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Can you ever have "too many" options in MMOs?
TheWoundedStapler
Member Posts: 12
I’ve always wondered how MMO players felt when they get introduced to a brand new world, there is SO much to see and do. I actually wanted to bring up a recent example, I have been playing ESO since beta like many of you and I initially started a Wood Elf Templar wanting to do major deepz in fights, but sadly I wasn’t seeing the numbers I thought I would be seeing. I ended up rolling a couple different classes, trying out a bunch of new combinations but at this point, it feels like there are SO many god damn options that I can’t get myself to play one way anymore. Now some would argue that it’s great that we have so many options, but I wanted to have a discussion on this topic.
Comments
ah .. the paradox of choice (there is a book on this)
There are plenty of research showing that more choices are not better.
Personaly there are never too many options if you take your time.
In ESO I try to get my 4 characters till 15 which will take some time. I simply can't ignore the game has certain issue's. For now just a encounterd a few but none game breaking. So I simply will not set myself up to experiance the issue's many complain about. Have to much experiance in this genre to go that route. So I take it slow even though I have already put in lots of time with my 4 toons.
My niche in ESO is to make my toons pretty traditional, for example my sorcerer is doing woodworking, enchantment, alchemy because I feel it fits his personality being a Sorcerer. My Nightblade goes for provisioning, light/medium armor craft. My Dragonknight goes for the heavy stuff thats Blacksmiting both armor and providing weapons for both the templar and my nightblade. All these things are options I choose. Yeah selfefficient, but how else could I become effecient when guilded? I'll take my time.
Too many options, hmm, if we are going to talk about that and choice plus indecision. I think variety needs some time in the spot light too. So as far as too many options my gushing first thought is NOPE never enough. Then I thought about City of Heroes mission architect and having over 10,000 player made missions to choose from. So my conclusion became there is a critical mass for how many choices you can make.
As far as indecision, why not try out different things?
When it comes to variety, which is what I feel would seriously help replay value, I think having random dungeons or 10,000 possible monsters in the game never really hits a critical mass for me. They could have a random dungeon generator that took you to different bio-omes like artic, forrest, dessert, jungle, ocean, underwater, volcanoe, islands, swamps, mountians, caves, anything you could imagine. Sky is the limit on variety.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/What your describing is an issue with all games that force a player to play hundreds of hours to progress.
The choice its self is not bad. What is bad is the amount of choices you have, but are unable to scratch the surface of it with out spending 100+ hours for each class just to get to VR10 where you can actually make the meaningful build choices.
Too Many options are only bad if two things are done:
1. A huge time sink is involved with each choice with no way to alleviate it. (Rushing in D2 to make new characters)
2. The choices are not actually choices but different forms of forced progression.
Yeah I remember reading about the study they performed selling jams. The person selling 24 varieties attracted more attention but sold less compared to the person selling only 6 varieties.
The trend did not hold true though for specialty items or more informed customers.
The idea was attacked by a lot of economists. The idea that less choice might be better is contrary to one of the tenets of capitalism.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Variety is the spice of life. I like having as many options as possible. I don't put much thought into it beyond, "What seems like the most fun thing to do right now?" I don't agonize over playing a video game efficiently or doing it the "right way."
You can have too many options if they ruin the integrity of the game. For instance adding a cash shop that lets you buy a sports car for a mount in a fantasy world. Sure it's more options but it ruins the original game and each additional nonsensical option makes the game more and more like trash.
In short the options must add to the original game in some meaningful way as opposed to just being a general option.
I find this notion that there is so much to see and do in your claim to be highly subjective. In almost every MMO released since WoW there is only the following to do:
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 tenet of capitalism ... rational choices .. is an unrealistic assumption. That is why the whole field of behavioral economics exists.
In fact, there are many many books (like Predictably Irrational) about this subject, and nobel prizes awarded (to Vernon Smith and Danny Kahnermann). I don't think any serous economist can ignore behavioral economics anymore.
Furthermore, the impact of number of choices (or complexity) is smaller when the stakes are higher .. but when you are talking about playing video games .. yeah .. it works because most people don't have the incentive to spend hours to learn a mere game.
That is the issue. Not everyone want to spend their precious time learning merely games. That is why games you can learn and start having fun in 10 minutes are popular (essentially all AAA SP games). You can hide the complexity and spoon feed players little by little .. but few has the patience to spend 10 hours learning before they can have fun.
True choice is a great thing in games. The trouble is, most games don't have true choice. Even trinity and range is limited. How do I level a healer? DPS mobs to death. How do I level a Tank? DPS mobs to death. How do I level an Archer? DPS Mobs to death. How do I level a Melee? DPS mobs to death.
It's also why most game focus on end game. Everything up to end game is? DPS mobs to death.
I think everyone has their "breaking point" where too many choices freezes them from making a choice. Indecision and second guessing take over at some point.
Usually, I am all for "More Choices!", but I have limits to what I find "enjoyable choices"
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Im sure the person with the more varied stock also sold the most. Everything else being equal. But he would be wasting resources producing specialty items. And he would make less of a profit... that would allow the other person to compete on price. Or it could be that the one focusing on only a few variations can get more quality by specializing.
Yes, at least initially. Complexity should be revealed as your mastery of the game increases. At the start though, simplicity is the key. I do not want to make early choices that I will later regret, nor do I want to feel obliged to research this stuff before I even begin. And I really won't be happy if I have to pay to reset certain choices I made in my first few levels.
Ofc this only applies to certain types of options - those that impact on my character's effectiveness. I can never have too many options to tweak my graphics settings, too many sliders to customize my character's appearance etc.
Another uninteresting thread on this forum that is based on making a wild generalization with no agency.
One thing comes to mind:
To play a game, but a game where devs meant that every player should steamroll through all of it, because then the game would appear to have alot of content, when the opposite might be true. Play faction A, and then move on to begin play faction B, and then C with the same character. Unless I am totally mistaken, this is so with elder scrolls online.