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As long as you're changing things.
miahq
✭✭✭
I've always looked at many games-- and MMOs in particular I think this is true-- like an adventure TV series, where you set up the initial conflict, you've the journey getting to the end, the inevitable training montage or two at particularly hard points, and then the resolution. But at some point it seems like the MMO model just got stuck on training montage: everything is reduced down to a grind to the extent that the grind has become the game. You grind out to max level, you grind to get those rare drops, you grind AP to get rewards without apparently ever having to remember or care that the original reason you were there was to take and hold keeps. The only explanation I've ever heard is, well that's what an MMO is, but no one has really been able to answer my question of why? It just becomes a circular argument, and never gets beyond the idea that MMOs are a linear grind because that's what MMOs are.
The end result of that model however is always the same, 95% of your game is nearly empty as everyone crowds into the latest zone, and people just start unsubscribing until the next expansion because there's no point to stay in the game. You can say it's a theme park in a sandbox world, but if there isn't enough reason to get off the trail then it's basically just a double dragon style old arcade game where you walk down the same road beating up conveniently placed bad guys. I don't even remember if I could go back in those games... I never cared, what would've been the point? Especially in an elder scrolls game though, the idea there's nothing worth going back and seeing once I've cleared out a zone-- and since all the zone quests are leveled you are punished for skipping a few then trying to go back and do them later-- is just out of place.
The oh so clever retort I usually hear to that is how this isn't skyrim online, and that may be true, but it's still elder scrolls online. And it seems like you wouldn't make an elder scrolls MMO if not to try and capitalize on the built in audience the franchise comes with. If the goal was only to appeal to the MMO crowd you could've just as easily called it orcs and elves.
But I don't want to get too off point, which would be why not move away from the grind and do something else? I realize the purpose of the champion system, and I certainly like the idea of slowing progression, but my question (and suggestion I suppose) would be, why limit that to only champion and not extend it to skills? Even keeping it just five skills per class, if each of those had a 2-3 more levels of morphs, each with four tiers and a slowing progression, people would still have even more room to grow after level 50.
You don't even have to make it about increasing damage, instead you could do morphs that slightly increase the radius of a particular skill. Increase the time or duration, or just give purely cosmetic changes. You could take a skill like fiery breath and morph it to either hit an increased range or width, or chose to morph it into an ability that shoots fire at the ground, turning it into an area dot and a cc. I realize people would still try and grind it out, but if you really make it deep enough and drive home the point that trying to grind it out is next to impossible, 95% of people aren't even going to try. Especially if the newer morphs aren't about increasing damage as much as they are just modifying the existing skills.
Then all you have to do is give people something to do other than wait for the next content update or grind dungeons for the latest drops. Give them reasons to go back to old zones, new zones to just explore. Things like the justice system, and hopefully the upcoming thieves guild and dark brotherhood could go a long way to that. Just because it's an MMO doesn't mean it has to be such a theme park, just because WoW succeeded with that model doesn't mean that has to be the model. Especially when past elder scrolls games have succeeded so well in the past for the very reason they are theme park games. Just because this one is an MMO, doesn't mean it has to break with that tradition. In fact, it makes little sense to do so.
The end result of that model however is always the same, 95% of your game is nearly empty as everyone crowds into the latest zone, and people just start unsubscribing until the next expansion because there's no point to stay in the game. You can say it's a theme park in a sandbox world, but if there isn't enough reason to get off the trail then it's basically just a double dragon style old arcade game where you walk down the same road beating up conveniently placed bad guys. I don't even remember if I could go back in those games... I never cared, what would've been the point? Especially in an elder scrolls game though, the idea there's nothing worth going back and seeing once I've cleared out a zone-- and since all the zone quests are leveled you are punished for skipping a few then trying to go back and do them later-- is just out of place.
The oh so clever retort I usually hear to that is how this isn't skyrim online, and that may be true, but it's still elder scrolls online. And it seems like you wouldn't make an elder scrolls MMO if not to try and capitalize on the built in audience the franchise comes with. If the goal was only to appeal to the MMO crowd you could've just as easily called it orcs and elves.
But I don't want to get too off point, which would be why not move away from the grind and do something else? I realize the purpose of the champion system, and I certainly like the idea of slowing progression, but my question (and suggestion I suppose) would be, why limit that to only champion and not extend it to skills? Even keeping it just five skills per class, if each of those had a 2-3 more levels of morphs, each with four tiers and a slowing progression, people would still have even more room to grow after level 50.
You don't even have to make it about increasing damage, instead you could do morphs that slightly increase the radius of a particular skill. Increase the time or duration, or just give purely cosmetic changes. You could take a skill like fiery breath and morph it to either hit an increased range or width, or chose to morph it into an ability that shoots fire at the ground, turning it into an area dot and a cc. I realize people would still try and grind it out, but if you really make it deep enough and drive home the point that trying to grind it out is next to impossible, 95% of people aren't even going to try. Especially if the newer morphs aren't about increasing damage as much as they are just modifying the existing skills.
Then all you have to do is give people something to do other than wait for the next content update or grind dungeons for the latest drops. Give them reasons to go back to old zones, new zones to just explore. Things like the justice system, and hopefully the upcoming thieves guild and dark brotherhood could go a long way to that. Just because it's an MMO doesn't mean it has to be such a theme park, just because WoW succeeded with that model doesn't mean that has to be the model. Especially when past elder scrolls games have succeeded so well in the past for the very reason they are theme park games. Just because this one is an MMO, doesn't mean it has to break with that tradition. In fact, it makes little sense to do so.
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