Thoughts on MMO gaming and endurance play

[Xenich]

While I think this type of thing is spread out among most genres, the one thing I noticed from the transition from early MMOs to later ones is the length of fights and content.

That is, early MMOs tended to function around endurance play. The entire point was managing your resources (health, power, mana, etc..) during a fight in order to complete it. This ranged from long dungeon crawls of difficult trash mobs that took a while to kill in order to get to a given boss on to many of the boss/raid encounters being extremely long. I remember spending hours on some boss fights for a single encounter in raids. Over time, encounters became less endurance focused and more about technical speed and reaction times. Nothing wrong with that style of play, but most games moved to that format and I noticed a lot of games now feel more like speed runs and twitch play that no longer spend a lot of time on resource management.

Admittedly, I do not have the time to play like that anymore, but... it wasn't just the raids, group encounter designs were set this way, and even working excessive hours back then, I could still find time to do a dungeon run and I always thought that type of play to be more satisfying.

Do any of you prefer that style of play, or more of the modern fast paced approach to systems?

[Oyster Sauce]

Spending hours on a boss fight is fucking retarded

[Vergil]

The only thing that sounds difficult about "endurance play" (this sounds like a euphemism for some kind of gay BDSM thing btw) is staying awake.

[rusty_shackleford]

raids were a complete mistake and ruined the genre

[Decline]

white western meter management is superior to chinkoid drone button mashing no question but requires devs with cognitive function

[WhiteShark]

Endurance play sounds like a psychological trick: "It took a long time so it must have been worth it," never mind that it was probably fairly dull and simple.

[Decline]

Endurance play sounds like a psychological trick: "It took a long time so it must have been worth it," never mind that it was probably fairly dull and simple.

that is not how OP defined his term 'endurance play' dumbo, did you even read the OP?

[Vergil]

Endurance play sounds like a psychological trick: "It took a long time so it must have been worth it," never mind that it was probably fairly dull and simple.

that is not how OP defined his term 'endurance play' dumbo, did you even read the OP?

Getting through the OP is endurance play.

[Reeb]

Never was big on WoW style raids, which seems to be most mmos. I really only like old school ultima style mmos that are more about your interactions with other players, whether it be trading, pking, or grouping up with others.

My main complaint with mmos now is that they are mostly single player games. A guy in your raid could be replaced with a bot and you probably would have a hard time telling the difference.

[Xenich]

Spending hours on a boss fight is fucking retarded

Not exactly in support of the long hours of EQ raids, rather the point that fights were much longer than they are now (resource management). I would say spending an hour on some very key large powerful bosses (ie fight start to finish, not prep) is acceptable in my tastes, but the multi-hour stuff on a single encounter did get pretty excessive in EQ though I think Final Fantasy XI was far worse, though I never played it.

[Xenich]

Endurance play sounds like a psychological trick: "It took a long time so it must have been worth it," never mind that it was probably fairly dull and simple.

that is not how OP defined his term 'endurance play' dumbo, did you even read the OP?

Getting through the OP is endurance play.

Weading iz hurd! *chuckle*

[rusty_shackleford]

DDO quests(each quest is its own separate adventure) require you to manage your resources with campfires sprinkled throughout that can be used once to replenish them.
I like it.

[Xenich]

raids were a complete mistake and ruined the genre

Fair point, I have never been a big raiding fan, more my point was simply about basic encounter length. EQ group fights still took a lot longer than today, and for instance the early DDO fights were very similar.

[Xenich]

DDO quests(each quest is its own separate adventure) require you to manage your resources with campfires sprinkled throughout that can be used once to replenish them.
I like it.

Early DDO required you to manage that, but also general encounters were longer. Now, I can run through a dungeon and take out 15 mobs in less 5 seconds. This is my point. The endurance of managing the actual resources in combat, like for instance a Mage in EQ being poor in balancing their mana and end up blowing it all before a named was killed, causing the party to wipe.

Oh, and they removed a lot of that management in DDO by the way. Used to be that shrines to rest and obtain spells were locked by difficulty and the like making the higher end ones with only a single shrine available. Now, they are for the most part all opened up.

[rusty_shackleford]

Now, I can run through a dungeon and take out 15 mobs in less 5 seconds. This is my point.

I only found this to be an issue with sorc & favored soul, they just weren't balanced properly in the translation from spell slots to mana. Wizard & cleric had to manage their mana properly in my experience.

[Xenich]

Now, I can run through a dungeon and take out 15 mobs in less 5 seconds. This is my point.

I only found this to be an issue with sorc & favored soul, they just weren't balanced properly in the translation from spell slots to mana. Wizard & cleric had to manage their mana properly in my experience.

Monks can do this pretty easily, running a straight barb right now with black razor and I was mowing down groups. Now admittedly I was running elite at level, but it is still too fast for what it used to be. Not really complaining, as reapers can be tweaked to achieve more of what I am talking about. I think about reaper 4-5 and the fights start taking longer, but then you run into the problem that if you don't have the proper tools/gear, mobs start one shotting you.

[Xenich]

I guess the key thing I miss is how fights can get really hairy because the group is taking too long and the healers are running out of mana. Add in the consistent problem with a stray pathing mob, or room pop adding to the fight and the entire thing turns into a race to kill the mobs so the party can rest and regain some mana.

This was the delima on "breaking" rooms in EQ. You had to have a party that was able to manage its resources to not only break the room, but be able to hold it once it was and there were a lot of people who lacked the attention to this skillset to be able to work their way into a deep dungeon and get to a rare named. Now (well, since I played last) it seems like a lot of them follow the WoW model of a few "AoE" groups on the way to a named boss and dungeon runs literally are that, runs, not crawls.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I can appreciate both. I liked the long combats and low APM combat of FF11 that allowed you time to chat and shoot the breeze and bond with people. I also like the exciting the exciting setpieces of WoW and GW2's Elder Dragon meta events. I liked the gunship battle in ICC where you are jumping across to the other airship to kill their commander, or hanging on to Deathwing's back as he rolls trying to throw you off, or fighting Hansgar and Frazok while on top of a conveyor belt, or dodging the incoming trains on Operator Thogar, chasing Jaina on the ships in Dazar'alor, chasing Sylvanas across the chains in SoD, chasing Tindral in Amirdrassil, etc. However, those setpieces are cool to do once or a few times, but with the way retail WoW works, you do the same current patch raid encounters over and over for months on end. It would be better if the game wasn't only the current patch, so you would do one raid tier and then progress to the next one, like in vanilla.

My only real peeve with retail SoW boss fights is that they are often needlessly overcomplicated. Each one has a dozen different mechanics you often to understand, and they are often unintuitive. GW2's fights are just as spectacular but are much more straight forward and understandable.

FF14's raid bosses are the worst. No unique mechanics. It is always just about dodging AoEs on short notice in a very laggy game.

[Mondain]

Any mmo that has set rotations using abilities on short cooldowns is shit.

[Xenich]

Any mmo that has set rotations using abilities on short cooldowns is shit.

I don't know, I can enjoy many of the different styles depending on my mood as they do have merit for what they are trying to achieve in style of play.

I just hate the one sided "This is the way it has to be, this is the best so all games must be made this way" approach.

My biggest issue were people who came to a game that had those features and then bitched about them constantly demanding they be changed rather than seeking a game that better fit their expectations. In that respect, it is much like all the Trannies demanding every game be a sex sim pushing faggotry.

[Oyster Sauce]

raids were a complete mistake and ruined the genre

What do you like to do when you're max level?

[Kalarion]

What do you like to do when you're max level?

Extremely hard group-level content. Grind lateral advancement. Work on multi-part, difficult quests. Try out a new class. Try a self-made challenge scenario.

[Xenich]

What do you like to do when you're max level?

Extremely hard group-level content. Grind lateral advancement. Work on multi-part, difficult quests. Try out a new class. Try a self-made challenge scenario.

Yep, I don't mind raids, but prefer this level of play (mainly group level difficult content), though I did love taking a group into raid areas and trying out the trash with a group, so there was that.

EQ raiding was hell. I never did it on the main servers because I just didn't have the time to be available for contested "on call" play. I didn't raid in EQ until "Stormhammer" (I think that was the name) where server you got put on a schedule to raid.

That said, I have always preferred group content, small party pushing the limits of play.

[Xenich]

raids were a complete mistake and ruined the genre

What do you like to do when you're max level?

EQ had a ton of content that was hidden with quests that were very difficult, vague, etc.. so a lot of us spent time following leads on various quests that were never solved (we completed several of them eventually). Not to mention, I didn't buy any gear from player trade, it was all obtained myself, which meant a lot of time and effort. Most the people I knew who were at cap, had all their gear and were bored were PLing up, buying gear, and missing a lot of the progression content.

EQ's expansions were around 6 months to a year, and with the old leveling curves, etc... I wasn't even cap as the new expansions came out. So "end game" wasn't a problem for me personally.

[Reeb]

I always liked pvp as endgame. Coming across lower levels trying to pvp was fun, you could whoop them, try to recruit them to your group, etc. The big battles between high level groups were always intense too.

[Vergil]

raids were a complete mistake and ruined the genre

What do you like to do when you're max level?

If I don't have a set of cool looking clothes, mount, weapon, or other goal to work towards I usually quit.

[J1M]

I don't like rotations. There's no need for multiple damage buttons that do basically the same thing.

Abilities that have different cast times or other properties are more interesting.

[Xenich]

I always liked pvp as endgame. Coming across lower levels trying to pvp was fun, you could whoop them, try to recruit them to your group, etc. The big battles between high level groups were always intense too.

I do remember the PVP players being big fans of that style of play. I never liked PvP at that era, I had given it up in Mudding as I just got tired of the drama. It is also why I don't enjoy trolling and the like, the drama isn't my thing. I do like the competitive play, though these days I suck so bad, it would take me quite a lot to get my skills sharp on this style of play.

[Kowe]

Instanced PvP and World PvP in WoW, GW2, Aion, Blade & Soul were fun. Allowed for more freedom how to spend time on the game than playing in a raid group. But even they had their insane grinds, especially the Korean ones.
MMOs are not the best genre for PvP, however. For 1on1, Arena Shooters and RTS arguably are. Multiplayer there are more options, like Mobas or team-based Shooters a la CS. So if that is your cup of tea, probably a good option to look elsewhere for a better product. And to save some free time.
Besides this, the genre is kinda dying, and rightfully so. One of the most egregiously milked ones even, looking back to the late 00s and then 10s. That focus on profit along missed innovations and other wrongdoings, has led to this situation. They are not about being RPGs anymore, immersing oneself in fictional worlds, taking your time and enjoying the game your way, while socializing with others, a core feature. A few still allow it, like OSRS, but compare it to WoW, where people stress themselves out too much, honestly. Datamining, Mod-dependance for endgame retail WoW. And let's not talk about its in-game economy and services with real money. Classic, Vanilla more than TBC or WotLK, was a fresh breath and a step in the right direction, even though it was for the most part a re-release. Good on the indie company Blizzard to have released Season of Discovery at least.

Some good videos on the topic:

MadSeason Video
The History of MMOs

[BlastedAgain]

One of my biggest issue with MMOs for sure, I don't want to sit there and babysit retards for hours who have the memory of a goldfish and die to shit that was already explained twice when they died to it 5 times the past 20 minutes, there's still 15 minute left in the fight to learn! Also, non-MMO like Monster Hunter, I think it's stupid to have to fight one enemy for 40+ minutes and if you die you get nothing out of it and have to do it all over again with less resources, it's a fine game outside of those fights but goddamn.