Theme part like quest regions that lead to everyone owning the same rewards / also daily grind quests are somewhat bad it just feels like playing a game on rails and you cant feel unique. Its even had a bad effect on grouping since if someone already did that quest he wouldn get a reward by helping others so its all about soloing at the end.
Thers more bothersome things that come to mind but this was the first one.
Infinite Aggro until some artificial zone line.
Infinite Aggro until zone line creates multiple undesirable game behaviors.
1) Players are too afraid to travel the zone so travel is done by hugging the zone line. This makes most of the zone deserted and all the effort of making nice views within the game world wasted as only pullers see anything other than safe camps and zone walls.
2) Lack of tactical withdraw options really limits gameplay. Having only stand and die or train to zone anytime a pull goes badly or you over estimate your own ability kills of many options of agro drops that could be a form of either class synergy or progression.
3) Trains are dumb, disruptive, wasteful and very easily exploited as a form of PVP in a PVE game. Infinite aggro despite the source of aggro or severity of the action that creates aggro just creates a very 1 dimensional experience where you often suffer from others bad gameplay or mistakes rather than your own as those in front of the train rarely suffer wipes, only those in the path of the train who are unaware.
Lol, this debate has the potential to get quite 'real'...
For me, it's mechanics that support or even encourage pseudo-PvP griefing/content-blocking/perma-camping/kill-stealing/training/etc.
Actual PvP would be more honest, but I want actual PvP even less...
Open world used to mean opportunities for co-op and shared experiences.
I know it's not easy, but let's innovate ways to get back to that, not treat these pretend PvP aspects as unavoidable or even laudable in a PvE game.
I'm not saying there should be *no* competition, but let's work out mechanics that support fair, healthy and elective competition. If people want it, they can have it with other like-minded people. If people don't they can't have it forced upon them.
I don't see why it should be treated any differently then PvP and no one would dream of forcing PvP on people who didn't want it.
I play plenty of PvP games. I greatly enjoy Battlefield. I don't want or need some semi-PvP in a PvE MMORPG. I don't need to beat other players to enjoy Pantheon.
Cue the usual "carebear" and "you must want instancing" comments, hehe...
Sorry, I don’t have a worst.
Skill trees - I used to enjoy deciding how I’m going to create my Character/s - but now I don’t want to choose - I just want to play the game.
Choices in a lot of newer games feel way too balanced and arbitrary. I need deeper choices that create originality in how I play. The last few games I played with skill trees I just picked whatever and didn’t care to think about it. I don’t feel it’s worth my time.
Skill trees increase my enjoyment when I can use them to unbalance gameplay and become stronger in some way - in a lot of games it’s all so well balanced it doesn’t matter. I think as long as the game realizes players are overpowered and subtly increases difficulty it’s ok - which I doubt can be done in a mmorpg - Maybe It can be done with specific types of mobs that use special abilities depending upon the types of abilities used against the mob. You might be overpowered but it would come with extra risk.
Dungeon Finders - My immersion in the world is quickly obliviated, my sense of adventure destroyed and my time wasted like an addict getting a fix. I tend not to stick around in a game with dungeon finders.
Quest Markers - I remember complaints about quest markers when Vanguard:SOH was in development, I thought they’re not that bad - but now I absolutely despise them. If the core game is questing and all quests are basically done for you, what’s the point - all you have to do is follow markers. It’s the idea that players are workers doing work and not players playing a game. I wonder if mmorpgs were made to play and not work how many more people would enjoy them.
Endgame Emphasis - If most of level progression is done solo and endgame is done in raids it’s inevitable players will want this endgame Emphasis but I prefer by far for the Emphasis to be on longer level progression in groups or raids.
I'm gonna have to go with the dungeon finder in WoW. The ability to just appear at a fresh dungeon with a group of people you'd never met before, run through the dungeon without anyone saying a word, and then re-appearing where you were before. Why? Because it fed the "reward me right NOW" attitude that has ruined MMORPGs for the last 15 or so years. It erased the sense of adventure and risk/reward aspects of the game. And, because it is such a big industry it effected how many other games were being played as well.
The Lack of meaningful decisions,
1. Multiple character slots per account, (Aside from pledge bonues, that incidentally would have greater value if 1 slot was default)
2. character being able to master combat class, plus crafting professions and harvesting profession. It should be Master one, dabble in the rest at most. Give meaning to choice, while boosting the need for individuals who master their Field.
Ect…
Also, Running in circles to gather resource nodes. It’s boring, encourages solo gameplay, nothing says fun like being the March Hare.
I Would personally prefer a something like a mine to gather most resources and meet other players who are also gathering, and build connections.
Ranarius said:I'm gonna have to go with the dungeon finder in WoW. The ability to just appear at a fresh dungeon with a group of people you'd never met before, run through the dungeon without anyone saying a word, and then re-appearing where you were before. Why? Because it fed the "reward me right NOW" attitude that has ruined MMORPGs for the last 15 or so years. It erased the sense of adventure and risk/reward aspects of the game. And, because it is such a big industry it effected how many other games were being played as well.
Ooo, I'll stick with my above, but that is a close contender for my worst too.
I always thought of WoW as 'different' and not really an 'evolution' of MMORPGs at all, but I think you are correct that, because WoW was so successful, and all producers wanted some of that, they did emulate WoW for years, even the horrible aspects like the dungeon finder, which did exactly what you said. WoW was already a game that barely required any social interaction - WotLK and the dungeon finder turned everything into speed runs and killed the social aspect utterly, even turning it toxic.
Then games like Rift started with promise but soon introduced the same speed-run-ignore-the-story-and-the-players mechanics and features.
My least favorite game mechanic i came across recently was while playing ESO, i cant really get behind the scaling for the player character and as far as i understand it the overworld map has all the creatures at lv50/ 160 champion points. So it felt really wierd to have stats like 15k hp at lv 1 and such. Along with that it really killed what i felt was a sense of progression when each level you kinda just stay the same you unlock more skills as you go up but until you break past the scaled level of the world all the fights play out pretty much the same.
Another issue i took with this mechanic is that it threw off the story pretty badly, if you can start anywhere and play the story gets jumbled and out of order to people who havnt read a guide on where the hell the game actually started and it left me feeling pretty lost. My friend who was playing along with me and while not particuarly high leveled had played through the original story lines had to point out the significance of characters i came across since i had no previous interactions with them but they treated me like a old friend.
There are so many in recent memory but I'm gonna have to go with Phasing. I get that the point is to make the world feel more impacted by an individual's actions but it turns parts of the game world into solo adventures and hurts grouping.
Followed closely by:
* Dungeon finder, especially with cross-server grouping
* Dungeon scaling that allows anyone at any level to do the same content
* Huge jumps in loot stats from new expansions that obliterate past achievements
Ranarius said:Akilae said:* Huge jumps in loot stats from new expansions that obliterate past achievements
I'll definitely 2nd that one! Your gear shouldn't be obsolete the moment a new expansion comes out.
Ugh, yes. So hateful when if you are forced to do each and every expansion's grind for gear else you cannot take part in anything 'new', because you are so underpowered.
Expansions should mostly offer variety and horizontal progression. Any power progression should be more linear and/or level-based and not some exponential leap effectively 'gating' your participation.
There is no need to make huge power leaps to 'sell' new content.
In fact I'd be all for a lot of expansions being sub-max level, never mind raising max level.
Trasak said:Infinite Aggro until some artificial zone line.
...
I offer the opposite: leashing mobs. No fear and relatively low risk for exploring even areas I have no business being in for my level. Free to pick any number of fights knowing if things start to turn you are only a root and scoot away from leash distance.
Trasak said:Completely agree with this one. (and the associated most-used cause, Feign Death) So many better more elegant options available, many theorycrafted on these very forums.Infinite Aggro until some artificial zone line.
Infinite Aggro until zone line creates multiple undesirable game behaviors.
1) Players are too afraid to travel the zone so travel is done by hugging the zone line. This makes most of the zone deserted and all the effort of making nice views within the game world wasted as only pullers see anything other than safe camps and zone walls.
2) Lack of tactical withdraw options really limits gameplay. Having only stand and die or train to zone anytime a pull goes badly or you over estimate your own ability kills of many options of agro drops that could be a form of either class synergy or progression.
3) Trains are dumb, disruptive, wasteful and very easily exploited as a form of PVP in a PVE game. Infinite aggro despite the source of aggro or severity of the action that creates aggro just creates a very 1 dimensional experience where you often suffer from others bad gameplay or mistakes rather than your own as those in front of the train rarely suffer wipes, only those in the path of the train who are unaware.
Scaling monsters and gear drop to your level. Nothing is more depressing than not being able to find lower or higher risk with equivalent reward based on the level of risk. If I want to head out to a higher-level area and risk death for a better reward, I want to be able too.
Skyrim is a great example of this.
For a more recent MMO experience, quest chains. Do not get me wrong there are times a quest chain can be exciting, rewarding, etc. But it also has a negative that drives me mad.
Example 1 let’s say you have a group that wants to do relevant content that would give challenge and reward. But one of the quests you want to do is a quest chain that starts out solo. So now the group needs to decide if they are going to skip the quest all together or play solo content until everyone is on the group potion of the questline.
Example 2 you have been working on a quest chain with pickup group and every time you login you are only able to get a group that is on an early step forcing you to repeatedly do quest line you have already done only to have the group quit at the same place you are at. Wash and repeat.
Another thing that really irritates me is when you take on a really hard challenge, quest or killing a named mob and have the drop require a higher level than you are. I just ran into this in Vanguard with a quest. We did not even have a full group. we completed a quest that the reward required level 19 to wear and we were level 16. Just crazy. I think this is as important as “if you can see it you can go there”. If you can complete the task you should be rewarded now not once you have achieved the level the developers expected people to be when they completed it. Limits like this teach me it is not worth taking the risk and would be better to always play it safe. I hate playing it safe…
Kilsin said:Community Debate - What was the worst game mechanic you've had experience with and why was it so bad? #MMOPRG#CommunityMatters
The unbalanced, dare I say unfair, mechanic where by casters suffered extraordinarily higher resists rates (meaning decreased efficiency and efficacy) when facing NPCs of equal or higher level than the player. Melee suffered far less from this with some classes experiencing nearly zero decreases in efficiency. What this meant was that, on raids specifically, caster DPS was less valued than melee DPS. Why have 4 wizards who get full resist after resist after resist, then are out of mana, when you can have far higher efficiency from rogues who can keep attacking ad infinitum?
What I've seen in the Pantheon streams shows this is again rearing its ugly head.
Good choice, Vandraad, and I agree in general, there is no love for casters so far, in VR's design. Every effort seems to be made to favor melee, vs. non-melee.
But we'll see. If there's the option to customize spell schools via Mastery such that resists return a net gain, or ~no-net-loss of mana? It might change things. :)
vjek said:Good choice, Vandraad, and I agree in general, there is no love for casters so far, in VR's design. Every effort seems to be made to favor melee, vs. non-melee.
But we'll see. If there's the option to customize spell schools via Mastery such that resists return a net gain, or ~no-net-loss of mana? It might change things. :)
Oh yeah. Lets make caster spend master points to partially (and it would only be partial) make up for a stupid game mechanic. Meanwhile melee get to spend their points on spend points on far better things.
I want to add another one - voice chat. I know this is a contraversial one and I'm guessing I'm the minority but I get to post my opinion :)
I don't like voice chat because I want to hear what the game designeers want me to hear, not other players voices, or the music they're listening to, or their dog barking. I enjoy the in-game music and sound effects. I have quit playing games because voice chat was the norm, and I quit raids in WoW whenever the raid leader said it was a requirement. There ya have it :)
@Thorndeep Completely agree on dailies.
I have never used a dungeon finder like the one in WoW. It sounds like I would not have lied it if I did. I loved the LFG tool in EQ but sounds completely different.
I hope levels and gear do not cause one side to be invulnerable.
A mechanic I have not seen a full decision from Pantheon is level scaling turning the higher level invulnerable. By this I mean there are games where when you are an arbitrary number of levels higher than a mob so suddenly they simply cant touch you. Sometimes from stats, where you become a living god compared to a peasant. Sometimes from skills where even a frail old wizard learns how to dodge their way through a sky full of arrows. At times through gear where all common high level robes have way more AC than low level plate armor, but it takes high level expertise to wear said bathrobe. You can run around the entire zone and pick up 30 mobs all attacking you then just stand there. The opposite is also true. A high level enemy is effectively immune to everything you do. Once you cross this level boundry you may as well be swinging a pool noodle instead of a sword.
Games like DnD 5e I feel do it right. A Goblin or any low level creature at lvl 1 is about as powerful as you. As you level up you gain the ability to slaughter goblins like a mad man (depending on your class) You could turn an entire tribe of goblins into frozen statues with a single spell. Even with that being the case, if a goblin attacks you, even at level 20, they still have a pretty high chance of hitting a non AC tank. They still deal enough damage to not be something you can just ignore forever. You couldn't run through a cave slapping every goblin then stand there like a god watching hp regen keep you at full health.
I get people like big numbers and I am probably heavily outvoted on my belief here, but simply having big numbers is a hurdle for game mechanics. If you piss off a village, they should be able to stone you to death if you don't slaughter them all or leave. The villager shouldn't have to be level 45 to hit you with a rock. How could the world function if every low level town couldn't take on a single bandit?
@Jobeson I few points of clarity and then I agree. At a certain point a mob should not start a fight with me as I out level them. Based on your mentioning slapping them all I think you agree with this point. But if a mob can hit me even when it is much lower level then me then I should be able to hit a mob much higher level then me. I like the idea of a bunch of low-level players ganging up on a normal mob that happens to be much higher level then them. Kind of like a raid without the reward.
starblight said:At a certain point a mob should not start a fight with me as I out level them... I should be able to hit a mob much higher level then me.
Yeah the aggro mechanics are not tied to my point as they are really tricky and virtually impossible to code well. On one hand for QoL reasons it is nice to be ignored and its the simplest thing to code. Intelligent villagers shouldn't go punch a dragon (this isn't skyrim), but why would a giant spider whose web you just stepped on see you as anything other than food? You may be strong enough to solo your way through a low level dungeon, but the creatures who hate you shouldn't just walk past you pretending not to see you as you make your way through to go murder their leader. I would rather intelligent creatures run around and rally together a raid of monsters to take you down, the deadliest enemy they have ever seen. I don't see these kind of nuanced aggro mechanics as a possiblity, so they can't really ruin a game, meaning QoL ignore it likely is.
Going back to the original point though, you would totally be able to hit mobs higher level than you in the same way. They may one or two shot you if you are too low, but the threat of you damaging them would still be there. These kind of mechanics help to stop solo farming medium level bosses while also extending the level range of group memebers you could have in areas. I hope a swarm of level 20 NPCs would be killing me just about as fast as the level 50 NPC.