‘Accessibility’ killed Rift

June 16, 2011

Some very perceptive readers have picked up on the fact that Rift has somewhat fallen out of favor with me. It might have been my post about patch 1.2. I did drop a few hints there.

Patch 1.2 brought the MMO destroyer, ‘accessibility’, to Rift. In one quick patch, Trion managed not only to kill 5 man dungeon content for me and the majority of my guild, but also world content, the soul system, rifts, crafting, and well, everything else. How is that possible you ask? Well, before I get to that, lets talk about that lovable monster we call ‘accessibility’.

Content difficulty works like a range. Those above the range find it far too easy, those near the top find it not difficult, those at the dead middle are in the sweet spot, those below have a tougher time, and those well under find it close to impossible. The issue here is that it’s not just those who are below the range that can’t enjoy the content; those above it are also excluded (running a dungeon/raid once is not end-game content, and we all know it).

When you move the range down, make it “more accessible”, you do grab those at the bottom of the range and move them into the sweet spot, plus those who found the content near impossible now have a shot. Win. Problem is, those who were previously at the sweet spot now find the content easy, and those who already though it was easy are now excluded. Fail.

Now, from a pure corporate profit standpoint, so long as your range is at whatever level grabs the most players, you are good, right? More people with access, more happy customers, more money. It’s so simple.

But it’s not.

Because while a player can always get better, it’s asking a lot for a player to get worse. If you find yourself at the near bottom of the range, you can improve and look, sweet spot. And from a players perspective, is there anything more rewarding? Not only are you now knocking out the content, but you actually worked your way up to that point and are now reaping the rewards, and you had that motivation because, well, you want to see the big bad at the end of the raid. That is very, very satisfying, and is one of the major reasons raiding in an MMO ‘works’.

There’s more.

If I’m a player, and I’m working my way up through difficult content, I still HAVE content. I’m not ‘done’. I stay subbed. And not only do I stay subbed, but my guild does as well, and we are all motivated to improve and progress. We have a REASON to improve. A very real one; more content. We improve our player skills, we improve because we get better gear, and we improve our teamwork, and it all means something (in the context of an MMO of course) because the better we get, the further we get.

If the content is at a faceroll level, why do I care to improve? Ooh, more gear to faceroll content harder, yay! Oh yes, let me grind out those crafting mats for that 1% upgrade items, because I really need it to finish a dungeon run in 20 minutes instead of 22. “Guys guys, please all be online and ready, we really need to focus tonight to speed-clear every dungeon in the game in record time tonight”. Uh huh, I’m right on it chief.

Point being, once the range is below you, you are done with the end-game. The whole themepark design falls apart. And, it’s at that point that you notice that hey, yea, crafting IS a stupid grind. And yea, that world content is kinda pointless. And no, I don’t actually enjoy PvP. Down and down we go.

So back to Rift.

1.2 moved the range well, well below me. I mean dungeons are stupid-easy. Most of the bosses are actually embarrassing now. It’s bad, and I honestly wonder just who DOES find this stuff a challenge. Probably the same people who find Farmville ‘gameplay’ exciting and interesting.

But ok, so dungeons are no longer for me, what about those rifts, those world events, and how great the soul system is? Those remain mostly unchanged, but they feel the fallout of the dungeon change. If I can spend 20 minutes getting just-as-good epics, why would I spend a significant amount of time crafting? And if I’m not crafting, what good are crafting rifts to me? Or hunting the auction house for upgrades.

If I’m already geared out, what real motivation do I have to get super-excited about a world event or some rift? Let’s not kid ourselves, themeparks are all about personal progression, the ‘world’ be damned, and no matter how fun the content is (especially the 10th time around), if I’m not progressing I’m not motivated. Even the soul system feels flat; why min/max or try out different specific combos when face-to-keyboard gets you there anyway?

I fully expect Rift to now follow in the footsteps of WoW, in that it will decline. Vanilla and BC days had challenging content, and it’s not a surprise that sub numbers grew. WotLK made things ‘accessible’, and surprise surprise, the response was pretty meh (sub numbers dropped in the US/EU, but were offset globally by WoW launching in new regions, hence the overall stagnation). Cata tried to play both sides of the fence, but a combo of too little too late, a gimmick of progression (hard mode rehashes rather than straight-up new content), and a one-track, insult difficulty 1-85 game did it in. With no new regions to offset things, subs are dropping.

Ultimately the ‘accessible’ path is short-sighted. It’s a temp boost at the expense of longevity, and in a genre where longevity is king, it’s a horrible trade.

It’s just unfortunate that a game with so many solid pieces has sold itself out so early for a one-time boost. For whatever reason, I expect more out of Trion.

My bad I guess.

42 Comments | Inquisition Clan, MMO design, Patch Notes, Rant, Rift, World of Warcraft | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

Oh how topical

June 15, 2011

Breaking news: CPP > others.

I know, I’m shocked. Literally the first time this has happened, ever. Silly mega-niche hardcore PvP devs and their crazy ideas. Any bets how Bobby ‘borrows’ and screws this up? My bet is “pay to click” hotbars coming to WoW, with skills put on the paid bars instantly clearing an instance.

Also I swear I did not know about this when I wrote the post below.

29 Comments | EVE Online, MMO design, RMT | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

I’d like to pay $100 for M&B: Warband

June 15, 2011

M&B:Warband continues to dominate my time, and I’m beginning to feel a little bit like a thief. I mean, I picked the game up on a Steam sale for $10, and yet at well over 200+ hours played, I feel like I should be paying a lot more here. If Steam told me today that I had to pay $100 or lose Warband access, I’d drop that $100 faster than a WoW character hits 85.

Furthermore, while I played Native Warband for a solid amount of time, I’ve played both the Floris mod pack and Prophecy of Pandor mod a whole lot more. Both of these mod packs are free. Again, feeling kinda dirty about that.

I’m not sure how to solve the initial problem, as I don’t think I’d even start playing a game with a “pay per hour” model, and TaleWorlds (the devs) would have to do something pretty special to warrant a monthly sub fee (though in all honesty, if the game cost $10 a month, it would still be a steal). Perhaps if they had a monthly update, with new art, sound, character, mod tools etc, that would make sense. If there is one single-player game that I could see charging a monthly sub, it’s Warband.

The second ‘issue’, the mods, has a simpler solution: let mod designers charge for what they produce. Of course, TaleWorlds would get a cut of anything sold, but when mods like PoP are outright better designed than many (most?) full-scale commercial games, it seems silly to give such high quality content out for free. In addition, by earning some money for the work that goes into the mod, the people behind PoP could, for example, justify hiring a temporary artist to really make some great stuff. I doubt anyone would become rich off a mod (at least not directly), but such great work should be rewarded. And TaleWorlds should also get some reward for originally creating a game that caters to modders so well.

We have seen the pricing model evolve in the MMO genre, and we are starting to see things like DLC in single-player games, yet games like Warband show that, in today’s market of digital distribution, there is a lot of money being left on the table. Not only is this bad for business, but ultimately it also hurts gamers, as more money for the devs should result in more and better content for the players.

17 Comments | Mount and Blade: Warband, RMT, Site update | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

Options vs Momentum

June 13, 2011

Whenever P2P vs F2P models get debated, the F2P crowd likes to point to the fact that most people will only pay one monthly sub at a time, which greatly limits how many games one can play in a given month vs how many you could play with the F2P model. Assuming you are someone who falls into that “one sub only” crowd, this is correct.

Yet while “more” is usually better, in the MMO genre I don’t believe that’s actually true, at least not when it comes to how many games you play at one time.

Generally, the more you get into an MMO, the more you play it. And the more you play, the more ingrained you become in the community, be it a guild or a server. This momentum is one of the reasons MMOs entertain us for far more hours than single-player games, and it’s also why almost everyone’s MMO highlights include others in them. Community and player interaction are the “secret sauce” of the genre (because lets be honest here, even the best combat systems and such in an MMO are, at best, decent by overall gaming standards).

Solo content and solo focus are two very different things. I believe any good MMO will have solo content, as being handcuffed to always play with others is not always ideal, and such things can actually lead to reduced player activity (the whole, log in, no one around, can’t do anything, log off cycle). Sometimes, you just want to zone out and do something quick and easy, and such content should exist. But that content existing is very different than that content being the focus. In recent themeparks, solo content has been the focus, especially before the level cap.

Solo content becomes the focus when it’s more optimal to do something solo than to team up. Horrible examples include WoW leveling, where it is actually harder to level with someone than solo, but anytime it’s NOT optimal to group up, that’s bad MMO design.

Mix the two together (F2P + solo focus), and is it any wonder guild, and especially server communities are so poor? And the downward spiral is easy to see as well: more people casually playing = more need for casual (solo) content = more of it = more player focus on it, etc etc. I fully believe communities reflect the content focus of any game, and the more solo/casual focused you become, the less community matters.

The golden solution would be to create a game that is both casual but also group/community focused, but things like player momentum still get in the way. At the end of the day, the MMO genre (in the traditional sense, not Farmville) is a somewhat ‘hardcore’ genre; it requires more time than others to really get to the best stuff, but as we know, the best stuff tends to be much better than what a solo game can provide. The more you get into something, the more you enjoy the fruits of your labor, and taking shortcuts to reach a goal always cheapens the satisfaction you get.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but at some point you have to make a decision: do you create a game that some players will love, or do you create one that many can hop in/out of. I don’t believe you can do both in this genre.

5 Comments | MMO design, Random, Rant, RMT | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

Oh Bobby, you dumb gamer-hating puppet

June 9, 2011

Linking to this because it’s hilarious.

Only thing better would have been for the EA rep to inform Bobby’s aid that the BF3 demo is for gamers only, and that he is not ‘elite’ enough to see it. Sell that for a buck.

20 Comments | Mass Media, Random, Rant | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

Tarnished brilliance

June 9, 2011

I’ve written about this before, but for some strange reason (solar flare?) it’s on my mind again today, so here we go. I hate Atlantica Online. I mean I hate it in that “I love you, I hate you, oh god I love you” Eminem kinda hate.

You see I think Atlantica Online is one of the best MMOs out in terms of design. Combat system? Awesome, fresh, deep, new (still, seriously how has no one copied this yet?). Graphics? Great, good style, runs really well. World design? Fantastic, classic stuff with twists, covers all the bases. PvP? Top-notch, be it 1v1 or guild vs guild, that perfect mix of player decision and character/gear influence. Extra stuff like the NPC arena, town bids, crafting, etc? Probably better than what your favorite MMO does. Payment model? Go kill yourself.

Atlantica Online is an oldschool F2P game.

And that makes it unplayable.

If all other F2P crimes were instantly wiped, I would still hate the model for Atlantica Online alone. It’s the epitome of why the F2P model (in the tradition sense, not in the LoL sense) is so horrible; because the better your game, the more F2P destroys it. I think the main reason this is not more front-and-center is because, quite frankly, most traditional F2P MMOs are garbage even before you factor in how the payment model actually affects gameplay, so you just don’t notice it that much. After all, the target audience for F2P games are people who just hop in, hop out and never actually take the time to care or look beyond the surface. I mean, how many blogs break down Farmville strategy or game design? Exactly.

It really is a shame, as I fully believe a relaunched, P2P Atlantica Online (or an updated clone) would be a huge hit in the west. Just rebalance things a bit to remove the influence of XP potions, lottery chests, and all the other F2P trash that affects design, and what’s left is one of the purest, most unique MMOs out, one that has some pretty damn good PvE for carebears, and one of the best guild vs guild PvP end-games around.

Again, just a total shame.

11 Comments | Atlantica Online, Combat Systems, MMO design, PvP, Rant, RMT | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

Rift: How bad is the PvP?

June 8, 2011

Rift PvP is bad. I don’t know if it’s historically “all time” bad, but it’s at least close. It has, more or less, nothing going for it. The warfronts are meh, the balance is off, and the entire end-game aspect of it is just terrible. Why games so focused on PvE continue to tack on PvP is beyond me, but with Rift it really is a total waste of dev time.

The warfronts: For starters, you get a grand total of four maps. Four. Warhammer launched with what, 20+? And that game was rushed out the door… Four is a low number, but if those four are great, it’s not that big an issue. The four in Rift are overall bad.

Black Gardens is, IMO, the best one, and it’s a very simple and straightforward map. Nothing super memorable, but nothing that screams terrible (really high bar we are working with here, huh).

The Codex: This one comes close, but the variables turn it into a formulaic map with basically one way to win. That the top point is worth more than the others means everyone rushing for it, and whoever controls it wins the vast majority of the time. While the actual fights around the points can be interesting due to the terrain, they play out too similar each battle, and come-from-behind wins are very rare due to how the points are balanced.

Whitefall Steepes: Remember how in WoW the most annoying thing about WSG was that it was a standstill and encouraged people to do stupid stuff like going in 1v10? Hey lets re-create that! Bonus points for making the middle ground larger to give the halfwits extra time to fight pointlessly in the middle. At least the match ends in 20 minutes or less, but far too often the map is a total campfest, and the whole design encourages cheesy soul combos just for this one map.

Port Scion: You finally made it to 50 and can now play the final, epic warfront. Surprise, its terribad! I swear Trion must have stolen the worst copy of Alterac Valley from WoW. Just so many things wrong with this map; from the main goal being totally ignored, to the snowball effect of the buffs (now nerfed, but still), to the quests the do more to distract people than encourage them to help out in a win. Port Scion should be used as an example in how NOT to design PvP, it’s that bad.

Bad maps are just the beginning though. If Rift nailed everything else, you would be left with two decent maps and could ignore the other two. MMOs have done worse.

You know what MMO history says about crowd control when it comes to PvP? It sucks. No one likes to get stunned, mezzed, disarmed, or whatever you want to call the effect of not being able to play your character. Not playing is not fun, shocker! Double suck kicks in when you get to watch yourself die when not playing. Yay. So hey, let’s release our game with a 12 second sheep, that someone can spam-cast. I’m sure that will be TONS OF FUN! Then go on to give most souls (but not all…) AoE CC in bunches, long-lasting single-target stuff, and massively inefficient anti-CC.

And the worst part of that? Even your own team hates you sheeping, because if they break it they feel bad, you get pissed, and now both sides are not having fun. Design 101 fail.

So we have rampant CC from specific souls, and since CC rules PvP, that’s how people spec. Now change it up and make CC worthless, but don’t change those souls, and watch as everyone suddenly turns super happy. Oh wait.

Let’s go for the bad design hat trick and introduce a specific stat for PvP that makes WoW look like 97 UO in terms of PvP. The way Valor is designed is staggeringly bad, in that it not only creates a massive gap between those with and those without, but turns those with into uber-tanks. Nothing says “I’m having fun now” when your giant axe wielding warrior charges a mage and bounces right off him, and then gets roasted in an AoE due to the damage amp and from the lack of actually being tanky.

Rift PvP is actually half-decent pre-50 in small bites, but it’s just terrible at 50 thanks to Valor. The difference is pretty shocking, and just highlights what a major mistake Valor really is.

I’d mention world PvP, but um… well this has been negative enough already.

At the end of the day though PvP in Rift is a total afterthought, and I doubt many would leave if it was completely removed. Which it should be, because continuing to try and bandage it together is just a waste of time, and I’m sure Rift players would much rather that time be spent on releasing PvE updates faster, or tuning souls with PvE in mind.

Trion has done a lot of things right, and created a very solid themepark MMO, which is perhaps why this total miss on PvP is so surprising.

29 Comments | Combat Systems, MMO design, PvP, Rift | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

Rift: Today and tomorrow

June 7, 2011

The release of the 1.3 update trailer seems like a pretty good time to give everyone here an update on my status with Rift, and the plans going forward.

The 1.2 update, quite simply, killed 5 man dungeons for Inquisition. What was once challenging but very doable content become faceroll speed runs, and after just a few days our core had seen enough. It’s just sad to face a boss that was once a fun encounter, and not only one-shot him, but watch as he just stands around harmlessly because the majority of his abilities have either been removed or nerfed so hard that you no longer need to react. How people find that kind of content ‘fun’ is beyond me, but then millions ‘play’ Farmville so there you go.

Having talked to some people in-game, it sounds like the 10 and 20 man content has, so far, escaped the loving embrace of ‘accessibility’, but as a guild we just don’t have the numbers, and our one attempt to work with another guild failed hard (WTB carrying people through content again). Our core however would like to see said content, and so our one real option is to join an existing raiding guild. I’m actually looking forward to this, not only to get back into the more regular raiding game, but to also worry less about having people online and more about just seeing content and improving my character and player skills.

Currently Rift is very hit or miss for me. On the one hand, its fun when things come together and it does what it does well. Its peaks are very enjoyable, no doubt. Not highlight reel MMO content, but still something to look forward to and log in for. On the other hand, its valleys are pretty low, in that “why care” way, which might actually be worse than that feeling of eternal grind. At least with eternal grind you log in and do it to reach another peak. When you don’t care, you log out. That’s killer.

There are some pretty serious holes in content chains, like why collect more crafting plaques through rifts/quests when everything for those plaques is meh? Great addition to add those rifts/quests, but then you leave the ultimate point unchanged? What? Or you add new expert rifts, but the rewards are still so poor that even half-geared characters are passing on drops? Really?

The problem Trion faces going forward is that they released a game that does little to surprise anyone, and so rather than riding the massive peaks, it gets held to a higher standard when it comes to the middle ground and the valleys. Dropping the ball, even on something as ultimately minor as weak rift drops, counts more because I don’t have “awesome content X” to make it all worthwhile like I would in other games.

DarkFall character progression might not be as smooth or streamlined as it is in Rift, but Rift has nothing that compared to a siege. Nothing, and it’s not even close. So my motivation to improve my DarkFall character is a lot higher, due to that upcoming siege, than it is in Rift and its upcoming 10/20 man raid. When that general feeling becomes the norm, things break down.

We’ll see just how joining a raiding guild goes, and what 1.3 and beyond bring.

19 Comments | crafting, Darkfall Online, Inquisition Clan, MMO design, Patch Notes, Rift | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

M&B:W PoP army issue

June 6, 2011

I’ve been playing a good amount of Mount and Blade: Warband (PoP mod) lately, especially with the newest version of PoP having fixed my last crashing issue. The game is pretty damn epic with everything maxed out, battle size set to 300, and number of corpses at 150. Blowout battles actually look, feel and play like massive confrontations.

I restarted from the previous game I was playing, and so far things have been interesting playing as a town and merchant raider. My honor rating might be low, but my treasury is looking very full indeed. I’ve got my set of companions, everyone is playing their role, they have the gear, all good. Solid progression in that area. I’ve also got a nice little 40-60 man band, mostly mounted, very mobile, and able to take out Lords with 50-80 troops or merchant caravans.

My issue, and this exists in vanilla as well as PoP, is that without joining an existing kingdom, I have no way to build up a long-term force. When I finally get a unit upgraded to a Hero Adventurer for example, I have no choice but to keep fielding him, rather than being able to put him away and save him for an important encounter. This makes progressing your overall force, to the point of taking out a castle, very difficult if not impossible.

Now granted, this is somewhat easily solved by just joining a kingdom, and I think I’m going to have to do that shortly, but it would be kinda nice to have some way to store extra troops for a big push and go straight into the personal kingdom game.

Unrelated side-note: The whole SW:sRPG and Origins thing? The biggest crime here is taking a once-great name (Origin) and using it for your Steam knock-off. Just shameless.

I also don’t get the blind faith by some that somehow, EA won’t use Origins for evil. Because, you know, EA is the pillar of good in gaming. Sure, Activision currently owns the “lets bend gamers over” crown, but EA has a pretty solid history in that department too.

3 Comments | Mount and Blade: Warband, Random, SW:TOR | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

Consensual murder

June 3, 2011

Is killing someone in a FFA PvP MMO a malicious act? Eliot Lefebvre’s Daily Grind post today asks if FFA PvP is a dealbreak in an MMO for people, and not surprisingly for most it is, but that one line stood out to me.

On the one hand, isn’t killing someone in a game like EVE/DF basically, well, playing the game? To an extreme, it would be pretty silly for a Quake player to ask why someone just shot him, right? From the start such games make it very clear what they are all about, so can you really feel bad for someone being surprised that they just got attacked? “Bank often” and “only fly what you can afford” are popular saying in each game for a reason.

On the other hand, aimless FFA PvP is also somewhat out of place in a virtual world. In Quake, everyone logs in just to shoot people in the face. That’s all the game claims to be, and all it is. A FFA PvP MMO is still an MMO though, and things like community and player interaction should still factor in.

One of DarkFall’s earlier design problems was that it was always better to kill a random player than to work with him in terms of profit. Not surprisingly, whenever you came across someone in the wild, you either went in to kill them, or you ran away because you knew they were going to come kill you. It was a rare day that two players would pass each other without someone pulling out a weapon. While very “play to crush”, it’s not a good system even in a FFA PvP MMO.

The problem was (somewhat) fixed by retooling the alignment system, and today players do sometimes pass each other without incident, or even work together in a dungeon. This, IMO, is a large step forward for the game. PKs can still go out and kill players, but at least now they have a slightly more significant penalty for doing so, and, far more importantly, blue players actually try to stay blue rather than going red and then just farming an alt for a few minutes to get back to being blue. Combine this with the retooling of the wardec system, and suddenly not EVERYONE in the world is looking to put a knife in your back (just most).

Not that this is anything new of course. EVE has had a good system in place for years now, and UO PvP peaked during the Dreadlord days.

But going back to the original line, I don’t believe attacking someone in a FFA PvP MMO is indeed a malicious act. If I jump you at a creep spawn when you are at 10%, that’s a smart move. The golden rule of PvP is, after all, if the fights fair, you already lost. I would never fault another player for jumping me. I should have been more aware of the situation, or went out with a buddy, or countless other ways to mitigate the risk. Same goes for a group attacking a solo player. Unless the situation is a pre-agreed duel, 5v1 is what happens out in the world. Expecting those five not to jump in is pretty foolish, and if when you go out with your four buddies, you all take turns attacking people, you are doing it wrong.

11 Comments | Combat Systems, Darkfall Online, EVE Online, Mass Media, PvP, Ultima Online | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

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