What are game play elements that keep players invested in the game?

akabear

As the title says, what are elements that make a game keep players invested / staying in a game for the long term?

Find more posts tagged with

Staff

Comments

unknown

This content has been removed.

Laetitian

Spif wrote: »

[*] allow for smaller groups not to be irrelevant in face of zergs;

Drumming up a bunch of people to a common goal is a skill too. I've been on the outnumbered realm for months on end, and I find it so easy to find enjoyment resisting against slight disadvantages, making the rare complete outplay against uncoordinated zergs, and regularly even accepting when the overpowering forces are too large and you just have to mitigate the damage instead of trying to win.
We were irrelevant on the map, and only once in a while got to make an impact, but we kept putting up our resistance, because it's fun to see how far you can get.

That's not something you need the game to do for you, that's just a decision you make. (Losing? Well, we can take the scraps and stand on the sidelines until more people on our side/log in again. Perhaps spend some time motivating people to join the fight.)

In my opinion, if the game itself has fun combat, it's entirely up to the players to coordinate with their allies and make the most of being outnumbered. If you can't do that, no coping mechanisms facilitated by the devs will keep you playing in spite of disadvantages for more than a week anyway.

RazThemun

-Smooth combat
-Combat being the right balance of complex and fun-
-Deep Lore that is thought out and tells a story for years to come
-World content that is rewarding and creating a desire for people to be out in the world and not just city hubs
-Consistent updates so players aren't out of things to do in 6 months
-Focus on Guilds and Group effort- as opposed to single player gameplay/priority

akabear

AI has some interesting thoughts:

There are several ways that MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) can stay engaging for players over a long period of time. Here are some strategies that game developers often employ:

Rich and Evolving Content: Continuously adding new and meaningful content is crucial to keeping players engaged. This includes regular updates, expansions, quests, dungeons, and other activities that expand the game world and provide fresh experiences. Offering a variety of content types, such as PvP (Player vs. Player) modes, raids, crafting, exploration, and story-driven quests, caters to different player preferences.

Player Progression and Achievement: Providing a sense of progression and accomplishment is important for player engagement. A well-designed leveling system, character customization options, skill trees, and a wide array of gear and equipment can motivate players to invest more time in the game. Additionally, rewarding players for their achievements with unique items, titles, or cosmetic rewards can foster a sense of pride and incentivize continued play.

Social Interaction and Community Building: MMORPGs thrive on social interactions. Encouraging players to form communities, guilds, or alliances promotes social connections and enhances the overall experience. Features like in-game chat, guild systems, player housing, and cooperative gameplay mechanics strengthen the sense of belonging and foster long-term engagement.

Dynamic World Events: Hosting special events or limited-time activities in the game world creates a sense of urgency and excitement. These events can be tied to the game's lore, holidays, or community milestones, and often offer exclusive rewards or unique gameplay experiences. They provide a reason for players to return to the game and participate in shared experiences.

Competitive and Cooperative Gameplay: Balancing both competitive and cooperative gameplay elements appeals to different player preferences. Engaging PvP systems, such as arenas, battlegrounds, or open-world PvP zones, cater to players seeking a competitive challenge. On the other hand, cooperative gameplay through group dungeons, raids, or large-scale battles against powerful enemies fosters teamwork and camaraderie.

Player Feedback and Iteration: Listening to player feedback and regularly updating the game based on player input is crucial. Developers should actively communicate with the community, address concerns, and implement changes that enhance the player experience. Regular patches and updates not only fix issues but also show a commitment to improving the game over time.

Endgame Content and Long-Term Goals: Providing meaningful endgame content ensures that players have goals to strive for even after reaching the maximum level. This can include challenging raids, high-level dungeons, legendary items, or leaderboard rankings. By offering a variety of long-term goals, MMORPGs can retain players who seek continuous challenges and progression.

Overall, maintaining an engaging MMORPG requires a combination of compelling content, social interactions, player progression, and a commitment to ongoing updates and improvements based on player feedback. By creating a dynamic and evolving world, developers can keep players invested and entertained for a long period of time.

Spif

Oh, and one last one that seems to get overlooked so often: Leaderboards and Challenges

Various leaderboards give people a reason to re-do content in a competitive way. Speedruns, completing group content with the least # of people, most kills, least deaths, races, etc.

Nodes (or guilds) especially sound like a great place for leaderboard "competition" to happen. Bosses killed in node, pvp stats, most gems mined in a week, etc. Low key inter-node rivalry. BTW, not what happens IN the node, but what is done by the node Citizens

Yes, leaderboards can be gamed, but that's part of the fun too, as long as it's not too easy to figure out or do

Turjilin

Progression

MybroViajero

community , sociability , challenge

Vaknar

There are some excellent answers in this thread!

Ashes of Creation will have many systems that tie in with one another, which will keep players invested, I believe.

The story arc, event, and node systems to list a few of many will all interact with one another to make player and guild agency and choices very important. In doing so, I believe players will naturally be invested in the story that plays out on any given server

Kilion

@tautau already made a good list to which I will add "lore" and "discovery".
I really enjoy well written bits and pieces about the world and finding them. I never really got why people would spoil the game for themselves by reading guides and it was probably one of the reasons why I quit WoW. There was an expectation for players new to a raid dungeon to have read the whole guide for all the bosses and having distinct knowledge and plans for which loot they are here for. That had little to do with a gaming experience but ticking boxes on a check list of chores to be honest. Which is why I am glad that Ashes aims to at most have "micro metas" and limited content access, which hopefully will result in players dispensing with acting like NPCs, replicating things they have read in a guide but rather discover the world for themselves and come up with their own solutions to challenges.

ELRYNO

For me this has been a pretty thought provoking question that I've spent the last couple of days mulling over and have ended up with the following breakdown of what truly keeps me invested in any form of RP game whether that be an MMO or not.

The first and most important pillar for me, above all other aspects of the game is combat. Combat is engrained into most if not all of the games I play and without it being engaging I am extremely unlikely to stick around for a long enough time to build lasting social bonds and therefore unlikely to sink time into the game. This happened to me with ESO and I have not picked the game up since, I gave the game a fair shot, but the tab combat gave me nothing that I haven't felt before in other games that delivered their tab target combat better such as WOW or GW2 (Albeit somewhat a hybrid).

In most RPG games I have played for any length of time. If I find the AI to be intuitive with depth to the combat that allows for skill expression I'm sold. I spent hundreds of hours playing Spellbreak purely based on the engaging encounters I had every time I picked up the game. It's also worth noting that the studio responsible for creating Spellbreak were acquired by Blizzard and had a large part to play in the development of Dragonflight, which is honestly the best expansion I have played for a very long time in wow. I have been sold within the first hour or two based on combat alone for games such as Monster Hunter, Spellbreak, GW2, Elden Ring, Zelda (BOTW), God of War, SWTOR. Most of these games have differing playstyles, but all of them I found had great AI, animations, VFX & SFX that rounded out the overall combat experience, their design choices atleast to me made the combat feel very dynamic, keeping me coming back day after day for months and sometimes years on end.

The second Pillar for me that comes in at a close second to combat is social interaction, of course this does not apply to some of the games mentioned above, however I would not have played some of the online games long enough to have built friendships if it was not for the combat hooking me in the first place. Simply joining a guild is not enough in today's age of MMO in my opinion, I've joint plenty of guilds and had 0 interaction with other players. I'd confidently say that 95% of the social interactions I have had in my favourite MMO's has revolved around the common goal of killing something to get phat loot. And again, without good combat, I don't want to kill things and therefore don't have social interactions. The other 5% I'd say were interactions that involved gathering / processing In some capacity.

The third and final pillar for me is a combination of world building, immersion and exploration. I could go on for pages about all three of these pillars. But ultimately they are the three most important to me. For this point I'm going to just break it down into bullet points otherwise I'll be here all night.

- Lore / Universe
- Storylines / Story Quests
- Quests that build the players knowledge of the area
- Cinematics *Edit* "I think cinematics are an absolute key form of character, story and world development that has the added bonus of getting potential players invested in the game."
- Iconic Characters & Enemies (The Lich King, Kratos, Link etc)
- Awe inspiring vistas, buildings & locations
- Scale of terrain (If you think it's big enough, go bigger heh)
- Variety of NPC's appropriate to the location
- Skybox (Current Skybox looks incredible)
- NPC interactions in the wild (E.G Travelling Merchants, Ambushes, Injured / Dead Adventurers)
- Treasure Chests / Treasure Maps
- Wanted Posters
- Factions (That the player can join, E.G Thieves Guild)
- Iconic Music / Sound (Elwynn Forest / Skyrim SFX for entering combat)
- Voice acting

Etc,etc.

The rest of the game usually comes as bonus to me that I complete on the side. Gathering, professions, collecting, mounts, armour, character progression. These are all meaningless without the above pillars being in place. As noted, combat is king. This month's livestream is absolutely pivotal for me.

Solvryn

Taking the skulls of your enemies def important, using them in your vanity system especially.

MybroViajero

Solvryn wrote: »

Taking the skulls of your enemies def important, using them in your vanity system especially.

Especially if they are Tulnars

Solvryn

MybroViajero wrote: »

Solvryn wrote: »

Taking the skulls of your enemies def important, using them in your vanity system especially.

Especially if they are Tulnars

Too bad all the Tulnar are murder hobos. And Dark Elves are Tulnar.

Heljy

Personally I love low-level content. My best memory of WoW is not at the time of clean PVE content or climb a side of arena, even if that is where the gameplay is interesting.
I love the chill that comes from quests, farming, exploration. I especially like that at low level, it has a strong impact on the character (hello twinks). In fact, I realize that once Lvl max, an "optimized" and "competitive" dimension takes over, and that it ruins some of the immersive pleasure.

On the other hand, I also like to discover HL content, stuffing my character to max-gear and build up all my trades and reputations. That said as I very recently experimented on Wotlk Classic, in a few weeks we clean the extension, then it’s the boredom of repetitiveness, and finally the irreversible dissociative moment of the univer.

ariatras

I won't presume to speak for others. However, for me, it's the Roleplay potential and community. Just Roleplay isn't enough though. Sometimes I can't get into the mindset and I just like to do combat things.

Combat therefore is also important. I like quick and responsive things. Wizard of Legend for example is basically only combat, but I've played that a lot because the combat is awesome.

So both roleplay and combat. The latter is of course subjective.

Yuyukoyay

New classes and gameplay philosophy to screw around with. Potentially meaningful crafting. Opening more of the full class system to a casual audience. Since WoW's is the most dumbed down bare bones version of it this game will open some more of the other archetypes not used in that game.

Exploring balanced PvP something no other MMO truly accomplished before. Warhammer was prob the closest with this of any of them. Guild Wars 2 isn't even that good at it because it has a horrendous bias between power and condition damage depending on what class you are. So while sure it might be balanced, but so isn't WC2 which is basically just the same units on both sides. I want to see it while preserving class identity.

Child Item