Anyone Else Miss "Old School" MMO Gameplay?

Wayshuba · August 2019

Kiyakotari wrote: »

Agobi wrote: »

No wonder everyone is releasing "classic" *insert MMO here* .....nostalgia for the good old days is big business

What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that a lot of the "nostalgia" aspects" of gaming come from the place we were (intellectually, developmentally, culturally) at the time we were playing those games. Going back to them now, even the exact same original experiences, will not feel the same, and will in some cases "ruin" the memories of the original experience.

My most fond memories of gaming as a child are LOOM and Zack McCracken and the Alien Mindbenders and The Secret of Monkey Island, and then later on, Captain Keen. I will not touch the Captain Keen spinoff, I do not want anything to do with the re-release of Monkey Island. Not because they're bad, but because I'm a different person, and I want to keep those old memories, not try to recreate old experiences that are long past.

This is so true. I have very fond memories of playing LucasArts "The Dig" when it first came out. Loved it and the story.

About a month ago I reloaded a made for Windows version. Couldn't get through the opening scenes on the asteroid without getting board. Decided best not to play and uninstall to not wreck the fond memories I had back in the 90s.

Fur_like_snow · August 2019

No I like the fast paced DPS driven gameplay. Old school MMO had cool downs and casting timers with very rigid class roles.

Lumenn · August 2019

I do miss the classic roles sometimes. Knowing your crowd control(eq enchanter) or your tank role is what's keeping people alive and they'd die like the squishies they are without you was nice. I DONT miss not being able to solo on a tank you've spent hundreds of hours on, or having to schedule times to play or not being able to accomplish much when you've only got an hour here or there. The Holy Trinity has its place, but not when your job, kids, wife, etc turn you from hardcore to casual(they always come first)

Mitrenga · August 2019

Just bring mount taming to the ESO and we are all good.
It would really compliment the beautiful land design (Except the god awful Shadowfen, who even goes there?).

Nemesis7884 · August 2019

i really miss this kinda feeling of starting a new mmo adventure, completely immersing myself in the world to start leveling my character from 0 to max - this kind of journey into the unknown

Bouldercleave · August 2019

Neoauspex wrote: »

I miss really old school, MUD style, where if you died you character was #$@-&+? gone.

You can still "Ironman" it in this game and delete your character if he dies....

I can only imagine you deleting a CP 1000+ character for dying to falling damage in Cyrodil after a lag spike.

I'm buying stock in gaming keyboard companies the day that little jewel comes out!

StormeReigns · August 2019

/rolls 20D for save after dropping box of explosive vials.

Naturally a -5 to all saves

Needs a 10+ to survive explosion.
Needs a 16+ to not slaughter entire group in esplosion.

Rolls 17.

idk · August 2019

There were some pretty good MMOs that if updated would be pretty good. But in the same token some of those good MMORPGs were ruined by the devs, SWG comes to mind with how devs can totally ruin a game.

snipezor · August 2019

I played DAoC for like 10 years and miss it - I liked the 'style' mechanics of combat, and also certain damage types getting damage bonuses or minuses against certain armor types, etc., among many other things. I tried to get back into it a few months ago, but the graphics, oh, the graphics.

I'm hoping Camelot Unchained A.) ever launches and B.) is close to being as good as DAoC. I'll certainly leave ESO for it if that should be the case.

usmcjdking · August 2019

Iskiab wrote: »

In a sense yes. I like needing a tank, healer and dps (so the trinity). What I’ve come to understand is requiring certain classes (like a puller or slower) is dumb (EQ bard Requiem here so I was one who benefited from it).

The sweet spot is like ESO. Play any class but if your class isn’t meant to be optional at things it won’t be.

Like all the cries for ‘balance’ are sorta dumb. With how the game’s designed score guilds will always load up on the top dps classes, most of the crying boils down to ‘make my class the loaded up class’. As long as any class can complete vet content I think things are fine. All the cries for balance because ‘my toon is 98k and they want 100k classes’ are silly.

It's not dumb to require certain classes when you effectively have no raid cap and the general raid size was 30+.

Could you imagine a raid in ESO where there would have 4 tanks, 6 healers and then 20 Monks? It'd be a flop even if they were all properly buffed. EQ demanded classes be present to just be successful, not even talking about time or ease of completion.

It also separated the garbage from the standout players. I was the only puller capable of managing Plane of Hate and Fear for about a 6 month period, and no one even attempted Yelinak or Wuoshi without me, specifically, pulling on both Tribunal and Sullon Zek.

With that said, the limiting factor with ESO is the raid cap being 12 players. This, IMO, is a critical design failure. Twelve players is not enough to genuinely develop a good raid feeling.

karekiz · August 2019

Roles and Class identity is coming at the end of the year. Were essentially in Beta ESO 2.0 atm.

Wifeaggro13 · August 2019

Jeremy wrote: »

tizodd wrote: »

I suppose it's not horrible that everyone can do everything, but I do miss actually needing roles for things. Now-a-days, even many vet dungeons can be completed with 4 dps (minus the newer stuff).

I do miss the days when groups needed a tank, healer, and dps. Tanks and healers didn't do enough damage to effectively complete things alone; and dps would be killed by hard-hitting enemies if they went at it alone. So everyone had a use. It seems like so many mmo's now are making it so everyone is essentially a jack-of-all-trades.

Now, I'm not suggesting we return to the days of Everquest, when camping bosses and organizing raids took over people's lives. But I do wish classes had a more unique feel again.

Anyone else miss the days when we couldn't just run through a dungeon willy-nilly with dps giving no fvcks?

I miss it. Group content should require defensive, healing, and offensive components. Also support (if you ask me) such as crowd control, buffs, enfeebles, and resource restoration. Old School MMORPGs had far more interesting strategies when it came to group composition and combat - and these games were better for it. This modern approach to MMOs - where it's all about the DEEPS BABY is incredibly lame and I hate it. But sadly that's what this newer generation demands.

A lot was lost in modern stream lining. Support roles and CC created incredible dynamics. I think game design went back wards when they tried making cc and support secondary effects of dps. Bestemeories are from eq 2 .6 man content was incredible experience. Tanking and healing were far more complex and group communication really built some awesome long term friendships

Reevster · August 2019

Ya really miss,spending 30 min to an hour running naked to the next zone over only after trying to find a Cleric to rez your dead corpse, while it was kinda fun at the time when MMOs where new, now it would be just slightly annoying... slightly.

Asys · September 2019

craybest wrote: »

not at all. i wish we had much more liberty at the moment of choosing roles, or even wouldn0t even need them at all.

go back and play fortnite, kid

dennissomb16_ESO · September 2019

I miss different class's having unique abilities that make forming a group fun. MMOs now pretty much all allow all classes to do everything the same. Maybe it simplifies things (especially solo play) but it does make group dynamics somewhat boring.

Red_Feather · September 2019

I remember dungeon crawls being so scary. The deeper you get into the dungeon the worse a group wipe would be.

mayasunrising · September 2019

(tldr; UO was awesome and had no classes. I played a rotten pk thief in a past mmorpg life. LOL)

It's kinda funny, because if you're talking old school MMORPG, Ultima Online - the game who's creator coined the phrase - had no set classes. You became what you wanted in that world and it was brilliant. The designers did an amazing job of creating some content that anyone could solo, and then mobs and world events that you absolutely needed groups to overcome. It wasn't necessarily about needing a healer or tank or dps, it was about needing other people willing to help - and there were plenty of those.

In UO my characters felt unique more because of the way i chose to play them and how I used the skill set available. The skills and the world were a player's sandbox. I was a highway woman, robber, and pk and pretty feared on the road between Britain and Yew. lol Later, when I joined up with an actual pvp guild, we dominated not because we had more healers, or DPS, but primarily because of our communication and willingness to practice and polish our tactics. In group pvp/pve i found I gravitated more towards crowd control and healing so I was able to rework my pk toon toward that new play style. I also created a character designed to specifically knock enemy characters off whatever they were riding (They had bolas in the game. It was rad.

) and lure and kill the mount to slow down enemy groups. One of my favorite toons to play during faction warfare was a bomber that had a ton of stealth, high alchemy (added to potion effects), and would sneak into crowds of enemies and blow them to bits with grand-master explosion potions.

I think the way UO achieved balance allowing people to be whatever they wanted was a pretty solid system. Sure, it allowed you to take whatever skills you liked, but also enforced a maximum amount of points you could put toward those skills. The most you could ever have in the original game was 700 points split between whatever skills you wanted. most dumped those into just 7 skills (7x Grand-master) but many mixed and matched in some pretty unique ways and having side benefits of some mundane skills (GM'ing lumber-jacking added damage to an ax-wielder's attacks, putting points into wrestling gave a mage a better chance of not being interrupted when casting if hit ,etc) meant it often paid to diversify or think outside the box. If you were at the 700 point cap and you wanted to switch from say swords to axes, you ticked your swords down and your axes up and as you practiced with axes you would gain points there and lost them in swords (or whatever other skill you were dumping).

You could pick a "class" during character creation but all that really did was determine what newbie gear you received, and gave you a base of points in skills that profession might use - but even at that point you could chose to spend your points wherever you like.

I dunno, I like the ability to use skills however you want and I don't think that's why roles in ESO feel washed out. I think it's just more a matter of anybody can reach max levels and skill in like 2 days and then power creep sets in and now you have everyone too powerful and just wading through all but the hardest scenarios (no-death runs and such). And I do feel there are too many skills with similar effects across the skill lines of all the classes. It's become more a question of which sparkly effects you prefer having your skills delivered with then if you want to be a healer train healing skill lines.

All that said, I don't think it will change. But I also love ESO and will continue to find ways to enjoy the game. For me that's why pvp is so important to MMOs. It takes all the predictability of set skill lines and mundane mobs, and adds the frustratingly awesome randomness of real humans to the mix.

Thorvik_Tyrson · September 2019

What both ESO and Wow are missing IMO is the Multiple roles and souls like RIFT has. I left WoW for RIFT, and after being able to change roles in between combat, there was no way that I would go back to WoW after that (No matter how much my old Guild master begged me to) I think my main character in Rift had 10 different specs that i could switch between at the press of a button. WoW allowed you to do "Multi-spec" which basically just meant that you could do 2 builds, which is still very limiting. ESO really doesnt have anything like that which I think is a big negative aspect to the game. The potential is there in ESO, but it seems that the ESO Devs never wanted to give the players that type of option.

Iskiab · September 2019

Kiyakotari wrote: »

Agobi wrote: »

No wonder everyone is releasing "classic" *insert MMO here* .....nostalgia for the good old days is big business

What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that a lot of the "nostalgia" aspects" of gaming come from the place we were (intellectually, developmentally, culturally) at the time we were playing those games. Going back to them now, even the exact same original experiences, will not feel the same, and will in some cases "ruin" the memories of the original experience.

My most fond memories of gaming as a child are LOOM and Zack McCracken and the Alien Mindbenders and The Secret of Monkey Island, and then later on, Captain Keen. I will not touch the Captain Keen spinoff, I do not want anything to do with the re-release of Monkey Island. Not because they're bad, but because I'm a different person, and I want to keep those old memories, not try to recreate old experiences that are long past.

There are a lot of exceptions. I tried playing Ultima 5 and yea, it wasn’t as good as I remember. I also tried the relaunch of Baldur’s Gate and loved it.

Difference was graphics really. The core mechanics and gameplay weren’t the issue.

The games that rerelease probably won’t do well. The games that put polish on old systems will.

Cloudtrader · September 2019

I'm... torn.

On the one hand, the most epic raid role I ever played was the Lore-master in the original Helegrod endfight (in LOTRO, level-50 cap), where I had to crowd-control almost 20 mobs. My sole focus that fight was rooting, stunning, mezzing, pet-tanking, and kiting while the other 23 people killed the zombie dragon. ESO does not have a need for much crowd-control, and what need it does have is handled by tanks, who also handle buffing/debuffing. Support roles in ESO are homogenous.

On the other hand, such specialized roles sometimes leave a class out of certain fights, for mechanics reasons. In ESO, I think it is especially hard because regular dungeon size is 4-man, instead of 6- or 8-man as in other games. With only 4 players, you can make groups faster, but there are necessarily fewer roles, so the dungeons have fewer specialized mechanics.

Ah well, I do like ESO as it is, although I am nostalgic for an old-school style sometimes, too.

tizodd · September 2019

Sylosi wrote: »

Yes, because every game that I've played that tries some sort of very open flexible build system where each class can perform multiple roles suffers from the same problems - bad balance, homogenization of classes / skills and a lot of powercreep.

Agreed. And oddly enough, it's even seeped into single player games. Despite it's other flaws, I actually enjoyed Mass Effect Andromeda for one playthrough. After that, there's no replayability because they threw out classes and made every skill/ability available for one character. Gone are the days of a Vanguard play through, followed by an Infiltrator playthrough to get a different feel for the game. Now, we switch between the two on the fly with the same character during the same playthrough.

I really do hope rpg's get back to their roots and stop making everyone a jack-of-all-trades.

tizodd · September 2019

Aurelle1 wrote: »

Yes and no.

On the one hand the Holy Trinity is old skool and great for class identity and grouping, and I'm all for that.

On the other hand being a Jack of All Trades is very important for solo players. And being a solo player, I'm all for that.

I hear you, but (Please hear me out...I'm not trying to argue. Just offering some food-for-though) if you want to solo, why not play a single player game? MMO's have "Massively Multiplayer" in the title. They're meant to be played in groups. I remember the days of FFXI when soloing was pretty much non-existent, even in overland content. You needed a group to kill anything effectively. I'm not proposing ESO take that hardcore route but dungeons at least, should be a challenge and not a cake-walk for 4 "dps" characters.

tizodd · September 2019

GhostofDatthaw wrote: »

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

Not a bit. Happy soloist here.

If you want to solo go play an RPG

Yes I want more class and role identity. Everyone being able to do everything is why this game sucks now. If you don't want to team up with other people to play a game maybe a MMO is not for you.

So much this^

Kiralyn2000 · September 2019

tizodd wrote: »

Aurelle1 wrote: »

Yes and no.

On the one hand the Holy Trinity is old skool and great for class identity and grouping, and I'm all for that.

On the other hand being a Jack of All Trades is very important for solo players. And being a solo player, I'm all for that.

I hear you, but (Please hear me out...I'm not trying to argue. Just offering some food-for-though) if you want to solo, why not play a single player game? MMO's have "Massively Multiplayer" in the title. They're meant to be played in groups. I remember the days of FFXI when soloing was pretty much non-existent, even in overland content.

Because the lore, exploration, building characters, etc... are still fun. And even if you're fighting mobs solo, you're still interacting with a "massively multiple" number of other players via chat, via world interactions, via the economy, etc.

Nowhere in "MMO" is a requirement that everything you do needs to be in a party. (see the person posting about UO up above).

(and that's even ignoring the part where modern MMOs deliberately include plenty of 'solo' content, if only because they want more customers. The pool of 'hardcore party-only EQ-era" players is too small to support more than a small handful of MMOs. It worked fine back when the genre was just 3 or 4 games, but nowadays? Or even 10 years ago?)

disclaimer - I've been 'soloing' MMOs since vanilla WoW 15 years ago. City of Heroes, ESO, Neverwinter, D&D Online, Star Trek Online, SWToR, TERA, Secret World... (and those are just the games I played a meaningful amount of. Dabbled in plenty of others). Yes, there was group content that I understood I'd be locked out of, but there was still plenty of exploration, adventure, lore, and game mechanics that I was able to experience & enjoy.

valeriiya · September 2019

Really old school, I miss Telnet sometimes

Wifeaggro13 · September 2019

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

tizodd wrote: »

Aurelle1 wrote: »

Yes and no.

On the one hand the Holy Trinity is old skool and great for class identity and grouping, and I'm all for that.

On the other hand being a Jack of All Trades is very important for solo players. And being a solo player, I'm all for that.

I hear you, but (Please hear me out...I'm not trying to argue. Just offering some food-for-though) if you want to solo, why not play a single player game? MMO's have "Massively Multiplayer" in the title. They're meant to be played in groups. I remember the days of FFXI when soloing was pretty much non-existent, even in overland content.

Because the lore, exploration, building characters, etc... are still fun. And even if you're fighting mobs solo, you're still interacting with a "massively multiple" number of other players via chat, via world interactions, via the economy, etc.

Nowhere in "MMO" is a requirement that everything you do needs to be in a party. (see the person posting about UO up above).

(and that's even ignoring the part where modern MMOs deliberately include plenty of 'solo' content, if only because they want more customers. The pool of 'hardcore party-only EQ-era" players is too small to support more than a small handful of MMOs. It worked fine back when the genre was just 3 or 4 games, but nowadays? Or even 10 years ago?)

disclaimer - I've been 'soloing' MMOs since vanilla WoW 15 years ago. City of Heroes, ESO, Neverwinter, D&D Online, Star Trek Online, SWToR, TERA, Secret World... (and those are just the games I played a meaningful amount of. Dabbled in plenty of others). Yes, there was group content that I understood I'd be locked out of, but there was still plenty of exploration, adventure, lore, and game mechanics that I was able to experience & enjoy.

All those games you just mentioned have far more engaging aeplay on a solo lvl, and the game systems are far more indepth ,emergent game play. I dont know that people are asking for a game world where its impossible to level unless your at least duoing. But eso just lacks at every aspect 5 years in. It's a massive world yes but it's so shallow it really leaves little to be desired in the leveling process. And when you do hit VR dungeons most players have no clue even how to build or play a role.

tizodd · September 2019

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

tizodd wrote: »

Aurelle1 wrote: »

Yes and no.

On the one hand the Holy Trinity is old skool and great for class identity and grouping, and I'm all for that.

On the other hand being a Jack of All Trades is very important for solo players. And being a solo player, I'm all for that.

I hear you, but (Please hear me out...I'm not trying to argue. Just offering some food-for-though) if you want to solo, why not play a single player game? MMO's have "Massively Multiplayer" in the title. They're meant to be played in groups. I remember the days of FFXI when soloing was pretty much non-existent, even in overland content.

Because the lore, exploration, building characters, etc... are still fun. And even if you're fighting mobs solo, you're still interacting with a "massively multiple" number of other players via chat, via world interactions, via the economy, etc.

Nowhere in "MMO" is a requirement that everything you do needs to be in a party. (see the person posting about UO up above).

(and that's even ignoring the part where modern MMOs deliberately include plenty of 'solo' content, if only because they want more customers. The pool of 'hardcore party-only EQ-era" players is too small to support more than a small handful of MMOs. It worked fine back when the genre was just 3 or 4 games, but nowadays? Or even 10 years ago?)

disclaimer - I've been 'soloing' MMOs since vanilla WoW 15 years ago. City of Heroes, ESO, Neverwinter, D&D Online, Star Trek Online, SWToR, TERA, Secret World... (and those are just the games I played a meaningful amount of. Dabbled in plenty of others). Yes, there was group content that I understood I'd be locked out of, but there was still plenty of exploration, adventure, lore, and game mechanics that I was able to experience & enjoy.

You quoted me but left out the part where I said "I'm not proposing ESO take that hardcore route but dungeons at least, should be a challenge and not a cake-walk for 4 "dps" characters."

Zardayne · September 2019

eso_lytw8 wrote: »

tizodd wrote: »

I suppose it's not horrible that everyone can do everything, but I do miss actually needing roles for things. Now-a-days, even many vet dungeons can be completed with 4 dps (minus the newer stuff).

I do miss the days when groups needed a tank, healer, and dps. Tanks and healers didn't do enough damage to effectively complete things alone; and dps would be killed by hard-hitting enemies if they went at it alone. So everyone had a use. It seems like so many mmo's now are making it so everyone is essentially a jack-of-all-trades.

Now, I'm not suggesting we return to the days of Everquest, when camping bosses and organizing raids took over people's lives. But I do wish classes had a more unique feel again.

Anyone else miss the days when we couldn't just run through a dungeon willy-nilly with dps giving no fvcks?

Yes I do miss this immensely. I was a day 1 everquester. The game was brutal and the brutal elements I do not miss. But I do miss that you needed a tank, a healer, a messer, and damage dealers. Without a group that had roles a group of regular mobs could waste a full team.

ZOS has killed the healer, noone even wants one. In everquest it was incredibly fun to go crazy dealing damage and knew you life depended on others...the tank to take agro, you needed pullers, the healer to bring you back from the brink of death, an enchanter or bard to control the crowd. You had to assist or you would die and death was bad, like really bad. There were lots of unique roles and they were all needed.

Now we basically have one role, its called dps and to add to this, now all dps basically use the same skills. The game has become so "un"-unique, its a true shame.

This whole post is exactly how I feel...Thank you for a great post!

Runefang · September 2019

I do and I don't.

There's an awesome feeling finding a good MMO and getting to explore it for the first time. But part of what makes it awesome is that its new and interesting. If you then loaded up another MMO with the same gameplay it would seem kind of boring.

Games need to evolve and not just rehash the past. Nostalgia is always short-lived.

So while ESO's gameplay might feel lacking in some areas, just the fact that it is different is important.

Neoauspex · September 2019

Bouldercleave wrote: »

Neoauspex wrote: »

I miss really old school, MUD style, where if you died you character was #$@-&+? gone.

You can still "Ironman" it in this game and delete your character if he dies....

I can only imagine you deleting a CP 1000+ character for dying to falling damage in Cyrodil after a lag spike.

I'm buying stock in gaming keyboard companies the day that little jewel comes out!

I'll do it if everybody else does