Worry from a casual gamer that he cannot compete in an MMO world

Hi all,

So I have been a little nervous about starting an MMO again and I had a question for the community. My last deep dive into an MMO was Asheron's Call which I loved. Over the years since then I dabbled a little in Darkfall and Guild Wars 2. My experience with the latter two games was a challenge for me as I can tell MMO's and perhaps the expectations of their players have evolved.

I am a pretty casual gamer. I am the type of player that loves enjoying a relaxed game whether by completing compelling quests or exploring a world. Some of my experiences while playing Darkfall and Guild Wars 2 was less than relaxing for several reasons. Which brings me to my concerns.

When entering a guild I often found that there were certain expectations and responsibilities expected of me. Such as gathering a certain amount of resources on a regular basis, having a certain proficiency for completing certain quests and assisting others, or having a certain skill set while in combat that assists my party.

I am afraid that when I play Ashes of Creation I am going to be surrounded by a world of hardcore MMO players that I will not be able to compare or compete with. I don't want to play an MMO worrying about whether my Rogue has the best skill allocations and gear set to best benefit my party. I don't want to worry about the responsibilities of gathering resources or whatever I have to do regularly to remain in a guild. I don't want to have to have the perfect items and gaming skills to compete in PVP.

I know these are generalizations that are not true across the board which is why I'm asking the question here. I guess in a nutshell I want the feeling that I had with Asheron's Call where I have a world that I can explore casually while still being able to be part of all the game mechanics like guilds, siege warfare, and PVP.

Thanks for listening.

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Comments

Hawkwood

I agree with you 100%. If a guild tells me I need to memorize a YouTube video or anything than I just wont be in that guild. AoC is very guild focused and I think that as long as you find other like minded folks, you'll be fine. Thankfully there are a good number of casual/RP guilds. That's my plan at least.

Maezriel

@Wyld Heart wrote:

Such as gathering a certain amount of resources on a regular basis, having a certain proficiency for completing certain quests and assisting others, or having a certain skill set while in combat that assists my party.

Find better casual guilds. Tons of guilds are little more than a shared bank and in-game messenger app where you can just chat w/ people while grinding away at whatever your heart desires.

There's also a good number of multi-game Discord communities that're always recruiting and I'm sure they'd be happy to have ya.

VmanGman

You will definitely be able to play as a casual. You will always find casual guilds and players. Just have to look for them.

George_Black

So what do you want? To make yet another mmo casusl friendly?

Wyld Heart

I appreciate it all. Makes me feel better. I’ll definitely take the time to find a guild like that.

Warth

What you experienced was 100% on you. You knew you were going to play the game casually but you surrounded yourself with guildmates that were trying to play somewhat competitively.

Its an option to play casually. But competing isn't a word that should be in your or your guilds dictionary then.

Kionashi

is not fair to expect casual players can compete with more dedicated players.... that said if you keep your expectations in check and find a casual guild you will have no problems in AoC, just don't expect to be able to take a castle or be a mayor in a military node and you will be fine...you can still have lots of fun grinding and doing raids

Merek

You're annoyed because you joined an organization that had expectations of you...? What? Of course they did. That's part of being in a team. Being part of a team is required for MMO's, it'd be rare to see anyone get far in an MMO by themselves and I mean purely by themselves. Good luck running whatever dumb dungeon in World of Warcraft literally by yourself, not happening. If socializing or being in a guild doesn't interest you, you need to move to another genre.

tl;dr - No, you cannot be competitive if you play casually. It won't happen. However, if you were to become a cog in a guild machine, your playstyle may be somewhat viable.

Voidwalkers

Also a casual gamer here (well I used to be hardcore like ~20 years ago). I think the key is for an MMO to "have something that casual players can enjoy" rather than "letting casual players 'compete' with hardcore players".

One thing that makes mmos addictive is the amount of effort/time you put into the game (roughly) scales with reward (unlike RL). imo a game in which casual players can easily obtain rewards on par with those who've sunk hundreds of hours into the game would get boring quickly.

And after all why *should* casual players be able to compete with hardcore players in the first place? imo that's the point of an mmo - not everyone has to and gets to be the dragonslayer/lich-king slayer/epic hero who saved the world. If you can't afford the time necessary to attain dragon-killing level strength, then may be pick something else (that requires less time) to specialize in. You can be a trader, a smith, a gatherer, or an expert in hunting mid-level mobs (and their mats) - as long as the game has a place for those folks.

The popular, modern themepark mmos (e.g. wow & gw2) kinda ruined this experience/gameplay imo. Everyone is *THE* adventurer. Everyone's destined to slay a lich king or an elder dragon. There can only be heroes, and there're no place for common folks.

And finally for those who can't stand being just "yet another adventurer in the world" and insist on being "THE hero", then I'd suggest just play a single-player RPG instead.

Frostshot1

I have the same trepidation, but I think it goes beyond MMO's anymore. I see lots of FPS's that look good, but I'm hesitant to try multiplayer because I know everyone playing these games are way more competitive, and have way more time to invest than I do. Having only 2 or 3 hours a night to invest into a game makes it difficult to keep up with any progression game these days. Loot boxes, gear tiers, legendary loots. . . basically just have to accept than No Lifers are always going to school me.

Ramirez

Wyld Heart wrote: »

I appreciate it all. Makes me feel better. I’ll definitely take the time to find a guild like that.

Man if you can have casual guilds in games like Albion online you can have in any mmorpg, in my first year of albion online i was really good and make it way to the top alliance of the game... And dam i never feel so pression in a game before, i was tank and in guild wars if i give an wrong engage and my time wipe , i needed to pay a fee to the guild, same in dungeons or ganks.. The amount of cashe needed to pay per week to guild was insane, like many other rules that give instant ban of the guild, but i enjoyed..

Lately after 2 years i started playing again, but just wanted to chill , so i find a small guild, luckily , high skilled players that played hardcore before, many of them old lieders or officers of guilds , but this time they just want to play without responsibility...

Remember you can be part of a small guild but yet of a big alliance and when you have more time you can join the big scale invents with your alliance, even if you are casual you can find always your place or your way to make it
I have meet many rich players like hell in albion, playing casual, they choose to focus in being good in one thing, like movements in the marketplace, or crafting , gathering, or ganking, then when they have alot of cash they can freely engage in the rest of the content even if they aren´t good like the elite , because they have full pockets and maneuver to lose

Vhaeyne

My man, you had me at Darkfall.

With the economy using lower tier resources in high tier recipes. Everything that can be earned from content will hold value at all times. Lineage 2 did this when I played. Animal skins and animal bones were always worth something. With the upkeep on gear, these resources will stay valuable. This means that at all times there will be value in all nodes. If you end up dealing with lower geared PvP in nodes that are less competitive their will still be value in the resources you earn and you should still have fun fighting over mobs and recourses. You will just be dealing with lower stakes. There is room for people that put less time into the game, but they must be realistic and accept a few things.

1: You will never be on the cutting edge.

2: The most high end content will always be slightly out of reach.

3: Some things will seem prohibitively expensive.

But this was kind of the case in Darkfall. You were never going to get a ship of your own solo cutting wood, but you might be able to get a clan to accept, and be able to fight on the deck of one of their ships. Not as cool as owning a big ship with a ton of guns, but at least they would take you out to sea to fight.

Hope this prospective helps.

By no means would I ever be in favor of any game changing itself to be more casual friendly unless that was the original goal of the game.

Bricktop

Frostshot wrote: »

I have the same trepidation, but I think it goes beyond MMO's anymore. I see lots of FPS's that look good, but I'm hesitant to try multiplayer because I know everyone playing these games are way more competitive, and have way more time to invest than I do. Having only 2 or 3 hours a night to invest into a game makes it difficult to keep up with any progression game these days. Loot boxes, gear tiers, legendary loots. . . basically just have to accept than No Lifers are always going to school me.

Check out Squad @Frostshot . Super fun FPS with no competitive aspect to it. It's milsimmy and tactical but there's nothing on the line and no pressure. It's basically a more realistic battlefield with 90% of the team using their microphones to try and accomplish objectives together. It's good fun I have about 900 hours in it since I got it a few years ago. No lootboxes, Nothing locked behind any kind of progression system, just log in, work with your teammates, and shoot bad guys for a few hours.

Something to do while we all wait for Ashes at least. I've gotten sucked into Tarkov the last few months myself.

daveywavey

Wyld Heart wrote: »

I am a pretty casual gamer. I am the type of player that loves enjoying a relaxed game whether by completing compelling quests or exploring a world. Some of my experiences while playing Darkfall and Guild Wars 2 was less than relaxing for several reasons. Which brings me to my concerns.

When entering a guild I often found that there were certain expectations and responsibilities expected of me. Such as gathering a certain amount of resources on a regular basis, having a certain proficiency for completing certain quests and assisting others, or having a certain skill set while in combat that assists my party.

I am afraid that when I play Ashes of Creation I am going to be surrounded by a world of hardcore MMO players that I will not be able to compare or compete with. I don't want to play an MMO worrying about whether my Rogue has the best skill allocations and gear set to best benefit my party. I don't want to worry about the responsibilities of gathering resources or whatever I have to do regularly to remain in a guild. I don't want to have to have the perfect items and gaming skills to compete in PVP.

If you're EU, check out https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/41736/eu-hand-of-unity-pvx-semi-hardcore-hardcore-family/p1.

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