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Why not just have 100% end game?
Vermillion_Raventhal
Member EpicPosts: 4,198
I've been thinking that majority of themepark MMORPG's waste money on "content" that's blown through and largely never used again? The content is made so that while you level the difficulty doesn't rise much because your always going 1 to 1 as far as content level. Why not just make a game totally focused on the end game?
It seems the major sticking point for MMORPG's right now are the fact that the end games are kind of weak and the content is rehashed, easy and boring. Why not just make a game totally about raiding, monster hunting and the like? Dungeons that require lots of thought, planning, super huge, that have mystery, deadly traps, kidnappings, puzzles, climbing, stealth, nasty creatures etc . Outside legendary world creatures that are elusive, tricky and difficult to defeat. Gladatior style pvp battle arenas and battle grounds.
With horizontal progression you'd have a game where difficulty remains no matter how many expansions. You'd just be opening up specializations and utilities. Races would give you real physical attributes. You know like haflings are quick, elusive, the best climbers and jumpers but more fragile while Orc are the hardest hiting but slowest, best heavy armor wearers, humans are average at everything and etc.
I don't know I just thought of this while taking a shower so lol. I just think MMORPG's need to step out the box some. I would love to play a themepark styled game like that where you have to have tactics and planning and no cheesy fedex quest.
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I think things are trending this way already but the problem is and always has been (as far as I can tell) reducing the learning curb for new players. If you start with every accessible from day one it's alot more to take in on day one and risks overwhelming people.
Game developers are constantly talking about accessibility but if they could tackle that in the MMO space I think we would see a day one end game. The trend as it seems to me at the moment is to make the end game attainable quicker at the expense of a deeper end game. Not sure if that's a good thing.
Well, you would still have progression just horizontal. So maybe you thief starts out with 5 skills, stealth, assination, duel wield, fencing and lock picking. Lets each skill is basic for what's needed but say lock picking when used enough opens up a branch skill behind it of say for trap detection or trap placement. And then trap detection opens up trap removal(disarm and claim) or trap rewire(now traps the NPCs). These skills while not making you get 20k hp nor powerful make you more diverse and useful.
Also I think developers can withhold a lot at the beginning while letting players earn their way to tough dungeons. You're just skipping the quest hub leveling part and progressing through the end game.
Why not just have 100% end game? I'll tell you why. But first a clue..... Its the same reasons people don't jump into formula one cars and race the day after they get thier drivers license , and the same reason many other things require a type of Training Period before you get to the Big Stuff, or End Game. If a company designed a game with only end game, the market would be so small it wouldn't succeed . Games, to sell to as many as possible, have to have a , break into the game mechanics, type time of play to sell to the masses . Hence no direct to end game. For those of us who have gamed a while, this may seem a bit boring, but take it in stride, it also helps people learn to work together and build a solid community. Without this, games tend to fail, even good designed games. Here's 2 facts that haven't changed since online gaming started and i don't expect them to change anytime soon.....
1) Games are a BUSINESS, to make money. Not to be the best game .
2) Most people online game for socialization. Mmo's which fail at community, don't do well.
So be glad games don't start at the end!
Puzzle Pirates is Tetris the MMORPG.
Lol, lots of closed minded thinking.
1. You can make money it seems making any type of MMO.
2. There is no stopping people from socializing as if there is a lot of socializing in themeparks anyways.
The point of what I'm suggesting is not that OMG we're just getting Vox raid as soon as I log on. What I'm stating is that the instead of focusing on throw away 2 weeks to complete content that takes years to make and most players care little about it seems. Just focus on making a game based around dungeon raiding and monster hunting. You can still have progression into unlocking dungeons or finding monsters or obtaining items needed to expose a weakness. Again the point is just to skip the fedex, escort, give me 10 of quest.
I believe you have no concept of what I'm talking about.
A game system I think could work is something like the OP described. A game simply about PvP arenas and Raiding.
You can have tiered raids, there are beginner raids and you progressively get better gear to be able to survive tougher raids. There are many systems and theories in how to go about such a system but it would require some effort to advance to the next tier of raids. The game could also be progressively difficult whereas the highest tier raids are insanely hard to do even with very good gear and takes a lot of skill and knowledge of the encounter.
A similar system can be added for PvP. You earn your PvP gear by killing other people. However you need to maintain the gear, if you die too many times your armor reduces it's durability and you can only gain the reputation to repair the armor by killing more people. If you can't keep a decent K:D or win/loss ratio then you are unable to keep using the armor.
No one plays MMO's for the PvE to max level, they just want to be max level at the beginning. Having levels makes it difficult for newbies to play with their max level friends. Wouldn't a successful game be better if a new player could hop right on and start playing with their buddies?
Levels, in my opinion are only good if the highest level is ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to obtain, some good examples are Lineage 2 and Path to Exile. It's a stupid progression system if everyone is max level.
The thing most people don't realize is that they're already almost doing horizontal progression in a lot of games. The difference they still have levels as a barrier. When you play a game like NWO which is a quest hub game. Your not advancing in levels so much as your unlocking skills because your opponents are always your level and the difficulty is the same. Its not like EQ where you might get raped because you're in the wrong area. You could remove levels and just earn skill points and skills at the end of the exp bar and basically have the same results.
I actually believe the opposite, I believe there is to much focus on end game. To me personally I tend to find end game, boring. I enjoy the progression and exploration side of MMO's, typically when I reach end game I end up quitting. It should be more about the journey then the end. I find this to be the case for single player games as well. I do understand what your saying though. GW2 tried this, did not do it very well but tried it, many MMO's are trying this downleveling idea. Its just important that people understand many players don't actually like end game. Aside from bad games, I do feel this streamlining and rushing to end game, has lead to more people jumping from game to game.
A few nice thing about levels, automatic (potentially meaningful) progression built in, ability to use the power you have gained to help others lower, ability to take things on above your power, with danger/fear/difficulty which makes it more rewarding, fear of different areas and danger in general.
Why not just have 0% endgame ?
I consider this concept of "endgame" extremely stupid. There is only THE GAME and no "endgame".
Why is there a limit to levels, anyway ?
I don't think it was jumping on a conclusion based on a few words... and yep, I agree with Picard, iixviiiix (and a bit with Adamantine, though 0% endgame would be harsh
)
You know, the problem with "fully fleshing out things that are typically the end game" is that a lot of people find those things boring and dull. I admit I'm not an objective player neither, since I love the story and the journey part, building up my character and exploring the world. So the so-called "endgame" is for me, as iixviiiix wrote "the time to quit" - as in roll a new character or jump to an another game for a while. Unless there's no system to keep me in there, like rp-ing, Foundry, DOffing, etc.
Gear grind, raid treadmill and similar outdated stuff (which are only the residue from an era where games had to keep players occupied with the least amount of content) is no endgame for me - more precisely, no game at all, only a waste of time. But that's just me, as I wrote numerous times I too have many "living by the raid calendar"-type buddies
Good answer! GW2 was/is trying to do just want the OP is asking for to some degree.
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more or less GW2 managed to have no typical endgame at all, its all just to level trough kinda, well atleast for the non hardcore grinders
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Wouldn't last 90 days.
Which company has the money to offer the bread and circuses the mob increasingly demands more of, and faster?
Either the stuff produced would resemble fast food and have as much feel; or a bug fest to shove it out the door.
Make any end-gamer happy?
Rather a game have but 1 tier a whole expansion that smoothly rolls into another expansion gear rise. Not this getting purples at the end of the expansion only to be replaced by trash greens. Even on the psychological level that's so self-defeating to even want to grind. A steady level of progression that's smoothed to reflect you're going somewhere across the expansions, is fine.
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I don't think it was jumping on a conclusion based on a few words... and yep, I agree with Picard, iixviiiix (and a bit with Adamantine, though 0% endgame would be harsh
)
You know, the problem with "fully fleshing out things that are typically the end game" is that a lot of people find those things boring and dull. I admit I'm not an objective player neither, since I love the story and the journey part, building up my character and exploring the world. So the so-called "endgame" is for me, as iixviiiix wrote "the time to quit" - as in roll a new character or jump to an another game for a while. Unless there's no system to keep me in there, like rp-ing, Foundry, DOffing, etc.
Gear grind, raid treadmill and similar outdated stuff (which are only the residue from an era where games had to keep players occupied with the least amount of content) is no endgame for me - more precisely, no game at all, only a waste of time. But that's just me, as I wrote numerous times I too have many "living by the raid calendar"-type buddies
The point was to make the end game theme better and different by using the resources used to make fedex quest #2050. Make it part of the story and more interesting.I'm not suggesting taking typical raids and making it the whole game. This is where I am stating there are assumptions or even lack of thinking outside the box. I am talking more Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider with a mix of monster hunting. Taking the story, lore and time used to create generic quest and using it to make an Indiana Jones style adventures, dungeon crawls where you just explore dungeons that are huge where you can find lore and quest or even "keys" to opening other dungeons.
And with it the thread is jumped over onto the well-discussed "how can we upgrade endgame from the dated raiding / gear grinding" path... I guess there were threads on it before, since there are many people who don't like the treadmill.
Like I said above, Foundry is a good way for that, since even your TomRaider-ish endgame needs frequent new content updates, and devs can't keep the pace with the players. Foundry can help that, with truckloads of new content all the time.
DOff system in STO is also a nice one to fiddling with after reaching VA (level cap), for someone who doesn't want the "regular" endgame. (like me
)
Frequent roleplay and festival events, those are helping the rp-fond players to stick with their capped characters beyond the same-old endgame grind.
Or why not just make a game totally focused on progress. No level cap, no end game, just give player a number that can increase infinitely and they won't care if the content has ended or not, they will just rat race for years.