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The main problem is game design
d_20
Member RarePosts: 1,878
Okay, I'm not an expert in game design. I'm just a guy who plays a lot of games. There is a lot about this game that I love. But if we are going to be honest, there are a lot of problems as well. The things I'm going to talk about are, of course, based on my experiences in the game and my observations of my guild's participation in the game.
TLDR: Because of (faulty in my opinion) game design, this game will go ftp within the year. I know others have predicted this. I hate this and I wanted to believe it was not true. My reasoning is below.
1 XP Potion Placeholder for future CS? I got this item as a quest reward. Tonic of Accelerated Time. When I got it, the name sounded like something that might give an xp boost. I couldn't use it. Here is a thread in the official forum. http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/82790/tonic-of-accelerated-time
I didn't see why it would be necessary to get through the level 1-50 content, but after reaching VR 1, I can now see that a lot of people would be interested in this type of potion because of the game design making the VR levels much harder to get through.
2 This game needs a lot of people in AvA (Cyrodiil) to be fun in the long-term, but fewer people are participating. This game was designed around three faction pvp in a very large open zone. If it is empty and if people are not participating, the heart of the game is gutted. Questing won't keep people around for long. And leveling alts is not attractive in this game. If people hit a wall grinding VR levels, they will quit.
3 The VR grind is way over-the-top for today's casual gamers. So, people are going to quit after they hit 50 and realize what is in front of them. That means the VR10 (possible exploiters from what I understand) vamps (I know there is going to be "a fix" for the vamps) who are currently farming noobs in Cyrodiil at will, are going to drive away lower level players. It's not fun for them.
I get that the leveling from VR1-12 might be kind of old school, but if you have a game designed around a system that needs a lot of people (3 faction pvp in Cyrodiil) to be fun, then when you drive away casual gamers, the game will dry up. People won't pay subs to be farmed in Cyrodiil, or to be forced to group to level from VR 6-12. You pretty much need to group if you can to have any fun leveling from VR 1-5, in my opinion. That's bad because it wasn't really necessary at all for levels 1-50 where most of the people in my guild still are and where I assume most casual players still are.
My guild has about 250 members with turn over. New people are coming in, people leave, there is a steady core. They were mainly centered in GW2. Most people in my guild came over to ESO because they wanted to pvp together like we did in GW2 -- That is our main guild activity at least twice a week -- with a core of people who go to WvW every day. They thought this would be possible in ESO. On a typical evening at prime time we have 40 people active for guild events. They were nearly all in ESO after launch. Now, they are moving back to GW2. I can see who is where in Team Speak. We had about 8-10 people in ESO last night.
There are a few of us still grinding away at VRs, grouping up sometimes and having fun, but far fewer people to play with than before. This is normal for games after the first month, I know. But it doesn't bode well for AvA.
I hope I am wrong, but based on these observations (forget about bugs, etc.) this is what I see.
Someone please tell me I'm wrong and that all this will be worked out, ESO will stay sub-based, there won't be xp potions in the cash shop, and AvA will be thriving 6 months from now.
Comments
I don't think you read, but thanks for your contribution. I didn't say it's going to fail. I said it's going to go f2p and I gave my reasons for thinking so.
Going f2p is not failing. That's not what I'm talking about. I am suggesting that ESO will need to make some changes and I believe ZOS will make some changes. I hope this thread will generate some discussion on the types of changes that could be feasible to make ESO work as intended -- with a thriving 3-faction pvp core.
1) to each there own and we will see.
2) I have faith that like many games tweaking of ways to level will be expanded upon...all the threads for games about end game being bad are generally the MMO locust that would not stay anyway.
3) Casual gamers are very broad group. I am casual and so long as I see improvement I do not care about taking a long time...ESO provides everyone a chance to partake of the end game PvP...are you king...no, but you can be in it and in groups you can contribute. I am in two guilds that weekly join up and form raiding parties with some VR's and some non and they go out and get stuff done. If you think you can loaner gank this is probably not your game.
Actually, I agree with this. I hope that the changes that ZOS makes will make other ways of leveling more attractive. Specifically, I hope that AvA offers better advancement than it does now. Questing in Cyrodiil is more fun for me than doing the other factions' quests. I would rather just stay in Cyrodiil. I hope they boost xp there for pve as they are doing for player kills.
I also agree with the locusts never being satisfied and eventually moving on anyway.The people who made VR10 in a week, a lot of them will move on soon to dominate WildStar or whatever else comes along next.
I'm talking about a sizable core of people in my guild who are not content locusts who like to do things together and who have been together for quite a while.
We had a guy in our guild hit VR1 in less than a week. He got bored and he's gone now. He hasn't been on since the second week after release.
I am a casual gamer who hates themeparks, however my buddies and I are still having fun on a nightly basis. We find plenty of stuff to do, just hanging out and not worrying about levelings. Of course we are all only 17-20 right now and all started at the headstart. We are taking our time, one night a week we do exploration night, where we do nothing but scour the zones, looking for books, shards and hidden quests. We make all our own gear as we level, and we have fun.
doesnt matter to us whether it goes f2p or not, we will still play it til we get bored
The problem is game design but i don't share your positive outlook about it being fixed. I don't think it can be fixed, much like i SWTOR couldn't be fixed. The game was designed with far too much instancing and phasing to be corrected, much like TOR was as well.
Some players may not be bothered by this, which is absolutely fine, but it drives me bonkers trying to do stuff with other players out in the world. It completely ruins what MMO's are to me.
If it goes FTP i quit.... love what ive seen of ESO so far (VR2), but i quit eq2 when FTP ruined it (played 5+ years)... swtor when it FTP ruined it (2 Years)... tried AOC (1 year at launch and later a few months after FTP) ... and then finally Neverwinter.... the bastard child of FTP when you need to spend £50 a month to even compete end game...full of loosers and griefers.... I vote with my feet. and leave.. i ultimatly hope anybody who wants eso to go FTP fecks off to some other crappy game... enjoys reaching max level within 3 hours then switching game... all the while trolling these forums and complaining like bitches .... as long as they feck of somewhere else.... £10 a month is less than i spend on lunch every day and and an mmo at that price is very good value for money as long as they are commited to bringing out new content.
I Started playing MMORPG games 20 years ago... played most of them... loved a few.... content is what keeps a game alive... a dev could create a 10/10 game... but if they cant keep new content coming on a regular basis they are screwed and thier game will die. That means expansiones evey 12 months and least 3 big updates a year minimum... or players get bored...bugs are inconsequential to the majority of players... for the record... ive only seen 1 group of botters and seen 3 gold spam messages in my entire time playing ESO...nowhere near as bad as eq2 was at launch.
Most of the trolls on this forum are either devs for rival games or paid trolls...(we all know this is true)
Hopefully one thing going for the game not going F2P is that there is no EA like overlord above the game. No one demanding this game pay out fast to prop up other failing business ventures. Zenimax has a house of very profitable games. As far as I know the company is not in financial trouble that is needs ESO to quickly bail it out. Much like CCP, where EVE had a horrible start, it just needed a strong core to keep the game going and built on that. They do not need WoW numbers, EVE does not have that and it survives.
F2P seems to be what failing companies or publishers that need the quick turn around do out of desperation.
I was wondering about this. I played all of the betas. I submited all the tickets about group phasing. The game released with that still not working. A month later still the same issues with people phasing in and out of quests and not able to help friends etc.
I am sure, they have to be able to fix this, right??? Why haven't they yet even during beta and 1 month after launch?
Z.
Seriously people like you, and these other forums goers who like to trash on ESO dont look at the reality of what this game is, and how much involvement, dedication, and passion goes into a project like this.
I wont say the game couldnt be better designed in some placed, but to say thins like "ESO Deserved a better design team" and all this is just counterfactual thinking to the extreme.
ESO got the exact team that was needed because ESO always has been whatever the company who owned the rights and owned the IP was going to do with it. You cant expect there to be this phantom heroic development team that was supposed to step in and make a perfect game. Its just your imagination running wild with the possiblitys to make you feel better about not liking the game.
Seriously get over yourself.
I really do appreciate this and I have tremendous respect for what is being attempted with ESO. I am especially thankful for the hard work and vision of the art team.
What I really want to see is that this game can stay sub-based and maintain a thriving and fun AvA experience. That's what I'm concerned about with the present condition of the game, especially the VR progression and it's effect on maintaining a large enough body of people to sub and participate actively in AvA.
I want to know what can be done for this to happen.
Edit: I'm still subbed. I haven't jumped ship. That means I still believe it's worth my time. I'm just seriously concerned about some things I see right now and what I read in the May 1 reddit about VR progression doesn't lessen that concern.
A few things you can do are: Reduce the difference between a VR1 and a VR12. Allow VR levels to be gained through PvP efficiently. Raise the stat caps on people under level 50.
This is the main thing I want to see. Reducing the gap would also probably help, but how it's done would be very sensitive, I'm sure.
actually, no, that is not the problem.
that is the main feature, the game design. they didnt wanna make another WoW. WoW has been done, why do it again?
this game works, you dont like it? well, maybe you are not the target audience then, ever concidered that part?
"believe me, mike.. i calculated the odds of this working against the odds that i was doing something incredibly stupid and i did it anyway!"
Maybe you're right about the target audience part. That remains to be seen, I suppose.
But this wasn't meant as a "make it like WoW" thread or to generate that "If you don't like it, go back to WoW" response that every game discussion eventually seems to devolve to at some point.
I agree with the XP boost in Cyrodiil and they should also increase XP gain in Veteran dungeons.
I originally thought that all three options for end game would be a valid way to level. They did make a mistake with forcing everyone to go through the other factions. I can see that they wanted to slow players down and make leveling take a long time. I just think it was a mistake because it takes away options.
I love the leveling and the fact that with my play time, I will be guesting for a long time before I make VR10. But that should have been an option for those of us that want that type of end game. It is what I was looking forward to the most as end game for me. But end game is different for everyone. VR levels should have been end game, not VR10. If you could gain levels in PvP and Veteran dungeons at the same rate as questing in the other factions at VR1, then all three options would be valid for end game. But obviously at this point, they are not equal
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?
R.A.Salvatore
There is some truth in what DMKano is saying here.
1) ESO is (or was?) literally putting AvA at the center of its design with Cyrodiil. Yet to get there and perform well, we need those VRs, which are most efficiently gained via questing.
2) The questing seems to encourage solo play up to level 50. Then it changes dramatically in VR to encourage grouping more and more just to make efficient progress. There just seems to be a disconnect here, somehow.
3) VRs should be earned by ... you know, becoming a veteran of your alliance in AvA. Fight for your alliance and gain rank, right? Instead, VR is mainly earned by questing through another faction's story. That seems off.
That's what I mean about the design. It seems disjointed. It doesn't seem to encourage what will make the game thrive over a long period of time. It needs a more consistent identity and focus. Who is the target audience?
As soon as you wrote that you lost all credibility as an honest poster. If you've been in ANY public dungeon and have ever looked at chat, there have been tons of botters and gold spammers, to include gold spam in mail. There is no way to have missed them.
Think about what you're saying... a WHOLE LOT of people have decided they're NOT the target audience and they've already left. I suspect a whole lot more are going to leave. At what point in time does that make the game no longer sustainable?
If the game doesn't appeal to a whole lot of people of many different playstyles, then the game will not generate enough revenue to be something Zenimax will continue to support over the long term; that's basic economics and basic business, not rocket science. They've had not just a rocky, but quite frankly a bad launch -- no amount of shils in the forums and bogus paid-for reviews by people like Bill Murphy is going to change that -- and they've lost a lot of customers already.
So, yes, it is part of the problem. The idea may be fine, but the implementation wasn't. They need to win back subscribers, and they can't do that with BS marketing campaigns.
That's possible. It's also possible he was the target audience and ZOS just failed at earning his business. That's also something to consider. My guess would be that ZOS's target audience is people who like MMOs and Elder Scrolls games. However, after seeing ESO it would seem that the MMO format and Elder Scrolls mix as well as oil and water.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor