I loved combat in CoH -- it didn't rely on the holy trinity, and groups were large enough that you didn't really ever have to wait for a particular kind of build to get started on any mission.
One thing that turns me off are formulaic battles where you feel more like a cog in a machine going through arbitrary motions because you know exactly what some boss is going to do when. That's not a battle, that's not at all engaging (except maybe for the first few people to work on cracking the formula). I prefer less predictable, more fluid, more realistic combat. If all you are doing is following a formula you looked up on the internet, or you practiced with your guildmates, then it's too much of a routine. What's worse is in the end game, they will often make you run through that same routine daily or weekly -- and that's only if you succeed. If you fail, you could be running through it a dozen times a day. That's boring (at least for me).
1. Holy Trinity: I think this is a scapegoat excuse, to be honest. In the end, I think how a game chooses to approach instances and how classes/characters find a place in those instances isn't going to be a big deal to many players. My first, true, introduction into the Holy Trinity was World of Warcraft, before then I was playing Earth and Beyond and Eve Online so there wasn't much of tanking/healing in those games (like many would see). My first introduction to a non-HT system was GW2 and I always felt that instancing with this system was chaotic and very little in terms of visible organization.
I think combat systems that employ either HT or not will both have their pros and cons. However, there has never been any evidence that I've seen or experienced that tells me one firmly beats the other as a better™ instancing system.
I personally like the HT system better with some caveats for hybrid style characters. When WoW released, Druids and Paladins were what I would term hybrids. Yes there were some balancing issues as well as some minor issues with feeling as part of a group but that was about it. There was a very small but local group constantly harping on Blizzard to make them more viable for raiding until they eventually removed them as a hybrid class and pushed them deeper into specialization.
I was part of a lot of end game raiding through BC and somewhat through Wrath. In vanilla WoW, we constantly held slots open for multiple Paladins and Druids because they filled holes of both DPS and healing/off-healing which allowed us to push the limits of our primary healers and opt for more DPS. This allowed our group to push through encounters much faster than traditional groups.
2. Not enough true challenge: I think this comes down to people not wanting to group. There is a really big push to create content that doesn't encourage cooperation between players and I attribute this to development companies wanting to access that type of player because they seem to make up the majority of available gamers.
After gaming for over 10 years, it's hard not to notice the change of communities and how the games have mutated their content to cater to those newer communities. That's not necessarily a bad thing, companies listen and adjust to consumer needs all the time, it's just part of business. However, this is truly affecting what I, and some others, would constitute as the challenge and quality of games developed. Online games were always about interactions and community and this migration to solo-friendly content, while good for the short term bottom line, really discourages group play. A prime example of this was the release of ESO. While it wasn't their intention to make grouping difficult, there certainly wasn't the needed attention to the mechanic and them pushing out an online game without solid grouping mechanics just highlights how unimportant group play is to game companies today.
3. Too much solo content: I think this was linked to #2. I also believe this is linked to #1 as well. The HT system is very much centered around cooperative play as each player sets themselves in a defined role and in order to excel at completing combat, you need others to fulfill the other roles or efficiency suffers. The push to more solo content has really poisoned the HT system with solo friendly HT builds. Look at WoW right now, every class, despite their role in the HT, can put out a high amount of damage and healing. No, you may not be able to constatly burst heal yourself as a protection warrior but every class has short cooldown, high healing abilities that often discourage sharing content with others despite them filling a missing role.
4. Too much gear grinding: This is really a question of what type of progression you want and when you want that progression to stop. You need something for players to strive for, whether that be a higher level or better gear. This point is really a specious and doesn't deserve to be on this list.
5. Not enough story: Yes and no. This really comes down to personal preference. There is no doubt to some players loving the story but if your game isn't compelling or boring then story isn't going to make any difference in the overall enjoyment.
I loved combat in CoH -- it didn't rely on the holy trinity, and groups were large enough that you didn't really ever have to wait for a particular kind of build to get started on any mission.
CoH did have tanky and healy classes that were used a lot in the game, at least in the beginning. You COULD get away without much of a tanky toon if you had good controllers or enough DPS to push through the content. I think you could probably get away with CoH wasn't a strict Trinity game but the roles were there and provided much greater efficiency...especially if you took large or very difficult groups.
I wasn't around at the end so I can't comment on it too much at that state.
Originally posted by Quesa 4. Too much gear grinding: This is really a question of what type of progression you want and when you want that progression to stop. You need something for players to strive for, whether that be a higher level or better gear. This point is really a specious and doesn't deserve to be on this list.
Actually, (IMO) this is by far the most valid point on the list.
A lot of the fun of RPGs is character building. Modern MMOs have mostly removed the character building aspect in place of lightning fast progression to endgame, and then all that there is at endgame is gear progression.
In Everquest, when you got a gear upgrade it was usually a big deal. Often you replaced something you had been wearing over a year. And it was usually something significant as opposed to just an extra couple of stat points put on the item by a formula.
Modern MMORPGs now give you frequent gear updates, and they are usually small upgrades the next 'item level' up. The gear itself is boring because its created with a formula. And the biggest problem is its so damn meaningless because it will be replaced next patch anyway.
At least in older games, gear progression could feel in a way like character progression because it was more permanent. But these days it doesn't feel remotely permanent, you know its just temporary.
Also, its better design to have your character grow stronger in order to get better gear, as opposed to needing to get better gear to get better gear.
If you are healing then you are not dps'ing or anything else and if you decide you are tanking you cannot be doing anything else,unless the game mechanics are just far too easy and combining it all into one ability.It is and always will be far more organized and ROLE playing when you actually have a role.
It comes down to a GOOD game with good classes,you are then always allowed to play whatever you want without making alts,FFXI got it right,others are only now starting to come close.
far too easy?Well of course,it is because the focus is not the challenge of the battle,the focus is just finding yellow markers,completing their task and running back to collect your xp and reward.Once again FFXI did irt right,quests were for a different reason and combat was a b ig challenge because you fought mobs 6/7/8/9/10 levels above your level and needed a good group to succeed.
3 solo content,well yes and is obvious.
4 too much gear grinding?Say what?This usually only begins at end game,the rest of these modern games are quest grinding.
5 Not enough story?Well seems to me EVERY developer claims they have story but truth is they are usually not well organized stories but made up as they go instead of being part of the game's Lore and entire reason for existing.The REAL story should be what the players make of it,after all it is each their own gaming experience.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
OP should play Gw2 while he still can and try to defeat Liadri on his own without peeking at the gazillion builds at youtube. Speak of sense of achievement then.
Maybe next halloween you could try to climb the mad king's clocktower xD or perhaps do a guild tequatl or guild great jungle wurm. Yeah, those are fun times. Speak for yourself mate...
Agreed, if the OP wants a good story, a challenge, no holy trinity, all he's got to do is play Guild Wars 2 in a 5 man dungeon by himself. He'd have everything he posted about here. Of course, I doubt he'd be able to complete a 5 man dungeon by himself, but he's the one making the suggestion that MMORPGs should be more of a challenge and that's the reason they aren't more enjoyable.
To be blunt, I disagree with every single one of the points made in this article. I didn't begin playing MMORPGs when there was a handful, I began playing MMORPGs when there was only one 3D MMORPG available. Since then I've played a lot of them. And what I see is very different from what the original poster sees. I see competitors in the genre trying to make some MMO "different" not all inclusive. If you observe every industry on the planet, you find the company that gives its customers all that their competitors have is number 1 in the industry. The problem with MMORPG developers is that they are trying to be "different". Being different doesn't make a leader in any industry. Having all of the desires of the customers of an industry makes the leader. It's as simple as that. The developers of MMOs have good ideas, but they don't include all aspects of game play. By reducing features and game play options for players, developers cut out enjoyment for everyone.
The next huge MMO is going to be the one that includes lots of ways to play the game with many configurable options. Solo play, group play, pve in many different ways, pvp in many different ways, building, destroying, fighting for a faction/cause, giving the player options to change the interface into ways the player wants to play the game, giving the player options to cast spells/skills, giving the player options to target enemies in different ways. For example, some people enjoy using a targeting reticle to acquire a target and cast in the enemies direction. Others enjoy using tab targeting instead. Why not put both in the MMO? For every option not included in a released MMO, the player base is reduced because enjoyment is reduced for players that enjoy a certain play style.
When Everquest was released, it was the only 3D MMORPG available. You either played it or you didn't play a 3D MMORPG. Later there were many others released. But there was only one 3D MMORPG that released after Everquest that included everything you could do in all of the available 3D MMORPGs. Since then, no other 3D MMORPG ever released that you could do all of the game play options in it other than World of Warcraft. WoW had everything you could do in the 3D MMORPG. What has happened since then are MMORPGs released that keep trying to be "different" but not all inclusive as I stated. Take GW2 for example, it drops the Holy Trinity i.e. changes the basic game play so that everyone can heal once in a while, adds dynamic events, but doesn't include mounts, no dueling, no world PvP, no factions, a huge number of things that are included in the number 1 MMORPG available.
As stated, being "different" has never made a number 1 company in any industry on the planet at any time. It won't for the MMORPG genre either because of lack of enjoyment in games that don't include all game play options.
I was hoping this article would list out some of the good from classic MMORPGs that wound up getting changed for whatever reason... it didn't IMO.
1. Being able to be whatever you want broke gameplay. Tank mages running rampant in UO for example... People just pick the most overpowered combinations. TSW and Archeage have systems in place that let you basically choose to mix and match to a certain extent (as well as other games like Champions Online). Overall I feel like the combat is the worst in these games and the lack of focus on set roles like the trinity introduced is a result of this.
We see games like Guild Wars 2 remove the trinity and are they really better off for it and more fun? Nope, you just have the trinity replaced with bring the most DPS (or bring the most reflects/combo fields for harder content) where people will still refuse to group with classes because they don't bring as much DPS as a Warrior or Mesmer.
Everquest had diverse group makeup despite the trinity. Sure, you needed a Healer, a Tank, and probably some form of CC (the trinity didn't use to include "DPS", but CC either in the form of FD pulling or Enchanters/Bards), but there were 3 other group slots that were filled with whatever you wanted and you could get away with pseudo tanks like Monks/Rangers/Shamans/Even Mage and Necro pets in some cases. I wish it was a trendsetter, because then groups would be easier to form in current MMOs if you happened to be one of 100s of people who rolled a DPS class.
2. This is actually the complete opposite. Everquest wasn't "challenging". It was more like unforgiving. It didn't coddle you from the beginning and forced you to learn everything without any help aside from other players around you. As far as actual content went, the game consisted of mostly pulling MOBs to a certain position and casting the same spell (two or three if you play a more "complex" class) over and over again till the MOB dies. Rinse/repeat and assist the tank. MMORPGs have gotten significantly more challenging starting with Warcraft, and I'm willing to bet that most people won't be able to tackle Silver runs for raid attunement in Wildstar much less gold run those dungeons (I think it's less than 0.1% of players actually finished that content at the moment) or Fractals in Guild Wars 2 post Level 40.
While I'd love the difficulty to be brought back in MMOs pre-endgame content and the fear of having high level MOBs roaming in low level zones, death penalty that's actually a penalty, and reliance on groups from the start of a MMO, none of these are really "challenging" in terms of actual skill required to play the game, where games that have adapted action combat such as Tera/Wildstar/Guild Wars 2 actual promote challenge from the start.
3. Well at least we agree on something.
4. I'd actual prefer there be more gear grinding. I feel like you get gear way too quickly in current MMOs and then quickly replace that gear. Everyone sits in full epics one or two months into a game now, with only ridiculous mudflation on gear that gets fully replaced on the next raid (or worse, but "green" quality gear in the next expansion). Back in Everquest it could take months to farm certain items, but those items lasted you several years worth of expansions before mudflation really started kicking in (Luclin-PoP?). Items gave useful effects that made you treasure them, and you knew specific camps and what they dropped. Nowadays when I see a Rare MOB in a MMO and kill it, the loot it drops is green or blue quality that I can't even sell on the auction house because it has no real value.
5. God no, MMOs should not be about story, but making your own story. Provide players with a bit of background and lore for the game, and then let them go into the world and make their own story. I think MMOs nowadays focus WAY too much on story. SW:TOR was a story driven game and look how well that did. I don't want to sit and watch a cutscene or wait on others to finish their cutscene before I engage a boss or get into gameplay. I only play certain types of games for the story (VNs and adventure games mostly) and others it rarely matters too much to me (I somewhat enjoy it in single player RPGs, but that's not the main reason I purchase them). I can't stand it when poorly written stories and walls of text are forced down your throat and screw with the pacing of a dungeon run or questing content.
1. Holy Trinity: I think games should be both ways defined classes and class less skill based with both Holy Trinity as well as Support class Included Holy Quintet.
WoW did used to have support classes back when Replenishment mana proc buff existed, and when Paladin's used their auras along with Shaman totems. However, almost everyone has a Crowd Control which is just rediculously op in pve and in pvp . It really does make me miss Bards and Enchants in EQ1.
2. Not enough true challenge: This is a serious concern. People that don't want to group shouldn't even be on a multiplayer online game or an MMO to begin with. Challenge means better rewards, if you don't want one go do silly weak solo boring quests for gimp rewards.
Groups are not required for challenge, nor is raiding. All playstyles, even crafting, should be difficult and hard like original Everquest 1 and Everquest 2. Subcombines and slow exp gain, meant that being a high level crafter used to be an accomplishment, instead of a macro keyboard bot grind that doesn't even require human interaction, or just plain buying up all the materials from the auction house, since combines will never cause you to lose materials (you always make the item successfully), and they will give you a level skill up guarenteed.
As far as Everquest 1 went, there was the problem of to few abilities because you only had 8 slots on a spell gem bar, and everyone had to keep switching out abilities constantly. They made that easier with the saving spell sets ability, and they made bards easier with the melody slash command. There was more strategy however in that, with all the spells on the same global cooldown timer (for the most part obviously not Divina Aura and Harvest etc).
Now we have this rediculous mathematical hotbar rotational, where you have to use the cooldowns of each spell instead of strategizing sv resistance immunities and partials, because every single spell has a different cooldown timer. It is just simply rediculous.
Macro keyboards make the hotbar rotationals a joke in most cases, and in other cases they prevent players from socializing because they are to action twitchy and have to keep running and jumping around the aoe's on the floor.
There is simply no reason why WoW took out SV Resistances and having to actually know that you can't cast a Fire spell on a Fire Elemental and expect it to die. Mobs should actually absorb elements and increase their hp/power if you are silly enough to use the wrong element!! If there's a problem that your class doesn't have the right element (IE Ice Spells for a Fire Elemental), you should have a Crafting solution to go out and imbue your weapon with an Element in order to win, similar to how will'o'wisps on Everquest 1 used to require a "Magic" tagged weapon in order to hit them.
3. Too much solo content: Solo Content needs to be reduced and lead through challenging quest lines for high quality gear, anyone not wanting the challenge should have plenty of fun easy mode activities available, such as: Battle Pets, Harvesting, Low tier Crafting Quests that lead to High Reward Tier Crafting Quests, Low End and Normal Raid Zones that lead to Heroic , Normal Scenario and Normal Dungeons that lead to Heroic Dungeons and Scenarios, House Decorating, Dueling other Players, PVP Arenas and PVP Warzone/BGs, as well as Farming Currency/Tokens/Reputation/Dailies/Pets/Mounts/etc.
4. Too much gear grinding: There needs to be slow levels, a lot less exp, and a lot more gear grinding, so that every single 10 level tiers actually matter. Crafters could actually matter if their gear wasn't junk. If raid loot is going to be better than crafting items, there is no reason to ever bother. With leveling being so quick all the gear from 1-90 or end game is worthless.
There is not a problem of to much gear grinding, the gear is for raiding. People who don't want to raid don't have to bother attaining much gear whatsoever. PVP gear is used a lot when people would rather do Battlegrounds than Scenario/Dungeons for gear...
However, crafted gear should be useful, players wouldn't have to grind gear if they could just craft it or buy it. Logically, crafted gear should go from low tier easy to attain to raid quality extremely rare and expensive to make/attain. Cooldown timers would be in effect to limit how much of the high quality could be produced, but it wouldn't be raid required. Materials should be rare but attainable on Crafting Quests and Missions, Crafting Dailies, etc. Crafting activities could be raid level and require group/raids of Crafters. They should be the same difficulty and usefulness as raid/group equipment, and worth buying!
5. Not enough story: Games have to be both ways, and they have to be immersive. To much story is a problem with voice overs taking up much of your budget, however cinematics and full motion video is fun. You just have to cater to your audience and your IP. However, sometimes in the case of doing so, maybe sometimes it is important to just create two separate games based on the same IP.
Allow us to explore the world again, it won't break the story. You don't need fatigue walls and force field barriers to hold us in place, why isn't the world open and available to us anymore? When we explore why is there usually nothing to be found? Empty nooks and crannies, very few hard to locate rare artifacts and randomness.
Easter eggs and random pop culture references, a good sense of humor, these things are awesome and highly appreciated. Cosmetic/mount/companion pet / housing / spaceship/pvp/pve /crafting and everything else needs variety. The secret is all in variety, even more so than the story. Don't give us a great IP story and then give us lackluster anything else because you didn't have time to do it all right.
It sucks that SW ToR has such a weak crafting system, when SWG had awesome crafting and housing... I'm glad housing is going to finally get added to SW ToR.
Variety is the spice of life, let us explore, let us craft, give us things that don't require combat and kiling, and stop making such terrible ugly outfits Bioware, some of us want stuff to actually wear, instead of having to pass up statistics in favor of pretty cosmetics!!
Personally, I always thought the overly simplified glyph system should have been so much more. Lord of the Rings Online has Legendary relic slotting for more complexity, but the Glyphs should have been for spells/combat art abilities directly instead of just the equipment that you're wearing.
Combining both could restore strategy and depth, to a shallow theme park MMO.
Glyphs should fundamentally change how your spells work each and every single one of them, and your combat abilities. Want Ice Nukes? It should be a quest line to go and acquire that to your damage spell, go out and train how to use them.
Don't just automatically give us spells, make us earn them, like some that you had to grind tokens for and buy on Everquest 1. Going to a trainer and getting spells for dinging is so anti-climatic, where's the challenge in that? Why did you take all the class/racial quests away?
Adding a ability to your spell would be strategic, if each spell had 5 or 10 different ways to add to it. You'd have to select carefully what you wanted, and in order to prevent min/max cookie cutter syndrome, each build would be viable with all sv resistances and different AI monsters present in the game. Not overly using and abusing one type at the expense of the others!!
Each would cater to a different playstyle, but all would be useful !!
Cosmetic should not be limited for no apparent reason, the limitations on glyphs should only be for combat useful addons!! Cosmetic glyphs should be infinite and usable at the same time! Unless , you actually added enough variety and they conflicted with each other.
Now, there's no reason why killing raid bosses favors one glyph over another so badly, that everyone uses the same exact ones!!! When all 3 or 6 priests on a raid are using Divine Star or Halo, not because they want to, but because it is the best for that given encounter, you have now taken away all choice and catered to the cookie cutter min/maxing crowd once again.
Please... add variety and actually let players choose what they want, stop making one specialization always better than the rest... Players who play Arcane Mage, can typically top charts over people in higher ilvl raid equipment, just due to being op. Disc Priests can outheal everyone in lower ilvl equipment, just because they use absorptions and are op.
You know its bad when practically 90% of priests are Discipline, 5% are Holy and 5% are Shadow...
OK, my experience with MMos is pretty limited; but in the last couple years, I've got my own list of why MMOs aren't as fun as they could be. Not in any particular order...
CC in PVP - I don't bother PvPing any more, because so often I might as well just take my hands off the keyboard. This is not fun, this is a waste of my time. Defeat I can handle; not being allowed to play is just stupid.
Dungeon design - when the same critters are in the same place and do the same things every time, and the HP/damage is cranked up so unless you memorize each boss you just wipe? I can't stand that. I want to play a game, not study it; I want to deal with events, not crank through a script. If I want to spend my entertainment time/money that way, I'll go take a line-dancing class, which requires just as much creativity while providing at least as much social interaction. Randomize the maps, the bosses, everything! Adventure is about *not* knowing everything that's going to happen beforehand!
Gear grind. Sure, maybe you should have to work for cool gear. But the paradigm that you have to get the gear to go on the raid to get the gear to go on the raid, is mind-boggling. And weaving crafting into that, so that you have to be both a master of the (above-described) raid *and* a master crafter to make stuff that anyone really wants? It just piles more kudos on the particular elite minority that are willing able, and connected enough to do the big overblown raids. Sure, make it so that to get cool gear you have to do special things; but making it so that the gear is *objectively better* than everything else? Please.
Intergame whining. Sure, this isn't a dev thing, but I'm putting it in anyway. Few things are more annoying than people playing one game while complaining about how some other game is/was so much better (and how cool/powerful/rich they were in that game). SWG, DAoC, AC, EQ1, vanilla-WOW, yadda, yadda, yadda. Please, If you're playing a game, just play that game. If you'd rather play something else, go play that game. Just shut up about it.
And, just to comment on the actual original article, I gotta say I'm confused what anyone here means when they say they want more story. The games that have lots of story get slammed for wasting people's time, they just want to burn through all the leveling; the games that push you through the leveling get slammed for not providing story. Yeah, it would be cool to play in a setting where your actions made some actual difference in the game world - but then again, if that means that the ones who determine the course of events are the same ones who obsess over gear and preset raids and stunlock PVP...well, gosh, I'll settle for a nice themepark, thankyouverymuch. The real world is already ruled and shaped by jerks and elitists, I don't need to spend my entertainment budget to get that.
I will have to correct you for #1. Everquest was not the source of the Trinity, WoW was.
Everquest actually had a broad selection of classes/roles that were important to gameplay. There was crowd control (no raid would last 5 min without it), damage aversion (needed for raids and some dungeons), there were several types of movement/transport (Need Teleport? Need SoW?), there were other key abilities such as mana/hp regen, damage shields, dots, pets, etc that all factored into gameplay.
Tried: EQ2 - AC - EU - HZ - TR - MxO - TTO - WURM - SL - VG:SoH - PotBS - PS - AoC - WAR - DDO - SWTOR Played: UO - EQ1 - AO - DAoC - NC - CoH/CoV - SWG - WoW - EVE - AA - LotRO - DFO - STO - FE - MO - RIFT Playing: Skyrim Following: The Repopulation I want a Virtual World, not just a Game. ITS TOO HARD! - Matt Firor (ZeniMax)
This article makes several really good observations, and while I don't agree with all of them I can see where the writer is coming from.
I think the one concept that the writer completely overlooks is that as with everything in life time will tend to dull even the most amazing experiences. Usually your first experience is the best/most memorable. Does logging onto a new MMO after playing the genre for 13 years make me feel like I did the first time I played EQ, no of course not. Partially because I had never played a game where I could play with thousands of other people and partially because the world was so big I had never experienced anything like it.
I guess my point is that people tend to expect to have the same experience time after time and that in of itself is impossible. I also think that people tend to look at things through rose tinted goggles. When I think back about the game Shadowbane, which was one of my all time favs, I think about it very positively. However if I really think back, I remember tons of corpse griefing, losing armor/weapons I spent weeks trying to collect, losing levels because of experience decay when you died, etc. Were those types of things really fun? Probably not but the overall experience was fresh and new and there was not a whole lot of options that allowed me to play with my friends in different states.
I cancelled my scientific analysis of this article, realizing it would once again be labeled as a troll post. I leave y’all to wallow in your ignorance.
Pardon any spelling errors
Konfess your cyns and some maybe forgiven Boy: Why can't I talk to Him? Mom: We don't talk to Priests. As if it could exist, without being payed for. F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing. Even telemarketers wouldn't think that. It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
FF14:RR actually is pretty good in all aspects EXCEPT the gear grind. It has the holy trinity, but you can switch classes at any moment, and each class was needed depending on the dungeon. The dungeons are challenging. But once you get close to cap you start hearing about the quests you have to do for your class gear and your class weapon. And the materials to forge your legendary weapon are in a series of hard (like almost impossible to beat depending on your party) party of 8 dungeons.
I completely agree a lot of the points made in the comments and article. Leveling has become easy, focused on the short term (quick), with crappy rewards and often disposable story that no one really reads or pays attention to anymore because we all know that what matters is the endgame. The endgame is supposed to be the goal and the most fun part but after all that leveling you have to gear up to some arbitrary standard to be able to participate in the endgame content (which are usually raids). It's the same old thing over and over, which is why the call for a living world is getting louder because at least then maybe the journey will finally regain its rightful place as being more immersive, more important, more fun than racing to level cap and then twiddling your thumbs till the next expansion.
Comments
I loved combat in CoH -- it didn't rely on the holy trinity, and groups were large enough that you didn't really ever have to wait for a particular kind of build to get started on any mission.
One thing that turns me off are formulaic battles where you feel more like a cog in a machine going through arbitrary motions because you know exactly what some boss is going to do when. That's not a battle, that's not at all engaging (except maybe for the first few people to work on cracking the formula). I prefer less predictable, more fluid, more realistic combat. If all you are doing is following a formula you looked up on the internet, or you practiced with your guildmates, then it's too much of a routine. What's worse is in the end game, they will often make you run through that same routine daily or weekly -- and that's only if you succeed. If you fail, you could be running through it a dozen times a day. That's boring (at least for me).
1. Holy Trinity: I think this is a scapegoat excuse, to be honest. In the end, I think how a game chooses to approach instances and how classes/characters find a place in those instances isn't going to be a big deal to many players. My first, true, introduction into the Holy Trinity was World of Warcraft, before then I was playing Earth and Beyond and Eve Online so there wasn't much of tanking/healing in those games (like many would see). My first introduction to a non-HT system was GW2 and I always felt that instancing with this system was chaotic and very little in terms of visible organization.
I think combat systems that employ either HT or not will both have their pros and cons. However, there has never been any evidence that I've seen or experienced that tells me one firmly beats the other as a better™ instancing system.
I personally like the HT system better with some caveats for hybrid style characters. When WoW released, Druids and Paladins were what I would term hybrids. Yes there were some balancing issues as well as some minor issues with feeling as part of a group but that was about it. There was a very small but local group constantly harping on Blizzard to make them more viable for raiding until they eventually removed them as a hybrid class and pushed them deeper into specialization.
I was part of a lot of end game raiding through BC and somewhat through Wrath. In vanilla WoW, we constantly held slots open for multiple Paladins and Druids because they filled holes of both DPS and healing/off-healing which allowed us to push the limits of our primary healers and opt for more DPS. This allowed our group to push through encounters much faster than traditional groups.
2. Not enough true challenge: I think this comes down to people not wanting to group. There is a really big push to create content that doesn't encourage cooperation between players and I attribute this to development companies wanting to access that type of player because they seem to make up the majority of available gamers.
After gaming for over 10 years, it's hard not to notice the change of communities and how the games have mutated their content to cater to those newer communities. That's not necessarily a bad thing, companies listen and adjust to consumer needs all the time, it's just part of business. However, this is truly affecting what I, and some others, would constitute as the challenge and quality of games developed. Online games were always about interactions and community and this migration to solo-friendly content, while good for the short term bottom line, really discourages group play. A prime example of this was the release of ESO. While it wasn't their intention to make grouping difficult, there certainly wasn't the needed attention to the mechanic and them pushing out an online game without solid grouping mechanics just highlights how unimportant group play is to game companies today.
3. Too much solo content: I think this was linked to #2. I also believe this is linked to #1 as well. The HT system is very much centered around cooperative play as each player sets themselves in a defined role and in order to excel at completing combat, you need others to fulfill the other roles or efficiency suffers. The push to more solo content has really poisoned the HT system with solo friendly HT builds. Look at WoW right now, every class, despite their role in the HT, can put out a high amount of damage and healing. No, you may not be able to constatly burst heal yourself as a protection warrior but every class has short cooldown, high healing abilities that often discourage sharing content with others despite them filling a missing role.
4. Too much gear grinding: This is really a question of what type of progression you want and when you want that progression to stop. You need something for players to strive for, whether that be a higher level or better gear. This point is really a specious and doesn't deserve to be on this list.
5. Not enough story: Yes and no. This really comes down to personal preference. There is no doubt to some players loving the story but if your game isn't compelling or boring then story isn't going to make any difference in the overall enjoyment.
CoH did have tanky and healy classes that were used a lot in the game, at least in the beginning. You COULD get away without much of a tanky toon if you had good controllers or enough DPS to push through the content. I think you could probably get away with CoH wasn't a strict Trinity game but the roles were there and provided much greater efficiency...especially if you took large or very difficult groups.
I wasn't around at the end so I can't comment on it too much at that state.
Actually, (IMO) this is by far the most valid point on the list.
A lot of the fun of RPGs is character building. Modern MMOs have mostly removed the character building aspect in place of lightning fast progression to endgame, and then all that there is at endgame is gear progression.
In Everquest, when you got a gear upgrade it was usually a big deal. Often you replaced something you had been wearing over a year. And it was usually something significant as opposed to just an extra couple of stat points put on the item by a formula.
Modern MMORPGs now give you frequent gear updates, and they are usually small upgrades the next 'item level' up. The gear itself is boring because its created with a formula. And the biggest problem is its so damn meaningless because it will be replaced next patch anyway.
At least in older games, gear progression could feel in a way like character progression because it was more permanent. But these days it doesn't feel remotely permanent, you know its just temporary.
Also, its better design to have your character grow stronger in order to get better gear, as opposed to needing to get better gear to get better gear.
#1 is way out to lunch and can NEVER be true.
If you are healing then you are not dps'ing or anything else and if you decide you are tanking you cannot be doing anything else,unless the game mechanics are just far too easy and combining it all into one ability.It is and always will be far more organized and ROLE playing when you actually have a role.
It comes down to a GOOD game with good classes,you are then always allowed to play whatever you want without making alts,FFXI got it right,others are only now starting to come close.
far too easy?Well of course,it is because the focus is not the challenge of the battle,the focus is just finding yellow markers,completing their task and running back to collect your xp and reward.Once again FFXI did irt right,quests were for a different reason and combat was a b ig challenge because you fought mobs 6/7/8/9/10 levels above your level and needed a good group to succeed.
3 solo content,well yes and is obvious.
4 too much gear grinding?Say what?This usually only begins at end game,the rest of these modern games are quest grinding.
5 Not enough story?Well seems to me EVERY developer claims they have story but truth is they are usually not well organized stories but made up as they go instead of being part of the game's Lore and entire reason for existing.The REAL story should be what the players make of it,after all it is each their own gaming experience.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Agreed, if the OP wants a good story, a challenge, no holy trinity, all he's got to do is play Guild Wars 2 in a 5 man dungeon by himself. He'd have everything he posted about here. Of course, I doubt he'd be able to complete a 5 man dungeon by himself, but he's the one making the suggestion that MMORPGs should be more of a challenge and that's the reason they aren't more enjoyable.
To be blunt, I disagree with every single one of the points made in this article. I didn't begin playing MMORPGs when there was a handful, I began playing MMORPGs when there was only one 3D MMORPG available. Since then I've played a lot of them. And what I see is very different from what the original poster sees. I see competitors in the genre trying to make some MMO "different" not all inclusive. If you observe every industry on the planet, you find the company that gives its customers all that their competitors have is number 1 in the industry. The problem with MMORPG developers is that they are trying to be "different". Being different doesn't make a leader in any industry. Having all of the desires of the customers of an industry makes the leader. It's as simple as that. The developers of MMOs have good ideas, but they don't include all aspects of game play. By reducing features and game play options for players, developers cut out enjoyment for everyone.
The next huge MMO is going to be the one that includes lots of ways to play the game with many configurable options. Solo play, group play, pve in many different ways, pvp in many different ways, building, destroying, fighting for a faction/cause, giving the player options to change the interface into ways the player wants to play the game, giving the player options to cast spells/skills, giving the player options to target enemies in different ways. For example, some people enjoy using a targeting reticle to acquire a target and cast in the enemies direction. Others enjoy using tab targeting instead. Why not put both in the MMO? For every option not included in a released MMO, the player base is reduced because enjoyment is reduced for players that enjoy a certain play style.
When Everquest was released, it was the only 3D MMORPG available. You either played it or you didn't play a 3D MMORPG. Later there were many others released. But there was only one 3D MMORPG that released after Everquest that included everything you could do in all of the available 3D MMORPGs. Since then, no other 3D MMORPG ever released that you could do all of the game play options in it other than World of Warcraft. WoW had everything you could do in the 3D MMORPG. What has happened since then are MMORPGs released that keep trying to be "different" but not all inclusive as I stated. Take GW2 for example, it drops the Holy Trinity i.e. changes the basic game play so that everyone can heal once in a while, adds dynamic events, but doesn't include mounts, no dueling, no world PvP, no factions, a huge number of things that are included in the number 1 MMORPG available.
As stated, being "different" has never made a number 1 company in any industry on the planet at any time. It won't for the MMORPG genre either because of lack of enjoyment in games that don't include all game play options.
I was hoping this article would list out some of the good from classic MMORPGs that wound up getting changed for whatever reason... it didn't IMO.
1. Being able to be whatever you want broke gameplay. Tank mages running rampant in UO for example... People just pick the most overpowered combinations. TSW and Archeage have systems in place that let you basically choose to mix and match to a certain extent (as well as other games like Champions Online). Overall I feel like the combat is the worst in these games and the lack of focus on set roles like the trinity introduced is a result of this.
We see games like Guild Wars 2 remove the trinity and are they really better off for it and more fun? Nope, you just have the trinity replaced with bring the most DPS (or bring the most reflects/combo fields for harder content) where people will still refuse to group with classes because they don't bring as much DPS as a Warrior or Mesmer.
Everquest had diverse group makeup despite the trinity. Sure, you needed a Healer, a Tank, and probably some form of CC (the trinity didn't use to include "DPS", but CC either in the form of FD pulling or Enchanters/Bards), but there were 3 other group slots that were filled with whatever you wanted and you could get away with pseudo tanks like Monks/Rangers/Shamans/Even Mage and Necro pets in some cases. I wish it was a trendsetter, because then groups would be easier to form in current MMOs if you happened to be one of 100s of people who rolled a DPS class.
2. This is actually the complete opposite. Everquest wasn't "challenging". It was more like unforgiving. It didn't coddle you from the beginning and forced you to learn everything without any help aside from other players around you. As far as actual content went, the game consisted of mostly pulling MOBs to a certain position and casting the same spell (two or three if you play a more "complex" class) over and over again till the MOB dies. Rinse/repeat and assist the tank. MMORPGs have gotten significantly more challenging starting with Warcraft, and I'm willing to bet that most people won't be able to tackle Silver runs for raid attunement in Wildstar much less gold run those dungeons (I think it's less than 0.1% of players actually finished that content at the moment) or Fractals in Guild Wars 2 post Level 40.
While I'd love the difficulty to be brought back in MMOs pre-endgame content and the fear of having high level MOBs roaming in low level zones, death penalty that's actually a penalty, and reliance on groups from the start of a MMO, none of these are really "challenging" in terms of actual skill required to play the game, where games that have adapted action combat such as Tera/Wildstar/Guild Wars 2 actual promote challenge from the start.
3. Well at least we agree on something.
4. I'd actual prefer there be more gear grinding. I feel like you get gear way too quickly in current MMOs and then quickly replace that gear. Everyone sits in full epics one or two months into a game now, with only ridiculous mudflation on gear that gets fully replaced on the next raid (or worse, but "green" quality gear in the next expansion). Back in Everquest it could take months to farm certain items, but those items lasted you several years worth of expansions before mudflation really started kicking in (Luclin-PoP?). Items gave useful effects that made you treasure them, and you knew specific camps and what they dropped. Nowadays when I see a Rare MOB in a MMO and kill it, the loot it drops is green or blue quality that I can't even sell on the auction house because it has no real value.
5. God no, MMOs should not be about story, but making your own story. Provide players with a bit of background and lore for the game, and then let them go into the world and make their own story. I think MMOs nowadays focus WAY too much on story. SW:TOR was a story driven game and look how well that did. I don't want to sit and watch a cutscene or wait on others to finish their cutscene before I engage a boss or get into gameplay. I only play certain types of games for the story (VNs and adventure games mostly) and others it rarely matters too much to me (I somewhat enjoy it in single player RPGs, but that's not the main reason I purchase them). I can't stand it when poorly written stories and walls of text are forced down your throat and screw with the pacing of a dungeon run or questing content.
1. Holy Trinity: I think games should be both ways defined classes and class less skill based with both Holy Trinity as well as Support class Included Holy Quintet.
WoW did used to have support classes back when Replenishment mana proc buff existed, and when Paladin's used their auras along with Shaman totems. However, almost everyone has a Crowd Control which is just rediculously op in pve and in pvp . It really does make me miss Bards and Enchants in EQ1.
2. Not enough true challenge: This is a serious concern. People that don't want to group shouldn't even be on a multiplayer online game or an MMO to begin with. Challenge means better rewards, if you don't want one go do silly weak solo boring quests for gimp rewards.
Groups are not required for challenge, nor is raiding. All playstyles, even crafting, should be difficult and hard like original Everquest 1 and Everquest 2. Subcombines and slow exp gain, meant that being a high level crafter used to be an accomplishment, instead of a macro keyboard bot grind that doesn't even require human interaction, or just plain buying up all the materials from the auction house, since combines will never cause you to lose materials (you always make the item successfully), and they will give you a level skill up guarenteed.
As far as Everquest 1 went, there was the problem of to few abilities because you only had 8 slots on a spell gem bar, and everyone had to keep switching out abilities constantly. They made that easier with the saving spell sets ability, and they made bards easier with the melody slash command. There was more strategy however in that, with all the spells on the same global cooldown timer (for the most part obviously not Divina Aura and Harvest etc).
Now we have this rediculous mathematical hotbar rotational, where you have to use the cooldowns of each spell instead of strategizing sv resistance immunities and partials, because every single spell has a different cooldown timer. It is just simply rediculous.
Macro keyboards make the hotbar rotationals a joke in most cases, and in other cases they prevent players from socializing because they are to action twitchy and have to keep running and jumping around the aoe's on the floor.
There is simply no reason why WoW took out SV Resistances and having to actually know that you can't cast a Fire spell on a Fire Elemental and expect it to die. Mobs should actually absorb elements and increase their hp/power if you are silly enough to use the wrong element!! If there's a problem that your class doesn't have the right element (IE Ice Spells for a Fire Elemental), you should have a Crafting solution to go out and imbue your weapon with an Element in order to win, similar to how will'o'wisps on Everquest 1 used to require a "Magic" tagged weapon in order to hit them.
3. Too much solo content: Solo Content needs to be reduced and lead through challenging quest lines for high quality gear, anyone not wanting the challenge should have plenty of fun easy mode activities available, such as: Battle Pets, Harvesting, Low tier Crafting Quests that lead to High Reward Tier Crafting Quests, Low End and Normal Raid Zones that lead to Heroic , Normal Scenario and Normal Dungeons that lead to Heroic Dungeons and Scenarios, House Decorating, Dueling other Players, PVP Arenas and PVP Warzone/BGs, as well as Farming Currency/Tokens/Reputation/Dailies/Pets/Mounts/etc.
4. Too much gear grinding: There needs to be slow levels, a lot less exp, and a lot more gear grinding, so that every single 10 level tiers actually matter. Crafters could actually matter if their gear wasn't junk. If raid loot is going to be better than crafting items, there is no reason to ever bother. With leveling being so quick all the gear from 1-90 or end game is worthless.
There is not a problem of to much gear grinding, the gear is for raiding. People who don't want to raid don't have to bother attaining much gear whatsoever. PVP gear is used a lot when people would rather do Battlegrounds than Scenario/Dungeons for gear...
However, crafted gear should be useful, players wouldn't have to grind gear if they could just craft it or buy it. Logically, crafted gear should go from low tier easy to attain to raid quality extremely rare and expensive to make/attain. Cooldown timers would be in effect to limit how much of the high quality could be produced, but it wouldn't be raid required. Materials should be rare but attainable on Crafting Quests and Missions, Crafting Dailies, etc. Crafting activities could be raid level and require group/raids of Crafters. They should be the same difficulty and usefulness as raid/group equipment, and worth buying!
5. Not enough story: Games have to be both ways, and they have to be immersive. To much story is a problem with voice overs taking up much of your budget, however cinematics and full motion video is fun. You just have to cater to your audience and your IP. However, sometimes in the case of doing so, maybe sometimes it is important to just create two separate games based on the same IP.
Allow us to explore the world again, it won't break the story. You don't need fatigue walls and force field barriers to hold us in place, why isn't the world open and available to us anymore? When we explore why is there usually nothing to be found? Empty nooks and crannies, very few hard to locate rare artifacts and randomness.
Easter eggs and random pop culture references, a good sense of humor, these things are awesome and highly appreciated. Cosmetic/mount/companion pet / housing / spaceship/pvp/pve /crafting and everything else needs variety. The secret is all in variety, even more so than the story. Don't give us a great IP story and then give us lackluster anything else because you didn't have time to do it all right.
It sucks that SW ToR has such a weak crafting system, when SWG had awesome crafting and housing... I'm glad housing is going to finally get added to SW ToR.
Variety is the spice of life, let us explore, let us craft, give us things that don't require combat and kiling, and stop making such terrible ugly outfits Bioware, some of us want stuff to actually wear, instead of having to pass up statistics in favor of pretty cosmetics!!
Personally, I always thought the overly simplified glyph system should have been so much more. Lord of the Rings Online has Legendary relic slotting for more complexity, but the Glyphs should have been for spells/combat art abilities directly instead of just the equipment that you're wearing.
Combining both could restore strategy and depth, to a shallow theme park MMO.
Glyphs should fundamentally change how your spells work each and every single one of them, and your combat abilities. Want Ice Nukes? It should be a quest line to go and acquire that to your damage spell, go out and train how to use them.
Don't just automatically give us spells, make us earn them, like some that you had to grind tokens for and buy on Everquest 1. Going to a trainer and getting spells for dinging is so anti-climatic, where's the challenge in that? Why did you take all the class/racial quests away?
Adding a ability to your spell would be strategic, if each spell had 5 or 10 different ways to add to it. You'd have to select carefully what you wanted, and in order to prevent min/max cookie cutter syndrome, each build would be viable with all sv resistances and different AI monsters present in the game. Not overly using and abusing one type at the expense of the others!!
Each would cater to a different playstyle, but all would be useful !!
Cosmetic should not be limited for no apparent reason, the limitations on glyphs should only be for combat useful addons!! Cosmetic glyphs should be infinite and usable at the same time! Unless , you actually added enough variety and they conflicted with each other.
Now, there's no reason why killing raid bosses favors one glyph over another so badly, that everyone uses the same exact ones!!! When all 3 or 6 priests on a raid are using Divine Star or Halo, not because they want to, but because it is the best for that given encounter, you have now taken away all choice and catered to the cookie cutter min/maxing crowd once again.
Please... add variety and actually let players choose what they want, stop making one specialization always better than the rest... Players who play Arcane Mage, can typically top charts over people in higher ilvl raid equipment, just due to being op. Disc Priests can outheal everyone in lower ilvl equipment, just because they use absorptions and are op.
You know its bad when practically 90% of priests are Discipline, 5% are Holy and 5% are Shadow...
OK, my experience with MMos is pretty limited; but in the last couple years, I've got my own list of why MMOs aren't as fun as they could be. Not in any particular order...
CC in PVP - I don't bother PvPing any more, because so often I might as well just take my hands off the keyboard. This is not fun, this is a waste of my time. Defeat I can handle; not being allowed to play is just stupid.
Dungeon design - when the same critters are in the same place and do the same things every time, and the HP/damage is cranked up so unless you memorize each boss you just wipe? I can't stand that. I want to play a game, not study it; I want to deal with events, not crank through a script. If I want to spend my entertainment time/money that way, I'll go take a line-dancing class, which requires just as much creativity while providing at least as much social interaction. Randomize the maps, the bosses, everything! Adventure is about *not* knowing everything that's going to happen beforehand!
Gear grind. Sure, maybe you should have to work for cool gear. But the paradigm that you have to get the gear to go on the raid to get the gear to go on the raid, is mind-boggling. And weaving crafting into that, so that you have to be both a master of the (above-described) raid *and* a master crafter to make stuff that anyone really wants? It just piles more kudos on the particular elite minority that are willing able, and connected enough to do the big overblown raids. Sure, make it so that to get cool gear you have to do special things; but making it so that the gear is *objectively better* than everything else? Please.
Intergame whining. Sure, this isn't a dev thing, but I'm putting it in anyway. Few things are more annoying than people playing one game while complaining about how some other game is/was so much better (and how cool/powerful/rich they were in that game). SWG, DAoC, AC, EQ1, vanilla-WOW, yadda, yadda, yadda. Please, If you're playing a game, just play that game. If you'd rather play something else, go play that game. Just shut up about it.
And, just to comment on the actual original article, I gotta say I'm confused what anyone here means when they say they want more story. The games that have lots of story get slammed for wasting people's time, they just want to burn through all the leveling; the games that push you through the leveling get slammed for not providing story. Yeah, it would be cool to play in a setting where your actions made some actual difference in the game world - but then again, if that means that the ones who determine the course of events are the same ones who obsess over gear and preset raids and stunlock PVP...well, gosh, I'll settle for a nice themepark, thankyouverymuch. The real world is already ruled and shaped by jerks and elitists, I don't need to spend my entertainment budget to get that.
Richard,
I will have to correct you for #1. Everquest was not the source of the Trinity, WoW was.
Everquest actually had a broad selection of classes/roles that were important to gameplay. There was crowd control (no raid would last 5 min without it), damage aversion (needed for raids and some dungeons), there were several types of movement/transport (Need Teleport? Need SoW?), there were other key abilities such as mana/hp regen, damage shields, dots, pets, etc that all factored into gameplay.
5 reasons MMORPGs arent more enjoyable.
1- Static
2- Linear
3- Redundant
4- Derivative
5- Shallow
Tried: EQ2 - AC - EU - HZ - TR - MxO - TTO - WURM - SL - VG:SoH - PotBS - PS - AoC - WAR - DDO - SWTOR
Played: UO - EQ1 - AO - DAoC - NC - CoH/CoV - SWG - WoW - EVE - AA - LotRO - DFO - STO - FE - MO - RIFT
Playing: Skyrim
Following: The Repopulation
I want a Virtual World, not just a Game.
ITS TOO HARD! - Matt Firor (ZeniMax)
This article makes several really good observations, and while I don't agree with all of them I can see where the writer is coming from.
I think the one concept that the writer completely overlooks is that as with everything in life time will tend to dull even the most amazing experiences. Usually your first experience is the best/most memorable. Does logging onto a new MMO after playing the genre for 13 years make me feel like I did the first time I played EQ, no of course not. Partially because I had never played a game where I could play with thousands of other people and partially because the world was so big I had never experienced anything like it.
I guess my point is that people tend to expect to have the same experience time after time and that in of itself is impossible. I also think that people tend to look at things through rose tinted goggles. When I think back about the game Shadowbane, which was one of my all time favs, I think about it very positively. However if I really think back, I remember tons of corpse griefing, losing armor/weapons I spent weeks trying to collect, losing levels because of experience decay when you died, etc. Were those types of things really fun? Probably not but the overall experience was fresh and new and there was not a whole lot of options that allowed me to play with my friends in different states.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
FF14:RR actually is pretty good in all aspects EXCEPT the gear grind. It has the holy trinity, but you can switch classes at any moment, and each class was needed depending on the dungeon. The dungeons are challenging. But once you get close to cap you start hearing about the quests you have to do for your class gear and your class weapon. And the materials to forge your legendary weapon are in a series of hard (like almost impossible to beat depending on your party) party of 8 dungeons.
I completely agree a lot of the points made in the comments and article. Leveling has become easy, focused on the short term (quick), with crappy rewards and often disposable story that no one really reads or pays attention to anymore because we all know that what matters is the endgame. The endgame is supposed to be the goal and the most fun part but after all that leveling you have to gear up to some arbitrary standard to be able to participate in the endgame content (which are usually raids). It's the same old thing over and over, which is why the call for a living world is getting louder because at least then maybe the journey will finally regain its rightful place as being more immersive, more important, more fun than racing to level cap and then twiddling your thumbs till the next expansion.