made by SoE or Blizzard, but let's say they start with a negative score...so instead of looking cool, the game has to look freaking amazing for me to consider it...Anger is something you don't want, as a company. And raiding endgame give you that anger.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
PVP and Raid endgame is what ruins games....
Group and Solo is the extent of the scale I wan't to see with unlimited levels/skill attributes , challenging gameplay and no real end game as I wan't to see longevity a chance to develop a charachter and friends.
A pretty poor OP post to be honest ...
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Have No Endgame!
PnP AD&D had no "Endgame". Again IMO, what publishers should do is release monthly content for $15 a pop instead of charging $15 a month to log on. The problem appears to be that no one is capable of producing content that fast. I'd guess that if the developers made a good toolset and built the basic game first, then added on using the toolset, it could be made workable. I remember as a kid paying anywhere from $6-7 to $12-$15 for AD&D modules; surely the amount of content in a typical module could be released in a month [Dialogue would probably take the most time].
How about this: Release a toolset like NWN's to the community, BUT make the files only savible to the company server. The author tells the company when the module is finished. Modules are then downloaded at $1 each and ranked by the players - any with an average rating of 80%+ of at least 100 downloads get the author 10 free downloads. The modules could load as instances and automatically charge your cc or gamecard the first time you run it.
Every 2-3 years, the company releases an update to the toolset for higher level content...
<p align=center><a target=_blank href=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm><img border=0 src=http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/20.jpg></a></p>;
I did raiding for a long time in EQ1. Got to the point where I guess you could say I got burned out on it. I mean you spend dozens, if not hundreds, of hours trying to get the Armor of Uberness and then next expansion it's all crap.
I also do not like the Grinding Is Fun concept some games do. I do not want to kill the same mob 1000 times that only spawns once every 5 mins so I can gain the rep to have to collect 1000 Do-hickeys that drop 5% of the time from a mob that spawns every 10 mins.
What I think people have issues with at "endgame" is that earlier on they saw progression and had stuff to look forward to. Once you hit the cap there are no more spells/powers/skills to get, so there is one thing gone that you used to look forward to.
PvP is not the answer as there will always be those people that either do not or only casually PvP. Raiding isn't the answer as many gamers cannot spend several hours a day, a few times a week, in the same instance/zone.
No I don't have a solution really. I did enjoy DAoC's way of handling endgame, but I refuse to play EA games so that is, personally, not possible for me to play.
How about a positive feedback system? To close the loop between endgame and new players?
Endgame toons can become mentors or trainers to new toons, making the game more friendly to newbies, and actually reduce the current antagonism between new and more experienced players?
Of course, the high-level toons can get some form of reward - intangible: honourary titles, medals, cosmetic enhancements, roll of honour - or even 'tangible': access to new recipes, gear, enchantments or other toon improvements.
How about a server-wide reputation system solely determined by players?
Ninja? Give him a negative rating. Helpful player? Give him a positive rating!
To counter individuals who see a negative rating as a badge or honour - have real detrimental effects apply to the negatively-rated toon: NPC goods cost more, some NPCs will attack on sight, inaccessibility to certain areas? So much so that it makes the game unenjoyable and unplayable for the extreme negatively rated toon. Other safeguards to inhibit exploitative behaviour can also easily be put in place.
Lots of community-driven mechanics are available, and they should be exploited as a form of advancement at the endgame.
Unfortunately the ones that blitz to the level cap are usually the ones that begin massive posting on the official forums whining about the lack of content. The loudest voice is usually heard even if it's the minority. Devs fail to understand that not everyone reads their official forums and those that do, even fewer post.
In WoW the Hero Classes they promised before release would of been a nice change from the ol Raid 'N' Grind routine that is so common. Too bad Blizzard wussed out and took the easy route of just slapping on raid content. Nowadays, they won't even talk about Hero Classes, like it somehow offends them.
One problem, of course, is that many games give you a lot of different paths through the early levels, but the mid-to-late level progression takes so much longer that you often end up burning through nearly all the content there is for those levels. But on the other hand, games that release too much content (e.g., EQ) end up with a lot of ghost-town zones.
Maybe someone will come up with a carrot that will encourage players to visit all the areas rather than congregating in a few favorite spots. It helps when players of disparate levels can adventure together meaningfully -- more games need to embrace this model. More dynamic enemy-generation algorithms would be a big step forward.
As for the endgame ... I don't give it much thought. All I know is that it's extremely tedious for me in the games where I've actually gotten there. This is mainly due to lack of advancement, but even when there is some form of alternate advancement, it usually seems pretty trivial to me and doesn't do much to hold my interest, even on a character I love. In COH, I'm a total badge whore, but I would much rather play an unmaxed alt than work on collecting badges with a level 50.
The reason why long leveling becomes "The Grind" is the fact that it usually confines one to a small area of a map for an extended period of time where everything is the same over and over, reminds me of working in a cubicle and being confined to that small space.
I know which sandbox games they make it easier to explore but at the same time usually the first groups of players usually end up in control in those game worlds and the economics, making it so new player are always forced to join one of the big groups off the start if they want to be able to make it anywhere in the game world.
A lot of problems with the design of almost all MMO's is they usually designed with only one type of game play in mind instead of working on designing balanced elements for every game play type.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
While I think DAoC TOA (Master Levels) were a step too far for the casual gamer (certainly I never got beyond ML1), I believe that they found the right balance with the Champion levels.
For those who haven't played DAoC, CL xp is gain from doing just about everything, killing PvE, Quests, and PvP. The rewards are nice but hardly unbalance the characters. My cleric can swing a sword, to the point of being able to kill something blue con -eventually; while my missus necro has some buffs, pretty much equal to the potions (but it means not having to remember to stack up potions and take them).
Similary, a tank can learn some fireball spells and the like; and the extra titles and mounts are a nice bit of fluff too.
Why this works wells (IMHO) is that the rewards are pretty naff, particularly in relation to the primary skill. My cleric will spreadheal the group for 400 ish, while the missus's necro with a CL speadheal will do about 80ish. Pretty pointless, unless its a necro, and two tanks in a group, when it become quite handy for reducing down time while questing.
One of the big drivers for MMO players is to make their toon unique, and a system that allows further customisation in the end game can only add to game longivity and sensibily introduced, this can be a big thing for casual gamers.
Personally I enjoy leveling alts, I like to see what each of the skillsets or classes can do.
If I see a game that only allows one or two avatars, I avoid it, like final fantasy. Being forced to play a single character just insures a shortened lifetime for the game.
Let's take Wow for an example since it is the most popular. They did have a decent end game prior to BC, almost anyone could get in a raid guild. With the addition of BC though they first made all the existing raid content a ghost town, and made the ability to access much of the new content absurd with the innumerable rep grinds required for entrance. They have since relaxed some of the requirements, but it was just poorly thought out. Hence a lot of players are now thinking of trying other games
I personally like games like Eve where you gain your skills over time, it completely eliminates powerleveling. The trick is to keep the important skills on a short training schedule and make the longer training skills not as important so as not to give huge advantages to longtime players. Eve has not achieved this balance, but they are somewhat close.