I have realized that I have no interest in end-game content for most MMOs. The ones I get bored the fastest with rely on a simple gear treadmill system to keep players playing when they hit the level cap. Most of them make large, amazing worlds, but then funnel all level-capped players into instanced dungeons and all other content becomes irrelevant to the player. A few games have the gear treadmill but still have plenty of meaningful content to experience and advance your character even if you're doing the gear treadmill. I'm looking for more of those. Anyone have any suggestions?
I avoid games which force non-consentual PvP. Those bring out the worst type of people the world has to offer and I don't find it fun to get killed repeatedly by someone who just wants to ruin others' fun. Any other game should be fine.
Or you could try a sandbox.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
I have a few suggestions for you. Many have suggested GW2, and I agree, but would offer a word of caution. If PvP isn't your thing, then you may find it somewhat lacking in the end-game department. However, GW2's WvW is fairly unique, and is a lot of fun even for those not that into PvP.
Since you're not totally turned off to gear based progression, LotRO might be worth a shot. It does have raid and dungeon based progression, but there's a lot more to it. Feat grinding, for example takes, a very long time to complete if you stay out of the store. Also, it doesn't take as much gear to get to the next teir (or at least this used to be the case) as does say WoW, for example.
Finally, It's too bad SWG isn't around anymore. It sounds like it would be right up your alley. It can still be played, but due to copyright stuff, I can't tell you how. Just google SWG, and I'm sure by the third entry or so, you'll hit paydirt.
Sadly, there aren't a lot of non gear treadmill games these days that don't have a large focus on PvP. I can only think of 2 off-hand, and one was SWG. Saga of Ryzom was the other, and I dunno if it's still around either.
Edit: One more. If EQ is something you're interested in then Project1999 or Daybreak's new progression server is worth a shot too. Both of these are free.
I have realized that I have no interest in end-game content for most MMOs. The ones I get bored the fastest with rely on a simple gear treadmill system to keep players playing when they hit the level cap. Most of them make large, amazing worlds, but then funnel all level-capped players into instanced dungeons and all other content becomes irrelevant to the player. A few games have the gear treadmill but still have plenty of meaningful content to experience and advance your character even if you're doing the gear treadmill. I'm looking for more of those. Anyone have any suggestions?
I avoid games which force non-consentual PvP. Those bring out the worst type of people the world has to offer and I don't find it fun to get killed repeatedly by someone who just wants to ruin others' fun. Any other game should be fine.
Or you could try a sandbox.
I think you should re-read the thread. I don't want forced PvP. The vast majority of sandbox games have unrestricted PvP forced upon players who wish to advance their characters at the same rate as everyone else. I play PvP sometimes, but I don't like the crowd that seems to gather around all of the sandbox games with forced PvP.
Yeah I totally hate those games where players constantly gank the newbies. It's unfun and people quit and in 100% of all cases game die out after a year or two. PvP can really kill a game fast if done wrong. They need to make various ruleset servers when they release games so everyone can enjoy.
Finally, It's too bad SWG isn't around anymore. It sounds like it would be right up your alley. It can still be played, but due to copyright stuff, I can't tell you how. Just google SWG, and I'm sure by the third entry or so, you'll hit paydirt.
This.
The servers are very nicely populated if you choose one of the big three, which you can check out on reddit.
The first time I was back on Naboo and it rained and then fog rose, I was stunned. Then I remembered that, yes, in 2003 games had actual weather effects and a day and night cycle. Oh, and non-instanced player housing, deep character customization, crafting that meant something due to decay, and so many social elements.
Last weekend, I completed the build for my pvp character. Today, I am going to place a house on Naboo and open my tailor shop.
Originally posted by syntax42I have realized that I have no interest in end-game content for most MMOs. The ones I get bored the fastest with rely on a simple gear treadmill system to keep players playing when they hit the level cap. Most of them make large, amazing worlds, but then funnel all level-capped players into instanced dungeons and all other content becomes irrelevant to the player. A few games have the gear treadmill but still have plenty of meaningful content to experience and advance your character even if you're doing the gear treadmill. I'm looking for more of those. Anyone have any suggestions?I avoid games which force non-consentual PvP. Those bring out the worst type of people the world has to offer and I don't find it fun to get killed repeatedly by someone who just wants to ruin others' fun. Any other game should be fine.
Or you could try a sandbox.
I think you should re-read the thread. I don't want forced PvP. The vast majority of sandbox games have unrestricted PvP forced upon players who wish to advance their characters at the same rate as everyone else. I play PvP sometimes, but I don't like the crowd that seems to gather around all of the sandbox games with forced PvP.
Allthough EvE has open world FFA PvP you can play EvE totally without ever being involved in PvP.
Running missions in high-sec can be done without ever having to think about it really. And you won't miss out on anything aswell, as the PvE-content in EvE isn't about anything else than gathering money. There's no difference between high-sec, low-sec or null-sec-PvE other than the amount of money you can make in the three different zones.
Most of the people in EvE have atleast one chracter that they'll use to generate money by running missions in high-sec, as that generates 100% secure income without having to deal with PvP. And then they have another character they'll use to burn that money in PvP.
That's the beauty of EvE. You can play it just the way you want, without missing out on anything really, if you don't want to take the risks.
How about just playing an mmo till it gets boring and then moving on to a new game? Just treat "end-game" as the end of the game. Some mmos can take for ages to get to that point so you can still probably have a lot of fun, find some new friends etc along the way.
I think it really depends on what you want for your end-game or how you define it. If you want character progression, that's usually associated with gear and you get the grind mentioned in the OP. But for lots of folks, their end game is economic market manipulation, or being the best of a certain kind of crafter, or running a large guild.
I'll probably get flamed for it, but you might enjoy ArcheAge. I was able to stick to PvE, farming, crafting, making money, buying and selling houses, etc.
OP if you're only looking for an MMO rather than an MMORPG without a gear treadmill then I would recommend Trove. It's not an RPG but it is a great online game albeit F2P (not to say F2P games can't be good - there should be a disclaimer attached to each F2P game out there).
Some words about GW2 to see if it's really what you're after.
The gear progression in GW2 does like this... common (white) - fine (blue) - masterwork (green) - rare (yellow) - exotic (orange) - ascended (pink) - legendary (purple). White is mostly considered vendor trash, blue and green are mostly for leveling and later to salvage, so I'll just ignore them, so here goes:
Rare gear: Very easy to get by salvaging, vendors in the world for both money and karma (you warn karma doing events and other stuff and it's account wide), you could do almost all content in the game using this level of gear, and it's very cheap to craft or get on the trading post from other players, so if you wanted you'll probably be able to get a full set of rare gear the moment you reach the level cap. One thing about the way GW2 does gear... there are different combinations of stats (for example, berserker has fully offensive stats, power, critical chance and ferocity, sort of critical damage). A piece of rare gear with the berserker prefix will have the exact same stats than any other piece of rare gear in the world that has berserker stats to it, the only difference is the skins (more on that later)
Exotic gear: End level gear for most. It's also easy to get (not as easy as rare), but can be a little more expensive, though you can probably have enough money or karma by the time you level up a character to get a set of almost all exotic gear. It's also relatively cheap to craft (though you need to level up crafting to 400 to craft exotics) and to buy off the trading post and there are lots of other ways to get it (dungeon tokens, karma, WvW badges and so on). This is more than enough for all the content in the game except for one (more on that later too). Just like rare, all exotic gear has the same stats as long as it has the same distribution.
Ascended gear: This was an extra tier of gear added after launch, something which some people liked, others didn't. It does have higher stats than exotic, but not by much (a fully geared ascended char has like 10% higher stats than a fully exotic one), getting them can go from very easy to very hard. Rings, for example, and other accesories you can buy with laurels, which you literally get just from logging in daily even if you log off right away. Depending on how fast you level (in RL days) and how many days you don't log on, you'd probably have enough laurels for a ring or two as soon as you hit 80. On the other hand, pieces of armor and weapons need to be crafted by yourself (account bound on acquire), take a LOT of materials and money, and you need to level up the crafting profession to 500 (which also cost lots of money and/or time). When I said that rare and exotics were enough for most of the game save one is because of the Fractals of the Mysts.
Fractal of the Mysts is the closest GW2 has to a gear progression system right now. It's basically a series of 5 men mini dungeons, when you enter you get 3 of them randomly (easy - medium - hard from a pool of 14 mini dungeons), followed by a boss fight (random out of 3 possible). They have levels you can choose (up to 50 right now), the higher the level, the better the rewards but also the higher the difficulty. Starting at level 10 there's a condition called "agony" that gives you damage over time and reduces your healing, the higher the level, the more agony stacks you get. To prevent it there's a stat called "Agony Resist" (it works kinda like enchants in WoW), but you can only place it on ascended gear. Since there's only so much you can put on a single piece, the higher level of fractals you go, the more agony resist you'd need, so the more pieces of ascended gear you'd need.
Legendary: For the time being it's only weapons available, to get them is a MASSIVE grind of almost all aspects in the game. Statswise, they're identical to ascended, with the difference that you can change the stats distribution when out of combat (so you could have fully offensive stats for one fight, deffensive for another without having to change your equipped weapon), and lots of aesthetic only effects to them (for example, the legendary longbow makes you grow flowers where you step, while the hammer gives you a shiny metallic effect all over yourself, while the shortbow actually shoots rainbow unicorns... really). Most people that make legendaries do it for the looks. Note that Anet has said that they have no plans to add another tier of gear in the foreseeable future, but if they ever do, legendary weapons will be upgraded to have the stats of whatever tier is the highest in the game at any time.
Where you will find an actual grind in the game, though, is in aesthetics. As I said gear with the same stats distribution is basically the same... the difference is in the skins... which is why you could see in the trading a crafted exotic sword for a gold or two right next to another sword with the exact same stats but with a much fancier (and rarer) skin at 400 or more, and rare gear that you could get for a few silver have the same stats than the tier 3 cultural armor (armor unique to each race) that costs over 20g per piece.
So basically, for lots of people the "endgame" of GW2 is not to actually advance your character or grind for better gear, but actually grind for better looking gear or even colors (the brightest white and the darkest black dyes in the game go for a LOT of money in the trading post)
Also don't listen to idotic retards who have not played it for 10 years and who think "they ruined it" or "toa grind" etc
NF and TOA did not ruin it! SURE sucked in the beginning but now that the game has matured... have you even fucking tried to play daoc recent years? TRY that and then switch and run zerg/8v8/duo on a classic freeshard. ITS RIDICILOUS how dumbed down the game feels... you loose SO MUCH; tactics, choices etc without the newer gear, keep design, abilities etcetcetc.. By the way you just buy artis from bountu points now. Also stop fucking glorifying OF, its not that awesome... god I HATE these people, they are frigging everywhere.
It wasn't just the artifacts and power creep that ruined the game.
There was a balanced ecosystem between PvE, crafting, raiding, and PVP. That's long long gone. Now the game is only worth it for the PvP, and you rush through the PvE as fast as you can. There's no living server or thriving virtual reality. It's just RvR now.
And that RvR is so bloated, where everyone has 40+ abilities, with a million effects going off everywhere, and archers are basically casters now, it's just stupid.
Comments
Or you could try a sandbox.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
I have a few suggestions for you. Many have suggested GW2, and I agree, but would offer a word of caution. If PvP isn't your thing, then you may find it somewhat lacking in the end-game department. However, GW2's WvW is fairly unique, and is a lot of fun even for those not that into PvP.
Since you're not totally turned off to gear based progression, LotRO might be worth a shot. It does have raid and dungeon based progression, but there's a lot more to it. Feat grinding, for example takes, a very long time to complete if you stay out of the store. Also, it doesn't take as much gear to get to the next teir (or at least this used to be the case) as does say WoW, for example.
Finally, It's too bad SWG isn't around anymore. It sounds like it would be right up your alley. It can still be played, but due to copyright stuff, I can't tell you how. Just google SWG, and I'm sure by the third entry or so, you'll hit paydirt.
Sadly, there aren't a lot of non gear treadmill games these days that don't have a large focus on PvP. I can only think of 2 off-hand, and one was SWG. Saga of Ryzom was the other, and I dunno if it's still around either.
Edit: One more. If EQ is something you're interested in then Project1999 or Daybreak's new progression server is worth a shot too. Both of these are free.
I think you should re-read the thread. I don't want forced PvP. The vast majority of sandbox games have unrestricted PvP forced upon players who wish to advance their characters at the same rate as everyone else. I play PvP sometimes, but I don't like the crowd that seems to gather around all of the sandbox games with forced PvP.
This.
The servers are very nicely populated if you choose one of the big three, which you can check out on reddit.
The first time I was back on Naboo and it rained and then fog rose, I was stunned. Then I remembered that, yes, in 2003 games had actual weather effects and a day and night cycle. Oh, and non-instanced player housing, deep character customization, crafting that meant something due to decay, and so many social elements.
Last weekend, I completed the build for my pvp character. Today, I am going to place a house on Naboo and open my tailor shop.
It's good to be back.
Allthough EvE has open world FFA PvP you can play EvE totally without ever being involved in PvP.
Running missions in high-sec can be done without ever having to think about it really. And you won't miss out on anything aswell, as the PvE-content in EvE isn't about anything else than gathering money. There's no difference between high-sec, low-sec or null-sec-PvE other than the amount of money you can make in the three different zones.
Most of the people in EvE have atleast one chracter that they'll use to generate money by running missions in high-sec, as that generates 100% secure income without having to deal with PvP.
And then they have another character they'll use to burn that money in PvP.
That's the beauty of EvE. You can play it just the way you want, without missing out on anything really, if you don't want to take the risks.
I think it really depends on what you want for your end-game or how you define it. If you want character progression, that's usually associated with gear and you get the grind mentioned in the OP. But for lots of folks, their end game is economic market manipulation, or being the best of a certain kind of crafter, or running a large guild.
I'll probably get flamed for it, but you might enjoy ArcheAge. I was able to stick to PvE, farming, crafting, making money, buying and selling houses, etc.
Now, which one of you will adorn me today?
Some words about GW2 to see if it's really what you're after.
The gear progression in GW2 does like this... common (white) - fine (blue) - masterwork (green) - rare (yellow) - exotic (orange) - ascended (pink) - legendary (purple). White is mostly considered vendor trash, blue and green are mostly for leveling and later to salvage, so I'll just ignore them, so here goes:
Rare gear: Very easy to get by salvaging, vendors in the world for both money and karma (you warn karma doing events and other stuff and it's account wide), you could do almost all content in the game using this level of gear, and it's very cheap to craft or get on the trading post from other players, so if you wanted you'll probably be able to get a full set of rare gear the moment you reach the level cap. One thing about the way GW2 does gear... there are different combinations of stats (for example, berserker has fully offensive stats, power, critical chance and ferocity, sort of critical damage). A piece of rare gear with the berserker prefix will have the exact same stats than any other piece of rare gear in the world that has berserker stats to it, the only difference is the skins (more on that later)
Exotic gear: End level gear for most. It's also easy to get (not as easy as rare), but can be a little more expensive, though you can probably have enough money or karma by the time you level up a character to get a set of almost all exotic gear. It's also relatively cheap to craft (though you need to level up crafting to 400 to craft exotics) and to buy off the trading post and there are lots of other ways to get it (dungeon tokens, karma, WvW badges and so on). This is more than enough for all the content in the game except for one (more on that later too). Just like rare, all exotic gear has the same stats as long as it has the same distribution.
Ascended gear: This was an extra tier of gear added after launch, something which some people liked, others didn't. It does have higher stats than exotic, but not by much (a fully geared ascended char has like 10% higher stats than a fully exotic one), getting them can go from very easy to very hard. Rings, for example, and other accesories you can buy with laurels, which you literally get just from logging in daily even if you log off right away. Depending on how fast you level (in RL days) and how many days you don't log on, you'd probably have enough laurels for a ring or two as soon as you hit 80. On the other hand, pieces of armor and weapons need to be crafted by yourself (account bound on acquire), take a LOT of materials and money, and you need to level up the crafting profession to 500 (which also cost lots of money and/or time). When I said that rare and exotics were enough for most of the game save one is because of the Fractals of the Mysts.
Fractal of the Mysts is the closest GW2 has to a gear progression system right now. It's basically a series of 5 men mini dungeons, when you enter you get 3 of them randomly (easy - medium - hard from a pool of 14 mini dungeons), followed by a boss fight (random out of 3 possible). They have levels you can choose (up to 50 right now), the higher the level, the better the rewards but also the higher the difficulty. Starting at level 10 there's a condition called "agony" that gives you damage over time and reduces your healing, the higher the level, the more agony stacks you get. To prevent it there's a stat called "Agony Resist" (it works kinda like enchants in WoW), but you can only place it on ascended gear. Since there's only so much you can put on a single piece, the higher level of fractals you go, the more agony resist you'd need, so the more pieces of ascended gear you'd need.
Legendary: For the time being it's only weapons available, to get them is a MASSIVE grind of almost all aspects in the game. Statswise, they're identical to ascended, with the difference that you can change the stats distribution when out of combat (so you could have fully offensive stats for one fight, deffensive for another without having to change your equipped weapon), and lots of aesthetic only effects to them (for example, the legendary longbow makes you grow flowers where you step, while the hammer gives you a shiny metallic effect all over yourself, while the shortbow actually shoots rainbow unicorns... really). Most people that make legendaries do it for the looks. Note that Anet has said that they have no plans to add another tier of gear in the foreseeable future, but if they ever do, legendary weapons will be upgraded to have the stats of whatever tier is the highest in the game at any time.
Where you will find an actual grind in the game, though, is in aesthetics. As I said gear with the same stats distribution is basically the same... the difference is in the skins... which is why you could see in the trading a crafted exotic sword for a gold or two right next to another sword with the exact same stats but with a much fancier (and rarer) skin at 400 or more, and rare gear that you could get for a few silver have the same stats than the tier 3 cultural armor (armor unique to each race) that costs over 20g per piece.
So basically, for lots of people the "endgame" of GW2 is not to actually advance your character or grind for better gear, but actually grind for better looking gear or even colors (the brightest white and the darkest black dyes in the game go for a LOT of money in the trading post)
What can men do against such reckless hate?
It wasn't just the artifacts and power creep that ruined the game.
There was a balanced ecosystem between PvE, crafting, raiding, and PVP. That's long long gone. Now the game is only worth it for the PvP, and you rush through the PvE as fast as you can. There's no living server or thriving virtual reality. It's just RvR now.
And that RvR is so bloated, where everyone has 40+ abilities, with a million effects going off everywhere, and archers are basically casters now, it's just stupid.