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My bad experiences with MMOs
Seabrook39
Member
I’ve been playing MMOs for a long time over 20 years. My first MMO was Ultima Online.
The things I listed below are either hassles, chores or a waste of time. Example: I might log in for 5-6 hours a day, but spend 2-3 hours doing the things I listed below.
My guild mates often joke about MMOs, “You’re not playing the game, the game is playing you.”
1. No Group/party/dungeon finder on release
My bad experience: Spending too much time just trying to find a party for group content especially during non-peak hours. Party member A go look in an end game zone for more members, party member B go look for more members in city X. A MMO I played since release was release with no group finder for well over a year. I depended on a third party website, only took 5 mins maximum on average.
I do not think many players have the patience and time to walk next to bulletin boards in nodes/taverns and wait for a group. I rather be killing monsters or farming in a different zone while queuing for a dungeon. I foresee third party websites popping up.
Group/party/dungeon finder on release to find players from cross server/region queues for instances. Check boxes to group with people from other regions, USA, Europe, Asia, Oceanic, etc in instances. More instances added so they’re similar to dungeons in levels.
2. Account wide-more convenience
2A. Cosmetics
My bad experience: Bought some cosmetics in a new MMO. Created a second character with a new class, I checked my account and the cosmetics weren’t on my second character. Found out to my shock the cosmetics (and everything else) weren’t account bound, but character bound. The game shut down after only 3+ years.
2B. Achievements
2C. Titles?
2D. Name reservation-In my opinion a concept such as name reservation is outdated, 10-15 years old. Gaming services started using “Game ID/tag”. Display above player's character, our forum names can potentially be our “Game ID/tag” but CANNOT be change and is linked and display on all characters on the same account. Easier for other players/guild members to recognize and remember the Game ID/tag instead of 5 other character names from the same person. The same game ID/tag CANNOT exist on another account across all servers. In game players see only players’ Game ID in chat, guild etc by default. They have the option of turning it on in options to see character’s name. Multiple characters on the same account/server can have the same character name.
Even if I get my name reservation, in the future if I change servers my name will most likely be taken on the server I’m transferring to, I will need to change my character’s name. Something I always hated about creating new characters, is where it seems every name you try is already taken. Compare that to one Game ID and the hundreds of names I’ve to try.
2E. Guilds – I actually prefer guilds to be account wide. When someone invites you to a guild, they’re inviting your account. No more “Any guild officers on? I need an invite on my other character.” The maximum cap size of 300 for guilds and not being account wide is not alt friendly. Example: On launch day guild has 40 members, but fast forward 3 years, every member now has at least 8 max characters. If all the 40 members’ alts are added to guild, guild is going to be cap with 300 members. In reality guild only has 40 players/accounts. Guild leader has to create several extra guilds to accommodate for each members’ alts. This creates more problems for the foreseeable future, parts of the game turns into a character management simulator/mini game. “My alt 2 is in guild B in our guild” “My alt 5 is in guild C in our guild” “My 50 alts are all alone in the same guild, guild D in our guild”
If you have an archetype character that’s at max level in your account, the archetype icon appears next to your character/Game ID name in guild member list to indicate it.
My bad experience: Was in a guild where we put new members and members’ alts into a separate guild because the main guild was getting too big and hit the cap. To make a long story short, that didn’t work too well because it was causing communication problems and too many headaches. I hope it’s not the case with AOC where the same guild is forced to put its members into several guilds. It’s a ****storm waiting to happened.
2F. Guild name and progression – Guild name reservation and progression across all servers. A guild with the same name cannot exist across all servers. Also prevents guild name thieve. Tradeoff: guild progression is very slow, 2-4 years to max guild progression.
Example: Guild wants to transfer to a less crowded server, resetting their hard-earned progress. During or after the transfer guild leader founds out a guild with the same name exist on their new server. Guild leader is be forced to rename guild.
2G. Friends list – Can add players from across regions. If I know someone’s Game ID, I can add them to my friends list. Friends list shows what game they’re playing, APOC, AOC etc, server, game ID, and character. I’ve played many MMOs where the friend list isn’t even account wide.
2H. Bank Stash
2I. Money
2J. Gear
2K. Currency/dungeon tokens
Quality of life improvements:
3. No auto disbandment of party members
My bad experiences: Player is about to go in a dungeon/instance or already is in the party. Player gets disconnected and automatically leaves the party. Other party members are trying to remember the name of player who disconnected and re invite or they thought the player left on his/her own. Player logs back on trying to remember the names of the party members. Even in raids, guild members sometimes relog and switch to another class, he/she must be re invited again. A “recent contact” list would greatly help. Imagine party/alliance groups are account wide giving players the convenience of switching characters without having to be re invited to party/alliance each time.
4. Options to lower/turn all types of graphical effects off
Example. Own beneficial effects, Own offensive effects, Own defensive effects, etc.
Repeat the effects for alliance, npcs, enemies, others, guild etc. Low, medium, high, full, effects on or off.
In Final Fantasy XI, a game that is nearly 20 years old, had options to turn multiple graphical effects off. Whenever a new MMO claims hundreds of players in massive PVP, I always ask “Can you turn multiple effects off?”
My bad experience: 99% of games released without the feature to turn graphical effects off and the game ends up being a slideshow even with very high-end hardware. What’s worst the devs decided to use an old game engine. Example- 30 players in large scale pvp charge and kill 50 other players. The 30 players do not load and appear on 50 of the players’ screen till 3-5 seconds later till they’re all dead or their game/screen freezes for 3-5 seconds.
I just read recently a MMO is about to be released in 2021 with no large events, such as massive PVP, battlegrounds, world boss fights because the game’s engine is not optimized enough to support it.
5. Can’t tell enemy spells from friendly ally/party/faction. Friendly aoe spells should appear blue or green.
6. Everyone gets rewarded for participation: Small amounts of tokens/currency/high tier hunting certificates after completed certain events, instances, dungeons, killing legendary bosses. These currencies can be exchange to npcs for cosmetic items, crafting items, or lower tier gear.
My bad experience: Completed the same raid, 40-50 times because I needed a couple of items from that specific raid. I did not get rewarded for my time.
The things I listed below are either hassles, chores or a waste of time. Example: I might log in for 5-6 hours a day, but spend 2-3 hours doing the things I listed below.
My guild mates often joke about MMOs, “You’re not playing the game, the game is playing you.”
1. No Group/party/dungeon finder on release
My bad experience: Spending too much time just trying to find a party for group content especially during non-peak hours. Party member A go look in an end game zone for more members, party member B go look for more members in city X. A MMO I played since release was release with no group finder for well over a year. I depended on a third party website, only took 5 mins maximum on average.
I do not think many players have the patience and time to walk next to bulletin boards in nodes/taverns and wait for a group. I rather be killing monsters or farming in a different zone while queuing for a dungeon. I foresee third party websites popping up.
Group/party/dungeon finder on release to find players from cross server/region queues for instances. Check boxes to group with people from other regions, USA, Europe, Asia, Oceanic, etc in instances. More instances added so they’re similar to dungeons in levels.
2. Account wide-more convenience
2A. Cosmetics
My bad experience: Bought some cosmetics in a new MMO. Created a second character with a new class, I checked my account and the cosmetics weren’t on my second character. Found out to my shock the cosmetics (and everything else) weren’t account bound, but character bound. The game shut down after only 3+ years.
2B. Achievements
2C. Titles?
2D. Name reservation-In my opinion a concept such as name reservation is outdated, 10-15 years old. Gaming services started using “Game ID/tag”. Display above player's character, our forum names can potentially be our “Game ID/tag” but CANNOT be change and is linked and display on all characters on the same account. Easier for other players/guild members to recognize and remember the Game ID/tag instead of 5 other character names from the same person. The same game ID/tag CANNOT exist on another account across all servers. In game players see only players’ Game ID in chat, guild etc by default. They have the option of turning it on in options to see character’s name. Multiple characters on the same account/server can have the same character name.
Even if I get my name reservation, in the future if I change servers my name will most likely be taken on the server I’m transferring to, I will need to change my character’s name. Something I always hated about creating new characters, is where it seems every name you try is already taken. Compare that to one Game ID and the hundreds of names I’ve to try.
2E. Guilds – I actually prefer guilds to be account wide. When someone invites you to a guild, they’re inviting your account. No more “Any guild officers on? I need an invite on my other character.” The maximum cap size of 300 for guilds and not being account wide is not alt friendly. Example: On launch day guild has 40 members, but fast forward 3 years, every member now has at least 8 max characters. If all the 40 members’ alts are added to guild, guild is going to be cap with 300 members. In reality guild only has 40 players/accounts. Guild leader has to create several extra guilds to accommodate for each members’ alts. This creates more problems for the foreseeable future, parts of the game turns into a character management simulator/mini game. “My alt 2 is in guild B in our guild” “My alt 5 is in guild C in our guild” “My 50 alts are all alone in the same guild, guild D in our guild”
If you have an archetype character that’s at max level in your account, the archetype icon appears next to your character/Game ID name in guild member list to indicate it.
My bad experience: Was in a guild where we put new members and members’ alts into a separate guild because the main guild was getting too big and hit the cap. To make a long story short, that didn’t work too well because it was causing communication problems and too many headaches. I hope it’s not the case with AOC where the same guild is forced to put its members into several guilds. It’s a ****storm waiting to happened.
2F. Guild name and progression – Guild name reservation and progression across all servers. A guild with the same name cannot exist across all servers. Also prevents guild name thieve. Tradeoff: guild progression is very slow, 2-4 years to max guild progression.
Example: Guild wants to transfer to a less crowded server, resetting their hard-earned progress. During or after the transfer guild leader founds out a guild with the same name exist on their new server. Guild leader is be forced to rename guild.
2G. Friends list – Can add players from across regions. If I know someone’s Game ID, I can add them to my friends list. Friends list shows what game they’re playing, APOC, AOC etc, server, game ID, and character. I’ve played many MMOs where the friend list isn’t even account wide.
2H. Bank Stash
2I. Money
2J. Gear
2K. Currency/dungeon tokens
Quality of life improvements:
3. No auto disbandment of party members
My bad experiences: Player is about to go in a dungeon/instance or already is in the party. Player gets disconnected and automatically leaves the party. Other party members are trying to remember the name of player who disconnected and re invite or they thought the player left on his/her own. Player logs back on trying to remember the names of the party members. Even in raids, guild members sometimes relog and switch to another class, he/she must be re invited again. A “recent contact” list would greatly help. Imagine party/alliance groups are account wide giving players the convenience of switching characters without having to be re invited to party/alliance each time.
4. Options to lower/turn all types of graphical effects off
Example. Own beneficial effects, Own offensive effects, Own defensive effects, etc.
Repeat the effects for alliance, npcs, enemies, others, guild etc. Low, medium, high, full, effects on or off.
In Final Fantasy XI, a game that is nearly 20 years old, had options to turn multiple graphical effects off. Whenever a new MMO claims hundreds of players in massive PVP, I always ask “Can you turn multiple effects off?”
My bad experience: 99% of games released without the feature to turn graphical effects off and the game ends up being a slideshow even with very high-end hardware. What’s worst the devs decided to use an old game engine. Example- 30 players in large scale pvp charge and kill 50 other players. The 30 players do not load and appear on 50 of the players’ screen till 3-5 seconds later till they’re all dead or their game/screen freezes for 3-5 seconds.
I just read recently a MMO is about to be released in 2021 with no large events, such as massive PVP, battlegrounds, world boss fights because the game’s engine is not optimized enough to support it.
5. Can’t tell enemy spells from friendly ally/party/faction. Friendly aoe spells should appear blue or green.
6. Everyone gets rewarded for participation: Small amounts of tokens/currency/high tier hunting certificates after completed certain events, instances, dungeons, killing legendary bosses. These currencies can be exchange to npcs for cosmetic items, crafting items, or lower tier gear.
My bad experience: Completed the same raid, 40-50 times because I needed a couple of items from that specific raid. I did not get rewarded for my time.
0
Comments
No Group/party/dungeon finder on release
I am not a big fan of this either. I know people get down on dungeon finders, saying they ruin the social experience, but that's troglodyte talk. The alternative is spamming chat channels begging for people. It's a tedium that these days we should be past. I'm a really old school gamer (going back to before we even had MMOs, I played MUDs in the early 90s) and even I think nostalgia makes some people stupid.
Cosmetics
Of course there may be cosmetics you can buy which are character-bound (if you buy them in-game). But they should be clearly labeled as such. All MMOs I play that have some kind of micro-transaction system are very clear about what items apply to an entire account and which only work per character (cosmetics or not). I don't play the ones that don't state this.
I'm confident that all cosmetics sold up until this point for this game are unlocked for an entire account. If Intrepid decides to offer per-character cosmetics, I'm sure they'll label them as such.
Name reservation
I'm torn on this. I play games that have unique names and those that combine names and accounts to make them unique. I see advantages in both. On the one hand, I dislike when you have multiple characters running around with the same name on a server, it can be confusing and I just don't care for it very much. And seeing account names is not very immersive either. On the other hand, I also dislike when a highly-populated game makes it very difficult to come up with a name I like since everything I can think of is taken (I am looking at you, DC Universe Online).
My favorite system I have seen is when a game has you choose a first name and last name, and makes a character unique in that way. To me it's the best of both worlds; it's immersive, makes sense, and is very unlikely to lock you out of the name you like (assuming someone doesn't already have the same combination of first and last name you choose).
Options to lower/turn all types of graphical effects off
I agree this is a great feature, fortunately it is a feature that Ashes of Creation will have as well.
Actually, it sounds more like the OP loves MMOs, having played them for 20 years, but has issues with how a small fraction of systems/features (compared to the large number of systems/features MMOs typically have) are implemented. None of these issues or suggestions seem to really challenge or oppose the core structure of MMOs.
I disagree with having party/group finders - I feel the social aspect of finding a (reliable) group is core to RPGs. Players need to be reminded MMORPGs are not instant-action simulators; they're RPGs at heart (imo of course).
One thing I can definitely relate to is trying to remember the names of people who disconnect - I've seen games keep their name plate in the party with a disconnected graphic to solve this, so something like that would help.
The first is you press a button, select your role and the system automatically finds you a group and teleports you to the dungeon.
The second allows you to list your group, what roles you need for it, and allows other players to apply for the group, however you have to accept them in order for them to join.
The first system takes away any and all social interaction and (in my opinion) detracts from the experience, especially when the system is cross-server. On the other hand, the second system still requires social interaction, but without you having to travel half-way across the world and spam chat channels to find a group.
The first system I believe has no place in an mmorpg, whereas the second can be an invaluable tool, especially for off-peak players.
You clearly do not like MMOs.
You post reads like "Old man yells at cloud". I want to say that your post is bait, but its just too long and specific for me to think your are trolling.
Best I can say for you is to find a game you do like. I don't think AOC is going to be it.
I like the path AOC is on, I don't want them to address many of the issues you have.
AOC should not have:
-Group/party finder
-Account wide guilds
-Achievements
-Game ID/tag
-Guild name reservation and progression across all servers
-Cross Server anything period
-Everyone gets rewarded for participation
Everyone one of these things is awful for a game like ashes and if you don't understand why, than ashes is just not gonna be a good game for you. The fact is that all of the things on the above list are things I want to see not in the game.
Here is a quick and dirty list of reasons why I don't like your ideas for clarification:
-Group finder destroys player interaction.
-Account wide guilds encourages alts (Yes I think alts are bad.)
-Achievements are just participation trophy's, achievements with rewards are not good for in game economy's.
-Game ID/tag encourages both awful names and alts. Again Alts are bad.
-Guilds should be single shard.
-Cross server game play is bad for socialization. You don't care about making friends you just want to fill the party and move on.
-Everyone getting something for group content just devalues any effort spent to get anything. Things should be rare and take time to get.
I don't think the things you want are bad for other games. I just think they are bad for a game that wants to have a strong economy and strong socialization. The goal of ashes is less about pushing you though the content and more about having you live in the content. I have no problem with your ideas in a game like WOW,ESO, or FFXIV.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
Sure,
Alts are anti-socialization in this context. Yes, I understand that many people play alts to try other classes or experience different play styles, but in the context of a game that takes 45days to cap, and is trying to foster a extremely social environment out of players having niche roles. Alts are not great. Part of the reason why you would have such a comparatively extreme time investment to level a character to cap is to make it so that one person is not tempted to ignore socialization and do everything themselves.
The idea is to get people to remember each other and work with each other more consistently. If you need potions for your raids in WOW nowadays, and don't want to just swipe the credit card for in game gold. In less than a days work you can fully level a druid, and run around in animal form to gather herbs, and make potions. Because WOW is so alt accessible, anything that you consistently need, you can get for yourself with an alt.
It was not always this way. The idea of having an alt in the past was something only multibox neckbeards would do to try hard as much as possible.
Another issue is that Alts creates an expectation of alts. Many high end raiders are expected to keep not just alternate specs up to date, but whole class alts ready to go, in order to give an advantage during certain raid bosses within a raid. If a highly mobile class like BM hunter in wow is preforming better than something like mage, you might be expected to swap classes for one fight, if the guild is stuck, during prog. This might not be much of a issue in the context of AOC currently. Overtime however, just like how classic WOW started out as a relatively hardcore MMO where alts were an exception, now a days in WOW they are kinda the rule. Most people have many characters at cap with up to date gear. People also expect blizzard to make this possible. Which blizzard has done.
If people think that having an Alt is a reasonable thing, than they will think that catch up gear is a reasonable thing. They will think gear should be easy to obtain. They will think that they can do a whole crafting production chain by themselves without having to participate in the economy and socialize. They wont have to keep friends lists full of people that can help them in different ways because they can just do it themselves.
Overtime, if this type of thinking becomes mainstream in the player base it leads to in game changes, and just makes the game easier, and less social.
The way ashes is designed with the long level cap and the limited number of crafts you can specialize in tells me that they want us to have to lean on each other to get through the game. If it was not the case they would just make it like FFXIV where you literally have all of the classes and crafts on one character.
I hope this helps. I know a lot o people look on the AOC wiki and see what looks like a bunch of needlessly harsh mechanics, but I think most of them are there for good reason. Having alts be mainstream would just be a net negative for the game as a whole.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
Shows how shallow the overall game is.
The reason why Mythic raiders in WoW are expected to have so many alts is because Mythic raids are so tightly tuned that if you are going in undergeared (which they do often) you need the absolute best classes for each specific fight. However, you don't want to have 50 players on your roster when the raid itself only needs 20, just so you can have more class options available. In this instance, it's far better to have the consistency of less people who can play multiple different classes depending on what the fight demands.
Of course, this situation only applies to the top 1% of WoW players. For the rest, having alts is a luxury, not a requirement and I agree that being totally self-sufficient from alts takes away some of the social aspect of the game.
On top of everything @Vhaeyne said I personally think that somebody who plays many alts will be mediocre at best on all of them instead of being an extremely good class of 1 type who knows the ins and outs of the mechanics like the back of their hand.
I do sometimes play a character to max level or close to it, and find on playing an alt that I actually prefer that over my original, and so end up having a high level alt in addition to my main. Or, my main gets nerfed so bad that it's no longer viable and I switch. That happened in WoW, when the Combat spec of Rogue was neutered to be unplayable. (They eventually scrapped it altogether and replaced it with a completely different spec, but by then I'd long abandoned the whole concept.) I leveled a Warrior, loved it, and that became my main. Until later they revamped the Discipline spec of Priest to let you heal while actively doing DPS, and it was so fun that became my main.
At no point, though, have I ever dedicated myself to trying to max out multiple characters at once. I agree that it tends to make you mediocre at multiple roles, and it takes some practice and dedication to really excel at any role. So I always have a main that is far, far beyond any alt and is my one "real" character in an MMO.
WoW would not satisfy all the gripes, but I agree it would probably be closer than Ashes in satisfying these complaints.
I would actually disagree with this statement. Having guilds not be account wide makes it possible to raid and do endgame content with multiple guilds, meaning you can gear you your alts much easier. If you are bound to a single guild, then you are bound to a single raid lock out (if that's how raids will work). We don't know what will be the "best" way or "fastest" way of getting gear in ashes, but doing endgame bosses and raids will be a part of that.
WoW classic is a great example. I know some guys in my guild that raid with three different characters with three different guilds.
If guilds would have been account wide, then that would not have been possible and they would probably not have those 2 extra alts.
But the thing is that everything he hates are core aspects of "oldschool MMOs" and he just expect the genre to be changed for him.
I don't go to the CS:GO forums telling them that I hate instanced matches, fast paced games and the competitive aspect of FPS genre, and then expect my words to be taken seriously. I would do better researching what type of game am I trying to play.
If you read the title and most comments is "bad experience" and not "hate".
And just because you like the core of "oldschool MMOs" doesn't mean that's define what an mmo should be like. I may not agree with the OP but I can also respect his views and hope that he will have a better experience in ashes or find a mmo that fits him.