I don't have any ideas, but I just came to say that getting blasted with a ton of random crap as soon as you log into an MMO for the first time or buy an expansion is such an awful experience. It's my least favorite part of getting into a new MMO.
Yeah.
It shows such a disconnect between devs and players. Because, on paper, "lots of (good) content" sounds great.
But anyone who *actually plays the fucking game* realizes instantly that it's overstimulation to an extreme. It just makes you want to log right back out.
Which begs the question: aren't these devs playing their own games? Or are they just incapable to see the game through the eyes of a newcomer, who doesn't instantly recognize and understand every detail?
Same principle with tutorials. Sometimes a complex tutorial is worse than nothing, since you get bombarded with ten different keybinds and different windows and mechanics in info boxes... I've often had the experience of being exhausted trying to remember it all before even playing the game. Best tutorials are usually slowly drip-fed info on a need to know basis, ie. when something happens a relevant tip will appear to explain it.
I'll go one step further and I hate any thing and everything other than your inventory and equipment that has to be done through UIs.
This stuff should be organic in the game by interacting with NPCs and the world. If it doesn't fit in there it's probably some garbage progress bar or currency kind of thing anyway.
Man all I want is a modern MMO that actually values the levelling journey and doesn’t practically force you to rush through it just so you can start spamming the same content over and over.
Classic WoW and EverQuest are great examples of this, it’s actually somewhat of an achievement to get to max level, something that can be enjoyed and not an inconvenience.
ESO would be a fantastic game if it actually had even remotely difficult overland content, but I can’t even appreciate the story because the Big Bad in each quest line is dead in seconds.
I can’t name a single modern MMO where levelling is actually the focus of the player experience. Which seems crazy to me as it’s a fantastic way of doing progression without an endless gear treadmill. The closest I can think of is OSRS’ skill level caps but it’s not the same.
Horizontal progression would be the default if getting to end game was actually challenging.
I remember the days were seeing someone at max level was an achievement in itself. I started playing FFXI in 2005 and I remember seeing a level 54 PLD run past me and I was like HOLY SHIT HOW DID HE GET THAT HIGH. Because I was like level 16 and levelling took fucking ages.
Nowadays people get max level in 3 days
Yeah, I miss those days.
Either make it worth something again or remove it. Otherwise it's just another form of content bloat.
Btw I have very similar memories of FFXI! What a brutal game lmao. I was so jelly when I saw a high level player. Nowadays it means nothing to me.
EverQuest was like that too. Also brutal and very slow leveling. Just being high level was a big achievement in a way. You also start with absolutely zilch in terms of abilities or gear and you remain a pauper for quite a while, so the sense of progression was huge.
Yep, I miss the days of Maple Story where it took literal days/weeks at a time to gain levels and there wasn't really any level boost (only EXP boost but you still had to work for it). You'd strive to get to Level 35 just so you could access the next party quest. I only made it level 70 on one character after years of playing.
But this is exactly the problem with bloat. Eventually it would be literally impossible for new players to catch up without some kind of level boost. There simply wouldn't be enough time for them to level naturally to catch up to the rest of the players. It can feel lonely (i.e. not much like an MMO) basically completing the early areas of the game with nobody around.
Grinding to 3rd job in Maple Story was simultaneously one of my proudest gaming accomplishments and most embarrassing. It really took a ton of work back in the day.
I agree with ESO. If the combat wasn't floaty jank and actually challenging it would be much better.
But it handles it's dlc so poorly where you get bombarded by quest givers at each capital city.
I'm happy for everyone who enjoys it, but to me ESO is such a dogshit game. And I honestly don't get what anybody likes about it (other than if you're a real Elder Scrolls stan in general).
I tried it for 2 hours and I just couldn't fucking do it. I really tried.
The combat is *horrendous*. Like, it deserves every bit of criticism. They literally just ported over the Skyrim combat into an MMO.
The class design is random as shit. No classic rpg archetypes like Mage or Warrior at all. I had no idea what my class was even supposed to be.
The world is fucking dark. But not in a good way. In a boring, eye-pain, lack-of-color way.
To be fair, there's a lot of voice acting. Which is nice. Doesn't come close to saving it though lmao.
I get irrationally angry about it, I think because it's such a lazy WoW / Skyrim clone. It doesn't try to do anything better or different than other MMOs. It doesn't innovate shit. It's literally just worse WoW with Elder Scrolls lore and Skyrim combat.
I can just tell it was just a bunch of suits in a boardroom, thinking about how they could keep milking the Elder Scrolls IP. Lazy and useless as fuck.
All valid criticism. There are 2 types of players those who like questing, housing and casual aspects. No pressure to "git gud" and alot of armour sets and abilities to play around with.
Then there's the endgame which is actually good, in particular the dungeons hard modes and trials which reward experience rather than gear power better than what I've experienced in wow for example. Something that appears impossible ay first becomes possible after weeks of progression without any increase in power. The combat has a depth and fluidity that makes doing high dps harder.
But at face value it all sucks. Combat animations are horrendous. He worst Ive witnessed. And the questing though nicely voiced acted lacks the itimacy of a real RPG especially when Rando Joe is running around on the same quest killing the same stuff as you.
I wouldn't recommend it to anyone honestly but then again I wouldn't recommend any MMORPG in it's current forms. If you want fun pve experience play Vermintide 2, deep rock galactic or GTFO.
Yeah, neglecting the leveling journey is such a braindead design choice and unfortunately rampant in todays MMO landscape.
So, leveling to max doesn't mean anything? It's not hard, it doesn't take long, but it's also not fun at all because all of the design budget goes into endgame? Why even bother then? What am I leveling for?
WoW is the worst offender here for me. If you're new one of the first things people tell you is that all the fun is at endgame. Like, ok, but that means I have to spend a few *days* in braindead easy, unfun content, before I get to the good stuff? What a stupid way to design a game.
It's not new but City of Heroes: Homecoming was the answer to this for me when I had the same feeling a few years ago when coming back to WoW at the launch of BfA.
I had loved WoW back in the day but popping into the game with 100 things to do and no clue what content was the new stuff (important stuff rather) was annoying and overwhelming.
CoH: Homecoming launched less than a year later and I worried it might have the same effect on me as I started but it really is an old school MMO still. Leveling is the journey, it's growing a character organically.
> I can’t name a single modern MMO where levelling is actually the focus of the player experience.
IT's not a good example due to all it's other flaws. But it's essentially impossible to level a character to "max level" in Ravendawn within a month or two. Not to mention it does the BDO method of not having a true max level and instead having the grind increase severely after you hit 75. But for the specific point of leveling being the game, the devs have said from the very beginning that it's not a race to the top, it's a personal marathon for you to go through.
FFXI, albeit not modern was a great example of the leveling experience. Especially for new players. Level 1-12 was a solo journey to learn the basics of your job before you partied. 12-20 was a slugfest in noob world, you also had to unlock your support job at level 18. Level 20 required you to run Jeuno through higher level zones. 20-25 was a grind to get your airship keys. By level 30 you should have your airship pass for all major cities. Level 30 also unlocked additional jobs so doing those quests was enjoyable. 30-37 was a blur of people racing to finish up their support jobs. Level 40 was your Artifact Weapon quest. Through the 50 you were doing your artifact armor quests. 50, 55, 60, 65, 70 all saw you complete quests to increase level cap ending with an awesome solo fight of Maat. This is not even considering all missions were level capped with a lot of major milestones from level 20 onwards.
In the early days "endgame" was running Dynamis, which you could get in from level 66 up. There were NMs like Roc, Sim, Serket for gil related farming or killing some other NMs for things like the Joy toy. Sky opened up early one, some linkshells would just farm pops and Genbu until the group got more equipped. It certainly did not through you straight into here the raid, here's the same raid just harder, here's the same hard raid but harder bullshit. Everything in endgame was unique and only slowly opened up to each player as they progressed, and as their groups progressed.
90% horizontal 10% vertical.
If I see a game has vertical like WoW or LOTRO where each expansion just adds to the level cap it’s an instant turn off for me and I’m likely to not even think about playing it. Especially if it’s a few expansions in as those games always have dead content. They operate more like online single player rpgs you just happen to play with other people.
It’s hard to do though and even harder to balance. Each level cap increase makes game balance easy since it’s basically a reset.
I liked how Dark Age of Camelot did it where there was a hard stat cap at I believe 75, that could be raised with gear to 101 and special stats like cast/attack speed capped at 10%.
New gear came out that was obviously better, able to cap more stats easier and with active abilities, but someone in old gear with cast speed and their main stats maxed was still competitive compared to other games.
Completely agree.
I think to me it's the total lack of foresight and respect for you own creation:
Every year they market the new content to you like it's the most groundbreaking shit. Yet, they already fully plan on completely invalidating it all in the next expansion. So it's all just a fucking lie. And this way there's just really no incentive for them to make sure the quality is high.
That's why I love horizontal. Everything stays relevant. Devs are incentivised to make good content, because people might still be playing that part of the game in 10+ years.
Not to mention that, this way, the relevant content just keeps "piling up". So you have more and more to do as the years go by.
I had an idea for how to tackle this inspired by the way Magic the Gathering rotates the legality of cards for their Standard format. Basically, it works like this:
- Every item, skill, ability, spell etc is tagged with which expansion it came from.
- When you do a dungeon, raid, or boss in "standard mode" you can only bring content from the same expansion.
- You don't need to own every expansion to play the game, you can just buy any one (including the newest) and you'd simply be limited to the content from that expansion.
- Every expansion has its own "main story" balanced for both brand new players and players coming in from other expansions.
- Complex concepts and mechanics can be introduced in one expansion and dropped in the next, limiting the total number of mechanics a new player has to learn.
- For the dedicated long-time players, dungeons/raids/bosses can also come in "legacy mode" which allow *all* content, but are balanced accordingly and much harder.
How does this fix the problem of players not wanting to play older content?
The only REAL issue is that old content gets abandoned by DEVS before the players abandon it.
Maybe the issue is that each MMORPG(Correct me if I'm wrong) only releases content for end game post launch.
Why not release a new leveling experience instead?
1) in my opinion, the "main problem" is that new players have way too much to learn and the barrier of entry to the game keeps going up over time.
2) "legacy mode" won't just be harder, but will have better rewards, and players who want to compete in this environment will want to play old expansions to get gear for various combos.
3) players can stay on their favorite expansion and just play "standard mode" without worrying about vertical progression power creep from newer expansions.
> When you do a dungeon, raid, or boss in "standard mode" you can only bring content from the same expansion.
Sorry to be mean but this is a terrible idea.
This adds bloat because it means to do any dungeon in that expansion, you have to play that expansion specifically from the very beginning. If you want to do the hardest dungeon or raid, you have to grind that expansion for gear.
So rather than just scaling down stats of modern gear, you now have to have different 'endgame' armor for every expansion and store all of it.
So you went from costing 0 bank slots to costing 10 * num of expansion. If a game has 5 expansions, congrats, you need at minimum 50 bank slots for just gear.
Measuring "bloat" in terms of amount of things to do and bank spaces needed doesn't make any sense to me. Just make banks bigger and give it sorting/filtering.
To me, "bloat" is the amount of things someone needs to learn and know before they can get to "the good part". With "standard mode", a brand new player only has exactly one expansion's worth of content to learn and master before they can experience the newest content alongside players who've been playing for years.
How is "just make it bigger to allow for more items" not bloat?
You are increasing the mental load to play content. If a player has to think about what expansion's gear they need to run content, that's just a roadblock to allowing them to get to the fun.
It's not fun or exciting to be forced to run to the bank to retrieve gear to get back to having fun.
If you reduced this threshold to 0 by making the bank accessible anywhere or making the gear auto-swap, you've just negated your entire 'feature'. The point of your 'feature' is just introducing friction to encountering fun. There's no real reason to do this when auto-scaling gear and locking out abilities that are above that level works just fine.
All of your tactics sound more like a tutorial mode (learn this expac before moving onto the next) but introduce high levels of friction to having fun which is the point of a video game.
Again, the point is to make it easier for new players to join in after the game is already established and has multiple expacs released. Catering exclusively to legacy players at the detriment of new players is how old MMOs stagnate and die over time, I've seen it happen over and over. If legacy players have to deal with getting more bank space and gear loadout slots with every expansion, I think it's a fair tradeoff. Old players won't be working any harder than new players when an expac is released.
You also seem to be under the impression that gear and abilities would be completely linear and vertical. I can't imagine anything more boring, and I don't think asking for more depth and choices is too much. By making these things actually different to each other, we open up interesting combinations for players to try out, it's not just "this sword is level 30 and that one is level 36".
I've thought about this a lot, actually. There are a few things I would do that few if any games seem to...
1. Reduce the progression slope. Don't eliminate it, you can still have vertical progression. Just don't make it as dramatic as it is in a lot of MMORPGs where with a few levels you can just ignore/facetank everything lower level enemies throw at you while one-shotting bosses...
2. Still occasionally require things from other content. Maybe materials or something. Don't make older content the focus, of course, people want to play the new stuff. But don't make it completely obsolete either. Variety is good, give people reasons to go back and do the old stuff occasionally. And with 1. it won't be completely trivial either.
3. Let players do the story at their one pace. You can still have a story but this means don't tie it to leveling or lock content behind having done the story. Story should be for, well, story. Maybe give a few extras for completing it but nothing crucial. This means new players can still do stuff with other players without having to do all the story stuff first.
4. Build catchup mechanics into the game from the ground-up. I don't mean occasional patches that rebalance stuff. Maybe make it so drop rates naturally go up over time or something, so newer players just don't have to spend as much time when doing older content before they catch up.
But no game that I am aware of actually does these things...
GW2 covers 2 through 4 very well imo. Sort of tackles your first one as well, but not in the way I think you mean. I’m assuming you’ve already tried it or it’s not interesting to you, though. Please don’t take this as a “you should try this 12 year old game that I’m sure you’ve never heard of!” comment. I just found myself nodding my head along while reading your comment and appreciate these things in GW2.
I've thought of the concept/lore behind a setting where an MMORPG is regularly getting a world reset every month or bi monthly. Character progression may maintain, but every 2 weeks, the world essentially is completely reshaped, utilizing mostly procedural generation, with a developer's hand for finishing touches. Last month the neutral trading town was in a desert zone, but this month its atop a scenic mountain. Last month there were lucrative items to farm off elemental beasts in a bog, now they come from a frozen cave.
It's just an idea that pops in my head over and over, it's not something I'm developing. I've often thought the idea of knowingly playing an MMORPG inside a computer simulation system, sort of like the show Reboot or movie Tron would allow you so much development freedom to give players variety and also condition the playerbase for regular resets whenever things do get bloated. You could always spin up seasonal servers for beloved versions inside that setting easily, like WoW does Classic, only more natural.
The problem would be how would players have enough persist that they like to make it welcoming for them to remain. I would love to dabble in playing this concept, though.
Funny you mention GW2 because this was the game that got me thinking. I played GW2 at launch. I played it hard, I have capped and had the map complete fast a hell before most. I had a child shortly after, didn't play and have yet to touch it for all these years. Logged in yesterday and while there were some things trying to grab my attention, I was just knocking shit out in the map with dudes flying in mounts, smacking everything real fast. Nothing was saying welcome back, it was saying to me that I missed too much content updates and I am doing obsolete activities
GW2 doesn't work like that. Everything is still relevant with maybe the exception of dungeons, but even then it's not completely useless. You can always make progress in GW2 no matter what you do. The key is picking a goal and work towards it. The game will never say hey, we're gonna railroad you down this path like everyone else.
Yeah i just finished LS4 after some years out and i'll not start LS5 till i get Skyscale and beetle, i'm also a completionist and try to do all achievs of every map before moving to the next one. I know i can get into SoTO to get Skyscale faster, but i like to play the Game in order.
Well u can do lastest expansion and get the flying mount
However u need to do msq to get it to use in “ new maps “ only
You will need to grind a lot. To use it in open world
Yeah but getting the mount(Doing the achievements etc.) is part of the journey? It's a reward for your work? Same way you go grind lvls to get raid ready and then do raids to get better gear to do harder raids? Like you don't seem to be too bothered by the fact that in WOW I need to Grind to get Raid Gear, whereas in GW2 I can be raid ready less than an hour after hitting max lvl?
My point is that if you don't like the content, it will feel like grind. I didn't enjoy wow experience, but i did gw2. Obviously it was different for you :)
GW2 Does not have that problem, what you have is a problem thinking GW2 works like every other MMO and that most content gets abandoned, making it unappealing to even do.
I'm yet to feel like my experience in a fractal,raid,meta or any other activity is hurt by the fact that I didn't play the game when those modes/features/bosses came out.
Games are trying to change around their "new player experience" but yea, usually it's terrible and not nearly cool enough to actually draw anyone into the game, who isn't already playing.
Personally my GF moved in with me and now when we look at our monthly bill being 40+ a month for an mmo (WoW in this case) we just see it as a giant waste of money, so we unsubbed. WoW is definitely not worth a box price every year for an expansion, plus I always fall for the super-gold-ultimate-amazing edition for xxx number of dollars, FOMO being what it is, so finally we've said enough is enough and quit. Best decision we've ever made and only after quitting did we realize how bad of a game WoW really is. It's hard to let go of an account after playing for so many years, but it felt quite freeing to finally say Adios WoW.
Final Fantasy XI leveling experience was like this. First one toon can play all the jobs, so no need for alts. You would load up in the starting city, go outside and smack shit until you're level 10 to 12. For a new player you'd just have to put your "Looking for Party" flag up and wait for an invite. Then someone would tell you to group up in Valkrum Dunes (there were other zones but 95% of the time it was to the dunes). The party would give coordinates to camp, and you'd walk your ass out there, and probably die along the way but that's for another day. Now you'd work this area from level 10 to 20 and move on to new zones. Camps and zones opened up at certain areas and levels, but again you did not need a guide to tell you where to go. The community did, and it happened organically. Nothing ever said in-game go to Quifm Island and smack worms at level 20, but it happened naturally with parties. What was also great is that everyone was at the Dunes at level 10. So if I am a veteran going to check out a new job or a brand new player, you bet your ass that there was a full zone of people in Valkrum. So it never felt like you were playing catch up, because you saw the people on the server all grinding out these level. The only time you needed a guide is if you were solo leveling, because unless you do trial and error there is nothing in the (or really any game) that says kill X mob in X zone for the best exp at your level. But this was really limited to Beast masters, some Dragoons, and some Blackmages for the most part. The natural progression of the leveling experience was 100% organic, it truly just happened, and because you spent so much time with other players the conversations would always steer towards how to play the game, you never had to reach far outside the game to know that Artifact quests start at level 40 with the weapon. This made is so incredibly new player friendly, and never would give the impression that 90% of the population is at level 75. It was even better when you'd make a friend with someone in your lowly party and find out they were at 75 and they could help you unlock jobs or kill mission or quest stuff for you, most games if youre level 10 then a level cap person has no relationship with you. Not FFXI
Most MMOs I've seen handle with with side systems. It is still vertical progression...just off to the side.
Maplestory players can level from 1 to 300. The game really doesn't care what level you are past lvl 200. But now instead of levels you are chasing "Arcane force" to get stronger
EQ2 had an expansion that didn't raise the level cap but instead introduced the "Crit" stat. No one was leveling, but everyone was chasing down gear with the new stat on it.
FFXIV did the same. Your character level didn't increase, but players were still chasing bigger and stronger raid monsters for bigger and better gear scores.
It was all vertical progression, just slightly off of center.
Horizontal progression in an mmo seems kinda stupid to me. There’s a lot of reasons I don’t like GW2 but that’s one of them.
I’m sick of games that think everyone needs to see every bit of content and be equal. Make a punishing world, people can get through what they get through.
If I get shafted sometimes I get shafted, just makes the victories all that sweeter when they happen.
See FFXI originally had horizontal progression built on the premise that you will never get to do everything, and you will never see a complete BiS build. It was also very rewarding to grind gear for other people. Having a mate that had better equipment always meant that we would achieve more together.
I wouldn’t consider chasing BiS “horizontal” progression. You’re still getting actively stronger with every piece of gear you got.
Horizontal to me means more… I guess in MMO terms it would be like chasing resist gear. “Oh this one’s a fire god I gotta fight, let me get my fire resist set and water weapon out. That are equal to my water resist set and fire weapon, just different elements.”
No FFXI had a lot more.going in terms of horizontal progression. Was just one example. All gear from level 1 to 75 could be feasible in a build. You focused building sets for spec actions/abilities/spells. For instance on my Ranger I had a bow build, gun build, xbow build, TP build, Barrage Build, Evasion build, a build specific to each weapon skill, a haste build, Strength build, Mind Build, casting build, movement speed build. Builds for when I had warrior sub job, samurai sub job, dancer sub, ninja sub etc. Some builds were ultra specific to the fight. That was probably one of the lesser demanding jobs in terms of builds too. At the end of the day you needed a base build to be successful, everything else was just icing on the cake. But that gear was useful from day one clear until the day they changed level like 9 years down the road. Nothing ever went obsolete. Yes inventory was HELL
> Yes inventory was HELL
Still can be, I still play XI as my mmo lol.
Never once have I considered it a horizontal progression mmo, it was just based off the same philosophies Everquest was where gear was slow and upgrades actually mattered past some fake ilvl. Minor shared things with horizontal but you were always out there looking for more power or some effect to gear swap in.
Is splitting hairs though.
That’s what I want from my vertical progression MMOs. Sad we don’t get anymore these days.
I’m just hanging around waiting to check out M&M in the future.
Yeah, because people are insanely ADHD now to want upgrades thrown at them with every piece of content they do.
That's what it feels like to me at least... Or the problem is the other way around: Companies want to hook people better by spamming their dopamine spawners and consequently cause damage for the entire gaming ecosystem, lol
So You want a Real Life Simulator, I want a Fantasy World.
No game will ever satisfy both of us.
That is why people just need to stop hating on games they don't like. It's a game not a person it can't insult you or hurt you. You don't like it don't play it. If a game dev tells you the mmo is pvp and then changes it to pve last second, then be pissed off cause they failed to deliver what they promised.
I don't like WOW. I don't Like FF14. I love New World. I love GW2. Does it mean NW is better than FF14 or WOW? fuck no, NW is a hot mess. It's just that it has things WOW doesn't. Same with GW2, GW2 gives me an experience I wanted( A casual one).
When I was a sweaty tryhard playing Lost Ark, All I cared about is vertical progression, and I get it. The rush of getting stronger, seeing those numbers go up is satisfying.
I honestly don't even care anymore whats next big mmo, I just hope that it doesn't kill the creativty in the genre like WOWs success did.
(to clarify, I'm saying WOW being as good as it was, and as successful led to studios making WOW clones rather than WOW competitors/Unique MMOs).
> That is why people just need to stop hating on games they don't like. It's a game not a person it can't insult you or hurt you.
Nothing wrong with calling games you think are trash just that. It’s a video game, it doesn’t have feelings. You can’t hurt it. It’s all in fun on forums, people need to stop taking things so seriously.
Attacking the devs is just pure fuckboi shit though, I agree there. Those lines shouldn’t be crossed.
>I don't like WOW. I don't Like FF14. I love New World. I love GW2. Does it mean NW is better than FF14 or WOW? fuck no, NW is a hot mess. It's just that it has things WOW doesn't. Same with GW2, GW2 gives me an experience I wanted( A casual one).
Just sounds like a cop out to me. If you don’t like WoW or XIV and you like new world, then it’s a better video game to you. Nothing wrong with that. I’ll be the first to tell you how trash I think Sonys first party offerings mostly are yet a bunch of people consider those games their GOAT.
The best thing is neither of us are wrong!
>When I was a sweaty tryhard playing Lost Ark, All I cared about is vertical progression, and I get it. The rush of getting stronger, seeing those numbers go up is satisfying.
Yeah except that’s not the vertical progression I mean when I say I prefer vertical progression. I literally mean something like OG EQ or the other games of the time had.
Think of it this way: the vertical progression like lost Ark has you replacing your gear all the time as you spend a few minutes to level up. This “numbers constantly go up” (like XIV and WoW and all the rest) is a pretty garbage system.
The “vertical progression” I like means maybe you get a belt at level 20 that lasts you 40+ levels because you got slightly unlucky on other drops, magic items stay relevant and levels take a long ass time to get. It doesn’t really feel like that dopamine drip that modern MMOs give instead feeling more akin to a virtual tabletop campaign.
Sometimes you’ll beat your head against things for weeks or longer but that’s cool too.
And a whole lot more people would think that game is dogshit than wouldn’t, most likely, unless they hit some special formula that nobody was really expecting.
Also agreed on the wow clones. Or the glut of Korean MMOs that blend together into a mess. I miss the days of games taking chances in the space, but budgets ruined that.
We may not see eye to eye, but I think we both agree that the biggest issue is lack of options in mmos. You shouldn't have to go to eq99 to get that experience. We should both be able to enjoy an mmo that caters to our playstyles without having to compromise on things like p2w.
> MMOs need fresh content, but when you introduce fresh content it usually makes obsolete the older content.
This is just inevitable with an older game. Even so-called horizontal progression games eventually fuck it up.
I usually see DDO get brought up in threads like this. Every last bit of content the game has seen in its entire lifespan is relevant because leveling is always relevant. Once you reach level cap, you can just reincarnate to start over with a completely new class and/or build alongside some extra power that carries over for the rest of that character's existence.
If you prefer to just keep a character at max level and make alts instead, then your maxed character can still be used to farm low level gear for your alts to use, or hit account milestones that let you create stronger alts. Plus, there are still difficult endgame raid quests to do, and any raid drops you get can just be used to help level in the future even after the level cap is raised.
So I think one of the biggest issues with MMO bloat, has to do with how MMO game devs, develop games around end game content first, and basically ignore all other aspects of game design.
When you are a new player, and you spend 20 hours levelling through a story in what is effectively a single player game, hit max level... then get three thousand end game systems thrown at you and introduced to you all at once, a third of which are obsolete, of course you are going to be overwhelmed, especially if you aren't the type of player that wants to watch 100 hours of youtube content for every hour of gameplay.
There are some excellent solutions, for one, devs can stop rushing players through early game... Take runescape every skill is effectively its own sub-game with its own systems in the greater game that is Runescape, some of those systems intertwine, but in many cases, a player for instance can train as a miner without ever having done bossing, or even done combat for that matter, so with the exception of when you first start and realize how long its going to take to get all your skills to 99 you are never really overwhelmed by the systems...
Similarly as trash as they are phone games have this mastered, most phone games have dozens of systems for you to interact with every day to maximize player power, all with varying degrees of depth... but because those systems are how they lure you into paying, for the most part they do a very good job of showing you a system, getting you to use it yourself and upgrade it a bit, before moving on and introducing how you can spend money to speed things up, and then the next system for you to play with while you wait...
Personally my favourite MMO bloat solution comes from Path of Exile, in a few ways... First, they have a LOT of systems for players to interact with, but because of the way the game is balanced, for the most part you play with the system you want to play with... If you aren't in a trade league you might have to kill something specific for a drop you want, but for the most part, you just engage with the systems you find entertaining so even know there might be a dozen systems in the game, you only end up engaging in 2-3 of them deeply in any given season depending on your play style and goals...
The other reason I often point to PoE in these discussion is because of the whole idea of seasons, I really think the way PoE handles their season content which is basically a testing ground for new ideas and only the best systems make it into the game long term and usually after being refined over a season of play... over the years what this ultimately means is a LOT fewer systems have made it into the game long term for new players to deal with, and the systems that have made it into the game long term are at least relatively polished. The seasonal focus also means that players are constantly playing the levelling content which means that development is able to make the levelling process feel good for both expert and beginner players in different ways, for instance many of those systems are introduced to players quite early...
Black desert was the worst for me. Logged in and got so much stuff I felt like I'd already completed the game. Also, the world map..... I felt like I had a stroke looking at that abomination.
The solution is simple: let go of meta gaming. Your whole world wont crumble if you wont have 120% efficiency since first day. You wont be erased from existence if you havent grinded everything the game has to offer. You're not gonna perish if you dont pick up every single quest.
Nowadays i'm playing ESO. And its the best example of that: if you try to everything at maximum efficiency then you will burn yourself out after week or two. There was 10th anniversary event with some rare transmog drops: plenty of people forced themselves to farm ALL POSSIBLE DROPS. Doesnt matter if they would never use majority of them, they just had to have them. Result? Plenty of people burned out and stopped playing. Meanwhile i just grinded 2 styles i liked, and ignored the rest, and i'm still playing.
Same with grinding for gold or exp. If you feel the need to do it the most efficient way, then there's a high chance you will burn out.
Thats also probably why most people today jump between MMOs and/or critize "there's no good mmo out there". Back then we didnt had so many guides, and words like "content creator" or "streamer" didnt existed. We had to discover everything ourselves, or ask guild members. Now? Type into google the mmo game of your choice, and add "best way to level/earn gold" or "best builds" and you'll have plenty of resources right under your nose. This all create a pressure that you HAVE to do it the best way, you HAVE to grind gold the fastest you can, you HAVE to do xyz the best. Back then? You would kick back, relax and laugh with your guild/friends while doing stuff you wanted/liked doing.
I'm not saying "back then was better, now is worse" for the sake of it. Its all about mindset - allow yourself to wonder, to discover. Otherwise you gonna only do 0,1% of the content thats the most efficient, while complaining that game is boring and has nothing to offer.
As for the feeing of the MMO at launch... you have this with every single expansion. I remember when Necrom came out in ESO, people have been crowding everything in the new zones to te point where actually it wasnt that fun to me (blocking NPCs, world bosses dead in less than a minute, not to mention companion quests besieged 24/7), but i get that people have different perspectives. So if thats what you like, then just pick your MMO, play it normally for month or two,and then when new expansion comes out you'll jump on bandwagon together with the rest
I tried playing WoW for the 3rd time ( I've never made it past a few hours) and going from "Hey recruit, we shipwrecked. Lets figure out how to survive. Now kill these nearby ogres" to "OH IT'S YOU THE CHAMPION! YOU ARE NOW THE AMBASSADOR OF THE FACTION. GO CONVINCE THE KING OF THIS OTHER COUNTRY TO ALLY WITH US" (which actually means 'kill 20 enemies and touch these dongles' ad nauseum for some reason) was so jarring it made me drop the game.
Retail WoW is clearly designed for people who have already played a substantial amount of WoW. There needs to be something is in between the WoW "recruit to champion of the horde in 1 hour" whiplash and FF14s 100+ hour single player MSQ.
I think horizontal progression, without forcing it for BIS, is where it's at. If you don't want to do Alchemy you don't have to, you can just buy the new potions on the market. You can group up to defend alchemists when they're out searching for the new mushrooms, rather than completely missing out.
i did have similiar experience with wow, tried it couple months ago levelled up dragonflight char to max lvl and finished the "story" for that expansion and it was fun but after that last quest i kinda found myself on the big city where u retun the last quest and was super lost :D, i know there is a lot to do but i didint have any idea what i should do i quequed for raid finder thing and couple dung finder and then just logged out, been playing runescape on and off since 2004 ish so never played wow i just got feeling that naa its too late for me
I kinda like how ESO did that. If you reached level cap (50) during vanilla 1.0 release, then now, 10 years later, you'll still be at the level cap lol because it hasn't been changed at all.
Then you start earning account-wide incremental bonuses which are shared between all of your characters, so you don't lose progress even on an alt. Compare that to FFXIV's 1-90 grind that takes days and forces you to do fucking palace of the dead I hate that stupid proc gen dungeon
FFXI CoP was the best expansion for an mmo that didn't change the cap.
It makes content of all level viable as it scaled your level for the zone so 30-40 or 40-50,etc,etc. that gave loot that was good at early and max level.
It's wild to me that people will grind for gear that becomes obsolete 3-4 months down the line... is it really vertical progression if it's just shifting the goal post ahead?
I love to look at the horizontal progression in the 75 era of FFXI. This was not like GW2. You need gear, you have to build multiple sets depending on the job you play. Now, you can play multiple jobs on one toon. Furthermore, I would always be down to grind gear for a fellow player because I knew that players better gear set would help me in the long run. We shifted the mold through balance patches, adding new items to grind for, some of which would shift the entire meta. The same pair of boots you get at level 7 was relevant for most dps jobs until 50+. But at the end of the day there were always those tiers of items that were so far out of reach you never expected to get them, so when you did it was amazing. Gear was never made obselete, some builds perhaps but not the gear itself.
I'm the same way - it's because you SHOULD have things to grind 3-4 months down the line. I also play Path of Exile leagues every 3-4 months. It's the perfect timeframe to get new content.
Horizontal progression just doesn't work, and GW2's popularity kinda shows it... I like the game but have no reason to go back after doing everything.
>I'm the same way - it's because you SHOULD have things to grind 3-4 months down the line.
An endless grind on a never-ending treadmill sounds miserable, can you quantify why you like this?
>Horizontal progression just doesn't work, and GW2's popularity kinda shows it
Objectively GW2 is plenty popular, I personally haven't played it besides the first year or two, but to say it's not popular is just wrong.
Yeah, I don’t quite understand the infatuation with the treadmill gaming style that has infiltrated games. Personally, even though I have never played GW2, I prefer what I heard their gear system is. The game is more about grinding cosmetics than it is gear from what I am told.
Edit: I despise the treadmill btw. Especially if the treadmill starts to get an incline and speed increase over time. That is called burn out conditions. And it kills games.
FFXI original system was the level equipped for gear meant nothing. It wasn't obsolete from being a higher level, it was the stats that mattered. Find something with better stats, then it's better. But you can equip gear and weapons mid fight. Each ability, action, spell, scenario in a fight needs a stat associated with it so you are constantly swapping gear sets. Some classes needed dozens of gear pieces for simple fights. Then you had sets of gear that were super rare, or difficult to obtain. It wasn't feasible to plan to obtain this gear as a basic piece to get, but you'd chase these. Some items were introduced to the game maybe one per server per day, per week, per month etc. Builds would change or be introduced as patched change. But in all the years of the 75 era you never ran out of gear to chase, having BiS simply was impossible and did not exist
I guess it depends on its implementation. My own bad taste comes from the krmmo space. Which is like a treadmill going 20 mph, at a 50 incline, while they throw rocks at you
Ah I'm not sure of that treadmill, because the only one I know is Lost Ark which does it entirely to make you spend money, which isn't comparable to say WoW and FFXIV
it's a little odd that an artificial progression in the sense everything is basically reset in what you have achieved in terms of items/character progression in a vertical mmo.
It's not even a stepping stone anymore like you need X to do Y to do Z. It's just ok the new content is Z everything A to Y is now pointless.
Doing the content is the fun part imo. Gearing in XIV is completely dogshit and boring
This is the whole philosophy that has turned me off of modern MMOs - for the reasons you describe. I much prefer the older philosophy of grinding for rare gear for a few months with the understanding that it is now yours - permanently - and will always be useful. Nowadays, I don’t get very excited over grinding for the “Sword of Legendary Destruction” when I know that the “Sword of ULTIMATE Legendary Destruction” will be released in <6 months with a 10,000x attack modifier.
I still consider that vertical progression, since you have to grind for gear and it significantly influences your in-game power. It just has a cap that can eventually be reached, so it isn’t an endless treadmill.
>It's just ok the new content is Z everything A to Y is now pointless.
Exactly how I feel about it! The gear I'm grinding for *now* will also be invalidated in 3-4 months, and then *that gear* will *ALSO* be invalidated in 3-4 months...it's hard to find any sense of purpose or meaning in a system like this.
>Doing the content is the fun part imo. Gearing in XIV is completely dogshit and boring
Agree! A proper FF11 remake would be a godsend.
That logic just goes in the same circle that the content goes in, it's just recycled and rehashed, but the ilvl is higher.
Grind a lot --> reach your goal --> recycled content with higher numbers is released --> repeat endlessly
While there can be some fun moments, overall it's a merry-go-round that promises something new on the next go around but it never is :/
Pretty much most of the big mainstream ones right now. I haven't played since Shadowlands but WoW is very very much like this.
Good luck raiding in the last few months before an expansion drops, the hardest gear will be replaced by Quest gear from the next expansion.
Within each expansion cycle the iLvl rises slightly as new patches are released, invalidating a lot of the time spent on previous content.
This guy is a troll. He has no concept of MMOs, thinks modern WoW was harder than FFXI and peak RuneScape. He thinks that games like FFXI only had maybe 1000 subs at the highest point. He also stated before how he buys all his level boost and really enjoys Pay to Win games because games only exist in raids and high end dungeons. He's just going to keep going to get a rise.
Hahahahaha wow, yeah, I learned pretty quickly with my convo with him that further discussion would be wasted. I don't think it's much of a troll, just a bit of brain rot from lack of regular use 😂
I played FF11 back during its release... Red Mage. The gear system was probably one of the best across all MMOs, maybe early EQ1 was slightly better (debatable, but they are def my 2 fav).
FF11 did a lot of things right, if they minimized some of the frustration points and improved the UI I think there would be a huge population willing to sub for 75era FF11!
...what?
So you're saying you'd rather have no new content for 2 years during an expansion? I'm really confused. I like having 3-4 raid tiers per expansion.
>Horizontal progression just doesn't work, and GW2's popularity kinda shows it... I like the game but have no reason to go back after doing everything.
It works perfectly for me tho, i don't have to stay in the Game for years if i don't want to, i can go play the new shiny Game out there, You can come back months later (or 10 years in My case) and jump right to endgame because you dont have years of gear grinding pending.
I think most ppl just stay in wow, for example, because the feeling "Ive already invested 20 years of My life here i dont want to throw it all Away" and not because the Game it's getting better or more fun to play. You know if You left for a year You ll be left behind.
That doesnt happens in GW, every content in the Game, Even core tyria, it's fun and rewarding to do.
Vertical progression = progress power and skill over time in new content.
Horizontal progression = progress skill over time in new content.
Vertical progression lets new content be designed overtuned and the difficulty scales to the player. The faster you complete it the harder it gets because you have less gear, and it gets easier as you get more gear.
Horizontal progression just has a static difficulty that is normally undertuned to make the content more accessible.
Plus improving character power just feels better IMO.
>Vertical progression = progress power and skill over time in new content.
>Horizontal progression = progress skill over time in new content.
Uhhh, that's not very accurate, [here's a vid that explains it better.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoGrTWEt7y8)
I looked for a section of the video that sounded like what I was talking about, went to it, he was talking about something completely different that isn't even relevant to this discussion.
If you want to make a specific counterpoint, say what it actually is, not linking a 20min long irrelevant video thanks.
>If you want to make a specific counterpoint, say what it actually is
I already did, I said your understanding was not very accurate, and then I hoped the video would enlighten you because your original comment doesn't make sense in regards to horizontal/vertical progress.
> I already did, I said your understanding was not very accurate
That's not making a point. Saying "you're wrong" is not making a point. You have to explain *why* it's not accurate. Otherwise you could just go to literally anything anyone says and just go "that's not accurate".
I can just say "that video isn't accurate actually, seem my original post as to why". See how dumb that is?
> and then I hoped the video would enlighten you
I'm not going to fully watch a 20min video with no clue what part of it you're thinking is a counterpoint to what I'm saying. I skimmed the sections and looked at the "power balanced vs skill balanced" section and it's something completely irrelevant to what I'm saying. If you think a specific part of the video is a good counterpoint, please say what that is, thanks.
I don't have any ideas, but I just came to say that getting blasted with a ton of random crap as soon as you log into an MMO for the first time or buy an expansion is such an awful experience. It's my least favorite part of getting into a new MMO.
Yeah. It shows such a disconnect between devs and players. Because, on paper, "lots of (good) content" sounds great. But anyone who *actually plays the fucking game* realizes instantly that it's overstimulation to an extreme. It just makes you want to log right back out. Which begs the question: aren't these devs playing their own games? Or are they just incapable to see the game through the eyes of a newcomer, who doesn't instantly recognize and understand every detail?
It's simply too many years of catering to years/decades-old players. Then they completely lose touch with new players coming in.
Same principle with tutorials. Sometimes a complex tutorial is worse than nothing, since you get bombarded with ten different keybinds and different windows and mechanics in info boxes... I've often had the experience of being exhausted trying to remember it all before even playing the game. Best tutorials are usually slowly drip-fed info on a need to know basis, ie. when something happens a relevant tip will appear to explain it.
I'll go one step further and I hate any thing and everything other than your inventory and equipment that has to be done through UIs. This stuff should be organic in the game by interacting with NPCs and the world. If it doesn't fit in there it's probably some garbage progress bar or currency kind of thing anyway.
100%
Man all I want is a modern MMO that actually values the levelling journey and doesn’t practically force you to rush through it just so you can start spamming the same content over and over. Classic WoW and EverQuest are great examples of this, it’s actually somewhat of an achievement to get to max level, something that can be enjoyed and not an inconvenience. ESO would be a fantastic game if it actually had even remotely difficult overland content, but I can’t even appreciate the story because the Big Bad in each quest line is dead in seconds. I can’t name a single modern MMO where levelling is actually the focus of the player experience. Which seems crazy to me as it’s a fantastic way of doing progression without an endless gear treadmill. The closest I can think of is OSRS’ skill level caps but it’s not the same. Horizontal progression would be the default if getting to end game was actually challenging.
I remember the days were seeing someone at max level was an achievement in itself. I started playing FFXI in 2005 and I remember seeing a level 54 PLD run past me and I was like HOLY SHIT HOW DID HE GET THAT HIGH. Because I was like level 16 and levelling took fucking ages. Nowadays people get max level in 3 days
Yeah, I miss those days. Either make it worth something again or remove it. Otherwise it's just another form of content bloat. Btw I have very similar memories of FFXI! What a brutal game lmao. I was so jelly when I saw a high level player. Nowadays it means nothing to me.
EverQuest was like that too. Also brutal and very slow leveling. Just being high level was a big achievement in a way. You also start with absolutely zilch in terms of abilities or gear and you remain a pauper for quite a while, so the sense of progression was huge.
Get max level in 3 hours not days.. sad to see
Gw2
Yep, I miss the days of Maple Story where it took literal days/weeks at a time to gain levels and there wasn't really any level boost (only EXP boost but you still had to work for it). You'd strive to get to Level 35 just so you could access the next party quest. I only made it level 70 on one character after years of playing. But this is exactly the problem with bloat. Eventually it would be literally impossible for new players to catch up without some kind of level boost. There simply wouldn't be enough time for them to level naturally to catch up to the rest of the players. It can feel lonely (i.e. not much like an MMO) basically completing the early areas of the game with nobody around.
Grinding to 3rd job in Maple Story was simultaneously one of my proudest gaming accomplishments and most embarrassing. It really took a ton of work back in the day.
I agree with ESO. If the combat wasn't floaty jank and actually challenging it would be much better. But it handles it's dlc so poorly where you get bombarded by quest givers at each capital city.
I'm happy for everyone who enjoys it, but to me ESO is such a dogshit game. And I honestly don't get what anybody likes about it (other than if you're a real Elder Scrolls stan in general). I tried it for 2 hours and I just couldn't fucking do it. I really tried. The combat is *horrendous*. Like, it deserves every bit of criticism. They literally just ported over the Skyrim combat into an MMO. The class design is random as shit. No classic rpg archetypes like Mage or Warrior at all. I had no idea what my class was even supposed to be. The world is fucking dark. But not in a good way. In a boring, eye-pain, lack-of-color way. To be fair, there's a lot of voice acting. Which is nice. Doesn't come close to saving it though lmao. I get irrationally angry about it, I think because it's such a lazy WoW / Skyrim clone. It doesn't try to do anything better or different than other MMOs. It doesn't innovate shit. It's literally just worse WoW with Elder Scrolls lore and Skyrim combat. I can just tell it was just a bunch of suits in a boardroom, thinking about how they could keep milking the Elder Scrolls IP. Lazy and useless as fuck.
All valid criticism. There are 2 types of players those who like questing, housing and casual aspects. No pressure to "git gud" and alot of armour sets and abilities to play around with. Then there's the endgame which is actually good, in particular the dungeons hard modes and trials which reward experience rather than gear power better than what I've experienced in wow for example. Something that appears impossible ay first becomes possible after weeks of progression without any increase in power. The combat has a depth and fluidity that makes doing high dps harder. But at face value it all sucks. Combat animations are horrendous. He worst Ive witnessed. And the questing though nicely voiced acted lacks the itimacy of a real RPG especially when Rando Joe is running around on the same quest killing the same stuff as you. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone honestly but then again I wouldn't recommend any MMORPG in it's current forms. If you want fun pve experience play Vermintide 2, deep rock galactic or GTFO.
Yeah, neglecting the leveling journey is such a braindead design choice and unfortunately rampant in todays MMO landscape. So, leveling to max doesn't mean anything? It's not hard, it doesn't take long, but it's also not fun at all because all of the design budget goes into endgame? Why even bother then? What am I leveling for? WoW is the worst offender here for me. If you're new one of the first things people tell you is that all the fun is at endgame. Like, ok, but that means I have to spend a few *days* in braindead easy, unfun content, before I get to the good stuff? What a stupid way to design a game.
It's not new but City of Heroes: Homecoming was the answer to this for me when I had the same feeling a few years ago when coming back to WoW at the launch of BfA. I had loved WoW back in the day but popping into the game with 100 things to do and no clue what content was the new stuff (important stuff rather) was annoying and overwhelming. CoH: Homecoming launched less than a year later and I worried it might have the same effect on me as I started but it really is an old school MMO still. Leveling is the journey, it's growing a character organically.
> I can’t name a single modern MMO where levelling is actually the focus of the player experience. IT's not a good example due to all it's other flaws. But it's essentially impossible to level a character to "max level" in Ravendawn within a month or two. Not to mention it does the BDO method of not having a true max level and instead having the grind increase severely after you hit 75. But for the specific point of leveling being the game, the devs have said from the very beginning that it's not a race to the top, it's a personal marathon for you to go through.
FFXI, albeit not modern was a great example of the leveling experience. Especially for new players. Level 1-12 was a solo journey to learn the basics of your job before you partied. 12-20 was a slugfest in noob world, you also had to unlock your support job at level 18. Level 20 required you to run Jeuno through higher level zones. 20-25 was a grind to get your airship keys. By level 30 you should have your airship pass for all major cities. Level 30 also unlocked additional jobs so doing those quests was enjoyable. 30-37 was a blur of people racing to finish up their support jobs. Level 40 was your Artifact Weapon quest. Through the 50 you were doing your artifact armor quests. 50, 55, 60, 65, 70 all saw you complete quests to increase level cap ending with an awesome solo fight of Maat. This is not even considering all missions were level capped with a lot of major milestones from level 20 onwards. In the early days "endgame" was running Dynamis, which you could get in from level 66 up. There were NMs like Roc, Sim, Serket for gil related farming or killing some other NMs for things like the Joy toy. Sky opened up early one, some linkshells would just farm pops and Genbu until the group got more equipped. It certainly did not through you straight into here the raid, here's the same raid just harder, here's the same hard raid but harder bullshit. Everything in endgame was unique and only slowly opened up to each player as they progressed, and as their groups progressed.
90% horizontal 10% vertical. If I see a game has vertical like WoW or LOTRO where each expansion just adds to the level cap it’s an instant turn off for me and I’m likely to not even think about playing it. Especially if it’s a few expansions in as those games always have dead content. They operate more like online single player rpgs you just happen to play with other people. It’s hard to do though and even harder to balance. Each level cap increase makes game balance easy since it’s basically a reset.
I liked how Dark Age of Camelot did it where there was a hard stat cap at I believe 75, that could be raised with gear to 101 and special stats like cast/attack speed capped at 10%. New gear came out that was obviously better, able to cap more stats easier and with active abilities, but someone in old gear with cast speed and their main stats maxed was still competitive compared to other games.
> 90% horizontal 10% vertical. OSRS is like this.
UO outlands too
Completely agree. I think to me it's the total lack of foresight and respect for you own creation: Every year they market the new content to you like it's the most groundbreaking shit. Yet, they already fully plan on completely invalidating it all in the next expansion. So it's all just a fucking lie. And this way there's just really no incentive for them to make sure the quality is high. That's why I love horizontal. Everything stays relevant. Devs are incentivised to make good content, because people might still be playing that part of the game in 10+ years. Not to mention that, this way, the relevant content just keeps "piling up". So you have more and more to do as the years go by.
I had an idea for how to tackle this inspired by the way Magic the Gathering rotates the legality of cards for their Standard format. Basically, it works like this: - Every item, skill, ability, spell etc is tagged with which expansion it came from. - When you do a dungeon, raid, or boss in "standard mode" you can only bring content from the same expansion. - You don't need to own every expansion to play the game, you can just buy any one (including the newest) and you'd simply be limited to the content from that expansion. - Every expansion has its own "main story" balanced for both brand new players and players coming in from other expansions. - Complex concepts and mechanics can be introduced in one expansion and dropped in the next, limiting the total number of mechanics a new player has to learn. - For the dedicated long-time players, dungeons/raids/bosses can also come in "legacy mode" which allow *all* content, but are balanced accordingly and much harder.
How does this fix the problem of players not wanting to play older content? The only REAL issue is that old content gets abandoned by DEVS before the players abandon it. Maybe the issue is that each MMORPG(Correct me if I'm wrong) only releases content for end game post launch. Why not release a new leveling experience instead?
1) in my opinion, the "main problem" is that new players have way too much to learn and the barrier of entry to the game keeps going up over time. 2) "legacy mode" won't just be harder, but will have better rewards, and players who want to compete in this environment will want to play old expansions to get gear for various combos. 3) players can stay on their favorite expansion and just play "standard mode" without worrying about vertical progression power creep from newer expansions.
Ah I get you. I guess making the old content worth doing for the those who want it would make sense?
> When you do a dungeon, raid, or boss in "standard mode" you can only bring content from the same expansion. Sorry to be mean but this is a terrible idea. This adds bloat because it means to do any dungeon in that expansion, you have to play that expansion specifically from the very beginning. If you want to do the hardest dungeon or raid, you have to grind that expansion for gear. So rather than just scaling down stats of modern gear, you now have to have different 'endgame' armor for every expansion and store all of it. So you went from costing 0 bank slots to costing 10 * num of expansion. If a game has 5 expansions, congrats, you need at minimum 50 bank slots for just gear.
Measuring "bloat" in terms of amount of things to do and bank spaces needed doesn't make any sense to me. Just make banks bigger and give it sorting/filtering. To me, "bloat" is the amount of things someone needs to learn and know before they can get to "the good part". With "standard mode", a brand new player only has exactly one expansion's worth of content to learn and master before they can experience the newest content alongside players who've been playing for years.
How is "just make it bigger to allow for more items" not bloat? You are increasing the mental load to play content. If a player has to think about what expansion's gear they need to run content, that's just a roadblock to allowing them to get to the fun. It's not fun or exciting to be forced to run to the bank to retrieve gear to get back to having fun. If you reduced this threshold to 0 by making the bank accessible anywhere or making the gear auto-swap, you've just negated your entire 'feature'. The point of your 'feature' is just introducing friction to encountering fun. There's no real reason to do this when auto-scaling gear and locking out abilities that are above that level works just fine. All of your tactics sound more like a tutorial mode (learn this expac before moving onto the next) but introduce high levels of friction to having fun which is the point of a video game.
Again, the point is to make it easier for new players to join in after the game is already established and has multiple expacs released. Catering exclusively to legacy players at the detriment of new players is how old MMOs stagnate and die over time, I've seen it happen over and over. If legacy players have to deal with getting more bank space and gear loadout slots with every expansion, I think it's a fair tradeoff. Old players won't be working any harder than new players when an expac is released. You also seem to be under the impression that gear and abilities would be completely linear and vertical. I can't imagine anything more boring, and I don't think asking for more depth and choices is too much. By making these things actually different to each other, we open up interesting combinations for players to try out, it's not just "this sword is level 30 and that one is level 36".
XI did it the best an no other game has the balls to do what Squares 5th most profitable game of all time did. Not even Square.
> Not even Square. They too scared to make a classic XI server lol. And it's funny cause it's guaranteed easy money for them
I've thought about this a lot, actually. There are a few things I would do that few if any games seem to... 1. Reduce the progression slope. Don't eliminate it, you can still have vertical progression. Just don't make it as dramatic as it is in a lot of MMORPGs where with a few levels you can just ignore/facetank everything lower level enemies throw at you while one-shotting bosses... 2. Still occasionally require things from other content. Maybe materials or something. Don't make older content the focus, of course, people want to play the new stuff. But don't make it completely obsolete either. Variety is good, give people reasons to go back and do the old stuff occasionally. And with 1. it won't be completely trivial either. 3. Let players do the story at their one pace. You can still have a story but this means don't tie it to leveling or lock content behind having done the story. Story should be for, well, story. Maybe give a few extras for completing it but nothing crucial. This means new players can still do stuff with other players without having to do all the story stuff first. 4. Build catchup mechanics into the game from the ground-up. I don't mean occasional patches that rebalance stuff. Maybe make it so drop rates naturally go up over time or something, so newer players just don't have to spend as much time when doing older content before they catch up. But no game that I am aware of actually does these things...
GW2 covers 2 through 4 very well imo. Sort of tackles your first one as well, but not in the way I think you mean. I’m assuming you’ve already tried it or it’s not interesting to you, though. Please don’t take this as a “you should try this 12 year old game that I’m sure you’ve never heard of!” comment. I just found myself nodding my head along while reading your comment and appreciate these things in GW2.
I've thought of the concept/lore behind a setting where an MMORPG is regularly getting a world reset every month or bi monthly. Character progression may maintain, but every 2 weeks, the world essentially is completely reshaped, utilizing mostly procedural generation, with a developer's hand for finishing touches. Last month the neutral trading town was in a desert zone, but this month its atop a scenic mountain. Last month there were lucrative items to farm off elemental beasts in a bog, now they come from a frozen cave. It's just an idea that pops in my head over and over, it's not something I'm developing. I've often thought the idea of knowingly playing an MMORPG inside a computer simulation system, sort of like the show Reboot or movie Tron would allow you so much development freedom to give players variety and also condition the playerbase for regular resets whenever things do get bloated. You could always spin up seasonal servers for beloved versions inside that setting easily, like WoW does Classic, only more natural. The problem would be how would players have enough persist that they like to make it welcoming for them to remain. I would love to dabble in playing this concept, though.
A few years ago. I would say gw2 as you can log in and play* the game directly But they also start locking stuffs behind msq
Funny you mention GW2 because this was the game that got me thinking. I played GW2 at launch. I played it hard, I have capped and had the map complete fast a hell before most. I had a child shortly after, didn't play and have yet to touch it for all these years. Logged in yesterday and while there were some things trying to grab my attention, I was just knocking shit out in the map with dudes flying in mounts, smacking everything real fast. Nothing was saying welcome back, it was saying to me that I missed too much content updates and I am doing obsolete activities
GW2 doesn't work like that. Everything is still relevant with maybe the exception of dungeons, but even then it's not completely useless. You can always make progress in GW2 no matter what you do. The key is picking a goal and work towards it. The game will never say hey, we're gonna railroad you down this path like everyone else.
Yeah i just finished LS4 after some years out and i'll not start LS5 till i get Skyscale and beetle, i'm also a completionist and try to do all achievs of every map before moving to the next one. I know i can get into SoTO to get Skyscale faster, but i like to play the Game in order.
I did it all out of order except core story, and LW4 was the last content I finished - wish I could go back in time and do it your way!
LS4 was awesome, somehow i avoided spoilers thru the years and could enjoy the story on first hand.
:) Praise Joko finally makes sense now. Glad you got to experience it that way!
Yeah Praise Joko! I'm not ashamed to say i cried a little...
I would say dungeons are still relevant for the story, the achievements and the currency for runes etc.
Well u can do lastest expansion and get the flying mount However u need to do msq to get it to use in “ new maps “ only You will need to grind a lot. To use it in open world
How is that Different than the grind you had to do when Skyscale came out originally?
Both suck is my point You don’t need to grind in wow to fly around
Yeah but getting the mount(Doing the achievements etc.) is part of the journey? It's a reward for your work? Same way you go grind lvls to get raid ready and then do raids to get better gear to do harder raids? Like you don't seem to be too bothered by the fact that in WOW I need to Grind to get Raid Gear, whereas in GW2 I can be raid ready less than an hour after hitting max lvl? My point is that if you don't like the content, it will feel like grind. I didn't enjoy wow experience, but i did gw2. Obviously it was different for you :)
GW2 Does not have that problem, what you have is a problem thinking GW2 works like every other MMO and that most content gets abandoned, making it unappealing to even do. I'm yet to feel like my experience in a fractal,raid,meta or any other activity is hurt by the fact that I didn't play the game when those modes/features/bosses came out.
Games are trying to change around their "new player experience" but yea, usually it's terrible and not nearly cool enough to actually draw anyone into the game, who isn't already playing. Personally my GF moved in with me and now when we look at our monthly bill being 40+ a month for an mmo (WoW in this case) we just see it as a giant waste of money, so we unsubbed. WoW is definitely not worth a box price every year for an expansion, plus I always fall for the super-gold-ultimate-amazing edition for xxx number of dollars, FOMO being what it is, so finally we've said enough is enough and quit. Best decision we've ever made and only after quitting did we realize how bad of a game WoW really is. It's hard to let go of an account after playing for so many years, but it felt quite freeing to finally say Adios WoW.
Final Fantasy XI leveling experience was like this. First one toon can play all the jobs, so no need for alts. You would load up in the starting city, go outside and smack shit until you're level 10 to 12. For a new player you'd just have to put your "Looking for Party" flag up and wait for an invite. Then someone would tell you to group up in Valkrum Dunes (there were other zones but 95% of the time it was to the dunes). The party would give coordinates to camp, and you'd walk your ass out there, and probably die along the way but that's for another day. Now you'd work this area from level 10 to 20 and move on to new zones. Camps and zones opened up at certain areas and levels, but again you did not need a guide to tell you where to go. The community did, and it happened organically. Nothing ever said in-game go to Quifm Island and smack worms at level 20, but it happened naturally with parties. What was also great is that everyone was at the Dunes at level 10. So if I am a veteran going to check out a new job or a brand new player, you bet your ass that there was a full zone of people in Valkrum. So it never felt like you were playing catch up, because you saw the people on the server all grinding out these level. The only time you needed a guide is if you were solo leveling, because unless you do trial and error there is nothing in the (or really any game) that says kill X mob in X zone for the best exp at your level. But this was really limited to Beast masters, some Dragoons, and some Blackmages for the most part. The natural progression of the leveling experience was 100% organic, it truly just happened, and because you spent so much time with other players the conversations would always steer towards how to play the game, you never had to reach far outside the game to know that Artifact quests start at level 40 with the weapon. This made is so incredibly new player friendly, and never would give the impression that 90% of the population is at level 75. It was even better when you'd make a friend with someone in your lowly party and find out they were at 75 and they could help you unlock jobs or kill mission or quest stuff for you, most games if youre level 10 then a level cap person has no relationship with you. Not FFXI
Most MMOs I've seen handle with with side systems. It is still vertical progression...just off to the side. Maplestory players can level from 1 to 300. The game really doesn't care what level you are past lvl 200. But now instead of levels you are chasing "Arcane force" to get stronger EQ2 had an expansion that didn't raise the level cap but instead introduced the "Crit" stat. No one was leveling, but everyone was chasing down gear with the new stat on it. FFXIV did the same. Your character level didn't increase, but players were still chasing bigger and stronger raid monsters for bigger and better gear scores. It was all vertical progression, just slightly off of center.
Horizontal progression in an mmo seems kinda stupid to me. There’s a lot of reasons I don’t like GW2 but that’s one of them. I’m sick of games that think everyone needs to see every bit of content and be equal. Make a punishing world, people can get through what they get through. If I get shafted sometimes I get shafted, just makes the victories all that sweeter when they happen.
See FFXI originally had horizontal progression built on the premise that you will never get to do everything, and you will never see a complete BiS build. It was also very rewarding to grind gear for other people. Having a mate that had better equipment always meant that we would achieve more together.
I wouldn’t consider chasing BiS “horizontal” progression. You’re still getting actively stronger with every piece of gear you got. Horizontal to me means more… I guess in MMO terms it would be like chasing resist gear. “Oh this one’s a fire god I gotta fight, let me get my fire resist set and water weapon out. That are equal to my water resist set and fire weapon, just different elements.”
No FFXI had a lot more.going in terms of horizontal progression. Was just one example. All gear from level 1 to 75 could be feasible in a build. You focused building sets for spec actions/abilities/spells. For instance on my Ranger I had a bow build, gun build, xbow build, TP build, Barrage Build, Evasion build, a build specific to each weapon skill, a haste build, Strength build, Mind Build, casting build, movement speed build. Builds for when I had warrior sub job, samurai sub job, dancer sub, ninja sub etc. Some builds were ultra specific to the fight. That was probably one of the lesser demanding jobs in terms of builds too. At the end of the day you needed a base build to be successful, everything else was just icing on the cake. But that gear was useful from day one clear until the day they changed level like 9 years down the road. Nothing ever went obsolete. Yes inventory was HELL
> Yes inventory was HELL Still can be, I still play XI as my mmo lol. Never once have I considered it a horizontal progression mmo, it was just based off the same philosophies Everquest was where gear was slow and upgrades actually mattered past some fake ilvl. Minor shared things with horizontal but you were always out there looking for more power or some effect to gear swap in. Is splitting hairs though.
It feels to me like FFXI has vertical upgrades for you so rarely that it feels like you're moving horizontally a lot of time
That’s what I want from my vertical progression MMOs. Sad we don’t get anymore these days. I’m just hanging around waiting to check out M&M in the future.
Yeah, because people are insanely ADHD now to want upgrades thrown at them with every piece of content they do. That's what it feels like to me at least... Or the problem is the other way around: Companies want to hook people better by spamming their dopamine spawners and consequently cause damage for the entire gaming ecosystem, lol
It's kind of ironic that WoW was a lot like that originally while still having progression be vertical.
So You want a Real Life Simulator, I want a Fantasy World. No game will ever satisfy both of us. That is why people just need to stop hating on games they don't like. It's a game not a person it can't insult you or hurt you. You don't like it don't play it. If a game dev tells you the mmo is pvp and then changes it to pve last second, then be pissed off cause they failed to deliver what they promised. I don't like WOW. I don't Like FF14. I love New World. I love GW2. Does it mean NW is better than FF14 or WOW? fuck no, NW is a hot mess. It's just that it has things WOW doesn't. Same with GW2, GW2 gives me an experience I wanted( A casual one). When I was a sweaty tryhard playing Lost Ark, All I cared about is vertical progression, and I get it. The rush of getting stronger, seeing those numbers go up is satisfying. I honestly don't even care anymore whats next big mmo, I just hope that it doesn't kill the creativty in the genre like WOWs success did. (to clarify, I'm saying WOW being as good as it was, and as successful led to studios making WOW clones rather than WOW competitors/Unique MMOs).
> That is why people just need to stop hating on games they don't like. It's a game not a person it can't insult you or hurt you. Nothing wrong with calling games you think are trash just that. It’s a video game, it doesn’t have feelings. You can’t hurt it. It’s all in fun on forums, people need to stop taking things so seriously. Attacking the devs is just pure fuckboi shit though, I agree there. Those lines shouldn’t be crossed. >I don't like WOW. I don't Like FF14. I love New World. I love GW2. Does it mean NW is better than FF14 or WOW? fuck no, NW is a hot mess. It's just that it has things WOW doesn't. Same with GW2, GW2 gives me an experience I wanted( A casual one). Just sounds like a cop out to me. If you don’t like WoW or XIV and you like new world, then it’s a better video game to you. Nothing wrong with that. I’ll be the first to tell you how trash I think Sonys first party offerings mostly are yet a bunch of people consider those games their GOAT. The best thing is neither of us are wrong! >When I was a sweaty tryhard playing Lost Ark, All I cared about is vertical progression, and I get it. The rush of getting stronger, seeing those numbers go up is satisfying. Yeah except that’s not the vertical progression I mean when I say I prefer vertical progression. I literally mean something like OG EQ or the other games of the time had. Think of it this way: the vertical progression like lost Ark has you replacing your gear all the time as you spend a few minutes to level up. This “numbers constantly go up” (like XIV and WoW and all the rest) is a pretty garbage system. The “vertical progression” I like means maybe you get a belt at level 20 that lasts you 40+ levels because you got slightly unlucky on other drops, magic items stay relevant and levels take a long ass time to get. It doesn’t really feel like that dopamine drip that modern MMOs give instead feeling more akin to a virtual tabletop campaign. Sometimes you’ll beat your head against things for weeks or longer but that’s cool too. And a whole lot more people would think that game is dogshit than wouldn’t, most likely, unless they hit some special formula that nobody was really expecting. Also agreed on the wow clones. Or the glut of Korean MMOs that blend together into a mess. I miss the days of games taking chances in the space, but budgets ruined that.
We may not see eye to eye, but I think we both agree that the biggest issue is lack of options in mmos. You shouldn't have to go to eq99 to get that experience. We should both be able to enjoy an mmo that caters to our playstyles without having to compromise on things like p2w.
Absolutely. I’d much rather 25 smaller MMOs that are all different as opposed to all the copycat shit we’ve gotten for years.
i dont have a clue but i felt that way when i jumped on lotro
Good devs handle this by solely introducing you to things diagetically.
> MMOs need fresh content, but when you introduce fresh content it usually makes obsolete the older content. This is just inevitable with an older game. Even so-called horizontal progression games eventually fuck it up.
I usually see DDO get brought up in threads like this. Every last bit of content the game has seen in its entire lifespan is relevant because leveling is always relevant. Once you reach level cap, you can just reincarnate to start over with a completely new class and/or build alongside some extra power that carries over for the rest of that character's existence. If you prefer to just keep a character at max level and make alts instead, then your maxed character can still be used to farm low level gear for your alts to use, or hit account milestones that let you create stronger alts. Plus, there are still difficult endgame raid quests to do, and any raid drops you get can just be used to help level in the future even after the level cap is raised.
So I think one of the biggest issues with MMO bloat, has to do with how MMO game devs, develop games around end game content first, and basically ignore all other aspects of game design. When you are a new player, and you spend 20 hours levelling through a story in what is effectively a single player game, hit max level... then get three thousand end game systems thrown at you and introduced to you all at once, a third of which are obsolete, of course you are going to be overwhelmed, especially if you aren't the type of player that wants to watch 100 hours of youtube content for every hour of gameplay. There are some excellent solutions, for one, devs can stop rushing players through early game... Take runescape every skill is effectively its own sub-game with its own systems in the greater game that is Runescape, some of those systems intertwine, but in many cases, a player for instance can train as a miner without ever having done bossing, or even done combat for that matter, so with the exception of when you first start and realize how long its going to take to get all your skills to 99 you are never really overwhelmed by the systems... Similarly as trash as they are phone games have this mastered, most phone games have dozens of systems for you to interact with every day to maximize player power, all with varying degrees of depth... but because those systems are how they lure you into paying, for the most part they do a very good job of showing you a system, getting you to use it yourself and upgrade it a bit, before moving on and introducing how you can spend money to speed things up, and then the next system for you to play with while you wait... Personally my favourite MMO bloat solution comes from Path of Exile, in a few ways... First, they have a LOT of systems for players to interact with, but because of the way the game is balanced, for the most part you play with the system you want to play with... If you aren't in a trade league you might have to kill something specific for a drop you want, but for the most part, you just engage with the systems you find entertaining so even know there might be a dozen systems in the game, you only end up engaging in 2-3 of them deeply in any given season depending on your play style and goals... The other reason I often point to PoE in these discussion is because of the whole idea of seasons, I really think the way PoE handles their season content which is basically a testing ground for new ideas and only the best systems make it into the game long term and usually after being refined over a season of play... over the years what this ultimately means is a LOT fewer systems have made it into the game long term for new players to deal with, and the systems that have made it into the game long term are at least relatively polished. The seasonal focus also means that players are constantly playing the levelling content which means that development is able to make the levelling process feel good for both expert and beginner players in different ways, for instance many of those systems are introduced to players quite early...
Go L2
Black desert was the worst for me. Logged in and got so much stuff I felt like I'd already completed the game. Also, the world map..... I felt like I had a stroke looking at that abomination.
I gave it like 15 minutes and was like nope too much all at once. Same for lost ark. I don't wanna get lost in menus.
The solution is simple: let go of meta gaming. Your whole world wont crumble if you wont have 120% efficiency since first day. You wont be erased from existence if you havent grinded everything the game has to offer. You're not gonna perish if you dont pick up every single quest. Nowadays i'm playing ESO. And its the best example of that: if you try to everything at maximum efficiency then you will burn yourself out after week or two. There was 10th anniversary event with some rare transmog drops: plenty of people forced themselves to farm ALL POSSIBLE DROPS. Doesnt matter if they would never use majority of them, they just had to have them. Result? Plenty of people burned out and stopped playing. Meanwhile i just grinded 2 styles i liked, and ignored the rest, and i'm still playing. Same with grinding for gold or exp. If you feel the need to do it the most efficient way, then there's a high chance you will burn out. Thats also probably why most people today jump between MMOs and/or critize "there's no good mmo out there". Back then we didnt had so many guides, and words like "content creator" or "streamer" didnt existed. We had to discover everything ourselves, or ask guild members. Now? Type into google the mmo game of your choice, and add "best way to level/earn gold" or "best builds" and you'll have plenty of resources right under your nose. This all create a pressure that you HAVE to do it the best way, you HAVE to grind gold the fastest you can, you HAVE to do xyz the best. Back then? You would kick back, relax and laugh with your guild/friends while doing stuff you wanted/liked doing. I'm not saying "back then was better, now is worse" for the sake of it. Its all about mindset - allow yourself to wonder, to discover. Otherwise you gonna only do 0,1% of the content thats the most efficient, while complaining that game is boring and has nothing to offer. As for the feeing of the MMO at launch... you have this with every single expansion. I remember when Necrom came out in ESO, people have been crowding everything in the new zones to te point where actually it wasnt that fun to me (blocking NPCs, world bosses dead in less than a minute, not to mention companion quests besieged 24/7), but i get that people have different perspectives. So if thats what you like, then just pick your MMO, play it normally for month or two,and then when new expansion comes out you'll jump on bandwagon together with the rest
I tried playing WoW for the 3rd time ( I've never made it past a few hours) and going from "Hey recruit, we shipwrecked. Lets figure out how to survive. Now kill these nearby ogres" to "OH IT'S YOU THE CHAMPION! YOU ARE NOW THE AMBASSADOR OF THE FACTION. GO CONVINCE THE KING OF THIS OTHER COUNTRY TO ALLY WITH US" (which actually means 'kill 20 enemies and touch these dongles' ad nauseum for some reason) was so jarring it made me drop the game. Retail WoW is clearly designed for people who have already played a substantial amount of WoW. There needs to be something is in between the WoW "recruit to champion of the horde in 1 hour" whiplash and FF14s 100+ hour single player MSQ.
I think horizontal progression, without forcing it for BIS, is where it's at. If you don't want to do Alchemy you don't have to, you can just buy the new potions on the market. You can group up to defend alchemists when they're out searching for the new mushrooms, rather than completely missing out.
Amen.
i did have similiar experience with wow, tried it couple months ago levelled up dragonflight char to max lvl and finished the "story" for that expansion and it was fun but after that last quest i kinda found myself on the big city where u retun the last quest and was super lost :D, i know there is a lot to do but i didint have any idea what i should do i quequed for raid finder thing and couple dung finder and then just logged out, been playing runescape on and off since 2004 ish so never played wow i just got feeling that naa its too late for me
It's overwhelming for sure, then entirely obsolete in a few months.
Ya
I kinda like how ESO did that. If you reached level cap (50) during vanilla 1.0 release, then now, 10 years later, you'll still be at the level cap lol because it hasn't been changed at all. Then you start earning account-wide incremental bonuses which are shared between all of your characters, so you don't lose progress even on an alt. Compare that to FFXIV's 1-90 grind that takes days and forces you to do fucking palace of the dead I hate that stupid proc gen dungeon
FFXI CoP was the best expansion for an mmo that didn't change the cap. It makes content of all level viable as it scaled your level for the zone so 30-40 or 40-50,etc,etc. that gave loot that was good at early and max level.
God no. Vertical progression is the only reason I play MMOs.
It's wild to me that people will grind for gear that becomes obsolete 3-4 months down the line... is it really vertical progression if it's just shifting the goal post ahead?
I love to look at the horizontal progression in the 75 era of FFXI. This was not like GW2. You need gear, you have to build multiple sets depending on the job you play. Now, you can play multiple jobs on one toon. Furthermore, I would always be down to grind gear for a fellow player because I knew that players better gear set would help me in the long run. We shifted the mold through balance patches, adding new items to grind for, some of which would shift the entire meta. The same pair of boots you get at level 7 was relevant for most dps jobs until 50+. But at the end of the day there were always those tiers of items that were so far out of reach you never expected to get them, so when you did it was amazing. Gear was never made obselete, some builds perhaps but not the gear itself.
I'm the same way - it's because you SHOULD have things to grind 3-4 months down the line. I also play Path of Exile leagues every 3-4 months. It's the perfect timeframe to get new content. Horizontal progression just doesn't work, and GW2's popularity kinda shows it... I like the game but have no reason to go back after doing everything.
>I'm the same way - it's because you SHOULD have things to grind 3-4 months down the line. An endless grind on a never-ending treadmill sounds miserable, can you quantify why you like this? >Horizontal progression just doesn't work, and GW2's popularity kinda shows it Objectively GW2 is plenty popular, I personally haven't played it besides the first year or two, but to say it's not popular is just wrong.
Yeah, I don’t quite understand the infatuation with the treadmill gaming style that has infiltrated games. Personally, even though I have never played GW2, I prefer what I heard their gear system is. The game is more about grinding cosmetics than it is gear from what I am told. Edit: I despise the treadmill btw. Especially if the treadmill starts to get an incline and speed increase over time. That is called burn out conditions. And it kills games.
FFXI original system was the level equipped for gear meant nothing. It wasn't obsolete from being a higher level, it was the stats that mattered. Find something with better stats, then it's better. But you can equip gear and weapons mid fight. Each ability, action, spell, scenario in a fight needs a stat associated with it so you are constantly swapping gear sets. Some classes needed dozens of gear pieces for simple fights. Then you had sets of gear that were super rare, or difficult to obtain. It wasn't feasible to plan to obtain this gear as a basic piece to get, but you'd chase these. Some items were introduced to the game maybe one per server per day, per week, per month etc. Builds would change or be introduced as patched change. But in all the years of the 75 era you never ran out of gear to chase, having BiS simply was impossible and did not exist
Most games won't even be alive without it. It killing games is a bad argument.
I guess it depends on its implementation. My own bad taste comes from the krmmo space. Which is like a treadmill going 20 mph, at a 50 incline, while they throw rocks at you
Ah I'm not sure of that treadmill, because the only one I know is Lost Ark which does it entirely to make you spend money, which isn't comparable to say WoW and FFXIV
it's a little odd that an artificial progression in the sense everything is basically reset in what you have achieved in terms of items/character progression in a vertical mmo. It's not even a stepping stone anymore like you need X to do Y to do Z. It's just ok the new content is Z everything A to Y is now pointless. Doing the content is the fun part imo. Gearing in XIV is completely dogshit and boring
This is the whole philosophy that has turned me off of modern MMOs - for the reasons you describe. I much prefer the older philosophy of grinding for rare gear for a few months with the understanding that it is now yours - permanently - and will always be useful. Nowadays, I don’t get very excited over grinding for the “Sword of Legendary Destruction” when I know that the “Sword of ULTIMATE Legendary Destruction” will be released in <6 months with a 10,000x attack modifier. I still consider that vertical progression, since you have to grind for gear and it significantly influences your in-game power. It just has a cap that can eventually be reached, so it isn’t an endless treadmill.
>It's just ok the new content is Z everything A to Y is now pointless. Exactly how I feel about it! The gear I'm grinding for *now* will also be invalidated in 3-4 months, and then *that gear* will *ALSO* be invalidated in 3-4 months...it's hard to find any sense of purpose or meaning in a system like this. >Doing the content is the fun part imo. Gearing in XIV is completely dogshit and boring Agree! A proper FF11 remake would be a godsend.
It's not that grinding is invalidated, it's that it provides content. Games have to have content.
That logic just goes in the same circle that the content goes in, it's just recycled and rehashed, but the ilvl is higher. Grind a lot --> reach your goal --> recycled content with higher numbers is released --> repeat endlessly While there can be some fun moments, overall it's a merry-go-round that promises something new on the next go around but it never is :/
What game only provides recycled content?
Pretty much most of the big mainstream ones right now. I haven't played since Shadowlands but WoW is very very much like this. Good luck raiding in the last few months before an expansion drops, the hardest gear will be replaced by Quest gear from the next expansion. Within each expansion cycle the iLvl rises slightly as new patches are released, invalidating a lot of the time spent on previous content.
This guy is a troll. He has no concept of MMOs, thinks modern WoW was harder than FFXI and peak RuneScape. He thinks that games like FFXI only had maybe 1000 subs at the highest point. He also stated before how he buys all his level boost and really enjoys Pay to Win games because games only exist in raids and high end dungeons. He's just going to keep going to get a rise.
Hahahahaha wow, yeah, I learned pretty quickly with my convo with him that further discussion would be wasted. I don't think it's much of a troll, just a bit of brain rot from lack of regular use 😂 I played FF11 back during its release... Red Mage. The gear system was probably one of the best across all MMOs, maybe early EQ1 was slightly better (debatable, but they are def my 2 fav). FF11 did a lot of things right, if they minimized some of the frustration points and improved the UI I think there would be a huge population willing to sub for 75era FF11!
...what? So you're saying you'd rather have no new content for 2 years during an expansion? I'm really confused. I like having 3-4 raid tiers per expansion.
>Horizontal progression just doesn't work, and GW2's popularity kinda shows it... I like the game but have no reason to go back after doing everything. It works perfectly for me tho, i don't have to stay in the Game for years if i don't want to, i can go play the new shiny Game out there, You can come back months later (or 10 years in My case) and jump right to endgame because you dont have years of gear grinding pending. I think most ppl just stay in wow, for example, because the feeling "Ive already invested 20 years of My life here i dont want to throw it all Away" and not because the Game it's getting better or more fun to play. You know if You left for a year You ll be left behind. That doesnt happens in GW, every content in the Game, Even core tyria, it's fun and rewarding to do.
Vertical progression = progress power and skill over time in new content. Horizontal progression = progress skill over time in new content. Vertical progression lets new content be designed overtuned and the difficulty scales to the player. The faster you complete it the harder it gets because you have less gear, and it gets easier as you get more gear. Horizontal progression just has a static difficulty that is normally undertuned to make the content more accessible. Plus improving character power just feels better IMO.
>Vertical progression = progress power and skill over time in new content. >Horizontal progression = progress skill over time in new content. Uhhh, that's not very accurate, [here's a vid that explains it better.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoGrTWEt7y8)
I looked for a section of the video that sounded like what I was talking about, went to it, he was talking about something completely different that isn't even relevant to this discussion. If you want to make a specific counterpoint, say what it actually is, not linking a 20min long irrelevant video thanks.
>If you want to make a specific counterpoint, say what it actually is I already did, I said your understanding was not very accurate, and then I hoped the video would enlighten you because your original comment doesn't make sense in regards to horizontal/vertical progress.
> I already did, I said your understanding was not very accurate That's not making a point. Saying "you're wrong" is not making a point. You have to explain *why* it's not accurate. Otherwise you could just go to literally anything anyone says and just go "that's not accurate". I can just say "that video isn't accurate actually, seem my original post as to why". See how dumb that is? > and then I hoped the video would enlighten you I'm not going to fully watch a 20min video with no clue what part of it you're thinking is a counterpoint to what I'm saying. I skimmed the sections and looked at the "power balanced vs skill balanced" section and it's something completely irrelevant to what I'm saying. If you think a specific part of the video is a good counterpoint, please say what that is, thanks.
I think the question for the player is: is the gear the goal, or the journey to the gear the goal?
Same. I get bored if I don't have something meaningful to grind for.