Empty cities - most mmos have 10 npcs occupying their capital cities. BDO got it right. NPCs should be everywhere: in the streets, in the markets, on the road, travelling around, in the fields harvesting.
When I see the Vaelune metropolis I think about Mahadevi in Archeage, which feels completely dead, and cross my fingers Aoc will be completely different in the amount of NPC activity cities have.
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T ElfMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I dislike when a mob is attacking and NPCs stand around and walk around like nothing is going on...nothing to see here...
I want NPCs to react to what is happening, have them run away if necessary, have them fight, have them cower; do something to show they, too, are part of the experience.
Formerly T-Elf
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Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
How does that not help a newbie? You either learn through assistance of other people or through being thrown to the wolves. At that point if you did not learn anything than maybe MMOs are not for you.
The problem is that (in WoW especially) there is this expectation that everyone in the group knows the dungeon like the back of their hand and you just speed run through. This is not always the case, and new players often get kicked from groups for not knowing what to do. I saw it so often while leveling alts and it legitimately angered me whenever a new player got lost and then was kicked from the group for slowing the group down.
That's the other problem with automated group finder tools, you can't control who is going to end up in your group. Let's say you were an experienced player who wanted to speed run through the dungeon, and I was a relatively new player who wanted to take things slower in order to learn my class (maybe I'm healing or tanking for the first time, etc). If you were to set up a group manually you would make it clear that you intended to speed run through and only want players who knew exactly what they were doing. I would never manually sign up to a group like that. But an automated group finder might very well match us together when we are looking for entirely different objectives.
Yes, setting up a group manually takes more time and effort, but it ensures that everyone in the group is on the same page, knows what to expect from the run and is prepared for it before you go in.
- Bosses/raids that are too easy. I'd like to see a boss that is so difficult you'll have to spend months to beat it. I don't mean what Steven said on a livestream that it might take a long time to beat a boss event because there are multiple stages, I mean like the boss itself is so strong that your knowledge of the boss, skill level and equipment needs to be perfect to even stand a chance.
- Cash shop skins for weapons and gear that look way better or identical to rare gear. Like seriously, why would anyone bother using the default skin for a legendary sword if you can just buy a similar look from the cash shop?
2030 release let's goooooooooooooo
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AzryilMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
- Bosses/raids that are too easy. I'd like to see a boss that is so difficult you'll have to spend months to beat it. I don't mean what Steven said on a livestream that it might take a long time to beat a boss event because there are multiple stages, I mean like the boss itself is so strong that your knowledge of the boss, skill level and equipment needs to be perfect to even stand a chance.
I'm hoping that the lack of boss mods will aid this, one of the biggest problems in WoW was every time a new raid came out the developers of DBM/BigWigs had most of the fight timers added to their mods so for the most part you could just stare at a timer the whole fight and know exactly what was coming and when.
- Bosses/raids that are too easy. I'd like to see a boss that is so difficult you'll have to spend months to beat it. I don't mean what Steven said on a livestream that it might take a long time to beat a boss event because there are multiple stages, I mean like the boss itself is so strong that your knowledge of the boss, skill level and equipment needs to be perfect to even stand a chance.
I'm hoping that the lack of boss mods will aid this, one of the biggest problems in WoW was every time a new raid came out the developers of DBM/BigWigs had most of the fight timers added to their mods so for the most part you could just stare at a timer the whole fight and know exactly what was coming and when.
The reason could also have been that Blizzard started to implement Raids in "Beta" builds, leading to guides that come out even before the raid is released....
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LyiatMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
- Bosses/raids that are too easy. I'd like to see a boss that is so difficult you'll have to spend months to beat it. I don't mean what Steven said on a livestream that it might take a long time to beat a boss event because there are multiple stages, I mean like the boss itself is so strong that your knowledge of the boss, skill level and equipment needs to be perfect to even stand a chance.
The problem with this idea, as much as I like it, is that if it 'takes months' to figure out how to fight some of these world bosses or raid fights... If that creature is part of one of the dynamic events for a node, you can say goodbye to the node's progress every time it shows up until you learn it. A dragon can and will destroy a metro if it's not stopped.
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AzryilMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
- Bosses/raids that are too easy. I'd like to see a boss that is so difficult you'll have to spend months to beat it. I don't mean what Steven said on a livestream that it might take a long time to beat a boss event because there are multiple stages, I mean like the boss itself is so strong that your knowledge of the boss, skill level and equipment needs to be perfect to even stand a chance.
I'm hoping that the lack of boss mods will aid this, one of the biggest problems in WoW was every time a new raid came out the developers of DBM/BigWigs had most of the fight timers added to their mods so for the most part you could just stare at a timer the whole fight and know exactly what was coming and when.
The reason could also have been that Blizzard started to implement Raids in "Beta" builds, leading to guides that come out even before the raid is released....
True, but without the PTR testing bosses could be released with bugs that made the encounter nearly impossible. It's a bit of a double edged sword.
@arzosah
Yeah, but that way they took everything that interests you in a raid out of the raid, the exploration. You know what they will do before they do it.
Burning Crusade and WotLK didnt have Raids on the Beta servers i believe, and they did okay.
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KarthosMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
- Bosses/raids that are too easy. I'd like to see a boss that is so difficult you'll have to spend months to beat it. I don't mean what Steven said on a livestream that it might take a long time to beat a boss event because there are multiple stages, I mean like the boss itself is so strong that your knowledge of the boss, skill level and equipment needs to be perfect to even stand a chance.
I'm hoping that the lack of boss mods will aid this, one of the biggest problems in WoW was every time a new raid came out the developers of DBM/BigWigs had most of the fight timers added to their mods so for the most part you could just stare at a timer the whole fight and know exactly what was coming and when.
The reason could also have been that Blizzard started to implement Raids in "Beta" builds, leading to guides that come out even before the raid is released....
True, but without the PTR testing bosses could be released with bugs that made the encounter nearly impossible. It's a bit of a double edged sword.
Bugs are just part of gaming. What you do hint at is something I've come to realize. PTRs are about finding out which bugs are "acceptable" bugs for players.
There may be a bug that makes a boss one shot people. Not acceptable, needs patch now.
There may be another bug that makes the boss reset if you move to far away. Somewhat acceptable, will patch soon.
A third bug makes the boss's death animation loop on occasion. Acceptable, may or may not patch, probably get around to it, maybe not.
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AzryilMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
@arzosah
Yeah, but that way they took everything that interests you in a raid out of the raid, the exploration. You know what they will do before they do it.
Burning Crusade and WotLK didnt have Raids on the Beta servers i believe, and they did okay.
I don't disagree. I think the PTR can serve it's purpose of uncovering bugs without giving away too much. Say any boss testing on PTR is done in a somewhat bland arena with a generic boss model as to not give away who the boss is or anything about the boss arena that would actually be used in a raid. This would allow them to test boss mechanics without giving away the raid. Alternatively if Intrepid has a large enough QA department they may not need players to assist at all. The reason PTR environment exist is to get more people playing with new features as 1000 outsiders are going to use the feature in a different way than 20 people that have inside knowledge of the feature intended use and function.
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poisonzMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Themepark
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VolgaireMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Eh I loved the Warcraft Universe since W3 was my first game, but wow recently is looking really bad, it used to be great but the new developments are headache inducing.
@poisonz I'm personally not against *some* themepark features as long as the story is good (like Witcher 3 kind of good - not rubbish MMO kind). I don't even like categorizing MMOs as 'sandbox' or 'themepark'..Obviously sandbox is what they were supposed to be in the first place..while themepark bit can be really boring if it's done in a way that has been done so far in other MMORPGs
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NagashMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Eh I loved the Warcraft Universe since W3 was my first game, but wow recently is looking really bad, it used to be great but the new developments are headache inducing.
that because early Warcraft was just copied and paste of Warhammer
The dead do not squabble as this land’s rulers do. The dead have no desires, petty jealousies or ambitions. A world of the dead is a world at peace
I dislike character builds that become the de facto way to play. ESO is real good for this if you aren't playing the Redguard stamina templar go back to the inn and have another beer. Devs should have the guts to tweak a build for good or bad before it becomes too dominant and affects other players.
Fishing minigames (only enjoy AFK fishing. It's supposed to be relaxing, I love watching netflix and checking what I caught every once in a while).
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MeowsedMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I don't like AFK things that require you to have the game running in the background. If there's gonna be AFK tasks (like fishing, material processing, building) then just let me close the game and go do other shit with my life. Don't wanna have to check progress every 2 minutes, or waste CPU cycles for something that requires 0 input on my part.
AFK travel seems inevitable at this point, and that's fine I guess, since fast travel makes distances and regional differences meaningless. But I'd rather have interesting things to do while travelling (just look at what GW2 does with its open world).
But my biggest complaints are usually about RNG drops/progression (mounts especially). If there's a specific goal that you need to grind specific content for, then it should have a hard-cap on how much you need to grind it for tokens or whatever, not just a random drop chance. I hate it when there's a cosmetic that you really want, but the dungeon you get it from is garbage, and you don't even know how long you have to suffer in that dungeon to get it.
Mega troll fr
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ApokMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I miss MMOs being challenging and having adversity. companies keep making MMOs easier and easier so players with no social skills can solo the game through grinding and crafting their way to the top. We as social creatures should be able to play in an environment where we have to have help from others
- Upgrade system. I dont want to see a number behind my weapon. This number behind a weapon never did anything good other than encouraging power creep and P2W-mechanics. Even if they stay away from the P2W thing Im afraid that there will be updates like "Oh we increased the max. upgradelevel from +7 to +9", do this 3 more times and the power creep cant be stopped anymore
I hope for a simple crafting path from common to legendary weapons with basic enchantments instead of weapon upgrades.There are other ways to increase a weapons streanght other than making it +15
- Easy raids and raids that demand too many players. I like challenging raids that you have to try over and over and over and over again until you finaly beat them. I dont like however raids that require you to get 50 people for a single run. Smaller guilds should be able to beat them as well
- No auto travel. Its poor game design if you have to walk for 30min straight to get from PointA to PointB. One of the major mistakes Bless made (well they made a lot of major mistakes..). More than 50% of bless's gameplay experience was walking from A to B. Autowalk was certainly needed in that case but it shouldve showed the Devs that theyre doing something wrong
- PvP zones that force you into PvP and cant be avoided. That was a thing in Cabal. Lv100+ maps were marked as war zones and players from 2 diffrent fractions could attack each other on sight. While this sounds like a fun thing to do it was annoying if youre leveling a twink in those areas and someone from the opposite fraction sees you. You either had to pray that its a nice guy who just passed by or youre dead and couldnt play the game until youre alone again
- power creep. Nuff said. This always happens in every game, never not seen it happen but one can hope
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leameseMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Pay 2 Win instead of micro transactions being cosmetic only
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Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
@Joseline regarding power creep, this probably won't be an issue in Ashes for quite some time, as power creep only really appears when you add new content to an existing game, like a new expansion. Yes it is a problem but it's also very hard to avoid once you start creating new content. After all, the easiest way to provide progression for higher level players is to increase their stats, but as you pointed out this can cause power creep very quickly.
This happens pretty much every time WoW brings out a new raid or expansion, the previous raids become redundant unless you are farming transmog gear. The trick is giving higher level players a sense of progression without producing power creep.
@Joseline regarding power creep, this probably won't be an issue in Ashes for quite some time, as power creep only really appears when you add new content to an existing game, like a new expansion. Yes it is a problem but it's also very hard to avoid once you start creating new content. After all, the easiest way to provide progression for higher level players is to increase their stats, but as you pointed out this can cause power creep very quickly.
This happens pretty much every time WoW brings out a new raid or expansion, the previous raids become redundant unless you are farming transmog gear. The trick is giving higher level players a sense of progression without producing power creep.
Powercreep can never entirely be stopped, that much is clear. Powercreep on its own however doesnt necessarily need to destroy gameplay. You can increase stats as you like and release new features but its also important to never do big changes to how the game is played
I think BnS did a decent job at handling powercreep. During release you had about 10k~20k DPS with "maxed out" EQ. Before I quitted the DPS was around 500k. This wasnt only because of higher stats but NC (devs) also released a bunch of items with some pretty ridicoulus effects but they did a decent job at only "buffing" DPS and not changing the gameplay AND keeeping bosses as strong as they used to be (well they also got more complicate) so you never felt like youre too strong for high end content but also felt your DPS going up and your burst started to really hurt even the strongest bosses. Cabal did this in a simliar way. More EQ = easier high end bosses but you still werent able to do anything on your own and Cabal never really got rid of its original gameplay idea (except HFB. RiP HFB)
A bad example of powercreep would be Els. At its release you used primary a weak and a strong base attack and used skills to clear out mob groups. Even speedrunning required you to use your skills effectively as Mana was limited. Nowadays Elsword consists of spamming pots and only using skills. This is because KoG released more and more diffrent potions to encourage spamming and also made it easier to upgrade weapons (as well as increasing the upgrade cap) in addition to a lot of other stuff that increases your damage, they even invented completly new stats to further increase DPS. To compensate this powercreep they buffed all mobs and bosses to a point that the game became extremly furstrating if youre not "abusing the powercreep"
I guess powercreep is one of those things that show wether or not a Dev team understands the game theyre creating. Basically, Im kind of worried that AoC will take the same path Els did
.. I wrote too much
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leameseMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I hate dailies. Being compelled to do x amount of dailies to probefore you can actually start playing is beyond ****.
I hate casino gear upgrade systems.
"You're seeking for perfection, but your disillusions are leading to destruction.
You're bleeding for salvation, but you can't see that you are the damnation itself." -Norther
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MorashtakMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Having just been able to compare Classic WoW with retail WoW one can see just how hand-holdy and "pull tab-ish" the game has become and the direction AoC should never take -- If this game is to be in the same vein as OSRS, EQ, and Classic WoW then it should be mentally challenging.
Modern WoW makes me lazy - I can pull multiple mobs and easily survive. Pull multiple mobs in classic and I'd better run or be a warlock that is the master of "Fear juggling".
AoC should strive for a level of challenge that makes the rewards (even Uncommon "green" level items) feel worth while.
Comments
Empty cities - most mmos have 10 npcs occupying their capital cities. BDO got it right. NPCs should be everywhere: in the streets, in the markets, on the road, travelling around, in the fields harvesting.
When I see the Vaelune metropolis I think about Mahadevi in Archeage, which feels completely dead, and cross my fingers Aoc will be completely different in the amount of NPC activity cities have.
I want NPCs to react to what is happening, have them run away if necessary, have them fight, have them cower; do something to show they, too, are part of the experience.
Formerly T-Elf
The problem is that (in WoW especially) there is this expectation that everyone in the group knows the dungeon like the back of their hand and you just speed run through. This is not always the case, and new players often get kicked from groups for not knowing what to do. I saw it so often while leveling alts and it legitimately angered me whenever a new player got lost and then was kicked from the group for slowing the group down.
That's the other problem with automated group finder tools, you can't control who is going to end up in your group. Let's say you were an experienced player who wanted to speed run through the dungeon, and I was a relatively new player who wanted to take things slower in order to learn my class (maybe I'm healing or tanking for the first time, etc). If you were to set up a group manually you would make it clear that you intended to speed run through and only want players who knew exactly what they were doing. I would never manually sign up to a group like that. But an automated group finder might very well match us together when we are looking for entirely different objectives.
Yes, setting up a group manually takes more time and effort, but it ensures that everyone in the group is on the same page, knows what to expect from the run and is prepared for it before you go in.
- Cash shop skins for weapons and gear that look way better or identical to rare gear. Like seriously, why would anyone bother using the default skin for a legendary sword if you can just buy a similar look from the cash shop?
The reason could also have been that Blizzard started to implement Raids in "Beta" builds, leading to guides that come out even before the raid is released....
The problem with this idea, as much as I like it, is that if it 'takes months' to figure out how to fight some of these world bosses or raid fights... If that creature is part of one of the dynamic events for a node, you can say goodbye to the node's progress every time it shows up until you learn it. A dragon can and will destroy a metro if it's not stopped.
True, but without the PTR testing bosses could be released with bugs that made the encounter nearly impossible. It's a bit of a double edged sword.
Yeah, but that way they took everything that interests you in a raid out of the raid, the exploration. You know what they will do before they do it.
Burning Crusade and WotLK didnt have Raids on the Beta servers i believe, and they did okay.
Bugs are just part of gaming. What you do hint at is something I've come to realize. PTRs are about finding out which bugs are "acceptable" bugs for players.
There may be a bug that makes a boss one shot people. Not acceptable, needs patch now.
There may be another bug that makes the boss reset if you move to far away. Somewhat acceptable, will patch soon.
A third bug makes the boss's death animation loop on occasion. Acceptable, may or may not patch, probably get around to it, maybe not.
I don't disagree. I think the PTR can serve it's purpose of uncovering bugs without giving away too much. Say any boss testing on PTR is done in a somewhat bland arena with a generic boss model as to not give away who the boss is or anything about the boss arena that would actually be used in a raid. This would allow them to test boss mechanics without giving away the raid. Alternatively if Intrepid has a large enough QA department they may not need players to assist at all. The reason PTR environment exist is to get more people playing with new features as 1000 outsiders are going to use the feature in a different way than 20 people that have inside knowledge of the feature intended use and function.
Eh I loved the Warcraft Universe since W3 was my first game, but wow recently is looking really bad, it used to be great but the new developments are headache inducing.
@poisonz I'm personally not against *some* themepark features as long as the story is good (like Witcher 3 kind of good - not rubbish MMO kind). I don't even like categorizing MMOs as 'sandbox' or 'themepark'..Obviously sandbox is what they were supposed to be in the first place..while themepark bit can be really boring if it's done in a way that has been done so far in other MMORPGs
that because early Warcraft was just copied and paste of Warhammer
Fishing minigames (only enjoy AFK fishing. It's supposed to be relaxing, I love watching netflix and checking what I caught every once in a while).
AFK travel seems inevitable at this point, and that's fine I guess, since fast travel makes distances and regional differences meaningless. But I'd rather have interesting things to do while travelling (just look at what GW2 does with its open world).
But my biggest complaints are usually about RNG drops/progression (mounts especially). If there's a specific goal that you need to grind specific content for, then it should have a hard-cap on how much you need to grind it for tokens or whatever, not just a random drop chance. I hate it when there's a cosmetic that you really want, but the dungeon you get it from is garbage, and you don't even know how long you have to suffer in that dungeon to get it.
a no-go for me: Spawning of object in the environment when i am only 10 meteres away from them.
I hope for a simple crafting path from common to legendary weapons with basic enchantments instead of weapon upgrades.There are other ways to increase a weapons streanght other than making it +15
- Easy raids and raids that demand too many players. I like challenging raids that you have to try over and over and over and over again until you finaly beat them. I dont like however raids that require you to get 50 people for a single run. Smaller guilds should be able to beat them as well
- No auto travel. Its poor game design if you have to walk for 30min straight to get from PointA to PointB. One of the major mistakes Bless made (well they made a lot of major mistakes..). More than 50% of bless's gameplay experience was walking from A to B. Autowalk was certainly needed in that case but it shouldve showed the Devs that theyre doing something wrong
- PvP zones that force you into PvP and cant be avoided. That was a thing in Cabal. Lv100+ maps were marked as war zones and players from 2 diffrent fractions could attack each other on sight. While this sounds like a fun thing to do it was annoying if youre leveling a twink in those areas and someone from the opposite fraction sees you. You either had to pray that its a nice guy who just passed by or youre dead and couldnt play the game until youre alone again
- power creep. Nuff said. This always happens in every game, never not seen it happen but one can hope
@leamese I did mention 2 things.
1- Artificial feel
2- non skill based combat.
There are of course many others but these two are the most important ones for me.
Classes gender locked
Pay 2 Win instead of micro transactions being cosmetic only
This happens pretty much every time WoW brings out a new raid or expansion, the previous raids become redundant unless you are farming transmog gear. The trick is giving higher level players a sense of progression without producing power creep.
Powercreep can never entirely be stopped, that much is clear. Powercreep on its own however doesnt necessarily need to destroy gameplay. You can increase stats as you like and release new features but its also important to never do big changes to how the game is played
I think BnS did a decent job at handling powercreep. During release you had about 10k~20k DPS with "maxed out" EQ. Before I quitted the DPS was around 500k. This wasnt only because of higher stats but NC (devs) also released a bunch of items with some pretty ridicoulus effects but they did a decent job at only "buffing" DPS and not changing the gameplay AND keeeping bosses as strong as they used to be (well they also got more complicate) so you never felt like youre too strong for high end content but also felt your DPS going up and your burst started to really hurt even the strongest bosses. Cabal did this in a simliar way. More EQ = easier high end bosses but you still werent able to do anything on your own and Cabal never really got rid of its original gameplay idea (except HFB. RiP HFB)
A bad example of powercreep would be Els. At its release you used primary a weak and a strong base attack and used skills to clear out mob groups. Even speedrunning required you to use your skills effectively as Mana was limited. Nowadays Elsword consists of spamming pots and only using skills. This is because KoG released more and more diffrent potions to encourage spamming and also made it easier to upgrade weapons (as well as increasing the upgrade cap) in addition to a lot of other stuff that increases your damage, they even invented completly new stats to further increase DPS. To compensate this powercreep they buffed all mobs and bosses to a point that the game became extremly furstrating if youre not "abusing the powercreep"
I guess powercreep is one of those things that show wether or not a Dev team understands the game theyre creating. Basically, Im kind of worried that AoC will take the same path Els did
.. I wrote too much
I mean a summary from the points made by "everyone"?
I hate casino gear upgrade systems.
You're bleeding for salvation, but you can't see that you are the damnation itself." -Norther
Modern WoW makes me lazy - I can pull multiple mobs and easily survive. Pull multiple mobs in classic and I'd better run or be a warlock that is the master of "Fear juggling".
AoC should strive for a level of challenge that makes the rewards (even Uncommon "green" level items) feel worth while.