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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Lazy Peon Video - Things I Hate About MMOs in 2023
Optics2134
Member
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLUuGJhPmuE
Comments
Do you agree with what is shared here? If not, which points do you agree and disagree with?
@Optics2134 FYI: Edited the title here, so more people understand what thread is about if they want to join the discussion.
Probably one of Peon's more relatable video's that I have watched. It does briefly cover some of the issues that stem from and continue to plague the industry especially for mmorpg genre.
But I will say in addition to his section about quests as I am someone who actually reads the quests for at least the first playthrough anyways, that aside from the main campaign, I do like more detailed class/archetype quest chains that have weight to them. It's a good way to tie in more meaningful quests instead of pointless crap and pointless rep grinds. Leveling should be a memorable experience instead of a hurdle to enjoy the game which I believe AoC's design handles this much better in terms of content goals. I dont really want to say end game content with all the controversial issues surrounded the terminology and specific game design nuance.
To me, if you want to play an alt, you should put the time into it. This way you can have something to look forward to as each archetype (or just based on primary archetype perhaps) could have a unique adventure to them aside from what religion campaigns can potentially offer the players in new content to explore. Just having the same linear path for leveling across all archetypes becomes essentially pointless like many of those games mentioned in the video.
Nothing wrong with wanting to have several alts and being somewhat alt friendly but if leveling becomes pointless then there is no point to having a level system.
Minimal pointless quests, good campaign, good primary archetype campaign, good religion campaign with unique rewards accordingly. You can even add in meaningful artisan campaigns which I am assuming is the current goals haha.
This makes things like the game being "Alt friendly" make sense for him but not for me. The only thing spanning all the characters in account which make sense to me are achievements. Maps and Mounts are a stretch but acceptable. Nothing beyond that. Nope.
Features which make the game dead to me would be:
- Auto-play/ AFK gameplay
- Addon requirements
Features which I really really hope are not included in the game are:
- In-game currency shop
- Daily chores
- Alt friendly crap and account wide completion.
- Ugly UI
Features I hope are included:
- Quality over quantity
- Multiple gear sets and inventory management
- some ingame guides for builds like in dota.
Transmog is going to be there and it has its pros and cons. No point thinking about this.
Lastly, this.
Again, Lazypeon has different reasons for playing MMOs than normal people who play just to relax, socialize or time pass.
That aside... they grow up so fast dont they
This is a HUGE dealbreaker for me. I just want to enjoy the game and have fun.
I have hundreds of hours into mmos that Lazy Peon couldnt even make it past the tutorial in his reviews. Has he ever claimed a mmo as his main played or playing mmo ?
Lazy Peon just needs to git gud at playing RPGs.
You don't need to leave the game to figure out what to keep in your inventory.
And you should never be relying on other people to config your build. An RPG should never be designed in such a way that there is any merit to other players dictating what your build should be.
If you don't like Dailies - skip them.
(You also don't actually have to use add-ons if you don't want to.)
Apparently!
"If you don't like Dailies - skip them."
That's probably a terrible mentality to have as a generalisation of game design outside of mainstream games and studio's lol. Pretty much the same as enabling bad design foundations and turning it around on the players decisions as a fault
The unfortunately truth about meta builds and the toxicity of gaming communities mentality unfortunately does exist. People do commonly project negatively to those who do not meta because that's how the top players do it so everyone should. There is a good majority of players who don't even look at their class talents etc and just go to guides which is just a reality as many gamers do the cookie cutter method. Now I'm not saying everyone does this but it's an unfortunate truth especially from mainstream games as mentioned in the video's.
Peon isn't necessarily wrong about the inventory manipulation with loot pollution either. These big studio's do manipulate players to spend unnecessary money for convenience and QoL nonsense that many muppets buy into. The evidence is clearly out in the open regardless of this current video, it has been for years. They do spend lots of money to manipulate people for player and money retentions for capital success because that's what most of the companies mentioned mainly care about.
Suggesting ignorance is essentially enabling this to continue. Ignorance isn't necessarily bliss, it's a choice to be part of the problem in this scenario by doing nothing.
Who suggested ignorance?
you did with your comment as to why I put quotations around. Not intended to be throwing shade or anything just saying. It's like saying " if you dont like p2w, just dont do it"
I do agree though, ashes game design from what I know of is definitely less about being a meta and more about synergy in a basic way to put it. Keeping it relatively more simple opposed to a false complexity for self-fulfillment is not a great way for class/archetype balance. A lot of those designs are being masked under unnecessary system stacking to hide the problems. But that's a tale for another thread lol
Yeah I honestly don't really care about this part either tbh. I am not against it like you are, but not having it in the game is completely ok too.
so, theres something to be said about players that dont want to "RP" and want to play a game efficiently, I myself agree with peon, because if a game has addons, I will be forced to use it, if it has dailies, I will be forced to do them - I have fun being the most efficient I can, using my time wisely, being stronger than others and I prefer PvP MMOs because of that, that's my playstyle in an MMORPG, and sometimes I play classes that I don't want to and do things I dont like because of the endgoal, and that is the "fun" part for me
skipping is not an option if that's going to put me at a disadvantage, I'd rather just not play the game, which is exactly what I, and hundreds of thousands of players did with Archeage or Lost Ark,
now, you can argue that you think that's stupid and it goes against what an RPG is supposed to be (for you) but the reality is there is a significant amount of the player base that has this playstyle, and actually do care about efficiency and feel frustrated when the META is doing dailies, having 9 alts like in LA or just doing things that aren't fun but are the most efficient way of progressing
and if the developer wants those players - which in Intrepid's case they do, since its a competitive game as well, they need to address it, as they have been with backing out on the original login reward idea and overall risk vs reward design,
I agree on the build META bullshit, though I think Ashes' approach will actually help with this. I prefer to understand my class and abilities to their atomic level and create a spec respectively. I don't care about player voted specs - if you want to use it, great, if not, great. From a grouping perspective, be good at whatever build you choose to have.
Agree on supporting altaholism. The flipside is that an mmo needs to provide enough depth to support focusing on 1 main character, while also being friendly enough to provide meaningful ways to play the game from multiple perspectives.
I disagree about being nostalgic about pre-xmog days. F*ck that. I want my character to look exactly how I want them to look. If that comes with the price of paid cosmetics and 'visual-progression' arguments - it's worth it.
I disagree about injecting story into the mmo flow. I want to be immersed in a living world, those worlds have histories and cultures and people trying to get stuff done for a reason - i want to know why - and that involves narrative.
Agree on the suck of AddOns, but still have a list of 17 standard addons for wow. Yeah, I'd rather not have to use the client updater for Curse, but like xmog - I want my UI to be very specific, and if the vanilla application won't provide that level of customization, then AddOns have value. This is one of those areas where Intrepid needs to pay particular attention to listening to players and making consistently quick updates to their UX.
Lastly, and probably most vehemently, I completely agree with the backlash on auto-play. It's just an immediate 'no' to the game the developer and the publisher. Everyone involved in producing a game with automatic / AFK gameplay simply hates gaming.
@Nerror I would definitely prefer it to not be in Ashes. I just don't see it being an essential part of it at this time based on current information about archetypes, active/passives and additional stats. Seems like an in-game self promotion tool that could be abused.
What Albion does is get the dailies out of everyone's way. They are there, but the objective is earn any type of XP. It just feels right. I absolutely despise getting on an MMO and having a big list of random garbage I don't want to do.
RuneScape dailies suck, never know if it's going to be chop down 5 trees, do a dungeoneering floor, do a slayer task, etc. It's all over the board in type and difficulty. New World, Planetside 2, and Guild Wars 2 do it about the same way, just given random nonsense tasks to chase all over the map. Horrible design.
Then you have games like WoW, ESO, and BDO that have a huge crappy mess of fixed dailies all over the map to chase, same crap every day, day after day whether you enjoy that task or not. Horrible design.
Flexibility is king, makes the game fun for everyone. Every skill level and every play style can tackle their daily bonuses as they see fit. It can't be done better.
Albion basically has 3 daily bonus systems. You have your main daily quest, earn any type of XP. This grants you a combat XP tome, learning points if you are F2P (you get your LPs automatically for free if you are subbed without having to do your daily quest), and a huge bonus toward your monthly reward track. They have this system cloned in the faction system, and the faction system has a second monthly reward track. You can work them both at the same time if you are faction flagged. And lastly, they have an activity type on bonus each day, rotates between a gathering type, a refining type, and a combat type usually, for a 10%-20% bonus XP for that activity for the day. That's a heckin' good daily system and no one else is even close.
Also, I think putting recommended builds into the game is fine. Just another level of skill floor, that requires less research but for (probably, slightly) worse results. League of Legends was an infinitely more accessible game after they added item recommendations in-game (based on recent pick-rate data), and there's still plenty of build crafting for those who care about it.
If you don't like P2W, just don't play that game.
Same, really, if you don't like Dailies, but... you can just skip Dailies if you want to.
Ignorance has nothing to do with that. Ignorance means lack of knowledge.
I suppose you mean I suggested people can skip/disregard/ignore Dailies if they want to. Could be a language issue.
Mmmmn. Yeah. I don't know what you're trying to imply, so...
Another thread where you can be more explicit would be best.
For some reason, with WoW: Dragonflight, I just started selling most stuff, so I no longer have an issue with Ineventory. Might be because there is now a great comparison UI with equipped items, so it's easy for me to know what I'm not going to use.
And that has carried over to the New World: Rise of the Angry Earth expansion. I used to Hoard all the gear, but now I Salvage most gear. Comparison with equipped gear is quick and easy, so I no longer have Inventory issues there, either.
I expect Ashes Inventory to be annoying and tedious in other ways, but...
I don't plan to be acquiring much of anything in Ashes, so Inventory should be a non-issue for me regardless of the Ashes Inventory design.
You mean you will choose to use them. That's your own personal problem.
Why would I think it's stupid?
RPers will say that RPGs should be about Roleplay; not rollplay. But, yes, gamers, especially, tend to obsess over META.
I consider add-ons to be cheating.
Which is why I ignore add-ons.
I would say I'm not surprised you feel compelled to be META... because you are a gamer, while I am a player.
I'm pretty sure IS is planning to not allow add-ons.
I also expect Ashes to have some form of Dailies - but not in a way that punishes participants by resetting the rewards if you miss a day. Most likely, Ashes "Dailies" will be similar to the APOC battle pass (and the New World Season Pass).
while oyu have a point, people play games differently. ive played games where is impossible to progress without doing dailies. when i say impossible i literally mean impossible. i dont mean slower or anything. i mean there isnt an alternative system to progress. so if you are playing those games, how are you going to progress without doing dailies? if you dont wanna do dailies, your only other option is to quit, which is what i did eventually, since i hate the daily system.
It's kinda like saying there are games where you hate the combat design so you stopped playing.
So... now you just hate all games with combat systems.
Reviewing the LP vid again. Seems like his real issue was with a lackluster Endgame; not really with the Dailies. So, what MMORPGs really need to do is put an end to Endgame.
Dailies will not work as the primary solution for Endgame burnout.
I think that is my point. Yes.
If we were given options for different weekly and monthly objectives to choose from, I feel it would open the door for more creative options and tasks ranging from open world PvP, resource gathering, node contribution, siege events (preparation or participation?) etc. Who knows, maybe they'll even be orientated to and for specific biomes and regions to encourage crossing some boarders, caravans etc.
But definitely not in favour of dailies.
So long as you don't HAVE to do them to "keep up", but rather, they offer some meaningful reward that could also be got some other way if the player doesn't want to do them. I think GW2 got a lot of this right, because most of the rewards for these things can be got in other ways. Another great example of daily/weekly was the SWTOR ones, which was literally like "Just go do some pvp", which I was going to do anyway really, was more of a bonus than a chore.
Having ritual activities to do is sometimes needed for the 'stuff to do' part of content droughts that happen in games.
WoW vanilla: had one daylie quest (a pvp one and not that important because the reward was small)