Battlepass in MMOs

State your opinion, I'll start with mine

They're dumb they are meant for repetitive games like shooters, they give you something to do in a games that are arena pvp weather it be a MOBA or Shooter. MMOs are supposed to keep you busy. adding chores on top of that for things I should just be able to work for tends to leave a bad taste in mouth.

Also the monetization of it is kind of dumb as well. FFXIV and WoW have raked in large amounts of money just doing cosmetics on the shop, do that without the predatory fear of missing out.

One other argument for me was when I was playing NW I wanted to support the game, I bought up dyes and emotes and spent more money on that game then I have any other game as far as cosmetics, I supported it because it was simple and clean way for them to make extra money. I stopped giving them my money after they started doing the battlepass. It even made me not care about collecting all the emotes anymore. It wasn't even to protest, I just stopped caring.

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Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

Doesn't feel like a trap to me - also very minimal fomo.

I agree that it isn't a trap, nor fomo - but it absolutely is a preditory mechanic designed to attempt to keep players engaged with a game where they are no longer interested in it for the game itself.

That is literally the point of it.

In that regard, it is no different to daily quests and such. They both serve the same purpose.

I would much rather Intrepid (or any MMORPG developer) produce actual content at the same rate at which players consume it.

abc0815

The plague of modern day gaming (and old school too) is the pure reward driven player engagement. Playing for fun becomes distant second or even third. Min/max time should not be the mayor talking point (nor rewards).

Saabynator

As long as they dont get something that advances them in any game sense, go for it. I mean, a look for a pet, clothes, armor, emotes - whatever, thats completely fine. If you get bagspace, storage space, faster travel times or anything in that sense, fuck no. But Steven swore, I think he will uphold his honor

Dygz

abc0815 wrote: »

The plague of modern day gaming (and old school too) is the pure reward driven player engagement. Playing for fun becomes distant second or even third. Min/max time should not be the mayor talking point (nor rewards).

How do you maintain the fun after you've played through the content with 4 different characters?
How many times do you re-read a novel in a year just for the fun of reading the novel?

Sunboy

I think they are great if developers don’t have faith that people will buy their product and want to test it first without having a paywall.

I do wish it was more organic implemented in gameplay tho.

abc0815

Dygz wrote: »

abc0815 wrote: »

The plague of modern day gaming (and old school too) is the pure reward driven player engagement. Playing for fun becomes distant second or even third. Min/max time should not be the mayor talking point (nor rewards).

How do you maintain the fun after you've played through the content with 4 different characters?
How many times do you re-read a novel in a year just for the fun of reading the novel?

I played Quake 1 for years and years without any carrot on a stick. Why? Because it was fun. (Sure clan wars , mods added a lot of new ways to play).
I would never play the same story with another character. I don't care to much for the lore/story.
But comparing a video game with a novel or tv show / movie is odd to me. Since to me a game is closer to a sport (soccer, tennis w/e) then passively reading a book.

Dygz

Quake is not an RPG.
The primary point of RPGs is to play through with different roles.
Which means it's not going to be the same story.
I don't know why you're playing an RPG if not for the lore/story.
Sounds like that means you're not playing it the way it's intended to be played.
You're trying to play an RPG as if it's a sports game - which it's not.
RPG fans are not going to be trying to play an RPG like a sports game.

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

abc0815 wrote: »

The plague of modern day gaming (and old school too) is the pure reward driven player engagement. Playing for fun becomes distant second or even third. Min/max time should not be the mayor talking point (nor rewards).

How do you maintain the fun after you've played through the content with 4 different characters?
How many times do you re-read a novel in a year just for the fun of reading the novel?

You don't.

You go and play something else for a while.

If I were playing a game and was able to get through all content 4 times before the addition of new content, not only would I then go and play something else, I wouldn't come back.

A much, much better question that you should be asking yourself is - if a game is no longer fun for you, why are you searching for reasons to continue to play it?

Azherae

Dygz wrote: »

abc0815 wrote: »

The plague of modern day gaming (and old school too) is the pure reward driven player engagement. Playing for fun becomes distant second or even third. Min/max time should not be the mayor talking point (nor rewards).

How do you maintain the fun after you've played through the content with 4 different characters?
How many times do you re-read a novel in a year just for the fun of reading the novel?

One of the things certain PvP-heavy players have claimed, on this forum, is that PvP is so constantly dynamic that 'the content' has to be experienced dozens if not hundreds of times before you generally experience the same thing twice.

When a game is built around higher levels of challenge, this is often true of the PvE content as well. I'm saying that your experience is a reflection of the type of player you are. A Hardcore-time Casual-challenge player does not necessarily experience this, but even in a game like Elite, for example, what would happen is, you would 'choose a task that you expect to have challenge level A, and various dynamic factors in the world would change the challenge level and the requirements', therefore meaningfully changing the actions and strategies you need for the content.

For certain audiences whose main games provide this type of experience often, they would need to read this hypothetical novel probably 60 times.

I have fought enough Campaign battles in Meriphataud Mountains for them to be mostly the same, but every so often, a conflux of enemy tactics that I've never seen before, occurs, and I have to scramble to counter-strategize, which is the fun.

A game like Ashes which claims it will be dynamic in its encounters, can offer more fun to those audiences, but interestingly, this might be exactly counter to a battlepass. If the 'randomizer' makes certain preferred content unpredictably difficult for a player 'trying to clear the battle pass' and whose goal is to get the reward, then my enjoyment becomes that player's frustration.

Dygz

Yep. Which is why I didn't play WoW for 10 years.
But, the devs are going to want you to continue playing without a 1+ year gap.
Hence, why they now implement features like Battlepasses to entice players to not go play something else.
I play RPGs to Quest. Battlepass Tasks are close enough to Quests to keep me playing once Quests run out.

(If you're re-running Dungeons during Endgame, that's the equivalent of re-reading a novel)

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

Yep. Which is why I didn't play WoW for 10 years.
But, the devs are going to want you to continue playing without a 1+ year gap.
Hence, why they now implement features like Battlepasses to entice players to not go play something else.
I play RPGs to Quest. Battlepass Tasks are close enough to Quests to keep me playing once Quests run out.

(If you're re-running Dungeons during Endgame, that's the equivalent of re-reading a novel)

Right, so, you'll maintain interest in a game as long as there is some text telling you what to do, rather than doing what ever you feel like doing. Whether you have done thst thing a dozen times already doesn't matter, as long as it is what that text is telling you to do.

Got it.

Depraved

Dygz wrote: »

Quake is not an RPG.

I don't know why you're playing an RPG if not for the lore/story.
Sounds like that means you're not playing it the way it's intended to be played.

for the character progression aspects duh.

Azherae

Dygz wrote: »

Yep. Which is why I didn't play WoW for 10 years.
But, the devs are going to want you to continue playing without a 1+ year gap.
Hence, why they now implement features like Battlepasses to entice players to not go play something else.
I play RPGs to Quest. Battlepass Tasks are close enough to Quests to keep me playing once Quests run out.

(If you're re-running Dungeons during Endgame, that's the equivalent of re-reading a novel)

I am not talking about WoW, though, so I'd like to clarify something, it once again requires an example, sorry. Note that I'm specifically discussing your last line, basically.

In Monster Hunter, the titular Monsters you hunt have a variation in their physical sizes that is almost entirely random. This affects their hitboxes, hurtboxes, reach, and in an emergent way, their AI.

Most average sized Tigrex fight the same way. Very large Tigrex fight that way too, but the player must adapt their attack patterns, in some cases a LOT. Very small Tigrex fight very differently.

This is ONE of about four meaningful variations in monster behaviour that you couldn't predict before deploying on the content. Your gear choices, your 'intent', similar to 'choosing to run the dungeon', is normally 'rereading a novel' in a game like WoW where the dungeon will be the same.

It takes a long time for two hunts to be the same. The developers even need to specifically offer special events where players can know with certainty that the fight is the same, for a certain type of player.

I'm saying that for me, after over 1000 hours playing Monster Hunter, I have not yet had time to fight enough Brachydios that I can expect 'my next Brachydios' to feel like 'rereading a novel'. I've only seriously fought it maybe 8 times, and that's not enough to be sure that I won't 'meet a tiny Brachydios and its battle style be different'.

I accept that battlepasses are a good way to keep the sort of player who doesn't notice or doesn't care about dynamism, interested long enough to experience that dynamism, but there are others who perceive it as 'a way to be lazy and not implement that dynamism'.

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

I don't know why you're playing an RPG if not for the lore/story.
Sounds like that means you're not playing it the way it's intended to be played.

You will not find one developer of an RPG that says you are supposed to play for the lore/story, or that this is the way it is intended to be played.

Every RPG developer will say the same thing - play the game for the reason or reasons you most enjoy, and get most satisfaction and enjoyment from. There is no right or wrong.

It is 100% viable to play a game like EQ2 and ignore the story, progression, crafting etc and ONLY focus on house decorating. It is 100% viable to only be interested in achievements. It is 100% viable to play a game to collect fashion. It is also 100% viable to play a game for the lore/story, and is also 100% viable to play for character progression.

Any suggestion otherwise is just objectively wrong.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

I'm saying that for me, after over 1000 hours playing Monster Hunter, I have not yet had time to fight enough Brachydios that I can expect 'my next Brachydios' to feel like 'rereading a novel'. I've only seriously fought it maybe 8 times, and that's not enough to be sure that I won't 'meet a tiny Brachydios and its battle style be different'.

And as a pvp example of this, I played on the same version of L2 for several years per version (there were 3 most popular ones) and all of them kept me interested throughout thousands of hours of gameplay, even though I knew the game itself completely. Each player enemy (let alone group) was still interesting to fight against, because they all had their own personality and quirks.

I know Dygz won't care much for it, but I fully expect the pvp part of Ashes to keep the pvxers playing a looooooong time even if the pve part of the content dries up. And if Intrepid manage to realize their vision of a "dynamic world" - hell, that's endless damn content.

Dygz

It's it the PvP part of Ashes that's keeping the gamers playing, that means that Ashes is primarily an MMO PvP game. Which is great for PvPers. Yes.

Dygz

Noaani wrote: »

You will not find one developer of an RPG that says you are supposed to play for the lore/story, or that this is the way it is intended to be played.

Every RPG developer will say the same thing - play the game for the reason or reasons you most enjoy, and get most satisfaction and enjoyment from. There is no right or wrong.

It is 100% viable to play a game like EQ2 and ignore the story, progression, crafting etc and ONLY focus on house decorating. It is 100% viable to only be interested in achievements. It is 100% viable to play a game to collect fashion. It is also 100% viable to play a game for the lore/story, and is also 100% viable to play for character progression.

Any suggestion otherwise is just objectively wrong.

You will find that. Otherwise they would not include Quests. And have Quests be the primary way that players Level. And they would not spend so much money on Cutscenes with professional voice actors doing the dialogue.
I didn't say that it's impossible to play by only focusing on some other aspect of the game.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

I know Dygz won't care much for it, but I fully expect the pvp part of Ashes to keep the pvxers playing a looooooong time even if the pve part of the content dries up. And if Intrepid manage to realize their vision of a "dynamic world" - hell, that's endless damn content.

Not really, because many MMORPGs changed at some point to appeal to players that mostly want a game to tell them a story while pulling them through a world.

This is also why they then 'died' because things like Genshin do that better.

So, and I'm not even talking about Dygz here, I know people for whom this isn't content. They want to play Raid:Shadow Legends or AFK Journey or similar things, where they 'set some stuff and then basically hit a few buttons to occasionally feel engaged'.

The 'dynamic world' portion of Ashes may not work for those people, I can at least assure you finally that when Dygz says that he wants to Ever Quest, it's not the same thing as what I'm thinking of.

A battlepass fits extremely well for the type of thing MMORPGs have become, precisely because a large part of the audience that they now attract, do not consider 'varied challenges based on changing world factors' to be 'content'. There would need to be changes to something they perceive as a 'story'.

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

You will not find one developer of an RPG that says you are supposed to play for the lore/story, or that this is the way it is intended to be played.

Every RPG developer will say the same thing - play the game for the reason or reasons you most enjoy, and get most satisfaction and enjoyment from. There is no right or wrong.

It is 100% viable to play a game like EQ2 and ignore the story, progression, crafting etc and ONLY focus on house decorating. It is 100% viable to only be interested in achievements. It is 100% viable to play a game to collect fashion. It is also 100% viable to play a game for the lore/story, and is also 100% viable to play for character progression.

Any suggestion otherwise is just objectively wrong.

You will find that. Otherwise they would not include Quests.

This argument doesn't work.

You are saying developers will say you are supposed to play the game for the lore/story, otherwise they would not include it.

By that logic, you are supposed to play the game for the character progression, otherwise they wouldn't include it.

You are supposed to play the game to collect fashion, otherwise they wouldn't include it.

You are supposed to play the game to decorate houses, otherwise they wouldn't include it.

This is clearly incorrect.

You are supposed to play an MMORPG how you want to play it, that is why developers include so many different things to do.

Dygz

Azherae wrote: »

I accept that battlepasses are a good way to keep the sort of player who doesn't notice or doesn't care about dynamism, interested long enough to experience that dynamism, but there are others who perceive it as 'a way to be lazy and not implement that dynamism'.

The great thing about Battlepasses is that they incentivize other activities besides just monster hunting to increase BiS gear.
Forbes magazine calls Monster Hunter a Loot Grinder. So, sure, if you're playing the game primarily because you want to hunt monsters for BiS gear as long as there are monsters for you to hunt, you should be happy.
But, that would be a very myopic "RPG". And that seems like the equivalent of reading the same Choose Your Own Adventure book over and over and over again.

You're saying you have over 1K hours with Monster Hunter, but I have 415 hours in Nightingale without a Battlepass and that's an Early Access game. I think I played that for maybe 1 month.
So, yeah, I want something that's going to keep me playing hardcore time hours consistently Season to Season. And to accomplish that there would have to be more activities than hunting monsters and crafting gear in order to hunt more monsters - especially since killing stuff is low on my list of fun.

I'd say that Online RPGs are too focused on combat. And that it's "lazy" to focus so much on combat - because RPGs are supposed to be much broader in terms of interactive storytelling than just combat.
I think MHW has weekly and sometimes daily Bounties - which seem similar to aspects of a Battlepass - except again seems to be myopically focused on the combat loop.

And what I love about Battlepasses is that they offer rewards for doing stuff other than just combat. And my expectation for a good RPG is that there will be a lot more options for fun than just combat. (And I expect those to be motivated by Quests. Hopefully, the closest we can get to ever Questing.)

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