In order to really talk about this properly one must have played a couple of games already.
Archeage - Damn near perfect MMO except for it exploits the things that make it perfect (namely it's requirement to earn money in order to progress and it's housing) for the sake of grabbing cash and retaining players. It is also missing a properly functioning system of law (which can not and should never be left to the community to enforce) and suffers from a content drop off that is near epic in proportions.
Age of Wushu - Not a perfect MMO but a daringly innovative MMO. Features like working out in order to gain skills, geographical training buffs (such as training beneath a waterfall in order to enhance one's water based skills), bounty hunting, offline player existence, and it's almost mythical wire combat system. This game has an almost organic questing system as well as a plethora of other systems that make it a super special product that, again, has been exploited for cash and player retention.
FFXIV - The pinnacle themepark. So much to see and do that it's like Kings Domnion (i.e. bet ya can't do it all). This game sits for all the games that came before it i.e. EQ, WOW, etc.... in the way that it is currently, save for genre, the premier game of it's kind. It's only real shortcoming being that, the opposite of the other two games listed, it's environment is less than realistic because you are protected from each other in all but the most specified fashions.
So what mechanic would you say needs the most improvement? Well, what we would have to do first is develop a game that could take the best parts of these three products, put them together in a cohesive and macrovisionary way. And then, and only then, decide which mechanic in THAT game would require the most tweaking or need implementing.
And yeah, I know that I left a couple of games, that some of you might think should be in this post, out. But to be honest, save for story genre, i.e. sci-fi, medeival, etc... and twitch level, i.e. ESO, BDO and games like them, these three games pretty much have ALL the technology available to the MMO genre in them already.
So I'd say that before we focused on any individual mechanic, let's try to get a prototype master game together first.
Going off of that post then, understand that the progress disparities would not be nearly as problematic as they are in a lot of games because there would be a system of law that would keep all but only the most extremely over-powered player from abusing their power.
Time spent would not be an issue because in an RNG world every player is as lucky, or unlucky, as the next player. You just can't attach a money circumvention to that mechanic because when you do, that's when stuff gets stupid.
Staying interested does not become a factor because there is always something that either needs doing or that could be done. The questing system of FFXIV, the work out system of AOW, or the money earning system of Archeage would be enough to keep ANYONE busy for as long as they wanted to be busy. And that's not even to mention housing and fashion.
And the reward for playing is and will always be the most potent reward for playing ANY game, and that would be power and bragging rights. Said rewards being unobtainable by any means other than actually successfully playing through and spending time in the game.
Developers fuck up a lot because they try to answer that God question of "Can god create a rock so heavy that he himself can not lift it?" and they do that EVERY GAME by making some mass participation deal that they themselves do not have the resources to test.
The end result is that they usually push the first round players through the game at breakneck pace so that they can get these things tested, never taking into account the damage that those accelerated players are going to do to the community around them.
The mechanic that needs the most development then, after all of this, is "Development". Because first they need to get their ducks in a row, THEN they need to get behind their products in more than just a half assed money grabbing fashion.
You see that happen, you will see a masterpiece occur. We've come so close so many times already.
Many MMO's have parts of the game that are fun but in most of them I am forced to do things I don't enjoy in order to get to the fun part or to be competitive. That's a big reason why I don't play any modern MMO right now combined with the p2w trend.
I just recently started playing Warhammer Online on a private server, it's the only option since there are no official ones. With all the flaws that game has it's still much more enjoyable to me than any modern MMORPG. In Warhammer Online I enjoy the world PvP and scenarios and by doing that I can earn money, gear, experience and renown(PvP levels) without having to do something I don't enjoy in order to be competitive.
There was a time when I accepted doing boring stuff in order to have fun later on in MMO's but afterwards I always wondered why I wasted time doing that, so now I just avoid those types of games.
There are so many improvements that could be made to mechanics within the MMO genre, but as usual mechanics cannot be taken in isolation - mechanics have to fit the whole game.
However, the single most annoying part of MMOs for me, personally, that I believe could be improved is questing. The current quest hub / kill / fetch is an incredibly dull way to level. The story in most MMOs is crap, so all you're really doing is killing and running about to earn XP, but you're forced to do it the way the devs want (following the quests). This results in incredible amounts of frustration for me personally, I just get bored to tears questing in MMOs and try to blast through so I can reach the fun bits.
So, what I'd change to make questing more fun:
1) Remove XP from Quests
This is the single most important improvement. Quests should not provide experience! It is the actions you perform during the quest (killing, exploring, crafting or whatever) that actually provide XP. By removing XP from quests, you open up possibilities for how people want to level rather than forcing them down a single path. Personally, I love combat so I'd much rather just go off exploring and kill everything I come across to level up.
2) Remove 90% of developer made quests
Lets face it, most quests in MMOs suck. Kill 10 wolves, collect 15 bear claws, kill this named mob etc.....too much generic crap, so lets remove it all. Lets just keep the quests that are interesting, have well thought out stories and fun objectives. If we don't need quests for XP then quests should just be about story, so lets make sure the story is awesome.
3) Add Dynamic Quests
Those who played SWG should be familiar with this concept. In SWG, quest terminals handed out generic quests to kill nests of creatures. These quests scaled to your group size and average power level. So, as a noob on tattooine, the terminals would hand out low level quests to kill butterflies, womp rats etc. However, jump in a raid and the terminals would start handing out quests to kill squills (much harder mobs). The nests would only spawn when you started getting close, ensuring minimal kill stealing.
Dynamic quests that scale to group size are essential imo. I love playing in groups so in SWG I would level up in raids farming squill missions on tattooine for good xp and good money. However, sometimes nobody else would be around, but I could continue to level up either by taking solo dynamic quests or just going out exploring / killing.
4) Large, open worlds
With less scripted content, it is important that more effort is put into the world. If the focus is shifting from guided killing with generic stories to exploring and grinding mobs, the world needs to be bigger and have more interesting places to find. Put in a good mix of solo, small group, large group, raid areas in there, split across levels so that there is a good sense of danger plus good feeling of progression once you can finally take on some of the harder stuff.
I think these things would make questing / leveling in every MMO more interesting than it currently is. If nothing else, the dynamic scaling of quests is probably the most important. Grouping builds communities, but forced grouping alienates some players so the game should scale itself wherever possible.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
Please, no more quest. I'm done with going off to retrieve ten rat pelts or delivering documents to the next town. These none of these mmo's have quest... they have errands. You are nothing more than an errand boy running hundreds of errands everyday to become the strongest errand boy to ever live.
Quest are supposed to take weeks to complete and the end results are supposed yield significant rewards.
Progression systems needs to be looked at I think. Most (if not all?) MMO's tend to have a very vertical progression scaling. I think they could benefit a lot from more horizontal scaling. Meaning, leveling up wouldn't necessarily make you deal more damage or have more health. But would instead allow you to gain skills that lets you specialize your character more, or just unlock new mechanics for you to play with.
The reason is that, more often than not you need almost ridiculous amounts of time investment in MMO's to be competitive. With a more horizontal progression system in place, it'd be easier to play with your friends, or play socially in general. Since regardless of level, you're all likely going to be able to play the content. You don't risk falling behind your guildmates, inadvertedly keeping you behind a grind hurdle before you can play with them again etc.
Fail states / Death mechanics This is probably a dangerous one to tamper with, but I'm sick of death being such an insignificant fail state. I mean, you DIED for goodness sake. I completely understand the concept of 'you failed = time/gold sink', but it needs to be something other than death. On that note, character death should absolutely be more consequencial, albeit less likely to happen or easier to avoid. I'm not saying I want a Permadeath-Dark-Souls-MMO. But gimme something man. There's no tension anymore, no risk vs reward. There's either the way hardcore permadeath full pvp/loot games, and then there's the complete opposite of absolutely no consequences ever. I've yet to see a well-made middle ground.
The world, specifically monster spawns. Every MMO I can think of has groups of the same monsters spawning in the same place, standing around waiting to be killed. Why can't they move? Why is it the same ones, regardless of the season, time of day, etc? Why don't packs of carnivorous monsters attack the herbivores? For that matter, why can't packs of carnivores, or even individual creatures, vie for hunting grounds?
I guess what I'm asking is why don't animals and other enemies behave in a similar fashion to how they do IRL? There are all kinds of relationships in an ecosystem, yet no MMO in the last decade or so has even attempted to make their world's ecology seem the slightest bit realistic. In fact, only one MMO I know of has ever tried, period.
Saga of Ryzom's model is far from perfect, but at least they tried! Their monsters move about, carnivores hunt (and even use simple pack tactics, such as ambushes) and even migrate across the map during certain seasons. It gives a sense of legitimacy to the world. Your character may be the star of the story, but the world doesn't care if they die to the first kobold they come across, or slays the evil dragon-wizard and gets the princess. With or without you, the world goes on, and that's something many MMOs just don't bother to address.
Oh, and reskinning lower level monsters, cranking up their stats, and dropping them in the higher level areas needs to stop. I'm actually surprised they haven't resorted to just reversing the names of the lower level mobs for the high level versions yet.
Level five Kobold = level 100 Dlobok.
Wandering mobs were pretty standard in the older MMOs even if they usually stayed in a general area. I think the games quit with that because people tended to die if they didn't have a lookout for adds, and because it is easier to just have them stand around as scarecrows waiting for someone to pass by and kill them. Yeah, mobs could and should be smarter and more mobile.
As for cranking up the low level mobs that actually isn't that illogical in a levelbased games, monsters should gain experiences as well (they actually did level if they killed you many times in GW1, only way to reach max level in pre searing Ascalon, you did get an achivement if you made it). It is of course cheap but it do makes about the same amount of sense as anything else with a huge powergap.
There are so many improvements that could be made to mechanics within the MMO genre, but as usual mechanics cannot be taken in isolation - mechanics have to fit the whole game.
However, the single most annoying part of MMOs for me, personally, that I believe could be improved is questing. The current quest hub / kill / fetch is an incredibly dull way to level. The story in most MMOs is crap, so all you're really doing is killing and running about to earn XP, but you're forced to do it the way the devs want (following the quests). This results in incredible amounts of frustration for me personally, I just get bored to tears questing in MMOs and try to blast through so I can reach the fun bits.
So, what I'd change to make questing more fun:
1) Remove XP from Quests
... (rread the original post)
2) Remove 90% of developer made quests ...
3) Add Dynamic Quests
... 4) Large, open worlds
... I think these things would make questing / leveling in every MMO more interesting than it currently is. If nothing else, the dynamic scaling of quests is probably the most important. Grouping builds communities, but forced grouping alienates some players so the game should scale itself wherever possible.
I agree with you (even though I think GW2s DEs are better then SWGs). The insane questgrind many games have is actually more boring then camping an area for kills as were popular in many early MMOs.
We got quests, hunting and DEs, I wonder if someone can figure an better way then those?
I think I'd go for voice. Not voice acting for the NPCs, but area broadcast voice from the player's mic. I know not everyone has a mic, but this is such a crucial component; the realistic integration of vocal speech. You could "shout" it to whomever you have targeted, or just speak it to everyone within a certain range.
The quest system is usually my biggest beef.....To me it just makes leveling too easy and feeling like Ive done nothing to earn it.......Often questing makes me feel like im just going thru the motions.
I'll use WoW as an example to what I want to change.
- Full loot pvp in pvp realms only, unless you die in a city where "the city will cover your loss". - Removal of portals and fly mounts/fly paths. All of it. Except for the outland portal (or gate). - Removal of battlegrounds and make the zones of these battlegrounds PvP flagged without loss of loot. - Removal of arenas and usage of these arenas is only possible by travelling to it. However these arenas will be placed close to the capitals. Also when u enter the arena zone you are automatically instanced with your part member(s). - Addition of a new area called trial of guilds. This place will be hugely beneficial for the guilds that control castles or farms. Each guild will have gold income through taxes of auction houses and certain shops that are only available in this area. All these items will be PvP related so that PvE players have nothing to do in here.
Keep in mind, I'm only using wow as an example because it is the most popular mmorpg.
The quest system is usually my biggest beef.....To me it just makes leveling too easy and feeling like Ive done nothing to earn it.......Often questing makes me feel like im just going thru the motions.
I agree with you there but the question is how to replace it. We seen some games with no or almost no quests (like Lineage at least had at launch, not sure now) and we have GW2s dynamic events (other games have them too but it is the only one I seen that replaced quests with them).
Personally do I think that fewer more epic quests together with DEs would be the best with the mechanics we have today.
I'll use WoW as an example to what I want to change.
- Full loot pvp in pvp realms only, unless you die in a city where "the city will cover your loss". - Removal of portals and fly mounts/fly paths. All of it. Except for the outland portal (or gate). - Removal of battlegrounds and make the zones of these battlegrounds PvP flagged without loss of loot. - Removal of arenas and usage of these arenas is only possible by travelling to it. However these arenas will be placed close to the capitals. Also when u enter the arena zone you are automatically instanced with your part member(s). - Addition of a new area called trial of guilds. This place will be hugely beneficial for the guilds that control castles or farms. Each guild will have gold income through taxes of auction houses and certain shops that are only available in this area. All these items will be PvP related so that PvE players have nothing to do in here.
Keep in mind, I'm only using wow as an example because it is the most popular mmorpg.
You can't have full loot PvP in a game where the players spend months to get a certain piece of gear. The entire point of the game is to get rare gear and let a few players zerg the people who bother to get gear would turn the server into a ghostland in a few days.
Full loot PvP have never really worked in a MMO so far, I can only think of UO that had an acceptablem number of players with that feature.
I am not saying that it can't work though, it is possible that it could work in the right game but that game need a very different goal then getting the best gear like Wow. You would certainly need a game where the characters power mainly come from skills, attributes and player skill and almost nothing from gear. Even in that case it will be bloody hard to make a popular game if you have any PvE in it. PvE and full loot just doesn't work in the same game.
You know, talking about quests, I think that a big improvement would be less quantification up front, meaning actually allowing the "X" in "Kill X" quests to be an "X" and not a specific number. As well as less static spawns of those "X'es". You know, don't tell them how many they need to kill and don't put as many as they need all in the same spot. Can you imagine the possible competition and immersion that might come out of actually having to "hunt" for a thing instead of just going to where you know it is and killing it?
There are a couple of games that have some pretty fantastically involved quests out there, but I think it's the before hand quantification of said quests coupled with the ease of achieving those goals that either make them boring to those who are really good at questing or too daunting to those who aren't.
We have to stop playing the middle and actually turn some of these things into things that the player is actually require to invest in in order to gain their rewards.
I've played games for over a year with people who, after that year's time, still couldn't tell you what they were doing on that day or why. Meanwhile I've soaked up all of the content and have grown bored simply because my next task is so crazy big that major component in it is being able to find enough people who even give a damn about it to complete it.
You remove the quantification of things and all of a sudden you have a little more mystery involved with what you're doing again. That allows those who actually give a damn to be rewarded while those who don't, aren't. And really, let's be honest. Isn't that a part of the problem for some of us? That we go out and figure out how to do all of this stuff only to have some dick rider google it on the internet and show up at the party wearing the same dress?
Right now I think that thing is absolutely KILLING the fun of the genre for a lot of people. And because there are people out there literally making money off of telling, or even worse, selling the uninterested ways how to be as well equipped as the interested, the interested are becoming discouraged.
And the interested players becoming discouraged is a game breaking bug. Because without them the uninterested will most certainly go away.
Make the questing thing a hunt though. And provide the player with many different hunts that lead in many different directions so that they don't get bored (because I can hear certain people's finger's queuing up to say that they don't want to spend hours in a game "hunting") and don't tell them how many things they even need to kill in order to obtain whatever they are looking for, and you have reasons for hunting parties to go out every day. Reason's for conflict. Choice of direction. And 8 essential vitamins and minerals.
Difficulty slider. Few MMO has it, and sometimes too crude (like normal vs heroic only). But it can get rid of all the complaints about content being too easy or too difficult.
You do need to affect the loot to get the risk Vs reward right of course.
Dynamic scaling, something that makes life more difficult for coders. Therefore, unpopular with coders.
Hardcoding everything, fixed loot tables, so much quicker and dirtier. Good enough for EQ, good enough for WoW...ayuk yuk yuk.
Raiding is another problem. Without highly visible Trophies, unhappy Poseurs.
But if you want a flexible and easily revised game for the future, scalability is the only way to go. User-selectable and adaptive.
I wouldn't call it a mechanic as such, but I would like to see an MMO where non-combat activities are given as much design and developer attention as combat currently is in the average MMO. As in, I would like an MMO where meaningful exploration, for instance, was a truly viable and immersive activity from the moment you set foot in the world until you feel you're done playing. Same goes for crafting, where I would like to see the same care and attention to detail - and especially for the actual process of gathering/crafting - as combat is given. Meaning, I would like to see a "crafting system" with as much progression, variety and animation detail as is given to combat systems.
Beyond that, I would like to see an MMO where combat is truly dangerous, rare and potentially very lethal. As in, not something you trivially engage in at every turn.
This is from someone who enjoys combat - and combat-related progression. I just think MMOs can be about much more than that.
jesad said: Can you imagine the possible competition and immersion that might come out of actually having to "hunt" for a thing instead of just going to where you know it is and killing it?
No, but I can not only imagine but also recall the annoyance with such mechanics because it was already done.
Do you know how it is called? RNG loot quest items.
It would trivialize progression if it was done exactly the same how we've seen it done for the last 16+ years.
However this type of game would open up new ways of doing MMO systems - including progression - in very different mechanics - because the rate of progress of all characters on the server would have a constant baseline and could be controlled to a much greater degree than simple gear progression the way we have it today.
You are introducing *time* and NPC interaction/actions as a game mechanic - which introduces "organic/programmatic evolution" mechanics into the virtual world - which is a hard problem to solve in MMO design.
Again the base game design would have to be completely re-thought - as this introduces a lot of new variables and mechanics that nobody has done yet in a truly programmatic/AI way - I know different dev studios have kicked this idea around already for years now - but again the design problems they run into are so far with this method are still too much for anyone to tackle.
I hope I live to see the day of true "virtual simulation worlds" where the NPCs and worlds evolve without player interaction - but players always have the option of jumping in and taking control when they wish to play directly.
Your entire post consists of: Once someone finds a cure for cancer, it will cure the cancer.
jesad said: Can you imagine the possible competition and immersion that might come out of actually having to "hunt" for a thing instead of just going to where you know it is and killing it?
No, but I can not only imagine but also recall the annoyance with such mechanics because it was already done.
Do you know how it is called? RNG loot quest items.
RNG and not telling you are two different things but yeah, really, thinking about it I guess it would have to be RNG because the moment that guy x finds out what the X is in the quest, were that X to remain static, it would no longer be an X.
But you can't really blame me because people don't know how to keep their mouths shut either :P
I knew a guy that used to work for a company that did video poker games. That guy would get free lunches at a certain truck stop whenever he wanted, whatever he wanted, because, at the owners request, he would adjust the so-called "RNG" averages on the poker machines.
This is why RNG sucks and why they use it in cash shop games. It is also why I don't trust it. Putting it in a subscription game however and using it responsibly in order to entertain might not be so annoying though.
jesad said: Can you imagine the possible competition and immersion that might come out of actually having to "hunt" for a thing instead of just going to where you know it is and killing it?
No, but I can not only imagine but also recall the annoyance with such mechanics because it was already done.
Do you know how it is called? RNG loot quest items.
RNG and not telling you are two different things but yeah, really, thinking about it I guess it would have to be RNG because the moment that guy x finds out what the X is in the quest, were that X to remain static, it would no longer be an X.
But you can't really blame me because people don't know how to keep their mouths shut either :P
Actually, that doesn't have to be true.
The way to do it, which is sadly also the most complex and demanding way to develop, would be to have a truly dynamic AI and monster ecology.
As in, you'd have to simulate the actions of enemies and NPCs to the degree where they'll conquer and acquire items on their own, as well as have these items exchange hands or have them "hidden away" in dungeons as they build or take them over.
In my personal opinion, I think every item in an MMO should be unique - just like they would be in the real world. As in, I don't think generating items via loot tables and giving every player in the world access to the most powerful items is a very interesting way to handle it.
In my opinion, the most powerful items should never be available to players who're not willing to master and invest in the game (except through a lucrative trade) - and they shouldn't be acquired through pre-determined and predictable activities, like raiding. Also, players should be able to trade them freely and they shouldn't be "bound" in any way whatsoever.
That's how to promote a dynamic playfield - but it's also a very scary prospect for a game designer, especially one funded by investors looking for a safe cash grab.
The biggest downside to MMORPGs is the huge time investment needed to progress - over time this creates a disparity - veteran players with lots of play time far ahead and players with little time being far behind.
The time investment being what separates haves from have nots - it could be done better.
Typical MMORPG - you log out and your character is removed from the world and your progress comes to a halt.
How about having player characters remain in game as intelligent NPCs that continue to progress on their own. This way if you take a vacation or just need a break - you don't come back to your guild and find that you've fallen off the tracks.
The tech needed to make this work in a spectacular way would sure push AI and server processing to the max - but it would push the genre forward in leaps and bounds.
It would open up MMORPGs for people who have very little time, even people who might only have a smartphone and would be able to give simple commands gress of their "NPCs" periodically.
The evolution of MMORPGs lies in unattended gameplay IMO - remove the burden of time investment.
Interesting... Pretty hard to implement with current MMO AIs of course unless your character will just stand in their player owned store, work on their farm and go to sleep during nighttime when you log off but already that would make the game more interesting. I could see a character first working on his field, then go to the market and sell vegetables and finish by going to the tavern and have a beer with other off line characters. It would certainly make the game feel more alive.
There is the question on how much your character should do when you are off, stuff like running dungeons are probably too much.
EVE already provides one solid approach to this with offline skill training, skill caps, trading PLEX for ISK (for those with more money than free time) and now skill injectors for those who feel the need to 'catch up'. (not to mention the outright purchase of senior characters for ISK on the bazaar)
COE is proposing something along the lines of what you guys are discussing as per their recent KS and they solve the long term power disparity by killing off your character every 10 to 14 months.
Will be interesting to see if they can pull off the "programmable" off line character UI where there is supposed to be a variety of offline activities for them to do.
Still sounds a lot like offline botting to me, and I wonder it would be profitable to have multiple accounts engaged in offline activities on a regular basis?
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
The biggest downside to MMORPGs is the huge time investment needed to progress - over time this creates a disparity - veteran players with lots of play time far ahead and players with little time being far behind.
The time investment being what separates haves from have nots - it could be done better.
Typical MMORPG - you log out and your character is removed from the world and your progress comes to a halt.
How about having player characters remain in game as intelligent NPCs that continue to progress on their own. This way if you take a vacation or just need a break - you don't come back to your guild and find that you've fallen off the tracks.
The tech needed to make this work in a spectacular way would sure push AI and server processing to the max - but it would push the genre forward in leaps and bounds.
It would open up MMORPGs for people who have very little time, even people who might only have a smartphone and would be able to give simple commands or check on the progress of their "NPCs" periodically.
The evolution of MMORPGs lies in unattended gameplay IMO - remove the burden of time investment.
That would trivialize the progression for those who are actually online, playing the game and making an "effort".
The root "issue" is vertical character/power progression that creates the disparities but at the same time people love it thus it either is not going away or you would need to replace it with something equally enticing - and afk progression ain't filling that spot.
It would trivialize progression if it was done exactly the same how we've seen it done for the last 16+ years.
However this type of game would open up new ways of doing MMO systems - including progression - in very different mechanics - because the rate of progress of all characters on the server would have a constant baseline and could be controlled to a much greater degree than simple gear progression the way we have it today.
You are introducing *time* and NPC interaction/actions as a game mechanic - which introduces "organic/programmatic evolution" mechanics into the virtual world - which is a hard problem to solve in MMO design.
Again the base game design would have to be completely re-thought - as this introduces a lot of new variables and mechanics that nobody has done yet in a truly programmatic/AI way - I know different dev studios have kicked this idea around already for years now - but again the design problems they run into are so far with this method are still too much for anyone to tackle.
I hope I live to see the day of true "virtual simulation worlds" where the NPCs and worlds evolve without player interaction - but players always have the option of jumping in and taking control when they wish to play directly.
Or, they could make young/new players valuable commodities which for anyone with half a klik should be able to figure out is the truth in an online mmo/mmorpg that relies on either subs or cash shops for revenue.
Especially new players are usually met with derision and taunted for not knowing all the unspoken rules and tricks in a game, told to get gud etc and are shunned and ignored when trying to join the older community.
Otoh, if new players were seen as assets by becoming a required component for certain tasks or achievements beyond pvp fodder, then just maybe a greater community made up with players that all feel valued in the game would result and the game as a whole would benefit. (ie. only one pure of heart(has never attacked an enemy faction or other
player) can open some special chest deep in the pit of some elite
dungeon(requiring higher level players to protect this young player so
they can assist them in their endeavours), or perhaps have certain mats
only drop to lower level players, or beginner crafted items having real
worth instead of just a means to level up, etc.)
This would make higher level players want to continue to attract more players to the game, even though it would be ultimately self-serving, instead of trying to drive young players away with derision because they may not agree with either their lack of knowledge of how to play gud or don't agree with their playstyle. The community in the game would then largely police itself or at least be willing to assist in it, if only as a means of self-preservation.
This would also lend itself to the whole notion of aging/dying and being reborn/reincarnated that has been suggested for an element for progression of a character rather than just your typical leveling.
using it responsibly in order to entertain might not be so annoying though.
And it is. Raid drops rely on RNG and it makes things unique. Put RNG in ordinary stuff and it will make things annoying.
I think that I kind of responded to this in a different string. The one about an alternative to RNG. In this case I think that what you imagine as "annoying" I imagine as traditional Dungeons and Dragons rules set to a persistent world environment. When traveling in D&D you mark your distance, you decide how many encounters are possible between here and there, you roll your dice, and when you roll for an encounter you roll again to see what, of the list of possible things that hang out in that area, pops up, you roll to see what level they are, what stats they have, and once the fight starts, you state your claim, you roll your dice, you add your modifiers and you either accomplish what you set out to do or you fail. If you won, there was a loot table, you rolled to see what was dropped and if necessary you rolled to see who got it. If that's what you call "annoying" then I don't know what I can do for you with any idea I might have. To me, that was all the fun of playing that game.
DKlond seems to understand where I'm going with it so I agreed with his post that came after ours. Proper use of the system could make the game nice. Pushingly brutal use of the system, yes, would make the game annoying. But RNG happens in life. You win some, you lose some. Que Sera Sera. Comme se comme sa. That's what makes winning winning and losing losing.
But now you got me rambling. As if I don't to THAT enough.
I think that I kind of responded to this in a different string. The one about an alternative to RNG. In this case I think that what you imagine as "annoying" I imagine as traditional Dungeons and Dragons rules set to a persistent world environment. When traveling in D&D you mark your distance, you decide how many encounters are possible between here and there, you roll your dice, and when you roll for an encounter you roll again to see what, of the list of possible things that hang out in that area, pops up, you roll to see what level they are, what stats they have, and once the fight starts, you state your claim, you roll your dice, you add your modifiers and you either accomplish what you set out to do or you fail. If you won, there was a loot table, you rolled to see what was dropped and if necessary you rolled to see who got it. If that's what you call "annoying" then I don't know what I can do for you with any idea I might have. To me, that was all the fun of playing that game.
DKlond seems to understand where I'm going with it so I agreed with his post that came after ours. Proper use of the system could make the game nice. Pushingly brutal use of the system, yes, would make the game annoying. But RNG happens in life. You win some, you lose some. Que Sera Sera. Comme se comme sa. That's what makes winning winning and losing losing.
But now you got me rambling. As if I don't to THAT enough.
No, you do consider when you had a fight last or if you have a friendly travelling npc you want to intruduce. If it was a while ago and a fight would liven up things I decide what would fit the area their are traveling in. Last I feel the mood to send the right difficulty, if things have been going badly and they need an easy win I give them that, if they seems a bit to sure I put in something really tough and otherwise I go for average (they will win unless they have really bad luck or mess up some way, I will still try to kill them as best as possible with whatever choice I put up). As I see it, no dice can give as good encounters as a good DM.
No sane GM ever put in more then 1 combat encounter during a single travel because it is boring and take away the players focus on their current goal (you might call it a quest instead of a goal but the Q word is so watered out by now I prefer goal).
Now, you could actually implement a similar system, altough a bit weaker since the game can tell you about previous fights and the state of the players (wounds & healing pots left) but not the mood of the group.
Both in P&P and MMOs is the goal to have fun. Constantly rolling or triggering random encounters ain't fun but neither is it if the players feel too sure about themselves. Letting a DM or client kicking in a random encounter or dynamic event now and then can indeed be fun, but using the same difficulty constant lessen that fun and overusing the system indeed make things very annoying.
Comments
Archeage - Damn near perfect MMO except for it exploits the things that make it perfect (namely it's requirement to earn money in order to progress and it's housing) for the sake of grabbing cash and retaining players. It is also missing a properly functioning system of law (which can not and should never be left to the community to enforce) and suffers from a content drop off that is near epic in proportions.
Age of Wushu - Not a perfect MMO but a daringly innovative MMO. Features like working out in order to gain skills, geographical training buffs (such as training beneath a waterfall in order to enhance one's water based skills), bounty hunting, offline player existence, and it's almost mythical wire combat system. This game has an almost organic questing system as well as a plethora of other systems that make it a super special product that, again, has been exploited for cash and player retention.
FFXIV - The pinnacle themepark. So much to see and do that it's like Kings Domnion (i.e. bet ya can't do it all). This game sits for all the games that came before it i.e. EQ, WOW, etc.... in the way that it is currently, save for genre, the premier game of it's kind. It's only real shortcoming being that, the opposite of the other two games listed, it's environment is less than realistic because you are protected from each other in all but the most specified fashions.
So what mechanic would you say needs the most improvement? Well, what we would have to do first is develop a game that could take the best parts of these three products, put them together in a cohesive and macrovisionary way. And then, and only then, decide which mechanic in THAT game would require the most tweaking or need implementing.
And yeah, I know that I left a couple of games, that some of you might think should be in this post, out. But to be honest, save for story genre, i.e. sci-fi, medeival, etc... and twitch level, i.e. ESO, BDO and games like them, these three games pretty much have ALL the technology available to the MMO genre in them already.
So I'd say that before we focused on any individual mechanic, let's try to get a prototype master game together first.
Time spent would not be an issue because in an RNG world every player is as lucky, or unlucky, as the next player. You just can't attach a money circumvention to that mechanic because when you do, that's when stuff gets stupid.
Staying interested does not become a factor because there is always something that either needs doing or that could be done. The questing system of FFXIV, the work out system of AOW, or the money earning system of Archeage would be enough to keep ANYONE busy for as long as they wanted to be busy. And that's not even to mention housing and fashion.
And the reward for playing is and will always be the most potent reward for playing ANY game, and that would be power and bragging rights. Said rewards being unobtainable by any means other than actually successfully playing through and spending time in the game.
Developers fuck up a lot because they try to answer that God question of "Can god create a rock so heavy that he himself can not lift it?" and they do that EVERY GAME by making some mass participation deal that they themselves do not have the resources to test.
The end result is that they usually push the first round players through the game at breakneck pace so that they can get these things tested, never taking into account the damage that those accelerated players are going to do to the community around them.
The mechanic that needs the most development then, after all of this, is "Development". Because first they need to get their ducks in a row, THEN they need to get behind their products in more than just a half assed money grabbing fashion.
You see that happen, you will see a masterpiece occur. We've come so close so many times already.
I just recently started playing Warhammer Online on a private server, it's the only option since there are no official ones. With all the flaws that game has it's still much more enjoyable to me than any modern MMORPG. In Warhammer Online I enjoy the world PvP and scenarios and by doing that I can earn money, gear, experience and renown(PvP levels) without having to do something I don't enjoy in order to be competitive.
There was a time when I accepted doing boring stuff in order to have fun later on in MMO's but afterwards I always wondered why I wasted time doing that, so now I just avoid those types of games.
However, the single most annoying part of MMOs for me, personally, that I believe could be improved is questing. The current quest hub / kill / fetch is an incredibly dull way to level. The story in most MMOs is crap, so all you're really doing is killing and running about to earn XP, but you're forced to do it the way the devs want (following the quests). This results in incredible amounts of frustration for me personally, I just get bored to tears questing in MMOs and try to blast through so I can reach the fun bits.
So, what I'd change to make questing more fun:
1) Remove XP from Quests
This is the single most important improvement. Quests should not provide experience! It is the actions you perform during the quest (killing, exploring, crafting or whatever) that actually provide XP. By removing XP from quests, you open up possibilities for how people want to level rather than forcing them down a single path. Personally, I love combat so I'd much rather just go off exploring and kill everything I come across to level up.
2) Remove 90% of developer made quests
Lets face it, most quests in MMOs suck. Kill 10 wolves, collect 15 bear claws, kill this named mob etc.....too much generic crap, so lets remove it all. Lets just keep the quests that are interesting, have well thought out stories and fun objectives. If we don't need quests for XP then quests should just be about story, so lets make sure the story is awesome.
3) Add Dynamic Quests
Those who played SWG should be familiar with this concept. In SWG, quest terminals handed out generic quests to kill nests of creatures. These quests scaled to your group size and average power level. So, as a noob on tattooine, the terminals would hand out low level quests to kill butterflies, womp rats etc. However, jump in a raid and the terminals would start handing out quests to kill squills (much harder mobs). The nests would only spawn when you started getting close, ensuring minimal kill stealing.
Dynamic quests that scale to group size are essential imo. I love playing in groups so in SWG I would level up in raids farming squill missions on tattooine for good xp and good money. However, sometimes nobody else would be around, but I could continue to level up either by taking solo dynamic quests or just going out exploring / killing.
4) Large, open worlds
With less scripted content, it is important that more effort is put into the world. If the focus is shifting from guided killing with generic stories to exploring and grinding mobs, the world needs to be bigger and have more interesting places to find. Put in a good mix of solo, small group, large group, raid areas in there, split across levels so that there is a good sense of danger plus good feeling of progression once you can finally take on some of the harder stuff.
I think these things would make questing / leveling in every MMO more interesting than it currently is. If nothing else, the dynamic scaling of quests is probably the most important. Grouping builds communities, but forced grouping alienates some players so the game should scale itself wherever possible.
Please, no more quest. I'm done with going off to retrieve ten rat pelts or delivering documents to the next town. These none of these mmo's have quest... they have errands. You are nothing more than an errand boy running hundreds of errands everyday to become the strongest errand boy to ever live.
Quest are supposed to take weeks to complete and the end results are supposed yield significant rewards.
Most (if not all?) MMO's tend to have a very vertical progression scaling. I think they could benefit a lot from more horizontal scaling. Meaning, leveling up wouldn't necessarily make you deal more damage or have more health. But would instead allow you to gain skills that lets you specialize your character more, or just unlock new mechanics for you to play with.
The reason is that, more often than not you need almost ridiculous amounts of time investment in MMO's to be competitive. With a more horizontal progression system in place, it'd be easier to play with your friends, or play socially in general. Since regardless of level, you're all likely going to be able to play the content. You don't risk falling behind your guildmates, inadvertedly keeping you behind a grind hurdle before you can play with them again etc.
Fail states / Death mechanics
This is probably a dangerous one to tamper with, but I'm sick of death being such an insignificant fail state. I mean, you DIED for goodness sake. I completely understand the concept of 'you failed = time/gold sink', but it needs to be something other than death.
On that note, character death should absolutely be more consequencial, albeit less likely to happen or easier to avoid. I'm not saying I want a Permadeath-Dark-Souls-MMO. But gimme something man. There's no tension anymore, no risk vs reward. There's either the way hardcore permadeath full pvp/loot games, and then there's the complete opposite of absolutely no consequences ever. I've yet to see a well-made middle ground.
As for cranking up the low level mobs that actually isn't that illogical in a levelbased games, monsters should gain experiences as well (they actually did level if they killed you many times in GW1, only way to reach max level in pre searing Ascalon, you did get an achivement if you made it). It is of course cheap but it do makes about the same amount of sense as anything else with a huge powergap.
We got quests, hunting and DEs, I wonder if someone can figure an better way then those?
- Full loot pvp in pvp realms only, unless you die in a city where "the city will cover your loss".
- Removal of portals and fly mounts/fly paths. All of it. Except for the outland portal (or gate).
- Removal of battlegrounds and make the zones of these battlegrounds PvP flagged without loss of loot.
- Removal of arenas and usage of these arenas is only possible by travelling to it. However these arenas will be placed close to the capitals. Also when u enter the arena zone you are automatically instanced with your part member(s).
- Addition of a new area called trial of guilds. This place will be hugely beneficial for the guilds that control castles or farms. Each guild will have gold income through taxes of auction houses and certain shops that are only available in this area. All these items will be PvP related so that PvE players have nothing to do in here.
Keep in mind, I'm only using wow as an example because it is the most popular mmorpg.
Personally do I think that fewer more epic quests together with DEs would be the best with the mechanics we have today.
You can't have full loot PvP in a game where the players spend months to get a certain piece of gear. The entire point of the game is to get rare gear and let a few players zerg the people who bother to get gear would turn the server into a ghostland in a few days.
Full loot PvP have never really worked in a MMO so far, I can only think of UO that had an acceptablem number of players with that feature.
I am not saying that it can't work though, it is possible that it could work in the right game but that game need a very different goal then getting the best gear like Wow. You would certainly need a game where the characters power mainly come from skills, attributes and player skill and almost nothing from gear. Even in that case it will be bloody hard to make a popular game if you have any PvE in it. PvE and full loot just doesn't work in the same game.
There are a couple of games that have some pretty fantastically involved quests out there, but I think it's the before hand quantification of said quests coupled with the ease of achieving those goals that either make them boring to those who are really good at questing or too daunting to those who aren't.
We have to stop playing the middle and actually turn some of these things into things that the player is actually require to invest in in order to gain their rewards.
I've played games for over a year with people who, after that year's time, still couldn't tell you what they were doing on that day or why. Meanwhile I've soaked up all of the content and have grown bored simply because my next task is so crazy big that major component in it is being able to find enough people who even give a damn about it to complete it.
You remove the quantification of things and all of a sudden you have a little more mystery involved with what you're doing again. That allows those who actually give a damn to be rewarded while those who don't, aren't. And really, let's be honest. Isn't that a part of the problem for some of us? That we go out and figure out how to do all of this stuff only to have some dick rider google it on the internet and show up at the party wearing the same dress?
Right now I think that thing is absolutely KILLING the fun of the genre for a lot of people. And because there are people out there literally making money off of telling, or even worse, selling the uninterested ways how to be as well equipped as the interested, the interested are becoming discouraged.
And the interested players becoming discouraged is a game breaking bug. Because without them the uninterested will most certainly go away.
Make the questing thing a hunt though. And provide the player with many different hunts that lead in many different directions so that they don't get bored (because I can hear certain people's finger's queuing up to say that they don't want to spend hours in a game "hunting") and don't tell them how many things they even need to kill in order to obtain whatever they are looking for, and you have reasons for hunting parties to go out every day. Reason's for conflict. Choice of direction. And 8 essential vitamins and minerals.
Just an idea. Poke holes in it if you want.
Hardcoding everything, fixed loot tables, so much quicker and dirtier. Good enough for EQ, good enough for WoW...ayuk yuk yuk.
Raiding is another problem. Without highly visible Trophies, unhappy Poseurs.
But if you want a flexible and easily revised game for the future, scalability is the only way to go. User-selectable and adaptive.
Beyond that, I would like to see an MMO where combat is truly dangerous, rare and potentially very lethal. As in, not something you trivially engage in at every turn.
This is from someone who enjoys combat - and combat-related progression. I just think MMOs can be about much more than that.
Do you know how it is called? RNG loot quest items.
Moot post.
But you can't really blame me because people don't know how to keep their mouths shut either :P
I knew a guy that used to work for a company that did video poker games. That guy would get free lunches at a certain truck stop whenever he wanted, whatever he wanted, because, at the owners request, he would adjust the so-called "RNG" averages on the poker machines.
This is why RNG sucks and why they use it in cash shop games. It is also why I don't trust it. Putting it in a subscription game however and using it responsibly in order to entertain might not be so annoying though.
The way to do it, which is sadly also the most complex and demanding way to develop, would be to have a truly dynamic AI and monster ecology.
As in, you'd have to simulate the actions of enemies and NPCs to the degree where they'll conquer and acquire items on their own, as well as have these items exchange hands or have them "hidden away" in dungeons as they build or take them over.
In my personal opinion, I think every item in an MMO should be unique - just like they would be in the real world. As in, I don't think generating items via loot tables and giving every player in the world access to the most powerful items is a very interesting way to handle it.
In my opinion, the most powerful items should never be available to players who're not willing to master and invest in the game (except through a lucrative trade) - and they shouldn't be acquired through pre-determined and predictable activities, like raiding. Also, players should be able to trade them freely and they shouldn't be "bound" in any way whatsoever.
That's how to promote a dynamic playfield - but it's also a very scary prospect for a game designer, especially one funded by investors looking for a safe cash grab.
COE is proposing something along the lines of what you guys are discussing as per their recent KS and they solve the long term power disparity by killing off your character every 10 to 14 months.
Will be interesting to see if they can pull off the "programmable" off line character UI where there is supposed to be a variety of offline activities for them to do.
Still sounds a lot like offline botting to me, and I wonder it would be profitable to have multiple accounts engaged in offline activities on a regular basis?
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Especially new players are usually met with derision and taunted for not knowing all the unspoken rules and tricks in a game, told to get gud etc and are shunned and ignored when trying to join the older community.
Otoh, if new players were seen as assets by becoming a required component for certain tasks or achievements beyond pvp fodder, then just maybe a greater community made up with players that all feel valued in the game would result and the game as a whole would benefit.
(ie. only one pure of heart(has never attacked an enemy faction or other player) can open some special chest deep in the pit of some elite dungeon(requiring higher level players to protect this young player so they can assist them in their endeavours), or perhaps have certain mats only drop to lower level players, or beginner crafted items having real worth instead of just a means to level up, etc.)
This would make higher level players want to continue to attract more players to the game, even though it would be ultimately self-serving, instead of trying to drive young players away with derision because they may not agree with either their lack of knowledge of how to play gud or don't agree with their playstyle. The community in the game would then largely police itself or at least be willing to assist in it, if only as a means of self-preservation.
This would also lend itself to the whole notion of aging/dying and being reborn/reincarnated that has been suggested for an element for progression of a character rather than just your typical leveling.
DKlond seems to understand where I'm going with it so I agreed with his post that came after ours. Proper use of the system could make the game nice. Pushingly brutal use of the system, yes, would make the game annoying. But RNG happens in life. You win some, you lose some. Que Sera Sera. Comme se comme sa. That's what makes winning winning and losing losing.
But now you got me rambling. As if I don't to THAT enough.
No sane GM ever put in more then 1 combat encounter during a single travel because it is boring and take away the players focus on their current goal (you might call it a quest instead of a goal but the Q word is so watered out by now I prefer goal).
Now, you could actually implement a similar system, altough a bit weaker since the game can tell you about previous fights and the state of the players (wounds & healing pots left) but not the mood of the group.
Both in P&P and MMOs is the goal to have fun. Constantly rolling or triggering random encounters ain't fun but neither is it if the players feel too sure about themselves. Letting a DM or client kicking in a random encounter or dynamic event now and then can indeed be fun, but using the same difficulty constant lessen that fun and overusing the system indeed make things very annoying.