The stickiest MMO I’ve ever seen is still my first. City of heroes I played on and off, mostly on, for 7 years. During that time, people left, but they almost always came back. The quality of the community was an oft cited reason, as was the way character creator and power set choice combinations meant there were endless permutations of characters to make and play that kept things fresh.
You’re never going to be able able to make content faster than players consume it, but if you make playing that content a meaningfully different experience with different classes and builds, and you offer players a wide range of such options that are viable, you create greater replay value.
The dynamic and changing world approach your attempting to take with AOC should only add to this.
I dislike "Daily Quest" mmorpgs.
I dislike running the same sterilized instanced dungeon farming.
I dislike isolated pvp.
I like mmorpgs in which solo play is not viable and you have to be part of a guild to face off the dificult content of the open world.
I like it when reaching the final levels takes a long time and there are some key abilities that need to be unlocked around mid-end levels.
I like mmorpgs in which classes feel very unique, and strong players get recognized by name instantly.
I like mmorpgs with good graphics, realistic rather than cartoonish.
I like it when there are many many many options in character creation and when there are ingame optipns to unlock good looking armors rather than Cash Shop skins.
Lastly I like mmorpgs with many features duch as crafting and economy managing however
~~fighting should be 80% of the activity~~
Not playing a game that makes you feel like you are running a small business.
That makes me loyal and 100% involved.
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ilisfetMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited August 2019
After thinking hard about it, what keeps me coming back to a game time and time again is fun, skill based, even chaotic combat. Games like Etrian Odyssey, Valdis Story: Abyssal City, Mordhau, and even ESO are examples to look at.
Exploration can keep me engaged in a game for hundreds of hours, as it's the first thing on my mind. But one day, I'll have explored everything and all that's left is the mundane routine. In the vast majority of games, this is combat. A game where the combat in isolation is enjoyable is what keeps me hooked after all the sights have been seen.
Etrian Odyssey has deep and lethal turn based battles. You create a guild, register up to 30 characters of your own making, slap together a party of 5 or less, and set out to the labyrinth. Each class has some main focus, but they're all versatile to a degree. It takes proper synergy and teamwork to bring out the best in any class and here lies the joy of EO's combat: Exploring different party compositions, skill point distributions, and strategies to take down enemies in ever faster and ever safer ways.
The party I'm most proud of is the Hell Slash team from EOV. The central party member is a Blade Dancer, with the skill Hell Slash maxed. Hell Slash is a chase skill, dealing decent damage as follow ups to others' attacks. Unlike other chase skills, Hell Slash doesn't have a decaying activation chance, guaranteed to follow up every strike; in turn, Hell Slash has an activation cap, tied to the number of katanas the Blade Dancer has equipped. In EO, weapons and armor share the same slots, so to get the max cap, your Blade Dancer has to forego all armor. On top of this drawback, Hell Slash also chases indiscriminately: it will follow up friendly and enemy attacks alike, potentially killing your own party. The Hell Slash team is designed around minimizing these risks and maximizing Hell Slash's damage. By using two Barrage Brawlers, the boss can be fully bound within 2 turns (each skill uses a body part, binding it prevents use of related skills). A Spirit Evoker using a coffin made from a dragon casts the weapon's innate skill: a 50% MDEF debuff on all enemies. The Shaman then buffs the party's attack and imbues the Blade Dancer's katanas with an element the boss is weak to. A Barrage Brawler uses Overexertion on the Blade Dancer as well, boosting attack by 80% at the cost of HP each action. Now with the Blade Dancer on steroids and boss debuffed and incapable of acting, the two Barrage Brawlers use One-Two Punch for 4 hits each, the Spirit Evoker use Wraith Dance for 9 hits total, and the Blade Dancer follows every single blow with Hell Slash. In a game where boss battles should take about 20 turns and super bosses 30, we killed the ultimate boss in 5, and most other bosses in 3 (2 turns of prep, 1 of attacking). If a bind fails to land, we're screwed. This party has no defense and no healing -- it is all offense and disables. But damn can it shred...
Then there's this monstrosity... This party manipulates aggro with HP values and uses the team's entire ultimate pool to negate all damage for 1 turn while using an evasion tank's counterattacks to trigger Hell Slash. It's... you watched the video, right?
Valdis Story is a metroidvania with combo driven combat. You can stunlock enemies and enemies can stunlock you. It's a frenetic affair of learning your attacks and spells so you can juggle enemies longer while also keeping an eye on everything and dodging at the last frame so you don't get juggled yourself. Of course you can play it safe with lots of blocking and ranged attacks, but the game rewards high combos with bonus XP and increased damage the deeper in you go. There's a real high skill cap here as you figure out which tools suit your playstyle best and how to optimally take care of each enemy. It's great joy to go from turtling your way through the game, to rapidly slicing, dicing, freezing, frying and circling everything. You barely stop in your traversal to kill everything in your wake once a veteran.
That increase in speed and hairpin dodges is what gives me thrills. Killing fast, moving fast, and never getting hit at all...
Which brings me to Mordhau. The great part about Mordhau's combat is that vast control you have over your character model's contortions lets you dodge attacks by a hair's breadth --without any i-frames! The control and precision in Mordhau is what gives it such thrilling combat. Just like Valdis Story, it's the adrenaline rush of split second decisions and movements that keeps me so enthralled with the mundane. You may have your set patterns to initiate with, but everything is reactive from there. There's no rotations to stick to, no timers to babysit, just fighting as best you can and taking every opportunity you see.
The entry I'm surprised to add given my overall feelings on the game is ESO. While I think the combat is jank at best, Cyrodiil PvP is always fresh. You never know who you're fighting, how many, or where. Each fight is in a different location against different forces. Even if the combat is jank and unbalanced and clunky in ways you wish it weren't, it's fun enough to keep me coming back to open world PvP. Gear plays way too big a role in who wins, and the animation cancelling in tandem with fixed GCD means you can't make the split second decisions I like most, and there's so many BS builds you can't even hope to scratch without designing your whole character around countering one specific person. But it's casual enough I don't run into the BS and jank enough to really remind me of why the combat's bad. Against casuals, ESO works kinda close to an action game, and that's fun. The chaotics battlefields give their own kind of rush, as while not necessarily making twitch decisions in a heated battle, you are instead constantly scanning and analyzing your surroundings so that moderately sized catapult boulder doesn't blast your ass to smithereens out of nowhere. --wait, that's Mordhau, not ESO. Eh, same principle.
Edit: I'd like explain what exactly feels bad about ESO's combat. ESO has animation cancelling and global cooldowns. Animation cancelling can be used to create a sense of expediency and control: Bayonetta and Valdis Story allow you to cancel with dodges. It incentivises evading at the last possible frame, to get in more hits before backing off. Cancelling one's own attacks to start attacking faster, as well as to defend, creates this mindset of aggressive precision that empowers the player both emotionally and actually as actions per minute rises.
Global cooldowns limit actions per minute, encouraging the player to make the most out every action tactically. The thing is, ESO is striving to be a twitchy action game with some strategic elements, but allows just about any action to be animation cancelled by any other action ...while having a 1 second global cooldown. Attacks can be entirely clipped, just the damage flying out and no telegraph. This is a problem when the average attack takes away 20% HP and some even 50%. You just lose most of your HP suddenly, no warning. Cancelling may feel like stringing together a combo on the attacking side, but on the defending you have to deal 0 telegraphing, regardless of the attack's power or properties.
Global cooldowns cause an issue not by existing in isolation, but with the animations. Even ignoring cancelling, not every attack is exactly 1 second long. Some attacks are 1.2 seconds, 1.5 seconds, 0.8 seconds, or even 0.4 seconds long. You expect in an action game to be able to act again when your current animation ends, but that's not the case. Some attacks you act again during the middle of, aka animation cancel, while others you're left idle for up to half a second as the global cooldown ticks away. The feeling of unresponsiveness stems from this. There are certain actions you expect to be able to perform, but cannot because the animation is desynced from the global cooldown. There's also hit detection clunkiness, which stems from ESO being built in a tab target engine repurposed for action combat. Hitboxes get frustratingly desynced with their graphical counterparts.
I've played games like EVE Online ever since I started it in 2009. But other subscription games I can't bring myself to keep paying for. Here are a few of the things that keep me there but not on others
•I'm rewarded for being an older player. I generally have more skillz when compared to a new player. The skillz grow over time
•On the flip side of this my own experience and personal skillz come into play. I can go against a younger pilot then myself and still lose if they understand their ship and mine better then I do
•I can choose how I play. I can be an industrialists pilot and not fight people and pay others to defend me. I can go be a pirate. I can defend other miners. I can be a market tycoon. The options are endless
•because of the unique gameplay there isn't a grind. I can make money if I want to save for something or I can build 20 of a ship and fly them till I die
There are probably a lot of other little things but these are some of the things I live the most. I hope this helps
You guys rock,
Robby Titan
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SinjinMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I've alpha tested Ultima Online. My UO account will be 22 years old come this September. If I add my time during alpha, older still. What kept me coming back (to UO) is definitely customization either with one's character appearance, our home(s), mounts, ships, and even customization with class builds. Consistent content, even mini-events such as GM's interacting with the playerbase (i.e. GM controls the minion of the big bad dragon that's been terrorizing the node). Nowadays, the playerbase is voracious. Something that can take a dev team months or even years to create? Players can devour that content in a very short time. Definitely need a short term and long term goal.
Playing other mmorpg's, I definitely love PvP and grinding for that "perfect" PvP suit. It took time, but that's what a long term goal entails. Again, this is speaking for myself. Huge thanks to EVERYONE on the Intrepid Studios team for the time, effort, and love you put into the game and to the community.
A lot if it is the social aspect, people want to play what their friends are playing.
Aside from that, the core gameplay is the driving factor. I spent thousands of hours in tera just because the pvp was good. I didnt do any dungeons or needed any sort of gear progression. Once they killed the game balance by adding new characters and never bothered to tweak anything, everyone I knew left.
The second key factor would be getting incentives right. Players need something to give them a reason for doing something in the game. If doing dungeons is much more heavily incentivised than crafting, crafters would wonder why they even bother playing and vice versa.
For 10+ years experience as a more hardcore player rather than casual I can say personally it keeps me better when there is no system there meant to keep me attached but rather it comes naturally because of social things ( like friends/enemies/IG politics) or progression of character.
When there are systems that tell me to do these things today or this week for x reward and i can do same thing for same reward next day or next week and if there is also RNG involved in this I hate it even more.
I wanna see what I want then I wanna work towards it steadily and naturally.
Too much scheduled structured content is bad for my interest.
Ahum WoW warforging and titanforging, dailies, weekly quests, weekly dungeon and pvp chests ruined WoW for me I play max month or so of wow before I get too turned off by these things.
I want to answer this question with both what keeps me in games, and what turns me from games - but I'm going to assume that latter part of that will be the next question.
So, what keeps me in games is simple - fun.
EQ2 provided me with almost 10 years worth of fun from it's raid content - I returned that by giving it a total of $7,900 in subscription fees, expansion pack and adventure packs (I had multiple accounts for the entire time I played that game).
What kept me coming back to that game more than anything else was the knowledge that the developers were always at work on what ever was next. While we were working away at killing the content we had, we knew that there was more content - either an individual zone or a new expansion or adventure pack - just around the corner.
Then I started playing Archeage. What kept me playing Archeage was the knowledge that I had a near endless progression path ahead of me. I didn't enjoy any of Archeages PvE content in terms of dungeons or raids - it was all incredibly simple fare that seemed designed as a means of delivering items rather than as an actual challenge to players.
The social aspects of Archeage kept me in the game for a while as well - though that was in relation to testing (and proving) that the elections could in part be rigged (they can't now, XL fixed my loophole).
The only real thread I can see between these two games, which are the two MMO's I've spent the longest in (though I have played about a dozen others), is that while playing both games I knew that there was always going to be more to do.
The way EQ2 made me know this was far better than the way Archeage did. I knew that new content in EQ2 was always just around the corner. Knowing you are going to get large yearly expansions and a small content dump half way through makes players happy, in my experience. It's when players don't know if more content will be on the way that they start looking at what else is out there.
Story/Lore: From main story, to a plethora of side quests, and the gob tons of books I tend to collect in games, the story and lore are by far the most important things to me. Fantasy or Sci-Fi, Action or Drama, if the story is well written and deep I will be lost in it for hours.
Combat: Fast and explosive, Slow and Methodical, as long as the combat flows well I will fight until the wee hours of the morning for just one more good encounter. [Counters: Poor AI, and completely unbalanced classes are probably the biggest counters to combat. I know things become meta but when the meta is that 60% of a server play one class because it is the best, things obviously need to change.]
The Line:
Character Progression: Whether it is grinding up a weapon skill to see that next level of effect, or advancing my main class level to get that next big ability, as long as I have strong choices and ample progression ability I will always strive for that next "ding".
NPC/World Progression: Whether the ability to gain prestige/fame with a faction, or develop an NPC ally. The ability to progress something in the world and see direct impact/change in my game gets me involved in the areas.
The Sinker:
Crafting/gathering: While adventuring and fighting is great, sometimes I need something that I can just relax and do semi mindlessly. Something I can sit around and do as I chat with friends and guild members. When this ties back into Progression and story, all the better.
The Bait:
Good Bait: Events, whether they are annual events revolving around various holidays, or they are unique world spawn events. Anything that gives me a unique break from the regular grind can reinvigorate, or bring me back after the eventual burnout. [Let's not fool ourselves, burn out happens, how much of the above helps determine how long it takes to get to that burn out.]
Bad Bait: Daily/Weekly grind that requires you to log in every day. While I don't mind daily quests for extra xp/gold/item opportunities, the ones that require I log in each day in progression to finally get something are often more frustrating than helpful as IRL always has a way of butting in.
What keeps mee sticking to serten Games are mostly two things. First, if I heave some personal goal to acomplish, like hitting a serten level ore grinding hours for an special Item. Second ,good memorys from playing the Game, if there where some awsom moments in the past like hitting a personal goal ore heaving a great time with friends I'll come back to get some more.
The underlying story for the MMO and how it develops. As an example, I used to play the old NeverWinter Nights and NWN2 game, but not the basic campaign that came with the release - instead I played the player-developed offshoots where the players actions actually had in-game consequences. The fact that the players actions can have consequences, and actually impact the direction of the story line s is one of the draws for me.
I also enjoy playing on servers that are active. I think many of the MMO, or any online game I have played, I stopped playing because I could login pretty much any time and find very few other players to interact with.
Things in MMOs that tend to impact my desire to continue playing are games where:
1) The same "World-changing" events are repeated over and over but nothing actually changes.
2) Similar to the first item, but story lines that you complete and then go back with the same character and they have reset - so it is like you never completed that part of the story arc.
3) Rare, Ultra-rare, and Unique items that are mysteriously quite common.
4) MMO's where the majority of interaction is NPC's. Where you can play for hours and not see another player.
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OrcLuckMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
A big world to explore is what keeps me around. I really like hand crafted worlds.
Everything is meant to be where it is, and its like a living story book, you just get to see whats going on.
Complex pvp combat. When designing combat visual clarity is important, it is super frustrating, especially as a new player, when you don't know what killed you or where for example a sudden burst of damage came from. Being able to see another person utilizing skills (eg doing hard combos and quickly reacting to or anticipating your abilites) in a way that you yourself aren't capable of is motivating, it makes you want to improve and play more in order to get better. Competetiveness is also important in this regard, you need people to compete for armour or leaderboard spots in order to have the combat constantly evolving and with that have people motivated to play. With the right rewards and a non clunky high skill cap combat people will figure out strategies, builds metas and counter metas etc etc in order to add even more complexity to the combat keeping it from going stale (updates and balance updates should also be part of this). Making the combat simplified in order to make sure that new users don't quit would surely work short time but would hurt the longevity of the game instead. Easy to learn hard to master is an ideal used by many, but I don't completely agree with this. I don't think that any combat system should be easy to learn, the fundamentals and the concept of the combat should be easy to understand but the combat itself should be a struggle to learn in order to make any well executed play more satisfying and less rage inducing for other players.
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zarjaMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
For me it's that hard boss, me and my group/raid have been trying to kill for hours, gradually working towards that and trying new tactics with every wipe.
For me, it's the somewhat important goal - maximizing my reputation with a faction in order to get a beautifully looking piece of armor.
Well the thing that draws me to MMOs is how fun the class is to play and does it capture the feel of lets say a pally. How fun and imersive are the abilities and do they contribute something to the team other than just damage.
Really if you have classes that are fun to play then well toons are most likely to enjoy the game more even when they are grinding and questing and exploring cause they are always putting their abilities to the test.
So that would also include a good combat system and targeting system besides clicking. But that is just on a personal note.
If you are looking to retain all the people that are going to try out this game when it comes out the questions you should be asking yourself is how to get people involved in certain aspects of the game. Here is a list.
Mount collecting, questing, raiding, using professions to make gold, playing the auction house.farming gear. parlor games and so on. And multiclassing too. This is kind of a catch all but how do make all those things fun. Did not list dungeouns cause well almost every one does dungeouns.
In my personal experience there is just so much to do in an MMO which is the way it should be, that do not see the point all the stupid gimmicks and things that companies do keep people online.
Buts lets say mounts In WoW you could make a mount do a one animation called a mount special like a growl or roar. Well if you could see what it was before getting the mount you might be more inclined to get one.
Also most games just have them listed in alphabetical order but lets say you grouped all the horse mounts in one place and then grouped them from common to very rare. And lets say when you get a horse mount then you get a message you have collected 1 out of 10 horse mounts and you could go and check how many you have to go kind of like goal setting. Plus there could be some reward like mount cosmetics if you collect all ten.
Plus If player housing had the option to have a stable ot show of best mounts other players would see them and would be more incline to farm.
Plus if when you looked at your mount collection list of mounts you have and do not have then there should be some tooltip on how to aquire ones you do not have. Maybe there could even be an acquiered date and what you rolled to get it,
Plus if you had a little bit of lore behind mounts even for horses. Recently really cool white horse came out. Could put something in there about how rare they are and how this white stallions are the preferred mount of the elves and how some one rode a similar horse into battle. Which would be hinting at another white horse mount that has rare drop rate that is in game. Actually there was one paragraph of lore for the cosmetics pretty cool.
Plus if you could have some mount cosmetics so you could customize your mounts much like some games have top hats for certain pets and ribbons.
This one requires lot more effort but do mounts look static while they are standing there or do they have animations that give them personality. For example griffins or a certain griffen coul act serene and peaceful and elegant than lets say another mount that looks more agressive like a bear mount.
The biggest thing that keeps me coming back to these kinds of games is having a sense of discovery. I make it a point whenever I play a game I want to get invested in to not look up any information or guides on the game beforehand. I also heavily dislike when the game spoonfeeds me all the answers as well.
If I like what I see from the start, a good sense of mystery helps boost my adventurous spirit and makes me want to see how much more there is that I haven't seen yet, all the way to the end.
I dislike "Daily Quest" mmorpgs.
I dislike running the same sterilized instanced dungeon farming.
I dislike isolated pvp.
I like mmorpgs in which solo play is not viable and you have to be part of a guild to face off the dificult content of the open world.
I like it when reaching the final levels takes a long time and there are some key abilities that need to be unlocked around mid-end levels.
I don't know how I feel about the first point. I am a solo player exclusively (it's the way I enjoy playing for RP and gameplay reasons). If suddenly there is no way for me to tackle the higher level open world, what do I do from there?
The second point I agree with though.
Risk, and reward. Preferably intermingled, and with variety. I don't play alts, and I don't much like danger-free rewards, I want to fight/sneak/trade/pvp my way to increased power.
Getting to the end of a gear treadmill is a sure way to make sure I never log in again.
What keeps me coming back is simple: buzzwords. Like "impactful" and "meaningful".
All jokes aside, various forms of progression (ideally interdependent) with tangible goals and rewards is probably the most important. In depth crafting will do a lot for me in that sense. Challenging raids (I personally prefer controlled instanced encounters but I'm open minded to open world I guess) where my progress in my skill, gear etc allows me to complete content I could previously not.
The community and social aspect is very important too, but in an MMORPG it's an omnipresent incentive to play so it doesn't really need an explanation.
What pushes me away from a game is a sense of exclusion and inaccessibility of certain goals. e.g. I was very turned off by cash mounts in WoW and it killed my motivation to spend time grinding for and collecting mounts. I get that's just the business model but it's an example: I felt excluded from being able to collect certain mounts which left a bad taste in my mouth. A more relevant example would be the degree to which some game content is accessible. If only 0.01% of the player base experiences the mayoral system or only very few guilds can compete for and get world boss kills, I may find that off-putting. I don't want everything readily accessible, but I should feel like with reasonable effort and time I should be able to experience everything. This ultimately comes down to balance and I look forward to see the alphas and betas and hope AoC hits a nice balance.
One other thing that keeps me coming back for more is pve challenge material an in game way to hone in your skills and get rewarded for it. I watched videos of top guilds pveing and well they just show me how much better I can get but would place to test out my abilites.
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OrcLuckMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Obvious time gates make me frustrated. If they aren't done well, then you 100% feel like your time is wasted and you're not having fun.
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CaelronMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
What always kept me going back to a specific mmorpg:
-GM interaction with players
-Player-run communities
-Path balancing (not necessarily a numbers game, but how well each path fit in to their niche)
-Hidden item stats (more specifically that other players don't know the stats of an item without being told, or being able to hold it themselves in their inventory)
To be more specific, my examples are from NexusTK:
They had player-run subpaths. The subpath elders (players) would be the only ones able to talk to "the gods" (GMs), and make requests on behalf of their path - could be items, spells, balance requests, unique maps/areas only accessible to them, NPCs, etc. Then, they would be rewarded with updates based on their involvement in the game and community - sometimes new spells or even subpath-specific items (not all would be a benefit to hunting/PK/etc, many would be purely cosmetic.) And those subpath-specific items would have pretty steep costs to make (also needed approval from Guides in the subpath and a spell to create it), and were considered top secret - so almost nobody knew their stats except the people that wielded them. Sometimes they would get niche items to sell (at their discretion) to the community.
A specific niche item: A Spy (rogue PC-subpath) could make invisibility stones to sell (or give away, I suppose) to people. The stones would make that character have a single-use invisibility spell. That could potentially be a super useful item, especially for role-playing. At one point, there was a modifier on the damage to any invisible character - so it's possible a warrior could use one, turn invisible, then essentially sneak-attack somebody/something for crazy damage that a warrior would never be able to do without it. (Basically made them able to 1-hit people without a huge sacrifice). The benefit produced a huge demand, but the accessibility/cost for the item made them scarce. Basically the players of the subpath managed the supply so they would never become a "mandatory" item, even if it was super profitable. The GMs were also involved, so they could theoretically just remove the item from the game if it became abused, too.
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janusMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Progress systems that are unlimited, yet noticeable -> provide a feeling of achievement and reward for putting in effort (attention: This one is usually hard-countered by catchup-mechanics) Changes in balancing and mechanics or new classes/races -> Curiosity how things are working out now and finding ways to make a new OP build (even if it then turns out not to be as OP as initially thought) Community / Friends -> can't leave them hanging and am curious what they are up to
"Relaxing and Beautiful" world -> after an exhausting day at work it can be nice to just sail the ocean or fly through the sky etc. Requires sufficient graphics and a good soundtrack and lore helps. Player-driven content (be it marketplace, guild-politics or some obnoxious griefers that need to be hunted) -> you never know what you might be missing if you are not logging in Events -> opportunity for meaningful progress (hints to legendary items!?!), additional lore, finding easter-eggs etc (be careful to not have too many or they become a check-list item)
Login-rewards, daily quest routines or "special grind hours" are just that. grind. They make me quit a game rather than log in more.
First off, thanks for doing this. I think this is a great way for honest feedback.
MMO Pros
-Fantastic World (I have to want to play in the world I'm gaming in)
-Story telling and lore (I'm a nerd i enjoy lore (sorry, not sorry))
-Great Class design (RPG is one part of MMO games that games don't focus on. Yall's mold of having options to work around certain comps, and having each class have unique abilities (detect hidden magic/track monsters/cleanse poison)
-Exciting Concepts (Anytime a game comes out and it has something I've never heard of before, my ears go up. Yall seem at this point to have a lot of those ear popping concepts. choices matter at a player/guild/city level. the unique class/subclass system comboed with augmented ability flavor change. etc etc)
-Content (going back to story. i want a deep game with lots of story. quests. dungeons. raids. I want to PLAY the game. and with each node leveling up and granting new mobs/quests/dungeons i think this is great!)
-LOOT!!!!
MMO Cons
-PAY TO WIN (throws the idea of story/lore/progression out the window)
-LOGIN BONUSES (Nope, hard pass. you need mats.... go get them/buy them from another player)
-NORMALIZED LOOT (when running a dungeon/raid part of the fun is seeing what few items dropped. not everyone getting 1 piece for themselves. less loot keeps friends and homies together. running and running so that everyone gets what they need)
-UNBALANCED PVP (this game with full open world pvp options and how much stuff revolves around moving materials and yourself around the world on foot. It would be really sad to see 2-5 "classes" of the 64 just be OP and if you aren't one of those you are pretty much handicapped.
-AUTO GROUP JOIN (this ruins the community, I want to look for help and make my groups, and chat with the other people that enjoy the game i enjoy. not just zone in. run forward. zone out.)
Sure I'm missing some things i like/dislike, but thanks again for putting this post up.
Someone come kill me on Tuesday(8/20). ill be the guy just looking at all the buildings and terrain.
- A Dark World Map, wanna know what is out there? Go and find out, open your own world map, able to put markers on it with short messages like " undead caves " , " dragons lair ", " drunk dwarf that gives ginger ale "
or just color based markers to easily remember what kind of thing was represented there.
- Combat-wise, don't have 10thousand skills to use in your hability bar would be nice, but at the same time have 10 thousand skills that you could mix with your basics to achieve a new skill set like the MOBAS does, you have like 5 skills make the best of it and good luck, kinda vibe.
- Make Gathering and Crafting really meaningful. None likes to spend time in leveling something that any ugly boss will drop a ready-to-go item that is thousands of times better than the best item the top1 crafter can achieve, believe or not there are players that enjoys nothing more than to make itens, do quests to achieve recipes and old knowledge about a sword or shield that have its making process lost in the sand of times...
- Easy to look inside someone elses houses something that i miss is that feel of Old Tibia, where you just put your itens all over your house so people that was passing by could see and drool over it. And a well designed furniture sets, believe it or not, there are people that joins games just to play house, so if there was the option of houses with garden where you could cultivate crops or stuff like that so you could live of your own product to keep your house, i strong believe that many people would keep coming back to see if theyr tomatoes where still there...
- Fluid PvP Combat...? Well, everyone knows that when we talk about a good PvP, every fan of the genre is really trying to find that perfect PvP with the King Of Fighters-mmorpg kinda vibe, well BDO got close combat-wise, i really wish good luck for you guys in this point, cuz generally most players by the end of the day, no matter the game, they are looking for something really competitive to engage and put theyr skills to proof of fire, and i strong believe that MMRPG's have a broader capacity to achieve this.
Those are some o my thoghts on the subject. Oh, and please, please, PLEASE, don't ever forget the Fishing System, Fishing in every MMORPG it's the way to go, the way to relax, the way to enjoy life and it's beauty.
Two things I look forward too in a MMO theoretically but only one of them actually is catered for the other one I am constantly disappointed with.
1) Incremental evolution--- every time I login i look forward to either evolving my character a little bit , be it a skill, new gear or even just a new skin. Or evolving my community ie helping a friend complete something. Things like getting a new stool for your permanent housing , or a new mount. All these things give me a feeling of satisfaction and progress.
2) To login into a living breathing world with a well thought out narrative and lore. Now this point is not delivered by any MMO that I play, the worlds are static doesn't matter what you do ...THE WORLD DOES NOT CARE. Slay all the demons you like, destroy the main boss a million times but yet nothing changes. The world is exactly the same. It will be my hope AOC can fulfill this point and ill retire all my other MMOS for this one.
-1. I hate Daily Quests/login rewards or any similiar form that tries to keep you playing everyday.
If I want to take a pause the game should not make me feel bad about leaving. I might return 1 or 2 times becouse of it but the effect fall off quickly.
A major turn off.
- 3. Unchallenging Grind
I dont mind grinding in an MMO however the most efficent grind should still require skill
+3. Good Combat
GW2, Wildstar in mmo space as an example for me. Eventho I have love-hate relationship to GW2, the combat keeps me interested
+ 4. Exploration
I love puzzles of any kind
+ Indepth character progression
A lot of ARPG like PoE, Grim Dawn etc. did a great job in this.
As an RPer it is about the story of the world and the RP connections through guilds and friends. Being involved with my character keeps giving me a reason to come back to keep the character story going.
On a leveling/content side of things it depends on what level scale of the game my character is in.
At the beginning its exploration and lore. Figuring out the world and seeing new things with an engaging leveling experience keeps me in at the beginning.
As I progress, especially towards level cap, it becomes about technical challenges with harder dungeons and raids.
One of the things that kept me in ESO for a while was having multiple guilds available. So I could have my RP guild and my Progression/Raiding guild. I know there won't be that concept in AoC because of PvP reasons, but hopefully I can make connections on both sides so I can have my RP and my raids because I love both of those things in MMOs.
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HumblePuffinMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
No p2w obviously,
meaningful support/healing classes(fun, their impact in a party is felt through active participation),
the majority of possible builds available in a game being viable choices(I like to be a special snowflake and do weird stuff),
Solid community, more often than not I leave a game because It barely feels like I’m playing an mmo and nothing holds me there personally
In that same vein, meaningful daily content. Those blue question mark dailies sure give you content to do, but most of the time it turns every time you log in to a check list you feel tied to before you can go do what you want. I feel that it makes it more fun when you find a way to reward as many aspects of the game as possible so your “daily quests” are just doing stuff you want to do.
I’m sure I’ll get some hate for it, but daily login rewards. I feel like Warframe does it best. It doesn’t reset, it’s just a record of the days you’ve logged in; the items are just basic mats and some small free stuff, with milestones at big days like 100 that give you a decent weapon(could be an outfit/skin/pet to avoid any “free power”). It’s small, but logging in to get one day closer to my milestone has pulled me into that game more times than I can count. “Gonna log in and get my reward then I’m gonna go do something else.......4 hours later, oh crap I’m still playing warframe”. I understand the distaste for it though.
Comments
You’re never going to be able able to make content faster than players consume it, but if you make playing that content a meaningfully different experience with different classes and builds, and you offer players a wide range of such options that are viable, you create greater replay value.
The dynamic and changing world approach your attempting to take with AOC should only add to this.
I dislike running the same sterilized instanced dungeon farming.
I dislike isolated pvp.
I like mmorpgs in which solo play is not viable and you have to be part of a guild to face off the dificult content of the open world.
I like it when reaching the final levels takes a long time and there are some key abilities that need to be unlocked around mid-end levels.
I like mmorpgs in which classes feel very unique, and strong players get recognized by name instantly.
I like mmorpgs with good graphics, realistic rather than cartoonish.
I like it when there are many many many options in character creation and when there are ingame optipns to unlock good looking armors rather than Cash Shop skins.
Lastly I like mmorpgs with many features duch as crafting and economy managing however
~~fighting should be 80% of the activity~~
Not playing a game that makes you feel like you are running a small business.
That makes me loyal and 100% involved.
Exploration can keep me engaged in a game for hundreds of hours, as it's the first thing on my mind. But one day, I'll have explored everything and all that's left is the mundane routine. In the vast majority of games, this is combat. A game where the combat in isolation is enjoyable is what keeps me hooked after all the sights have been seen.
Etrian Odyssey has deep and lethal turn based battles. You create a guild, register up to 30 characters of your own making, slap together a party of 5 or less, and set out to the labyrinth. Each class has some main focus, but they're all versatile to a degree. It takes proper synergy and teamwork to bring out the best in any class and here lies the joy of EO's combat: Exploring different party compositions, skill point distributions, and strategies to take down enemies in ever faster and ever safer ways.
The party I'm most proud of is the Hell Slash team from EOV. The central party member is a Blade Dancer, with the skill Hell Slash maxed. Hell Slash is a chase skill, dealing decent damage as follow ups to others' attacks. Unlike other chase skills, Hell Slash doesn't have a decaying activation chance, guaranteed to follow up every strike; in turn, Hell Slash has an activation cap, tied to the number of katanas the Blade Dancer has equipped. In EO, weapons and armor share the same slots, so to get the max cap, your Blade Dancer has to forego all armor. On top of this drawback, Hell Slash also chases indiscriminately: it will follow up friendly and enemy attacks alike, potentially killing your own party. The Hell Slash team is designed around minimizing these risks and maximizing Hell Slash's damage. By using two Barrage Brawlers, the boss can be fully bound within 2 turns (each skill uses a body part, binding it prevents use of related skills). A Spirit Evoker using a coffin made from a dragon casts the weapon's innate skill: a 50% MDEF debuff on all enemies. The Shaman then buffs the party's attack and imbues the Blade Dancer's katanas with an element the boss is weak to. A Barrage Brawler uses Overexertion on the Blade Dancer as well, boosting attack by 80% at the cost of HP each action. Now with the Blade Dancer on steroids and boss debuffed and incapable of acting, the two Barrage Brawlers use One-Two Punch for 4 hits each, the Spirit Evoker use Wraith Dance for 9 hits total, and the Blade Dancer follows every single blow with Hell Slash. In a game where boss battles should take about 20 turns and super bosses 30, we killed the ultimate boss in 5, and most other bosses in 3 (2 turns of prep, 1 of attacking). If a bind fails to land, we're screwed. This party has no defense and no healing -- it is all offense and disables. But damn can it shred...
Then there's this monstrosity... This party manipulates aggro with HP values and uses the team's entire ultimate pool to negate all damage for 1 turn while using an evasion tank's counterattacks to trigger Hell Slash. It's... you watched the video, right?
Valdis Story is a metroidvania with combo driven combat. You can stunlock enemies and enemies can stunlock you. It's a frenetic affair of learning your attacks and spells so you can juggle enemies longer while also keeping an eye on everything and dodging at the last frame so you don't get juggled yourself. Of course you can play it safe with lots of blocking and ranged attacks, but the game rewards high combos with bonus XP and increased damage the deeper in you go. There's a real high skill cap here as you figure out which tools suit your playstyle best and how to optimally take care of each enemy. It's great joy to go from turtling your way through the game, to rapidly slicing, dicing, freezing, frying and circling everything. You barely stop in your traversal to kill everything in your wake once a veteran.
That increase in speed and hairpin dodges is what gives me thrills. Killing fast, moving fast, and never getting hit at all...
Which brings me to Mordhau. The great part about Mordhau's combat is that vast control you have over your character model's contortions lets you dodge attacks by a hair's breadth --without any i-frames! The control and precision in Mordhau is what gives it such thrilling combat. Just like Valdis Story, it's the adrenaline rush of split second decisions and movements that keeps me so enthralled with the mundane. You may have your set patterns to initiate with, but everything is reactive from there. There's no rotations to stick to, no timers to babysit, just fighting as best you can and taking every opportunity you see.
The entry I'm surprised to add given my overall feelings on the game is ESO. While I think the combat is jank at best, Cyrodiil PvP is always fresh. You never know who you're fighting, how many, or where. Each fight is in a different location against different forces. Even if the combat is jank and unbalanced and clunky in ways you wish it weren't, it's fun enough to keep me coming back to open world PvP. Gear plays way too big a role in who wins, and the animation cancelling in tandem with fixed GCD means you can't make the split second decisions I like most, and there's so many BS builds you can't even hope to scratch without designing your whole character around countering one specific person. But it's casual enough I don't run into the BS and jank enough to really remind me of why the combat's bad. Against casuals, ESO works kinda close to an action game, and that's fun. The chaotics battlefields give their own kind of rush, as while not necessarily making twitch decisions in a heated battle, you are instead constantly scanning and analyzing your surroundings so that moderately sized catapult boulder doesn't blast your ass to smithereens out of nowhere. --wait, that's Mordhau, not ESO. Eh, same principle.
Edit: I'd like explain what exactly feels bad about ESO's combat. ESO has animation cancelling and global cooldowns. Animation cancelling can be used to create a sense of expediency and control: Bayonetta and Valdis Story allow you to cancel with dodges. It incentivises evading at the last possible frame, to get in more hits before backing off. Cancelling one's own attacks to start attacking faster, as well as to defend, creates this mindset of aggressive precision that empowers the player both emotionally and actually as actions per minute rises.
Global cooldowns limit actions per minute, encouraging the player to make the most out every action tactically. The thing is, ESO is striving to be a twitchy action game with some strategic elements, but allows just about any action to be animation cancelled by any other action ...while having a 1 second global cooldown. Attacks can be entirely clipped, just the damage flying out and no telegraph. This is a problem when the average attack takes away 20% HP and some even 50%. You just lose most of your HP suddenly, no warning. Cancelling may feel like stringing together a combo on the attacking side, but on the defending you have to deal 0 telegraphing, regardless of the attack's power or properties.
Global cooldowns cause an issue not by existing in isolation, but with the animations. Even ignoring cancelling, not every attack is exactly 1 second long. Some attacks are 1.2 seconds, 1.5 seconds, 0.8 seconds, or even 0.4 seconds long. You expect in an action game to be able to act again when your current animation ends, but that's not the case. Some attacks you act again during the middle of, aka animation cancel, while others you're left idle for up to half a second as the global cooldown ticks away. The feeling of unresponsiveness stems from this. There are certain actions you expect to be able to perform, but cannot because the animation is desynced from the global cooldown. There's also hit detection clunkiness, which stems from ESO being built in a tab target engine repurposed for action combat. Hitboxes get frustratingly desynced with their graphical counterparts.
Geo political drama
PVP
Dungeon raids
Meaningful PVE
A sense of purpose and value for the items you search to obtain
Good economy
Good combat animations and system
NO PAY TO WIN, or immersion breaking item shop cosmetics for sale
FIxed SUB
This is what gets me hooked
•I'm rewarded for being an older player. I generally have more skillz when compared to a new player. The skillz grow over time
•On the flip side of this my own experience and personal skillz come into play. I can go against a younger pilot then myself and still lose if they understand their ship and mine better then I do
•I can choose how I play. I can be an industrialists pilot and not fight people and pay others to defend me. I can go be a pirate. I can defend other miners. I can be a market tycoon. The options are endless
•because of the unique gameplay there isn't a grind. I can make money if I want to save for something or I can build 20 of a ship and fly them till I die
There are probably a lot of other little things but these are some of the things I live the most. I hope this helps
You guys rock,
Robby Titan
Playing other mmorpg's, I definitely love PvP and grinding for that "perfect" PvP suit. It took time, but that's what a long term goal entails. Again, this is speaking for myself. Huge thanks to EVERYONE on the Intrepid Studios team for the time, effort, and love you put into the game and to the community.
Aside from that, the core gameplay is the driving factor. I spent thousands of hours in tera just because the pvp was good. I didnt do any dungeons or needed any sort of gear progression. Once they killed the game balance by adding new characters and never bothered to tweak anything, everyone I knew left.
The second key factor would be getting incentives right. Players need something to give them a reason for doing something in the game. If doing dungeons is much more heavily incentivised than crafting, crafters would wonder why they even bother playing and vice versa.
When there are systems that tell me to do these things today or this week for x reward and i can do same thing for same reward next day or next week and if there is also RNG involved in this I hate it even more.
I wanna see what I want then I wanna work towards it steadily and naturally.
Too much scheduled structured content is bad for my interest.
Ahum WoW warforging and titanforging, dailies, weekly quests, weekly dungeon and pvp chests ruined WoW for me I play max month or so of wow before I get too turned off by these things.
I guess I like it more sandbox in simple words.
So, what keeps me in games is simple - fun.
EQ2 provided me with almost 10 years worth of fun from it's raid content - I returned that by giving it a total of $7,900 in subscription fees, expansion pack and adventure packs (I had multiple accounts for the entire time I played that game).
What kept me coming back to that game more than anything else was the knowledge that the developers were always at work on what ever was next. While we were working away at killing the content we had, we knew that there was more content - either an individual zone or a new expansion or adventure pack - just around the corner.
Then I started playing Archeage. What kept me playing Archeage was the knowledge that I had a near endless progression path ahead of me. I didn't enjoy any of Archeages PvE content in terms of dungeons or raids - it was all incredibly simple fare that seemed designed as a means of delivering items rather than as an actual challenge to players.
The social aspects of Archeage kept me in the game for a while as well - though that was in relation to testing (and proving) that the elections could in part be rigged (they can't now, XL fixed my loophole).
The only real thread I can see between these two games, which are the two MMO's I've spent the longest in (though I have played about a dozen others), is that while playing both games I knew that there was always going to be more to do.
The way EQ2 made me know this was far better than the way Archeage did. I knew that new content in EQ2 was always just around the corner. Knowing you are going to get large yearly expansions and a small content dump half way through makes players happy, in my experience. It's when players don't know if more content will be on the way that they start looking at what else is out there.
Story/Lore: From main story, to a plethora of side quests, and the gob tons of books I tend to collect in games, the story and lore are by far the most important things to me. Fantasy or Sci-Fi, Action or Drama, if the story is well written and deep I will be lost in it for hours.
Combat: Fast and explosive, Slow and Methodical, as long as the combat flows well I will fight until the wee hours of the morning for just one more good encounter. [Counters: Poor AI, and completely unbalanced classes are probably the biggest counters to combat. I know things become meta but when the meta is that 60% of a server play one class because it is the best, things obviously need to change.]
The Line:
Character Progression: Whether it is grinding up a weapon skill to see that next level of effect, or advancing my main class level to get that next big ability, as long as I have strong choices and ample progression ability I will always strive for that next "ding".
NPC/World Progression: Whether the ability to gain prestige/fame with a faction, or develop an NPC ally. The ability to progress something in the world and see direct impact/change in my game gets me involved in the areas.
The Sinker:
Crafting/gathering: While adventuring and fighting is great, sometimes I need something that I can just relax and do semi mindlessly. Something I can sit around and do as I chat with friends and guild members. When this ties back into Progression and story, all the better.
The Bait:
Good Bait: Events, whether they are annual events revolving around various holidays, or they are unique world spawn events. Anything that gives me a unique break from the regular grind can reinvigorate, or bring me back after the eventual burnout. [Let's not fool ourselves, burn out happens, how much of the above helps determine how long it takes to get to that burn out.]
Bad Bait: Daily/Weekly grind that requires you to log in every day. While I don't mind daily quests for extra xp/gold/item opportunities, the ones that require I log in each day in progression to finally get something are often more frustrating than helpful as IRL always has a way of butting in.
I also enjoy playing on servers that are active. I think many of the MMO, or any online game I have played, I stopped playing because I could login pretty much any time and find very few other players to interact with.
Things in MMOs that tend to impact my desire to continue playing are games where:
1) The same "World-changing" events are repeated over and over but nothing actually changes.
2) Similar to the first item, but story lines that you complete and then go back with the same character and they have reset - so it is like you never completed that part of the story arc.
3) Rare, Ultra-rare, and Unique items that are mysteriously quite common.
4) MMO's where the majority of interaction is NPC's. Where you can play for hours and not see another player.
Everything is meant to be where it is, and its like a living story book, you just get to see whats going on.
For me, it's the somewhat important goal - maximizing my reputation with a faction in order to get a beautifully looking piece of armor.
Really if you have classes that are fun to play then well toons are most likely to enjoy the game more even when they are grinding and questing and exploring cause they are always putting their abilities to the test.
So that would also include a good combat system and targeting system besides clicking. But that is just on a personal note.
If you are looking to retain all the people that are going to try out this game when it comes out the questions you should be asking yourself is how to get people involved in certain aspects of the game. Here is a list.
Mount collecting, questing, raiding, using professions to make gold, playing the auction house.farming gear. parlor games and so on. And multiclassing too. This is kind of a catch all but how do make all those things fun. Did not list dungeouns cause well almost every one does dungeouns.
In my personal experience there is just so much to do in an MMO which is the way it should be, that do not see the point all the stupid gimmicks and things that companies do keep people online.
Buts lets say mounts In WoW you could make a mount do a one animation called a mount special like a growl or roar. Well if you could see what it was before getting the mount you might be more inclined to get one.
Also most games just have them listed in alphabetical order but lets say you grouped all the horse mounts in one place and then grouped them from common to very rare. And lets say when you get a horse mount then you get a message you have collected 1 out of 10 horse mounts and you could go and check how many you have to go kind of like goal setting. Plus there could be some reward like mount cosmetics if you collect all ten.
Plus If player housing had the option to have a stable ot show of best mounts other players would see them and would be more incline to farm.
Plus if when you looked at your mount collection list of mounts you have and do not have then there should be some tooltip on how to aquire ones you do not have. Maybe there could even be an acquiered date and what you rolled to get it,
Plus if you had a little bit of lore behind mounts even for horses. Recently really cool white horse came out. Could put something in there about how rare they are and how this white stallions are the preferred mount of the elves and how some one rode a similar horse into battle. Which would be hinting at another white horse mount that has rare drop rate that is in game. Actually there was one paragraph of lore for the cosmetics pretty cool.
Plus if you could have some mount cosmetics so you could customize your mounts much like some games have top hats for certain pets and ribbons.
This one requires lot more effort but do mounts look static while they are standing there or do they have animations that give them personality. For example griffins or a certain griffen coul act serene and peaceful and elegant than lets say another mount that looks more agressive like a bear mount.
If I like what I see from the start, a good sense of mystery helps boost my adventurous spirit and makes me want to see how much more there is that I haven't seen yet, all the way to the end.
I don't know how I feel about the first point. I am a solo player exclusively (it's the way I enjoy playing for RP and gameplay reasons). If suddenly there is no way for me to tackle the higher level open world, what do I do from there?
The second point I agree with though.
Getting to the end of a gear treadmill is a sure way to make sure I never log in again.
All jokes aside, various forms of progression (ideally interdependent) with tangible goals and rewards is probably the most important. In depth crafting will do a lot for me in that sense. Challenging raids (I personally prefer controlled instanced encounters but I'm open minded to open world I guess) where my progress in my skill, gear etc allows me to complete content I could previously not.
The community and social aspect is very important too, but in an MMORPG it's an omnipresent incentive to play so it doesn't really need an explanation.
What pushes me away from a game is a sense of exclusion and inaccessibility of certain goals. e.g. I was very turned off by cash mounts in WoW and it killed my motivation to spend time grinding for and collecting mounts. I get that's just the business model but it's an example: I felt excluded from being able to collect certain mounts which left a bad taste in my mouth. A more relevant example would be the degree to which some game content is accessible. If only 0.01% of the player base experiences the mayoral system or only very few guilds can compete for and get world boss kills, I may find that off-putting. I don't want everything readily accessible, but I should feel like with reasonable effort and time I should be able to experience everything. This ultimately comes down to balance and I look forward to see the alphas and betas and hope AoC hits a nice balance.
-GM interaction with players
-Player-run communities
-Path balancing (not necessarily a numbers game, but how well each path fit in to their niche)
-Hidden item stats (more specifically that other players don't know the stats of an item without being told, or being able to hold it themselves in their inventory)
To be more specific, my examples are from NexusTK:
They had player-run subpaths. The subpath elders (players) would be the only ones able to talk to "the gods" (GMs), and make requests on behalf of their path - could be items, spells, balance requests, unique maps/areas only accessible to them, NPCs, etc. Then, they would be rewarded with updates based on their involvement in the game and community - sometimes new spells or even subpath-specific items (not all would be a benefit to hunting/PK/etc, many would be purely cosmetic.) And those subpath-specific items would have pretty steep costs to make (also needed approval from Guides in the subpath and a spell to create it), and were considered top secret - so almost nobody knew their stats except the people that wielded them. Sometimes they would get niche items to sell (at their discretion) to the community.
A specific niche item: A Spy (rogue PC-subpath) could make invisibility stones to sell (or give away, I suppose) to people. The stones would make that character have a single-use invisibility spell. That could potentially be a super useful item, especially for role-playing. At one point, there was a modifier on the damage to any invisible character - so it's possible a warrior could use one, turn invisible, then essentially sneak-attack somebody/something for crazy damage that a warrior would never be able to do without it. (Basically made them able to 1-hit people without a huge sacrifice). The benefit produced a huge demand, but the accessibility/cost for the item made them scarce. Basically the players of the subpath managed the supply so they would never become a "mandatory" item, even if it was super profitable. The GMs were also involved, so they could theoretically just remove the item from the game if it became abused, too.
Changes in balancing and mechanics or new classes/races -> Curiosity how things are working out now and finding ways to make a new OP build (even if it then turns out not to be as OP as initially thought)
Community / Friends -> can't leave them hanging and am curious what they are up to
"Relaxing and Beautiful" world -> after an exhausting day at work it can be nice to just sail the ocean or fly through the sky etc. Requires sufficient graphics and a good soundtrack and lore helps.
Player-driven content (be it marketplace, guild-politics or some obnoxious griefers that need to be hunted) -> you never know what you might be missing if you are not logging in
Events -> opportunity for meaningful progress (hints to legendary items!?!), additional lore, finding easter-eggs etc (be careful to not have too many or they become a check-list item)
Login-rewards, daily quest routines or "special grind hours" are just that. grind. They make me quit a game rather than log in more.
MMO Pros
-Fantastic World (I have to want to play in the world I'm gaming in)
-Story telling and lore (I'm a nerd i enjoy lore (sorry, not sorry))
-Great Class design (RPG is one part of MMO games that games don't focus on. Yall's mold of having options to work around certain comps, and having each class have unique abilities (detect hidden magic/track monsters/cleanse poison)
-Exciting Concepts (Anytime a game comes out and it has something I've never heard of before, my ears go up. Yall seem at this point to have a lot of those ear popping concepts. choices matter at a player/guild/city level. the unique class/subclass system comboed with augmented ability flavor change. etc etc)
-Content (going back to story. i want a deep game with lots of story. quests. dungeons. raids. I want to PLAY the game. and with each node leveling up and granting new mobs/quests/dungeons i think this is great!)
-LOOT!!!!
MMO Cons
-PAY TO WIN (throws the idea of story/lore/progression out the window)
-LOGIN BONUSES (Nope, hard pass. you need mats.... go get them/buy them from another player)
-NORMALIZED LOOT (when running a dungeon/raid part of the fun is seeing what few items dropped. not everyone getting 1 piece for themselves. less loot keeps friends and homies together. running and running so that everyone gets what they need)
-UNBALANCED PVP (this game with full open world pvp options and how much stuff revolves around moving materials and yourself around the world on foot. It would be really sad to see 2-5 "classes" of the 64 just be OP and if you aren't one of those you are pretty much handicapped.
-AUTO GROUP JOIN (this ruins the community, I want to look for help and make my groups, and chat with the other people that enjoy the game i enjoy. not just zone in. run forward. zone out.)
Sure I'm missing some things i like/dislike, but thanks again for putting this post up.
Someone come kill me on Tuesday(8/20). ill be the guy just looking at all the buildings and terrain.
Cheers!
Ahsoka, out
or just color based markers to easily remember what kind of thing was represented there.
- Combat-wise, don't have 10thousand skills to use in your hability bar would be nice, but at the same time have 10 thousand skills that you could mix with your basics to achieve a new skill set like the MOBAS does, you have like 5 skills make the best of it and good luck, kinda vibe.
- Make Gathering and Crafting really meaningful. None likes to spend time in leveling something that any ugly boss will drop a ready-to-go item that is thousands of times better than the best item the top1 crafter can achieve, believe or not there are players that enjoys nothing more than to make itens, do quests to achieve recipes and old knowledge about a sword or shield that have its making process lost in the sand of times...
- Easy to look inside someone elses houses something that i miss is that feel of Old Tibia, where you just put your itens all over your house so people that was passing by could see and drool over it. And a well designed furniture sets, believe it or not, there are people that joins games just to play house, so if there was the option of houses with garden where you could cultivate crops or stuff like that so you could live of your own product to keep your house, i strong believe that many people would keep coming back to see if theyr tomatoes where still there...
- Fluid PvP Combat...? Well, everyone knows that when we talk about a good PvP, every fan of the genre is really trying to find that perfect PvP with the King Of Fighters-mmorpg kinda vibe, well BDO got close combat-wise, i really wish good luck for you guys in this point, cuz generally most players by the end of the day, no matter the game, they are looking for something really competitive to engage and put theyr skills to proof of fire, and i strong believe that MMRPG's have a broader capacity to achieve this.
Those are some o my thoghts on the subject. Oh, and please, please, PLEASE, don't ever forget the Fishing System, Fishing in every MMORPG it's the way to go, the way to relax, the way to enjoy life and it's beauty.
1) Incremental evolution--- every time I login i look forward to either evolving my character a little bit , be it a skill, new gear or even just a new skin. Or evolving my community ie helping a friend complete something. Things like getting a new stool for your permanent housing , or a new mount. All these things give me a feeling of satisfaction and progress.
2) To login into a living breathing world with a well thought out narrative and lore. Now this point is not delivered by any MMO that I play, the worlds are static doesn't matter what you do ...THE WORLD DOES NOT CARE. Slay all the demons you like, destroy the main boss a million times but yet nothing changes. The world is exactly the same. It will be my hope AOC can fulfill this point and ill retire all my other MMOS for this one.
If I want to take a pause the game should not make me feel bad about leaving. I might return 1 or 2 times becouse of it but the effect fall off quickly.
A major turn off.
- 3. Unchallenging Grind
I dont mind grinding in an MMO however the most efficent grind should still require skill
+3. Good Combat
GW2, Wildstar in mmo space as an example for me. Eventho I have love-hate relationship to GW2, the combat keeps me interested
+ 4. Exploration
I love puzzles of any kind
+ Indepth character progression
A lot of ARPG like PoE, Grim Dawn etc. did a great job in this.
+ Challenge/difficulty
On a leveling/content side of things it depends on what level scale of the game my character is in.
At the beginning its exploration and lore. Figuring out the world and seeing new things with an engaging leveling experience keeps me in at the beginning.
As I progress, especially towards level cap, it becomes about technical challenges with harder dungeons and raids.
One of the things that kept me in ESO for a while was having multiple guilds available. So I could have my RP guild and my Progression/Raiding guild. I know there won't be that concept in AoC because of PvP reasons, but hopefully I can make connections on both sides so I can have my RP and my raids because I love both of those things in MMOs.
meaningful support/healing classes(fun, their impact in a party is felt through active participation),
the majority of possible builds available in a game being viable choices(I like to be a special snowflake and do weird stuff),
Solid community, more often than not I leave a game because It barely feels like I’m playing an mmo and nothing holds me there personally
In that same vein, meaningful daily content. Those blue question mark dailies sure give you content to do, but most of the time it turns every time you log in to a check list you feel tied to before you can go do what you want. I feel that it makes it more fun when you find a way to reward as many aspects of the game as possible so your “daily quests” are just doing stuff you want to do.
I’m sure I’ll get some hate for it, but daily login rewards. I feel like Warframe does it best. It doesn’t reset, it’s just a record of the days you’ve logged in; the items are just basic mats and some small free stuff, with milestones at big days like 100 that give you a decent weapon(could be an outfit/skin/pet to avoid any “free power”). It’s small, but logging in to get one day closer to my milestone has pulled me into that game more times than I can count. “Gonna log in and get my reward then I’m gonna go do something else.......4 hours later, oh crap I’m still playing warframe”. I understand the distaste for it though.