Wanting to buy an MMO that...

Cymdai · March 2016

1) Doesn't revolve around a meaningless grind to the end game, which constitutes...
2) Farming the same enemies/zones for hundreds of hours over, in pursuit of gear where...
3) Enemies simply have 10000x the amount of health they had all game, and take 2 hours to kill and can 1 shot/instant wipe your party while...
4) Content is heavily gated and restricted so that you can't keep progressing where....
5) You farm weeks for Tier 1 gear, only to be able to farm weeks for Tier 2 gear, only to eventually be able to farm weeks for Tier 3 gears, while...
6) Your character's stats become hard-capped without the use of items, so it turns in to....
7) You're only logging in to complete your "dailies" and inch closer to whatever tier gear/rep/etc you need to acquire.

Seriously. Every single game I've played that's an MMO for the past 5 years has been this way. Gear treadmills and damage sponging is so, so boring, and more importantly, it's lazy game design. I really just want to see some compelling, interesting end-game content... not the same old "Here's a boss with 40,000,000 HP that hits you for 2,000,000 HP". Surely someone can come up with something more innovative than this.

For the love of god, can we get a game where community, crafting, and other such content is meaningful? There have to be 1000 MMO's out there catering to the grind &gear crowd.

simsalabim77 · March 2016

Try EVE.

SEANMCAD · March 2016

Wurm Online except for number 1

Amathe · March 2016

Pantheon (in development).

thundercles · March 2016

Eve

anemo · March 2016

Welcome to EvE.

Kyleran · March 2016

Which is why EVE has been my only MMORPG for quite some time.

[Deleted User] · March 2016

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Gaming.Rocks2 · March 2016

Kyleran said:

Which is why EVE has been my only MMORPG for quite some time.

Everytime I see a cat on the street I get the urge to go back to EVE again. Guess whose fault is that?

Varking · March 2016

EVE, Camelot Unchained, Crowfall, DarkFall? Are you looking for a PVE game that doesn't require tons of time to go from tier to tier or are you open to PvP games, too?

zaberfangx · March 2016

Thats what MMO really are meaningless grind to get to a point of the game then feel like still long way to go unless put in more time or money but what ever you do it seem like still far behind.

Wizardry · March 2016

Then some wonder why some us complain a lot about these games.If every game is the same,of course our complaints will be the same,nothing has changed.
I honestly don't know what is going through the minds of SOME devs.I say some because obviously MANY have no budget therefore will NEVER have a solid complete game over all levels.

some games are even removing quests altogether and just try and sell pvp games.Funny these shallow games call themselves mmorpg's.No roleplay,no mmo aspects.

Now as far as meaning that is a tough one,i mean how much meaning can you really put in a game?What a developer SHOULD be doing is creating as close as possible a living world to take part in the role playing.Instead i see so much nonsense that is just ideas to slap in a game to say it is content but it is often non related content,just goofy ideas.

The devs that have the money seem unwilling to budge,it is all about profit margin,give as little as possible because people are still buying second rate games so why bother to improve,you always have a ton fanbois ready to praise total garbage.

MOST games are all in around a 3-6/10 rating,nothing much is even close to a 7/10.Sad reality developers KNOW what it takes to make a good game to do justice to the RPG genre,they simply will not do it until people quit giving them money for second rate effort.

Seeing how hundreds of thousands of dollars get FOOLISHLY thrown at Pewdiepie is it no wonder second rate devs can get away with selling crap?

Quizzical · March 2016

Cymdai said:

I really just want to see some compelling, interesting end-game content...

There's your problem. You're looking for something that cannot possibly exist. If content is interesting, then by definition, it isn't end-game. End-game stuff is what developers give you to do after you've done everything interesting to try to get their less perceptive players to not realize that the game is over and quit.

Anyway, A Tale in the Desert doesn't have the problems of your original post. It also doesn't have combat. Uncharted Waters Online and Guild Wars 1 are also quite far from the issues you describe, in addition to being great games.

H0urg1ass · March 2016

I'll just add my voice to the other half dozen people here: You're looking for EVE.

holdenhamlet · March 2016

Wizardry said:

Then some wonder why some us complain a lot about these games.If every game is the same,of course our complaints will be the same,nothing has changed.
I honestly don't know what is going through the minds of SOME devs.I say some because obviously MANY have no budget therefore will NEVER have a solid complete game over all levels.

some games are even removing quests altogether and just try and sell pvp games.Funny these shallow games call themselves mmorpg's.No roleplay,no mmo aspects.

Now as far as meaning that is a tough one,i mean how much meaning can you really put in a game?What a developer SHOULD be doing is creating as close as possible a living world to take part in the role playing.Instead i see so much nonsense that is just ideas to slap in a game to say it is content but it is often non related content,just goofy ideas.

The devs that have the money seem unwilling to budge,it is all about profit margin,give as little as possible because people are still buying second rate games so why bother to improve,you always have a ton fanbois ready to praise total garbage.

MOST games are all in around a 3-6/10 rating,nothing much is even close to a 7/10.Sad reality developers KNOW what it takes to make a good game to do justice to the RPG genre,they simply will not do it until people quit giving them money for second rate effort.

Seeing how hundreds of thousands of dollars get FOOLISHLY thrown at Pewdiepie is it no wonder second rate devs can get away with selling crap?

What is it about you and punctuation? At first I thought maybe you were typing on a phone and it didn't allow you to put spaces after periods and commas. But I've seen you put spaces BEFORE commas.

WTF is going on you just don't give a shit about spaces or something and throw them in wherever?

MikePaladin · March 2016

Conan Exile ? I have high hope for it but Fucon might fuck it up ...
the concept seems to be like Ark survival but without dinos and in Conan Universe ... not sure but To me looks like it
Will see when they release more info

Gearing is old dull and boring progression ....I loved it in Ark Survival learn to craft get your mats and craft your armor then go kill stuff with different armor for different purposes
I see this how it could be used in a Medieval MMO
The progression should be more focused on looks than on stats .

Also I would like to see a Toon progression without boundaries LIKE in POE

Maybe to begin a Kick Starter ?)))) I'm kidding i'm a idiot ...or not ?))

Cymdai · March 2016

Quizzical said:

Cymdai said:

I really just want to see some compelling, interesting end-game content...

There's your problem. You're looking for something that cannot possibly exist. If content is interesting, then by definition, it isn't end-game. End-game stuff is what developers give you to do after you've done everything interesting to try to get their less perceptive players to not realize that the game is over and quit.

See, this is where I disagree. There are tons of things that can be introduced that simply haven't been thus far. There could be things such as Dev-led "Wars" so to speak, actually commanding mobs to add in some unpredictability and reliability. I thought TERA's idea of the political system, (albeit corrupt to the core) was a nifty take on letting players speak for other players. A true city-creation feature could add in some serious interest. No, I don't mean like SWG or UO, where there were dozens of abandoned ghost cities, nor do I mean "You can build a city in a pre-determined area!", but rather a collaborative effort as opposed to individual ones.

Truth be told, there are hundreds of unique, interesting ideas that could go into an MMORPG. The problem stems from a lack of creativity at the highest levels combined with a sense of arrogance and entitlement of creative directors ("I shipped ______; I know what I'm talking about.") I've seen it and lived it firsthand. Having worked at Epic Games and Funcom, trust me when I say that for every product you see released, you'll see 100 better ideas washed down the drain.

Quizzical · March 2016

Cymdai said:

Quizzical said:

Cymdai said:

I really just want to see some compelling, interesting end-game content...

There's your problem. You're looking for something that cannot possibly exist. If content is interesting, then by definition, it isn't end-game. End-game stuff is what developers give you to do after you've done everything interesting to try to get their less perceptive players to not realize that the game is over and quit.

See, this is where I disagree. There are tons of things that can be introduced that simply haven't been thus far. There could be things such as Dev-led "Wars" so to speak, actually commanding mobs to add in some unpredictability and reliability. I thought TERA's idea of the political system, (albeit corrupt to the core) was a nifty take on letting players speak for other players. A true city-creation feature could add in some serious interest. No, I don't mean like SWG or UO, where there were dozens of abandoned ghost cities, nor do I mean "You can build a city in a pre-determined area!", but rather a collaborative effort as opposed to individual ones.

Truth be told, there are hundreds of unique, interesting ideas that could go into an MMORPG. The problem stems from a lack of creativity at the highest levels combined with a sense of arrogance and entitlement of creative directors ("I shipped ______; I know what I'm talking about.") I've seen it and lived it firsthand. Having worked at Epic Games and Funcom, trust me when I say that for every product you see released, you'll see 100 better ideas washed down the drain.

Now hold on. For a game to have essentially infinite content and never get boring is the holy grail of game design. A company that could be the first to implement that would make an incredible amount of money off it--the sort of fortune that would make WoW look like a minor historical footnote, not a massively lucrative game. And you're telling me that it's actually pretty easy to do but just no one cares to?

Games usually don't fail for lack of interesting ideas. Games fail because they couldn't implement their interesting ideas. Sometimes this makes a game into vaporware, and sometimes it makes a game look like a clone because they had to cut out everything that would have made it interesting. But coming up with the ideas is the easy part.

Cymdai · March 2016

Quizzical said:
Now hold on. For a game to have essentially infinite content and never get boring is the holy grail of game design. A company that could be the first to implement that would make an incredible amount of money off it--the sort of fortune that would make WoW look like a minor historical footnote, not a massively lucrative game. And you're telling me that it's actually pretty easy to do but just no one cares to?

Games usually don't fail for lack of interesting ideas. Games fail because they couldn't implement their interesting ideas. Sometimes this makes a game into vaporware, and sometimes it makes a game look like a clone because they had to cut out everything that would have made it interesting. But coming up with the ideas is the easy part.

I've seen it first-hand multiple times. Good ideas are trounced out by people who ultimately will barely even play the game. You would be utterly shocked. There were times at both studios where teams of us had meetings to explain why X was an amazing, must-have feature that could totally change the landscape of the game, only to be greeted with "Nah; ____ doesn't do that and it makes millions." I wish I could sit here and tell you that was not the case, but more often than not, it is the case. Egos, arrogance, a lack of understanding, and a lack of creativity absolutely bury innovation.

If I had a nickel for every time I watched one of the game designers at Epic nearly tear out their hair at some of the hare-brained schemes they are commanded to implement, despite pleas and protests about how it's a terrible plan, how it will break stuff, how it doesn't make sense, etc, I'd be able to retire.

Quizzical · March 2016

Cymdai said:

Quizzical said:
Now hold on. For a game to have essentially infinite content and never get boring is the holy grail of game design. A company that could be the first to implement that would make an incredible amount of money off it--the sort of fortune that would make WoW look like a minor historical footnote, not a massively lucrative game. And you're telling me that it's actually pretty easy to do but just no one cares to?

Games usually don't fail for lack of interesting ideas. Games fail because they couldn't implement their interesting ideas. Sometimes this makes a game into vaporware, and sometimes it makes a game look like a clone because they had to cut out everything that would have made it interesting. But coming up with the ideas is the easy part.

I've seen it first-hand multiple times. Good ideas are trounced out by people who ultimately will barely even play the game. You would be utterly shocked. There were times at both studios where teams of us had meetings to explain why X was an amazing, must-have feature that could totally change the landscape of the game, only to be greeted with "Nah; ____ doesn't do that and it makes millions." I wish I could sit here and tell you that was not the case, but more often than not, it is the case. Egos, arrogance, a lack of understanding, and a lack of creativity absolutely bury innovation.

If I had a nickel for every time I watched one of the game designers at Epic nearly tear out their hair at some of the hare-brained schemes they are commanded to implement, despite pleas and protests about how it's a terrible plan, how it will break stuff, how it doesn't make sense, etc, I'd be able to retire.

I have no doubt that some game companies do some baffling things. But it's one thing for some games to make a serious blunder; it's quite another for every single game ever made to make the same severe, obvious blunder. If it's easy and obvious how to make a good endgame, then with game development easier than it has ever been, someone would have done it by now.

A lot of ideas that chucked overboard get tossed because, while they would be awesome, they're too hard to implement, or too risky in that you don't know if your attempt at implementing it will backfire spectacularly and destroy the game.

Cymdai · March 2016

Quizzical said:

Cymdai said:

Quizzical said:
Now hold on. For a game to have essentially infinite content and never get boring is the holy grail of game design. A company that could be the first to implement that would make an incredible amount of money off it--the sort of fortune that would make WoW look like a minor historical footnote, not a massively lucrative game. And you're telling me that it's actually pretty easy to do but just no one cares to?

Games usually don't fail for lack of interesting ideas. Games fail because they couldn't implement their interesting ideas. Sometimes this makes a game into vaporware, and sometimes it makes a game look like a clone because they had to cut out everything that would have made it interesting. But coming up with the ideas is the easy part.

I've seen it first-hand multiple times. Good ideas are trounced out by people who ultimately will barely even play the game. You would be utterly shocked. There were times at both studios where teams of us had meetings to explain why X was an amazing, must-have feature that could totally change the landscape of the game, only to be greeted with "Nah; ____ doesn't do that and it makes millions." I wish I could sit here and tell you that was not the case, but more often than not, it is the case. Egos, arrogance, a lack of understanding, and a lack of creativity absolutely bury innovation.

If I had a nickel for every time I watched one of the game designers at Epic nearly tear out their hair at some of the hare-brained schemes they are commanded to implement, despite pleas and protests about how it's a terrible plan, how it will break stuff, how it doesn't make sense, etc, I'd be able to retire.

I have no doubt that some game companies do some baffling things. But it's one thing for some games to make a serious blunder; it's quite another for every single game ever made to make the same severe, obvious blunder. If it's easy and obvious how to make a good endgame, then with game development easier than it has ever been, someone would have done it by now.

A lot of ideas that chucked overboard get tossed because, while they would be awesome, they're too hard to implement, or too risky in that you don't know if your attempt at implementing it will backfire spectacularly and destroy the game.

That's also true. I'm simply pointing out that it's far more often that something doesn't go in because the person calling the shots doesn't understand it, or is too arrogant to try it. I would wager that 90% of the industry is based on copy-catting something that is already out there. It's why you rarely see new IPs from AAA studios; they'd rather play it safe and emulate what is already proven tried-and-true with flashy graphics rather than attempt to truly improve the genre.

Safe $$$ over innovation 100% of the time in the industry, that's a fact.

NeverForgetLove · March 2016

holdenhamlet said:

Wizardry said:

Then some wonder why some us complain a lot about these games.If every game is the same,of course our complaints will be the same,nothing has changed.
I honestly don't know what is going through the minds of SOME devs.I say some because obviously MANY have no budget therefore will NEVER have a solid complete game over all levels.

some games are even removing quests altogether and just try and sell pvp games.Funny these shallow games call themselves mmorpg's.No roleplay,no mmo aspects.

Now as far as meaning that is a tough one,i mean how much meaning can you really put in a game?What a developer SHOULD be doing is creating as close as possible a living world to take part in the role playing.Instead i see so much nonsense that is just ideas to slap in a game to say it is content but it is often non related content,just goofy ideas.

The devs that have the money seem unwilling to budge,it is all about profit margin,give as little as possible because people are still buying second rate games so why bother to improve,you always have a ton fanbois ready to praise total garbage.

MOST games are all in around a 3-6/10 rating,nothing much is even close to a 7/10.Sad reality developers KNOW what it takes to make a good game to do justice to the RPG genre,they simply will not do it until people quit giving them money for second rate effort.

Seeing how hundreds of thousands of dollars get FOOLISHLY thrown at Pewdiepie is it no wonder second rate devs can get away with selling crap?

What is it about you and punctuation? At first I thought maybe you were typing on a phone and it didn't allow you to put spaces after periods and commas. But I've seen you put spaces BEFORE commas.

WTF is going on you just don't give a shit about spaces or something and throw them in wherever?

Getting mad about grammar on the webs. First world problems...

Zenounet · March 2016

Just a bump because I'm really feeling the OP's needs and I'm looking for this myself.

If I want to level up, I'll go into a solo RPG thank you. At least I'll have a half decent storyline and combat mechanics compared to the content joke that "questing hubs are". If BioWare doesn't even manage to make me care about the story of the quest hubs in TOR, I'll stick to single player RPGs where what I do/did actually matters.

I'm just looking for something open world where I have access to all the content from the get go, do whatever I want to do without needing to level up my character, because seriously behind the veil of progression lies a barely hidden content locking mechanism to force players to play the game longer.

I see EvE thrown around, but even if EvE has no content locking and you can go whererver you want, the reality now is that if you don't have T2 or T3 ships and all your basic pilot skills up to V, then you're pretty much doomed in PvP. I don't want to have to play the game for 3 years, logging in just to manage my skill queue, just so I can actually enjoy the game.

So, any ideas are welcome

Octagon7711 · March 2016

I think OP pretty much covered every MMO out there as they all have at least some of those qualities. What I do is play my own game within the game. If the game comes close to fitting my playstyle, I play it the way I want to. I do only the content I enjoy. So some MMO's I never reach max, some I never do dungeons, or fractiles, PvP, WvW, or some games I may do some of those things once in awhile. If I can't enjoy the game playing the parts I like or run into a wall which can't be passed until some of those things are done I don't play that game.

So pretty much the reason I play multiple MMO's is to play only the parts I like. Like buying a meal and only eating the parts I like. I have little desire to master the entire MMO, have the latest gear or weapons, or play 100% of the content.

ExtraSodapop · March 2016

My recommendation: BDO (Black Desert Online). It's a grind, don't get me wrong. You only get xp from killing mobs, quests are kinda boring but doing them gives you other resources which help you enjoy the game better. But on the flip side there are a lot of things other then questing/grinding mobs to do. There are no dungeons/raids/or traditional pve endgame, so if you're into that BDO may not be your cup of tea, but at any point you can depart from leveling and get lost in exploring and crafting aspect of the game. I'm in a small guild and while almost all of us have been playing since launch only two of us made the grind to soft cap (50) and our other guild members are still around lvl 26 - 30 because they keep getting sucked into other aspects of the game like breeding and taming horses, building boats, or fishing. To put that in perspective, there are guides out there that tell you how to get to soft cap in 15 hours, so yea.

Classes are gender locked (with some classes being opposites of the other, for example Witch and Wizard, Warrior and Valk, but with minor differences between them) and you can only customize your character within that classes "persona". For example a wizard can almost always only be an old guy (unless you know how to work the character creator really well), but within that are a lot of customization options. So your old guy wizard can look like the spawn of satan or a handsome gentleman if you wanted (or gandalf ripoff)

You'll also find yourself looking only a little bit different armor wise as you progress through the game (unless you spend your loyalty points for free 1 use dyes or buy from the cash shop. Though, there's also an achievement that gives you 3 random dye bundles for a total of 9 random dyes if you hit the 50 hour play time mark).

Endgame is generally seen as PvP, Guild vs. Guild with node wars/castle sieges in the open world (no loading screens to be seen except for when you load into the game), but if you find yourself enjoying other aspects of the game (like fishing or building relationships with npcs) then endgame will be what you make it. There are open world bosses that spawn but most are just sponges that hit really hard with no interesting mechanics (though they do drop good loot).

BDO is also buy to play (cheapest pack is $30) with an overpriced cash shop but so far (except for the Ghilli suit which hides players names which is a hotly debated item) it isn't really p2w (in my opinion).

PvP is gear/lvl based, but the combat feels really nice and weighty and playing as a shield carrying class myself it feels really nice when you manage to block in both pve and pvp. At lvl 45 you become able to flag for pvp in the openworld so in higher lvl grind spots ganking/fighting over mobs is kinda a thing but if you find yourself getting attacked by the same person over and over eventually the attacker losses enough karma points and goes negative (which is bad for them like can't go in cities/lose stuff on death bad).

I've played a lot of MMO's, and most in the end are just reskins of each other. Even Tera, if you take away the combat, seems like just like all the others. At 251 hours of playtime in since launch, I've still not explored all there is to do and craft in the game. First MMO in a long while that's held my attention.

I would definitely recommend BDO to anyone who's tired of the same old mmorpg formula along with this warning: This game does not hold your hand. In the beginning it does very little to tell you about all the things you can actually do in the game and gives the false impression of being another quest hub to quest hub mmo.

Luckily it comes with built in links to its wiki page lol You can also try it before you buy it if you can find someone with a 7 day guest pass willingly to share.

(P.S. Sorry for the novel x.x)

Gdemami · March 2016

Cymdai said:
I've seen it first-hand multiple times. Good ideas are trounced out by people who ultimately will barely even play the game. You would be utterly shocked. There were times at both studios where teams of us had meetings to explain why X was an amazing, must-have feature that could totally change the landscape of the game, only to be greeted with "Nah; ____ doesn't do that and it makes millions." I wish I could sit here and tell you that was not the case, but more often than not, it is the case. Egos, arrogance, a lack of understanding, and a lack of creativity absolutely bury innovation.

If I had a nickel for every time I watched one of the game designers at Epic nearly tear out their hair at some of the hare-brained schemes they are commanded to implement, despite pleas and protests about how it's a terrible plan, how it will break stuff, how it doesn't make sense, etc, I'd be able to retire.

That is just naive and utterly shallow point of view.

There is a huge leap from idea to actual working implementation - your very own examples of TERA and SWG/UO above.

If you actually had any "first-hand" experience, you would now...

Back to topic - like others have suggested, EVE Online.

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다

"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey