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What is Your Definition of 'End Game' in an MMORPG?
narfi
Member UncommonPosts: 178
I have asked some questions here over the last couple of weeks,
How long do you play an MMORPG?
What makes the grass greener on the other side?
There seemed to be a theme amongst all of the answers in both questions.
"End Game" Content & "End Game" play
The idea of "End Game" is alien to me since I play a game where haveing played for 5 hours a day for the past 3+ years I still dont expect to reach 'Uber' status within the next 5+ years.
I read posts like "lacking End Game content," "End Game play is too grindy," "Level fast to End Game levels for the PVP but then grow bored with it," etc...
So I would really like some definitions of what "End Game" means in modern MMORPGs.
Here are my questions.
What is End Game Play?
What is End Game Content?
What do you like about current games End Game content and playstyles?
What do you NOT like about current games End GAme content and playstyles?
What are your thoughts on the idea of not being able to ever reach the 'End Game'?
Thanks for your responses, I am sure I have overlooked something obvious, so feel free to point out anything on topic that needs to be said.
narfi
Comments
check wow rage of fireland!
they have a daily in there on the surface it would be boring (and is but not because of the content or the gameplay)
but it is not because they mixed the allies and the horde in there without restriction so you end up with pvpve
some foe react to you some dont on the pve side while horde is around
most ignore this because the bad part is the server arent balanced!so you get 100 horde vs 1 allie or vice versa
this is very good almost end game content but badly planned on the balancing server side
I personally want "endgame" that offers "downtime" (when not doing raiding/dungeons - gathering - crafting) things to do, SWG:ish housing (on instanced zones ofc, like DAoC), minigames.. and what better universe to implement minigames that star wars.. pod racing - pazaak - bantha poodoo collecting
- slotmachines.. etc etc, the list is pretty much endless in the SW universe.
Just the clear things up a bit, i'm personally waiting for SWTOR and the above are the things i'd like to see in it.
such a new and exciting topic for a change...no wait, this horse is so dead the bones are dry...
'End-game' is just an other word for those at max level and are doing the same thing over and over again. It's a flaw in most MMO's not to make the 'end-game' differ enough, or the road to max level longer. IMO an MMO should NEVER have an 'end-game' since you're paying to play the game and the developers should be innovative enough to let you do other things than the same raids over and over again.
I think Linage II and Final Fantasy XI did a good job to keep the players busy by adding a subclass-system. Aside from the extra leveling, it also allows the player to change his char into something else and not do the same thing each & every day again.
Wow, thats a really good question. I'm not sure, I suppose, End Game would obvously mean really awesome Raids, Spells / abilities that look very pwerfull, access to zones that require max level. Way's / reasons to want to help lowbies. Things to schedule guild events for - that don't require a particular level.
I abhor raiding with every fiber of my being...
End-Game is basically where the game comes to an end for me. I just don't see the fun in it. Its mostly only raids with very little solo/small group content, and what little is added is just a precursor to make the new raiding content viable.
I prefer small group and solo content, or open world events. So as soon as I'm done experience all of that type of content, I tend to roll another class {sometimes}, but most of the time I'll quit and find another MMO to play until a major content patch, but if all thats added is more raiding then I tend to move on for a much longer period before returning!
mm the main issue i have with content in general isnt the content it self but the fact you meet pa lot of people only in city
why dont they make the game so that you always bump very freq into beginner,intermediate advanced ,end game?
nope it would lag too much they say so we end up in a vast world that is as dry of player as the desert!in the end often player had more fun in their solo player game on their xbox then they had on mmo and graphic were often insanelly better because there was only one player and he isnt online!
Perfect End game for me would be the following:
Open world PVP where objectives can change hands (Warhammer tried and failed at this) and done well. Meaning there's insentive to attack and/or defend objectives and not just play ring around the rosie swapping objectives (which is what happened in WAR).
Instanced PVP (battlegrounds) that not only gave you good rewards, but also affected Open world PVP objectives. For example, if you win a BG in a zone where there's also Open world objectives, you'd get small buffs. So, if you were trying to win over objectives in a particular zone and couldn't quite do it. If you win that zone's BG, it'll give you that last boost to take objectives.
Basically, from the 2 above points for PVP, a persistant battle for objectives where instanced battlegrounds would buff you for winning.
As for PVE I would say a progressive system of dungeons. The way WoW does it is way too repetitve and boring. It's just a grind to keep people playing for hours upon hours to get that one last piece of gear. How I would like endgame PVE would be when you do a dungeon you get the gear that drops in that dungeon no matter what. However, make the dungeons very difficult. This way when you finish a dungeon, you get a reward and you feel like you've accomplished something. The way WoW has it is you can just rinse and repeat attempts on a boss tweaking things each time until the boss dies. That's frustrating and boring. And if you can't do it, you either look at a guide or bring someone in who has done it already. For my PVE, you can't bring someone in who's done it to show you how. First timers only. I know it's a little convoluted what I just said for PVE, but I could be thinking of awesomeness for PVE for hours and still not have a clear picture. Bottomline, endgame PVE should be something that doesn't get stale and it shouldn't take hours upon disappointing hours to get one piece of gear.
**A thought just occurred to me about loot drops too. Make bosses drop items for specific slots, not just specfic items. For example, in Dungeon A, bosses drop items for Head, Shoulders and Gloves. In Dungeon B, bosses drop items for Pants, Rings and Shoulders. So, this means that in Dungeon A or B, you can get that Shoulder item you're looking for, so you aren't stuck just running the same dungeon over and over.
Crafting should be something interesting as well, rather than farming mats and then standing around hitting the "craft" button over and over. SWTOR seems to have a great idea for crafting. Companions do it for you while you go out and enjoy the game. Crafting shouldn't take hours and hours to do. Also, whatever you happen to craft should be usable no matter what. Again, not like in WoW where you craft 100 bolts of cloth just to level up your skill and then you vendor what you just made. It's way too wasteful. No matter how low level a material might be, make it so you can upgrade that mat to max level.
that is one reason a lot of player loved open world pvp ,it could be in ss it could be anywhere you want even dev love it
each week they could had just a quest line to any npc in the world and bingo you would have varying cenario.
true it could also be done in instance like ad a quest and that would be a pvp event in the open world
in the end the unvarying content is just lazyness .some game tho are way more dynamic these days
they have weekly event can be anywhere on the game unlike wow wich is pretty much static!
I wouldn't like to see something like "end game" more "open ended" would be preferable. Something like EvE I suppose where it doesn't all end after 'x' amount of time it would take to get to the max level. Having a max level limits the scope of the game IMO.
Thanks for your answer Vortan.
I have a question about what you said though. You want it to be easier to loot the exact item you want. If it is easy to get what you want, then where is the chalange? And where is the Economy in items?
Wouldn't you agree that in order for an Item to hold any value to you or others, then It needs to not only be useful, but also hard to obtain?
narfi
Playing with Real Money: Colonizing Virtual Worlds
Personally, I don't subscribe to the notion of end-game. I'm not concerned with it and largely ignore it's existance. I think a game should be fun from the beginning. I think that players should be able to participate in every element of a game from the time they start playing and be able to progress however they wish whenever they wish. Having to get to max level and then get a certain level of stats before I can start raiding, is a huge reason why I largely avoid that gametype, even though I do enjoy it, generally. Players should be able to level up by raiding, in my opinion.
The same goes for PvP, which is why I stick to online shooters for that aspect of gameplay for the most part, because I can be on-par with the general population the moment the game is done installing. I can get better simply by practice, rather than having arbitrary limits put on my effectiveness. I guess I just don't see statistics or gear as a legitimate form of progression. I prefer to guage my progression through game knowledge, combat practice, and socialization.
On the other hand, I have no problem with gaining levels in an RPG, so maybe I'm just a hypocrite. Perhaps it's just the huge shift in focus once you get to end game that I have a problem with. I don't understand why players can't participate in "end-game" style content at level 10.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/Cloudsol/
Here's a shot at a definition:
Endgame comes from the classic usage eg in Chess whereby one player gains the upper hand in either position or pieces or both and therefore plays a strategy that closes out the game eg trading pieces in an aggressive set of moves. Or in a sports game one team is up by a points difference that requires the chasing team >x1 more scores to even or beat the current lead in points difference or if a team is up by 1 score difference then to change tactics and deploy more defensive and possession play to "count the clock down". In 2nd WWar perhaps dropping the Nuclear Bombs over Japan was considered an "Endgame" strategy by the US? Or in Iraq and "exit strategy"?
In MMORPGs at the stage the player has completed a defined stage of the game:
Beginning-Middle-End :
Max level/completed story/full access to content/completed objectives etc: So Endgame becomes further addtitional Incentives such as Raid Dungeons to attentuate the players' playing time further at this stage of the game that involves a different type of gameplay from the previous middle-main gameplay of the mmorpg and after the "End" of the main game.No defined End will lead to a different definition of "Endgame" (obviously).
That's a rough defintion?!
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
In a game with levels, to me, endgame is the collection of activities to do once your character's level is maxed out or partically maxed out (like 70-80+ in D2).
In a sandbox, it should be a week or two after you've been playing and gotten the basics of the game.
Ooh! I made a thread a while back asking basically the same question: how do you define endgame? In my case, it was born from the frustration of hearing people complain about the apparent lack of endgame within a week of FFXIV's release, and also with the increasing number of people claiming that endgame always begins at the level cap, even in a game like WoW where a huge amount of content (probably the majority of the content) is accessible only after you hit that cap.
You can read the whole post if you'd like, but the list of possible definitions that I threw out there for discussion were:
When your level is equal to the highest level that can be reached
When defeating a challenging monster at random does not result in any form of non-monetary character advancement (merit points or AA points, for example)
When there are no in-game barriers to participating in any of the game's content
When there are no social barriers to participating in any of the game's content (e.g. GearScore)
When there is no notable power difference between you and a theoretical "ideal" character who has accomplished and acquired everything possible
Of the responses in the thread, I liked the explanation "Endgame - The point in a game where gameplay focus completely changes from what you were supposed to be doing since the beginning of the game because you cannot do that anymore." This is probably the reason why most people state that the start of endgame coincides with max level. If you've been spending all your time in game so far trying to gain levels, and then the game says "Cut that out, there are no more levels," you have to drastically change the way that you play the game and that could be called endgame... even though it may not happen anywhere near the real "end" of the game.
If that's the case, it's understandable (but at the same time, a tad confusing) that people would dislike the concept of endgame. If you've been playing the game for a long time and are suddenly told "Don't play it that way ever again, play it this different way now," it's going to be a breath of fresh air... but at the same time, if you liked the game up to that point, you might not have wanted to stop playing it the normal non-endgame way. But there's always alts for people like that.
Although I'm not an EU player, I've followed your Colonies/CashPlanet blogs and have enjoyed your various thoguhts and musings on how MMOs are designed. I think that anyone who has ever exclusively played a sandbox-focused MMO like EU, UO, EVE and the like would laos be curious about the pursuit of 'end game'. Personally, I think it's the biggest load of BS that the MMO gaming playerbase ever sold itself, but there are millions of MMO gamers that don't know anything outside of the tiered level-based experience exists. Knowing only that designm I can see why they'd buy into the udea of it.
On the surface it seems to make sense, but anything more than a brief moment of thought quickly reveals how illogical and irrational a concept it is.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
All I have ever known is endless raiding. Being forced to group with people I really don't care much for. Is there something else? Tell me more of this...."End Game"...
End game to me should not be all about raiding.
I think EQ / EQ2 has it right with AA, player housing and being able to mentor. The ability to go back and play with friends that are just starting, while still allowing you to develope your character is a nice touch. Even when you get to the "end game" in EQ2 you still need to continue to develope your character to make it viable.
Some other ideas:
1. Weapons that grow with you and level once you hit max level is a neat idea as well (think LOTRO weapons).
2. End game raids that drop items allowing you to craft more potent items. (With the ability to commission the crafting as well)
3. Controling pvp objectives with nice rewards only available to the controlling team (ie special merchants, zones etc) with some sort of leader board (for both solo and guild) would add to gameplay.
4. Evolving story that takes several expansions released over months / years to unfold and lead into the next story line.
Anyhow I am looking forward to SWTOR and its story driven gameplay. (playing alts should feel like a new game as well).
Cheers
I would play a game like that Drag. In a heartbeat.
The end (game) should be the beginning of something new!
Most MMO's fail at that!
End game is whatever a developer defines it to be within their game. It could be anything from Raiding, home building, crafting mastery, etc.
In reality, since nothing is forced upon a player, each player defines their own end game. The true challenge for the developer is creating enough content that is mostly accomplish once max level is reach (assuming levels are utilized) that there is something for every playstyle to enjoy doing. And the ever greater challenge is to find a way for it to remain open ended so that one doesn't complete after a certain timespan.
I prefer E-sports, but I'm cool with casual PvP too, like territory control.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I've always thought the instanced e-sports should be casual and territorial control would be more "end game". But at the same time, I enjoy territorial control much more, so if there isn't some huge hurdle in order to be able to enjoy it, that works for me.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
To me, the end game is everything you do after the initial learning curve.
I like grouping for dungeons, open world pvping, crafting useful items, and large scale raiding...whenever I feel like, not just at the end of a 85 level grind.