Do expansions break games ?

delete5230

I'm not sure how others feel about this, I could only speak for myself.  People touch on this subject and go on rants that expansions often wipe out a game or make everything they work for meaningless.

Here are a few feelings I get: 

List night I watched a YouTube on Retail Everquest 1.  The commentator opened by saying their are over 30 expansions to this game...... My first thought was stop watching right their !..... Too much research would have to un-confuse playing this game for the first time.  I know I have the same feeling if I reloaded one of my favorite classics Everquest 2.  Where do I start, then ahh screw it !

Same with World of Warcraft,  Developers mindless add 10 levels to each expansion and later give the thought "what about new players"...... Fast cure, lets let them auto start at 100 that will fix it...... does that fix it for you ?

How about the loyal fans..... Everything becomes useless complaint...... Is it a complaint or is it real ?...... Then add the feeling "I don't think I could ever make another level one again".


Here's other feeling I get, that turn me off with expansions:

I'll use ANet's Guild Wars 2 for my example.  I never really attached myself to this mmo.  On three occasions I reloaded this game played for a few weeks only to find I can't relate and uninstalled.  BUT BECAUSE OF EXPANSIONS they made the same old early game easy....... I get the feeling why play at all !..... This could easily happen with ESO or FF14.... I'm not sure if I'm alone with the "why play at all" feeling but it's how I feel..... Same with LOTRO.


My solution:

Don't add level caps.  But add new classes, abilities and starting, mid and end game zones only. 

How do you feel ?

What's your solution ?

Ridelynn

I think of expansions as jump-steps in evolution of an MMO. They are never the same post-expansion. And that's ok, MMOs need to evolve over time. Sometimes the changes for for the better, sometimes not, and we hope for more of the former than the latter.

As far as adding levels/raising caps/etc. Yeah, I can see that for some expansions, it's just a continuation of the familiar journey that previous players had already started. Yes, it leaves new players with a bit of catchup.

I think that every 2 or 3 expansions should be either some sort of reset or catch-up mechanic though. Legion is an example: They didn't reset character level, but they moved a significant portion of the character power into a new leveling mechanic (the Artifact), and offered a free Level 100 character. That essentially put all players on the same foot when it came to starting Legion content.

I don't think every expansion should do that - I did like Everquests flowing progression through early expansions, and how it kept previous expansion content relevant. But you are right, at some point, there needs to be a mechanic for new and returning players to catch up.

Most MMOs today, you level so fast that it hardly matters (and in WoW, I'd say the same thing, it only takes a blink of an eye to take a character from Level 1 to 100, even without the aid of power leveling or XP boosts or anything else), and it's mostly just catching up on the gear treadmill to get up to par with the average server population.

Renoaku

Expansions don't kill games, its Bad Development Decisions, Lack of Good Content which should exist, and Developers who do not think...

For example "World OF Warcraft" I loved the original game in fact I would likely play the original game again, but starting since "Burning Crusade" is where the game went down-hill it wasn't entirely so bad "Blood Elves" & Dranei" I was like Okay can squeeze this into the lore.

Shortly After the changes to the Talents such as Mage Nerf POM, Arcane Power, Pyroblast nerf ruined mage I Quit the game.

Tried the game more and more on and off watched as they drove the game deeper down the drain by adding Pandas, and even the Lich King, Okay perhaps this isn't game breaking, but when you turn too many races around without a proper lore to fit it that is somewhat realistic in the world, you totally change the talent tree around from what it was and totally change every dungeon...

(YOU GOT A WHOLE NEW GAME) Different feeling that drives customers away or at least some who liked it the old way.

Same thing happened with Arche Age, expansion added PVP ability to grief and no penalty for it, I quit.

Expansions don't break games, its the decisions made with those expansions that break the games.

Kyleran

Expansions have mostly ruined MMORPG's, at least for me.

First it was the TOA/New Frontiers expansions in DAOC which changed the game from one I loved to something nearly unrecognizable and drove me to play L2 and WOW instead.

WOW screwed the pooch when the BC expansion came out and suddenly level 63 greens were more powerful than the hard won purples I had achieved raiding in vanilla.  Even better, they changed the raiding mechanics, contributing to the collapse of my raiding guild and making sure there was no purpose to completing AQ-40 and the horsemen.

EVE did a great job for many years of adding new content but never disrupting what I previously enjoyed, and in some cases actually enhanced my playing experience.

Wasn't until last Novembers remote grid boosting/mining changes which basically made all of the time, effort and skill training I had put into 6 accounts the past 2.5 years worthless that I was pissed enough to stop playing for the past 6 months.

I'm contemplating a return to EVE now, but I won't go back to mining, it will be to take up something new and likely only on 2-3 accounts going forward.

So my experience with expansions has been they typically change the game in ways I don't enjoy, especially if a theme park so I'm generally not much in favor of them.

cameltosis

Expansions can go either way in my opinion, so really comes down to the developers. There are usually three main issues:

1) Content

You generally get more levels and thus more zones to work your way through those levels. It's great having new content to work through and doesn't invalidate anything that's gone before. The problem comes at endgame. During the course of of the base-games / expansions lifetime, endgame content generally gets fleshed out. So, just before an expansion hits is when you have the most amount of content to repeat at endgame. 

Once that expansion hits, the amount of endgame content tends to shrink and it could be months, if at all, before the endgame reaches the same size it was before. For example, just before Moria hit LotRO, we had 2 endgame multiboss raids and a good amount of 6man dungeons. After launch, we still had a good number of 6mans but only 1 raid, a raid that was only one boss. So, for months, endgame was stagnant until they finally added a new raid. 

In addition, the endgame content you used to do becomes obsolete. As it now becomes part of the leveling content, rather than endgame, the devs can't control peoples gear so balance gets shot, plus its too hard to get groups. 

So, on the content front, I do think it is a genuine problem for anybody interested in group content or endgame content. If you are a solo player, it's not a problem. 


2) Mechanics

This is what can really change everything. On the one hand, you want the developers to update their mechanics as it gives you something new to learn. On the other hand, if you've perfected the previous mechanics, or the new mechanics change the way the game feels, it can be very disjointing. 

Some mechanics changes are unavoidable. The Moria expansion for LotRO change the way our stats worked, specifically in relation to crit chance. They had to do it because in the base game, you capped out at around 25% crit chance. However, with 10 extra levels and inevitable stat inflation, it would have been possible to hit 40-50% crit chance which would have broken all balance. It was frustrating, but had to be done. 

Other mechanics changes are avoidable and require better thinking. Using Moria again, Turbine added a new mechanic called "radiance". This was a new stat that got added to gear and it countered "gloom", a boss debuff. It was henceforth impossible to raid without wearing radiance gear, and more radiance was always better, regardless of other stats. 

The result of this meant endgame gear progression went from horizontal in vanilla, to vertical in Moria. Players had far less choice in gear as they were forced down a single path. The casual raiding scene died because casual players didn't have the time to grind out entry level radiance. It took nearly 2 years for Turbine to finally admit their mistake but by that point, the damage was done.


My personal biggest problem with mechanics changes is the general trend of dumbing them down. With the inevitable drop is active players over time, appealing to new players becomes ever more important. So, devs dumb stuff down, so the new player experience has almost no challenge and thus no negative experiences. Sadly, I think this is a very short term view - in the short term, the players might have a better experience, but long term the lack of challenge and depth means they move on quicker. 


3) Gear

With new level caps, old gear becomes obsolete. For those who have spent months gathering their perfect set, the sense of loss can feel real. For those who hated the gear grind to begin with, the thought of having to do it again can be enough to make them quit.

For the vast majority though, I don't think it's an issue, but admittedly I don't have any evidence to back that up. For me personally, gear has always been a hurdle to overcome - I enjoy figuring out the meta-game and perfecting my character, but what I'm actually looking for is balanced, challenging content, and that only tends to happen when you are at the top of the power curve. 

Ikeda

Do expansions kill games?  Everquest only has 23 (not sure how you got the BS 30 number).  1999.  That's right.  What game are you currently playing that is almost 20 years old?  (and paying to do so)

They also have redone starter zones to help you, you get about 28 of those expansions for free by buying the most recent box expansion, and frankly devs have to eat.  No income generation, no development, no updates.

postlarval

Do they break games? No, I don't think so...in theory. When a game changes significantly, you'll have some old players who will leave, some new players who will join, and then you have the core of your player base that will stick with you regardless. That's true of many things in life. Examples: Star Wars movies. The Seattle Seahawks. The band Rush.

Look at Rush specifically. When they started to change directions and place more emphasis on synthesizers rather than the guitar, they lost some fans but gained new ones. When they changed again, the same thing happened. Through it all, there was a core base of fans who stuck with them and were as curious about where the band was going as the band was. Those are the people you pay attention to.

The problem with players is that every person thinks they are the core audience and that's simply not true. I think most game developers are aware of who their core audience is and they need to learn to listen to them and ignore the rest. It's OK to let players go. In fact, trying to satisfy everyone is what ruins games, not expansions.

Hariken

Shadowlands totally broke Anarchy Online. It became so unbalanced with Shadowlands gear that Veteran players quit in huge numbers and the game never recovered from it. The game gave players a huge variety in gear chose before Shadowlands so you could have unique builds and they worked. Then Shadowlands hit and all that went out the window because of its OP must have gear.

jmcdermottuk

It all depends on the devs and how they approach the expansion. Some MMO's have done a much better job than others.

As already pointed out, DAoC made a huge change with ToA which alienated a lot of players. WoW trivialised previous content with each expansion they released.

Then there's EVE which did a great job for 10 years with FREE expansions. EQ has also done a pretty good job at keeping older content relevent.

There's no right or wrong answer to this one. Some MMO's have been ruined by expansions but others have been enhanced. It all boils down to how each individual player feels about the changes made.

Iselin

Bad ones do. Good ones shouldn't.

Eldurian

I'm in full agreement. I know a couple games I used to play that when expansions came out and moved the level cap I felt so cheated out of my previous effort I could never get back into them. That's one of the major issues with leveling as content. If leveling is your content then you need to invalidate everything everyone has previously done every year or so to provide more "content" to your game.

That's also another thing the first Guild Wars got right. 2 major expansions and minor one plus assorted DLC.

Level cap raises? 0

Kyleran

Ikeda said:

Do expansions kill games?  Everquest only has 23 (not sure how you got the BS 30 number).  1999.  That's right.  What game are you currently playing that is almost 20 years old?  (and paying to do so)

They also have redone starter zones to help you, you get about 28 of those expansions for free by buying the most recent box expansion, and frankly devs have to eat.  No income generation, no development, no updates.

Wait, what's that $15.00 a month supposed to get me?  I much prefer EVE's approach of free expansions, all part of the sub fee.

Kyleran

postlarval said:

Do they break games? No, I don't think so...in theory. When a game changes significantly, you'll have some old players who will leave, some new players who will join, and then you have the core of your player base that will stick with you regardless. That's true of many things in life. Examples: Star Wars movies. The Seattle Seahawks. The band Rush.

Look at Rush specifically. When they started to change directions and place more emphasis on synthesizers rather than the guitar, they lost some fans but gained new ones. When they changed again, the same thing happened. Through it all, there was a core base of fans who stuck with them and were as curious about where the band was going as the band was. Those are the people you pay attention to.

The problem with players is that every person thinks they are the core audience and that's simply not true. I think most game developers are aware of who their core audience is and they need to learn to listen to them and ignore the rest. It's OK to let players go. In fact, trying to satisfy everyone is what ruins games, not expansions.

Not a good analogy.  MMORPG's these days rarely gain subscribers, for every one they permanently lose much smaller is the number of new joiners, even from an expansion.

Which is why MMORPG's  generally drain way players continually from the high waters of the first launch, at least for most in modern memory.

StoneRoses

Not enough starting areas in Xpacs. For those who have enjoyed leveling alts I am sure many of you have been bored to death seeing the same thing over and over again.

btdt

Kyleran said:

WOW screwed the pooch when the BC expansion came out and suddenly level 63 greens were more powerful than the hard won purples I had achieved raiding in vanilla.  

Problem is, the 'hard won' purples were only necessary for the end game content... nothing else.  Wearing them made everything else beyond trivial.  Do you really want to play a game in which everything is so trivial as to make acquiring said items pointless to begin with?  I remind you of dungeon loot... oh so quickly it is trivialized by raid loot.

They never had an idea of how to deal with itemization BEYOND the initial game... which is why things broke when they added expansions.  No one thought that far ahead and now it's like our transportation system... broken to such a degree as to make fixing it a near impossibility.

The solution?  Entirely new games because they aren't tied to the past nor hamstrung by the future.

Eldurian

Kyleran said:

postlarval said:

Do they break games? No, I don't think so...in theory. When a game changes significantly, you'll have some old players who will leave, some new players who will join, and then you have the core of your player base that will stick with you regardless. That's true of many things in life. Examples: Star Wars movies. The Seattle Seahawks. The band Rush.

Look at Rush specifically. When they started to change directions and place more emphasis on synthesizers rather than the guitar, they lost some fans but gained new ones. When they changed again, the same thing happened. Through it all, there was a core base of fans who stuck with them and were as curious about where the band was going as the band was. Those are the people you pay attention to.

The problem with players is that every person thinks they are the core audience and that's simply not true. I think most game developers are aware of who their core audience is and they need to learn to listen to them and ignore the rest. It's OK to let players go. In fact, trying to satisfy everyone is what ruins games, not expansions.

Not a good analogy.  MMORPG's these days rarely gain subscribers, for every one they permanently lose much smaller is the number of new joiners, even from an expansion.

Which is why MMORPG's  generally drain way players continually from the high waters of the first launch, at least for most in modern memory.

This is mostly true. The are a few exceptions such as the fact the EVE continued to put on subscribers for many years after release. (Source)

It's very true for your average MMO though. A game with the power to grow after release is a game that offers something else other games don't, and is continually improving upon their initial model.

MMOs like that are very rare.

ZionBane

delete5230 said:

I'm not sure how others feel about this, I could only speak for myself.  People touch on this subject and go on rants that expansions often wipe out a game or make everything they work for meaningless.

Here are a few feelings I get: 

List night I watched a YouTube on Retail Everquest 1.  The commentator opened by saying their are over 30 expansions to this game...... My first thought was stop watching right their !..... Too much research would have to un-confuse playing this game for the first time.  I know I have the same feeling if I reloaded one of my favorite classics Everquest 2.  Where do I start, then ahh screw it !

Same with World of Warcraft,  Developers mindless add 10 levels to each expansion and later give the thought "what about new players"...... Fast cure, lets let them auto start at 100 that will fix it...... does that fix it for you ?

How about the loyal fans..... Everything becomes useless complaint...... Is it a complaint or is it real ?...... Then add the feeling "I don't think I could ever make another level one again".


Here's other feeling I get, that turn me off with expansions:

I'll use ANet's Guild Wars 2 for my example.  I never really attached myself to this mmo.  On three occasions I reloaded this game played for a few weeks only to find I can't relate and uninstalled.  BUT BECAUSE OF EXPANSIONS they made the same old early game easy....... I get the feeling why play at all !..... This could easily happen with ESO or FF14.... I'm not sure if I'm alone with the "why play at all" feeling but it's how I feel..... Same with LOTRO.


My solution:

Don't add level caps.  But add new classes, abilities and starting, mid and end game zones only. 

How do you feel ?

What's your solution ?

As irony would have it. GW2, did exactly that with their expansion. They did not raise the level cap, nor did they make base game easier (any feelings of being easier were more often a byproduct of the veteran player base, then any actual reduction in the games difficulty setting), in fact they made at least one Dragon Herald Encounter harder... 

What they added was "Enchantments" which did not add raw power to your character all.. for example.. one of the Enchantment lines gave you "Auto-loot-pick-up" and access to a vendor that traveled around and sold random stuff.

I mean there were some for just the HoT maps, but they were more geared to getting around those maps, they did not add to the ability to kill a mob or another player.

They did add "Elite Spec".. which.. to be honest.. IMHO was not "all that" I understood that people drooled all over them as the have all end all of what you needed, but my Shout Guard, did just fine in the new content, and did not need to use Elite, in fact I did not go Elite till a few months after HoT came out.. and... again.. IMHO.. I didn't feel the power boot that everyone gushed about.

I will admit.. their entire focus on "end game" content however.. really spoiled the whole thing.. so yah.. I will agree.. that there should be more focus on "Fun Content" not just "End Game"

waynejr2

Kyleran said:

Ikeda said:

Do expansions kill games?  Everquest only has 23 (not sure how you got the BS 30 number).  1999.  That's right.  What game are you currently playing that is almost 20 years old?  (and paying to do so)

They also have redone starter zones to help you, you get about 28 of those expansions for free by buying the most recent box expansion, and frankly devs have to eat.  No income generation, no development, no updates.

Wait, what's that $15.00 a month supposed to get me?  I much prefer EVE's approach of free expansions, all part of the sub fee.

$15.00 gets you access.

waynejr2

Kyleran said:

Expansions have mostly ruined MMORPG's, at least for me.

First it was the TOA/New Frontiers expansions in DAOC which changed the game from one I loved to something nearly unrecognizable and drove me to play L2 and WOW instead.

WOW screwed the pooch when the BC expansion came out and suddenly level 63 greens were more powerful than the hard won purples I had achieved raiding in vanilla.  Even better, they changed the raiding mechanics, contributing to the collapse of my raiding guild and making sure there was no purpose to completing AQ-40 and the horsemen.

EVE did a great job for many years of adding new content but never disrupting what I previously enjoyed, and in some cases actually enhanced my playing experience.

Wasn't until last Novembers remote grid boosting/mining changes which basically made all of the time, effort and skill training I had put into 6 accounts the past 2.5 years worthless that I was pissed enough to stop playing for the past 6 months.

I'm contemplating a return to EVE now, but I won't go back to mining, it will be to take up something new and likely only on 2-3 accounts going forward.

So my experience with expansions has been they typically change the game in ways I don't enjoy, especially if a theme park so I'm generally not much in favor of them.

Well, IMO, they should have added 60 levels at BC and let those old purples be top gear for 20 - 30+ levels.

firefly2003

Do expansions break games? In Star Wars Galaxies case yes 

Albatroes

The main problem that I find with a lot of expansions is that they lack cohesion with the entire game and try to isolate people to just that expansion. Its like all of a sudden the rest of the game doesn't matter and the expansion should be the focal point of everyone's energies until the next expansion. There's also the complete sense of pointlessness to previous efforts such as gear grinding and such since all that gear from the previous content is obsolete within a few hours into the new expansion usually.

Theocritus

I remember in EQ it felt like they just added expansions to make more money...many of them felt pointless and not something we needed to pay another  $20-30 for.....After a handful Id had enough and quit for good.....WoW is another good example.....I could never go back there now....i'm like 3-4 expansions behind at least and I have no interest in paying to catch up then all that leveling ugh.

FrodoFragins

You didn't really make a point as far as I can tell.  It was all just ramblings.

TheScavenger

If WoW kept the same level as vanilla, imagine all the endgame content there would be that wasn't outdated and still relevant. Maybe not do the GW2 approach downlevel everywhere...but Blizzard would have been able to do so much and add so much more content.

And not only that, but players would be able to experience tons of content as well without it being so easy because of outleveling it. This would have vastly improved the group experience.

I do like expansions, but I do not like expansions that make content irrelevant. 

Theocritus

waynejr2 said:

Kyleran said:

Ikeda said:

Do expansions kill games?  Everquest only has 23 (not sure how you got the BS 30 number).  1999.  That's right.  What game are you currently playing that is almost 20 years old?  (and paying to do so)

They also have redone starter zones to help you, you get about 28 of those expansions for free by buying the most recent box expansion, and frankly devs have to eat.  No income generation, no development, no updates.

Wait, what's that $15.00 a month supposed to get me?  I much prefer EVE's approach of free expansions, all part of the sub fee.

$15.00 gets you access.

Which is why the P2P format fails miserably

LeGrosGamer

*looks at WoW* ... it still has a few million subs even after a 13-14 year release ... *looks at FF14* ... a few million subs there also and their next Xpac is most likely going to sky rocket their sub base... *noticed both are P2P* ... yeah, your problem is that 99% of MMO's are F2P and all suck. 

 About EVE-Online, I might actually renew my account, stopped playing in 2012 (2004~2012 daily player), and with CCP no longer in partnership with Nexon for almost a month now, I'm willing to give it another shot.