Re: Risk, Reward, Difficulty & FUN: What Intrepid is Missing

We have not received permission from Noaani to share the quoted post.

And I'm totally fine with that. Wrong opinions should exist as well, otherwise we won't have enough contrast and individuality amongst people.

We have not received permission from Noaani to share the quoted post.

And as I keeeep saying, I'm not asking Intrepid to suddenly stop making quests. I simply want them to make other content as well.

And my initial response was to the statement that quests will somehow "solve" AoC's current issues. Except they won't solve shit. And some people won't even see those quests, cause they're trees falling in the wood, while the person is pvping in a field.

We have not received permission from Arya_Yeshe to share the quoted post.

Talk for yourself! I have a union card for the opinionated posters

We have not received permission from Aszkalon to share the quoted post.

This is technically another reminder, Intrepid.

I understand why MMORPGs need to keep those super invested grindy players happy, it's because of the sheer number of people who rely on them for information/insight about the game, even within the game. Guild management lately has been reminding me of this even more.

And I don't mean 'how to get strong', I mean 'hey did you know this thing you are talking about/asking for is actually in the game already? If you step one zone over/open a menu with a name that refers to the thing?'

When the 'A-Rank Adventurer loses interest, a lot of fumbling 'E-Ranks' suddenly stop finding your game to be as fun for 'mysterious reasons'.

i realised quickly it was because i had no OUT-OF-GAME Group i should rely on, which knows exactly what to do <- mysterious reasons.

We have not received permission from Aszkalon to share the quoted post.

Hope you reported it, cause they dropped just fine for me.

We have not received permission from Aszkalon to share the quoted post.

I feel like you're talking about commissions w/o talking about commissions, cause you've just described artisanry commissions, even though so far they're only about gathering, rather than other professions.

We have not received permission from Aszkalon to share the quoted post.

Considering that artisanry is tightly tied to node buildings, I highly doubt we'll see quests that reward tools.

We have not received permission from iccer to share the quoted post.

In a proper living world they would have a reason to exist. It's simply that not everyone in the game will experience the exact same event around that reason.

In a way, M O D U L E S are meant to represent this. There might be some story happening on the other side of the map one day, and you don't have the time/planning to go there, so you miss a part of it. But when you do arrive there - the story is continuing.

It doesn't continue there "for no reason". It exists because some actions preceeded it.

The same can be applied to literally any point of any story, and players, imo, should just be able to enter that story at any point and through as many means as possible. To me, THAT is a true living world that doesn't wait for the player to catch up.

That is why I love the sandboxiness of mmos (well, the ones that have it) and why I mostly consider players to be the game's content. If I join a guild - they'll have had a history already, they'll have a reputation already, they'll have some accomplishments from the past - and I'm joining them in the middle of their road (or it could be nearing its end or just beginning).

I wish quests could serve the same interactive function, but it's obvious that majority of quest lovers just wanna be the MC and for the world to revolve around them (not saying you or something else here have indicated that desire). And there's also the "fomo" of it all, where if a story happens somewhere and some "MC" misses it - they'll complain that the story happened w/o them.

In a way, it's the tree in a forest example that I gave, except from the pov of someone who KNOWS it makes a sound and wants to hear it, but was unable to, for some reason.

In other words, once again, my preferences go against the majority's.

We have not received permission from Aszkalon to share the quoted post.

Yeah but y'all are both definitely in the camp of people who played games with no complexity, so obv you're right about it in relation to those games.

We have not received permission from GreatPhilisopher to share the quoted post.

So you prefer running back and forth instead of just farming mobs? Or am I misunderstanding what "1000 kill and collect quests" is?

Cause, as I see it, that's literally the same thing as "farm mobs like a bot", except you waste time on interacting with npcs and clicking through UI windows.

Ludullu wrote: »

We have not received permission from GreatPhilisopher to share the quoted post.

So you prefer running back and forth instead of just farming mobs? Or am I misunderstanding what "1000 kill and collect quests" is?

Cause, as I see it, that's literally the same thing as "farm mobs like a bot", except you waste time on interacting with npcs and clicking through UI windows.

I imagine it hits the reward centers in their brain differently? I figure they must like hearing the "quest complete!" sound effect and seeing a little particle effect appear around their character.

We have not received permission from Noaani to share the quoted post.

But that's only in imbalanced designs though, where quests ARE varried, while also all having the same value - all the while there's only a single spot that is valuable/optimal enough for you to grind.

The design could be the opposite, where the mobs that you need are harder for you to kill, while quests send you to super easy mobs, but the rewards are not optimal.

Or there could be a properly balanced design where both of those things are equal. As much as I like grind, I don't want the optimal way for progression to only be "grind this mob endlessly". I want people to farm for gear parts. Those gear parts should be spread out over several locations, ideally with even several spots within those locations, all of which would have different mobs with different fun mechanics.

So, in a way, it would just be a "quest" that you just described, except it would be self-imposed, because your own-set goal is "to get this item". To get it, you need to craft it. To craft it you need to get parts, recipe and general mats. And depending on your artisan profession, all of those could be their own activities that you gotta do. And I'd personally prefer if recipes for the items you wanna craft were acquirable through quests related to the locations where you can drop the parts of the item, and those quests should include some cool puzzles and include a few of the mobs that drop the parts, so that the players that need direction - have it.

And of course Ashes is a free trade game, so there's always the option of just buying all of that shit, but imo that option should be riiiight below being the optimal choice, so that players would need to decide whether it's easier to get some money rn or go get the materials themselves.

We have not received permission from RonDog98 to share the quoted post.

But genuinely, should Intrepid care enough to shift questing/development style if players who aren't going to stay (because the game is Punishing) stay until max level and then leave?

It's just impossible to please some players with this game type, they have a different idea of what an MMORPG is.

It's not a question of 'people hear about a game and are attracted to the features of the game', because for many it is faster to just jump in and not do all the pre-reading about what the game is about. I've had guild members recently in Throne and Liberty who jumped into the game knowing basically nothing, just interacted with whatever was in front of them, talked to basically only me (acceptance into Guild) and leveled up, then basically left within a week.

The reason wasn't even given, but there was one key clue.

"Can't figure out how to get much stronger, used to playing games where you run dungeons to get gear."

Combined with a different guildie basically going 'yeah this game is just PvP endgame so you should just rush to endgame and just get carried until then'.

Neither that person nor the week-long players are necessarily going to play Ashes, they don't have that kind of dedication, time, or interest. I can assure you that the newbies didn't have time to clear most of the quests other than the main story.

It's not even a question of if they liked questing or not. MMORPGs are 'big' and some people don't engage with that 'big-ness', and therefore to them, the game isn't that interesting. And yes, these people don't engage with it even when it is a good way to level.

I'm basically saying that they don't enjoy even that. It isn't true at all that the 'filthiest of casuals' enjoy Classic WoW. There are so many people that can't stomach even that. Retail didn't end up that way because Blizzard just felt like making the game ... well, Retail... regardless of gamer preferences.

I wasn't referring to mechanical/combat complexity of your own character.

Would you say that Allods Online counted as complex?