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Do mmos lose quality when they're developed for both pc and console?
Mattatron
Member Posts: 226
"If the game hadn't limited itself by going on consoles as well. I would had bought it in a instant. Now that they have I can't see a bright future for the game. MMORPGS need to stick to PC's, otherwise the gameplay will be half-arsed and lesser in order to fit the analog stick." ~ Winghaven1, user on mmorpg.com
I saw this statement in another thread and it struck a chord with me. Though I've thought about it in the past and kinda tried to argue against the idea in my own mind, I'm finding it more and more an important concern. I didn't want to believe it, because I believe it's possible for a dev team to make it work, but I'm having issues arguing now against the point.
Are games made simpler if devs intend to release on console? OR are simple games released for console to garner more audience?
Should we ever take a game seriously when the devs say they'll cross-platform? Will this change with the capabilities of the current gen PS4 and XBox1?
Comments
We've yet to see a successful dual launch really. A few current-gen MMOs have eventually made or are slowly making their way to consoles but it's not something we can predict that well.
If you want some perspective think about titles like Mass Effect or Assassin's Creed - did they suffer because they focused on multi-platform release? Personally I don't think they did.
The entire notion is based on consoles being the inferior platform where games must be simplified and dumbed down to cater to a market as such - I also don't think that is true. The MMOs you have existing on consoles currently in no way simplified their games.
Lastly it's not a gamble any company is willing to take in my opinion. Why risk alienating what is for the time being 90% of your market? (The PC Market)
True, but these aren't mmos...
No, MMOs lose quality when they are developed by bad developers.
People may say that a bad MMO is bad because it was developed for consoles as well but do you REALLY think that that same MMO would have been great if it was developed exclusively for PC?
Would Defiance by Trion have been the next great MMO if it was exclusive to PCs? No, of course not, its a bad game at its core.
Hence why I said look at them for perspective, as in a different angle to the subject. To appropriate a thought on something that doesn't exist currently - which is kinda what perspective theory is...?
We apply what we know to give a theory on what we don't.
You mistake quality for preference.
Games might not fit your liking but that does not mean they are lesser quality.
I feel it does. Played FFXI ran into a lot of discussion regarding "Console limitation." A more recent example is FFXIV. Global Cooldown is 2.5 this may or may not be apart of that design decision, but it just makes sense they made that decision because of console release. Got many more examples, but im sure some get the picture.
I agree on the "they lose focus" part. But for me that also translates 100% to losing quality and i have yet to see a game that did not suffer from being on a console.
The biggest point for me is the extrem dumbing down of gameplay elements and controls. I use a PC, i WANT to use my keyboard and i WANT to be able to use 29376459 skills if i so choose. Each game with a console portion feels weak, easy and to much emphasis is given to action elements, wich in turn translate to me being annoyed.
If i wanted a console game, id buy a console game. So stop giving me console games if i buy a PC game, seriously. If you want to reach both markets then damn, go the extra mile and make sure i don't notice the console stuff right from the get go and in about every action i do in my PC GAME.
The same goes the other way tho i guess. If i was still into consoles (that stopped when i grew up) id hate to notice PC related stuff all over the place that feels bad or wrong on a console. I think that is less of an issue tho, since a game is rarely dumbed down to make it to a PC as well, so a console player will not notice less quality.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
The design decision behind the long GCD was to emulate that Final Fantasy combat style - it started out as 4 seconds actually but got toned down. Their original vision was a fast turn-based style combat system but this got muddled somewhere leaving us with the odd iteration you see now.
If that's true or not, well, who knows.. Yoshi-P seems content on telling the community exactly what they want to hear.
This brought to mind a funny thought...
Say, in a make-believe world, EVE released next year on Xbox1. Would the warning label look something like...
"Look, kid. At first you're going to find this game boring with a cluttered UI, but we really think, if you stick with it, you'll notice the great aspects of social interaction, yielding a world of player-initiated content in diplomacy and intrigue!"
edit: Would EVE have been made "worse" if it had a shoot-em-up combat system like Freelancer? Is this "what Star Citizen is"? Are you scared to death when you see a console dev kit on your favorite-mmo-developer's desk?
I kinda am.
There are some things that can lost when creating a game for both platforms.
When generating content for a console the developers are limited to the hardware that is built into the console, you can't modify the internal hardware the same way you can for computers, so the developers can be forced to 'limit' their development or innovation to what the console is able to handle and have a very limited way that they can improve on because of the hardware. However the majority of developers have been very thoughtful and have produced HD content packs for the PC users who can use such things, but then that takes away development time from content.
Communication as mentioned before is a huge impact for games that don't naturally support voice chat, however with the great job done by the consoles of late I feel this is a moot point as much as I would like keyboards being mandatory for any sort of mmo console gaming. The only complaint I have is one of a personal nature being hard of hearing and often times not wanting to hear scrawny voices in my ear unless I'm doing raid content.
In competitive gameplay, when comparing the mouse + keyboard vs a gamepad. The mouse and keyboard will win overwhelmingly. This can be a doubling factor that oftentimes competitive PC players often have extremely high end equipment and macro based keyboards/mouses that aren't available to the console user. In addition in large scale battles and high rendering events the PC has better processing power and graphic rendition than a console which can impact gameplay and give a speedbased advantage to an already faster device/platform.
Taking other accounts such as UI and short cuts. The PC user will be based on a mouse environment that can potentially cycle through any option and have 'mouse over events' for additional explaination of stats, equipment, with nearly the entire keyboard available for short cuts. Whereas the console user is more of a selective process from option to option and limited to the buttons available on the game pad.
To say that MMOs lose quality when they are designed for both platforms isn't really the best phrasing. When made for both platforms MMOs lose the higher end options that are associated with higher graphical power, free form mousing options and the complexity of the game that making singly for a PC. MMOs made for both platforms are made to cater to a larger audience, which requires design sacrafice to provide an even playing field for both sets of users.
Right now the loss ( for us primary PC users) feel is in the complexity of the game which we feel is necessary for us the play a game for an extended amount of time causing us to hop into a game for a month or two before everything becomes repetitive and boring, forcing us to go look for something else. Repeating the cycle endlessly.
Simpler? Probably not. Different? Definitely.
The analog stick offers a very different response time and less variable movement than a mouse, so gameplay has to accommodate that. The UI also has to be changed so that it is manageable on console, because you don't have 127 keys and their Control/Shift/Alt combos to work with.
Consoles also have much stricter memory and resource limitations, so much so that trying to stay within those constraints has consistently been one of the main reasons for delays in shipping a console title.
On top of that, there are additional steps in getting a build pushed to live when going to console in some cases, which is a double-edged sword. You now have added layers of quality assurance and checks, but you also have longer lead times before that build can go live.
This doesn't mean a cross-platform MMO can't be made well and do well. FFXI did rather well with a cross-platform release.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I think it's important to make the distinction between a game that's developed for multiple platforms and a game that is ported to other platforms.
That's all I really have to say in this thread.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
No matter how "good" a controller is, it can't offer as many one-click actions as a keyboard.
So MMOs created for consoles will have a hard time to provide the same level of complexity for exploration, questing, combat, crafting and social activities.
The game and control scheme tend to get brought down to the console level. For example, the latest Final Fantasy had tiny zones with tons of loading screens. Instead of an explorable world, you get a small box with pretty vistas you will never reach. This is most likely a console restriction, but it brings it back to the early 2000s in game design.
The control scheme is more likely a personal pet peeve, but games that won't adapt and utilize the mouse and keyboard to its fullest get crossed off my list. Not an MMO, but Fallout 3 bothered me greatly because I needed to hit several keystrokes and navigate menus to see a map, when I really wanted to hit "M" and bring it up. Console controls adapted for the pc will always be inferior to controls designed with the PC in mind.
The main problem is input reduction.
When a game is made for a consul it is made with a total of 12 input functions in mind. A PC game however can have 48(numbers letters and F-keys) X alt,shift,ctrl or 144 then you can add in number pads and end up with 154.
Add in a mouse and that can be as low as 3 and as high as 15 for a bare minimum of 157 keyable actions
That means a PC game can (and imo should) have 157 skills,spells,actions per actionalable instance.
So the differance is between 12 and 157 or about 7.5% potential functionality for consuls!
Now that is not to say most PC games today use the input limit. They should... but instead focus on the grafical and proccessing limits instead.
They dont loose quallity....
but they are limmited in options by doing so... Developing a pc only game alllows much more freedom for your interface and graphics...
I would never play an mmo on a console, because not having a keyboard kills so much of the social aspect of an mmo.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
imo mmos lose quality when they try to do things that arent mmos. trying to make skyrim an mmo, trying to make an mmo that is all about cutscenes and voice overs, etc etc.
make an mmo. this constant stream of "hey .. our single player game would be great with a chat box and an auction house" is exhausting.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
The quality of the game is not really dependent on whether it is a console game or a PC game, but the player's quality of gameplay definitely is. Take inventory systems as an example: the PC player can see all his inventory at once, and select any one item from the inventory with one click. This is because the inventory can be shown flat. In a console game, you have to scroll through the inventory, and then find the one item you want to select. Definitely an inferior experience.
Same thing goes for actions: a PC player can typically have 10-20-30 actions on the screen at once, each one can be picked with a single click. The console cannot do this, so we end up with reduced actions being available, like 5-8 actions maximum.
Same goes with player communication: a PC player has many channels to pick from, like "zone chat, group chat, guild chat, local chat, crafting chat, etc". A console player doesn't even have chat, at least the typing kind. All they have is voice-over, which the PC player also has. Another case of a very simplified system forced on PC players because of console limitations.
Perhaps a restaurant analogy is in order:
1) the PC cafe has good food, and a large and varied menu to pick from
2) the console cafe has good food, but only a very few different items to choose from. Same good food, just very little choice.
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2024: 47 years on the Net.
Lets look at the ps4 controller
there are 4 buttons on the right, with an analog stick that you could use for another 4 more if you want to leave it simple., so 8 buttons.
Now you have 4 trigger buttons up top. having an input for each of these held down + the original 8 and we are already up to 40
And we havent even touched the d-pad by the left analog stick. that can be used to quickly scroll between different sets of abilities.
Also, MMOs should NOT be designed to use 150 inputs, thats just atrocious design. Unless of course a lot of that 150 is just menu short cuts.
A good example of gamepad design for an mmo is FInal Fantasy 14 ARR. It is very intuitive in my opinion and I can slot up to 32 active skills on two hotbar sets 16 slots each that I can switch back and forth with the press of a button. I can use more hotbar sets if I wanted too.
You can use a keyboard on consoles
The problem here isn't that they're doing two consoles at once. The problem is the lack of separation, and the lack of vision to develop it on PC FIRST and then "Scale it Down" to the Consoles.
It is 2000 TIMES easier to scale DOWN from PC specs to Console than it is to scale UP, and not to mention PC testing cycles are easier since you're right in the environment you're devving in rather than kicking it down to consoles first to test.
As an indie developer I can tell you for a FACT that every single console game EVER is tested on PC first in a "Console Emulation" type mode. This allows for just that, testing directly in the same environment as you're developing in. Later Q&A testing is where a build is directly kicked from PC to Console after "SmokeTesting".
That said, there's also the lack of "Vision" in separation between PC and Console in terms of playability and accessibility because 9/10 PC and Console players NEVER see each other since PC gamers have the better control scheme so they'd dominate console gamers in any competitive sense.
Cheers,
Bear