To answer the OP quickly and easily. MMOs have drifted from using your intelligence to using your dexterity when it comes to combat. It's more about twitch now than thinking and I can see why that can be a problem for older players who have more wits than finger finesse. Me being one of them.
In games like ESO the “wits” is in your build.
I would argue that active blocking, dodging, sprinting, and aiming all while trying to execute your rotation takes much more wit than pressing buttons in a certain order.
That is literally tab-target combat. Get onto the right target and push buttons in the right order to win.
I would disagree.
Action combat games typically have few active skills available, so you just don't need to engage your brain. Like in ESO, you have attack, power attack, 5 skills plus your ultimate (iirc, haven't played in ages). Do you really need much "wit" to choose what to do next? Most of your skills form part of your rotation, so your decision making comes down to:
Do I continue with rotation?
Do I block?
Do I dodge / move?
Do I use my 1 situational ability?
The difficult part isn't about the choice. The difficult part is how fast you can process the choice. Everyone can play tetris, but not everyone can process it fast enough.
The main problem with anything require fast reaction time over the internet is people's latency is different. And typically you get many complain from people with bad latency.
The state of MMOs is based on a couple factors but here is why it's dying:
So when is MMOS not dying? Pre Wow era where the total mmorpg players in the world is like 3 million? I'm sure there are much much more mmorpg player now than before.
The state of MMOs is based on a couple factors but here is why it's dying:
1. The core content of every MMO developed on a AAA budget is the same core content of every other MMO developed on a AAA budget. 2. That core content is grinding. First quest grinding for levels. And then raid/arena/dungeon grinding for gear.
People are tired of it. It's not fun to the vast majority of gamers to play this same model over and over and over. And even less fun to people who never really liked that model to begin with.
As my signature says. It's time for MMOs to move past stat grinding as "content".
I don't think people are tired of it, they just have a lot more choices - the players are generally spread too thin, with a few exceptions. MMORPG as a genre is too saturated right now. This hurts newer games, as this genre depends on players sitting on the same games. Developers design to facilitate that. A game with no grinding is a game that someone can walk away from immediately, and immediately catch up when they come back a year later - meanwhile, you lost all of the revenue from those subs...
Player population is a huge factor in the game's viability. This is why a lot of people don't want to leave WoW or FFXIV. Most other games feel "dead" in comparison to them.
Grinding happens outside of MMORPGs. It's a staple of gaming. It happens in single-player RPGs and ARPGs as well. You're still grinding Levels in PoE, or Paragons in Diablo III... Or XP in Team-based games like Overwatch or Destiny II. You even grind in Hearthstone. Pretty sure there's a grind component to MOBAs like LoL and HotS, as well.
Grinding is how games lock you in. They lock you in with your time investment. The fact that you had to do/play so much to get where you are, disincentivizes you from taking breaks, unsubbing, going to other games because you don't want that time to be "all for nothing." One could say that you got what you paid for - entertainment - but that's not the way many people feel about it, or think about it...
There's really no other way to design a game that actually incentivizes players to play, other than gating the content - either through time sinks (grinding), flagging, level requirements, etc. or manners tied to those (i.e. gear iLvl checks which force Character Level, Flagging, and Time Sink costs into the equation).
So, pinning that on "MMORPGs" seems a bit far-fetched. Games were like this before MMORPGs existed. They will continue to be. There is no other workable formula at the moment, unless you expect everything to be Free to Play with a cash shop... It's just more evident to people on forums like this, because a lot of the players play - predominantly - MMORPG games. Many of the posters here have fairly thin experience with other genres of gaming (or they came from console games, which lacked the diverse business models on PC until recently).
Also, when games do make it less grindy, people here complain that it's too "easy," and say they want it to be more "difficult"... Usually... via grinding and forced groupage (which wastes a ton of people's time)... Why do you think Pantheon is so popular at the moment? It can't be the dated gameplay... It's because it's copying the EQ formula and a certain niche of players like that.
So the community is completely split on this matter, and many people are openly hypocritical about it.
I personally think the reason why newer MMORPGs fail is because they are uninteresting games. When people got into EQ and WoW, they were interested in all facets of the game. The Lore, for example, was extremely deep and drew people in. People took things such as "which diety should my character worship" seriously. Role Playing was actually a thing back then. That has since, largely, died out.
The market has changed. Player attitudes have change. The MMORPG market is oversaturated with too many "me too" titles, and other types of games - like FPS, MOBAs, and ARPGs are starting to leech players off of MMORPGs because they are less wasteful of your time and generic PC hardware is powerful enough to run those types of games well.
The state of MMOs is based on a couple factors but here is why it's dying:
So when is MMOS not dying? Pre Wow era where the total mmorpg players in the world is like 3 million? I'm sure there are much much more mmorpg player now than before.
The players who played EQ played EQ almost exclusively. That's what made that MMORPG market different than the current one.
These days, things are different. Not only is the MMORPG market saturated, but there are a ton of other genres seeing lots of development. MOBAs are seeing a ton of development (LoL, DotA, HotS, Smite, etc.), Team-Based Shooters are seeing more development (Destiny, Overwatch, etc.), ARPGs are seeing more development (D3, PoE, etc.).
In addition to that, MMORPGs are ill-suited for eSports and streaming, unless you really nail PvP in your game. This is a big incentive for players with decent mechanical skills to ditch MMORPGs for those genres. You can't really do PvE eSports.
The state of MMOs is based on a couple factors but here is why it's dying:
So when is MMOS not dying? Pre Wow era where the total mmorpg players in the world is like 3 million? I'm sure there are much much more mmorpg player now than before.
That was almost 14 years ago at this point. (2004-2018) There are more people now using spears and bows than there were when these tools were first invented and hadn't spread to other tribes yet. Are you still going to be using the same line if this slow decline continues into 2050? "Oh yeah well there are more MMO players now than there were in 1999 when Everquest came out!"
Bad argument. MMOs are dying right now. Less MMOs are coming out than ever before (particularly AAA games made by major companies) and all existing MMOs are in a population decline.
The state of MMOs is based on a couple factors but here is why it's dying:
1. The core content of every MMO developed on a AAA budget is the same core content of every other MMO developed on a AAA budget. 2. That core content is grinding. First quest grinding for levels. And then raid/arena/dungeon grinding for gear.
People are tired of it. It's not fun to the vast majority of gamers to play this same model over and over and over. And even less fun to people who never really liked that model to begin with.
As my signature says. It's time for MMOs to move past stat grinding as "content".
I don't think people are tired of it, they just have a lot more choices - the players are generally spread too thin, with a few exceptions. MMORPG as a genre is too saturated right now. This hurts newer games, as this genre depends on players sitting on the same games. Developers design to facilitate that. A game with no grinding is a game that someone can walk away from immediately, and immediately catch up when they come back a year later - meanwhile, you lost all of the revenue from those subs...
Player population is a huge factor in the game's viability. This is why a lot of people don't want to leave WoW or FFXIV. Most other games feel "dead" in comparison to them.
Grinding happens outside of MMORPGs. It's a staple of gaming. It happens in single-player RPGs and ARPGs as well. You're still grinding Levels in PoE, or Paragons in Diablo III... Or XP in Team-based games like Overwatch or Destiny II. You even grind in Hearthstone. Pretty sure there's a grind component to MOBAs like LoL and HotS, as well.
Grinding is how games lock you in. They lock you in with your time investment. The fact that you had to do/play so much to get where you are, disincentivizes you from taking breaks, unsubbing, going to other games because you don't want that time to be "all for nothing." One could say that you got what you paid for - entertainment - but that's not the way many people feel about it, or think about it...
There's really no other way to design a game that actually incentivizes players to play, other than gating the content - either through time sinks (grinding), flagging, level requirements, etc. or manners tied to those (i.e. gear iLvl checks which force Character Level, Flagging, and Time Sink costs into the equation).
So, pinning that on "MMORPGs" seems a bit far-fetched. Games were like this before MMORPGs existed. They will continue to be. There is no other workable formula at the moment, unless you expect everything to be Free to Play with a cash shop...
So this whole post can essentially be summed up in two points you seem to be trying to make.
1. Every game has grinding. 2. Games depend on the grind to keep you playing.
On those points I would assert you are wrong.
1. Every game has you investing time to get better but that is fundamentally different from MMO grinding. For this purpose we're going to compare one of the most enduring games of all time with one of the most committed player bases to MMOs, as well as the currently most successful game on the market. Starcraft, and League of Legends. Do you have to invest time into getting better in SC and LoL? Yes. Absolutely.
But it's completely different in nature to an MMO. SC and LoL are more comparable to practicing a sport or a hobby. You have to refine your techniques through usage. Getting better is about investigating strategies, apply them, and eventually mastering them. Then going back and learning new strategies you can add to your bag of tools to pull out when the situation calls for it.
It takes skills. It takes intelligence. It takes dedication. It takes confidence and the right mindset. In team based games it can take teamwork and practicing these techniques together with your team.
In MMOs it takes time, and only time. Dedication, skill, intelligence, and teamwork are all replaceable with more time. Sure one strategy may allow for faster grinding than another. But if I've been playing for 5 years and you've been playing for 1, I am going to beat you every single time even if all I did for that entire 5 years was run through motions while you busted ass every single day.
Absolutely not the case in skill based games. Veterans are more likely to be better but a talented rookie who really applies themselves can still show up a lazy veteran.
2. As stated. SC and LoL. Every game starts you at an equal point statwise, so it is irrefutable these game's success has absolutely nothing to do with stat grinding.
Also, from my experience, the most fun I've ever had in a multiplayer persistent universe (The massive part wasn't really there as the server cap was 50 but it played like an Open World PvP MMO.) was in vanilla Freelancer where max stats were achievable within 24 hours of play. More hours spent on that game than any other game. More months spent playing it than any other game. Did I sometimes walk away for a bit and them come back? Absolutely.
But if that game had frequent updates and charged 15$ a month they would have had more of my money than any other game I've ever played.
So explain to me when are MMO ever popular. Pre Wow there are almost no mmorpg player. There are less than 3 million players in the whole world. Post Wow, Wow is the only successful MMORPG. When is mmorpg ever popular?
I remember when I went to highschool (Class of 2007) MMOs were in a frenzy of popularity. There were new MMOs coming out all the time. My friends were playing MMOs. Most gamers you talked to were playing MMOS.
A bit after graduation I noticed none of my highschool friends were playing MMOs and when I tried to show them MMOs they would tell me "Yeah man, I'm not too in to MMOs anymore, they eat your life." And when asked to elaborate they basically say the same thing I keep repeating all over these boards. Stat grinding needs to die.
These same friends were constantly playing single player games, Minecraft, we all played Starcraft 2 together for awhile etc. Funnily enough these are the same friends who introduced me to my first MMO (Runescape) when I was in 8th grade.
And while many of my friends back then were playing WoW, I barely played it. I remember LOTRO, Knight Online, Runescape, EVE, Pirates of the Burning Sea etc. etc. etc. as some of the many MMOs that were released to great excitement during that era. SWTOR came on stage just as MMOs began their fall from grace IMO. Post SWTOR MMOs have continued on a path of slow and steady decline.
So based on my own observations I would say MMOs were a small growing genre until around 2004-2011 where they were very popular, and then 2011 to 2017 they've really been a constantly shrinking genre.
I remember when I went to highschool (Class of 2007) MMOs were in a frenzy of popularity. There were new MMOs coming out all the time. My friends were playing MMOs. Most gamers you talked to were playing MMOS.
A bit after graduation I noticed none of my highschool friends were playing MMOs and when I tried to show them MMOs they would tell me "Yeah man, I'm not too in to MMOs anymore, they eat your life." And when asked to elaborate they basically say the same thing I keep repeating all over these boards. Stat grinding needs to die.
These same friends were constantly playing single player games, Minecraft, we all played Starcraft 2 together for awhile etc. Funnily enough these are the same friends who introduced me to my first MMO (Runescape) when I was in 8th grade.
And while many of my friends back then were playing WoW, I barely played it. I remember LOTRO, Knight Online, Runescape, EVE, Pirates of the Burning Sea etc. etc. etc. as some of the many MMOs that were released to great excitement during that era. SWTOR came on stage just as MMOs began their fall from grace IMO. Post SWTOR MMOs have continued on a path of slow and steady decline.
And how popular are those games? Lotro, knight online, runescape, eve, pirates of the burning sea?
Runescape was original release in 2001 by the way.
I ask if last poster truly understands the words ROLE PLAYING? Oki so i assume your correct stats need to die and why?How will you represent the life over time of a character?You 100% need to assimilate life somehow,so what would be the replacement because all i am seeing is LAZIER game designs with unreal spammy animations/combat.
Entering a world and just one shotting Diablo like is not role play gaming,arpg's are not role play gaming yet that is what all the devs are building now.
i am on the opposite fence,i want stats and i want more of and way more depth.You can NOT attain depth in a game with out stats and stat formula's.Even if i or we look beyond stats then what else is there,loot grinding,how is that any different,it is the EXACT same thing because that loot is ONLY valuable because of it's stats.
Ok so where does that put us,no loot,no role playing,no depth,might as well just make another Diablo or moba with no quality type game because it most certainly would not be a rpg anymore.
All i have seen the past 5 years is devs trying to remove the rpg and remove the mmo and turn gaming into end game instance runs.I have no idea why people are worried about grind,is there some kind of RACE we should be involved with in a mmorpg that i don't know about?
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
It be niche, but be a successful niche (if done properly of course)
Seriously. lol
I'm hoping Monster Hunter World will scratch that itch a bit later this month (gotta wait longer to get it on PC though). I haven't really played any MH before, but it looks like it requires a group of people to take down the big stuff.
If MHW is like Dark Souls, its going to be stuck as a niche game. Forced grouping games haven't done well, especially these days. Remember the original dungeons and dragons online?
Challenge is one thing, but frustration is another. Very few Dev's seem to be able to keep things on the challenge side, without falling off the edge into frustration.
So explain to me when are MMO ever popular. Pre Wow there are almost no mmorpg player. There are less than 3 million players in the whole world. Post Wow, Wow is the only successful MMORPG. When is mmorpg ever popular?
Uhm, the first huge MMO was Lineage (1999), not Wow. It had far more then 3 million players before Wows release by itself. I am not sure of it's current numbers but it had 3 millions still a year ago, it might be down to 2 now but if you call a 19 year old game that made that insane sum of money and still earns loads of cash unsuccessful you are just wrong.
But if you look on how much budget an average MMO in the making have we can see some trends. There is possibly a single western AAA MMO in the making at this point, Amazons project. There is also some unconfirmed and the crowdfunded Star citizen that have tons of cash. Still, the last few years have seen no western AAA release since ESO and GW2 and very little is in the making. The genre is clearly less popular now in the west then it have been in a long time.
South Korea, China and Japan are different and still make AAA MMOs but we don't see all of those games with a western version. It is clearly still popular there but not so much in the west.
I would say that we at least need 5 confirmed AAA MMOs in the making to call the genre "popular". A few western games are still doing fine with Wow in the top followed by GW2 and ESO but the genre in itself isn't or the publishers would be working on more of them.
What we have now in the making is mostly crowd funded and indie games, if one of them becomes a hit the market will turn again. There is also the possibility that someone will pull a new AAA game out of their hat that attracts the masses or that a new eastern game becomes huge here as well. But right now, things aren't great in the west.
Confused with what you are going on about. MMO combat has only gotten better over time. Older games you barely had abilities to hit besides auto attack and the combat was completely stationary. Now you have dodging skills, skill shots, rotations, procs, and npc's that are harder through design rather then just more damage / health.
Action combat games typically have few active skills available, so you just don't need to engage your brain. Like in ESO, you have attack, power attack, 5 skills plus your ultimate (iirc, haven't played in ages). Do you really need much "wit" to choose what to do next? Most of your skills form part of your rotation, so your decision making comes down to:
Do I continue with rotation?
Do I block?
Do I dodge / move?
Do I use my 1 situational ability?
I don't know about you, but making a choice between 4 possible choices is pretty easy. Compare that to a well designed tab-target system. You lose the active blocking from the decision making, but that last choice (the 1 situational) becomes a choice of lots of situational abilities. So, instead of choosing between 4 options, you're now choosing between 20 options.....that requires more "wit".
Well IDK how long you played ESO but you have either forgotten that ESO and a lot of modern MMOs like it have the abilities you use do double, triple or quadruple duty compared to the single purpose use of abilities in older MMOs.
Many are also situational in that they behave differently depending on circumstances - most of the execute abilities act that way depending on the health % of the target.
Take Poison Injection for example. It's a bow ability that deals direct damage + a DOT and if the target is < 50% health both the DD and the DOT component do double damage. But that's not all. If you have the Long Shots passive fully trained and you move out to maximum range its damage is increased by 12% and if you have the Hawk Eye passive fully trained and you precede poison injection with 5 light attacks that increases its damage by an additional 25%.
There are many abilities that have CC components or proc heals or do all kinds of other things in addition to their core function.
To a casual player that doesn't spend the time to try to understand what they're doing then yes, ESO can seem simplistic but if you actually take the time, like an archer in the example above that does 5 light attacks while moving back to max range and then lets Poison injection fly when the boss' health is <50% then you're using the system with intelligence.
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So explain to me when are MMO ever popular. Pre Wow there are almost no mmorpg player. There are less than 3 million players in the whole world. Post Wow, Wow is the only successful MMORPG. When is mmorpg ever popular?
Uhm, the first huge MMO was Lineage (1999), not Wow. It had far more then 3 million players before Wows release by itself. I am not sure of it's current numbers but it had 3 millions still a year ago, it might be down to 2 now but if you call a 19 year old game that made that insane sum of money and still earns loads of cash unsuccessful you are just wrong.
But if you look on how much budget an average MMO in the making have we can see some trends. There is possibly a single western AAA MMO in the making at this point, Amazons project. There is also some unconfirmed and the crowdfunded Star citizen that have tons of cash. Still, the last few years have seen no western AAA release since ESO and GW2 and very little is in the making. The genre is clearly less popular now in the west then it have been in a long time.
South Korea, China and Japan are different and still make AAA MMOs but we don't see all of those games with a western version. It is clearly still popular there but not so much in the west.
I would say that we at least need 5 confirmed AAA MMOs in the making to call the genre "popular". A few western games are still doing fine with Wow in the top followed by GW2 and ESO but the genre in itself isn't or the publishers would be working on more of them.
What we have now in the making is mostly crowd funded and indie games, if one of them becomes a hit the market will turn again. There is also the possibility that someone will pull a new AAA game out of their hat that attracts the masses or that a new eastern game becomes huge here as well. But right now, things aren't great in the west.
Ok I'm wrong but if you include the asia market it just show how insignificant the western mmorpg market is. For example you read Fantasy westward journey peak at 1.5 million "concurrent user", how many concurrent user Eve have?
I stand by there are no more than 3 million mmorpg players pre wow in the western market. none of the people on this forum cares about what happened in asia. For example there are 3 million lineage players peak, but almost none are in the US.
And if you include the asian market, they pretty much release mmorpg every month. So how is MMORPG dying?
So explain to me when are MMO ever popular. Pre Wow there are almost no mmorpg player. There are less than 3 million players in the whole world. Post Wow, Wow is the only successful MMORPG. When is mmorpg ever popular?
I would say that we at least need 5 confirmed AAA MMOs in the making to call the genre "popular". A few western games are still doing fine with Wow in the top followed by GW2 and ESO but the genre in itself isn't or the publishers would be working on more of them.
Fantasy westward journey, Age of Wulin, Dungeon fighter online, Wow. That is 4. And arguable lineage 5.
In the future maybe Age of Wulin 2. I dont' know what will get popular but most likely chinese games, because china have enough people to back it up.
So explain to me when are MMO ever popular. Pre Wow there are almost no mmorpg player. There are less than 3 million players in the whole world. Post Wow, Wow is the only successful MMORPG. When is mmorpg ever popular?
I would say that we at least need 5 confirmed AAA MMOs in the making to call the genre "popular". A few western games are still doing fine with Wow in the top followed by GW2 and ESO but the genre in itself isn't or the publishers would be working on more of them.
Fantasy westward journey, Age of Wulin, Dungeon fighter online, Wow. That is 4. And arguable lineage 5.
In the future maybe Age of Wulin 2. I dont' know what will get popular but most likely chinese games, because china have enough people to back it up.
About the only thing I miss about the old school combat was the crowd control. Starting from EQ, to DAOC, to vanilla WoW, crowd control was pretty much a "class" in itself. It required skill and patience to pull off good cc. You were needed in groups, in raids, and in PvP.
These days crowd control are pretty watered down. They're available to pretty much all classes so it's no longer a dedicated role as much as it used to be. And you can't really blame it on the new games either, because EQ and WoW both watered cc down in their own games.
cc slowly got stripped away in favor of mass pulls and speed clears. So while I favor today's action combat in MMO's, I do wish they had retained some of that old school cc.
Played: EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-LOTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO-BDO Waiting For: CU & Vanilla WoW
I remember when I went to highschool (Class of 2007) MMOs were in a frenzy of popularity. There were new MMOs coming out all the time. My friends were playing MMOs. Most gamers you talked to were playing MMOS.
A bit after graduation I noticed none of my highschool friends were playing MMOs and when I tried to show them MMOs they would tell me "Yeah man, I'm not too in to MMOs anymore, they eat your life." And when asked to elaborate they basically say the same thing I keep repeating all over these boards. Stat grinding needs to die.
These same friends were constantly playing single player games, Minecraft, we all played Starcraft 2 together for awhile etc. Funnily enough these are the same friends who introduced me to my first MMO (Runescape) when I was in 8th grade.
And while many of my friends back then were playing WoW, I barely played it. I remember LOTRO, Knight Online, Runescape, EVE, Pirates of the Burning Sea etc. etc. etc. as some of the many MMOs that were released to great excitement during that era. SWTOR came on stage just as MMOs began their fall from grace IMO. Post SWTOR MMOs have continued on a path of slow and steady decline.
And how popular are those games? Lotro, knight online, runescape, eve, pirates of the burning sea?
Runescape was original release in 2001 by the way.
While some of them (Especially Runescape) were wildly popular at the time they've dropped off a lot over the years. And that's the point. New MMOs aren't really coming out to replace old ones as the popularity of the old ones is universally dropping. It used to be new MMOs were coming out to great excitement so fast you couldn't even keep track of them all.
I ask if last poster truly understands the words ROLE PLAYING? Oki so i assume your correct stats need to die and why?How will you represent the life over time of a character?You 100% need to assimilate life somehow,so what would be the replacement because all i am seeing is LAZIER game designs with unreal spammy animations/combat.
You don't need to artificially replicate experience. Real experience is reflected in the player's skill. Unless they are lazy and don't truly work at improvement very hard. Then that is reflected too.
I find that far more immersive, and it put's me in the shoes of my character far more than this:
Rather than sidetracking the argument by screaming PAY TO WIN!!! Like most people. Look at the video and as yourself this question:
Suppose he grinded long enough to get all that gear in-game. Is that still ok? If no, then you might start to understand why I think stat-grind is the single worst feature of WoW clones and is ruining the MMO genre.
Ok I'm wrong but if you include the asia market it just show how insignificant the western mmorpg market is. For example you read Fantasy westward journey peak at 1.5 million "concurrent user", how many concurrent user Eve have?
I stand by there are no more than 3 million mmorpg players pre wow in the western market. none of the people on this forum cares about what happened in asia. For example there are 3 million lineage players peak, but almost none are in the US.
And if you include the asian market, they pretty much release mmorpg every month. So how is MMORPG dying?
Wait, "West" is just US? I am pretty sure Canada, Europe and Australia is western as well.
And I played Lineage myself in 2001, it certainly wasn't as popular in the west and in Asia but back then it was rather large, not quite as EQ but still rather large.
3 million sounds low in any case, while no game had more then EQs just below half a mil there were rather many games around. SWG had 400K players, DaoC somewhat less. There were AO, , UO, Eve, AC 1 & 2... My guess would be more around 5 million players then 3.
I never said that MMOs were dying, just that we are losing players in the west. And we certainly have a MMO market moving more and more to Asia right now.
You have some good points OP. Imo, square really missed the mark with the 2.5 cooldown and the solo-centric gameplay of ffxiv. ffxi had some really inspiring group-focused, actually difficult (to some degrees, extreme) pve gameplay in ffxi. But they lost it all with ffxiv and never transitioned properly to anything to replace it.
Just one example from ffxi- the upper/mid level main questline to get your legendary equipment- this stuff could not be done solo, and there were zero rewards for people that helped you. You actually had to organize/bargin with people to get these quests done, and not only that- they were very difficult, time-consuming, and required long distance travel in most cases to remote places that are just a plain pain in the ass to get to.
FFXI lost this interesting edge in later years, and many people complained about these kind of "requirements", but there was an amazing magic there that actually connected you to other players because of your reliance on them, without the need to try to kill them.
So I'm still waiting for some answers to my main question...
Since, according to Mmorpg.com's ratings system that these games (GW2, FFXIV, ESO, BDO) are the "best" right now. The fact that tons of fellow forum users on this site are suggesting repeatedly those particular games are great.
What is the draw? Is it all about the pvp (because obviously the pve sucks)? How are they overcoming the total lack of the need to use all of these abilities until "end game"? Is it because reaching "end game" is only a couple of mindless days away from creating a character, then the "actual" game begins....pvp?
What about the pvp interests them the most? Again, I've stated that all of my past experiences with pvp have been battlegrounds type (open field, etc.) zerg rushes. I hate that. Some good 1v1 threats while out in the wilderness farming mobs could be great. (You're leveling in the woods alone - You see out of the corner of your eye, someone else scamper behind some trees - Oh crap, I hope they aren't going to attack me, but if they do, then it's ON!) Is there any meaningful pvp in these mmos?
Point being....what is it that I'm missing?! I'm willing to do some pvp, if that's where all the fun is (apparently). But is there a point to it? Exp? Loot? Special points to buy gear to show I'm a badass in pvp?
THe draw?
I enjoy the game. I play FFXIV. It's got some big flaws. Combat is certainly one of them, but the game is still worth playing to me. If you are playing these games and not enjoying them, then you have your answer.
entirely opposite for me, combat on the melee dps jobs is some of the most entertaining tab target combat there is but there's nothing to do in the game. content is cleared so fast and made obsolete so quickly and it only comes every 3 and 6 months
So I'm still waiting for some answers to my main question...
Since, according to Mmorpg.com's ratings system that these games (GW2, FFXIV, ESO, BDO) are the "best" right now. The fact that tons of fellow forum users on this site are suggesting repeatedly those particular games are great.
What is the draw? Is it all about the pvp (because obviously the pve sucks)? How are they overcoming the total lack of the need to use all of these abilities until "end game"? Is it because reaching "end game" is only a couple of mindless days away from creating a character, then the "actual" game begins....pvp?
What about the pvp interests them the most? Again, I've stated that all of my past experiences with pvp have been battlegrounds type (open field, etc.) zerg rushes. I hate that. Some good 1v1 threats while out in the wilderness farming mobs could be great. (You're leveling in the woods alone - You see out of the corner of your eye, someone else scamper behind some trees - Oh crap, I hope they aren't going to attack me, but if they do, then it's ON!) Is there any meaningful pvp in these mmos?
Point being....what is it that I'm missing?! I'm willing to do some pvp, if that's where all the fun is (apparently). But is there a point to it? Exp? Loot? Special points to buy gear to show I'm a badass in pvp?
THe draw?
I enjoy the game. I play FFXIV. It's got some big flaws. Combat is certainly one of them, but the game is still worth playing to me. If you are playing these games and not enjoying them, then you have your answer.
entirely opposite for me, combat on the melee dps jobs is some of the most entertaining tab target combat there is but there's nothing to do in the game. content is cleared so fast and made obsolete so quickly and it only comes every 3 and 6 months
It's cool you're having fun but honestly I cannot fathom being seriously engaged in the combat with a 2.5 second cooldown, even on the melee classes. To be engaged in combat I have to be reacting or pressured to act appropriately. With 2.5 seconds between abilities, I found neither of those happening when I played ffxiv.
I mean, you even state here the content is "too easy". That's basically the whole point.
I remember when I went to highschool (Class of 2007) MMOs were in a frenzy of popularity. There were new MMOs coming out all the time. My friends were playing MMOs. Most gamers you talked to were playing MMOS.
A bit after graduation I noticed none of my highschool friends were playing MMOs and when I tried to show them MMOs they would tell me "Yeah man, I'm not too in to MMOs anymore, they eat your life." And when asked to elaborate they basically say the same thing I keep repeating all over these boards. Stat grinding needs to die.
These same friends were constantly playing single player games, Minecraft, we all played Starcraft 2 together for awhile etc. Funnily enough these are the same friends who introduced me to my first MMO (Runescape) when I was in 8th grade.
And while many of my friends back then were playing WoW, I barely played it. I remember LOTRO, Knight Online, Runescape, EVE, Pirates of the Burning Sea etc. etc. etc. as some of the many MMOs that were released to great excitement during that era. SWTOR came on stage just as MMOs began their fall from grace IMO. Post SWTOR MMOs have continued on a path of slow and steady decline.
And how popular are those games? Lotro, knight online, runescape, eve, pirates of the burning sea?
Runescape was original release in 2001 by the way.
While some of them (Especially Runescape) were wildly popular at the time they've dropped off a lot over the years. And that's the point. New MMOs aren't really coming out to replace old ones as the popularity of the old ones is universally dropping. It used to be new MMOs were coming out to great excitement so fast you couldn't even keep track of them all.
Look at this site on up coming MMORPG. And ESO sold pretty well. Quite respectable copies sold. Some one posted 4 upcoming mmorpg release this year. Grant 3 of them are cash shop pay to win.
You keep bashing those games that come out never success yet you keep yelling how great companies keep pumping out new mmorpg a few years ago.
So why exactly should companies keep pumping out mmorpg when you keep yelling how much a fail they are.
So I'm still waiting for some answers to my main question...
Since, according to Mmorpg.com's ratings system that these games (GW2, FFXIV, ESO, BDO) are the "best" right now. The fact that tons of fellow forum users on this site are suggesting repeatedly those particular games are great.
What is the draw? Is it all about the pvp (because obviously the pve sucks)? How are they overcoming the total lack of the need to use all of these abilities until "end game"? Is it because reaching "end game" is only a couple of mindless days away from creating a character, then the "actual" game begins....pvp?
What about the pvp interests them the most? Again, I've stated that all of my past experiences with pvp have been battlegrounds type (open field, etc.) zerg rushes. I hate that. Some good 1v1 threats while out in the wilderness farming mobs could be great. (You're leveling in the woods alone - You see out of the corner of your eye, someone else scamper behind some trees - Oh crap, I hope they aren't going to attack me, but if they do, then it's ON!) Is there any meaningful pvp in these mmos?
Point being....what is it that I'm missing?! I'm willing to do some pvp, if that's where all the fun is (apparently). But is there a point to it? Exp? Loot? Special points to buy gear to show I'm a badass in pvp?
THe draw?
I enjoy the game. I play FFXIV. It's got some big flaws. Combat is certainly one of them, but the game is still worth playing to me. If you are playing these games and not enjoying them, then you have your answer.
entirely opposite for me, combat on the melee dps jobs is some of the most entertaining tab target combat there is but there's nothing to do in the game. content is cleared so fast and made obsolete so quickly and it only comes every 3 and 6 months
It's cool you're having fun but honestly I cannot fathom being seriously engaged in the combat with a 2.5 second cooldown, even on the melee classes. To be engaged in combat I have to be reacting or pressured to act appropriately. With 2.5 seconds between abilities, I found neither of those happening when I played ffxiv.
I mean, you even state here the content is "too easy". That's basically the whole point.
45-50 casts per minute on the most engaging classes in xiv. Sure it's less than other games (wow having classes that are anywhere from 50CPM(best frost mage) to some almost hitting 100)
Just the content is designed around it. xiv feels less of a mess and less spammy, doesn't mean you cannot be engaged. Could say the spam is less engaging as your presses mean less
Comments
The main problem with anything require fast reaction time over the internet is people's latency is different. And typically you get many complain from people with bad latency.
I don't think people are tired of it, they just have a lot more choices - the players are generally spread too thin, with a few exceptions. MMORPG as a genre is too saturated right now. This hurts newer games, as this genre depends on players sitting on the same games. Developers design to facilitate that. A game with no grinding is a game that someone can walk away from immediately, and immediately catch up when they come back a year later - meanwhile, you lost all of the revenue from those subs...
Player population is a huge factor in the game's viability. This is why a lot of people don't want to leave WoW or FFXIV. Most other games feel "dead" in comparison to them.
Grinding happens outside of MMORPGs. It's a staple of gaming. It happens in single-player RPGs and ARPGs as well. You're still grinding Levels in PoE, or Paragons in Diablo III... Or XP in Team-based games like Overwatch or Destiny II. You even grind in Hearthstone. Pretty sure there's a grind component to MOBAs like LoL and HotS, as well.
Grinding is how games lock you in. They lock you in with your time investment. The fact that you had to do/play so much to get where you are, disincentivizes you from taking breaks, unsubbing, going to other games because you don't want that time to be "all for nothing." One could say that you got what you paid for - entertainment - but that's not the way many people feel about it, or think about it...
There's really no other way to design a game that actually incentivizes players to play, other than gating the content - either through time sinks (grinding), flagging, level requirements, etc. or manners tied to those (i.e. gear iLvl checks which force Character Level, Flagging, and Time Sink costs into the equation).
So, pinning that on "MMORPGs" seems a bit far-fetched. Games were like this before MMORPGs existed. They will continue to be. There is no other workable formula at the moment, unless you expect everything to be Free to Play with a cash shop... It's just more evident to people on forums like this, because a lot of the players play - predominantly - MMORPG games. Many of the posters here have fairly thin experience with other genres of gaming (or they came from console games, which lacked the diverse business models on PC until recently).
Also, when games do make it less grindy, people here complain that it's too "easy," and say they want it to be more "difficult"... Usually... via grinding and forced groupage (which wastes a ton of people's time)... Why do you think Pantheon is so popular at the moment? It can't be the dated gameplay... It's because it's copying the EQ formula and a certain niche of players like that.
So the community is completely split on this matter, and many people are openly hypocritical about it.
I personally think the reason why newer MMORPGs fail is because they are uninteresting games. When people got into EQ and WoW, they were interested in all facets of the game. The Lore, for example, was extremely deep and drew people in. People took things such as "which diety should my character worship" seriously. Role Playing was actually a thing back then. That has since, largely, died out.
The market has changed. Player attitudes have change. The MMORPG market is oversaturated with too many "me too" titles, and other types of games - like FPS, MOBAs, and ARPGs are starting to leech players off of MMORPGs because they are less wasteful of your time and generic PC hardware is powerful enough to run those types of games well.
The players who played EQ played EQ almost exclusively. That's what made that MMORPG market different than the current one.
These days, things are different. Not only is the MMORPG market saturated, but there are a ton of other genres seeing lots of development. MOBAs are seeing a ton of development (LoL, DotA, HotS, Smite, etc.), Team-Based Shooters are seeing more development (Destiny, Overwatch, etc.), ARPGs are seeing more development (D3, PoE, etc.).
In addition to that, MMORPGs are ill-suited for eSports and streaming, unless you really nail PvP in your game. This is a big incentive for players with decent mechanical skills to ditch MMORPGs for those genres. You can't really do PvE eSports.
Bad argument. MMOs are dying right now. Less MMOs are coming out than ever before (particularly AAA games made by major companies) and all existing MMOs are in a population decline.So this whole post can essentially be summed up in two points you seem to be trying to make.
1. Every game has grinding.
2. Games depend on the grind to keep you playing.
On those points I would assert you are wrong.
1. Every game has you investing time to get better but that is fundamentally different from MMO grinding. For this purpose we're going to compare one of the most enduring games of all time with one of the most committed player bases to MMOs, as well as the currently most successful game on the market. Starcraft, and League of Legends. Do you have to invest time into getting better in SC and LoL? Yes. Absolutely.
But it's completely different in nature to an MMO. SC and LoL are more comparable to practicing a sport or a hobby. You have to refine your techniques through usage. Getting better is about investigating strategies, apply them, and eventually mastering them. Then going back and learning new strategies you can add to your bag of tools to pull out when the situation calls for it.
It takes skills. It takes intelligence. It takes dedication. It takes confidence and the right mindset. In team based games it can take teamwork and practicing these techniques together with your team.
In MMOs it takes time, and only time. Dedication, skill, intelligence, and teamwork are all replaceable with more time. Sure one strategy may allow for faster grinding than another. But if I've been playing for 5 years and you've been playing for 1, I am going to beat you every single time even if all I did for that entire 5 years was run through motions while you busted ass every single day.
Absolutely not the case in skill based games. Veterans are more likely to be better but a talented rookie who really applies themselves can still show up a lazy veteran.
2. As stated. SC and LoL. Every game starts you at an equal point statwise, so it is irrefutable these game's success has absolutely nothing to do with stat grinding.
Also, from my experience, the most fun I've ever had in a multiplayer persistent universe (The massive part wasn't really there as the server cap was 50 but it played like an Open World PvP MMO.) was in vanilla Freelancer where max stats were achievable within 24 hours of play. More hours spent on that game than any other game. More months spent playing it than any other game. Did I sometimes walk away for a bit and them come back? Absolutely.
But if that game had frequent updates and charged 15$ a month they would have had more of my money than any other game I've ever played.
So explain to me when are MMO ever popular. Pre Wow there are almost no mmorpg player. There are less than 3 million players in the whole world. Post Wow, Wow is the only successful MMORPG. When is mmorpg ever popular?
A bit after graduation I noticed none of my highschool friends were playing MMOs and when I tried to show them MMOs they would tell me "Yeah man, I'm not too in to MMOs anymore, they eat your life." And when asked to elaborate they basically say the same thing I keep repeating all over these boards. Stat grinding needs to die.
These same friends were constantly playing single player games, Minecraft, we all played Starcraft 2 together for awhile etc. Funnily enough these are the same friends who introduced me to my first MMO (Runescape) when I was in 8th grade.
And while many of my friends back then were playing WoW, I barely played it. I remember LOTRO, Knight Online, Runescape, EVE, Pirates of the Burning Sea etc. etc. etc. as some of the many MMOs that were released to great excitement during that era. SWTOR came on stage just as MMOs began their fall from grace IMO. Post SWTOR MMOs have continued on a path of slow and steady decline.
So based on my own observations I would say MMOs were a small growing genre until around 2004-2011 where they were very popular, and then 2011 to 2017 they've really been a constantly shrinking genre.
Runescape was original release in 2001 by the way.
Oki so i assume your correct stats need to die and why?How will you represent the life over time of a character?You 100% need to assimilate life somehow,so what would be the replacement because all i am seeing is LAZIER game designs with unreal spammy animations/combat.
Entering a world and just one shotting Diablo like is not role play gaming,arpg's are not role play gaming yet that is what all the devs are building now.
i am on the opposite fence,i want stats and i want more of and way more depth.You can NOT attain depth in a game with out stats and stat formula's.Even if i or we look beyond stats then what else is there,loot grinding,how is that any different,it is the EXACT same thing because that loot is ONLY valuable because of it's stats.
Ok so where does that put us,no loot,no role playing,no depth,might as well just make another Diablo or moba with no quality type game because it most certainly would not be a rpg anymore.
All i have seen the past 5 years is devs trying to remove the rpg and remove the mmo and turn gaming into end game instance runs.I have no idea why people are worried about grind,is there some kind of RACE we should be involved with in a mmorpg that i don't know about?
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Challenge is one thing, but frustration is another. Very few Dev's seem to be able to keep things on the challenge side, without falling off the edge into frustration.
We will have to see how things work out.
But if you look on how much budget an average MMO in the making have we can see some trends. There is possibly a single western AAA MMO in the making at this point, Amazons project. There is also some unconfirmed and the crowdfunded Star citizen that have tons of cash. Still, the last few years have seen no western AAA release since ESO and GW2 and very little is in the making. The genre is clearly less popular now in the west then it have been in a long time.
South Korea, China and Japan are different and still make AAA MMOs but we don't see all of those games with a western version. It is clearly still popular there but not so much in the west.
I would say that we at least need 5 confirmed AAA MMOs in the making to call the genre "popular". A few western games are still doing fine with Wow in the top followed by GW2 and ESO but the genre in itself isn't or the publishers would be working on more of them.
What we have now in the making is mostly crowd funded and indie games, if one of them becomes a hit the market will turn again. There is also the possibility that someone will pull a new AAA game out of their hat that attracts the masses or that a new eastern game becomes huge here as well. But right now, things aren't great in the west.
Many are also situational in that they behave differently depending on circumstances - most of the execute abilities act that way depending on the health % of the target.
Take Poison Injection for example. It's a bow ability that deals direct damage + a DOT and if the target is < 50% health both the DD and the DOT component do double damage. But that's not all. If you have the Long Shots passive fully trained and you move out to maximum range its damage is increased by 12% and if you have the Hawk Eye passive fully trained and you precede poison injection with 5 light attacks that increases its damage by an additional 25%.
There are many abilities that have CC components or proc heals or do all kinds of other things in addition to their core function.
To a casual player that doesn't spend the time to try to understand what they're doing then yes, ESO can seem simplistic but if you actually take the time, like an archer in the example above that does 5 light attacks while moving back to max range and then lets Poison injection fly when the boss' health is <50% then you're using the system with intelligence.
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I stand by there are no more than 3 million mmorpg players pre wow in the western market. none of the people on this forum cares about what happened in asia. For example there are 3 million lineage players peak, but almost none are in the US.
And if you include the asian market, they pretty much release mmorpg every month. So how is MMORPG dying?
In the future maybe Age of Wulin 2. I dont' know what will get popular but most likely chinese games, because china have enough people to back it up.
Thank god for the Chinese.
These days crowd control are pretty watered down. They're available to pretty much all classes so it's no longer a dedicated role as much as it used to be. And you can't really blame it on the new games either, because EQ and WoW both watered cc down in their own games.
cc slowly got stripped away in favor of mass pulls and speed clears. So while I favor today's action combat in MMO's, I do wish they had retained some of that old school cc.
Played: EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-LOTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO-BDO
Waiting For: CU & Vanilla WoW
I find that far more immersive, and it put's me in the shoes of my character far more than this:
Rather than sidetracking the argument by screaming PAY TO WIN!!! Like most people. Look at the video and as yourself this question:
Suppose he grinded long enough to get all that gear in-game. Is that still ok? If no, then you might start to understand why I think stat-grind is the single worst feature of WoW clones and is ruining the MMO genre.
And I played Lineage myself in 2001, it certainly wasn't as popular in the west and in Asia but back then it was rather large, not quite as EQ but still rather large.
3 million sounds low in any case, while no game had more then EQs just below half a mil there were rather many games around. SWG had 400K players, DaoC somewhat less. There were AO, , UO, Eve, AC 1 & 2... My guess would be more around 5 million players then 3.
I never said that MMOs were dying, just that we are losing players in the west. And we certainly have a MMO market moving more and more to Asia right now.
Just one example from ffxi- the upper/mid level main questline to get your legendary equipment- this stuff could not be done solo, and there were zero rewards for people that helped you. You actually had to organize/bargin with people to get these quests done, and not only that- they were very difficult, time-consuming, and required long distance travel in most cases to remote places that are just a plain pain in the ass to get to.
FFXI lost this interesting edge in later years, and many people complained about these kind of "requirements", but there was an amazing magic there that actually connected you to other players because of your reliance on them, without the need to try to kill them.
I mean, you even state here the content is "too easy". That's basically the whole point.
You keep bashing those games that come out never success yet you keep yelling how great companies keep pumping out new mmorpg a few years ago.
So why exactly should companies keep pumping out mmorpg when you keep yelling how much a fail they are.
45-50 casts per minute on the most engaging classes in xiv. Sure it's less than other games (wow having classes that are anywhere from 50CPM(best frost mage) to some almost hitting 100)
Just the content is designed around it. xiv feels less of a mess and less spammy, doesn't mean you cannot be engaged. Could say the spam is less engaging as your presses mean less