Stale MMO's

[BloatedGuppy]

So what you're saying is that the combat perfectly captures the essence of what all TES combat systems have been in all of their games.

While imperfect, I actually think TES combat has been middling to fair in most of its incarnations. I would not say the same about my hypothetical interpretation of the beta for TESO.

Let's put it this way. I happily played Oblivion/Skyrim/Morrowind for hundreds of hours. I could barely imagine spending a couple with TESO, for the singular reason that the game is bursting with combat, and that combat is...uh...probably really really bad.

Probably. SOMEONE FROM THE BETA WOULD NEED TO CONFIRM.

 

[sanquin]

One of those things is not like the others...

Tera is an action MMO. GW2 is a hybrid action/tab-target. Aion is as old school a point/click/hotbar MMO as they come.

Oh, oops, you're right. ^^;; Aion is a point and click too.

 

[Generalissimo]

Star trek online. it's well written and designed but the battle system and missions get repetitive quickly, usually going along these templates:

1. defend X
2. attack X
3. Talk to X
4. collect X
5. Follow X
6. Defend X IN SPACE
7. Attack X IN SPACE
8. talk to X IN SPACE
9. collect X IN SPACE
10. Follow X IN SPACE

and although rare, you sometimes get
1. Perform obnoxious logic puzzle
2. perform obnoxious logic puzzle IN SPACE

i think you can see the problem. that and there's very little voice acting, an NPC or other player will have an animated mouth, but a speech bubble above their head. one funny thing, though is the dance emotes, in that your Avatar or whoever else will perform a hilariously cheesy dance with a completely serious look on their face. this often leads to entire dance parties that are SRS BZNS. and to add to the hilarity, they're either wearing armour or a uniform.

i go back occasionally, but i won't start playing regularly until the next major update, probably.

 

[Lawnmooer]

Let's put it this way. I happily played Oblivion/Skyrim/Morrowind for hundreds of hours. I could barely imagine spending a couple with TESO, for the singular reason that the game is bursting with combat, and that combat is...uh...probably really really bad.

Probably. SOMEONE FROM THE BETA WOULD NEED TO CONFIRM.

As someone from the Beta, I'll try to cover what I found:

The combat system is very similar to that of TES series but with some MMO additions:

- Left click for basic attack
- Hold LMB for heavy attack
- Hold RMB for block
(So far, so TES)

- Left and right mouse buttons for melee range interrupt
- Double tap movement key for dodge
- 1-5 keys for active abilities and R key for Ultimate ability - Essentially magic or weapon skills (Weapon skills utilize Stamina, magics use Magicka)

Attacking with basic attacks does not consume stamina, then there's the synergizing of abilities:

Various AoE abilities has a description of "An ally can explode the material it's made out of to do AoE damage/AoE Stun/AoE Heal" making it have influences of GW2's combo's.

Blocking a big hit from an enemy can stun them. Using a heavy attack on a stunned target will knock it down for a few seconds.

Oh, one last thing about combat, range attacks (Be it from a Bow/Staff/Spell) are all homing, so you only need to have your target in sights when you're attacking, meaning you won't spend 90% of your time missing on moving targets (Though the projectiles can hit other objects if they get in the way).

So, the familiarity of TES combat is felt, but it has some shiny new mechanics in play to make it more MMO friendly. I actually find it's a bit of an improvement over the usual TES affair, it's not perfect (Melee attacks still suffer from the lack of weight aspect, aside from knocking down a stunned target) but the additional abilities (Along with not having stamina tied to regular attacks) helps it be more interesting, as does the introduction of defensive abilities such as Dodging and Interrupting - It becomes less "Spam LMB until target falls over" and more interactive, with the ability to choose to use spells and weapon abilities, the ability to time blocks to open up a target for CC, ability to dodge attacks and traps and the ability to interrupt powerful spells.

Edit:
Just remembered something important. Magicka, Health and Stamina all regenerate a lot faster than in other TES games at base (With cost reductions and regeneration increasing passives and equipment fairly common) increasing the speed of the combat and the reliance on potions (Though there are still potions, and a quick select wheel to choose them)

 

[Sight Unseen]

Let's put it this way. I happily played Oblivion/Skyrim/Morrowind for hundreds of hours. I could barely imagine spending a couple with TESO, for the singular reason that the game is bursting with combat, and that combat is...uh...probably really really bad.

Probably. SOMEONE FROM THE BETA WOULD NEED TO CONFIRM.

As someone from the Beta, I'll try to cover what I found:

The combat system is very similar to that of TES series but with some MMO additions:

- Left click for basic attack
- Hold LMB for heavy attack
- Hold RMB for block
(So far, so TES)

- Left and right mouse buttons for melee range interrupt
- Double tap movement key for dodge
- 1-5 keys for active abilities and R key for Ultimate ability - Essentially magic or weapon skills (Weapon skills utilize Stamina, magics use Magicka)

Attacking with basic attacks does not consume stamina, then there's the synergizing of abilities:

Various AoE abilities has a description of "An ally can explode the material it's made out of to do AoE damage/AoE Stun/AoE Heal" making it have influences of GW2's combo's.

Blocking a big hit from an enemy can stun them. Using a heavy attack on a stunned target will knock it down for a few seconds.

Oh, one last thing about combat, range attacks (Be it from a Bow/Staff/Spell) are all homing, so you only need to have your target in sights when you're attacking, meaning you won't spend 90% of your time missing on moving targets (Though the projectiles can hit other objects if they get in the way).

So, the familiarity of TES combat is felt, but it has some shiny new mechanics in play to make it more MMO friendly. I actually find it's a bit of an improvement over the usual TES affair, it's not perfect (Melee attacks still suffer from the lack of weight aspect, aside from knocking down a stunned target) but the additional abilities (Along with not having stamina tied to regular attacks) helps it be more interesting, as does the introduction of defensive abilities such as Dodging and Interrupting - It becomes less "Spam LMB until target falls over" and more interactive, with the ability to choose to use spells and weapon abilities, the ability to time blocks to open up a target for CC, ability to dodge attacks and traps and the ability to interrupt powerful spells.

Edit:
Just remembered something important. Magicka, Health and Stamina all regenerate a lot faster than in other TES games at base (With cost reductions and regeneration increasing passives and equipment fairly common) increasing the speed of the combat and the reliance on potions (Though there are still potions, and a quick select wheel to choose them)

Shh!!! you're not supposed to talk about the beta!!! Bethesda might hunt you down. It's like fight club. Oh wait, shit. I talked about fight club. I'm screwed now

 

[Qvar]

In MMOs I find that it really takes something more than just the gameplay to keep me interested. I have to enjoy the core gameplay, of course, but that can only last for so long given how many hours you typically put into an MMO. Whether it be community, ongoing RP, a really interesting and evolving world/story, little bits of continuous character building, or something else entirely. There has to be a hook that keeps me around after my initial "Ooh new game" thrill has long worn off.

I feel that the best fantasy MMORPG in the sense of character development was Warhammer Online. The journal was a truly masterpiece of "how to keep the players busy" and the trophies really added that little extra push to adding things to your character. It's a shame that the pvp sucked balls so hard and the pve zones turned out to be the same over and over.

On the other hand, I love EVE online. It's the hardest MMO out there and I apreciate that. YOU make your spreadsheets to win money over the other players. YOU calculate what to fit into your ship to make it better. No more samey armors for everybody. Sadly, the lack of (solo, specially) drive, out of "make more money, fly bigger shit", puts many people out of it, me included.

 

[lassiie]

I've only ever played Runescape so I can't speak from experience but I can understand where you're coming from. I stopped it not quite so much as I was getting bored of it, but cause I'd hit the point where it was taking far too long to level up... alright then so I was getting bored

It's been years since then though - I've been thinking of diving back into an MMO at some stage. What would you recommend OP? I was considering FF 14. Stale as it may be, is it good if one hasn't played many MMOs'?

I would recommend FFXIV if you are into PvE exclusively, and don't like PvP, as there is hardly any of it in there. It is a very well refined MMO and almost the pinnacle of the current genre. It's what I am playing right now, and I am enjoying it, although depending on endgame content updates it may or may not last, hard to say right now

 

[Artaneius]

Ultima Online was the only MMORPG that I could play many years in before finally quitting. I actually played from 97-05. Damn good MMO... Made a lot of memories.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

MMOs, are, by design, meant to capture your attention for as long as possible until you eventually get sick of it.

EVERYONE who has ever played an MMO for a fair amount of time can tell you that, whether it is a handful or months or several years, it all depends how long you can stand it.

A-yup. This is pretty much it. Every MMORPG gets stale after a while, but then so can any video game. The trick is that MMOs generally require a lot more of your time than most video games out there, which makes it pretty hard to stick with one for a long period of time.

Personally, the longest I've played an MMO is 5 years of Final Fantasy XI. I like XIV a ton better but who knows how long I'll play it. I generally just go where my friends go, although their attention span varies.

 

[thiosk]

So since all of you seem to be MMORPG experts: whats the deal with Neverwinter?

 

[Sight Unseen]

I've only ever played Runescape so I can't speak from experience but I can understand where you're coming from. I stopped it not quite so much as I was getting bored of it, but cause I'd hit the point where it was taking far too long to level up... alright then so I was getting bored

It's been years since then though - I've been thinking of diving back into an MMO at some stage. What would you recommend OP? I was considering FF 14. Stale as it may be, is it good if one hasn't played many MMOs'?

If you like Elder Scrolls games I'd recommend waiting and trying out the Elder Scrolls Online. I've been very impressed by it so far.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

So since all of you seem to be MMORPG experts: whats the deal with Neverwinter?

It's rubbish.

One of the worst offenders of the Fee To Play apocalypse devouring the genre.

 

[LostAlone]

Longevity in an MMO is more about people than it is about the game itself.

I played Eve for a very nearly a decade (2003 to 2013) and throughout that time what kept me coming back was that I liked the people I was hanging around with. Eve is a seriously punishing game that seems to exist exclusively to prove that pushing people away makes them want to keep playing harder. But when I first started I played with friend I was at school with, then when I inevitably grew up a little I had already met other people in the game who thought my old friends were dicks too. And on and on and on.

The communities I was in played a pretty substantial role in my life, since they were people I spoke to everyday and who would wake me up to come blow shit up. For the entire time I played the game, even the last 18 months during which time I moved in with my girlfriend, my Eve buddies were by far the people I spent the most time talking to.

That's the nature of the genre. It doesn't matter how crappy the game is, if you have cool people to do it with then it'll be fun. When your friends are around you can just kick a tin can around for hours and it be awesome.

Sooooo when we talk about 'stale' RPGs, I mostly think of ones with bad communities, or where developers don't make things with tight knit groups in mind.

Oh and to the guy who thinks Eve is just an MMO IN SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE - You're wrong and you're stupid. Hardcore MMO play is one thing. Eve is a whole other thing. I remember some time ago some Final Fantasy players did some epic 20 hour boss run and the gaming press reported on it like it was a big deal to spend that long playing a game. In Eve, I personally know people who played for 50 hour stretches. Or a week straight with four hours of sleep, always online, always working. That's not uncommon. Also the game play is unique. Not better or anything, but it is different. But the culture that comes with the game is fucking nuts. When someone asks why you aren't online, answering with 'I'm asleep' or 'My baby needs her medicine' is making excuses. Eve is like trench warfare, except there are enemies behind you too, and you only win by leveraging every resource possible to your advantage. It's a trip.

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

Meh, only Eve gets MMO right. The rest are just the CoD's of MMO. Railroaded-questhub-madness, 99% boring + obvious skilltrees and the usualy tier-raiding non-sense.

Sadly without a space theme like Eve it's nearly impossible to create an Eve-like game in an medieval setting. You just gonna run out of space for people to do, explore and/or build stuff.

I was in the TESO Beta too and it's okay. But that's it. It's worse than Skyrim, since it's also a Questhub fest with 0% exploration at least on the first 15 lvls i've played.


The problem is just that everyone has such a strong preconception of a "MMO", that all end up trying to invent the wheel a-new, while always being worse than WoW. And we've never left this period of stagnation.

 

[RandV80]

I often wonder what it would take to get me back into an MMORPG, as the WoW clones are never going to cut it.

The only time I every really got into one was with a crappy little game called Dark Ages, at the turn of the millennium. I had just gotten into PC gaming, somehow had never heard of Everquest or Ultima Online, but saw a banner add for this SNES like RPG that you play online with other people, how amazing!!! And it sucked me in for two years. What I'm getting to is some major differences it had to the typical MMO today. Now the game wasn't very good. Story? None existent. Quests? What are quests? Character balance? Pfft, balance? Guilds? What's a guild?Grindy gameplay? Hell yeah!

But... when you first join the game, after a quick tutorial you started off as a Peasant class. To obtain one of the 5 classes (Warrior, Monk, Rogue, Wizard, Priest), you had to seek out someone at level 11+ of your class and ask them to guide/mentor you. There was a temple where this occurred. The key thing here is a simple gameplay point: you start the game having to socialize with other players! Now there were incentives for higher level players to guide peasants. The game community, rules and enforcement was entirely player run. The game world was supposed to be a Role-Playing environment, so any OOC'ness could get you busted and thrown in jail for a day. To become guards or further up the chain the law makers, you had to guide a certain number of peasants. Also adding to the in-game community, their were a number of different gods you could choose to worship, and each granted some special abilities by using your faith. To acquire faith, you had to attend player run sermons at the gods temple. So again, more community building.

And finally, while the classes weren't very well balanced, you needed all of them to work in cohesion. You could solo up to around level 10, but after that you really needed to start working in groups, and as you got higher every class was required to take on the harder stuff. Monks & Warriors did the damage, Wizards exploited weaknesses (their attack spells were really poorly balanced), Rogues did crowd control & intel, and of course Priests healed & buffed.

The end result, while the gameplay wasn't very good I really got hooked on the community right from the start. That's something that's severely lacking in any WoW-like MMO's. I suppose when you get to end game raids you have to coordinate in big groups, but up until then the gameplay community seems really dead. I gave FFXIV a try, and while the game was well put together, it was basically everyone running around doing their own thing, in what could maybe be a decent story except that YOU are a special butterfly that must save the world, but ignore everyone around you that's doing the exact same thing. And all you had to communicate was a a chat box that basically worked as a zone/guild chat room, usually being used in ways completely irrelevant to the game.

I was lucky in that I found the game in a bargain bin for $10 half a year before the relaunch beta, so I got to play through those and the first trial months at a cheap price. But I lost interest about a week before the subscription prices kicked in. I was in a decent guild but the game just felt kind of dead. I'm a lifelong fan of single player JRPG's but the MMO'ness hurt the single player game design, and the online 'community' wasn't anything close to an adequate replacement.

 

[Remus]

Neverwinter is a pretty game, with some decent player-made missions, but yes, almost entirely P2W if you want anything cool. The Secret World is a decent attention-grabber. It has all the cool horror tropes in a multiplayer setting and an honest to gods explanation as to why your character can resurrect and has powers. Character customization is extremely diverse and it's rare that you find 2 characters that look anywhere close to the same. My own often gets confused with Big Boss, black trenchcoat, eyepatch, and mullet, although the stakes lining my coat are more Blade than Metal Gear.

ESO - I'll be dreaming about anchor invasions until its release. They are just too fun. The variety of skills you can employ is nice, although I'm sure there will be specific builds that players, and of course guilds, will prefer for raids and largescale PvP. No matter, I'm done with the hardcore crowd. Spellsword and loving it. The PvP is reminiscent of GW2, with the huge map, siege weapons, various forts and supply points, and giant capture point smack in the center.

 

[Raine_sage]

The one thing I like about mabinogi is it got the sandbox feeling pretty down pat. You can level up doing just about anything, the levels themselves aren't even that important. I've been offline for about a month but thanks to the aging system I'll still have AP points waiting when I log back in. It's just so soothing to me, I can level up playing music, I can level up cooking, I can level up making pretty clothing. It's just a shame you have to deal with Nexon if you want to play it. Also the aesthetic choices put some people off, it's been around awhile, it shows its age.

I just feel so immersed when I play it though, it's just definitely a game better enjoyed with friends.

 

[LostAlone]

Sadly without a space theme like Eve it's nearly impossible to create an Eve-like game in an medieval setting. You just gonna run out of space for people to do, explore and/or build stuff.

The problem is just that everyone has such a strong preconception of a "MMO", that all end up trying to invent the wheel a-new, while always being worse than WoW. And we've never left this period of stagnation.

Truth is that fantasy has a whole lot less space for innovation than people seem to think it does. Even if someone can genuinely make stuff better, it's hard to say if anyone will actually notice. That's a huge problem, and it's partially why I've always stayed a thousand miles away from all fantasy MMOs. They just all felt so generic to me, and they still do some fifteen years later.

Fantasy is just a dry hole. Has been for decades. All the books and movies and blah; it's all just the same with different names for stuff. Our elves are blue, our wizards are half-dragons, our bad guys are bad because of whatever...

There's a reason why all these games feel so stale Yes, partly because WoW is so monolithic, but also because when the only stuff you have going on other than manual labor is 'magic' you are going to end up doing the same stuff a lot. Maybe you mine stuff differently or whatever, but it's still hitting stuff with a pick axe. Even if you have a pick axe mini-game that's awesome and enthralling, it's still just pick axing. You can't make that much better.

When you have technology you can please yourself with how you apply everything. It makes for a less solid canon, but it also means that when it comes down to it you can design a new feature, make it fun then handwave the narrative issues. When you have technology you can make things as abstract or specific as you like, and as complex or simple as you like. You can make mining be 'activate mining beam', or 'aim the mining beam at the vein of minerals' or 'aim the volly of torpedos at the right points in the rock so that it splinters just right the the freighter can tow the valuable parts' or even 'construct a huge automated operation of mining drones and ore processing facilities where you mix an RTS and Spacechem to gather and refine at maximum speed all the time'. But back in the dirt-age people are still hitting stuff with a pick axe.

 

[beastro]

So, I have been playing FFXIV: ARR as of late, and it is a very well crafted game, especially considering the original release. My issue is this. I have played Aion, Tera, Guild Wars 2, Rift, SWTOR and Eve. Eve is the only one that is truly different. The others are all basically interchangeable.

Don't get me wrong, I realize they all have slightly different mechanics, and different focuses on what is important, but at the end of the day, they are all basically the same.

I find myself growing tired of MMOs quicker and quicker, as the newer ones try to cater more to the casual gamer. Not that I consider myself a hardcore MMO player by any means, just that I tend to reach endgame and find myself complete almost everything pretty quickly. Aion took me somewhere between 3-6 months to hit max level, honestly do not remember, but I do remember playing Aion for around 2 years before I quit, mostly do to patches ruining the game IMO.

Rift was next and only took me a month or so to get to max level, but there was enough endgame content to keep me interested, not to mention the pvp was extremely fun in that game. Ended up quitting when they nerfed all healing in PvP by 50%.

Then I played Tera and SWTOR, neither which I hit max level, and found myself bored of both games very quickly. SWTOR might've been good but I will never be able to forgive it for taking away KOTOR3 from me.

Was just wondering if anyone else was having similar experiences with MMOs as myself.

Of the games you listed only Eve predates WoWs dominant influence and WoWclones as a whole.

No coincidence.

MMOs as a genre need WoW to die out before they'll be able to expand and grow again, if ever...

Fantasy is just a dry hole. Has been for decades. All the books and movies and blah; it's all just the same with different names for stuff. Our elves are blue, our wizards are half-dragons, our bad guys are bad because of whatever...

And yet EQ was derivative of High Fantasy, yet introduced enough quirks to it that it was very interesting, like that Warcrafts lore was before WC3.