» Sat Oct 19, 2013 10:58 am (Thread #1 reached the post limit)
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1454128-unfortunately-it-feels-like-deja-vu/
Note:
It seems I have to write a "disclaimer" for the people who find the time to post, rushing to defend TESO but don't have the time to actually read the thread and understand that
it is not judging or attacking TESO - it is not possible to do that, since the game has not been released yet.
If you have read it you will see that it talks about mmorpgs in general and makes a hypothesis of what will happen if TESO follows the common mmorpg trend in various separate elements. All these come from a frustrated gamer craving to play a mmorpg with the standards of UO, Shadowbane and other similar mmorpgs.
Hope you at least read these few first lines before rushing to post (and keep it civil!) 
Must say a few things about some "de facto" gameplay elements in modern MMORPGs, as a fan of ES series since DF and an avid MMORPG player.
WOW, for better or worse, was the last "truly successful" MMORPG released, thing which is supported by statistics alone, so please do not be offended or annoyed by many comparisons - it's unavoidable and natural to compare games of similar genres. (Was it successful due to the things i mention? History has shown otherwise with recent MMOs popping up like mushrooms lately.)
I want to do this to convey my own feelings towards what *I* want ES to be and to express my concern about ES online going down the drain like so many other games of its kind which failed to meet expectations in the last few years (not that i believe this game will be any different but i'd like to hope so). Also i tried not to learn things about the game so you will find me uninformed about a lot of things that may have been leaked until this point. It is more of a "general perspective" and I do pray these below do not apply on TESO (edit: although I have to say that the more I learn about it the more I am disappointed as well).
So here we go...
Things which make me "physically sick" (pardon the expression) in modern MMORPGs or a "reverse wishlist":
The infinite quest grind
Because grinding fetching quests is so much better than grinding monsters.
They said, asian MMOs were too grindy. Even with me being a "lore freak" and all, I say that the quest grind is much worse than that. For one it defines the exact places you go, the exact monsters to kill, the exact path you will follow. Most mmorpgs are plagued by this - WOW was also plagued by it, but I must admit that it threw an engaging and actually enjoyable quest now and then. But still it's mindless/pointless quest grind from area to area overshadowed these good quests.
Still feel nauseus, for example, by leveling in TERA this morning. Speak to that guy, pick that up, bring it there, kill 4 hornless goats, kill 4 horned goats after that and so on.
Many quest lines you say? Still prefer to have alternatives like the monster grind or PVP leveling. Monster grinding is actually fun if you have a good combat system in place.
But in general let us be creative about the way we level up.
Well, at least i can rest assured that they will not make the mistake of adopting that dull excuse of a concept that is called dailies in the game (at least not without a lot of RNG) right...? Or not.
PVP and PVE gear separation and instances
Not if you want to simulate a fantasy world.
PVP gear. What? PVP gear are specially designed for PVP! PVE gear are designed for PVE!
What a horrible idea! It really gets the prize among all the things i've written in this post.
I can't even begin to describe how un-enjoyable is to have different sets for different kinds of activities.
The "epic armor of ultimate devastation" you got by slaying Dragon A? Useful for slaying Dragon B which you must slay to get the gear to slay Dragon C and so on.
It's powerful and epic but essentially useless in PVP compared to the equivalent pvp armor.
As for instances...
Good were the times with no instances. Best blend of PVP and PVE. Many may disagree with that ofcourse. Might be a little too hardcoe to be able to backstab each other in an instance but still made a game more interesting imo. I still can understand the need for embedding lore with PVE (at certain times) thus not wanting to involve PVP in it.
Punishment or rather, lack thereof
None likes "punishment" or "consequences" in a game. But it is them that give bloody meaning to everything you do in it.
I am not a masochist. But let's face it. When punishment exists, the things you do right have more bloody value. To clarify, I am not talking about the harshest of penalties like losing all your inventory or the like, but meaningful penalties that hurt just as much as it takes for things to have bloody meaning!
You have died. So what? No biggie, just a small repair cost.
But no! It cannot be possibly more! To lose anything more would make deaths meaningful and avoid-worthy! By no means!
On the contrary by all means respec whenever you want! Choose from any skill you want anytime. Choices? They don't matter because they are easily reversible so everything is safe (aka boring). Besides planning or character building is known to hurt the brain.
Want it this way to appease the imaginary masses? No money from me (and from the masses essentially getting bored with instant gratification with no consequences after a while).
-Yui Tanimura, bloody director of Dark Souls II
"Free" epics are NOT epics! (and the benefits of RNG)
Even if an average player does not immediately realize this, he eventually will! He is not a dimwit you know!
Obviously an item that everyone has in an online game, no matter what color or name or rarity it has, is something common (and bland).
"But if everyone can't get the best items, they will not be happy!" - A myth! On the contrary, even if someone may whine about not being able or not being lucky enough to get that great item, it still presents a goal for him and keeps his interest in the game.
I wonder if they will "have the guts" to maintain some "real rarity" and also, add some good amount of RNG in the game. RNG is the spice of a game, a great source of replayability and one of the greatest weapons against inactivity and boredom. And i don't mean the pseudo-RNG of semi-useless WOW world drops and crafting. Even that though (oh snap 5 flasks with one go!!!) added a good deal of entertainment. But yes... RNG can be as addictive in an MMORPG as nicotine in cigarettes.
"AFK in Orgrimar(/Ironforge)" phenomenon...and soloing
Because depending on a bunch of other people for meaningful playing is what everybody wants.
What does this mean? It doesn't nessesarily have to do anything with WOW. It's the phenomenon of having nothing substancial to do near the "end-game".
At last finished with the "infinite quest grind", god it was a drag! Maxed out my professions and got quite ready for raids... the only bloody meaningful thing i can do in the "end-game".
Why? Because solo is not an option in the "end game".
Why does it have to be this way? Can't solo be an option (for something actually meaningful) if it is properly balanced? Ofcourse it can. And no, this being an online game doesn't have anything to do with it. You can't always depend on others. But you can still give enough incentives for people to party and raid together. For the love of god though, don't impose this
dependance on us by saying something like "to progress as a character you have to grind raid instances".
Real Player Versus Player please
...not predetermined grounds and PvP-only zones!
Between factions only? In battlegrounds? In "open" pvp areas? In specific zones? Sigh... will this be another game with constricted pvp? Detained in some silly instanced battlegrounds or open pvp areas to control resources for which the player could not care less?
I can understand a few safe havens but i can't understand constricted pvp. It kills the realism, the element of the unexpected and the immersion of the game. Why has it stopped being an element in modern mmorpgs? It worked great in the past. Worked wonderfully for many games. Why, for the love of god, are developers afraid to have free pvp in the game?
Sorry but, in the end, the frustration free pvp may cause to a player gets outweighted by the boredom of constricted pvp (fact already proven by past mmorpgs).
The "end-game" and short level caps!
For the love of god, it doesn't bloody have to "end" until the next patch!
I hate this term (and i hate Blizzard for making it the standard recipe in modern mmos). People are expected to start playing and begin "the infinite quest grind" and then proceed to the "end game" where "the true game raid grind begins".
Let me let you in on a "secret": CONSTANT CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT IS A GOOD THING FOR THE GAME'S LONGEVITY (sorry for the caps). It amazes me how most mainstream developers (many indie developers have gotten this point and have actually seen some success) fail to realize this basic concept, leading to fiascos like the one of Diablo 3 (a reason among many others == not a fiasco in its starter sales due to the franchise name but a major fiasco for its desired RMA revenue).
It has been made a standard thing for mmorpgs to have the "infinite quest grind" stage in order to reach a short level cap so that the player can continue to the "end game". Sad how most "salesmen" may think this is anywhere near addictive for players and even sadder for players to have not known any other pattern which would actually be more enjoyable for them.
Personally, i await for a modern mmorpg which will not have this dull pattern and allow for constant progression or at least a SOFT CAP. And i do because i know the alternatives and i have played many "different recipe" mmorpgs like Ultima or the 4th coming... heck even Lineage II did it right in that respect.
(update)
Patch and starting from scratch
It's a stupidly vicious cycle!
Let's talk now about the patch-nerf cycle "fraud", as I like to call it. Made widely known by, again, WOW, it is the cycle that keeps the game alive consisted of approximately this pattern:
A) People going through current content and exhausting it. Both pvp and pve.
B ) Bosses and challenges or rewards are nerfed to oblivion so that everyone completes them and reaches the approximate level of progress.
C) People waiting for patch/stop really playing until the next patch.
D) Next patch comes, distributing (from quests etc) items which automatically make everyone's hard work on the "last batch of content", obsolete, aka everyone essentially starts from scratch. Bosses are hard at the start, but are mysteriously weakened after a while and so on.
Two different personal point of views:
First POV: A decade, or so, ago I was playing WOW, among other games. I could afford playing a lot. I would raid and defeat bosses when they were released, devoting a big chunk of my free time. 2-3 weeks later my hard work and the time I put in became obsolete since these bosses were nerfed and, of course, everything I did until that point seemed futile as they could be now easily defeated. It was merely a race of "bragging rights" about killing a boss one day earlier than the rival guild.
Second POV: At some point I started a full-time job and my free time got substantially reduced. I then joined a guild of casual players, like me. When a patch was released, we couldn't defeat the bosses. But 2-3 weeks later, after everything was nerfed, we would clear them out with no particular effort. I never enjoyed the loots/achievements I got from these runs. They just seemed fake to me - besides, how great is an achievement if everyone else has achieved it?
Now after reading these, keep the previous paragraph, mentioning short level caps and "the end game", in mind. Also understand that mmorpgs did not always work like that. Instead, their current content "lasted" for more than a year or two. In addition their patches did not make everything obsolete - instead, they added to the current gameplay.
Juvenile animations and effects
Sacrifice all seriousness, lore and realism for a lower ESBR rating! Yes, go ahead!
As I mentioned at the start of the post I try not to learn much about the game. Because I am afraid it will be of the nature Hqthief described.
Huge blinding flashy effects, over-exaggerated skills and over-the-top animations reminding you of Dragonball. This is, unfortunately, quite a popular characteristic in modern mmorpgs.
Also, among there mainstream ones, there is a complete lack of blood. You hit an enemy and instead of blood, rainbow colors and sunshine pours out of him. How immersive is that? The least I could ask for, is a choice in the game settings between these two.
In general, many developers, tend to think that flashy moves will make you think more highly of yourself and your character and tend to go all out on this one.
To me it is just annoying and destroys immersion.
Diversity and balance
The solution to balance is not making everything the same!
Again, WOW, is a convenient example and point of reference. At first it started with very diverse classes. The actual mechanics of their skills were different and unique. As the time went by and balance changes had to be made, the developers chose an easy path - in a few words, they gradually made all classes the same. They added the, once unique, AOE, healing, crowd control etc skills to every single class and then standardized their durations and effects to the point that almost all classes were equally effective in everything. PvP, solo play, farming, raiding and so on. Diversity suffered for the sake of *lazy* balancing.
Speaking of balancing, to add insult to the injury, the game was never completely balanced. Each patch always favored a class, cycling through all the classes so that everyone stays happy. I find this ridiculous to say the least. Even worse, to put it more correctly, each patch favored only a single tree of a class (balance couldn't even be achieved among talent trees, so they cycled the buffs/nerfs there as well).
But the lack of diversity is not only among classes. It is in gear, apparel, trinkets, mounts etc. Mounts for example, in modern mmorpgs, are only diverse in appearance. Since most mmorpgs have also no collision, the only thing that changed was the texture. Even their speed is completely the same and only changes when it comes to a few different "tiers" of mounts. Having played old mmorpgs in which mounts had, different statistics, could fight, some could be used as storage, had all different speeds and unique perks, I find the lack of diversion in modern ones, unacceptable.
As for gear, every new piece of loot someone got would blandly upgrade his stats by a small margin. That's the extend of diversity of loot in most modern games. Pretty interesting and engaging kind of rewards eh? It would make a world of difference to add extra functionality on loot. More items with procs, passive buffs and unique properties. Not bland and boring hoards of loot so that you can upgrade your stats by 0.001% per piece.
Scaling
A recipe for dullness. "Let's standardize everything shall we?"
In any form, the most dreadful mistake of all. The easy solution to everything. But it takes so much away... It is the trend of modern mmorpgs and the bane of immersion and fun.
Leveling the playfield among players who invested different amounts of hours in the game cannot possibly be considered fair. But perhaps, most of the players against any kind of scaling will still play the game and scaling will keep most not so dedicated players happy and draw more of them in. So... it seems like win-win situation for the company.
So, let's make everyone equal! Why not? Sounds fair and doesn't seem to have any downsides. Right? Mark my words and remember them a few months after TESO gets released.
TESO will, eventually, have to become "free to play". Because with a mindset like this, it will not avoid becoming the typical overhyped, but now dull, mmorpg trying to cater to everyone and sacrificing immersion and basic RPG elements in the damn process!
Do I really have to explain in detail which basic RPG elements do I mean or how destructive scaling is for this game? How it demotivates you in pursuing your "quest for treasure" or how it throws character development (which includes gear) out of one of the most important parts of the game?
I plan to raise this thread from the dead when this eventually (and unfortunately) happens.
Concluding... I would like to mention how childish this "hardcoe vs casuals" internet debate is. But there is some truth to arguments by both sides and there is one goal - making money from the game.
What a lot of mmorpgs (and WOW after WotLK mostly) did, in my humble opinion, was to focus much on instant gratification, hand-holding and rewarding too much OR following standard patterns. Will players really get addicted and stay if you pat them on the head and cater to their every convenience? WOW was already secured for many other reasons maintaining its customer base (which still did regress after WotLK), while other big budget mmorps like LotRo, Aion, Tera, SW etc failed miserably (thing which you can realize for some of them by how many servers they were planning to launch some months after release and how many they eventually did *laughs*) following the same recipes.
Wasn't it time this changed... or... wrong forum?
PS: A funny thing is that months after I created this thread, I begun to notice various amateur or professional reviewers, youtubers and writers, among many, in several communities, have started to actually acknowledge the existence of this "typical mmo recipe" I am talking about, mostly mentioning the standard quest grind patterns and the (ridiculous) "PVP-only PVE-only" zones and, of course, better late than never, condemning them, since they already have started to become "dangerously" uninteresting elements in the nowadays mmorpg games (oh god, what a shock!).
"TLTR": Create yet another "conventional" mmorpg, trying to target every single kind of audience and it will be nothing more than an extremely late cash-in, in an exhausted part of the mmorpg market, riding in Skyrim's success, even disappointing its own fans and at the end, becoming "free to play" and eventually subject to a slow death, like many others before it.
