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While I usually am quick to point out that the atypical MMORPG leveling model is anything but traditional RPG questing, I will stick to the terminology since it's usually accepted that Progression via questing such as in WoW, ESO, Wildstar and other Themeparks is called as such.
With that being said, what systems of progression would you like to see? Traditionally we started out with Camping/Grinding high density mobs for progression then moved on to the linear threadmill of quest grinding but in the 14+ years of this genre do we really only have these 2 models to work with?
Typically the RPG is heavily story based but I am and always will be a firm believer that an MMOrpg is about persistence and virtual worlds and the story is and should be different for every character created. Therefor eschewing traditional RPG storylines is my first priority in getting MMO's back to their roots.
I myself like the Asheron's Call model of progression. Hard, lengthy quests (true RPG styled quests) coupled with a healthy dose of grinding high XP, Low loot profiles mobs and Low XP, High loot profile mobs. Let's hear your takes on what you want to see as a progression method for your ideal MMO.
Comments
GW2 got it right with dynamic events, but screwed up scaling and the length of those events. Instead of creating dozens upon dozens of similar events, they should've focused on bigger, longer megaevetns with subevents. For example, you could have a huge siege that takes over an hour and some smaller missions like "destroy the ballistas". They tried something like this with metaevent chains, but the events in them feel too disconnected. Also, the rewards for completing events are complete crap compared to just about anything.
This is probably the main reason why I dislike GW2's focus of the Living Story. Its DE system has the potential to be a near-perfect way of leveling, but it needs an overhaul that can't be done in a content patch.
Edit: Of course, sandbox games are another option, but questing grid has never been a problem in them to begin with.
i personally love the scaling in GW2 because im able to play with lower lvl friends to help them level without becoming a powerleveler (or viceversa) and still be beaten by mobs.
I do agree with you about the DE. They set my standards in mmo PvE leveling but they need much improvements. This is what i believe should happen: No matter how good an idea or mechanic is, once people do it a number of times it will get stale and at some point boring. The only way to make it fresh again is to improve them and make some changes. DE system in GW2 has the potential to become a real game changer with longer chaining events and results that affect the game for everyone in the long term. IMO its still the best DE system from all the mmos that do those public events but it needs improvements.
In EVE the real progression is in learning how to actually play the game well, backed up by your ability to earn ISK.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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i may be wrong but im under the impression that this progression method would make the game feel its playing by itself. Pretty much like the automated gameplay some F2P asian mmos offer to "relieve the grind" by automating it so you dont have to be there playing lol.
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That gets my vote.
Another alternate is basing progression on player skill. In a system like that, advancement is based on your ability as a player to learn and improve. Moms and tweens seem to find that palatable, but it might be too hardcore for most MMO gamers.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I would love this, but have little clue how to implement without issues. The better player gets stronger and the weaker stay weaker, this is true for most end games but not leveling and no one has figured out how to do it without ruining the other. How much forced grouping would be involved in all of this? At that point would it come down to the better group or guild progresses? It would also probably have to be a mostly instanced game or the skill portion would be removed and everyone would be blobbed up for zerging in the open world.
Played-Everything
Playing-LoL
If you want to keep quests, make them not mandatory, Like in Skyrim. Progression of your character in Skyrim is not tied to questing, but to the use of abilities. Quests don't even give XP in Skyrim. You progress your character in a much more (imo) intuitive way by using whatever skills you prefer to use. After a few skillups for those skills you use most, you earn a new lvl. There have been MMO's before that were skillbased like this. Or at least a variant on this. You can do this using character levels or without character levels and just skill levels.
This way you dont need the 234897987234 tytpical low quality filler quests for players to have enough xp to level at a decent pace.
But to me more important is getting rid of character levels and the world divided into areas of a certain lvl. The fact that you can outlvl content is just a flaw. GW2's solution of automatically downlvling your character is ok, but not my favourite solution.
Completely agree with this.
I loved just exploring and running into events on the way. It didn't feel like leveling to me and that's really important. I personally judge how good the leveling is by how often i look at my exp bar and i rarely did that in GW2.
But as you mentioned, the scaling was way off coupled with the lack of a hard trinity made the instanced content such as dungeons not very fun.
It is less about getting away from questing as much as having a larger pool of things people can do. In the end, quests will always exist, the only difference would be how they are portrayed (the newest fad being Dynamic events, which GW2 in particular was most guilty with having them pop up to the point they were extremely static and pretty much a quest that wasn't AS reliable though pretty much expected to be seen quite often in a spot).
Rather then just normal quests, having dynamic events (real dynamic events), allowing people to just grind mobs if they want, allowing for pvp as an option, group content like dungeons or just open world mobs for groups. Having exploration to an extent help level up. Having certain special tasks to do that are unique. Its not getting rid of quests (in fact some of the options are just quests in disguise) its about giving a change up of how its presented and done and giving CHOICE with what to do.
Oh, I meant events scaling to a large number of people, not the downleveling mechanic, which I like a lot.
First of all, an MMORPG is not an RPG. The story an RPG has to offer simply can't be done in an MMO. Secondly, a different story for every character has been tried a few times, and honestly, it's not different enough to validate the development time put in to it.
This is a typical case of 'I want an MMORPG to have AAA quality RPG quests', while it isn't entirely impossible, asking this of developers means making them pick between this and, what truly makes an MMO, group and endgame content for their launch content. Especially since the publishers, the company paying and getting large parts of the profit, want MMOs to be released as fast as possible, a choice has to be made.
This tends to result in a mediocre MMO at best, which lacks essentials to MMOs, namely group and end game content.
I agree questing in MMOs is a grind and something should be done about it, however not at the cost of endgame and group content, which seems to be what ends up happening.
Yea I like this method very much but IMO GW2 got it wrong. First the Hearts were a step back from exploration but encouraged linearity. Secondly like you said the DE's themselves were rather lackluster. I would of preferred longer chains.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
I am of the opinion that if the leveling progression was lengthy and entailed many high level coordinated quests reminiscent of Asheron's Call then your results would be different. Forced grouping is never a good thing but grouping should be encouraged and rewarding. As is typical of Asheron's Call; You can level solo all you want but to get the highest XP per hour it is better to group. You also are encouraged to group to do these detailed lengthy quests that reward you with needed items and skills. Such as doing the quest that rewards you with a weapon enchantment that deals additional damage to undead. Endgame activities should be varied and player driven I.E. Sandbox but should start earlier and not at some arbitrary level.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
What's the point of the system? IMO progression for progression sakes is boring. I need a reason to progress other then just to acquire higher skills. Maybe this is why I never got into EVE.
Also how would you progress? You're leaving off an important point there IMO. Are you still questing? Or Grinding? or?
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
The real problem with quest grinding is the quests themselves, but not in the way most people are thinking. In general, quests have been reduced to something of a rote task with no real risk to the player at large. The player doesn't lose anything for failing a quest and gains something valuable from completing it: making it the absolute end all way to safely get chunks of resources / experience.
Developers basically turned questing into something as low risk as gathering berries from bushes: why would anyone even care if there is a story behind a quest if the entire quest itself is just another checklist activity?
So to fix questing all that really needs to be done is change the rote and easy activities to things that we'd expect to be that way such as gathering, hunting, etc, and develop a fair risk and reward system for quests that give those story filled activities some memorability. We can probably thank the Dark Souls developers for bringing this facet to peoples attention, because for the longest time it seemed like developers completely lost the concept of a risk / reward system. Risk reward is a key part of what makes a game a game.
Play Puzzle Pirates.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
You're whateverthefuckyouwant-ing. You're playing what you want to play, however you want to play it. Gameplay and skill/stat advancement are decoupled in EVE.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Mind the type of mmo I want the tech isn't out for yet.
I would like to see more animated npc's like in Skyrim. I think quests are basically fun. Quest grinding is not fun. Focusing on making quests an enjoyment would fix this. MMORPG's seem to be a victim of generic boring quests. Killing twelve bees has just got to go. Leveling up via quests needs to go. Leveling needs to go. I think quests should be completely optional, attached to story line / lore, and give outrageous rewards so you feel like you actually accomplished something.
Example: I go to Miller Parsen. He's milling (not standing in the open rain for no damn reason staring into space). I need to talk to him soon because he gets off work at 5PM and he'll go home where I can't get to him and he doesn't work weekends. We small chat back and forth until he says something like, "Saw a strange light up in the hills yesterday." This entire dialog is only available once a year. Any other time I talk to Miller Parsen he will say something else who knows what but it will not be this quest. There is no accepting the quest button or even the know that I have a quest. Just common sense that if someone says, "I saw something," I probably ought to check it out. My character is tagged for this quest without me knowing it. No quest log. My character will stay tagged for this quest for 24hrs then it will auto drop. I will never know one way or the other. I've either got to get lucky thru exploration to accidentally stumble on the "hill of lights" or take npc Miller Parsen's lead and go investigate. I investigate the "hill of lights" and npc Wandering Sprite floats by saying, "Follow." "Follow." "Follow." Gee I think maybe I'll follow it. Etc etc etc until I get somewhere will a chest of 100 crafting rags, a unique tool found nowhere else, and a key to dungeon where the chest contain a rare breedable pink unicorn mount. Have well over a million "quest adventures" like this and the outcome always a substantial amount of loot. Have quest themes that include comedy, horror, sci fi, and fantasy.
Make the mmo a life simulation where my char can shit, piss, raise crops, and breed himself or his pets/livestock with genetic dna crossing and walla we have perfection.
Many ways ...
1) make MMO more like a SP game with story scripting inside instances .. no grind. Do the quests once, and make them as good as say Dishonored.
2) make a MOBA, open world pvp game, instanced pvp game (WoT) .... no questing is needed.
3) make the game about random dungeon runs (like D3 and other ARPGs). No fed-ex stuff .. no quests ... just combat + loot + reward from finishing objectives (bounties).
The problem most games have is that there are only a few ways to level up. Devs should try to make several ways to level up at the same pace. Running Dungeons, quest grinding, mob grinding, crafting, raiding, pvp, battlegrounds, exploring, etc. all should be ways to gain exp that are nearly equal to the time put into each. Your exp per hour shouldn't be too different based on whatever you're doing. With someone, like myself, who has a short attention span, I like to do several different things while playing games. I'll run a dungeon, then want to go gather materials, then I'll get distracted by a nearby quest, and maybe run into some mobs that I want to kill 1,000 of. These should all keep a steady flow of exp imho.
Edit: Take WoW for instance. I can dungeon grind a character from 1-90 (if a tank lol) in 19 hours with friends. However, for fun, I took a character and just mob grinded for ~40 hours and only got to level 67. Don't even bother with PvP, that'll take you over a year lol.