My thoughts for improving MMORPGs(specifically WOW)

[Hoplon]

Just stop playing WoW and go to another MMO. It wont be fixed. Blizzard have started catering and balancing the game for the average player, which is completely backward.

Given the "Average Player" makes up about 10.9 million of the player base, your talking out of your hat.

 

[Bobzer77]

Check out some sandbox mmo's.

Mortal Online (first person twitch based combat), Darkfall Online, Archage (next year hopefully).

I think they will suit you better

 

[viranimus]

So to sum up the responses I get,

"Not being able to judge peoples worth is a deal breaker" and "I am afraid of the concept of having to rely on my own ability as opposed to other people zerging my challenges to death and entitling my worth to me." Basically both ME mentality, which is why MMOs are "massively" screwed up now thanks to WoW.

I know change is scary.

 

[keideki]

EQOA and FFXI both had systems that dealt with EXP when you died. In EQOA you got experience debt, and half of all your exp that you made was diverted to pay it off. The game was less about finding the best way to get EXP and more about learning how to manage your EXP debt well. Originally in FFXI (I played on the PS2) you lost EXP when you died and you could even lose a level. Personally I hated both these systems. Punishing players for dying is not the proper way.

 

[bob1052]

So, a lot of people are leaving wow, most often complaining that:
A) It's too easy, and it's not about skill or learning to play the game better, it's just about how much time you throw at the game.
B) It's all about gearscore, not about skill
C) All of the players are Idiots

I'm going to stop you right there.

That is not the issue people are having with WoW. In fact, WotLK has two bosses that are regarded as the most difficult of all of WoW, and the few guilds who have killed Ragnaros are reporting the similar things about him.

A vocal minority of idiots on the forums does not mean that these are the reasons why people are leaving WoW.

 

[shadeira]

I know no one wants to hear that, but maybe we should consider one thing:
WOW is just a game...a very good game indeed!
It's funny for a certain period of time, it can't be funny FOREVER no matter what game mechanics you install

but don't worry , there are other good games out there
*1pala lvl85,1dudu lvl81,some lvl20 twinks*

 

[Smooth Operator]

Sorry your solution to make WoW more fun is to add more grinding? If quests got no good reward then why the hell do them?
I know there is a good portion of people who like that kind of torture, but most aren't really into that, then again it is WoW you haveto love grind to quite an extent.

If you want a different system you need to see Guild Wars:
- 8 active skills limit and low level cap, so you find your own preferred layout and fighting style and learn to use that exceptionally well
- NPC party members like any RPG, and they are crucial to advanced fights, some are damn near better then any player
- precise position and timing, sofar this was only possible with instances, but it made the fights so fucking good(for an MMO anyway)

 

[spartan231490]

So, a lot of people are leaving wow, most often complaining that:
A) It's too easy, and it's not about skill or learning to play the game better, it's just about how much time you throw at the game.
B) It's all about gearscore, not about skill
C) All of the players are Idiots

I'm going to stop you right there.

That is not the issue people are having with WoW. In fact, WotLK has two bosses that are regarded as the most difficult of all of WoW, and the few guilds who have killed Ragnaros are reporting the similar things about him.

A vocal minority of idiots on the forums does not mean that these are the reasons why people are leaving WoW.

They're the reasons I left wow. They're the reasons my friend, who had the 5th best geared paladin on the server and could sleep through a raid to top dps and pick up agro if the tank was in trouble, quit playing wow. And they're the reasons my friends who still play wow are getting bored as hell with wow, and one of them's been playing since vanilla. They've both killed Ragnaros(with their guild, obviously). Mary laughs when she hears people complaining about a tough boss because even the hard ones are way easier than they have any right to be, and a lot easier(according to her) than the toughest boss in vanilla wow.

 

[Crazy_Dude]

Played WoW for 4 years now but recently quit just because of the boredom.

Nobody cares about gearscore anymore but Blizzard released their own version in Cataclysm aka "Average Item Level" its basicly the same thing and the same people using it as a holy grail to judge people.

Lets be real WoW is getting old even with the expansion to release new content it just isnt enough. It has been going on for 7 years now. I could see it lasting a couple more before being overtaken by something else.

 

[bob1052]

So, a lot of people are leaving wow, most often complaining that:
A) It's too easy, and it's not about skill or learning to play the game better, it's just about how much time you throw at the game.
B) It's all about gearscore, not about skill
C) All of the players are Idiots

I'm going to stop you right there.

That is not the issue people are having with WoW. In fact, WotLK has two bosses that are regarded as the most difficult of all of WoW, and the few guilds who have killed Ragnaros are reporting the similar things about him.

A vocal minority of idiots on the forums does not mean that these are the reasons why people are leaving WoW.

They're the reasons I left wow. They're the reasons my friend, who had the 5th best geared paladin on the server and could sleep through a raid to top dps and pick up agro if the tank was in trouble, quit playing wow. And they're the reasons my friends who still play wow are getting bored as hell with wow, and one of them's been playing since vanilla. They've both killed Ragnaros(with their guild, obviously). Mary laughs when she hears people complaining about a tough boss because even the hard ones are way easier than they have any right to be, and a lot easier(according to her) than the toughest boss in vanilla wow.

Ragnaros easymode is easy.

Ragnaros on heroic has been killed by 12 guilds in the world. No fifth server ranked person has even seen H-Rag.

Idiots who beat normal modes and complain about the game being too easy on the forums is why people like the OP get the misconception of the game being too easy.

 

[Eventidal]

Sorry to say, TS, but those are not the real issues and your ideas would not fix them, but instead make them worse.

I know of a game with terrible penalties to dying. It's called Maplestory. And it sucks. If my level 150 Paladin were to die (which is indeed a real possibility, but like WoW, the combat system doesn't allow for much skill so it's not hard to die accidentally or by lag) I would lose hours of grinding. So I'd have to go kill the same monsters for HOURS so I could regain what I lost.
So you say gear ranks are a problem. The solution: Make dungeons give out less gear, make it harder to get. LOLWHAT. WoW is not skill-bases already, so anyone could easily still get the armor. It would just take a lot longer, which ruins the fun of the game.

I know what the problem is with MMOs:

-Tanks/healers/DPS: Enjoy waiting an hour to get a tank for your run and then have him DC right before the boss. WELL F***.
-no skill involved: Spam your skills, wait for cooldowns to end. Make sure you're not standing in the range of the boss' mega-massive space blast. You win. Exchange blows with monster. Hope you have the greater defense/HP.
-Monthly payment: Oh, we want you to play our game as much as possible, so you have to pay $15 a month to be able to play. Those with addictive personalities, HAVE FUN.
-Customization: Or lack thereof. Your pumpkin hat may make you look stupid as all hell and clash with your badass armor, which you already dislike because it doesn't suit your character's personality, but it's your best helmet by far so DEAL WITH IT.
-Grind: GRIND GRIND GRIND. Why? To get better stats and GRIND SOME MORE.
-Quest system: Does anyone even read those big walls of text? Who else is tired of clicking the ! and killing some things and returning back to click the ??
-World never changes: You can do the most epic quest line ever conceived and stop a raging war between the elves and the trolls and your reward is some cool items and a completely unchanged, static game world. They try to make it convincing using tricks, but nothing actually changes based on your actions in the game world.

So, how could they ever fix all that?
They probably couldn't. But hey, there's always Guild Wars 2, which is literally fixing every one of those things. I can't wait for that game; it sounds too good to be an MMO.

 

[spartan231490]

Sorry but it's pretty obvious you have neither MMO nor balancing experience.

A) This would just frustrate players. Death also happens because of accidental disconnects or just not being where you're supposed to, which is normal when you're relaxed. If it's a quest-based MMO and you die too much you'll run out of quests for that level and be forced to grind instead. That is a horrible situation.

And yes you can reward players for skill in an MMO. Ever heard of PvP? If you're better at something than another player, my guess is you got more skill. WoW's arena is almost an e-sport so no arguments about how it's more luck and gear-based than skill-based.

WOW also shouldn't give such good gear just as rewards for quests. You should either have to keep running dungeons long enough to get the random drops

That is exactly what raids are, and if you would've played wow for enough time you'd know that. But running dungeons over and over is repetition, and no one likes repetition.

B) Gearscore was never much of a problem, at least not a gamebreaking one.

C) So your ideas on how to fix MMOs are a half-assed mechanic, can't be fixed, and can't be fixed. That's not much to work on, is it.
You can't provide viable solutions because you don't understand the problems. You should play some more if you want to gain wisdom on the matter.

firstly, I never claimed to have a massive amount of MMO or balancing experience. I would say that I do have a fair amount of balancing experience, but not in an MMO setting, so it's not really that applicable. I wasn't putting forth these solutions as the suggestions of an expert, just a fan.

I know that A would frustrate players, it would also make them be more cautious and "smarter." I played wow with the crappiest internet I can imagine other than dial-up, and most of my deaths weren't due to disconnects. Some were yes, but not all, and with work you could adjust the game to recognize when a player died because they disconnected, and not give them a huge exp penalty.

Personally, I would have found wow more entertaining if death had exp penalties, but I can see how some people wouldn't. As for pushing people to grind, that isn't always a problem. In most non-MMO RPGs(at least the ones that I've played) the main exp source is grinding, but the grinding is driven by quests or story so it's less onerous. If you introduced gear-based quests, it's a perfect opportunity to make grinding less onerous.

Honestly, the 25%-50% figure was pulled out of the air. 5%-10% would probably be more appropriate, but I wouldn't mind even a 50%, it would add weight to the decision to go try and complete a quest, or go into an instance. I like games that have heavy consequences for failure, especially failure induced by trying something that should be out of your league.

And I didn't say that you couldn't reward players for skill in an MMO, or at least I didn't intend to. I was trying to say that almost any skill based objective that you set, the one that gives the skill based reward, can be conquered without skill if you're willing to throw enough time at it. With the amount of time you see MMO players put into the game, this is a big problem for an MMO. I was suggesting that the best way to counter this is to introduce penalties for failure that make a trial and error approach too costly to be worth the rewards. Like the exp penalty when you die.

And I'm well aware that raiding is exactly what I said about gear, I was referring to the entire game, not just top tier, end game content. and I know it's repetition and no one likes it, which is why I suggested adding quests which reward the player with gear instead of extra exp.

Maybe I don't understand the problems, but I think I have a better understanding of them than you think. I never pretended to be an expert, I was just offering my opinion on ways to improve a game, in fact a genre, that I should really like, but can't really get into the way it stands.

 

[instantbenz]

Make solo only content for a MMO, that kind of misses the whole point of being an MMO if you don't have to worry about other people bothering you while questing.

You don't want people to bother you while you quest do you? Can't players help in quests or other events, all the time?

Tell me if I'm reading that wrong.

The point of playing Players v E in an MMO is to be on the same team, not be an annoyance.

 

[spartan231490]

A) It's too easy, and it's not about skill or learning to play the game better, it's just about how much time you throw at the game.
B) It's all about gearscore, not about skill

I keep hearing this, and it quite frankly makes me sad.

Sorry to say this, but to be top 10 in arena/rated BG's or to be at a top 100 raiding guild you need to be good; and no, it doesn't require that much time, in WotLK it took me a lot of time to learn to arena and find a good partner, after that you can get the points and the glad title playing 2-4 hours a week, in Cata it took a big push to ensure a raid spot at a top 500 USA guild, after that I played around 8 hours a week.

If you suck at WoW, just try to get better or quit! I am quite average at SFIV, worse, subpar, but work a little every week to improve.

I don't suck at WoW. Honestly, I never got to a high enough level to suck. I hated the content from levels 50-70 with a burning passion only slightly more intense than I hated the content from level 25-50, so I would basically just level a new character when I got much higher than level 40. I made a couple really hard pushes for max level, but It was just painful. And even at the levels I made it to, I ran into players who seemingly had no idea how to play the game, wearing heirloom gear just because they were willing to put the time in. I put a lot of hours in, a lot of hours in, I just couldn't get into.

And of course being at the very very top requires skill, but getting to top level and being in a raiding guild really doesn't. My friends are always complaining because the people they play with, admittedly usually pugs, but even occasionally guildies, are just absolutely shit players. Hell, my housemates bitched for almost 2 hours yesterday because the warlock in their guild wouldn't stop "standing in the fire" even after he was told multiple times where to stand. yes, I'm well aware that being at the top of the top requires skill, that will always be true. I'm saying that you can get relatively close to the top, even if you suck, just by throwing enough time at it.

 

[spartan231490]

So, a lot of people are leaving wow, most often complaining that:
A) It's too easy, and it's not about skill or learning to play the game better, it's just about how much time you throw at the game.
B) It's all about gearscore, not about skill
C) All of the players are Idiots

I'm going to stop you right there.

That is not the issue people are having with WoW. In fact, WotLK has two bosses that are regarded as the most difficult of all of WoW, and the few guilds who have killed Ragnaros are reporting the similar things about him.

A vocal minority of idiots on the forums does not mean that these are the reasons why people are leaving WoW.

They're the reasons I left wow. They're the reasons my friend, who had the 5th best geared paladin on the server and could sleep through a raid to top dps and pick up agro if the tank was in trouble, quit playing wow. And they're the reasons my friends who still play wow are getting bored as hell with wow, and one of them's been playing since vanilla. They've both killed Ragnaros(with their guild, obviously). Mary laughs when she hears people complaining about a tough boss because even the hard ones are way easier than they have any right to be, and a lot easier(according to her) than the toughest boss in vanilla wow.

Ragnaros easymode is easy.

Ragnaros on heroic has been killed by 12 guilds in the world. No fifth server ranked person has even seen H-Rag.

Idiots who beat normal modes and complain about the game being too easy on the forums is why people like the OP get the misconception of the game being too easy.

The guy who was 5th on the server quit playing in Lich King. I should have specified that. as for Ragnaros heroic vs Ragnaros Easy, they probably were talking about easy. I'm sorry about the confusion. When I posted I just remembered that one conversation about him i had with them months ago, it didn't even occur to me that he was the boss of the whole expansion. And I have no personal experience with top-level content in wow, I couldn't force myself that high, I'm just going on what My friends tell me about how many really sucky players there are, and how easy most of the content is. Also, just because the main boss is super-hard, doesn't mean that the rest of the content is equally more difficult than Lich king, or vanilla, or anything.