29:53 this is exactly the same for Guild Wars 2. YOU chose what you want to do at 80. A whole world to explore at YOUR pace. However YOU want to. 5 mins at day? Fine. 15 hours a day? Also fine.
Stumbled onto one of your videos (all praise the algorithm) and I'd just like to say that you've very eloquently stated the exact same reasons why I also quit WoW during Amirdrassil. A bit over a year ago I too was "pushing the content". I've got multiple Hall of Fame titles on my account, I've got half a dozen of those special mounts (earned over months of farming each because, two per week? For guilds who often have 26 or more raiders? It's insulting, and you didn't even mention how it used to just be ONE per week...), and none of it felt like it mattered anymore. My time wasn't being respected precisely because the feeling of accomplishment was all that was left - and it was nowhere near worth the literal second job that WoW was. And lurking beneath the surface was the inescapable truth that... Well, none of it would matter in a few more months or a year. Go grind the same dungeons, again, dozens of times to get that item which makes or breaks your class specialization. Put in hundreds of hours to get back to the same relative power in this new raid as you had in the old. And watch it all be wiped away, so you can hop back on the daily and weekly treadmills that you never really got off in the first place. It was frankly insulting to the effort and energy I was putting in. Alongside OSRS I also would like to shout out Guild Wars 2 as a game with heavy horizontal progression. Content in that game that's years and years old is still current and relevant to players because of various systems, but the one that spoke most directly to me as a WoW addict was how an outdated expansion culminates in you getting an "ascended weapon", a piece of gear that is still the highest tier no matter what content you're doing. While I don't actively play GW2 anymore it helped open my eyes to the idea that there might be other MMORPGs out there that would let me play at my pace - as fast or as slow as I chose - and that I would be rewarded relative to MY time I chose to invest, not some arbitrary timer set by the developers. I finished Heart of Thorns in a few weeks, grabbed my Caladbolg (or Salad Bowl as some players call it), and felt more pride and accomplishment in what I had done than I'd felt playing WoW in years.
Ive played ffxiv for several years now on and off. As essentially a single player game. I just beat shadowbringers last month....i never felt like that game was trying to hook me in some kinda abusive manner. I love it
I've been trying to make up my mind on this topic for months... this is exactly it! I genuinely feel like your strawman/bad faith explanation is the correct one as that's exactly what I see constantly in online discussions, eg. "This game rewards me for logging in, so it respects my time". I seriously think that's what people mean when they say that, though maybe they don't realize it. I might have missed it in the video but in the segment where you talk about time gated rewards, I think you should have also mentioned how that system applies to FFXIV's alt class leveling. When you switch to a secondary class and want to get it up to a higher level, it's seriously inefficient to just play normally compared to logging in for the daily dungeon bonuses only. Not to mention boring, since you're doing low level dungeons/ first levels of Palace of the Dead nonstop, both areas where you barely have anything to do during combat. Anyway I'm excited to see more from you! Now I got to get back to arguing with online stranges who claim a korean MMO with an energy system "respects their time".
First of all, thank you for your support and I'm glad you enjoyed the video. I do agree though, I think FF14s alt leveling system which is essentially just doing a daily dungeon on whichever class you choose to level is exactly the sort of arbitrary timegating that makes the entire process feel like a chore rather than a choice. I also personally despise the scaling system which, when rolling a low-level dungeon, has most of your abilities removed from your character making the entire thing feel unbelievably boring (maybe this fixed this?), especially considering the GCD feels like an eternity with minimal abilities to press. Like/Sub and I'm excited to see what you think of my next video!
18:08 This is a rant and rave I've made before too, to be honest. I think this is a pretty good discussion on how the modern MMO just doesn't have the same feeling it used to in regards to rewards or progression. You focus a lot on the endgame and items, but can't the same be said about leveling? In WoW a mount or even a high level used to be aspirational, not to mention those people standing around town in sexy Tier 2 gear. Going back even further to games like EQ or FFXI just being a high enough level to have access to certain spells made you special. Not only that, you could pay it forward...Helping others with difficult grinds or quests. Having that power and being able to share it was another way it got shown off and made people want to do the same.
I see your point about leveling, but I honestly just don't even considering what happens in WoW's leveling experience to be relevant since it takes up around .1% of anyone's playtime. It's irrelevant, which is sad to me, but also is lumped into the general perspective I have of "bottom heavy" progression, wherein the majority of a WoW player's power progression occurs within the first 2 weeks of a new expansion, patch, or character. The leveling is 4-6 hours and that's where you feel like you're getting the most out of your power progression, but it's so expedited because Blizzard hates the idea of not speeding everyone up to where the majority of players currently are. There is a lot to be said about the state of leveling in modern MMOs, and I do want to make a video about that (because I totally agree with you), but I think it will end up being moreso a criticism of inherent flaws within themepark MMOs as they've began to adopt the seasonal model. If things only hold relevancy for 4-6 months at a time, then the developers can never put things in the game that actually demand an exceptional amount of time from you. Thanks for your comment/support! Glad you enjoyed the video.
Interest video. Maybe that is why FF14 and RuneScape (rs3 and osrs) are both my favorite mmo. They both go different route and let me play at my own time. Great video again.
I actually think war within would’ve been a lot better if they didn’t give you flying mounts right away, or at least not until you have progressed through the spider lands. Theres pathways to the spider lands by foot that are super cool, however, you miss them if you’re flying through it.
I think one of the issues with this could be that the entire continent is designed with flying in mind due to the successes of dragonriding as a system.
Really agree with your points about agency and being locked into a schedule that operates like work. Skinnerboxing sucks. Kinda disagree about Mythic raid rewards. TLDR is that it's too easy to buy a carry (oops, I closed the tab without saving my comment). That being said, I loved Mage Tower appearances, I would always sit up when I saw a Werebear in the group.
29:53 this is exactly the same for Guild Wars 2. YOU chose what you want to do at 80. A whole world to explore at YOUR pace. However YOU want to. 5 mins at day? Fine. 15 hours a day? Also fine.
Man this video is fire too!! As soon as you transitioned from legion to bfa I totally agreed with your points
Glad to see you enjoyed it!
Stumbled onto one of your videos (all praise the algorithm) and I'd just like to say that you've very eloquently stated the exact same reasons why I also quit WoW during Amirdrassil.
A bit over a year ago I too was "pushing the content". I've got multiple Hall of Fame titles on my account, I've got half a dozen of those special mounts (earned over months of farming each because, two per week? For guilds who often have 26 or more raiders? It's insulting, and you didn't even mention how it used to just be ONE per week...), and none of it felt like it mattered anymore. My time wasn't being respected precisely because the feeling of accomplishment was all that was left - and it was nowhere near worth the literal second job that WoW was. And lurking beneath the surface was the inescapable truth that... Well, none of it would matter in a few more months or a year. Go grind the same dungeons, again, dozens of times to get that item which makes or breaks your class specialization. Put in hundreds of hours to get back to the same relative power in this new raid as you had in the old. And watch it all be wiped away, so you can hop back on the daily and weekly treadmills that you never really got off in the first place.
It was frankly insulting to the effort and energy I was putting in. Alongside OSRS I also would like to shout out Guild Wars 2 as a game with heavy horizontal progression. Content in that game that's years and years old is still current and relevant to players because of various systems, but the one that spoke most directly to me as a WoW addict was how an outdated expansion culminates in you getting an "ascended weapon", a piece of gear that is still the highest tier no matter what content you're doing. While I don't actively play GW2 anymore it helped open my eyes to the idea that there might be other MMORPGs out there that would let me play at my pace - as fast or as slow as I chose - and that I would be rewarded relative to MY time I chose to invest, not some arbitrary timer set by the developers. I finished Heart of Thorns in a few weeks, grabbed my Caladbolg (or Salad Bowl as some players call it), and felt more pride and accomplishment in what I had done than I'd felt playing WoW in years.
Ive played ffxiv for several years now on and off. As essentially a single player game. I just beat shadowbringers last month....i never felt like that game was trying to hook me in some kinda abusive manner. I love it
I've been trying to make up my mind on this topic for months... this is exactly it! I genuinely feel like your strawman/bad faith explanation is the correct one as that's exactly what I see constantly in online discussions, eg. "This game rewards me for logging in, so it respects my time". I seriously think that's what people mean when they say that, though maybe they don't realize it.
I might have missed it in the video but in the segment where you talk about time gated rewards, I think you should have also mentioned how that system applies to FFXIV's alt class leveling. When you switch to a secondary class and want to get it up to a higher level, it's seriously inefficient to just play normally compared to logging in for the daily dungeon bonuses only. Not to mention boring, since you're doing low level dungeons/ first levels of Palace of the Dead nonstop, both areas where you barely have anything to do during combat.
Anyway I'm excited to see more from you! Now I got to get back to arguing with online stranges who claim a korean MMO with an energy system "respects their time".
First of all, thank you for your support and I'm glad you enjoyed the video.
I do agree though, I think FF14s alt leveling system which is essentially just doing a daily dungeon on whichever class you choose to level is exactly the sort of arbitrary timegating that makes the entire process feel like a chore rather than a choice. I also personally despise the scaling system which, when rolling a low-level dungeon, has most of your abilities removed from your character making the entire thing feel unbelievably boring (maybe this fixed this?), especially considering the GCD feels like an eternity with minimal abilities to press.
Like/Sub and I'm excited to see what you think of my next video!
18:08 This is a rant and rave I've made before too, to be honest.
I think this is a pretty good discussion on how the modern MMO just doesn't have the same feeling it used to in regards to rewards or progression. You focus a lot on the endgame and items, but can't the same be said about leveling? In WoW a mount or even a high level used to be aspirational, not to mention those people standing around town in sexy Tier 2 gear. Going back even further to games like EQ or FFXI just being a high enough level to have access to certain spells made you special. Not only that, you could pay it forward...Helping others with difficult grinds or quests. Having that power and being able to share it was another way it got shown off and made people want to do the same.
I see your point about leveling, but I honestly just don't even considering what happens in WoW's leveling experience to be relevant since it takes up around .1% of anyone's playtime. It's irrelevant, which is sad to me, but also is lumped into the general perspective I have of "bottom heavy" progression, wherein the majority of a WoW player's power progression occurs within the first 2 weeks of a new expansion, patch, or character. The leveling is 4-6 hours and that's where you feel like you're getting the most out of your power progression, but it's so expedited because Blizzard hates the idea of not speeding everyone up to where the majority of players currently are.
There is a lot to be said about the state of leveling in modern MMOs, and I do want to make a video about that (because I totally agree with you), but I think it will end up being moreso a criticism of inherent flaws within themepark MMOs as they've began to adopt the seasonal model. If things only hold relevancy for 4-6 months at a time, then the developers can never put things in the game that actually demand an exceptional amount of time from you.
Thanks for your comment/support! Glad you enjoyed the video.
Interest video. Maybe that is why FF14 and RuneScape (rs3 and osrs) are both my favorite mmo. They both go different route and let me play at my own time. Great video again.
I actually think war within would’ve been a lot better if they didn’t give you flying mounts right away, or at least not until you have progressed through the spider lands. Theres pathways to the spider lands by foot that are super cool, however, you miss them if you’re flying through it.
I think one of the issues with this could be that the entire continent is designed with flying in mind due to the successes of dragonriding as a system.
Really agree with your points about agency and being locked into a schedule that operates like work. Skinnerboxing sucks.
Kinda disagree about Mythic raid rewards. TLDR is that it's too easy to buy a carry (oops, I closed the tab without saving my comment). That being said, I loved Mage Tower appearances, I would always sit up when I saw a Werebear in the group.
How are you not bigger
Thank you for the support! The goal is to reach as many ears as possible, so thank you for the kind sentiment.
tbf even the classic MMOs like Runescape and WoW classic are time sinks. At the end of the day it a huge waste of time
Anything that you enjoy isn't a waste a time ;)