Annoying things in MMOs worth fixing well

[ravenmoon]

So, you've played WoW and likely quite a few other titles since.. what are some of the annoying things you are finidng in some of these games that you would really like a better solution or fix for.


e.g.
1. Your efforts don't affect the game world - quest asks you to clear something, you do, but respawns it's all back

2. Combat animations - watching your toon fihgt mobs and it's so obvious it's not even close to realistic - hitting air, making contact in a way that should instantly kill someone, blocking with no corresponding animation etc


the list might be heavy, but dono't you just love going into a new mmo and seeing they've sorted one of x many annoying aspects of previous mmo?

3. tiny cities in the game world - this is wow a big culprit off

4. over use of tile sets or limited art - basically these guys use the same art nearly everywhere, or a very limited amount giving the world a same feel - e.g. SWTOR does this for it's interiors of bases, no matter where you are they look too similar it's boring and the world feeels much smaller for it

5.. tons of loading screens - swtor has this - i prefer what FFXIV does, but maybe it's bearable for me cos I have a good pc

[Fencers]

I dislike reskins of monster in dungeons and raids. I feel each of these should be designed per raid or dungeon. Especially bosses, every boss should be a unique model and skin.

I also dislike non-boss enemies in the over world, dungeons and raids with no actual mechanics. Most of the time the level 20 werebear from the Hilly Terrain zone does the same exact stuff as the level 50 slimy troll warrior from the Icy Terrain zone.

[kail]

Tiered progression tbh. I'd prefer the entire world that is designed in an MMO to remain relevant in some way no matter the level of the player or whatnot. Designing the massive regions to only play around for 10 lvs feels like such a waste IMO. Keep the materials that you can collect in the beginning area relevant to even endgame crafting, have mobs spawn that can provide some use to even high end players.

[May90]

1. Remove dailies.
2. Make achievements mean something, i.e. remove all that crap like "kill 500,000 critters" or "do all quests in Hellfire Peninsula".
3. Make leveling challenging.
4. Make quests more interesting that "collect 20 wolf pelts".
5. You got you a new subscriber/player.

[Gsara]

Leveling, we dont need 50+ levels at the beginning of a new mmo. Lower it to 20 or 25, let us get into the part of the game quicker that everyone wants to do - endgame. Less levels, more challenge in the leveling process.

Crafting should be the main way to gear up. Doesnt have to have the absolute best gear in the game but everything up to BiS should be craftable.

Class diversity and not just combat classes. If I want to be a super badass pro merchant/farmer/crafter, it should be an option. As an example, Archeage but with a non shit system behind it. Bring back support style classes as well.

I want big open worlds and not have to have a loading screen every time I go to a new zone. Also more games with one big megaserver, keep the population of the game together instead spread out over a ton of servers.

You see all of these things in different games already and I would like a game that has them all.

[Sj]

Leveling, we dont need 50+ levels at the beginning of a new mmo. Lower it to 20 or 25, let us get into the part of the game quicker that everyone wants to do - endgame. Less levels, more challenge in the leveling process.

I disagree with this mainly just because, being from the early generation of MMO gamers, I've always felt that leveling is just as important as what happens when you hit level cap; the journey being as important as the destination and all that. I dislike how MMOs became so endgame-centric as it really changed the culture of the players. MMOs used to be a gigantic time-sink (I'm okay with that changing), so there wasn't always this rush by everyone to hit cap and get gear and start the lobby playstyle of queues and raid focus.

Also what I quoted kinda contradicts, at least in how I see it, your desire for huge open worlds. If there's less leveling so you can get to endgame faster, why would you need these open worlds? I'm genuinely curious because I agree with everything you said except the first part.

[Gsara]

I disagree with this mainly just because, being from the early generation of MMO gamers, I've always felt that leveling is just as important as what happens when you hit level cap; the journey being as important as the destination and all that. I dislike how MMOs became so endgame-centric as it really changed the culture of the players. MMOs used to be a gigantic time-sink (I'm okay with that changing), so there wasn't always this rush by everyone to hit cap and get gear and start the lobby playstyle of queues and raid focus.

Also what I quoted kinda contradicts, at least in how I see it, your desire for huge open worlds. If there's less leveling so you can get to endgame faster, why would you need these open worlds? I'm genuinely curious because I agree with everything you said except the first part.

Whats the point in 60+ levels now when it takes a day or two to do it? Endgame isnt just dungeons and raids and honestly I like to see big raids take a back seat to open world content.

You also dont have to be leveling to do the open world content. The journey can be just as good if you are level 20 or level 100, the difference would be is that you would have choices at level cap to go do dungeons or raids with friends or guild while still having a lot of open world things you could do all at the same time and not be locked behind a trivial level number. You dont even need to have levels at all and just go something like TSW(excellent game btw) I guess.

This would also take a lot of changes in how most players look at endgame also. I could imagine everything from long story lines in the open world that would include say a dungeon that would scale with say 1-5 players in the quest line. Open world housing where you could build your own plots say like Archeage with a ton of options for players that want to be merchants, farmers, ranchers etc. All with story lines to do for your chosen job that could give abilities or talent points or whatever for your class/job. Its just an example but Im sure you get the point.

[Bathory]

Spell animations not changing with level

Recolored things. Lvl 1 boars, now lvl 100 boars! same model, same sounds, different color!

[Selastan]

Combat doesn't have to mean everything. What developers need to realize when they attempt to create a fantasy world is that not everyone can be the knight who slays the dragon. Some people just want to the blacksmith who sells the knight his armor, or the wizard who hires the knight to get the dragon scales he needs for a powerful spell.

[Halicia]

#1. Level caps.
#2. Content with a shelf life of a few months.
#3. Don't splinter the community with artificial barriers. (If you absolutely MUST have multiple servers for technical reasons, allow for free migration and cross-server play as best possible)

Those are the big 3 imo. If I can continue to strengthen my character, then I will continue to do 'pointless' content with less than my preferred group of players. If I enjoy the content I'm doing, again, idc so much about the people I'm with, or the fact that I'm not actually gaining any power character-wise. And to wrap it up, if I enjoy my company, than the rest doesnt matter...

but without any growth to my character, open access to playing with my friends, and/or a fun/diverse selection of content that I can continue to benefit from in some manner.... then the game's only as enjoyable as the latest patch.

[Sj]

Whats the point in 60+ levels now when it takes a day or two to do it? Endgame isnt just dungeons and raids and honestly I like to see big raids take a back seat to open world content.

You also dont have to be leveling to do the open world content. The journey can be just as good if you are level 20 or level 100, the difference would be is that you would have choices at level cap to go do dungeons or raids with friends or guild while still having a lot of open world things you could do all at the same time and not be locked behind a trivial level number. You dont even need to have levels at all and just go something like TSW(excellent game btw) I guess.

This would also take a lot of changes in how most players look at endgame also. I could imagine everything from long story lines in the open world that would include say a dungeon that would scale with say 1-5 players in the quest line. Open world housing where you could build your own plots say like Archeage with a ton of options for players that want to be merchants, farmers, ranchers etc. All with story lines to do for your chosen job that could give abilities or talent points or whatever for your class/job. Its just an example but Im sure you get the point.

WoW is pretty much the only MMO I've played in recent years where level goes by so quickly. But yeah, I see where you're coming from and I agree. The only problem with level-capped content is that it has to feel worthwhile to the player because ultimately the goal in any RPG (MMO or otherwise) is improving your character in some manner. I love reasons to get out and do things in the world but so many games fail to make it interesting or rewarding.

[May90]

WoW is pretty much the only MMO I've played in recent years where level goes by so quickly. But yeah, I see where you're coming from and I agree. The only problem with level-capped content is that it has to feel worthwhile to the player because ultimately the goal in any RPG (MMO or otherwise) is improving your character in some manner. I love reasons to get out and do things in the world but so many games fail to make it interesting or rewarding.

I think the problem is that in most modern MMOs (WoW included) doing open world content ceases to render any rewards at some point. If raiding was an alternative to doing open world content, meaning you could gear up both by raiding and by open worlding, then both would be relevant. But as of now, you hit level 100, and after that you have to go raid to gear up: you simply cannot find the gear by doing open world content similar to what you can get off raid bosses.

Imagine if there were multiple alternatives, both allowing the player to gear up with similar amount of time and effort:
1. Open world
2. Dungeons
3. Raiding
4. PvP
5. Dailies
6. Pet Battles
7. World events
8. Professions
The list can go on and on... Everyone could pick the way of gearing up they prefer. Everyone would be happy, and no content would be obsolete.

[Gsara]

WoW is pretty much the only MMO I've played in recent years where level goes by so quickly. But yeah, I see where you're coming from and I agree. The only problem with level-capped content is that it has to feel worthwhile to the player because ultimately the goal in any RPG (MMO or otherwise) is improving your character in some manner. I love reasons to get out and do things in the world but so many games fail to make it interesting or rewarding.

The key thing would what you said in that post, "has to feel worth while". You could also do other things as well besides straight gear upgrades. For example, what if you could do say pet battles in wow and depending on the pet type it gave your character a slight buff to say fire damage. What if the spell frostfire bolt actually came through you doing things on your character to unlock it, like a certain kind of pet gave you the fire part and a questline you did or will do gives you the frost part. This would open up a system where you could basically customize your character to play like you want it to, not just mage number 4,768 that does exactly the same thing as all other mages.

You could have a game where you are always advancing your character at level cap and it doesnt need to be tied to just raids or farming AA's(eq) etc. There is a very interesting game going to beta this winter called Camelot Unchained. Its not going to be a game everyone will like but the interesting thing about the game is, you craft your own spells with the basic elements.(earth, wind, fire etc) Your fire ball may be slightly different than the other guys but both are still quit effective. Spells also interact with other players spells. Ive been playing the alpha for founders and it is pretty inspiring with some of the things they are doing.

While a lot of games use different combat systems to separate themselves, like wow combat vs. wildstar combat, most of them still use that same gear treadmill. Level, do some dungeons, farm some rep, raid. It would be nice to have other ways to advance your character besides gear grinding through that system and also be able to do it on a more in depth level.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

So, you've played WoW and likely quite a few other titles since.. what are some of the annoying things you are finidng in some of these games that you would really like a better solution or fix for.


e.g.
1. Your efforts don't affect the game world - quest asks you to clear something, you do, but respawns it's all back

2. Combat animations - watching your toon fihgt mobs and it's so obvious it's not even close to realistic - hitting air, making contact in a way that should instantly kill someone, blocking with no corresponding animation etc


the list might be heavy, but dono't you just love going into a new mmo and seeing they've sorted one of x many annoying aspects of previous mmo?

3. tiny cities in the game world - this is wow a big culprit off

4. over use of tile sets or limited art - basically these guys use the same art nearly everywhere, or a very limited amount giving the world a same feel - e.g. SWTOR does this for it's interiors of bases, no matter where you are they look too similar it's boring and the world feeels much smaller for it

5.. tons of loading screens - swtor has this - i prefer what FFXIV does, but maybe it's bearable for me cos I have a good pc

1.I think random loot needs to go and a currency system should take its place.
2.Smooth combat not a lot of mmo's have it...
3.Split pve and Pvp they should be balanced differently because they're not the same.
4.I wish mmos would stop focusing on raiding so much because their is easier to develop content that draws a lot of players as well.

[Fencers]

I am in favor of MMOs without character levels (The Secret World) or very low character levels (Guild Wars 1). I have never enjoyed "leveling up" in any game MMO or otherwise. Pointless busy work and lazy gating.

[Selastan]

I am in favor of MMOs without character levels (The Secret World) or very low character levels (Guild Wars 1). I have never enjoyed "leveling up" in any game MMO or otherwise. Pointless busy work and lazy gating.

What about Runescape, where leveling up IS the game?