MMORPG seems to be getting pointlessly complex

[Don]

I was looking around at some encounters in FF14, and while FF14 is probably the bottom of the barrel (which kind of speaks about how bad things currently are given I still play it) it's not exactly unique in having pointlessly complicated endgame encounters. It's getting to a point where I think you probably have to solve a rubik's cube while fighting a boss and then recite a manuscript. I noticed that a lot of developers have this 'if X is good then X+1 must be better'. If the last boss you did had 5 abilities then surely a boss with 6 abilities is even better. There's basically all kinds of bloat in gaming, but most notably MMORPGs since the "X+1" model is a popular, not to mention easy, way to add new content.

[kali o.]

I don't play MMO's -- but no scripted fight/AI is ever going to be genuinely satisfying. They are just disguised grinds pre-empting collect-a-thons. If they get more complex (and really, where else can they take AI fights?), it's only mildly distracting for a bit, but then ultimately unsatisfying again once it become formulaic/routine. Just a grind. There are encounters in Turbine's DDO that include "puzzles" -- variants of Mastermind puzzles. Fun a few times, I guess...then it's just a time sink.

Most developers tend to use HP bloat for content, which is annoying and usually leads to power creep.

I've said it before, but MMO's were done right with Ultima Online - it's all been regressing since then. Plop players down in a game world, and let emergent gameplay grow out of their interaction (economy, pvp, politics, etc). UO's issues were massive technology problems (server boundaries) and listening to crybabies.

Players should power nearly everything in an MMO, PvE is just boring and a dead end.

[Shrinweck]

I agree any lasting MMORPG has to be powered by its players. PvE content and story will always eventually be consumed by the players in its entirety and then the player base will quit. Guild Wars 2 has tried to combat this with its two week content updates but these updates tend to be extremely grind heavy PvE and it amounts to just changing the place you're doing the exact same thing every week. WoW was able to keep its player base for so long largely because the game caught on with communities who essentially acted as each others enablers. EVE Online is good at delivering a player driven experience but its barrier to entry (barrier to enjoyment) is too monumental to be hugely successful (not to mention it still adhering to whats become an archaic business model).

Wildstar and EQ Next are at least playing around with player involvement a bit, letting people actually build their own communities. Wildstar is also playing with gameplay mechanics enough that it should add some more flavor to keep it from becoming as stale as quickly.

I regret missing the Ultima Online bandwagon. Whenever someone talked about it back then, it seemed like it was ruled by PK bullies and that kind of community has never appealed to me.

The only MMORPGs that have kept my interest for more than a month or two have needed to have a well crafted story or highly customizable classes that are fun to experiment with. FF14 everyone amounted to the same thing and any 'choices' in stat/skill diversity were made useless because there's only one way to play to be efficient. I think you should let players who make stupid choices gimp themselves, and fuck it, let it be semi-permanent like Path of Exile. Experimentation will bring (smart) players back and weed out the ones who are just taste testing your game. You weren't going to keep them anyway.

Content updates in the form of grind heavy instances fucking blow. There should never be a content update of this sort that isn't accompanied with either a level increase (and thus a need for a change in game mechanics, balance, and additional skills) or MASSIVE amounts of new lore. The formulaic update with a new instance, a new commendation type to grind in said instance, and a new flavor of the month equipment piece or three is just lazy development. But in the end you aren't going to keep lots of people paying for more unless there are other people fueling the desire to keep playing. EQ Next is probably doing this the most out of the MMORPGs coming in the near future... too bad it's an EverQuest game and everything else about it will probably be bland as fuck.

[Don]

This isn't a question about whether games can succeed building against an AI, and one would think it has to be possible to build a meaningful system against a predictable opponent, or games like Diablo or Final Fantasy (the non online version) would have never worked. However, it is certainly not very easy, and often I feel instead of actually thinking hard about the problem, you just get the 'X+1' approach. Quite a few game tried to add a puzzle too, and it's only cute the first tme you see it. I'd rather they just pop up a Captcha instead, that way I don't have to explain how the Tower of Hanoi or any other obscure game someone learned about during college to a new guy.

It just really gets me whenever I hear people talk about an encounter and begins with "This encounter is complicated". It's even worse when it's actually true and you have to explain your college computer science programming project and that's just the first mechanism the boss uses. In fact, this whole video game is complicated is a lot like saying Americn Football is played by smart people. I'm sure some posiitons (like QB) you probably have to be sort of smart, but American Football sure isn't played by nerdy Ivy League gradautes. Likewise the best MMORPG players aren't nerdy engineers either. They're generally just guys with a ton of time and really good reflexes.

I forgot who said this, but like people really have this illusion of 'brain over brawn', because it's very obvious to most us that we definitely do not have brawn, at least not brawn in any meaningful way (otherwise we'd be playing pro sports), so all we got is the illusion of a brain, and games really exploit that. If you have gaming 'brawn' it'd be very obvious too (like you can play professionally on fighting games or FPS), and since most people certainly don't have brawn either, all they can do is pretend they have brain.

[Julius Seeker]

I've said it before, but MMO's were done right with Ultima Online

Here's something Kali said I actually agree with.

Ultima Online on paper and in practice probably was the most interesting MMO RPG I have played.

[SineSwiper]

I've said it before, but MMO's were done right with Ultima Online - it's all been regressing since then.

LOL WUT!

[kali o.]

I've said it before, but MMO's were done right with Ultima Online - it's all been regressing since then.

LOL WUT!

Exactly what I wrote.

[Anarky]

To this day I have friends tell me that UO when it first came out was the best MMO ever been made. I too feel like I missed out.

[Don]

UO probably falls under 'emergent gameplay' or whatever the cool word is. At any rate the underlying gameplay system of UO isn't any more or less complicated than comparable MMORPGs. UO's gameplay turned out to be the way it is by design and is not dependent on the system, which is fine. I think way too many MMORPG have the illusion that having a big complicated system is somehow supposed to make the rest of the game good even if you sucked at designing the rest of the game. I mean, a complicated game has its place, if there's a point to the complexity. But you shouldn't have to do a Tower of Hanoi to just be able to damage the boss. That's like asking you to solve a Rubik's Cube to cast your next spell.