What features you dislike in MMOs and hope Ashes won't have?

As each MMORPGs have some good features (GW2 mounts, crafting system of SWG, housing of Wildstar *RIP* etc), they have some bad ones as well. They tend to have very similar features to WoW and other traditional MMORPGs which most people dislike and think they're outdated. There are two features I see in MMOs and despise. One of them is the 'artificial' feel most of MMOs in which case you just click stuff to do things with the mouse pointer (kills the immersion and looks ugly tbh). The other is boring and non skill based combat (both action: spamming abilities in order and tab: pressing buttons at the right time...) So, what features you don't want to see in Ashes of Creation?

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Damokles

BurnTheFern wrote: »

BeerBuddy wrote: »

......or the ability to scan someone's stats or equipment (without permission?).....

I agree with this. I dislike not being able to hide my gear/stats/build. Being able to inspect someone and see every detail about their character is something that I don't want. I enjoy having to have my own spreadsheets and test my own theories, and I don't want other people to reap the rewards of my or others hard work just by inspecting.

I feel the same way.
If i manage to make an op build that no one else even considers, then that is my intellectual property god damnit!

Roko

I dislike a few things other MMOS have, some are in my view very easily avoidable, some have become a staple of the genre but are still avoidable, and some are straight up unavoidable for the multiplayer aspect of the game.

I dislike a game designed around fast travel with insane amounts of backtracking that just assumes the player will teleport to go back. I love that ashes will be designed around no fast travel so they will be more mindful about where to send us.

I dislike when an event is happening around a town, camp or city where mobs are "attacking" it but if you don't do anything nothing happens. So you as the player are supposed to help defend it only for the reward, not because something was at stake from the start. I hope this will be solved with the nature of nodes and force of nature events.

I dislike having to repeat content. When I managed to kill a boss or unique(elite/named) mob after great effort and team work just to have him/her "re-spawn" after some time when I go back into that cave. I mean what was the point?
At least hide the need to do it behind some lore explanation like FF14 does it where you can't really kill them; Because their souls can travel back from the dead and "rebuild" the body using the crystals offered by the summoning parties.
In this same category I dislike seeing other player being asked to complete the same quest I just did. Daily and weekly quests fall into this one as well. If I just spent some time putting out the fire in your farm I expect it to be extinguished I don't want you asking every passer by to put out the flames I just put out old man! Or make them actual repeatable tasks that I can believe are repeatable.

Another thing is when a new expansion comes out and suddenly all your progression up to that point means nothing. All your strength is worth nothing. Someone that comes into the game as a new expansion is coming out can catch up and outgear you by just skipping all the previous expansion raid content and getting a couple of common or uncommon items for the new expansion. Like hey you see this sword I bought form an NPC? it's stronger than that mace you got after killing a god.

I got more but that will come in a follow up post so I don't end up with a wall of text nobody would read xD

granthor

What I dislike?

Mindless grinding and............

Lockboxes! Oh those stupid Lockboxes, that need that special KEY, you know that one you MUST buy to open that Lockbox. haha

Azryil

granthor wrote: »

Lockboxes! Oh those stupid Lockboxes, that need that special KEY, you know that one you MUST buy to open that Lockbox. haha

I like the idea of lockboxes if there is a picklock skill even if it's class restricted or the ability to craft keys, however I think having to buy keys for lock boxes could be considered P2W if lock boxes could contain anything remotely useful, so it likely won't be in the game.

Karthos

Damokles wrote: »

I just hope, that they wont make it too easy...
That was the reason for WoW demise.

The hand-holding and trying to please everyone sure didn't help increase the game's fun.

I really hope AoC has content that's difficult, and skills with a real developed learning curve. I'm not the best player, but I can appreciate a challenge. That's what keeps it interesting.

nalowahine

What I dislike is having to have a certain gear score or dps before a group will let you join them. In Rift most end game groups say you have to have over one million dps and armor rating of over 75,000 before they will let you join them.

Azryil

dancer wrote: »

What I dislike is having to have a certain gear score or dps before a group will let you join them. In Rift most end game groups say you have to have over one million dps and armor rating of over 75,000 before they will let you join them.

Unfortunately any game with a power progression system is going to have this to some degree. Some groups set the bar higher than it needs to be because they want the run to go smooth. However without damage meters it'll be more difficult for groups to kick people because of poor damage output, but if you're gear is too low you'll still most likely get denied groups.

Damokles

dancer wrote: »

What I dislike is having to have a certain gear score or dps before a group will let you join them. In Rift most end game groups say you have to have over one million dps and armor rating of over 75,000 before they will let you join them.

Well dps is pretty important in raids to be honest...
As long as you pull your weight then no problem, but there are tons of people who just dont do anything to better themselves, and raidleads have the responsibility to kick such people.
And yes, i hate gear score too!

beya

wanderingmist wrote: »

Escort missions where the person you are escorting moves slower than a snail and stops every few meters for some arbitrary reason.

I'd also hate to see classes that are either gender or race-locked.

Gawd yes!!

Ferryman

Daily Quests
Linear and vertical progression
Faceroll content

Nagash

shitty lore that is copy and pasted off others

looks at WoW

LieutenantToast

wanderingmist wrote: »

Escort missions where the person you are escorting moves slower than a snail and stops every few meters for some arbitrary reason.

Ha! I mentioned something similar in our recent Dev Discussion thread - I'm of the personal opinion that these kinds of quests should be nuked from orbit

Seems like there's a common theme in this thread and throughout our community in general that "hand-holding" is no fun - you'd rather be thrown in the deep end of an adventure, with all its challenges! This often means collaboration amongst the community is necessary to accomplish tasks, and I saw a few people bring up the fact that a "dungeon finder" or "LFG" tool can be a bit on the hand-holdy side. Thoughts?

Damokles

LieutenantToast wrote: »

wanderingmist wrote: »

Escort missions where the person you are escorting moves slower than a snail and stops every few meters for some arbitrary reason.

Ha! I mentioned something similar in our recent Dev Discussion thread - I'm of the personal opinion that these kinds of quests should be nuked from orbit

Seems like there's a common theme in this thread and throughout our community in general that "hand-holding" is no fun - you'd rather be thrown in the deep end of an adventure, with all its challenges! This often means collaboration amongst the community is necessary to accomplish tasks, and I saw a few people bring up the fact that a "dungeon finder" or "LFG" tool can be a bit on the hand-holdy side. Thoughts?

You did a pretty good summarization in my opinion.

There is one saying that i heard in a youtube video about this theme that fit pretty good: "Developers should not form the game around the players, the players should adapt to the game. If you are not good enough, then train and get good at the game. What made Dark Souls so famous? It was hard, and it didnt compromise."

Wandering Mist

LieutenantToast wrote: »

wanderingmist wrote: »

Escort missions where the person you are escorting moves slower than a snail and stops every few meters for some arbitrary reason.

Ha! I mentioned something similar in our recent Dev Discussion thread - I'm of the personal opinion that these kinds of quests should be nuked from orbit

Seems like there's a common theme in this thread and throughout our community in general that "hand-holding" is no fun - you'd rather be thrown in the deep end of an adventure, with all its challenges! This often means collaboration amongst the community is necessary to accomplish tasks, and I saw a few people bring up the fact that a "dungeon finder" or "LFG" tool can be a bit on the hand-holdy side. Thoughts?

Convenience is ok but only in moderation. Certain mmorpgs give players too much convenience that it takes away from the world. FFXIV for example takes fast travel to the extreme, allowing the player to teleport pretty much anywhere you want practically for free (gold is so plentiful in that game). On top of that you have ferries, airships and chocobo rides so the only time you need to actually walk anywhere is to go kill some mobs. I spend more time fast travelling around the world than I do walking, which is rather sad in a way.

Same with things like group finder. Yes it's very convenient to have the system match you up with people automatically, but at the same time it takes away the social aspect of the community. Not only that but in my experience players who are matched with a group finder tool are more likely to be toxic to their teammates or leave as soon as things go wrong. Back in WoW before the group finder and cross-realm functions existed, players were restricted to grouping with people on their individual realm. This meant that if you were constantly toxic in groups it would get noticed, and you would be blacklisted and not invited to any groups at all. It gave players accountability that is rare to find on the internet these days.

Wandering Mist

Damokles wrote: »

LieutenantToast wrote: »

wanderingmist wrote: »

Escort missions where the person you are escorting moves slower than a snail and stops every few meters for some arbitrary reason.

Ha! I mentioned something similar in our recent Dev Discussion thread - I'm of the personal opinion that these kinds of quests should be nuked from orbit

Seems like there's a common theme in this thread and throughout our community in general that "hand-holding" is no fun - you'd rather be thrown in the deep end of an adventure, with all its challenges! This often means collaboration amongst the community is necessary to accomplish tasks, and I saw a few people bring up the fact that a "dungeon finder" or "LFG" tool can be a bit on the hand-holdy side. Thoughts?

You did a pretty good summarization in my opinion.
There is one saying that i heard in a youtube video about this theme that fit pretty good: "Developers should not form the game around the players, the players should adapt to the game. If you are not good enough, then train and get good at the game. What made Dark Souls so famous? It was hard, and it didnt compromise."

To a certain extent yes. One of the reasons why the Dark Souls games were (and still are) so popular is because they are fair. The game sets out the rules of the combat very clearly right at the start, and is consistent with them throughout the entire game. Extra Credits did a wonderful episode explaining this way back in 2013:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea6UuRTjkKs

Speaking of the Dark Souls games, one thing that I have a love-hate relationship with in games is the minimap. You'll notice that the Dark Souls games never have a map for you to follow. This encourages the player to explore and learn the routes without constantly referring to a map. In doing so not only does the player become more competent at navigating the world, but is more likely to appreciate the world and the scenery as they go. Often times when I'm travelling through the world I am so focused on following the minimap that I don't actually see much of the world I am in.

What is your opinion on maps and minimaps?

Damokles

@wanderingmist
Dark Souls could handle a non-minimap policy, because even though the zones where pretty large, they were not as large as, say, a MMORPG zone. Players had to also traverse these zones in huge quantities, and then they had the fast travel system.
I think we should have a minimap in AoC, but it should not be too detailed, give it a smaller radius eventually and let it interact with certain abilities, like the hunter and tank special use ability (the one where they see enemies around them).

Wandering Mist

Damokles wrote: »

@wanderingmist
Dark Souls could handle a non-minimap policy, because even though the zones where pretty large, they were not as large as, say, a MMORPG zone. Players had to also traverse these zones in huge quantities, and then they had the fast travel system.
I think we should have a minimap in AoC, but it should not be too detailed, give it a smaller radius eventually and let it interact with certain abilities, like the hunter and tank special use ability (the one where they see enemies around them).

Fair enough. What about permanent access to a large scale map of the entire world? Is that something you would still want as well as a minimap?

Damokles

@wanderingmist
It would be cool if everyone got a rough scetching of the areas etc, and then scribes could make better maps. Make it more interactable with the players, like personalized waypoints etc.
It would also be pretty selfexplanatory why it is that way: We came back back after a few eons right? Well a ton can change in a few eons. We are the pioneers in this situation, it would be dumb to have perfect maps of this region ;D

Wandering Mist

Damokles wrote: »

@wanderingmist
It would be cool if everyone got a rough scetching of the areas etc, and then scribes could make better maps. Make it more interactable with the players, like personalized waypoints etc.
It would also be pretty selfexplanatory why it is that way: We came back back after a few hundred years right? Well a ton can change in a hundred years. We are the pioneers in this situation, it would be dumb to have perfect maps of this region ;D

I would like that a lot.

BlackBrony

1- Daily quests. I don't like being "forced" to play the game. For example many MMOs hide reputation grind behind daily quests, so if one day I don't do them, I'm losing progression. I mean, I can totally ignore it, yes, but you know humans, we somehow feel we lost something.
I don't mind repeatable quests if they make sense. Gathering stuff for the node, makes sense, craft stuff that will in a very minimum value increase city defense/attack. For example gathering water, and if an attacks come, that water will help extinguish fire (or more gamey, mitigate damage from fire in X%)

2- Minimap. I know it's a necessity but I'd prefer a scaled back minimap. It helps a lot, and I swear I get lost a lot, but it helps immersion. Paying attention to landmarks and figuring out a way.

3- LFG/LFR. No. Not again. But find a way to advertise your group without everyone spamming "LF2M Healer and Tank". Also, not sure how, but figure out a way to even the DPS/Healer/Tank ratios, so being a tank/healer is not so rare.
Why? In my experience, if you approach someone advertising, even though you don't have best gear ever, they will ask a couple of questions and take you in. It all falls back on how you interact with the players and if you had a good experience, next time they will call you again, add you to FL and eventually be recommended to raids.
In Rift this is how I always found people to raid with, through dungeons, showing I was willing to learn and improve myself if required.

4- Make tanking/healing characters experience fun. Many MMOs almost punish you for going Healer/DPS, having really hard time leveling.

5- Respawn resources/animals. Make resources matter. Maybe people mined too much iron, puf, it's gone. Now a new quest it's required to find new mines and set them up.

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