Endgame RUINS MMORPG'S (because getting to it sucks)
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 มิ.ย. 2024
- Ladies and Gentlemen welcome
I'm Josh 'Strife' Hayes, and in this series of video essays i'm going to talk about the failings and weaknesses of my favorite video game genre, the MMORPG.
In this video, i'll be looking at how the concept of the 'endgame' creates an mmorpg with essentially 2 parts, pre and post endgame, with pre-endgame being boring, dull, pointless and actually left just that way to sell level boosts, and post-endgame being fun but taking hours to actually get to, a gameplay mechanic almost no other genre does.
If you'd like to chat live, I stream nightly on twitch at:
twitch.tv/joshstrifehayes - เกม
![Should you play World of Warcraft Classic in 2020? [Yes, just be aware it's slow]](/img/n.gif)
My biggest question once i’m faced with only pvp and raids is “So i’m chasing better gear for what exactly?”
I actually prefer leveling content in MMOs. Afterwards it just feels like empty gameplay with no progress being made.
all that means is the progression system sucks
@@129das played cabal private server and the end game progession is fking retarded.
1-2 hour dungeons. Then you go to back in the dungeon to complete side quest. I literally abandon the game with in a week lol
No wonder games suck. Look at the playerbases habits 😭
@@tylercafe1260 damn sorry 😢
Same, the process of gaining new abilities and having a good new item to equip every few quests is much more rewarding than endlessly grinding some form of daily quests or farming dungeons for rare drops.
Personally, I love being low-level and form my character. The higher levels I reach, the boring the game becomes, at least for me. Also, endgame in an MMO invariably forces you into raids, PvP or some other content you have to be dedicated or "good" to play. I love roaming the environment by myself, picking flowers and stuff. When I played WoW, the least fun part for me was when I had to be in a group doing a dungeon or raid. I almost always felt rushed and that I couldn't keep up with what was happening with the group. People also quite often suggested/demanded that I got other or better gear than I had, and I didn't like the metagame of there being "one gear to rule them all" for a discipline priest, for example. Why is there tons of different gear if there is only one proper set of gear? I'm aware that my feeling of inability to keep up might have to do with my disability that makes me quite slow and I get confused and stressed out easily if I have to do many things at once.
I just realised that perhaps MMO's isn't a good genre for me, since I don't particularly enjoy playing with people (except for my close friends who know about my "slowness"). ;)
I am the same! And I refuse to be anything different. Games are supposed to be fun, so I just have fun. High five to all us out there picking flowers and killing mobs in our own way!
Agree 100% my man
I’m also the same. In WoW I’d level a character to lvl 30 then get bored and start again with a different class/race because low level was kinda fun but once you got near lvl 30 the game got really grindy. I enjoyed just messing about in the world and not doing raids because you had to know how to play your class well enough that all the meta players would tolerate you in the group. So I ended up just avoiding raids entirely because my style of just messing about was more a hindrance in a raid than a help.
The feeling of getting your first piece of gear for an equip slot on your first run through an MMO is a beautiful one
I think that general concept is a big part of why battle royales took off the way they did
Soloplay is a perfectly valid playstyle in most MMOs. I think I've joined a raid/dungeon once or twice in my thousands of hours in Guild Wars 1/2, WoW, and the variety of other MMOs I've tried.
To slightly counter Josh's first point: "Endgame" only invalidates all previous content *if* your sole goal is to experience the highest-level content available to you and have the best gear. If you want to experience the living world and all the story content, endgame is usually the worst place to be.
I know the majority rush to get to end game to "start playing", but once I hit max level when it becomes repetitive faction or gear grinding, I quit. I actually play for the leveling experience and story not end game loot. I will watch others on TH-cam and see endgame cinematics to get my story to completion. Endgame loot is actually even more useless than the leveling gear, well at least they're the same.
I'm not spending up to 100 hours or more at endgame to have all that useless time spent and to have most of that gear become obsolete after the 1st 10 quests in the next expansion. Pass, I have better things to do than endgame. But I agree, I wish there was more to leveling, but I also understand mmo's need to keep their subs up, and they can't do it with a quick end.
As much as a dislike gender-locked classes in mmo's, BDO has a decent "endgame". Nearly the whole world could be grinded for loot, or make a living doing lifeskills. It actually feels free and sandboxish. Mine, farm, sail, barter, etc can all be accomplished.
Same here. I loved playing Destiny 1 and 2 for the story and doing all the other related content like strikes and stuff. But then once you're done you get bounties to gain higher level, which basically consists of the most boring MMO tasks like "kill 20 enemies with a shotgun" or "50 with a sniper". Only to completely start over with the leveling grind once a new season starts. When I'm done with my work I want to play to have fun, not continue with another job.
I know this is different for everyone though. A friend of mine has been playing every day for two years now. I just don't understand how he does it, but more power to him.
The only time endgame is fun and worth playing in games is when the gameplay and enemies are fun as hell. Mmos don't have fun gameplay. Many games don't in fact. There's very few games where the endgame is the best part, because your gear is finally at its highest tier sure but what about the actual combat and enemies? Most games have progression systems, but very few have actual engaging and fun gameplay with a decent difficulty to keep things challenging
Fr. I did the same thing in Gw2. If I wanted to play endgame, I would play one of my max level characters i already have. Your class doesn't really matter at that point anyways unless your in a raid or fractal.
It's why I enjoyed Battle for Azeroth in World of Warcraft, because I spent most of my time leveling alts to play different classes while the people who hated it spend their time burning out doing 20+ different sets of dailies and weeklies.
I stopped playing bdo for 3 months now bc the game feels like a chore after a few months of playing. It felt great for a few months but then I don’t feel the fun anymore bc i just end up doing afk life skilling.
Unfortunately a lot of MMOs subsist on artificial difficulty.
One thing I love when it actually happens is when low level players are still a resource and not a burden. Like, there is a guild vs guild battle and while the high level members are fighting on the front lines the low level ones can farm resources or heal the ones coming back or such.
But no, MMOs go by the logic of "Every dungeon has to be BARELY doable by a full party of characters of its level". So even if you can bring your low level friend into the dungeon they will still take up a character slot (making your group weaker) AND monsters will one-shot them if they ever graze their hitboxes because they're supposed to do significant damage to people of your level.
I enjoyed how in EQ1 you would be minding your business, fighting Caimens in Oasis then BAM Sand Giant boots you into the ocean and you're dead. Then you come back when your stronger and farm those giants for gold.
CHEF!!
Yep lol
Griffin moving to Inn 2!
Goons!!!
Chef fancy seeing you here
One of the great things about city of heroes was that you had to fly through areas that were filled with really high level enemies to get to missions for your own level. So avoiding being one hit killed by these enemies became part of the mission. Just getting there
The basic logic of this is backwards. If the leveling content sucks, then it's not the endgame that's ruining the mmorpg, it's the leveling content. mmorpg devs just have to learn not to focus all their resources on improving the endgame.
Right, but what he's saying is that the focus of resources on endgame content has caused the leveling grind to worsen. That's why he brought up booster packs, because these companies are intentionally worsening their leveling up process and keeping endgame on the end of a stick to manipulate players into spending more money.
The players created this endgame rush. Vanilla WoW was all about an engaging leveling proccess. But the hardcore gamers got to endgame in like 2 weeks or kess and all whined about so little content. That's when Blizzard had to start thinking fast and create farmable content. Release PvP with gear that you had to grind for. Epic dungeons with random drop gear to force hardcore players to repeat the same dungeon over and over.
People were not willing to enjoy the leveling process of WoW, so WoW (along with all future MMOs) made leveling a grind to hold players up from reaching endgame.
THANK YOU!!!
FINALLY!!! SOMEONE UNDERSTANDS MY PAIN!!!
Raids shouldn't be level-gated. Make them available earlier on, so intermediate players can start them instead of waiting for endgame.
@@the11382 For real. How hard would it be to implement a few raids earlier into the game so people can enjoy that kind of content sooner?
I guess I am MMO'ing wrong, because I don't even get why anyone 'rushes' to endgame and why content beyond it is supposed to be the only thing that's fun. For me, it was all the stuff I did throughout the game that I love, and if I didn't, I'd probably not play that game. For me, it's the story, the quests (and I mean quests that add context or lore TO the story). The dungeons, sure, and if that mmo is just giving me some kind of generic dungeon for early content, unless it is optional just for xp or early gold, again, probably not an MMO I'd play. I don't want dungeons to just be hard, I want one with a STORY, with a purpose that matters beyond basically being an online version of a 'murder hobo'. And I've found games where the journey is fun enough that it IS the point, not trying to rush to the max gear level.
Maybe that's why I play SWTOR, FFXIV, ESO... It's not for gear so I can grind vet, savage, extreme, whatever you want to call the highest difficulty dungeons to, yep, get more gear, to grind the trials for...more gear, and wash, rinse, repeat. For me, what some are calling 'endgame' isn't the fun part. It's everything outside those trials/dungeons/raids that is.
You're not wrong, this was a very stupid video.
@@Uhlbelk Like most of his videos. But here title at least is correct. Developers do not want me to play their game, because they care only about endgame. Why I should hit endgame if I can't lvl up with fun?
@@ladrok97 The problem is everyone enjoys games for different reasons and an endgame is great for people who enjoy endgame, and a game that caters to endgame is going to attract those players. It doesn't ruin a game. What ruins games is when developers only focus on one thing. Which is typically motivated by money and the market. Games like FFXIV are good because they don't cater to one style of player, they invest in doing good in all areas of the game and not only does this allow anyone to play the game and find their own niche, but it allows people to branch to new experiences without going to a different game. The only thing that truly ruins games is when the company is motivated only by money and not by the passion of making a good product.
I actually like early game the most
swtor in particular definitely made the "journey to endgame" worthwhile with its storylines for both classes and areas, though, to call it an MMO is a bit misleading..it's more like a story-driven game with multiplayer bits
i disagree that end game is better than levelling to some degree. WHen you hit end game, it just becomes repetitive with recycled content.
That's one of the reasons I liked Aion. For the base game, it was packed with group areas and dungeons from lv15 to 50. I didn't really care about endgame, cause the rest of it was so fun.
yeah most mmos endgame boils down to, 'here's some bosses/raids you can do once a week and here's some that you can do daily'. it becomes more like a checklist of what you got left to do that week before you log off for the rest of the week untill reset. (ff14 is bad for this)
@@conorhennell2623 World of Warcraft is exactly the same. Heroics/Mythics everyday - raids once a week.
I disagree. I feel the leveling experience up to the endgame is half of the coin.
It usually contains most of the story. You travel, quest, discover and grow. This is truly the RPG part of the game.
Endgame is there to make your progress NOT irrelevant. If suddenly the game is over, then all progress feels lost.
Getting through pre-endgame makes your endgame feel worth it and earned. A sense of accomplishment.
I agree, some games are lazy with their pre-endgame material. But usually even there I personally enjoy the grind.
I'm just a person that enjoys grinding for the sake of grinding. Might be why OSRS is my favorite game
Josh, here's the problem for me with this video: typically I actually enjoy the part of the game BEFORE the endgame. The endgame is where it all stagnates and I'd rather go back to previous content and get all of my reputations to exalted, or finish all of the lower lvl quests before I move on to the endgame content, than actually jump straight in.
I realize this isn't the norm, but I've always done my level best to lvl slower and just enjoy the game as it's presented, to absorb all of it's content, than to rush to what others perceive as the 'good bit'.
Specifically, I've sunk several years into WoW, finally quitting once Cataclysm hit, with a return visit in Pandaria, but I've never enjoyed raiding as such - I much rather would solo a dungeon than team up with anyone else and that's mainly where endgame lets me down, as it's typically a must to play in large groups and I don't enjoy that gameplay style.
There are several more points to address, but the fact that you consider the endgame as the best part of a game, doesn't preclude others, such as myself, enjoying the parts before it more, and I'd hate for those parts to be cut out because players such as you happen to enjoy the endgame more.
@James Black I do enjoy MMOs - just not the multiplayer aspect, on most days.
Yes, I'm quite aware of Dark Souls, Demon Souls, and Bloodborne, as well as the expanded mythology of the Zelda games (across multiple platforms). I've not played any of them due to time constraints, though I'll probably pass on the Zelda titles.
Currently regularly playing Genshin Impact, Eve Online, Legends of Runeterra, and Warframe (though I haven't logged for a while now, but I do have 8k+ hours in it). That said, I also play in 3 DnD campaigns, one of which I run myself. So, yeah... busy.
@@DarkVeghetta I kinda see James' point though. You dislike group content in a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER game. You would much rather solo group content than play in a group. So your problem with Josh's viewpoint in this video isn't translated to the 'typical' MMO player, because you sir are a very a-typical MMO player. So point is, your point is not applicable to the vast majority of Josh's audience, just saying.Your point is valid, in your view point and in your condition surely but it falls flat for probably 90% of other MMO players.
Also James kinda trolls you saying you don't like MMOs and offers some great single-player experiences for you. I kind of agree. If you don't like the group content, there are MUCH better single player games out there that are way less boring/monotonous and with better story telling than going through an MMO solo. So I would also recommend checking some awesome single player RPG experiences, sounds like it'd be right up your alley.
@@DurkTurk hi, I'm also someone that typically prefers to play these games solo and I'll explain why. I started playing when I was younger and frankly just didn't want other people in my game because they didn't play the way I liked and I preferred playing myself. I enjoyed the game, the contents and the mechanics, just not the other players. Still kinda true today, but i go more out of my way to find other players like myself if I want to play with other people.
Warframe and Neverwinter are two games I've played a lot and have had the same issue in both. I always played warframe alone except when when played with my friend because other people rush through the mission, kill everything before I have a chance to do anything, and end the missions before I can explore and gather resources.
Doing dungeons in Neverwintwr started with me being weak and essentially being carried to being the one carrying the weaker players. It's boring on both sides because there's no player interaction and people just want to get the reward and move on. No one takes the time to explore or actually experience the content and if you do, you're either berated for wasting time and kicked or simply left behind. It's difficult to find other players that actually take their time since most players only care about making number go up, so often I play alone so I can actually experience the content.
If you don't care and you just play the content to get better gear to make number go up and produce happy brain chemical, that's fine, but understand that not everyone enjoys that and some of us prefe taking our time and exploring, reading dialogue and engaging with the content on a deeper level.
@@DurkTurk I'm a solo player and the reason I play MMOs is that I like the feeling of knowing that there is a lot of real players in my lobby, even though I don't actually want to do anything with that knowledge. I like the possibility of interaction without going out of my way to interact. That's something a single-player game will never present me (even though I love those too but for different reasons)
Well, WoW doesn’t really do the things he is commenting on. In WoW, you’re a nobody who becomes the town hero and you gradually grow from there on a slow boil. This is engaging content, especially if you read the quest text.
I remember being really early level in FFXIV and somehow managing to find my way into the snowy lands of Coerthas.
It was so fun because the area was gorgeous, and there was a sense of danger because I knew I'd be one hit by enemies if I got too close.
The ironic thing about this video is that none of the complaints about endgame apply to the game on screen, Final Fantasy XIV
Yeah I was confused by this when he was saying older skills suddenly become pointless when you hit max level. I'm a level 77 Paladin in FF XIV and I am still using the combo's I used from level 10 onwards.
Endgame unlocks Bozja and the Nier raids.
Although maps, relics, ishgardian restoration, gold saucer, hunts, pvp, squadrons, beast tribes, crafters/gatherers, gil farming, all jobs and races, endeavor, retainers, custom deliveries, potd, hoh are unlocked prior to that during leveling through the old expansions. Most of which are even available to free trial users.
@@jamesstewart7784 Kinda wish some was though, a 14 button rotation is kinda clunky. You are right of course.
I never got to FFXIV endgame because I got too bored leveling up to get there.
@@McwillX The stories are not bad...the running back and forth, back and forth...ran you ragged. Shame you didn't make it, it is a slow burn but was worth it.
I actually enjoyed FFXIV pre-endgame more than the endgame.
My old FC used to joke that the true Endgame is glamour. 😏
Really, though, the FFXIV design philosophy regarding endgame is planned obsolescence. You are just meant to be repeating activities that will eventually be added to the roulette, or earning stuff that will be just another cosmetic when the next expansion drops. Raid mounts and relic grinds are in the game to basically be a time-sink to keep players busy until the next actual content drop. YoshiP has famously said that he fully intends that players would take a break from the game between major content drops.
@@galacticbob1 You make it sound like thats not the way that 90% of MMOs run my guy. World of Warcraft, Perfect World, Everquest... the only notable exception that I can really think of is Elder Scrolls Online, since your chasing set bonuses instead of numbers for the most part.
I did the same with Tera.... It felt like sitting in town and queeing for raids only...
can't even get through the leveling because it's so awful
crazy i could never get to end game cuz there was nothing special about my entire experience with it to the point where i quit before endgame.
I've always hated endgame. To me, that's where the game ended. That's when I stopped adventuring, exploring, and progressing to instead settle down with the friends I made along the way and enjoy what I had accomplished.
I always saw endgame as retirement. A time to make a new character and new memories. But it feels like the philosophy changed at some point.
The philosophy hasn't changed for everyone based on some of the comments and my own penchant for playing MMO's like a single player RPG.
@@fredhurst2528 But MMO's are not single player games. And will not be better then one.
Try Dungeons and Dragons Online cause one of its two endgames is leveling, you can reincarnate at 20 or 30 and get a small bonus. If you reincarnate at 20 it takes you back to level 1 and you can change class and race if you wish cause its rebuilding your character. All your items get put into a special withdraw only stash so you can pull stuff as you want them while you level again.
@@129das LIKE
They didnt say mmo are single player
You got a point, except in my opinion when it comes to FF14 specifically, the leveling process is just as fun as the endgame because of the story. Not counting vanilla ARR that is, but Heavensward and onward.
Leveling is fun, until you decide to create a second character...
@@coyotetrickster5758 at least, you can play all class with one character.
@@charlestrudel8308 Yes, you can, and I wouldn't think much of it but they lock so much behind the MSQ and Class Leveling quests, and they sell skips, and there is the popular Deep Dives that only gives you 2 saves for your friends, so you create a second toon to play them with your other friends which makes it a tad fishy. But hey, cash shop floats the game, not like I pay a sub...er hey!
@@coyotetrickster5758 yeah, you are completely right about selling the level skip, but since world of warcraft was able to do it first, all mmos have done it... Really, microtransaction are a plague.
@@charlestrudel8308 existed, your horses there cowboy. World of Warcraft sells leveling tokens, but it really doesn't *make* you do any quests to unlock content. If it does, it's a short chain.
Meanwhile FFXIV insists you play through 300-ish quests of ARR, 250-ish of Heavensward, and then God only knows how many Stormblood has before you can scratch shadowbringers. Square Enix can get right *fucked* for that decision. I quit about halfway through ARR because the dialogue was cringy trash and I hate fetch questing to start with. I don't care if they literally did everything else right, forcing 300 hours of content down you gullet before you can play the expansion that you just paid for is God awful if you're new to the game, or God forbid returning to see what things are like after playing 1.0.
Do you know that if you had a level 50 job with everything unlocked in 1.0 they took your abilities and locked them behind class quests when ARR was released? Boy, did that piss me off. I *still* get angry about that move. SE lost their damned minds with FFXIV.
There's one thing someone once said to me in an MMO that really stuck with me, and this video reminded me of it.
We were in a grinding area just grinding away to get levels, and I was complaining about how boring and unfun it was to have to grind to get to the fun part. This person said, "You think grinding is supposed to be fun?"
I didn't even know how to respond to that at the time, but now I do. *Yes,* I do think grinding should be fun, because I think *video games* should be fun! I don't understand how people can slog through hours and hours of monotonous tasks for the chance to do something fun, instead of just picking up another game that *is* fun. Grinding is the reason I rarely reach endgame in most MMOs, because I don't have the focus, patience, or desire to sit through a boring, repetitive tutorial the length of three feature films back to back. And that's not to say I don't like MMOs as a whole; games like RuneScape will always have a special place in my heart even if I don't play them anymore, I just think that games should be fun to play, and I don't know why that's such a controversial opinion.
started a new Hardcore Ironman last christmas, hadn't played RuneScape in years. Met a guy, obviously bored, filling out some drop achievement diary or some such on low level monsters that i had a slayer task on. He couldn't comprehend me NOT wanting to do a particular quest to get the strongest staff to cast the best magic, to level faster. 2 months have passed and I'm playing around 2-4h per day and I'm having fun. He's probably grinding the next monster on the list of that achievement list.
It's pretty interesting how FFXIV involuntarily solves some of these issues by having all classes in one character. The MSQ (the main quest) is enough to take your main class to the level cap and even gives you good enough gear to start your journey into endgame, but all the side quests and content parallel to the main story is left alone. Then you try out a new class that will start at a lower level; now you have all the side content that is technically obsolete because you're at endgame actually be of interest because you're bringing up another class from scratch.
Hell yeah. I didn't throw away certain gear throughout my levelling because I had other classes that could use it as they got to higher levels.
FFXIV also wins at this because the old endgames form this sort of ladder as you work your way up through each expansion, and the sync makes sure they stay well-populated even long after their drops are relevant to endgamers. The game is truly a work of genius
I have to agree really with FF14. I’ve been playing the game for about ten months and I’m only lvl 65 Smn/Sch and lvl 70 Whm. A Hyur female that I’ve bonded with.
As for the story I’m somewhere shortly before Stormblood. Next main quest takes me beyond Baelsar’s Wall. I’ve got to finish my job quests for Scholar before I go. But I look forward to seeing what’s beyond the wall. I’ve been pretty good at avoiding future spoilers and a few have slipped through but the majority remains unknown.
Spoilers for Stormblood and beyond beyond this point.
I’ve heard of Zenos (I think) and I know he beats the WoL at least once. Apparently for once he has no complex motivations beyond a love of being strong and cruel and I’m okay with that. Not everyone needs to have clever motives like Sephiroth or Nero or even Gaius Balesar.
I understand that we work with Ala’Mighans, visit Ala Migho and work with the rebels against the Garlean Empire and somehow actually win and liberate Ala’Migho eventually.
I know we visit some really Japanese/Far Eastern towns/cities in terms of aesthetics but I have no clue why and when. It could even be what Ala’Migho looks like for all I know though I really doubt it. I’ll be going to some beautiful and wonderful places no doubt. I loved Ishgard for example. As a Brit who paid attention in history classes many years ago in school and still likes watching history documentaries and dramas I find Ishgard fun and fascinating to look at and learn about.
On top of that I nearly always love it when dragons are featured in a game and for the most part I loved Heavensward. What does disappoint me is when a game forces the situation so that dragons are enemies to be killed. For example I disliked being Dragonborn in Skyrim as the ultimate Dragonslayer. I only ever killed dragons in self defence or defence of a village, town, city or settlement and if the dragon retreated I’d often let it go unless I badly needed it’s soul.
But I was delighted to meet Paarthurnax and later Odhving to make pacts with them. I even named my FF14 chocobo partner after Paarthurnax. And because I worked with Paarthurnax in Skyrim I had hope at endgame that peace could be found between the humanoids and dragons in Skyrim. I wrote my post-game fanfic where peace was negotiated.
Going back to Ishgard I was pleased with the plan to find Hraesvelgyr and try to negotiate peace. The Devs sure made me work for it though with Nidhogg and Estinien making it hard to get peace.
In any case while I loved Ishgard and will probably loved what beyond Baelsar’s Wall has for me. But Limsa Lominsa is my FF14 home for me.
As an Arcanist hoping to follow the Summoner Scholar split my baby time was there although I ended up using Smn for solo content and Sch for group content. And liking healing so much I took up Conjurer and later White Mage.
Let’s see I know at some point we end up in “The First” which is the reality that group of hard-asses came from who were stupid enough to work with the Ascians come from. Apparently we’ll need to deal with their “Flood” ourselves.
Apparently we learn what the Ascian are really up to though I don’t know what exactly. Apparently they think of us as pale echoes of tea people or something.
Endwalker I know even less. We go to old Sharlaya and meet Alphinaud’s asshole of a father. We also apparently go to the moon and meet a local rabbit based beast tribe there. And something called the “end days” are coming.
That’s it. Everything else is utterly unknown for me and that’s the way I prefer it. So far just advancing through the game via expansions is a plenty fun for me. I’m in no rush to get to endgame. It’ll still be there when I arrive eventually. Right now I’m enjoying the journey with my chilled out FC friends keeping me company. I wish more MMOs did that.
Especially ones like Star Trek Online. Once, years ago each season was dedicated to a specific energy. Ferengi merchant luring you into an ambush by the Klingon Empire who were at war with the Federation in this game. Then the Borg show up to attack a Federation colony to give new credit players a taste of the good stuff before dumping your ship/crew into a squad helping keep Starfleet operating against the Klingon during the war.
Next chapter would see you assigned to a fleet handling some of the problems that the shattered remnants of the Romulans were causing. Next chapter was being assigned to DS9 to handle trouble from the Cardassians, Dominion, Marquis and the mirror universe. They used to be like roughly 20 missions per chapter. Later on you’d face the Borg again, fight the Voth in a newly discovered Dyson Sphere. The Iconian gateway allowed fast and easy travel to the Delta Quadrant to begin forging an alliance against the Vaudwaar who’d somehow aquire powerful ships and weapons. Eventually you’d discover the long-thought extinct Iconians and their servitor races were behind it all.
But endgame started at the level cap. I think it was lvl 60 by the time I left near the end but it was lvl 50 for much of my time there. T5 ships were the best with a Jem’Hadar attack ship being the best in the game. And yeah most of the fun stuff started at lvl 50. But getting there was still a journey.
At least until lvl 60 cap was introduced and T6 ships became a thing. Everything changed. Twenty or so lower quality decent missions were removed from the game to be replaced by 4-6 much shorter but higher quality story missions that didn’t make up for the vast swathes of content removed.
I did try a new character from scratch but she raced through the levelling process and hit 60 far too fast. All her gear was pretty poor quality by this point and she’d have to start farming for upgraded gear, wait months or spend money to get the crafting schools high enough. (With the 24 hour cooldown timers it would take like 3 months just to level up one crafting skill.) Or spend money to reduce the process… or transfer gear from another character with high crafting skills. I opted for the latter but then soon drifted away from it. STO is still on my computer but I’d have to do almost two years worth of patching and probably have no idea how much more has been warped beyond recognition.
Maybe I’ll just stay in Eorzea.
@@mikoto7693 hello Mikoto. Did you allready meet your namesake? Glad to hear you are having fun.
GW2 ruled for this, All previous zones you'd have good reason to go back to for the puzzling which was a reward in and of itself. Your abilities are always relevant as they all scale in a similar fashion with nearly any combination of abilities being viable. I couldn't speak much for anything else, but I loved GW2 as someone who hates endgame, because I could continue doing the same stuff I did for levelling even despite hitting the endgame.
"I want to be destroyed if I'm low level" So true.
The only point I would make is that I only really enjoy playing through the story of any game. I've NEVER been involved in endgame for any of the MMOs I've played. My endgame has always just been making a new character and starting over :)
Did you play FFXIV then? One of the best story systems, following you from character creation to max level.
@@robertlefeaux I had in the past but never really got into it. Just started it again recently and I'm actually enjoying it :)
@@AdianBlack I haven't played in a bit either. I play to the end of each xpac but I dont really do any end game stuff, or even dungeons unless it's a story requirement. My thing now is trying out different mmos so I can get that newb high each time. Another game I reccomend is Star Wars the Old Republic. It's cheap to get into, with the subscription being your only expense. Base game and all xpacs are free. The story system is like FFXIV in that it follows you from lvl one to max. An update a few years back raised the exp from story quests high enough that you dont need to do any of the typical boring fetch quests. Just focus on fun and story. Plus it's got flying missions and pvp that new players will find fun but get stale at max level. Definitely worth trying for one month.
I love how FF14 handles your path to the end game - the story. You will progress through levels and learn your role in BRILIANT story. But, for the one job, others you will need to level yourself. More than that, I'd say I am not so much moved by the end game of FF14, because the story is so good it dwarfs the raiding routine. I will open raids, pass through them once or twice for the story (because even there it is that good) and will wait for the new expansion.
Thanks for your videos.
Just one comment: When you mention some feature, item, location, etc. about a game, show it on the video. Your videos are more like a podcast actually, than videos. That's not a bad thing, but I'd be way more explanatory if you show images of that.
Also: Make an Spotify podcast, you have the audios ready to upload :P
Have a nice day!
Thanks banish, I'll look into doing that!
My guide videos are heavily edited, these are quicker podcast style opinion peices, but yes I'll spend more time making the visuals match up :)
Some people have no idea how fun infinite leveling game are
Cube World Alpha was the perfect example for that to me, the game always leveled with you, and you continously got better and better. The lack of content in the game was very easy to forget in my 300 hours of playing it, but after a certain point, you start to notice it, and leave, only to return months later with a new class and have yourself another adventure
Being able to access endgame content at lower levels reminded me of Dark Age of Camelot. Though pve was grindy and terrible (leading to player interaction and making friends, which kept it bearable), areas weren't level gated the way they are now. You'd usually have a ~20 or so level range of mobs in any given area, which could lead to funny (or frustrating, depending on how you look at it) situations, especially when new to the game. You could even run into open world raid bosses by accident when exploring an area. Given the insane aggro range they tended to have, you'd only get a brief look at them before lying face down and wondering wtf just happened. The same went for pvp, as you could enter the end game pvp zones at whatever level and even earn decent xp at higher levels, as a tradeoff for constant risk of being ganked. I still remember being level 30 or so and ending up in Emain without really knowing what was going on, watching groups of players fighting each other in the distance, and briefly getting taken out by a stealth enemy. Though pretty much all above experiences were pointless from a gear/xp perspective, they were exciting, confusing, or gave me something to look forward to and work towards.
You're endgame sounds like the dark souls approach. You can go down to the catacombs and get absolutely destroyed and go to the undead berg but if you have the skill under your belt you can go straight into the catacombs and work your way through it.
One thing I liked in City of Heroes was the Sidekick/Mentor system, where characters of vastly different levels could do dungeons together, either by giving the lower character a massive power boost in stat numbers, or by nerfing the stats of the higher characters, to equalize them for the same dungeon or play area. This allowed Endgame heroes to still have fun doing older missions helping out the newbies, and it gave a chance for the noobies to take a look at what higher-level areas had to offer in a controlled experience.
Even better earlier attacks and powers never, ever became obsolete. They leveled up with you, you werent going to be playing end game only using inferno as a fire blaster, youd still be using flairs and fireblast or blaze ect regularly. Force fielders would never abandon the first shields upon unlocking dispersion field ect.
I think it even got updated content for earlier content.
Love playing city of heroes homecoming server currently.
Hey, just started watching your videos and I love your content! I have to say, however, I disagree with this. Levelling is its own side game, and the first few levels generally start slow. In the case of FFXIV your abilities do all progress off one another and it is a good opportunity to learn to use them. Also, FFXIV has the excellent job system and level sync, which allows you to rerun and experience old content. It's gearing system is boringly vertical, but many of the games "endgame" systems are still available to lower level players(glamour, gold saucer, poetics unlock at level 50, much of the previous endgame content is still fun and gives good rewards). I also think that, aside from the now-trimmed level 50 post game, it has an excellent story to follow along and enjoy the journey of. I can't speak as much for WoW, because every levelling grind winds up being a speedrun for me, but I think it's more in how what comes before endgame is designed, rather than having an endgame.
which is why him including FFXIV is weird. I spend more time in "old content" in FFXIV than I do in endgame. Because there is just so much to do and endgame raiding with my FC is a weekly thing, so a lot of the time on the other days I'll just level another job or my crafters, try to get an orchestrion role from a specific non-endgame raid etc. and every expansion the story leading up to endgame was way more fun than finally being at endgame and the story being mostly over until the next patch comes out.
and here i am, going around the core tyria in gw2 to collect material for my next legendary because i'm tired of the endgame and wanted a change of pace, chilling and logging and mining...
I feel 2 games do Pre-Endgame really well: FF14 and GW2.
They both had interesting story and leveling mechanics that treat you like a hero while teaching you the game.
They both have meta-events (Fates for FF14) to join in that stay relevant even at max level.
GW2 even had world bosses that you can join in at any level since the zone scales higher level players down to the Zone's level.
Yes more stuff opens up at high level, but the Pre-Endgame feels relevant at endgame. Aether currents for FF14 and map completion for GW2 to name a few.
EVE does pre-endgame really well by not having endgame.
However that game is crazy enough.
about 10 minutes into this video I thought to myself "osrs does almost all of these things really well". Felt good to hear an mmorpg veteran appreciate the gem that is oldschool runescape
Osrs is one of the best, im a 10 year vet of that game and its just brilliant :)
What is osrs?
@@JonathanVachon777 as the OC said, osrs = oldschool runescape =)
@@JonathanVachon777 oldschool runescape
I play rs3 but its nice to see other runescape players around!
I wonder how a leveless MMO might work. Leveless does not necessarily mean there is no end game, but it would make it much harder to define, and if your power was tied to doing quests, such as locking powering up abilities and such behind them, people would have reason to travel all over the game to max them out. For example say you got someone leveling an ice mage or whatever, in the standard RPG what they would do is level up and get stronger and learn the new abilities. What if instead of leveling up, you actively strengthened the abilities by doing quests all over the world? This also could apply to profession stuff and such. It still replicated the questing to power up your character thing, but would not also have some arbitrary level restriction on everything. I think if every quest offers something useful to someone at any level, people would be much cooler with visiting more zones or "going back" to do stuff they hadn't before. A min-maxer "muh endgame" player will still complete a quest in a starter zone if the reward is increasing the damage of fireball by 1%. Plus this could be used to make a more interesting gear system than just "higher level = better stats" I'm not a game dev so maybe is would totally blow, but I think it's interesting to think about, as I too am tired of "end game is the reeeeeal game" mentality.
This is why I prefer the concept of the “Sandpark”, there’s always something worth doing in all the zones because the sandbox elements require the use of the entire game map.
Sandbox + Theme park = "Sandpark"
A shame nearly all sandpark MMOs are Open PvP.
Polls show that at least half of MMO players hate Open PvP.
I've played some really fun low level dungeons in MMOs: Deadmines in WoW, the first instance in SWTOR, basically all the low level dungeons in FF14. SWTOR was awesome when you had a group that cared about the cutscenes and dialogue choices, but unfortunately most players were too impatient and just wanted to skip everything and get things over with.
Late to reply, but I agree wholeheartedly. The early dungeons of WoW, hell all the classic dungeons really, were a lot of fun and many in TBC as well. Once wrath hit is where I noticed dungeons basically became an experience "on rails" and didn't require much thought. I want another BRD, another dire maul, another caverns of time.
I prefer the leveling bit, once end game starts I usually end up quitting because it starts to feel like there's no progression, like my character is no longer growing, like I'm no longer growing...
Your point about RS is something I’ve been saying for a very long time. RS is a great game because it feels like everything is important at every level. The game doesn’t start at max level, it starts once you finish the tutorial.
Exactly. I like that there is always a goal to achieve at every level. Currently I'm about to start the comp grind.
FINAL FANTASY XI has the best endgame of any mmo while keeping older content relevant hands down
@@Greenbeard77 should've been more clear I meant pre abyssea ffxi
Play on a private server for an exceptional experience.
whats the end game?
I'm really confuse about this video, it makes sence and you're right in a lot of points, but in the video you're playing FF XiV, one of the games that don't make old content irrelevant in any point of the game, doesn't have a boring lvling system since the story is amazing and engaging (and you don't need to do that again and again for every new class if you don't want that), your first skills are never irrelevant, in fact, are a huge part of the full rotation, it doesn't make old maps irrelevant because most of the players are always in cities that they like, for me the last maps are just for using the mechants that sell things for endgame or stuff like that, and in my opinion, is one of the best mmorpg to this day, if not the best, even now that i'm not playing the game at the moment, i still belive it's the best experience that i have playing an mmo.
Holy run on sentence, Batman! But yeah, I agree with everything you said.
@Arbyte First, that is your opinion, most of the players that i found loved the story even the first part of ARR, of course is not at the same level as the rest of the game, but still a lot better than most of the mmorpg games. Second, again is your opinion, i don't know where do you try to find a dungeon or what are you doing wrong to que for 1 hour to any content, or maybe i know, you must be a dps, and that's pretty normal for a dps in every mmo. And the last thing, again, your opinion and btw, maybe your server is not full of people leveling new characters or doing stuffs that need to be done in low lvl maps, but i usually find people in almost every map, of course not as much as in a city but maps are not empty, but again, that could happen because you don't play in the same server as me, and if you don't know, servers are not just a name and an x amount of people playing at that server, you have even RP servers, the game didn't make the server for that, the people did that. So like i said, maybe your server is full of people just runing dungeons or end game content, maybe another server is full of people doing quest for the relic weapons or farming x mount or leveling tribes, etc, and the fact that you tell me that there is no people when i saw a lot of people doing stuffs like that is pretty stupid man. You have your own experience, but that doesn't make it the truth, that's just your opinion based on your own feelings and experiences, i have my own and i can say the opposite about the game.
ARR raids and dungeons are irrelevant though... you don’t get level 80 gear from them
@@davidsobrito2790 So? The current gear wont be relevant for long either. There will always be current gear that will soon be replaced by other current gear. Do you just have zero interest in the actual content itself? They're worth running because it's fun. There's also gear for glamour, mounts, etc.
@@davidsobrito2790 Not everything in mmo are end game gear dude, mostly in FF XIV, people are not running that content because they need lvl 80 gear, actually, if you want to farm your lvl 80 gear, you need to wait 1 week between raids, so people usually use that time to run old content to farm glams, mounts, materials or just for fun.
I really like how WoW redid their game and now you can level in any zone you want and the zone scales to you, and you can time walk back to old content and make it your level, so that means I can start a brand new toon and time walk my way through Wrath, Cata, Mists, Vanilla, TBC, Legion or BFA (if I hated myself). WoW has a lot of problems, but this is the one thing they did right. They also gave us a new tutorial level that really goes over how to play your class and then turns you lose.
I'm with most of the viewers here, I think, when I say I had far more fun levelling than I ever did in end-game. If you don't enjoy the levelling process, then there's a good chance you won't enjoy the game at all. The MMORPG's who treat the levelling process as fly-over-territory probably have a boring levelling process and are not the game for me. JSH said it best when he said "end game is where the money is." This is why games try to get you there so quickly. The whales are the money source.
Why not just mix lower level and higher level content throughout the same zones? It can make sense in the story, a peaceful city with spread out plains as far as the eyes can reach is home to one of the higher level dungeons where some powerful monster has been sealed eons ago. This would give higher level players a reason to visit lower level zones and makes it so that the lower level player has something to strive towards and can actually see. This can also give you a sense of fulfillment the moment you revisit a previous area and notice how much you and your character have grown. The same goes for powerful world/area bosses or hidden spots in zone that contain high level monsters to encounter.
Having said that there is just an inherent flaw within the way that leveling works and the way you get better gear. There is always an optimal piece of gear that will make every other piece of it's kind useless, this is just what happens when you progress. If you make content that is harder to do you will need higher level gear and skills in order to beat it, since boss/monster mechanics can only do so much. An option to solve something like that might be in making gear that is not necessarily better, but different. Maybe to beat a boss you need a piece of gear that gives you boosts to certain types of resistance or damage to a certain element otherwise it is nigh on impossible to take down. This means that in order to beat a boss you might need new gear, but the older gear is still necessary to beat previous content due to the benefits it presents. This way you can keep older content relevant while still maintaining a sense of progression. The problem is that this progression is only felt when you are finally in the "endgame". So this does not solve the progression problem but might hold some value when a new expansion is released.
All in all with the problems that leveling causes there is not necessarily a right way to do the progression into "endgame". A good story might do the trick but with slow combat and click and wait mechanics it can only get you so far, I'm looking at your FFXIV. Combat might be fun but after 100's of hours that will also wear off, *cough* BDO *cough*. As I see it, changing the way leveling works is a hard thing to do since the game sorta needs a form of progression to the harder content. This will eventually make old content irrelevant. You can slow down the leveling progress, but slow it down too much and players will feel like they are not progressing at all. Speed it up too much and you make every single piece of content that was created before the endgame completely useless (If you know the difference between BDO leveling at launch and how it is now you know what I mean). It is a delicate balance that has to be created and there are few, if any, games that get this balance exactly right, especially when expansions are added during the games lifespan.
Having said that OSRS does have a way that is near perfect and I agree with you on that point although I am not sure how that would translate to a game with the classic Holy Trinity as we know it.
It's a hard one to solve, but I was fond of the way City of Heroes does it. Because of the way reward scaling works and the level matching system, all content is relevant all the time. You can take you max level character and go derp around with some friends in a level 20 taskforce/quest and still get rewards that are useful to you. Max level incarnate raids give their own rewards so being max level still has those benefits to you, but the devs did a good job of making the whole process of leveling feel worthwhile and the content you passed through to get to max still worth doing if you want to. This includes a time-travel system to replay old quests you might have missed
DDO was good about giving out gear while leveling that you weren't likely to replace for a long time, at least back when I played it.
Since challenges were more varied, you had the chance to get things like a cloak that had an open lock spell 1/rest that would allow you to skip some stuff or get extra loot/bonus objectives in certain instances, gear that would have some healing spells that it could use each day in order to recover between combats without needing to burn coin on consumables, an item that would increase your jump height, elemental resistance, movement speed boosts, etc.
They never even really got replaced by better versions, since you can just use both to get even more uses per day.
It's a shame Everquest 2 released near when WoW did. I like to think that it may have done better if it didn't. one of the cool things was that there were low level raid mobs. as low as level 20ish.
"Let me go there and die!"
This is actually something I love about WoW, I'm pretty notorious for playing Druid just for the stealth and travel forms so I can go anywhere.
Running into higher level areas to collect the flightpaths for later. Good times!
The journey to end game use to be what the mmorpg was all about.
Still is with some, like the game on screen.
I think one of the saddest things about this is I want my friends to join me in an endgame mmo, I don’t want to do the quests with them. I enjoy the questing/leveling experience but it’s something better done alone. Mmos are a social game and yet they are the hardest to introduce to friensa
I'm the opposite... I hate reaching endgame because there's so little to actually do. What do you do with Endgame? Uhm... run the handful of dungeons, raids, and quests available to you ad nauseum for the chance to roll the gear you want. Your options for fun are effectively cut down to 1/10th of what they were once you reach end-game. Oh, but your game might have 30 endgame dungeons and 50 raids! Yeah, who cares? Your players will only ever end up running 1 or 2 of them and that's just for the gear they drop and all other "end game" dungeons and raids and content become absolutely obsolete. Endgame is literally just "before endgame" with much less relevant content for you. The endgame effectively closes off almost everything fun in your MMO in order to get you to do one or two activities every single day and that's it.
Why do you think so many players create "alts"? Because endgame is garbage in most MMOs. It isn't the fun part. Progression in endgame is so stunted and limited and pointless that players burn out on it quickly and no longer want to do it. So, they create an alt account to do the leveling portion again. Why? Because leveling up and tackling those challenges all over again gives a better sense of progression and accomplishment than grinding the same raid 30-40 times a week in hopes you get the ONE piece of equipment you want.
Endgame is stupid. I like avoiding it. I have the most fun in leveling, learning my class, obtaining stuff for it, accomplishing things on the way to endgame. Endgame just becomes a freakin' chore.
I hate leveling, it's boring and repetitive with 0 challenge.I quit ESO because the leveling was so easy I could just slam my head on the keyboard and never have to worry about dying. The most fun I ever had in MMOs was getting together with a guild and tackling difficult raids, and pushing high mythic+ in Legion. You must have a horrible guild if it takes you 40 raids to get an upgrade lmao. The endgame is the most fun for me
@@craigferge4702 The only MMO I ever found leveling to be "boring and repetitive" was WoW. But, it is the most grindy and least rewarding MMO I've ever played. Even Runescape tends to reward you with new content every single level you gain so the grind is semi-worth it.
Most other MMO's that I've played, the leveling process is fairly painless and streamlined. It also tends to accomplish the task of teaching you how to play your character class so that by the time you hit max level, you've got the baseline amount of skill to tackle most challenges.
As for my guilds sucking... Eh, I don't think I've been in any guild that I "fell in love with". More often than not, they're just "a means to an end", because guilds are so full of divas and toxic people that they're usually not worth interacting with outside of needing something. I don't even really "make friends" in guilds, because... well... I have friends in real life. Why do I want friends in an online community where once the game dies or someone gets bored, you never ever talk again? That's not even friendship, that's just "trench bonds". Namely, you're friends of convenience and only bond over the shared experience, sort of like being in Trench Warfare. Not my thing. I'd rather make real friends than pretend ones.
I'm also just not really a fan of running content more than a handful of times. I'll run a Raid maybe 3 times maximum. After I've run it once, I've seen everything it has to offer. The second run isn't going to be any more fun than the first. It's going to give me diminishing returns with each subsequent run. This is the downside to "endgame content". It isn't fun. It's just a Skinner Box that tricks you into thinking you're having fun, when you're not, because you now have Stockholm Syndrome. The only way a Raid could get "more fun" for me is if it were possible to "speedrun" it after each completion. Probably why I like FFXIV so much. You can Unsync. I need to run this dungeon/Raid 10 more times? Guys, let's just Unsync and OP clear this sucker. I don't need the XP, just the loot. 20 Second clears are quite nice.
I dunno, I don't really run a Raid a ton of times. The horror stories I've heard about ending up running Raids 50 or more times and still never getting the drop they need because others get it first, or it just doesn't drop... Yeah, no. I'm not into that. I'm not into engaging with Stockholm Syndrome and convincing myself a repetitive and monotonous task for no reason is fun. At least my job pays me for it. With an MMO, I have to pay them to do it.
just making this comment because the background footage was FFXIV i don't really think this idea works for FFXIV as most content isn't level gated its story gated on your first job, sure a good chunk of the ARR dungeons you don't really need the story context for but starting in HW almost all of the dungeons are directly tied into the story and wouldn't make any sense todo them before you hit that part of the story. really FFXIV is a single-player final fantasy game with multiplayer elements to it until the end of the story where everything now requires other people
That's a good point. And if endgame is the sole goal, the XIV isn't the right game to play. People who play a game known for its story just to skip said story will always be a mystery to me.
@@keybladesrus As a player interested in FFXIVs end game who wishes the story wasn't so beloved so I could skip it... it might be known for it's story but that doesn't mean it's lacking everywhere else.
It looks like the perfect place to set up a community by finding a cute free company, or finding people to grind with to get cosplay gear. The story is good, but the world, lore, fashion, community is all really good. It's also extremely immersive with it's jobs each having roles in the world and aesthetics, it's just great.
@@keybladesrus allow me to demystify it. If I want story, I'll play a single player game. The point of an MMO (to me) is to *create* a story myself, with the people that I will encounter in the game. I only need enough story out of the game to give me some small sense of attachment to the world, and by and large the story should be background fluff rather than the focal point. I genuinely don't care why *the game* says I should be running this dungeon, or grinding through that raid encounter. I'm not doing it for the game. I'm doing it for myself, for the gear or the fun, and doing it to help my in-game friends.
I started playing MMOs when Final Fantasy XI was a relevant thing. I can't tell you why the game wanted me to go into the Sky or Sea to kill Gods. I have no clue why Limbus or Dynamis existsled, or why we were delving into Assaults or camping Highly Notorious Monsters. But I can tell you that I had fun doing it and helping my friends get geared (while getting some fat loot for myself.) And I could say the same for the dungeons and raids I ran in World of Warcraft during Vanilla, TBC, Wrath, Cataclysm, and to some extent in Legion and BFA. I don't care why the game says I should, if anything the story is hampering me and delaying me from doing the things I *want* to do.
@@kuuryotwo5153 I get that point of view, but your response didn't fully explain it to me. FFXIV's main thing is its story. Clearly, you don't care about that. So what is it about XIV specifically? There are other MMOs, and I'm sure they don't lock nearly all of the game's content behind story progression. What about XIV itself draws you in that other, less story-driven MMOs aren't offering you?
Ironically the storygating in FFXIV is what caught me out and made me quit. I am an explorer and crafter at heart and i loved doing gathering and crafting activities so much, I actually leveled way ahead on crafting professions, so at some point I could not hand in daily crafting mission anymore because they required ingredients from areas I could not get to yet. So i finally girded my loins, started questing through the story - which I enjoyed - until got stuck on some ludicrously difficult content; some sort of Inquisitor I needed to kill and I needed 27 attempts in total. Even after reading the description and watching several videos on how to do it (there is only one, very specific way to make it work) it took me a dozen times until the NPC's got it just right. And it had to be done solo. That almost broke my will because i hate puzzle games. Still I soldiered on and the quests started pouring in, I leveled through patch after patch and then it finally caught me out. The further I got, dungeon density increased and i hate dungeons and raiding witha passion. Call me a snowflake, but being under massive pressure to perform in an unknown place, while being shouted at to be faster, gogogogogo! and making no mistakes at all, I can get that all day long at work, DEFINITELY not something I want in my entertainment.
So, long story short, i gave up, bit the bullet and bought my way through the story, spent several hours watching all the cutscenes I missed and then started to explore the new areas that I could now get to for my crafting and gathering... and after a few days I just walked away. I had tried too hard and i just could not enjoy the game anymore.
Yeah, go and play Farmville, I know. I heard that before.
They could also resolve this by making pre-endgame optional content give/reduce rewards and unique items, highly useful and not tradeable.
Didn't save that small village from the orcs yet? Increased market prices for ore minded by that village.
Didn't help the hotel owner in that one quest? Can't use his hotel chain as a teleport location.
Didn't befriend those 2 hunters? Well, without them the monsters in this area change for these less farmable ones, because they are the ones who control the monster populations, and without their help, the desirable monsters are killed by the undesirable ones.
Make every quest meaningful in some long term way so that it helps in the endgame beyond being an experience stepping stone.
These would have to be properly made quests that are fun, with memorable characters that you are happy to see in future content as you care for them and know their contribution to your endgame success.
I 'm actually working on the lore master achievement in Wow, while actually reading the quests, just because I love the story and lore. I used to enjoy raiding with my guild, but they never actually talk in guild chat anymore, and wouldn't let me raid this expac because I didn't have the best possible gear as soon as the raid was available.
ESO handles this problem well imo
Yes and no. This may sound weird, but ESO doesn't really have any endgame. There's the vet versions of instanced content which require level 50, of course, but from level 3 the entire map is open. (Excluding PvP, which unlocks at level 10.) That includes every dungeon, trial, and arena. The group finder is locked, and gives you the ability to queue in at higher levels, but if you have a group, you can go in. Hell, I've got a level 8 nHRC clear on PCEU server.
I mean, there are the things you'd expect. A load of difficult group content, all of which is balanced around having an endgame build, and familiarity with the combat system, but all of it was available to you at lower difficulty from the moment you stepped out of the tutorial.
When Hayes made the video, there was still a serious problem though. Because you couldn't farm for gear until you hit 50/160, or items would be trash. I had a BSW BBQ stick drop at level 49 ages ago, and that was trashed, because it wasn't a 160. The Set Collection system is a game changer on that front, but the game used to be even more severe about the kickover between getting gear after you hit 50/160.
Eso is wonky
Think he picked it as the background game. But think ffxiv does a competent job at trying to rectify these issues.
Multiple jobs to level, story quest constantly taking you back to low level areas. The Duty Roulette and mentor system gives vet players a reason to return to old Dungeons.
Somewhat disagree with the premise here... my GF and I have enjoyed leveling characters in WoW more than we enjoy the end game. What you consider "boring" and trivial content, other people consider to be the best content, and would rather avoid the hardcore end game content of raids and PVP.
I think the main thing is to make sure players are unlocking stuff they may use later on. This could be skills, waypoints, cosmetics, or similar things, which aren't just automatically received when you get to max level.
one of the things I like about ESO is the fact you can go anywhere whenever you like, even if you're drastically underleveled, like mainline elderscrolls games let you do
The problem (I do like ESO btw) with ESO is, that it's all just too easy. It's super nice to be able to go everywhere and the game has actual quests, not MMO like quests, but real ones with story....but the gameplay itself is so super unchallenging. I've heard that it gets challenging at, you guessed it, endgame :(
I get why it's hard to make a game challenging from the beginning, because you'll lose a lot of the very casual playerbase. The best approach imo is a system, where a) levels make you stronger, but not so super much, that skill can't make up for quite a few levels and b) all content is accessible at any time. So then it's your choice if you try to go to that lvl 50 zone at lvl 50, or go there at lvl 40 already and struggle....or maybe you'll have so much game knowledge and a good build, that you can handle that same zone at lvl 30 and actually feel good!
This topic makes me think back to pre-Big Bang Maplestory. Level grinding was very slow (1-2lvs per day) so you’d spend a lot of time watching the high level content from afar. However there was no barrier to exploring outside your range. The most iconic example of this was the Orbis ship. A sky ship with an indoor and outdoor area that took ~15min to travel between worlds. Orbis’s lowest level content begins at level 30 so you have a reason to take the ship after your 1st job advancement. During the trip there’s a chance that a Balrog ship would attack, spawning 2-3 Crimson Balrog, a level 100 flying beast that can fire black lightning. You needed to be minimum lv75 to not be one-shot by just touching them. High level players would hang out outside waiting for the CBs to show up and farm them, and the low players would hide indoors to be safe. The funnest thing was being in the 30s and peaking outside real fast. You would maybe see the edge of the Balrog ship or one of them fly by, maybe even see some of the high level skills other players could use, and immediately run back in to not die.
The Orbis ship literally placed the level 30 and level 100 content right next to each other, giving newer players a glimpse of the big leagues, and giving older players a reason to revisit a lower (probably nostalgic) place again.
Maplestory’s old world map had tons of areas and quest like these that helped keep late game and early game intertwined.
Yeah, I seriously hate the whole concept of an endgame. All this achives is everyone trying to get through the lvling as quickly as possible and the devs make it insanely fast over time. As someone, who's mainly playing mmos for the lvling itself this really, really sucks.
You can go into any dungeon in eso early if you go to its actual location, one of my favorite memories from that game was me and a friend trying to duo direfrost keep when we had first started and were only LVL 14, however, dungeon finder makes that kind of experience less likely to happen since its easier, I feel like the real issue with endgame is that it's so easy to just rush through leveling, I would love to see games like eso lock dungeon finder until you reach max level with one character.
A big issue is that there is absolutely no concept of mid-game in most mmos. The whiplash of going from leveling straight into end game is pretty damn jarring in most games I've played
You have a really good point.
The worst thing about lvling in WoW is that I as experienced player know a lot of how storyline is going, and where's the most interesting content is even when you're lvling. World of Warcraft uses it's previous expancions as possible areas of leveling, so I often play again the Legion's content because of unique storylines for each class which matches perfectly your desire to create brand new alt and try new class - you just get new campaing, legendary mogs and cool mount, also I play Draenor's campaing from time to time because I find it interesting.
But the worst part about legion is that before level 50 you get to do only 40-50% of the class hall story and rest is blocked 'till you reach 50 and for the rest like 20-25 levels you just have to make dungeons and world quests again and again. And once you 50 you can do all the cool stuff in class hall, get a mount for legionfall questline, there's also a trip to Artgus but once you're 50 it becomes almost pointless because from 50 you can go to the Shadowlands and start farming renoun and crafting reagents that are relevant to the current expantion.
I am bored for good half of leveling just because Blizzard decited to take away from me the biggest piece of my favorite pie 'till I reach 50 when I don't even want it anymore.
With Draenor it is even worse, because you just level up to 50 in first 1-2 zones, so basically the story progression in the expancion is not adapted to your level progress, it would be much better to be able to do all the story quests while you're leveling to 50 and finish it before you reach 50.
And now the worse - as a new player you are forced to go through the BfA storyline 'till 50 and they lock you out of the other storylines and you're forced to do all this boring Boralus/Zandalar stuff instead of fighting deamons in Legion and getting that legendary sword which is way cooler then helping Jaina Proudmore that you see for the first time. Just why? Why Blizzard? What makes you think that the BfA campaign is the best that you have? Jeez, you even don't get to do all the N'Zoth content which is the best part of the BfA, you just do the islands' quests one by one.
It says that you can use Chromie's timewalking only by having at least one character above 50 level and you're also required to do the beginning of the BfA`s storyline, which forces you to buy level boos they're advertising all the time
Blizzard is absolutely on purpose locking us out of the best content the game has to offer and doesn't care a single bit.
1. Isn't replacing the armor what happens while leveling as well? You also replace that lvl 20 item with the new lvl 30 you got, even when the cap is 60 let's say. It's just a form of rpg progression. On the attacks point, form what I played at least, the abilities just become stronger, gain extra effects or the new abilities interact with the older ones, they don't become irrelevant.
Locations becoming irrelevant can have solutions like having even high lvl crafts need lower level reagents, scaling the areas up to player level, but I feel like that goes against the player feeling more powerful as they progress, or it can also just be the fact that you've outgrown those places and I think that's fine as well. They are also there to be experienced again as a different class, so not wasted at all for players who enjoy having multiple characters.
2. I agree with leveling process being mundane after the first character. If it were up to me, all subsequent characters of an account would just jump to max lvl, but that would make all those zones even more irrelevant.
3. I'd say FFXIV has a very fun leveling experience, at least the first time and it doesn't feel like a grind to max lvl, thanks to it's MSQ(story), but I agree most are lacking in that department. I know it used to be a lot worse pacing wise than when I actually got to experience it, after a lot of improvements.
4. See my point 2 :).
5. I agree that, for example in WoW, as a new player, the leveling process doesn't prepare you at all for the fact that if you want to get anywhere, you have to both be comfortable with playing in teams and also play at much higher level, than what's expected of you while lvling, if you want to get into the "full" endgame content. It annoys me so much that while leveling, the teach you about interrupting spells or CC a target so late in the process, when it's such an important part of endgame in WoW.
1. Until end game you never go out of your way to get better gear, FF14 for example hands gear out through the main quest (which is incredibly boring tbh). When I tried wow classic I got a nice axe in a dungeon at around level 25-30, was I happy? Amazed? No.. there was no reason to since it will soon be trash. Trash as in soon everything I find will be better than that axe. While in a game like dark souls I found the great sword and was amazed by its size and power as it brought me through the rest of the game.
Gear that only purpose is to be replaced is boring.
@@vedfur5469 ff14 gear is the most boring system ever as well, 99/100 times you never look at the stats on the gear and just equip the highest ilvl., no cool set bonuses or unique effects. just the exact same stats as the gear at lvl 10 had on it but the numbers are higher
M first MMO was MapleStory. I put thousands of hours into it and it's still some of my fondest memories. My guild leader in the game even became my wife in real life. MapleStory, at least back before the Big Bang revamps, was slow to level, social, and didn't really gate much behind levels. It also didn't have an endgame. Zakum, the first main raid boss, was unlocked at level 50, but took multiple parties of 80+ players to kill. The fastest way to level was doing Party Quests, dungeons that could not be solo'd, and there was no party finder back then, so we got to know our fellow players by partying for the PQs. These PQs also had puzzles that changed their solutions each time, and took a group effort to solve. It was loads of fun back then, even if it took an average of 10 hours to grind one level on mobs.
MapleStory these days is a shadow of its former glory, and I'd love to see it in your Worst MMO vids at some point, but I feel the way it was back then was a lot closer to your ideal. The leveling portion WAS literally the whole game, it just slowly introduced new challenges for you as you progressed and didn't level gate any zones.
End game is the point where I either quit a game or start fresh with a new character. Not an MMORPG but as an example is Path of Exile. You play through a quest line just for it to be irrelevant in the end. The endgame is to make money and min max your build.
As a GW2 player most of the time, I agree with your arguments if you are talking about the CORE GAME only, however even in Summer 2019, the two expansions HoT and PoF were available for quite a while, and they continue the pre-endgame experience into the endgame. You get loads of story, new items, new weapons, new skills. All. The. Time. They are not even stronger, I am still running around with my gear and skillbar from 2015, because it's valid and good. GW2 feels mostly finished once you hit the last chapter, since there is such a small "real" endgame. Sure, there are some dungeons (strike missions, raids and dragon missions included), achievements (like the legendary tier items which only yield new skins mostly) and the non-PvE content is also amazing (PvP and WvWvW), but they are mostly challenges for after you are done playing a good RPG, plus you can access most of those from lvl1 anyway! I think GW2 is doing a formidable job and should be mentioned as one of the positive examples here :)
You're making me realize just how boring Old School RuneScape became when I found out there's a whole ton of endgame content that I'm still nowhere close to getting to. At least I actually enjoy the quests.
I wanna try so many Mmo's but i cba to level up to actually play the game, currently dreading reaching my goals on tera and starting a new character.
I highly recommend you to play FF XIV or Elder Scrolls Online, both games are amazing, the leveling process is not boring at all, the endgame of both games is amazing but the content before that is amazing too, the story is really good in both games, and of course you keep using the same skills that you were using from the start of the game (in ESO you can decide what type of skills do you want since the skills are based on guilds, weapons, and the class, not only the class like in most of the games). I played Tera for a long time, but those two games are 100 times better than Tera.
It takes about 15 hours to go from 1 to max in World of Warcraft now. But there is that 15 bucks a month - and dealing with the idiot game director Ion Hazzikostas and his arbitrary and stupid decisions
"YOU CANNOT LET ANYONE GET HURT DURING THE TUTORIAL!"
Dark souls: "Hold my beer!"
Flamekeeper approves!
Dark Souls overrated. The whole gameworld is a tiny prison with an unkillable boss
@@pullt well, that sounds like only the tutorial, lol. i achieved new game+ a few times now.
@@pullt maybe the first 10-20 mins. Hardly an unkillable boss.
This took me way too long to realize is a joke xD nice
the title: Endgame RUINS MMORPG'S
Warframe: I don't have such a weakness
As someone who plays a lot of different MMOs, I rarely actually make it to endgame content. For me to actually spend the time to run a game to endgame, it needs to offer an interesting enough world and lore to make the journey worthwhile and have gameplay that is sufficiently not broken enough to not get in the way of my exploration and roleplay.
Asheron's Call is a grind from hell to endgame unless you abuse a few of the mechanics but the world is huge and the lore is unique. I was willing to grind through the content because I felt like I was part of the world and could really feel the hardship faced by the Aun Tumerok. In World of Warcraft (1.12 / classic), my wife and I were lonely Orc adventurers and I took it upon myself to try to argue the benefits of peace through trading and capitalism to Alliance toons (on PvP/RP-PvP servers). Looking over my top 25 favorite MMORPGs (which starts with AC at 1 and ends with WoW at 25), every single one offers a world that is sufficiently interesting and immersive to make playing non-endgame content not feel like pointless timesink.
It's unfortunate that too many games that have interesting content and mechanics at endgame bury it under trash fetch quests, kill tasks, mindless grinding, etc.
There's nothing I love more than getting to regions I don't belong in, too. Making it from Durotar to Darkshore at as low of a level as I can is one of my favorite early WoW challenges when the typical content gets boring.
I'm curious how many of my top 25 MMORPGs have made your worst of series. *checking*
1 so far -- Ryzom.
I remember the first time I went to Light's Hope Chapel and Gadgetzan playing WoW - a guildie showed me how to get there and neither of us were level appropriate. I could reactivate my account and go do the same thing now but it wouldn't be the same as the first time.
Once, for fun, I traveled around Zangarmarsh on a Level 45 or so Druid via Dalaran via Shattrath. It was fun but not very productive. I also took the ship from Stormwind to Borean Tundra and then rode the Turtle to Dragonblight more than once on lower-level characters just to get the flight points.
And I could explore Norvrandt on my character as a Level 42 Warrior but I doubt I will get very far.
in a weird way, i find the usual leveling system to be antithetical to the design of open world multiplayer games. designers spend hours upon hours building a zone and its quests and then older players have no incentive to return, cramming them into a handful of areas, also leaving newer players feeling alone when the cramming takes the majority of players to zones over 24 hours of gameplay away. THEN there's the disjoint from immersion when a baby enemy from a high level zone is suddenly stronger than a hardened warrior from an earlier one. if max level was 10 and npcs ranged from 0(bambi) to 20(adult dragon), the whole world would be more consistent from a role play perspective.
the mechanical hurdle is figuring out how to keep old zones gameplay interesting and encouraging movement between zones, while possibly having a way to deepen ones connection to any given zone for a sense of identity.
I remember back when Cataclysm came out for WoW and I easily replaced my old gear with greens I got from braindead quests. It was nice cause "yay number go higher", but also like damn my old gear was pretty awesome and now I gotta wear this ugly shit cause it's significantly better.
I'd love to see this guy play mabinogi. It avoids a lot of the "what's running" but is still a mess
I quite like the way City of Heroes/Villains did (part of its) endgame.
CoH was a powerset-based game with archetypes. Each archetype got a primary and secondary powerset (so, for instance, a Scrapper would get a mostly-melee-DPS primary powerset and a mostly-defensive secondary powerset). As you levelled up, you could also "buy into" a number of auxiliary power pools (which included movement power pools. Taking at least one movement power pool was considered *essential*). You'd get a new power every other level (to begin with; later-on, it would be less often).
However. Every level you didn't get a new power, you'd get a number of enhancement slots. Enhancements dropped from enemies or could be bought from "trainer" or "quartermaster" NPCs, and improved aspects of a power: range, damage, the magnitude of the defensive buff it gave, how quickly it recharged, etc. Each enhancement slot put on a power improved the set of options you'd have with that power, and while new powers either did new things or improved on old things (a damage-over-time attack that, visually, set the foe on fire, for instance, or an area-of-effect version of a single-target debuff), the old powers both improved as your character did (which makes sense: you have super-strength? Why wouldn't your standard mega-punch still be just as good even after you've worked out that you can rip boulders out of the ground and hurl them at your enemies?) and had extra enhancement slots which kept them in line with your newer powers. In addition, certain special enhancements that could be made using the invention system gave you bonuses for having sets of them slotted into a single power (which could be defensive, such as making your character more evasive or more resistant to debuffs, or offensive, such as a chance of dealing an extra bit of damage of a specific damage type or a chance of applying a debuff), giving you *another* reason to keep using your old powers.
The endgame of CoH did have the Incarnate system, which did have *huge* boosts, but the lead-up was also fun and engaging, and getting to use a new power was interesting, keeping you invested in wondering what to take for your *next* power. The fact that the foes you'd be fighting were usually varied also helped - small arcs of somewhere between 3 and 5 missions told a story, superhero comic book style, where your character typically was told about a problem, solved the problem and discovered that a particular villain group was behind it, then hunted down whichever higher-powered "boss" had ordered his (or her) minions to cause the problem in the first place. Once you were done with that mission arc, you could take another arc, which featured a different villain group - with different powers, different appearances and a different "ethos" behind their nefarious deeds. Yes, it was normally a fairly basic "go and kill this many of this particular type of enemy" or "go into this instanced mission and kill all the enemies in there", but there was variety and interest there. There was also the understanding that your character was doing this for a *reason*. It wasn't just "go and kill six bears because we need content", it was "zombies have been kidnapping civilians. Go and kill them and work out where they're coming from" which would then lead into "wait, these clues point to the sewers in this particular area. Go there and work out why there are zombies in the sewers".
Ultimately, there wasn't one big overarching story for City of Heroes, but there didn't need to be, because it was going for the classic super-hero comic style, where you get short story arcs which by-and-large have very little narrative connection between arcs, but where powers demonstrated in one arc would show up in later arcs.
I've really been questioning the idea of 'levels' lately. Most people dont really get that excited about the incremental power increase, so why have it at all? Or why not have fewer levels that are actually meaningful (Say 20 levels as opposed to 60).
This is exactly what I've been thinking about. Perhaps more importantly, is there really a need to have a massive difference in power between players, or even enemies?
I guess the reason is that 'progression' is a really easy way to make content last longer, which is necessary for MMO's, because as soon as people stop playing the game, there is nothing 'MMO' about it. But when I think of, say, Halo compared to Destiny, with players and enemies always being at the same level in Halo and the only thing that changes is the amount of enemies and the weapons they use, vs Destiny where two enemies can look the exact same but one can be vastly stronger because the lvl number above its head is higher, the level system seems shallow. I spend more time in Destiny looking at the lvls above enemy heads and HP bars than I do actually looking at the enemies.
I don't enjoy grinding to be honest, I play a lot of multiplayer games like Counter which I play BECAUSE I want to play them, I can jump in and have everything needed to compete already available, and I'm not playing because playing the game for hours will give me levels/exp/rewards etc. But I have no solution to this problem, it almost feels like MMOs require superficial and somewhat-meaningless progression to stay alive.
In other words, if I lose in a game with no levels, it's because I am bad. If I lose in a game with levels, it's because I haven't been playing enough, which encourages me to keep playing, which allows the game to be an MMO in the first place.
If there was a way to make an MMO without the boring parts of the progression grind, I'd expect someone to have already done it by now.
I think SWTOR does a fairly good job at making an engaging and memorable levelling experience. Can't say anything on endgame because most times I finish the class story and then hop onto a new character because each class has their own class story.
I'll never forget that when I played WoW for the first time (my first MMO) I was told by my friends the game didn't start until the end and they were power-leveling me through dungeons; I thought it was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard. I didn't get why we were rushing, why we needed to get to end game, I never heard of any game making a large chunk of the content boring/easy just to get to the good part last. It was a weird way to be introduced into MMO's that's for sure. XD
I've constantly said the concept of endgame is flawed. Totally agree with you on that. Why should the week I spend leveling up be boring? It's terrible game design.
Got a question/theory/something I noticed (whatever you wanna call it):The possible solution you give here almost sounds like it could be solved with level scaling, IF level scaling was done correctly. Just as an example: ESO is fairly close to doing what you're saying. You can go to any area you want whenever you want. You can gather friends of different levels and do any dungeon you want whenever you want. Levels truly don't matter too much. You can experience whatever part of the game you find the most fun right from the beginning (for the most part).
The big issue with scaling is the sense of progression and lack of challenge. ESO truly doesn't get challenging until you hit endgame and start doing the higher difficulty of dungeons, and that's definitely an issue. But overall I think scaling is a step in the right direction in terms of giving MMORPG's a better ALL AROUND sense of fun, rather than having two separate pieces... an unfun leveling process and a fun endgame.
Personally, I'd gladly sacrifice a sense of progression for a sense of fun. Now that is just me. I'm not a progression-based person. I do think there's a sweet spot that could be found where progression can still be felt, but freedom is still given.
Thoughts?
Thanks for the feedback hive, checked out your channel and you have some great stuff!
I think best of both worlds, have some scaled enemies so there's always a challange, then have some static enemies and mobs so you also have mile stones. So a bandit is always the same level as you, but the legendary bandit (name) is always a static level whatever, means the first time you meet them they keep Thier legendary status through being tough, but as you the player become a legend, they become easier.
I have always disliked the concept of “max level”. It often feels like progression just slams to a halt. It also usually means that there is very little point in getting “better gear”. Why do I need better gear when it is all the same level? Oh I need better gear from a raid or dungeon so I can die just a little more slowly and kill just a tiny bit faster when I replay the same dungeon or raid again?
Progression is replaced with stagnation and grind.
At least that’s how it feels to me.
This. This video is why I haven't been able to play MMORPGs. I adore the _concept_ of MMORPGs, of playing a game online and doing cool things with tens or hundreds or thousands of other players... but I have _never_ made it there. I don't have the time nor patience to mindlessly slog through content that half-teaches me the basics of how I'm supposed to play in the most boring way possible. This kind of grind _isn't fun_ and I'm not going to do it.
Too many games make themselves about the destination, not the journey. The purpose of the destination is to make everything you earned on the journey relevant and worth it.
There's a reason why I've always loved the P&P Shadowrun RPG (and I guess same for the old Rifts one, though we barely even started playing, so I couldn't get enough of an impression) - you start out relatively "powerful" already, and your overall power level doesn't really improve much (there are of course exceptions, but only if the player deliberately starts off weaker, or if the GM hands out massive, completely unrealistic rewards). It's basically like starting off Skyrim with the skills and equipment of a level 40 or so character.
You still get a sense of advancement in power level, but the main _focus_ of your advancement is in your actual character, their experiences (not XP!), small or even big downfalls, rises back up, their relationships with other characters and NPCs, and so on and so forth. It's more about the story and characters, and you're not desperately hunting after the next improvement of the numbers on your character sheet.
I think EverQuest solved a lot of the endgames issues during its release and first several expansions. Not only did leveling take a long time, but even low level zones could have high level mobs. Also, planar raiding could start at level 45, and without raid caps those level 45 players could contribute.
Another thing I think mattered a lot that gets overlooked is the sheer amount of items that were not bound to players. Not only did EQ use smaller numbers for health and damage (which helps keep equipment valuable for longer), but it went the route of fewer unique items that could be freely traded, instead of the glut of "soulbound" trash we get nowadays. Those items became not just valuable to hold on to because they might be the best thing a player has, but became valuable to trade and pass on to other players, and became major parts of the world's lore. Allowing players to trade still valuable equipment also opened an avenue for lower level players to kit themselves out with excellent equipment if they were savvy enough to make smart trades over a couple of play sessions.
Older MMORPGs have a lot of valuable design decisions that get missed, all because everyone either wants to be the next WOW or free-to-play flash in the pan.
Call me old fashion but every time I leveled a character in Everquest or when I first leveled my wow character in 04, I loved the journey / level process.
Because those games were designed around leveling, and the endgame was simply there to keep players hooked.
Take a look at City of Heroes. It might be one of the closest ideals to what you are looking for. The leveling is fun and not mindless.
This video hits home for me, as I spent over a decade of my life playing MMOs and loved playing the games only in the end game. I grew attached many times to different places, different zones, but would quickly have to move on from it to higher leveled places, only ever going back for nostalgia or for the nice scenery and soundtrack.
Its quite interesting to see your perspective because for me its the complete opposite: i dont care about endgame anymore. Yes raids etc. are cool but i dont wanna have to dedicate hours of my free time (of which i have way to few anyways) every week just to see the same content over and over again. Yes i like playing with my friends but i wanna achieve something while doing so. I dont wanna waste my time trying to get that one set piece that ive tried getting for the last 3weeks just to not get it and even if i get it, its only going to make my character better by a minimal amount and most importantly: that minimal improvement is going to be absolutely outclassed the next time new content arrives.
Ive found it to be way more fun to just enjoy the "low level" content and set my own challenges: not using mounts, not using teleports, playing with a controller and a different camera angle (using the action cam and a controller in WoW was hella fun), only using items ive created myself. The list goes on and on. These challenges go on for way longer and their progress isnt made irrelevant once new content arrives
Instances and dungeons restricted by level, equipment, etc., are one of the main reasons why the best content in the game is not enjoyed. Developers should know that it is okay for a player to travel and even participate in high-level activities, even if they will probably die, but the mere fact of participating and being there motivates low lvl players to continue progressing, to overcome those challenges.
Some old MMORPGs let low level players to be in sieges and wars, for example.
I fully agree with you in the sense that I wish others would take more time during leveling and try to enjoy the good content that's also out there. However I don't see that your proposed solution could work. In Vanilla WOW many aspects of what you mentioned already exist: You can enter zones at any level, you can enter dungeons way ahead and even crafting can be done way ahead if you buy the materials. But next to noone does that. If your're trying to find a group while your underlevelled for a dungeon they won't take you because than they might not be able to finish it. If you just wanna have a look and go with your level buddys they will most likely consider it a waste of time. Just as it's hard to find groups for dungeons which are off the beaten track (eg wailing caverns for alliance / deadmines for horde) or complicated to navigate (Gnomeregan, Sunken Temple). Some games such as ESO or FFXIV have solved this issue through level scaling and special rewards for higher level players to paretake in old content. This has the advantage that you can always find a group. You can't really experience the content though. Because 90 % of the time the others will just rush through and not care if you wanna read the quest dialogue or check crates and stuff for useful crafting materials. They have done the same dungeon for the 50th time and it's understandable that this "annoying noob that's slowing down everyone" is regarded as a hindrance.
I think in games which are close to WOW in their design philosophy, the attracted gamers themselves generate a lot of the problems. Play and let play seems to be a very strange concept to folks. If a dps wants to play their char with sword and shield they get insulted. If the tank actually skills def people will laugh at him (because its not required in the low level content and outside the dungeon it will be very inffective in the sense that you take ages to kill a mob).
Some really valid points and I have been having this discussion with friends since EQ..... To me GW2 and aspects of ESO comes the closest to doing away with this mindset... the (mainly western) idea of endgame needs to change an evolve, no game well made and well crafted should make most of their content irrelevant. Some good discussion should come from these thoughts an points Josh thank you for the time these quality videos take.
i still feel like one should only need to hit level cap once, doing the same linear grind over and over again to get to the same goal youve reached before is mind numbing
Taking WOW as an example, endgame is definitely a different game to levelling.
Some people like the levelling phase, some people (like me) only like the endgame, some people like both.
Having one game be a prerequisite for another makes no sense. In the SNES era we never said "Want to play Mario Kart? You aren't allowed to until you beat 10 games of NBA Jam". Making the levelling part of WOW a prereq for the endgame makes no more sense than that would have.
You should try Monster Hunter if you haven’t. Admittedly, there are a few boring tutorials, but they also let you go out and get wrecked a little. It’s not exactly what you’re saying but a system close to what you’re advocating.
Here's what MMOs should do. No enemy level scaling while leveling but swish to enemy scaling at final end game level. This way you feel progression as you levelup and at end game you can move anywhere in the world and do new quests and stuff with the old enemies only now they're scaled for you and they have increased number of skills.
At end game level you also allow pvp but not before that. because the difficulty of balancing pvp just skip it at lower levels and introduce it as a new exciting end game feature and its much easier to balance, they could also have a special skill tree for pvp.
I started playing WoW in 2005 and then leveling was fun, for many years. as soon as I hit 60 I made a new guy and as soon as I had 10 i made a new server account and started all over because I was never interested in end game raids and stuff but I loved to levelup. that is probably the only game ive ever played where leveling was fun.
In Dark Ages of Camelot we use to say level 45 was half way to 50. The end game was fantastic but my God that grind
IDEA: What if the game has a xp penalty for dying? Say it's decided that at max level you get to die 10 times with no penalty, but dying an 11th time results in leveling-down your character. Then pre-endgame content would still be relevant to veteran players!
ALSO, if you die before your critical death (e.g. 4th or 5th death), make it so you have the opportunity to re-gain your 'free deaths' by participating in lower level events. And to stop one single level zone from being chosen as 'optimal' by astute players for this purpose, make it so the process of regaining lives is on a rotation in terms of which level zone gives more credit. One week, level 30 zone is best. The week after that the level 5 zone is best. This would let newer players see and play more with the general player community.
Finally, what if reviving lower level players counts as double credit for regaining lives? If the xp penalty applies to everyone (not just prior-maxed players), then no one can be bribed to let themselves die for someone else to get more revives (unless they want to be the game's richest level 1 player).
Although I suppose you could use your riches to try and level up quickly again... but that still takes time to do! Lol.
Anyway, the leveling process in any mmo generally makes content continuously more outdated because leveling is traditionally a do-it-once experience. Games like gw2 get around this by having users make multiple characters to level up, but gw2 ruins it by having immediate level up boosters available (I personally have 2k+ tomes of knowledge banked, LOL). 1 tome = 1 level. No limit on using them.
"Just let me go there! AND D I E"
Suicide be like ^
I always thought dps meters ruin MMOs... but then I realized, if nobody cared about dps, they'd only pick classes by something else - like control, self sustain, AoE capability. etc. No, the thing ruining MMOs are the PLAYERS themselves, as they always find the most efficient (but most likely unfun) way to do something, make sure to spread it all over internet for everyone to read, then shame anyone doing anything differently.
Players optimize the fun out of everything they touch. In every game. One of the foundations of good design is to funnel that behavior away from ruining the game for yourself, which is something MMOs, with their archaic design philosophies, time and time again do quite literally the opposite of. It's not the players.
I'd love to see some kind of meaningful retirement mechanic, maybe something that provides a boost to your next character, quests that are only available the 2nd or 3rd time through, etc.
WoW overhauled it's leveling process quite a bit before Shadowlands launched. Now you can actually play the game as it is since 2018+ and not the prehistoric bits - and it's way better like this because holy hell the difference is so huge that new players seeing videos of engame think they bought the wrong game. It's been a long time after all. Now new players are directed to Battle For Azeroth as their "leveling experience" for the first time, and after beating it on one character, they unlock Chromie, which allows them to (at level 10 just after tutorial area) pick up ANY of the expansions and level up there. If they want oldschool experience, they can pick Burning Crusade of Wrath of the Lich King. If they want want cheap popculture references from 10 years ago they can pick up Cataclysm (which includes actual Cataclysm zones and reworked classic zones), or for the more "modern" wow they can pick Mists of Pandaria, Warlords of Draenor or Legion. All scaling to get you from lvl 10 to lvl 50 while getting to experience some of that expansion. (not all because that would take you months with how much each Xpac has).
Much better than running Wailing Caverns or Maraudon for the 471350213832th time.
Dungeons and Dragons online (DDO) does a fantastic job at dealing with this. Makes everything level 1-30 (level cap) meaningful and fun.
Oh yeah, DDO is awesome! I've played it several times over the years though, and I felt even they made low level content easier over the years. Also a problem of the playerbase (or humans in general), it's hard to find people who actually WANT to get destroyed by low level quests.
Galaxies was good at this. Equipment mattered but not all that much and armor had no level requirement. There was nothing stopping you from sneaking onto a star destroyer and getting wrecked at level 5. The ultimate raid rewards that made your character more powerful were jewelry pieces that fit with any armor or clothing you cared to use. My 'end game' content that I loved was soloing giant krayt dragons with the help of a pet I'd started training at level 25 and raised with me as a journey across the galaxy in search of crafters who could make the buff items I liked
one way i could see previous dungeons to remain viable (thou some would call that tidious & unneeded gatekeeping), is to have a needed item drop in a previous dungeon once you've reached the "end game level", in order to do say end game dungeons (the tidious part is that the end game content is locked behind "useless stuff") i can EASILY see ppl complain that "booo i can't do this uber content cuz i have to backtrack to an earlier dungeon cuz you can only get the "key" to said dungeon from this earlier dungeon that i have already beaten", one way to alter that is to have 2 instances of dungeons (kinda like reg & mythic dungeons i guess), but that the "new" dungeon is much more vast so it's not just the same old same old, sure there are sections that are the same as the "old" dungeon, but with more stuff in it so it feels new & fresh
Old Everquest is a prime example of great leveling content. Every four levels or so you're showered with half a dozen or more new spells and abilities, sometimes introducing totally new class mechanics to spice up the gameplay, including in some cases utility spells like Invisibility, Levitation, Regeneration, Charm Creature, that make it easier for you to travel and farm without locking you behind a hard level requirement.
*You could enter the high level areas well into your thirties, and you if you were smart enough and had the right party comp, you could farm for drops that would make you absolutely fucking rich, including endgame spells and gear.*
Melee users had access to magical items: disease curing shields, glowing hats, speed boots, levitation cloaks, invisibility rings-- all these things evened the playing field because melee classes had no spells to contest with magic users and hybrids, and farming them was an absolute joy. Knowing that a drop you just camped for hours wasn't just a stat stick, but that you just unlocked a completely new mechanic in the game almost feels like breaking it. It wasn't a matter of farming "good gear", it was a matter of unlocking new abilities with the sweat of your own brow.
Unlike WoW and WoW clones where you can perform your entire class purpose maybe twenty levels into the grind and then have nothing to look forward to. In a good RPG, interesting game-changing rewards keep coming-- like acts of a movie. You wouldn't want the climax at the first twenty minutes and then two hours of meandering filler until the final confrontation.
Not to mention the fact Classic EQ in 1998 had more biome variety in its zones than World of Warcraft in 2004 and dungeons ten times as sprawling and explorable. The visual variety of places to go to alone is enough to motivate you to grind.
In the end people have only just discovered that vertical progression is not fun and that planned obsolescence is a shitty mechanic.