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Sense of adventure VS given knowledge
Heartbeat
Member, Founder, Kickstarter
Maybe I didn't word the title the best I could have but let me elaborate.
In most games nowadays whenever there is a new big content update, generally you are given the absolute max amount of information you are needed in relation to that content, whether it be how to obtain new items/gear, new areas, new mobs and where they're located, new bosses and their mechanics, new lifeskill content, crafting recipes and items needed and where/how to obtain them, and so on.
Personally I feel like this deflates the potential player experience that could be had, yes players love to min/max but I don't feel like making 2 sets of patch notes is the answer. Would you feel better about getting an achievement/item/drop that you yourself discovered or perhaps a secret area/boss?
I like the sense of adventure, yes SOME things are necessary to tell to the player, but not everything is needed to be known right away, and I feel like when more info is left blank or purposely vague, it allows the community to come together to explore and figure things out and it MASSIVELY improves the social experience of the game, something I feel that has been largely missing from MMOs nowadays.
What do you prefer or how would you handle content releases and the patch notes surrounding them?
In most games nowadays whenever there is a new big content update, generally you are given the absolute max amount of information you are needed in relation to that content, whether it be how to obtain new items/gear, new areas, new mobs and where they're located, new bosses and their mechanics, new lifeskill content, crafting recipes and items needed and where/how to obtain them, and so on.
Personally I feel like this deflates the potential player experience that could be had, yes players love to min/max but I don't feel like making 2 sets of patch notes is the answer. Would you feel better about getting an achievement/item/drop that you yourself discovered or perhaps a secret area/boss?
I like the sense of adventure, yes SOME things are necessary to tell to the player, but not everything is needed to be known right away, and I feel like when more info is left blank or purposely vague, it allows the community to come together to explore and figure things out and it MASSIVELY improves the social experience of the game, something I feel that has been largely missing from MMOs nowadays.
What do you prefer or how would you handle content releases and the patch notes surrounding them?
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Comments
Even when I started mmos in 2003, there was an official website that told you all there was about the game.
Take Elden Ring for example. How many of you had 2 tabs open, one with the map showing all icons and one with the npc questlines?
Gaming has changed. Without new legal control content will always be known and nothing will be up for exploring.
One thing the game devs can do is fill the early game with unavoidable guide steps. Not about the UI but about the function of things. Simple example: early game dragon encounter, NPC talks about the quest "blsh blah blah... luckily I got a Dragonwound grease to hurt the dragon. Apply to your weapon blah blah".
There. You learned by playing instead of an online guide.
In the case of AOC we've seen a lot of info from dev streams and alphas, but the launch of the game, when it does happen, will be vastly different i'm sure, and AOC isn't some Asian made MMO that's being ported over to the west where all the min/max and best methods are all already known. Look at BDO, not everyone knew to hold on to their boss scroll rewards, because when boss gear was introduced, the rewards were retroactively updated to include boss gear in them(this was not mentioned in the patch notes), so some players with hundreds of rewards saved up had full boss gear day one.
About the unavoidable guide steps, that is a good idea to teach players about the game, as long as it's not part of some crappy dialogue that you spam to get through because majority of NPC dialogue or cutscenes are very boring and tedious to get through.
It's unavoidable that websites will pop-up to fill in information that may be left out in-game or by the devs, but as more content were to release in the future it would still scratch that sense of adventure while new players don't have to worry about scouring everything themselves with no guidance, if they want to look up info they can, if they don't, then that sense of adventure will still be there for them.
Important text in any part of your screen should be highlighted specifically to make it stand out from the rest and signify that it's trying to teach you something, maybe an item you need for a quest, someone you need to talk to, somewhere you need to go, etc.
Ultimately, I want to be the one to play the game. An adventure is a journey with an unknown outcome. If I'm interested in playing a game to have an adventure it's self-defeating to crowdsource that experience. If I'm following someone else's guide - I'm still playing a game, but I'm not having an adventure, I'm playing a procedure. I have no interest in following step by step directions in my everyday life, so I DEFINITELY have no interest playing someone else's 1-2-3 in a virtual life.
Practically, I want hard problems to solve - as long as they are solvable using the tools within the game.
I don't want anyone to hold my hand, because I want the experience (as a player) to play & understand my character better as they gain experience (in game XP). I have no interest in controlling other players' access to information, or their ability to produce content on whatever platform of their choosing. I simply control whether I choose to access that information and use it - again, supporting my own sense of ownership of my character.
I'd rather have a non-optimized, somewhat flawed character that I deeply understand and enjoy playing than a character I don't really connect with, but is totally optimized based om feedback from thousands of other players.
Just like reading a script doesn't take away from the fun of performing a charactter.
I can create my own sense of adventure by running a Level 1 character over to a different starting area.
If X number of people know how to do a thing and you don't, it is a very real 'shift' in the current gaming meta. Those who don't know, those who want to figure things out on their own even when those things are already somewhat well known, and those who don't want to just 'play solo', often end up having socially unpleasant experiences more often.
And I don't think it's because other people are innately worse, it's just easier to put down someone who doesn't know a thing than to explain it, in a game with a complex system.
Basically:
"Why are you doing that/wearing that/focusing on countering that mechanic, YourClass isn't supposed to do that!"
"Oh, why not?"
"You're just not supposed to, everyone knows that."
The 'second player' here doesn't actually know because they don't play the class, they just 'remember reading something somewhere that is PROBABLY accurate but might be generic, for example.
It's just a somewhat unavoidable shift in games. I think Ashes will be fine given the strong social aspects they are aiming for, but that's about the only bulwark still really possible.
This is the key takeaway, @Heartbeat ... and fortunately you mentioned it yourself.
You won't be able to force an "explorer" type playstyle on everyone.
MMOs have a wide variety of players and playstyles. Some players feel the need to grind XP through mealtimes and sleep. Other players feel totally lost without an online map and guide. Even the first few posts in your thread, here, have been a wide spectrum.
Ashes of Creation has been pretty full disclosure up to this point. Other than the specific easter eggs that Steven and the devs have planned, I'm almost sure the patch notes are going to be full disclosure as well.
Bottom Line: Let players choose their path. Game guides are inevitable.
I can tell you that I started Elden Ring cold turkey -- no maps and no guides (other than needing info on how to change my controller keybinds).
META is a player obsession for one specific playstyle.
People are not forced to read patch notes.
And, yeah, I'd rather have characters with flaws...and play with characters with flaws...than pursue the Most Efficient Tactics Available.
I feel like it'd be hard to find a good middleground on a topic like this, my intentions were to think of ways to improve the social aspects of either ashes or just MMOs by rallying the community together around big content expansions and exploring all the new content without it just being "told" to them.
I don't believe I specifically mentioned META in patch notes, players will always find out what's "best" either for them or just for their class in general whether it's defense/dps/healing or anything else.
And of course if someone didn't want to read patch notes they would either skip out on them unless they were looking forward to something.
I think Ashes will be more social than typical MMORPGs because the world will be changing in ways that aren't outlined in the patch notes.
Patch notes won't tell us which new cities have appeared or which towns have been destroyed. Patch notes won't tell us about the new mobs that have appeared since the new buildings and services have finished construction. Patch notes won't inform us about unfair Monarch taxation.
Patch notes won't tell us which races govern which Nodes or which racial quests are currently available.
Patch notes won't tell us which Religion and Social Org currently have the most influence.
This is also known as "hand-holding" or "watering down" and I am not very fond of it as well when it comes to MMORPGs.
In my opinion, the only thing one should be given is the encouragement to discover or gather lore and information in game; which leads to the discovery or completion of task.
I don't want to know everything when I step into Vera, just the basics. Although I'm an alpha1 member I will know some of the stuff before it goes lives, but they've even said that during alpha and beta some nodes will be moved around on the map for launch, and we're only getting half the world during these test phases. So I'm not too worried about it.
I think it will be quite some time before any trust worthy knowledge sites pop up, for the sheer fact that there is sooo much content to unlock and discover and wrap your head around. Someone wanting to have a pure lore site is going to be busier than a one legged cat covering up poop on concrete trying to keep up with all the different servers unlocking content and lore, etc. We also have over a month before a metropolis is made or maybe longer and that same time frame before anyone hits the level cap.
I, like the OP stated don't want to know everything before I step into the game. I want to be visually stunned, challenged by the game, and have a nice fun time exploring the world, finding it's secrets, downing the villains' with new friends I find along the way.