What I expect from an MMOG - suggestions

GaldorP · October 2014

This would go into the suggestions subforum I guess if there was one

What I expect from an MMOG:

It should provide a virtual home where I can go for as long as I want to or for as long as I can stay. When I log in I would like to be able to live an adventure*, alone or with friends, and make some small progress with my character (no matter how slow that progress is or how long it takes to reach the highest level, the next goal).

In ESO, I find it too hard to find groups outside of organized guild raids (PvE).
This is mainly because there is no meaningful “open” group content in PvE: it’s either instances with a fixed number of players and fixed roles for a fixed duration or nothing at all).
Apart from working on a few very hard to get achievements that nobody will ever notice you completed, there is no meaningful solo content either for characters that have completed all solo quests. Once a player has all bankspace updates, there is little to no meaning in getting more gold.
The megaserver technology already causes anonymity and inconsistency of the game world. Having a strong guild system is vital to have any feeling of an online community. The guild traders helped a bit to make at least trading guilds better known. But why not have a public guild database in the game (number of members, creation date, total number of PvP kills made by guild members in the past month, total number of completed group and veteran dungeons, total number of completed trials, or have like a system that rates how active each guild currently is in PvE and PvP (0-5 bars ) and update the rating once every few hours with the average activity from the past 14 days). How about having one main guild per character that others can see below the character name if they want to?
I would like some content where groups can just hunt monsters in the open game world for as long as they want (maybe with some daily quests that require you to kill a certain number of monsters, hunt for an hour or so, without crazy rewards, but with some rewards that feel like rewards, maybe also add a low chance to get something good as a drop?**). Many people liked anomalies because they offered that kind of experience even though the fights were boring and the rewards clearly too good. But people could log in and just play for as long as they wanted to and then log out again. And they had made some progress. Solo questing, of course, offers the same kind of progress, but it’s single-player only. And once you’ve completed all the solo quests, it’s over. Also, when people level an alt, they don’t want to do all the same quests again for a 3rd or 4th time. So this kind of group hunting could offer an alternative way to progress.
By my definition of what I expect from an MMOG, PvP in ESO works a lot better than PvE. You can log in and play solo or in a group in Cyrodiil for as long as you want. If the performance issues in Cyrodiil were fixed, balancing improved, and mechanics that encourage zergballing removed (AoE caps) as well as game systems that encourage one-sided campaigns (PvP buffs working in PvE), and a reasonable underdog bonus were introduced along with an emperor system that keeps track of actual contribution made by a player in taking and defending keeps, and if forward camps could only be used within their radius, I think PvP could be great!

I’m personally looking forward to the Undaunted Pledges system that will hopefully give more people a reason to do veteran dungeons and regular group dungeons. But I think that ESO would really benefit from some “open” group content in PvE (as I defined it above) outside of instances. Meanwhile, the unintended exploit grinds in Craglorn that are out of the developpers’ control (Hircine’s Haunt, fast respawning bosses on the main map of Craglorn) should really be removed.

About endgame instances: I personally do not enjoy super-hard instances that require 10+ people to play for a certain amount of time without making a single small mistake. First of all because it excludes people who aren’t super-skilled pro gamers. Secondly because it forces everyone to play only the most overpowered builds. Thirdly because I don’t find it very enjoyable. For super-hard content I’d rather do it solo, in a duo or in a small group (enough crashes and waiting in a group with 4 players already

; happens in every game not just ESO). I’ve completed the solo VR zones with all quests before they were made easier and didn’t mind the difficulty. But to be honest, I find them a more enjoyable experience now. However, public dungeons that were made for groups could be a bit harder, in my opinion (I would like it if the monsters would have a lot more health and did a bit more damage but gave decent exp as reward and had a low chance to drop something nice)

.

Some other MMOGs I’ve played had open world raid bosses. Now these were a real challenge and required 10 or more people to work together to defeat them, too. The advantage of an “open” raid system is that it allows for a lot more flexibility than closed instances: You can fight the same raid boss with 10 people or with 30 people depending on how strong you feel. And even weaker and lower level players can be a part of the raid and contribute!

I’d like to see more “open” PvE group content in ESO

* (doesn’t have to be a scripted, story-based quest, just hunting with friends will create its own stories)
** Why not add an open PvE area that is too dangerous to explore on your own?

(One more thing: I know the system that makes sure you always get the full exp reward and your own loot when you attack a monster is there to prevent all the problems that come with killstealing and competing over monsters. But it is really unfair when it comes to levelling. If 2 people defeat a strong world boss on their own they deserve a better reward [more exp and a better chance for loot] than 12 people who killed the same boss with no effort at all.)

GaldorP · October 2014

To sum up my suggestions:

Difficult open world raid bosses with complex mechanics.
Exp reward and loot chance based on contribution (contribution is evenly shared within groups so tanks and healers aren't at a disadvantage).
An open world zone that is too dangerous to explore on your own (like a forest that could start with easier monsters near the first wayshrine but gets progressively more dangerous the further you venture into it [with better possible better rewards from harder monsters and daily group quests that aren't easy]).
Daily solo/group quests like: Kill 100 Spell Fiends in the Spellscar area. Don't make these mandatory, but offer them for the people who like such quests for a small reward.
A better group tool that allows people to set up chat rooms for their group where they can enter their own title and describe what this group is meant for and see the class and level/VR of other group members before they invite them (examples: "Doing all 3 VR 10 vet dungeons, lf 1 dd"; "Missing Guardian Quest"; "Shada's Tear speedrun"; "lf people to fish in Rivenspire"; etc.). Filter them by zone maybe if there would be too many group chatrooms in a single list for the whole megaserver.
An in-game guild database that shows at least the number of members of each guild, the creation date, the PvE and PvP activity (updates every few hours with an average of the past 14 days; a ranking of 0-5 bars for both PvE and PvP activity).
One main guild per character/account that can be seen below the character name (with the option to enable/disable seeing guild names in the standard UI settings).
Make public dungeons harder. Give the monsters there a lot more health and make them deal more damage. Make public dungeons a place where small groups of players can level instead of doing quests.

Edit: Adding my vision for loot design:

- The best item sets in the game should be drop only, but they should drop in various places, so people aren't forced into a specific type of content. The highest drop chance would be in the most difficult content that requires the most organisation. Maybe around 1/15 average chance to get a rare set item from a trials boss or the hard mode arena, 1/30 chance to get one from an open world raid boss, 1/250 to get one from a strong monster in open group content or a public dungeon (like a mini-boss), 1/5'000 to get one from a normal monster. Of course, there would have to be VR 14 zones for both soloing and open group content for that. Or make those best sets craftable but have the ingredients needed to craft them drop just like I suggested it for the finished set items. But then have one rare item that has to be consumed for research first, so not every single person on the server can craft every single one of the best set items in the game.

Edit 2: I'm adding a few more thoughts even though probably no one will ever read them

Me wrote:

The Megaserver technology:

Causes anonymity and inconsistency of the virtual word. On normal MMOG servers you get to know the community after a while. You know some of the nice people, some people that are ***, people that trade a lot or farm a lot of resources, those who do many instances, etc. Some places like the main market towns will be very crowded, others will be very quiet and you will barely ever meet another player there. That gives a feeling of community, of a living online world. The megaserver technology prevents that from happening (to some extent). This is also true for PvP campaigns, where any player can switch campaigns or just jump to any PvP campaign any time they want to in a group.

> It’s probably too late to change this, but I just think it was a bad idea for an MMORPG. (How many people have ever had the problem in the past that they couldn’t play with their friends because they were on another server?)

Guild identity:

The guild system allows players to join not just one but up to 5 guilds. This is partially because trading in ESO is meant to take place in trading guilds of up to 500 people (a global auction house wouldn’t work, again because of the megaserver technology). Unfortunately this means that such as thing as guild identity barely exists in ESO. Other players can’t see what guild you are in, guild members can’t work together to achieve a common goal for the guild (with the exception of bidding on a good guild trader). Few people ever find a main guild in-game that they can identify themselves with as it is happens in other MMOGs (there’s also no need to join any guild because almost everything worth doing can be done solo; the rest are a few one-time dungeons in Craglorn; no need to join a guild for that).

> I suggest following to add a better sense of guild identity: Let each player choose one main guild that other players can see (optional). Add a ranking system that ranks guilds based on the activities performed by guild members both in PvE and PvP. Maybe add levels for guilds that have to be earned first and offer all guild members some (weak) passives in PvE or PvP.

The Single-player/grouping disparity:

Almost all content up to veteran rank 10 originally was designed as single-player content where playing in a group doesn’t really work (because of phasing and because the difficulty level is adjusted for 1 player as well). Few people ever completed the group dungeons at the level they were designed for because they were much harder than solo content and the only noteworthy reward was an extra skill point (which isn’t that great or important in a level range where you can still get about 2 skill points per hour of solo gameplay).

Later, Craglorn delves were added as well as trials. But just as with veteran group dungeons many player completely avoid that content for as long as they could and can. I think there’s a number of reasons for that:

a) The inflexibility of group content that always requires a fixed number of players fulfilling specific roles where 1 in 4 should be a tank build in 4 player content. There simply aren’t that many tank builds! Few people on lower levels have specialized in fulfilling mainly a tank or a healer role. Solo players never care about that kind of specialization into one of the 3 roles.

b) The group finding tool which is supposed to help people find groups outside of organized guild groups is very very basic.

c) There is a disparity between solo and group play styles. Many skills that are very useful while soloing (single-target crowd control skills for example) are bad choices in group gameplay. Area of effect damage skills that are just an overpowered choice for soloing become mandatory in group instances. Some group content is a lot harder to complete than any solo content left in the game (after veteran zones were softened up): veteran group dungeons, a few instances in Craglorn like Shada’s Tear of Skyreach Hold, and, of course, trials.

((d) There are exploits and fast respawning bosses on the main map of Craglorn that are far more accessible, allow for more flexible group compositions, are a lot less challenging than instanced group content, and allow people to gain a lot more veteran experience points per hour than instanced delves. These exploits and easy power-grind options obviously are either unintended or a terrible design and need to be removed or nerfed badly! Content that is more challenging and requires more organization and preparation should obviously offer better rewards than those easy grinds and not vice versa!))

Many players never see a good reason to try out instanced group content and don’t enjoy doing it for the reasons specified. There is also nothing in the game that encourages grouping outside of those group instances (ignoring the exploits and easy power-grinds that shouldn’t exist, here). Hunting monsters anywhere outside of instances for a certain amount of time (the kind of activity that defines a real MMORPG!) is not rewarding in any way (for both exp and loot).

> More incentives to do challenging, instanced group content are needed and easier, more accessible group content has to be added (zones/areas/dungeons where people can hunt monsters in a group for a while, not just for 1 or 2 minutes at a dark anchor or a world boss; but not the exploits and easy power-grinds we currently have!) or ESO will remain for the most part a single-player online game.

The lack of good rewards:

In an attempt to cater to the casual player, ESO does not offer any epic reward for even the most challenging or hardest to complete/most time-consuming content in the game. This is a major flaw in the game’s design. It drives away the hardcore players who have nothing to work on. And it gives everyone else nothing to look forward to.

> Epic rewards need to be added at least for Trials, the veteran Dragonstar Arena, PvP(! incentives are badly needed here, especially for players who’ve learned all PvP passives already!), fishing, and finding all collectibles (at least a unique vanity pet for both fishing and collectibles!). Reasonable rewards need to be added for repeatable group instances. Easy grind exploits need to be removed and all bosses and events on the main map of a zone need long respawn times!

Anway, I hope the game will live a long life and that many people will enjoy playing it

R1ckyDaMan · October 2014

By open I assume you mean passers by joining together to complete it, or more forced open world grp stuff?

GaldorP · October 2014

By open I mean, the number of group members is not fixed, it's not instanced, you can easily invite more people and when someone has to go you can look for a replacement while you continue hunting.
Ideally, none of it would be forced and there would always be alternatives.

Vendersleigh · October 2014

The main thing I hope for in a game is housing.

Chat bubbles come in a close second.

Fun activities to occupy time, eg. racing, gambling.

A die roll system included.

Normal clothing, not just armour.

Things I would like to see again:

Ability to change hairstyles and make-up/tattoos.

Ability to have an effect on the world and write our own stories: props that can be used by the player to create their own stories for fellow players.

Rawlu · October 2014

Solo Content.