End Game. What Is It?

AlBQuirky · June 2019

- Players rush to it
- Players complain about it
- I think developers dread it

What is is about this small portion of the MMO that gets people so fired up?

Dibdabs · June 2019

It's the Eternal Hamster Wheel of Groundhog Day, put there to fool the rubes into thinking there's actually worthwhile content still to do.

Phry · June 2019

If Endgame is not the actual game, then there is a problem.

goboygo · June 2019

In project Gorgon for example the starting game experience is the same as end game. So there is no end game. What I mean by that is that there are so many skills to master and so many skill combinations to play, and since gear stats are generated dynamically based on what skills you use and what level those skills are, there is an infinite amount of gear to collect based on your play styles. Its also not practical that someone would have the time or currency to master everything. I guess that's what I mean by no end game.

A hard capped End game is something created by developers as a feature to work towards I guess. As in you have reached the end of character development until we add something.

Seems most games are built around end game which apparently creates a problem.

How the Koreans get around end game is they move end game into the crafting system fueled by the cash shop, using some insane fail stack mechanic. Its truly incidence almost cruel. I simply will not participate in any game that employees it.

Octagon7711 · June 2019

It's like a race to the end of the internet.
The End Is Nigh The Last Pages Of The Internet

Margaretaville · June 2019

the gamer who reached endgame first wins...…..

Albatroes · June 2019

AlBQuirky said:

- Players rush to it
- Players complain about it
- I think developers dread it

What is is about this small portion of the MMO that gets people so fired up?

See, that's the flawed logic that has been around since a lot of mmorpgs after wow, which also depends on what mmorpgs people were playing before wow. Even 'endgame' in wow has changed a lot over the years, which has just been the race to the end since at least cata (that's when I started playing it, so someone who played early can probably speak more accurately about it). Even so though, cata did have a few other things that could be started earlier in levels, like being able to build up honor and covert it into justice points as you leveled via pvp or even crafting being locked behind sections of the game in terms of material requirements since each level bracket had different kinds of materials, so there was a economical market for everyone.

As for how games before wow handled 'endgame,' Ragnarok Online dealt with heavy rng so honestly, depending on an item's rarity, you could start 'endgame' gearing at low levels since a lot of 'good' gear was equipable by low levels. FFXI just gave you more things that you could participate in as you leveled up and progressed through certain story stuff to get access to certain endgame areas/events (like sky/sea/dynamis/limbus/etc).

Going back to what I said earlier about the idea of 'endgame' being flawed to the point that it has to start at the end of the game is just a lazy developmental idea which intern back-ends content which causes things to go into an eclipse cycle as we see now.

Ultimately, people want to 'rush to endgame' because mmorpgs are designed for things to be that way. Fastest queues for stuff, actually working towards gear that matters since gear doesn't matter too much for a lot of games as you level (honestly, in FFXIV you dont need gear to level anymore due to heaven-on-high and palace of the day, even wow doesn't really require a lot of gear if you wait to do time walking depending on your character's level and the time walking event). So development makes people want to rush to the end because everything they do before then doesn't really matter anymore.

The real problem with all of this patch eclipsing is that ideas run out. Raids and dungeons just end being formulaic so there's not real way to make them matter in a system that makes patches wipe previous stuff. If something is too hard, people just wont do it until the next patch, thus is why you dont a large portion of the player really raiding in wow past lfr, because the next patch just scales everything in the game up anyway. People that can't even clear a M0 are getting M8 ilvl gear depending on rng. I'd go as far to say that its easier to be a developer now than it was in the past because all you need to do is make something that works from patch to patch rather than create something that at least has cohesion throughout the entire expansion.

Kyleran · June 2019

The day I stop playing and move on to a new game.

Quizzical · June 2019

When they pull the plug and shut down the servers, an MMORPG has reached its endgame.

learis1 · June 2019

Well, the only endgame I know is nonstop repeating of the same dungeons and raids to get better gear. Then new endgame dungeons and raids are released to repeat the process.

What other end game could there be? Im not trying to complain either. Genuinely curious what else could be done to keep ppl playing without creating entirely new content.

Bladeburaiba · June 2019

In single player games, end game is when you finish the game and move-on.

In mmorpgs, it is the art of keeping people playing and paying when there is no more content. It is impossible do without people eventually complaining about repetitiveness.

That's when you pull the expansion card and repeat.

Amathe · June 2019

It's whatever there is still to do once a player reaches max level.

esc-joconnor · June 2019

players wanted to keep playing their characters they worked on through the game, so the progression system and other types of busy work were created. Because if your customer comes to you and says "I'd like to keep paying you money if you can give me something to do" you say YES.

Nelson-zbit · June 2019

For me, end playing a MMO have following reasons:
1): The new version came too fast to give normal players experience previous content.
2): Gold Farming studio flooded everywhere in the game world.
3): PvP players affected experience of normal players.

PaRoXiTiC · June 2019

You have to have unlimited vertical progression in an MMO to really have an End Game that doesn't become old.

There is no other way around it.

Iselin · June 2019

Ir depends. Some end game is contrived, artificial and feels alien compared to what you just spent a few weeks or months doing. The end-game raiding hamster wheel is an example of that. You did none of it before end game and now you jump into a highly choreographed thing with people yelling if someone misses the jump to the left or the step to the right because now the pelvic thrust won't work. You get loot at the end that is ever so slightly better than what you had going in and that gets you thinking that next week's run will be smoother because of it. Rinse and repeat... not a fan.

Some other stuff you do at end game can be very good but usually it's because you're doing something that you enjoy doing just because. I'm a fan of large scale PvP so I put end-game RvR in this category. But even that gets repetitious and boring after a while just like anything else you do too much of, too often.

You can always avoid it by doing the 1 to max level bit again with a different character that, you hope, plays differently enough from your first to make doing it again fun.

But ultimately people should just get a clue from the fact that it's called END game and move along. Some people can't do that without much public show of displeasure and will go way out of their way to invent some grievance that they will then say is the reason they're leaving when in fact they're just naturally bored as shit.

ChildoftheShadows · June 2019

When people don't consider leveling as part of the game.

kitarad · June 2019

I have always enjoyed the journey far, far more than the end game and I still do. I cannot understand it even though I participated in it in both Everquest and WoW. I actually ended quitting WoW because of the end game.

AAAMEOW · June 2019

I played GW2 a couple years ago. Developer keep spaming with constantly event and update to keep people busy. So in a sense you can keep people busy just spaming update.

Kind of like pokemon go. There are event pretty much every day...

Kyleran · June 2019

Question as been asked / answered quite a few times previously, yet we still don't know? Weird.

This recent thread may help save some time.

https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/481646/after-max-level#latest

btdt · June 2019

When people started playing MMOs... or MUDs for that matter... it really was the social interaction that made the games what they are... not the content in the games themselves.

Eventually everyone got sick of the social interaction and turned to the only thing of substance actually found in the game... the end.

It went from wasting hours chatting online to a race to the finish line. Guess what, the game could always be finished in record time... just nobody cared or noticed because they were too busy chatting online.

It reminds me of my Mother who now lives in assisted living... every day she calls to tell me there's nothing to do... and I ask her what does she do... and she replies... nothing.

Seems to me, the people complaining about end game or the lack thereof are the people with the problem, not the game. The world is what you make of it, it's not about someone else making the world for you. Better get that straight, or when you get old... you will really find out what having nothing to do means.

AlBQuirky · June 2019

Kyleran said:

Question as been asked / answered quite a few times previously, yet we still don't know? Weird.

This recent thread may help save some time.

https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/481646/after-max-level#latest

Yea. I think I may have even asked it before, myself years ago. Found some interesting responses, and some funny ones, too.

I can understand a player's desire to keep playing the character they just spent weeks/months building to max level. I have that desire, too. I want to see how my "behemoth" performs

Yet the activities I've encountered in MMOs do not have me jumping at the bit to log in every day as I did while on the leveling/building journey. Raids are way to hectic/chaotic for me and PvP is just not my thing. Those abominations called "Dailies" are a joke to me. I did do "repeatable content" in CoH because I enjoyed the social aspects (like btdt mentioned).

I don't know why I asked. Bored?

iixviiiix · June 2019

singleplayer in disguise . That's all i can say

They made games with singleplayer in mind , add some multiplayer elements . Bam , a wild MMORPG had appear

I hate to say but nowadays i don't play MMORPG anymore , i play season pass gacha games now , they have fresh contents and long progression goals .

Compare to those gacha games developers , MMORPG developers are lazy people . Both are greedy , so why do i have to support lazy ones instead of hard working ?

esc-joconnor · June 2019

btdt said:

When people started playing MMOs... or MUDs for that matter... it really was the social interaction that made the games what they are... not the content in the games themselves.

Eventually everyone got sick of the social interaction and turned to the only thing of substance actually found in the game... the end.

It went from wasting hours chatting online to a race to the finish line. Guess what, the game could always be finished in record time... just nobody cared or noticed because they were too busy chatting online.

It reminds me of my Mother who now lives in assisted living... every day she calls to tell me there's nothing to do... and I ask her what does she do... and she replies... nothing.

Seems to me, the people complaining about end game or the lack thereof are the people with the problem, not the game. The world is what you make of it, it's not about someone else making the world for you. Better get that straight, or when you get old... you will really find out what having nothing to do means.

I think you got part of that right. It still is the social aspect. The end game is when you can actually do the most content with the largest group of people. Even with level adjusting content before end game is not of equal value to all players in all the games I know.
If you are leveling with friends or guildies you have to make an active effort to ensure you stay a similar level to do content together. A mate of mine if WoW is always leveling new characters, but almost every time he's playing something I can't match with my characters. The odd times we do it's short-lived as the bastard seems to get a lot more gaming time than I do XD

esc-joconnor · June 2019

AlBQuirky said:

Kyleran said:

Question as been asked / answered quite a few times previously, yet we still don't know? Weird.

This recent thread may help save some time.

https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/481646/after-max-level#latest

Yea. I think I may have even asked it before, myself years ago. Found some interesting responses, and some funny ones, too.

I can understand a player's desire to keep playing the character they just spent weeks/months building to max level. I have that desire, too. I want to see how my "behemoth" performs

Yet the activities I've encountered in MMOs do not have me jumping at the bit to log in every day as I did while on the leveling/building journey. Raids are way to hectic/chaotic for me and PvP is just not my thing. Those abominations called "Dailies" are a joke to me. I did do "repeatable content" in CoH because I enjoyed the social aspects (like btdt mentioned).

I don't know why I asked. Bored?

RL Daily: Rehash old topic on MMORPG

AAAMEOW · June 2019

iixviiiix said:

singleplayer in disguise . That's all i can say
They made games with singleplayer in mind , add some multiplayer elements . Bam , a wild MMORPG had appear
I hate to say but nowadays i don't play MMORPG anymore , i play season pass gacha games now , they have fresh contents and long progression goals .

Compare to those gacha games developers , MMORPG developers are lazy people . Both are greedy , so why do i have to support lazy ones instead of hard working ?

There is another person arguing with me the opposite. MMORPG today only focus on group content and solo players have no way to progress. (she's mainly arguing you can't get endgame gear solo and developer put best gear in raid).

And when I tell her there are people arguing the opposite, she just call me lying.

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End Game. What Is It?

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"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

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

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

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End Game. What Is It?

Comments

"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

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

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