How do you fix a role shortage in MMOs and other online games?

[Rumbles]

- remove roles to begin with, everyones dps
- double or triple rewards for other roles
- special rewards like cosmetics from cash store
- increase experience gain for these roles

Thats literally Overslop 2 these days

[Boontaker]

IIRC Wildstar had a good tank setup, tanks were just melee dps with more HP. So you could have all the fun of a button mashing dps while still holding aggro, maybe this changed in the raids but that was my experience of tanking in the game.

[Boontaker]

every game that has done this has been ****. Oh wow, everyone gets to do EVERYTHIN… zzzz… zzzzzz
the "holy trinity" itself is garbage because it's a distillation of a larger design

That isn't what I mean. EQ didn't have the Holy Trinity, that was created by players (look at the original manuals descriptions, they were generally focused but not focused to that narrow view). Each class had strengths and weaknesses, could apply their tools in various ways. The concept of the holy trinity was a narrow way to look at class interaction and it resulted in simplistic concepts that constrained classes to "roles" limited to that view and any that did not function according to that narrow perception were proclaimed "imbalanced" with nerfs or buffs by players.

It's fundamentally impossible, because humans are problem solving creatures.

Group tasks will ALWAYS have a solution that is optimal, and people will look for it. It is unlikely that anyone will have a possibly far higher damage output class focus on distraction / control versus something with a lower damage output, but higher health / mitigation class

Simply because it's illogical.

You can offer diversity in solutions in single player games, and to a lesser extent in online games, but people will always maximise efficiency; and in online games the social reinforcement and expectation will punish people who do not act in this way.

Hmmm should I go A B C or D?

Well C gives you the biggest number...

But A is blue and makes me feel like a contrarian!

/partykick

[anvi]

I hate the way MMOs work, the whole thing needs to be overhauled multiple times. It really should have already happened by now. I figured EQ was like V1 and by about 2002 I thought there would be a whole new generation of MMOs. Then another 5 years there would be another whole new generation that's even more advanced and bigger budgets. That's how gaming progressed through the 90s so it made sense to me that it would continue like that.

But none of that really happened. There have been some good bits of tech over the past 20+ years like instancing in the open world not a separate instance. I also liked a lot of things WoW did like involving PVP more. Also fighting to defend things in the game world. I always desperately wanted this in EQ.

But generally I hate the gamey aspect of these games. I never want to be in a dungeon queue. And I never want to even think about shortages of classes or meta builds or anything. Early EQ never felt like that at all. Nobody knew anything, there was no right and wrong. Groups would form with ridiculous compositions like a Wizard Mage Druid. Nobody could tank, they would all just blast the mobs and the mob would run between them all like a pingpong. If someone got injured they would run away lol. And then the Druid would run after them trying to heal. Chaos but fun. As soon as it all became regimented and everyone was making groups with tank+healer+control, and everyone learned that you had to assist the tank, etc. It all became too orderly. If every group has a strong tank, healer, and someone to mez extra enemies, then there's not much room for excitement...

At the time I was crying out for an LFG tool or dungeon finder or something. Instead I had to send messages to people and try to put a group together. But getting a dungeon finder just ruined it. There's no point really being a big open world MMO at that point. Everyone may as well just log into a chatroom lobby and then create their own server with a group of people. Like playing RTS games or something. Why have a huge open world that is persistent if everyone is just going to login to a dungeon as a group of 6? It kind of goes against the spirit of the game. But I don't blame people for wanting it. If the game is so hard that you can't go to dungeons unless you have 6 real people then we have no other choice. We have to make a group somehow.

I just think they need smart people to figure out the proper solutions to issues in these games. Not being able to find a group in an MMO is the problem. A group maker is not necessarily the proper solution. A better solution would have been to have people finding groups everywhere they went anyway. That's how the game was originally.

[Vergil]

With the increase of mentally ill young men who want to dress like girls and be ****** are there really still a shortage of healers?

[Eyestabber]

Play real RPGs. Problem solved.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

@anvi Low time investment for a levelling session, LFG, and oversized server pools is what brought about the minmaxxing meta. If you don't have LFG and the server pool is not near unlimited, then you login each day and you will be seeing the same people within the same level bracket as you, and it requires a not insignificant amount of effort to whisper people, form a party, expend money to stock up on items and arrive at the place and the bare minimum threat of failure, then people are going to start talking to each other and making friends. And you will see a lot less vicious behavior when the server community talks to each other, which means bad actors get blacklisted and run out of people to play with very quickly. When people view each other as people and as friends to hang with, rather than as replaceable mercenaries, then minmaxxing the meta at the expense of others is not people's first priority.

are there really still a shortage of healers?

Yes.

First, no matter how popular healers may become, they will always be less played than DPS roles because there is no game in which you need just as many or more healers than DPS for the normal group gameplay. You only need 1 or MAYBE 2 healers in a 5/6 to 8 man party. That is at least 3-4 DPS needed for every healer. Granted, the issue is not as exacerbated as raid tanking, where you have many people who want to be a tank (moreso than people who want to be healers), but the 30 man raid only needs two tanks max so even if you want to be one, it is statistically difficult to get into a raid as a tank. Bear in mind, in modern MMOs you can usually solo to level cap as a DPS class, and healers usually have massively gimped damage compared to DPS and even tanks which means people usually do not want to solo level in the overworld as a healer. So healers are near exclusively just used for instanced or endgame content or instanced PvP. The only game in which you can have more healers than DPS is in the Field Expedition zones of FF14, where you can equip essences that augment you role (ie, turning tanks into DPS, turning DPS into tanks or healers, etc). You can get an essence that turns a healer into a hard hitting DPS. So you can theoretically have a raid of white mages. But this is side content that requires you going through at least 200 hours of "normal" gameplay, in which it is unlikely you will be maining a healer.

The second issue has to do with class theming. Healers are almost always exclusively themed as some sort of benevolent character that throws out sparkle magicks. People who want to play villainous or "cool" characters do not really get any healer class that appeals to them. AFAIK there are no "evil" healer themed classes like blood mages that suck out blood from their enemies and redistribute it to allies. You can make a near full party of cool or evil themed classes like dark knights, reapers, demon hunters, black mages, etc, fulfilling DPS and tank roles, but you cannot fill out that healer slot with an appropriately themed character. So the audience for healer roles is narrowed down to people who like benevolent sparkle magicks, ie people who only want cool or evil characters are not candidates to play the role. GW2 is the only MMO off the top of my head that provides a couple evil/cool healer themed elite specs with Scourge (uses sand magicks) and Specter (uses Shadowmagicks to heal the target).

The third issue is that healing in most modern roles is relatively boring and not as romanticized as being a fighter character. The gameplay is about you playing whack-a-mole on teammates, and in some games like FF14 you are not healing unavoidable AoE damage. In FF14, almost all damage is scripted and avoidable, so if someone gets hit hard then it is almost always because that player made a mistake, so for healers it can feel like they are just there to fix other people's mistakes, which can bred resentment especially if it is through LFG and you are not playing with friends. Throwing sparkles at someone typically does not feel as cool as facing the big evil monster with your shield up or backflipping and slashing at it with your huge sword. And almost all of the game storylines, cutscenes, and promotional material depicts someone slashing at the evildoer or big monster, as opposed to starring someone in robes healing a person. Even FF14's healer questlines climax and resolve with someone attacking and vanquishing a bad guy as opposed to filling a friendly's HP bar to full. So healing always feels like a second class fantasy. The obvious intended way you are supposed to experience these games is as a fighter, so that is going to narrow down the amount of people who main healers.

Lastly, because of the mercenary nature of LFG and PUGing where no one is friends with each other, healers get a disproportionate amount of criticism levelled at them, blamed for wipes even if it was not their fault (again, healing is often about trying to fix other people's mistakes). People don't want to acknowledge that they made mistakes that the healer couldn't all mop up. It is also admittedly difficult to the untrained eye to diagnose if a wipe happened because the tank player didn't do his job, or because a healer didn't do his job, or because the other players didn't do their part that caused the tank and healer to buckle to unavoidable overwhelming damage.

[Vergil]

I liked healing in WoW when I tried it tbh

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I liked healing in WoW when I tried it tbh

From my perspective as someone who tanked M+ dungeons during Dragonflight and got a couple 2,500 rating Armordeon mounts, the healer experience seems like it is awful. The TTK (time to kill) in WoW is insane. Ludicrously spikey damage happening each and every pull of a trash pack. With no defensive cooldowns or trinkets activated, a geared tank goes from 100% HP to dead in 2 seconds max. You could increase the TTK by keeping up at least one damage mitigation ability activated at a time, like Ardent Defender or your Treemouth trinket, but your healer would still have to be constantly targeting you and watching your HP bar with their fingers on their ability keys every moment for 30 minutes straight. God forbid someone rip aggro off of you because those DPS are like paper and die almost instantly. It feels like every other expansion, Blizzard says that they are going to try to do something about the absurdly spikey damage in WoW, but then it never comes to fruition.

[Vergil]

I liked healing in WoW when I tried it tbh

From my perspective as someone who tanked M+ dungeons during Dragonflight and got a couple 2,500 rating Armordeon mounts, the healer experience seems like it is awful. The TTK (time to kill) in WoW is insane. Ludicrously spikey damage happening each and every pull of a trash pack. With no defensive cooldowns or trinkets activated, a geared tank goes from 100% HP to dead in 2 seconds max. You could increase the TTK by keeping up at least one damage mitigation ability activated at a time, like Ardent Defender or your Treemouth trinket, but your healer would still have to be constantly targeting you and watching your HP bar with their fingers on their ability keys every moment for 30 minutes straight. God forbid someone rip aggro off of you because those DPS are like paper and die almost instantly. It feels like every other expansion, Blizzard says that they are going to try to do something about the absurdly spikey damage in WoW, but then it never comes to fruition.

I haven't touched retail WoW in 10 years

[anvi]

@anvi Low time investment for a levelling session, LFG, and oversized server pools is what brought about the minmaxxing meta. If you don't have LFG and the server pool is not near unlimited, then you login each day and you will be seeing the same people within the same level bracket as you, and it requires a not insignificant amount of effort to whisper people, form a party, expend money to stock up on items and arrive at the place and the bare minimum threat of failure, then people are going to start talking to each other and making friends. And you will see a lot less vicious behavior when the server community talks to each other, which means bad actors get blacklisted and run out of people to play with very quickly. When people view each other as people and as friends to hang with, rather than as replaceable mercenaries, then minmaxxing the meta at the expense of others is not people's first priority.

A lot of early EQ sounds barbaric on paper but in reality it works. People complain about the downtime but HP and Mana is meaningless without it. Anxiously medding in the corner of a room was exciting and made everything that you do matter more. You can't just splat everything with the biggest spells, you have to save some reserves for emergencies. The group making too. We did get to know people and there's so much more emotional investment when you personally helped get the group together and you all travel to the place together.

The minmaxx thing was a killer. Everyone documenting everything too. I really liked being in the 'middle' of things like, I didn't have a Rusty Sword. I had a Minotaur Axe! Not really much better... but it's ok. Then we heard that my buddy the Cleric should get a mace that had stun or something on it, Howling Mace? And I was a Bard and someone said I should get a Polished Granite Tommahawk. So we went together to get them one day, was fun. And that axe I got was awesome. And it lasted me a long time because level 20 ish to 30 ish took a really long time... By that point everyone was talking about some Combine sword. And then after that everyone was drooling over the Ykesha.

As much as I love The Heroes Journey, it highlights some of the worst things. Like people just ask in global chat, "What's BIS sword?" BIS means "best in slot"... What a degenerate way of thinking of things.... But they get told the best sword in the game, they buy it, and that's the end of it. What next? Presumably they quit and go ask the same question in some other MMO.

[Norfleet]

AFAIK there are no "evil" healer themed classes

Well, I mean, TF2 has the healer class that is a literal Nazi and generally psychotic like most of the cast, so...

[rusty_shackleford]

AFAIK there are no "evil" healer themed classes

Well, I mean, TF2 has the healer class that is a literal Nazi and generally psychotic like most of the cast, so...

Wow @Val the Moofia Boss you were right

[Norfleet]

As much as I love The Heroes Journey, it highlights some of the worst things. Like people just ask in global chat, "What's BIS sword?" BIS means "best in slot"... What a degenerate way of thinking of things.... But they get told the best sword in the game, they buy it, and that's the end of it. What next? Presumably they quit and go ask the same question in some other MMO.

Well, that's the problem with game design that fills the game with a bunch of trash. Whole swaths of items essentially have their purpose invalidated by the existence of something that just does the same thing, but better. If every item actually existed to serve a purpose and wasn't just trash to be thrown out and replaced by a +1, there wouldn't exist this desire to simply skip the dross and go straight for the real objective. I've played plenty of games where, instead of being "junk for noobs", every item was viable and relevant even when you had access to every possible item in the game. But in the typical game, 90% of everything in the game is worthless junk that was a complete waste of dev time to create since its existence is entirely invalidated by the existence of an item that is just the same thing but better in every meaningful way.

[anvi]

Weirdly EQ was my benchmark for how to do that well. I was happy with my Mino Axe then PGT and then another one I forgot, and then double Ykeshas. And I liked knowing I always had new stuff to see and get. Nothing makes me quit a game faster than having the best items and knowing I have nothing else to get.

I think the items only worked well in EQ because it took so long to level up. Level 20-30 took about 2 or 3 months. So having interesting loot in the mid levels was great. Also the end game items back then were unheard of. It originally took two full groups to kill the dude with the best weapon. But as people got stronger that became one group and then small groups. And in time that endgame weapon was handed out to newbies, given to pets for lols, etc. They never got a handle on inflation.

It was great for progression but then ended up a mess. Now people start on day one, ask what the best weapon is, often someone will just give them one when they ask. And they slaughter their way to max level. But it's a shame, it trivlializes everything. They paid for a game yet they never got to be a level 30 for a while and drool over that PGT I had. It gave you a Berserker Strength which was a huge strength buff but made you invulnerable too, like a rune. There was also a whip that was super cool, I think it had stun on it. Gnoll Hide Lariat? But all those items and all those dungeons are not even used anymore. People get the best item, go to the fastest zones, etc. I don't blame them I just hate that it's even a thing. The baseline for an MMO/RPG should be some kind of LOTR experience. A hero on an adventure and you figure things out as you go. Somehow that ended up being, "Hay dudes whats the best item?"

I kinda think the entire MMO idea is ****** ironically because of the internet. The databases of all quest solutions, maps of all the zones, and lists of all the items... it ruins the whole magic of the experience. The only solution is a game where everything is procedural or something.

[Norfleet]

Weirdly EQ was my benchmark for how to do that well. I was happy with my Mino Axe then PGT and then another one I forgot, and then double Ykeshas. And I liked knowing I always had new stuff to see and get. Nothing makes me quit a game faster than having the best items and knowing I have nothing else to get.

Except that no game is ever going to have an infinite supply of "new stuff to see and get".

I think the items only worked well in EQ because it took so long to level up. Level 20-30 took about 2 or 3 months. So having interesting loot in the mid levels was great. Also the end game items back then were unheard of. It originally took two full groups to kill the dude with the best weapon. But as people got stronger that became one group and then small groups. And in time that endgame weapon was handed out to newbies, given to pets for lols, etc. They never got a handle on inflation.

Inflation is pretty much inevitable, because game economies are never anything close to closed. Things necessarily must enter the economy, but it is generally the case that few things leave, because for things to exit the economy, there would have to be destruction. And in any event, more must enter than leave, because players can't have negative valuation. Thus is necessarily inflationary. I don't see ANY game that works on a closed-cycle economy where everything that exists in the world exists from the beginning and nothing can ever be created ex nihilo, so things can only be transformed and the number of things is strictly finite.

It was great for progression but then ended up a mess. Now people start on day one, ask what the best weapon is, often someone will just give them one when they ask. And they slaughter their way to max level.

That's because people have come to understand that everything before endgame is just ********. That you will throw it out and it will have no use whatsoever, so why bother to waste time and energy on it?

But it's a shame, it trivlializes everything. They paid for a game yet they never got to be a level 30 for a while and drool over that PGT I had. It gave you a Berserker Strength which was a huge strength buff but made you invulnerable too, like a rune. There was also a whip that was super cool, I think it had stun on it. Gnoll Hide Lariat? But all those items and all those dungeons are not even used anymore. People get the best item, go to the fastest zones, etc. I don't blame them I just hate that it's even a thing. The baseline for an MMO/RPG should be some kind of LOTR experience. A hero on an adventure and you figure things out as you go. Somehow that ended up being, "Hay dudes whats the best item?"

It happened because people learned how to play games. In the old days, if you wanted to learn this ****, you probably had to take the game apart by yourself, and most people would be content to blither around cluelessly like some filthy casual.

I kinda think the entire MMO idea is ****** ironically because of the internet. The databases of all quest solutions, maps of all the zones, and lists of all the items... it ruins the whole magic of the experience. The only solution is a game where everything is procedural or something.

The Internet exposes the flaw in the design of some of those games, which is "game is only entertaining when you have no idea what the **** you're doing". Once you actually have a clue, then it turns out 90% of the game is worthless crap that serves no legitimate function in actual gameplay, being entirely invalidated by better options. Choosing them thus represents a fake choice. It doesn't have to be this way. A game can be designed such that every item is valid and serves a clear role somewhere, and you will continue to choose that item even when you have full knowledge and access to everything else. Otherwise, now that much of the population is aware of the tendency of 90% of the game to be cruft, you can't blame them for wanting to bypass what is ultimately a waste of time and space.

That sense of "progression" people like can be preserved even in the face of an "everything serves a real legitimate function" design through an upgrade system. That way you don't have to fill the game with wastes of space that exist simply to be strictly inferior to the better option, that more advanced players will thus choose to entirely leapfrog because it's a waste of time to engage with something that has already had its existence invalidated.

[anvi]

I don't think it needs to be infinite but there needs to be plenty to do and get. Lower levels in EQ were some of the most fun in the game. It had great dungeons and was tuned well. You could get new gear and feel an improvement but it not break anything. 1-10 was bliss for me, best zone ever with the best music I ever heard in a game. 10-20 was mostly in a dungeon called Crushbone which was great, like a perfect dungeon. Then at 20 people went to a whole new continent they had never seen before. Another amazing zone Oasis, full of giant crocodiles, sand snakes, water goblins, orcs, etc. Then we went to Cazic Thule which I loved so much, great zone. Lizardman dungeon with some fancy armor called Rubicite that's bright red. Huge zone with indoor and outdoor areas, lots of spell caster enemies and strong enemies to avoid until later. Then there was Lower Guk probably the best dungeon in the game and in any game. It is huge and has probably 30 unique items that different classes want. I can remember the names of most of them. Amazing gear, and the dungeon is epic. Slippery floors, traps, underwater tunnels. One side of it is Undead. The first part is doable at level 30 and the deeper parts you need to be closer to level 50. There is a little alcove with about 8 Greater Icebone Skeletons stacked together. Anyone who walks past without the correct invis, gets jumped and GANKED hard. Legendary zone.

But all of this stuff would be skipped if you wanted to just go straight to max level. Surely you wouldn't want to miss all that? The only thing I didn't like about the low levels is that they overdid easing people into the game. Like you start with only 2 spells. Then every few levels you get more. But the low levels are pretty basic. There is a lot I would tweak if I could remake it.

As for inflation I think there are lots of ways you can improve that. MUDs had dealt with it long ago. Vanguard (EQ's real sequel) had durability on items so you had to get them repaired. Not sure if they would eventually wear out completely but either way it helps. EQ didn't really have any money sinks. You just kept making more and more money. But I played a custom server which had these charms that are insanely expensive. Most people had to save up money to buy the cheapest one. And then each one got exponentially more expensive. So people who got super rich would end up spending all their money on a charm. I think that helps stop people becoming insanely rich and giving things away.

The internet doesn't really expose anything, it just databases and documents everything. It was fun to go adventuring with people and you get whatever you get. You also learned a lot by talking to people in the game so it encouraged that. You could still hear about great items and then go get them. It was far more fun than what it became later when everyone just alt tabbed to a database with a list of everything in the game and where it is. People liked the databases because it gave them an edge on other players. But it destroys games. Low levels weren't wasting time and not knowing all the top meta **** was good. Would you skip all of Baldurs Gate / Icewind Dale just because the sequel has higher level stuff? Or would you prefer both rolled into one big game?

[rusty_shackleford]

allow true hybrids

**** I nailed this on the first page

WoW completely ****** this up because it was designed by two guys that hated this entire concept. Not because it was a bad concept, but because EQ warriors were simply poorly designed. The issue was warriors, not hybrids.

[anvi]

Re the databases: I can't edit my post:

Human psychology is part of the problem. When people play a single player RPG, they generally don't use a Walkthrough. Some do, I did as a kid. But mostly people just play it and figure it out and only use a walkthrough if they get stuck.

Early EQ was like there being no walkthrough. And then a year or so later everything was databased and documented, it was like having a walkthrough of the game. That wouldn't really matter if people didn't use it. But because it's kind of competitive in terms of being generally badass compared to those you meet, and being picked for groups, I think that made people use the walkthroughs. They used to make excuses like I check the guides because it's a group game and I want to make sure I'm not doing it wrong. But quickly everyone was following the guides word for word. They want to know the best gear, and where gives the fastest XP. I guess to some people it makes sense but to me it's like they bought a single player RPG, learned how to speedrun it from day 1.

p.s. Sup Rusty. Yeah hybrids suck. I love multiclassing. Don't need a Paladin if I can be a Warrior and a Cleric. But it's gotta be hard to balance all the combinations. Well designed hybrids would be better.

[TKVNC]

People crave status. It's also why you can't have the same level content forever (i,e sidegrade) - people crave exclusivity and status.

MMO's are actually impossible with access to databases and guides.

[Tweed]

allow true hybrids

**** I nailed this on the first page

WoW completely ****** this up because it was designed by two guys that hated this entire concept. Not because it was a bad concept, but because EQ warriors were simply poorly designed. The issue was warriors, not hybrids.

Being a warrior in early EQ was pure suffering, especially if you didn't have a network of close friends who were always on. You're entirely dependant on the whims of randos and your performance is entirely dependent on your gear. Before the days of armor dyes it was easy to tell a poorly geared warrior from a good one. I remember getting mocked for my lack of cobalt when I still stuck in crafted. I was saddled in a guild that was far more focused on hunting down gear for casters and letting the tanks hang, mostly because all the officers were casters, imagine that.

Discs were a nice touch when they came in, mid-Kunark, but half of those were useless. Furious and Mighty are the only ones that cut any ice. My time as a warrior was pure, ******* hell.

My time as a wizard? Even though they were gimped early game it was a joy compared to being a warrior and later EQ it was the best class in the world. The ultimate lazyman. Sit around 10-20 minutes at a time, get up once in awhile and pretend to nuke, then go back to being a jackoff or making fun of the other members behind their backs. And when you get really bored you mem knockback spells and start playing ping pong with the raid mobs until the officers have an aneurysm.

EDIT: Oh, and Rangers were poorly designed at the start or else they wouldn't have needed so many hp boosts and constant rebalances along the way. I don't know if you remember the constant jokes they had to endure, but rangers were a "last call" class.

[Norfleet]

As for inflation I think there are lots of ways you can improve that. MUDs had dealt with it long ago. Vanguard (EQ's real sequel) had durability on items so you had to get them repaired. Not sure if they would eventually wear out completely but either way it helps.

Adding consumptiveness tends to increase the viability of more items, since it can open up the niche of "good enough", whereas otherwise only best-in-slot would exist. The catch is that inflation will inevitably void that, because most economies are open-cycle and must be positive-flow: You will always be feeding more resources into the economy that will be taken out, since players cannot go negative.

The internet doesn't really expose anything, it just databases and documents everything.

Yes, and in doing so, it exposes the fact that the game is often only "fun" when people have no idea how to play, and once the basic skill level of the game rises, the amount of "stuff" in the game drops off a cliff.

Low levels weren't wasting time

Unless low-levels somehow translated into the actual end behavior, yes, yes they were. You were just pointlessly derping about cluelessly thinking you had found something cool. Eventually the reality of it being a waste of space would hit you.

and not knowing all the top meta **** was good.

No, ignorance is never a desirable characteristic, except insofar as it reveals that everything you thought was a lie. To desire otherwise is bluepill thinking, though.

Would you skip all of Baldurs Gate / Icewind Dale just because the sequel has higher level stuff? Or would you prefer both rolled into one big game?

I would prefer them rolled into one big game. But the issue here is that an MMO isn't structured like a single-player RPG with a flow and a conclusion. In an MMO, everything prior to the cap is an infinintesimal fraction of the actual game, because you will complete this extended tutorial and then the remainder of your play until you decide to ragequit will be spent at endgame. Thus, this is the part which matters. A better comparison would be if all the low level content of BG/IWD were the first 1% of the game, but 90% of the game's assets and items were concentrated in this one half, and the remaining 99% of your playthrough will be spent interacting exclusively with 10% or less of the game's actual content, with that original 90% being nothing more than vendortrash.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

People crave status. It's also why you can't have the same level content forever (i,e sidegrade) - people crave exclusivity and status.

MMO's are actually impossible with access to databases and guides.

It might be possible to defeat databases and guides by randomizing everything for every player. One player might talk to an NPC at Frostfall Village and receive a quest to go kill UngaBunga the Ogre and receive the Lightning Spear spell. He posts that online and other players try to do that, but it doesn't happen for them.

[Stack of Turtles]

This is why MMOs simply should not have levelling up or gear upgrades or any kind of status increase at all.

[Norfleet]

It might be possible to defeat databases and guides by randomizing everything for every player. One player might talk to an NPC at Frostfall Village and receive a quest to go kill UngaBunga the Ogre and receive the Lightning Spear spell. He posts that online and other players try to do that, but it doesn't happen for them.

Wouldn't be practical to randomize EVERYTHING for every player, but sure, you could entirely remove fixed-quest-rewards that give specific items, turning every character run into a total crapshoot as to whether you'll get the things you need to play the game. I don't see how this would actually be popular, to know that your character is forever worthless because certain things cannot be obtained specifically by you and you need to dump the character and restart entirely. At best, you might force them to regrind things over and over for a random reward, only one of which is actually useful. But that's the typical MMO loop already.

This is why MMOs simply should not have levelling up or gear upgrades or any kind of status increase at all.

That's essentially similar to the core design loop of MOBAs, where the levelling up isn't really a thing, but people still crave number-go-up, so upgrades are the lesser evil since it means that, in theory, you can put every gear on the same level and nothing simply becomes trash left for dead by the side of the road. In practice, most games are poorly balanced and the sheer deluge of crap means some things are just inevitably left behind.

[anvi]

The internet doesn't really expose anything, it just databases and documents everything.

Yes, and in doing so, it exposes the fact that the game is often only "fun" when people have no idea how to play, and once the basic skill level of the game rises, the amount of "stuff" in the game drops off a cliff.

Low levels weren't wasting time

Unless low-levels somehow translated into the actual end behavior, yes, yes they were. You were just pointlessly derping about cluelessly thinking you had found something cool. Eventually the reality of it being a waste of space would hit you.

and not knowing all the top meta **** was good.

No, ignorance is never a desirable characteristic, except insofar as it reveals that everything you thought was a lie. To desire otherwise is bluepill thinking, though.

That's not true in early EQ, the low levels were fun and the high levels were fun. And everything in between. That was the game, all the low and mid level shenanigans. Great dungeons and people figuring out how the game works, what works well what doesn't. It had lots of emergent gameplay because there were so many spells. If you just started at level 50 it would be bewildering. The leveling up process gives you things in batches so lets you really understand your class and all their abilities.

The high levels are fun too, nothing really drops off a cliff. It just is more of the same but more advanced. And groups are more slick. You can skip to max level in EQ by power leveling (AOE groups are super fast), or just buying a high level character. But it's just cheating the person out of most of the game. They might enjoy the high levels but they missed a lot of low level fun that would be worth it, and it would make them a better player too.

If you are talking about a modern MMO then yeah I would probably want to skip to max level because it's probably not that interesting anyway. But I wouldn't play a game like that. Most modern MMOs are kind of already like that anyway. You level up so fast there is very little resistance. They rush everyone to max level and then they can all do grouping and whatever. But this is all because the low and mid levels are boring and they don't have enough players in those levels.

[Norfleet]

That's not true in early EQ, the low levels were fun and the high levels were fun. And everything in between. That was the game, all the low and mid level shenanigans. Great dungeons and people figuring out how the game works, what works well what doesn't. It had lots of emergent gameplay because there were so many spells. If you just started at level 50 it would be bewildering. The leveling up process gives you things in batches so lets you really understand your class and all their abilities.

How does this dispute my point at all? You're just reinforcing my argument, "game is entertaining only when people do not know how to play".

But it's just cheating the person out of most of the game. They might enjoy the high levels but they missed a lot of low level fun that would be worth it, and it would make them a better player too.

I see it more like "skipping the tutorial if you already understand how to play the game", perhaps because your leadership actually provided you with the relevant training information rather than the absolutely terrible tutorial developers tend to offer.

They rush everyone to max level and then they can all do grouping and whatever. But this is all because the low and mid levels are boring and they don't have enough players in those levels.

Well, yes, obviously. That's because no matter how long you extend the tutorial past its welcome, max level is still the steady state behavior that ultimately results. And since everyone NOT max level is essentially locked out of playing the actual game that everyone else is playing, there's a strong pressure to get them there.

[anvi]

It was fun when everyone was a noob but it's fun in the high levels too. I agree there should be something to speed it up for people who have already done it once though. I wish more games had Prestige classes. Although EQ let you give powerful gear to new characters which speeded up the leveling about 10x.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

To me the magic of the low level experience (especially on a fresh server) is that it is when you are poor, you don't have a lot of flightpaths/teleports/etc unlocked, but there are a lot of other players just like you standing around that you can chat up and team up with and head out to a dungeon together and form a guild. This is the most MMO experience you can get. But as you level up and gain more wealth, you don't need to reach out to other players as much, and people have grown their guilds to a sufficient size and become more isolated within that, etc. So it feels like the higher level you go, the less socialization is happening. It can actually be pretty lonely at high level where you are self sufficient and you are able to get into PUGs, but people are often quiet and it is difficult to find/break into an active guild where people are talking to each other and helping each other out (whereas random invites in chat to huge effectively dead mega guilds where people are in it for the perks rather than to help each other is a dime a dozen).

[Norfleet]

To me, the most MMO experience I can get is when I reach the point where I start directly affecting the playerspace through cultural, strategic, and economic domination.