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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
What should the game have, or not have to be successful?
Hello everyone,
We all know MMORPGS are delicate things and break easily if a "core" "political" decision is wrong.
So i wanted to ask what you guys need to be bond to the game over years like your first MMORPG love.
1. In my opinion we need a non repetetiv pve and pvp content for all lvls and endgame. It should be rewarding maybe with: (storys? Lore? New Informations? Gear? LVL of difficulty? Prestige?) For example i played TERA a long time, and there are successes for 100 time clear a dungeon. This is what i call repetetiv.
2. The community has a huge role either. Maybe it would be smart to have "green" and "yellow" servers. In "Green" Servers you have to be nice and frendly to other community members, if you are toxic or you insult someone you will banned from this server and have to play on a "yellow" server with other guys who where toxic or something along the line. Of course you can directly chose a "yellow" server. Why would this be usefull? If you followed communitys from MOBAS like LOL or Paragon, etc. then you will come to the conclusion, that many players stop playing a game because of other players and this will be sad in my opinion.
3. Your Character must "fit in" the world. From design, movement, attack animations, etc. (I Name this here, because in my opinion it has yet to be optimised)
4. Combat System must be good optimized and stategical, because it ensures a possible depth to the game to improve your skills and teamcoordination. In my opinion a system with "tank" "healer" and "damagedealer" is best. (Do you know something about this point?)
5. Everything should be balanced to some point but still unique. Best example TERA again, there is a playable class named berserker. Berserker was meant to be a hardhitter but really slow. he was really hard to play in pvp but destroyed in pve early on. This was ok in my opinion he was good/easy in one role and bad/Hard to play in an other role. Now he has 3 i frames and hits like any other class. So this class in now ruined.
6. I dont like cash shops. In my opinion it should not be there or so small as possible even with "cosmetics". I dont have a problem to buy a game and pay monthly 12 €. I dont want to see guys on a police car driving around the forest. I also dont want to see anything which doesnt support the "fantasy" theme.
7. No boredom even for hardcore gamers. If for a certain amount of players ( maybe 15% or more) is nothing meaningful to do they will leave the game after 2 weeks or more, so my tip: if you release the game, be prepared for a next patch to a point where it will be finished when those 15% are done with the actual patch.
OK i think this is enough for now. :)
I really want that this game is a success. This is why i am so harsh right now. 1 Bigger mistake and it will not stand up for the genre. i would be really sad then :(
You guys can comment and expnad my list, please go ahead.
Greeting Sengura
We all know MMORPGS are delicate things and break easily if a "core" "political" decision is wrong.
So i wanted to ask what you guys need to be bond to the game over years like your first MMORPG love.
1. In my opinion we need a non repetetiv pve and pvp content for all lvls and endgame. It should be rewarding maybe with: (storys? Lore? New Informations? Gear? LVL of difficulty? Prestige?) For example i played TERA a long time, and there are successes for 100 time clear a dungeon. This is what i call repetetiv.
2. The community has a huge role either. Maybe it would be smart to have "green" and "yellow" servers. In "Green" Servers you have to be nice and frendly to other community members, if you are toxic or you insult someone you will banned from this server and have to play on a "yellow" server with other guys who where toxic or something along the line. Of course you can directly chose a "yellow" server. Why would this be usefull? If you followed communitys from MOBAS like LOL or Paragon, etc. then you will come to the conclusion, that many players stop playing a game because of other players and this will be sad in my opinion.
3. Your Character must "fit in" the world. From design, movement, attack animations, etc. (I Name this here, because in my opinion it has yet to be optimised)
4. Combat System must be good optimized and stategical, because it ensures a possible depth to the game to improve your skills and teamcoordination. In my opinion a system with "tank" "healer" and "damagedealer" is best. (Do you know something about this point?)
5. Everything should be balanced to some point but still unique. Best example TERA again, there is a playable class named berserker. Berserker was meant to be a hardhitter but really slow. he was really hard to play in pvp but destroyed in pve early on. This was ok in my opinion he was good/easy in one role and bad/Hard to play in an other role. Now he has 3 i frames and hits like any other class. So this class in now ruined.
6. I dont like cash shops. In my opinion it should not be there or so small as possible even with "cosmetics". I dont have a problem to buy a game and pay monthly 12 €. I dont want to see guys on a police car driving around the forest. I also dont want to see anything which doesnt support the "fantasy" theme.
7. No boredom even for hardcore gamers. If for a certain amount of players ( maybe 15% or more) is nothing meaningful to do they will leave the game after 2 weeks or more, so my tip: if you release the game, be prepared for a next patch to a point where it will be finished when those 15% are done with the actual patch.
OK i think this is enough for now. :)
I really want that this game is a success. This is why i am so harsh right now. 1 Bigger mistake and it will not stand up for the genre. i would be really sad then :(
You guys can comment and expnad my list, please go ahead.
Greeting Sengura
0
Comments
1. People want everything for free. Literally everything. Even 10-15$ a month is too much even tho that's literally like 10 minutes at work.
2. People spend 10+ hours a day in a game and expect to have enough NEW content all the time. That's literally impossible unless you have billions to pay 1000 Employees who are working non-stop. Or you include a grind-fest and call it content.
3. YT Channels like Peon or Cry who overhype every single new MMO like it's the best thing in the world and then people expect the game to be perfect day 1.
4. Asian developers.
________________________________________________
1. People want everything for free. Literally everything. Even 10-15$ a month is too much even tho that’s literally like 10 minutes at work.
2. People spend 10+ hours a day in a game and expect to have enough NEW content all the time. That’s literally impossible unless you have billions to pay 1000 Employees who are working non-stop. Or you include a grind-fest and call it content.
3. YT Channels like Peon or Cry who overhype every single new MMO like it’s the best thing in the world and then people expect the game to be perfect day 1.
4. Asian developers.
________________________________________________
[/quote]
This. Especially point two. This is simply impossible. You cannot ask for non repetitive content wich does not get boring.
Also the perfect class balance seams quite utopic to me...
Now, onto the question at hand. What does a game need to be successful. Here's what I think a game needs:
1. A clear focus. Sometimes it's better to focus on one core aspect than try to make the "best game ever" and put a little of everything into your game. Typically games that do this ironically try to please everyone and end up pleasing no one. Know what demographic you are aiming for, and cater to that. If at the same time you manage to cater to other demographics, then that is just a bonus.
2. Open and honest communication. I'm not saying that the players should know everything about the game, but that the developers should be honest and not try to pull the wool over their players' eyes. We're not stupid, and we can tell if you are trying to bullshit us. The fastest way to lose a gaming community's respect is to hide behind bullshit.
As for what a game shouldn't have, I think we can all agree that p2w cash shops are never a good idea, but aside from that, the rest of the stuff is mostly subjective and we could argue for hours and hours about what the "perfect" mmorpg would be like.
No gear treadmill,
No boosts,
No mob spawn camping
No kill steals
No power creep.
No force fed personal narrative. (the chosen one)
No Harvest/gather node hopping.
No hand holding.
Yes a player driven economy
Yes dynamic living world which responds to players activity.
Yes a crafting/gathering system that isnt shit and meaningful.
Yes an engaging combat system.
Yes intuitive Mob AI and Boss mechanics.
Yes character customization and viable build diversity.
Yes to a vibrant discoverable environments, lore and history worth investigating.
Yes to the promotion and assistance of a non toxic community.
Oh and Dwarves.
1. Servers without open world pvp. If it's possible without ruining node conquests and pvp caravans.
2. Large dungeons that can be explored in groups for hours.
3. Unique class abilities that make you feel overpowered. Like a wizard who can port all over a world.. a world without the usual fast
travel, or a enchanter who regens mana, or a mage ability that blocks all damage on a player for a period of time, or a abilities that absorbs 25% or everyone health in the group but does a giant amount of damage.
4. A original start. I think it's important when you start a mmo, you should feel like your in the real <strong>persistent </strong>world. You shouldn't experience a trial area where everyone is doing the same non-persistent tasks.. with walls of text to read.. or a dungeon where you're lead from point to point. Show players there in a unique place in the world, it's a persistent world and they have a sense of freedom. Surprise the player.
5. Make players dependent on one another.
General stuff I would like the see in an mmo
1. NPCs with life and purpose. Npcs with a sleeping area, work or a role, with wants and need that form stories and cause interaction.
2. Role playing actions. Eating, washing your clothes, sharpening your sword, sleeping and talking to npcs.
3. First-person view only.
4. Player-skill combat with a mix of class based limitations. Death should be because you got hit and not because your health hit 0.
5. A huge number of playable races. Like 20.
6. Quests that are a adventure. The world should react to your adventure by using good and bad npcs, make you complete puzzles, travel great distances, and form groups. Dropping Sauron's ring in mount doom is a simple task but the fun is in all the interaction along the way there.
7. A world so large players have to stick with their guild to explore and travel.
1. Servers without open world pvp. If it's possible without ruining node conquests and pvp caravans.
2. Large dungeons that can be explored in groups for hours.
3. Unique class abilities that make you feel overpowered. Like a wizard who can port all over a world.. a world without the usual fast
travel, or a enchanter who regens mana, or a mage ability that blocks all damage on a player for a period of time, or a abilities that absorbs 25% or everyone health in the group but does a giant amount of damage.
4. A original start. I think it's important when you start a mmo, you should feel like your in the real <strong>persistent </strong>world. You shouldn't experience a trial area where everyone is doing the same non-persistent tasks.. with walls of text to read.. or a dungeon where you're lead from point to point. Show players there in a unique place in the world, it's a persistent world and they have a sense of freedom. Surprise the player.
5. Make players dependent on one another.
General stuff I would like the see in an mmo
1. NPCs with life and purpose. Npcs with a sleeping area, work or a role, with wants and need that form stories and cause interaction.
2. Role playing actions. Eating, washing your clothes, sharpening your sword, sleeping and talking to npcs.
3. First-person view only.
4. Player-skill combat with a mix of class based limitations. Death should be because you got hit and not because your health hit 0.
5. A huge number of playable races. Like 20.
6. Quests that are a adventure. The world should react to your adventure by using good and bad npcs, make you complete puzzles, travel great distances, and form groups. Dropping Sauron's ring in mount doom is a simple task but the fun is in all the interaction along the way there.
7. A world so large players have to stick with their guild to explore and travel.
#2 No more Copying of WOW with Class Balance and streamlining of classes
#3 No more gear, dungeon and raid treadmills.
If any of these 3 things are in Ashes I might as well play FFXIV because it just becomes another WOW copy.
The only 2 things I can accept as a copy of WOW is the UI and Tab Target with changes to how Tab Target works.
1. Server stability for example no Desync (looking at you Black dessert).
2. Combat fluidity
3. Build diversity
4. Balance (Everybody loves to one shot someone, but don't like to be one shot).
5.Environment (Thinking mainly strategical environment).
6. Animations ( readable enemy skill animations, allow for cancels to bait your foe and cancels that allow more diverse combo chains.)
Just a few things I could think of for the PvP side of things.
-Gear needs to be meaningful, it's a great idea to have items that every1 cannot obtain. It's great to own the item, and its great too look at ppl who owns it to envy and set goals for yourself.
-Crafting needs to meaningfull, but not overly complicated to actually do.
-No fast travel or flying.
-Keep class changes to a minimum, ppl don't like having their class change too frequently and too dramatically.
-Have optional content that you make sure ppl know about. Don't have content that must be done everyday unless you want to fall behind.
- That means some times don't listen to the group who complains the loudest (Generally hardcore pvpers) the other 99% of us dont want that
- Dont force people into play styles they hate like Farming Resources, killing 4000 mobs, Pvp. Let them decide what they want to do to advance and play that way. Also let them change that way if they decide they like something else better in 2 months
- Can we get a daily quest rotation ? I mean really dont the same damm quest every day gets old.
- This one from Archage , New player should not be cannon fodder for the first 2 years they play. They shoudnt be equal but close enough they are just being two shotted.
2. What you shouldn't have
- no Pay 2 Win ( Cash Shop, Multi-Boxing, etc ) If a player can spend RL money for any kind of advantage it never goes well for the game
- Open griefing with no substantial penalty
- Pull another one from archeage. Dont take crap away from players. Rather spend a month getting the mats for that badass sword then have to build 5 of them knowing 4 will probably blow up.
1. People want everything for free. Literally everything. Even 10-15$ a month is too much even tho that’s literally like 10 minutes at work.
2. People spend 10+ hours a day in a game and expect to have enough NEW content all the time. That’s literally impossible unless you have billions to pay 1000 Employees who are working non-stop. Or you include a grind-fest and call it content.
3. YT Channels like Peon or Cry who overhype every single new MMO like it’s the best thing in the world and then people expect the game to be perfect day 1.
4. Asian developers.
________________________________________________
[/quote]
^This. So much this.
Some other things that irritate me, personally:
1. Having obnoxiously persistent popups for the cash shop. Oh, there’s a new dress on sale all month long? Great. I’m not going to buy it, so don’t take over half of my computer screen with the ad for it every goddamn time I log in. And then five minutes later. And five minutes after that. And then have an idiotic icon on the UI that flashes or jumps out at me throughout the time I’m logged in.
<strong>Solution: </strong>If I close it, I don’t want it. Take “no” for an answer.
2. Not having a diverse gameplay experience. I played TERA. It was all combat, all the time. Sure, there were “crafting” and “enchanting” and “gathering” mechanics…. But they all sucked. Every craftable item was obsolete by the time you reached the level to craft/use it, because grinding combat gave you better gear. Enchanting did f-all, and there were only three materials you could gather.
<strong>Solution: </strong>Side skills that matter. Don’t sacrifice pass-time mechanics for nothing but combat, and don’t sacrifice combat for minigames. Balance it out. Give us options.
3. Global chat channels. Chatting with other players is the foundation for in-game friendships. I come from games that have localized chat channels. If you want to talk to someone, you had to be near them, or have them on a friends/guild list for private conversation. A very clean experience.
Every MMO I’ve played that had global chat channels was constantly plagued by a spam-convention of trolls, gold sellers, and otherwise annoying people. I would never even bother trying to type in some of those channels. It just wasn’t worth the effort. In return, I ended up making fewer relationships that matter.
<strong>Solution:</strong> If you must have a global chat channel, also make a local channel. Preferably, make local the default.
4. Not enough in-game moderators. Again, an issue I’ve seen far too often is the lack of policing the community. There are a lot of crappy people out there, and they need to be kept in check. Too many games let the community run rampant, making things miserable for many. Bug abusers, trolls, spammers, etc.
<strong>Solution:</strong> Moderators.
5. Quests that don’t matter. This is also too common in MMOs. The quests in TERA mean jack. They’re almost all fetch quests that you quickly flip through with hotkeys, while on your speedrun to max level. The missions in EVE were completely meaningless story-wise, and the rewards sucked until you got to the level 4s that actually gave you money.
I hate to say it, but RuneScape, a game that gets crapped on by almost everyone, had some of the best quests I’ve ever played through. Variety, difficulty, story, adventure, characters, rewards….. everything that matters! Better yet, once you’ve finished some of those quests, you would REMEMBER them. They were MEMORABLE, because they were challenging, fulfilling, and well-written.
<strong>Solution:</strong> Quests that aren’t all the same, don’t suck, and actually improve the game instead of wasting your time until you reach the level cap.
6. Areas that don’t matter / leveling that doesn’t matter. You go through, kill everything, complete the quests, level up, and then never return. It boggles my mind why anyone would ever develop a game that does this. Why bother? You might as well just start everyone off at max level and with the best gear, because there’s no point.
<strong>Solution:</strong> Give a reason to return. Don’t make “low-level” areas, make areas with content that can be used by anyone. Add NPCs that have services which are necessary at any level.
7. Copy-paste monsters. I just killed those dire wolves in the last area. Why am I killing them again.
<strong>
Solution:</strong> Don’t be lazy.
Quests that matter, give me a story or something. Going along with that, options! So maybe I dont want to quest that day. Make crafting/gathering/exploring actually worth it.
End game content. This is what drove me from SWTOR. Started playing about 3 months after launch and very quickly (for it being my first MMO besides Eve) reached level cap. I cant tell you how many times I healed EV, KP and EC. Finally quit the game. I know they have added a lot now but after going back to the game twice, Im burnt.
As far as the chat thing, I rarely If ever look at the global/general chat as well. I dont think mute is the solution though. Ive muted dozens of gold spammers or general idiots in chat. Thirty minutes later Im doing another round of mutes. Log out for the day and when you log back in the next....holy cow. You can spend 10 minutes muting because of all the new accounts or characters. Specifically the gold spammers. How about this, I know the algorithm for this might be difficult to implement because all our character names are essentially just groupings of letters but if you have an actual name, like any one of us I can look above and see, you are good. If the server detects your name to be some gibberish though like 'dkjfdodosdieio5' you get an automatic flag. Maybe some idiot out there wants that name, I dunno. But all I have ever seen before are spammers.
1. People want everything for free. Literally everything. Even 10-15$ a month is too much even tho that’s literally like 10 minutes at work.
2. People spend 10+ hours a day in a game and expect to have enough NEW content all the time. That’s literally impossible unless you have billions to pay 1000 Employees who are working non-stop. Or you include a grind-fest and call it content.
3. YT Channels like Peon or Cry who overhype every single new MMO like it’s the best thing in the world and then people expect the game to be perfect day 1.
4. Asian developers.
________________________________________________
[/quote]
This..
I like having a lot of choices in the way I look in my armor. One thing WoW did right is their Transmog system.
Nothing cripples a game in my opinion like a GM with no teeth, or a fascist who plays favorites.
-Quick ban of bots, hackers and exploiters who break the economy and fun.
-Engaged with community to report to Dev team to get real time feedback.
-Fair with moderation of disputes and punishment and learning when a warning vs punishment is warranted.
It's also a sign of a company invested in the game if that companies employees are active and openly in game.
.multi chat channels that you can assign - looking at EQ2
.NPCs that have a life and purpose and<strong> react</strong> to what is going on around them (not like that guy in test stream who was totally obivious of that demon spider in town)
.a big variety of gear - no one wants to look exactly like everyone else - and please don't make it all come from the cash shop
.crafting that is meaningful and not just a time waster, and not overly complicated
.needs to be some way to keep someone from hijacking the gathering node you are working on
.a way to prevent kill stealing mobs - once it's tagged it's yours
.Dailies are the worst... I don't want to feel like I have to keep doing the same chore before I go do the fun stuff
.the biggest game killer IMO are those that rush to "end game" and complain that there is nothing to do; meanwhile, they have skipped over tons of content
.enough for now
no boots
and others sh!ty stuff
.a way to prevent kill stealing mobs – once it’s tagged it’s yours
[/quote]
No reason mobs cant be shared FF14 does this very well as do other games. Just do enough damage every one gets the credit but Exp SHOULDN'T be divided!
Now in a PvP zone thats a different story ;) Red is Dead and kills should be fought over.
<div class="d4p-bbt-quote-title"><a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/what-should-the-game-have-or-not-have-to-be-successful/page/2/#post-12194" rel="nofollow">T-Elf wrote:</a></div>
.
.a way to prevent kill stealing mobs – once it’s tagged it’s yours
</blockquote>
No reason mobs cant be shared FF14 does this very well as do other games. Just do enough damage every one gets the credit but Exp SHOULDN’T be divided!
Now in a PvP zone thats a different story <img alt="????" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2.2.1/svg/1f609.svg" /> Red is Dead and kills should be fought over.
[/quote]
+1
From what I saw this game is promising to be a new miracle. I'm gonna point only the most important things for me to keep the playing the game more than 1 year:
Awesome combat system VERY Important!
No to PTW Yes to PTP
Good support team
Well Optimized - no lags and spikes when I cities, dungeons, wars.... Don't kill my VideoCard
Know your players - like you trying to do now
Prevent Hacking
Tons of awesome looking cosmetics - normal human prices anyway we will pay to play ;)
Weekly Events to keep us entertain
Do not even think of ordinary questing system
( Come here get the quest, go there Kill one mob come back take your reword NO NO, Kitty! No!)
Personal story line - like in Book Games choose your ending.
Funny and dated jokes and happenings when questing or such.
Quiz quests
Interaction between characters ( dance, kiss, hug, kick in a balls longer than usual like little role play with choosing what to say and answer when accepting chat with someone)
Very well voiced NPCs.
Epic Boob Sliders ( I am not a lesbians but you can't just take those from us)
Awesome character creation
Charger skill cast animation in very very good level
No Copy/Paste NPCs
NPCs to feel like just another player. Part of the environment. They have to get tired, have breaks, sleep or eat.
No Bots - they can kill a game
Mentoring system
I like having a lot of choices in the way I look in my armor. One thing WoW did right is their Transmog system.
[/quote]
What? Wow's transmog system is garbage, we need wardrobing to slot with armor outfits changable on the fly! The only thing nice about wow's transmog is it remembers stuff you got from before it was implemented etc.
Please forgive me my mistakes because english isn't my native language - Thank you.
For my personal perfect mmorpg there should be:
- a good combat system
- a huge open world for exploration, gathering, adventures
- a good housing system with many items/furnitures to craft, buy or as quest/exploration reward for it
- character individualisation (like transgmog, costumes or something like that - but it should be in the world art style - no japanese school girl uniform in a fantasy mediaeval setting for example - i like the japanese style but it should match the world)
- pets and mounts who are useful/interactive (for example: pets can loot or buff, mounts don't disappear after riding, interact like taming, feeding, petting, playing with mounts and pets would be great)
- pve content like dungeons, raids, world bosses, quests (for me, gw2 has good quest design, with all zones are good playeable don't matter which level you have because it will be the level for the zone - sry dont know how to describe it better), complex crafting system where the professions need each other and specializations - so nobody can do everything and a playerbased economy
- no paytowin items/mechanics if there will be a shopsystem - style items/mounts/pets are for me ok for a shop, if this things are not only in the shop and can be obtained in the game, too (pets should be lootable from bosses or can be tamed in the open world for example)
- for me there should be -- NO -- open world PVP - i am PVE only player and this is horrible for me BUT i know there are many many people who enjoy open world pvp so i hope there will be a good system to protect pve only players. Not only a flagging system - this hasn't worked good in any mmorpg i have seen before. (i prefer seperate pve and pvp server, but i know that this is extremly unlikely)
Maybe a solution could be: a pvp flagging system which punish people who kill pve players like a headhunter system but additional a system that rewards pvp players who help pve players with honor/items whatever - this could be an option or something like that.
For me open world pvp is a big Issue so i will wait how the developers will implement it - this means for me, too that i will wait with spending money for the game. I hope the kickstarter project will be succesfully but i won't spend money till i have further informations about the open pvp. (if its only a system like in black desert, i maybe will not play the game - the karma system there is useless in my opinion - the pvp player don't matter about it and kill many pve player just for fun and some of them make a real hunt of pve players - i know there are karma bombers, too - but this is an additional comfirmation for me, that this system don't work)
Thanks for reading
2.) There must always be a goal for players to aim for. This doesn't mean that there must be a gear treadmill, although there must be something that the community wants.
3.) Don't funnel people into one part of the game. If all of the end tier progression comes from raiding and rated PvP then it really does bring out worst in people. People can't do what they enjoy to progress and then they get all grouchy.
4.) Games with combat must always have it feel fluid and fun. A lot of MMORPGs died this way, so I'm certain this is common knowledge.
5.) Put in things that make the launch run smooth. For example, many games at launch have players dog piling on top of NPCs to a point where nobody can interact with the NPC. Dedicate a key on the keyboard to interact with NPCs, interact with objects in the world, loot corpses, and gather materials from nodes. It really does go a long way.
I like styles flashy customization and neat special Fx, Give me the "Holy Trinity" Tank, Heal, DPS.... BUT... don't box me in. If I am in a raid with a healer already and they need more damage I need to be able to switch to damage role from my healer role. Also be adequate support in a damage role (same goes for all classes and off roles). If a player has to go off role they shouldnt hinder the team because their power is useless for anything but healing/tanking etc....
Cash shop as they mention already should forever be cosmetics and maybe mounts and pets that give no real bonus's just aesthetics. I would love instanced based arenas of various types as well as sandbox openworld opportunities. In PvP don't break one role to be superior over all others. Make the combat to where a Tank is needed as much as DPS and Heal or controller. Peronsally I like food chains as it ensures no one is "God" in arenas. Tanks eats controller who eats healers who eats tanks while dps is between them all and useless unless he has this trinity around to ensure a solid team.
I also personally like when ALL classes can DPS and be a Support role. This allows for everyone to always be in demand in one way or another and allows for versatility with simply switching role/stance. This also keeps fail groups from happening as easy in raids/pvp. This also allows for soloing when needed far into more difficult regions/levels/content. This also encourages people to learn their powers sets intimately and encourages well thought out builds and is generally more fun.
Please give us reason to revisit lower level content thats static. This way newer players don't feel alone cause no one cares to do lower level content. This in most games really damages it a year or 2 into it's lifespan when a big portion of the community are doing endgame contents. To be honest I would love to see an incentive system that promotes players reporting gold selling bots LOL and Bots farming the landscape. However I would hate to see such an idea abused just to report people cause they disagree with someone or something.
EDIT: ALSO... I dont want to have 8 God Forsaken hotbars to function properly. I want 8 ish powers on 1 or 2 hotbars arranged for any desired role and hot swappable hotbars and gear for other builds/roles. If you have adequate weapon based combat to accent them powers you will never find yourself bored and can focus more on gameplay rather than running/building macros because you need 64 different abilities. No reason the bottom 3rd of my screen should be filled with 64 different things taking up my screen. Hotbar Bloat is the worst. DCUO, Elder Scrolls Online, GW2, FFXIV for example good amounts of loadout space on hotbars but combat still feels meaningful because of weapons use. On a final note it is also nice to be able to build a reasonable xpadder profile and sit back and play on the big screen in my living room with a controller. Cannot be done if I need 8 hotbars of 8 powers/abilities and a bagillion buttons etc...
Some good insides here :) Especially point: Not trying to appeal to every single type of gamer, just to have a huge player base, but excel in nothing.
- Achiever
- Competitor
- Explorer
- Socializer
Achiever love tasks and collection.
Task: Kill 100 monsters of specie X.
Task: Became friend with village Y.
Task: Discover all Z.
Little rewards make it more enjoyable
Competitor love PvP and RvR.
PvP is not killing unwilling low level players.
RvR must be tuned to favor skirmishes over big armies.
Ranking & scoreboards are must have for competitors.
Explorer love big worlds with lore and hidden places.
Reading a lore book in an old forgotten castle is their treat.
Finding an hidden location with a beautiful landscape too.
Talking to every NPC and getting interesting informations too.
Being able to go out of the path is a must have.
Socializer love to be with people.
They love to be in a nice medium sized guild.
They love helping and be helped doing hard jobs.
They don't like playing alone.
The game must not force a player to do one of them particularily.
If they're not forced to do one of them, players will do what they enjoy the most.
The game itself must prevent griefing:
- Killing unwilling players
- Toxic behavior (loot steal, monster tag-lock, blocking a path, killing quest giver)
- Making incoherent looking characters (pink-armored knight with green-afro-hair)
(That rule include female characters: they must not be unbelievably uncovered by their clothes)
Housing !
Housing is loved by many. Housing rewards do not increase power.
Custom character, custom living place !
With a way to invite other players into your house.
And guilds could have guilds halls housing \o/
Levels should not prevent people from playing together.
[quote quote=11993]No corpse running,
No gear treadmill,
No boosts,
No mob spawn camping
No kill steals
No power creep.
No force fed personal narrative. (the chosen one)
No Harvest/gather node hopping.
No hand holding.
Yes a player driven economy
Yes dynamic living world which responds to players activity.
Yes a crafting/gathering system that isnt shit and meaningful.
Yes an engaging combat system.
Yes intuitive Mob AI and Boss mechanics.
Yes character customization and viable build diversity.
Yes to a vibrant discoverable environments, lore and history worth investigating.
Yes to the promotion and assistance of a non toxic community.
[/quote]
I agree with everything.
Especially the "no force fed personal narrative"
There'll be many players, we can't seriously take the "you are THE chosen" trope.
As for player driven economy, most auction house systems are broken for common ressources.
Common ressources should be handled separately in their own system.
You buy from a common pool, and you sell into the common pool.
You're paid immediately when you sell. You get your ressources immediately when you buy.
The price adjust automatically with the balance of sells & buys orders.
Buy price is higher than sell price.
It also make it easier for the devs to know which ressources loot too much or not enough.
And it's also memory efficient with only 1 number to save per ressource type instead of a million of different orders each one with its own expiration date and amount.
Auction house are fine for "unique" items (crafted gears, rare ressources, ...)
Crafting must be meaningful. Retrieve 1000 ingots and leaving the game 30min because the character is doing 1000 daggers is not meaningful. It's boring.
Crafting should be about mastering the art of handwork, not waiting on a loading bar.
Doing fewer crafts but meaningful and useful ones is more enjoyable.
It's also a good ground for mini-games.
Anti-inflation measures are needed. They should target players who get "too rich too fast".
Lower drop rate of gold for rich people, Tax based on a very small percent of players wealth.
Repair costs are not anti-inflation. People who die are people who don't farm easy monsters for gold.
Meaningful quests are needed.
Fewer quests, but interesting ones are the way to go.
Filling "quests" (kills 10 X, pick 10 Y, talk to Z) are boring.
There are other ways to "dilute" content.
Put quests behind achievements:
- Become friendly with village X and you'll unlock a questline about the mayor
- Discover every cemeteries in region X and you'll unlock a questline about a necromancer
Advantages:
- Players will not be able to consume the content too fast
- Players will not have to do repetitive meaningless quests
- Devs will not have to design repetitive meaningless quests
- Devs will have more time to design meaningfull questlines
Clean interfaces are better than messy ones
- Keep informations clears
- Do not display unnecessary informations (like names of players you're not grouped/friends/guilded with)
- Show, don't tell (animation of what monsters/bosses do instead of loading bars)
- Good chat design: readable, tabs, colors
Monsters should be challenging. Fewer more challenging monsters is more enjoyable !
Farming a thousands of little rats is no challenge and should not be rewarded.
Classes should include a little bit of "hack & slash"
Left click: simple attack with main weapon, or little attack spell
Right click: simple attack with secondary weapon, or parry with 2 hand weapon, or block with shield
Maintaining the click could charge the attack
The combat must feel dynamic, and a bit of "hack & slash" would help that
Nothing is worse than static long range caster that must wait for a cast bar to fill.
It's wasting 3s of gameplay ! :)
Community
- the number one thing a game needs to be successful I think is that it needs to have a great community behind it and supporting it and less of the toxic garbage that seems to populate most MMOs nowadays.
Character Customisation
- Should be seriously good. Think BDO or better :) I love character customisation and tend to spend a long long time customising my toon before getting anywhere near the game.
- Besides the character creation there should be a large range of armour & weapons designs. Something most eastern MMOs do well is there character creation and customisation stuff. Although I would like armour and weapons to actually be normal and not the crazy weird stuff eastern MMOs seem to be obsessed with.
- For a subscription game I would expect lots of armour and weapon models in game and not just reskins of the same item over and over again. I dont mind some items in the cash shop for costumes but hate seeing only a couple of basic in game armour and weapons skins and then tonnes on the cash shop.
- No stupid lolly classes. They are borderline kiddy-fiddler most of the time and are just odd.
PvE
- No collect this item (that is 2 metres away) and bring it back to me quests.
- As little as possible "go kill 20 of those mobs" quests
- Kill mobs quests would be nice to have a vague location for the mob (such as "a giant yeti different to others has been seen to the West" however West is half the map. Promotes a bit more community interaction where locations get called out when spotted or hunt groups get created)
- Interesting quest lines, preferably long chains that take you all over the world before completing.
- I would like to see more vague quest objectives and less hand holding (location marking on maps etc). Would be good to be told something like "there is a guy in town called Steven who heard tell of a cache of gold somewhere, go see if you can find him and get him to talk to you about it" and then you go find the guy (you actually have to look for him) and then you need to get him to talk to ou by buying drinks or something...
PvP
- I dont PvP anymore, i think that last time i did and enjoy it was in DAoC. Sooo probably something like that but I am not able to really comment on this too much. PvP I find to be a massively toxic and 12 year old playground nowadays and dont have the energy for it.
Cash Shop
- Is a fail and a No No in my opinion. Things like costumes, pets (non-action pets) and mounts (even this is dubious) are fine but armour and weapons should never be on there.
Insta-Travel
- I am torn on this as I get the fact that it is useful for people who are time starved in real life and dont have time to travel 20 mins to a zone to do stuff but I feel it makes the world pointless outside of certain areas as no one ever goes through them as they jump from city to city. But I dont think Insta-travel should be in the game.
Dungeon Finders
- Just total poison and encourages poor behaviour and a lack of community as you just jump on a queue and if you dont like the group you leave and requeue. all without saying a word from start to finish. they just dont make people interact.
Crafting
- Needs to be engaging. I like actually doing crafting stuff from collecting teh materials to doing the actual crafting processes as well.
- Best in slots should be player crafted and should take a long time for players to get to it. Recipes or components for them can random drop from dungeons or raids etc
Map
- A large map with plenty of dynamic events and caves/dungeons located around,
Combat
- A good combat system like BDO
Character Classes
- I like the holy trinity setup for classes but nothing too strict, something that allows hybrid functionality on classes (which the secondary class option seems to fill in this game).
- Interesting classes.
- Would be good to be able to try out classes during creation / selection to have an idea what sort of skills/play style to expect.
Races
- Classic races such as humans, dwarves, elves, orcs etc.
- Would be nice to have all races start in different areas so that Alts would be interesting to play and not smashing out the same quests constantly.
Lore and History of the World
- Deep lore that can be read in a series of books or comics to start with or something like that... EQN was releasing digital books for free during the failed production period to build the lore and get players interested in the world and its story.
- Interesting lore in game that doesnt just feel like tonnes of words on a page; maybe make it shown through cinematics and voice-acted story scenes.
- Massive in game world bosses that require large numbers of players, something similar to GW2 world bosses maybe?
Pets
- I would love to see a good pet system that allows pets to help a player once tamed or bought / found / bred.
Player Housing
- Customisable housing using player made items (or found items/maybe even cash shop items).
Anyway, this is some of the stuff I think a game needs to do and not do to have a chance of success.
:)