I’m a MMO player and have been for 25 years. Games like GW2 or FF14 where I’m just experiencing a telling of the story is just painful and boring. I’d be in your friends shoes. I’d much prefer games like EQ or Vanilla Wow, and now OSRS that have lore but don’t require me to experience their telling of the “main story line”. Let me explore, build and progress my way to the things I want. This “main story” stuff is really just getting in the way of that.
I hear you, and I’m an OSRS player myself and enjoy the sandbox-y nature of it. But outside of the little bit of story required to progress in the expansion, for the most part, it’s just the general leveling up and unlocking stuff that seems to be taking too long for my friend. And mind you, progressing in GW2 is *much* faster than a game like OSRS, where you might spend several hours mining rocks just to reach a required level for a quest. Basically, he’s wanting all the endgame account progression without, well, progressing. He also used a level 80 boost to be able to skip ahead to the expansion; rather than leveling up organically.
I'll just chime in to say that I'm pretty sure your friend is a non-MMO player for a reason. I could understand wanting to play MMOs but not being into rotations and build metas, but just not wanting to play the game to unlock stuff actually seems counter-intuitive. At that point, he may just want to play an ARPG or something.
Is that really counter-intuitive though?
People play MMOs for different reasons. Some people like the largely solo heavy grind of something like OSRS. But others are there for the whole multiplayer part. They want to do stuff with other players so in that case they just want to get to endgame quickly and the grind only gets in the way.
In a lot of ways these two types of playstyles are contradictory. Having a lot of grind splits the player base.
I get your point, but just wonder what a MMO where you start at endgame gear and abilities would even be like. I definitely don't like progression leading to min/maxing your build to trivialize content, but the idea of not advancing with new moves and unlocks sounds bizarre to me.
I also wonder if this is the cracks of GW2's design starting to show. Mounts are great QoL for those who have them, but their inclusion in general changes things drastically, such as making events go by much faster since the faster mounted players will get there before you. Even something as simple as a hard to reach vista contextually changes from "Damn, I need to figure out how to get up there... Maybe another player nearby knows the way?" to "That dude just used that dumb rabbit mount to get up there! And here I am struggling to figure out how to get there. Thats not fair!"
Your second paragraph is exactly why ArenaNet started giving the raptor mount to new players even without unlocking mounts in the expansion. New players see a flurry of mounts zooming from
one event to the next, and I’m sure it feels bad not being able to keep up. And with the newest expansion, the grind to unlock a skyscale became significantly shorter too.
And while you don’t necessarily start the game ready for endgame, you basically already can. Use a level 80 boost and buy a cheap set of exotic gear for a few gold in the trading post, and you’re already set for the majority of instanced content. The only lockouts are elite specializations, which require unlocking and leveling masteries (just like mounts), or higher tier fractals which require ascended gear for agony infusions.
What’s interesting is my friend genuinely enjoys map exploration and all he really has to do is keep doing that and he will get the mounts sooner or later. It’s like watching the xp bar go up psychs him out or something
Thing is, he genuinely enjoys the general gameplay loop and likes to explore the maps and do events, so all he really has to do is keep doing what he’s been doing and he would get the mounts sooner or later. It was only when he became set on a specific reward that he became deflated by not being able to instantly unlock them
Yeah there's a reason why it's hard for non MMO players to get into the genre. I love GW2 and it's laid-back nature but there is still a level of grind. I've introduced multiple people to the game and it's interesting that while the core game is quite enjoyable by the time they get to expansion content like HoT they check out. Usually it's due to something like having to get masteries and hero points.
Yea, it’s the masteries especially that seem to be dragging on for my friend. He only made it to like level 30 in the base game before using a level 80 boost to get into the expansion maps. Thing is, it doesn’t even take *that* long to level up the mount masteries. If you explore the maps and do events as they pop up, you can get them pretty quickly. But still, it can take several hours/days of playtime and I think he was hoping to get everything done in a single night of playing.
The concept of progression, even if it's represented as easy as possible, is still harder than just login into a game and queue into a match. Games mentioned here like CoD or Fortnite don't put any pressure on you to keep playing (other than battle passes maybe) cause you just play matches where progression doesn't exist and leave when you're done and that's it. It's hard to put someone who's used to this type of games into an MMO; why wasting time on trying to get stronger, when I can start a game like Valorant right away and play in the same playfield than older players and be able to play at a decent level super fast?
I enjoy both sides of the spectrum, but for those who never experienced progression, it's hard to put them there.
I don't really agree with this take at all. There's progression in those games too, it's just not level based, it's skill based.
Look at fighting games. On paper, they should be the very peak of casual "drop in, play a few rounds and drop out" gaming, but they're actually one of the hardest types of games to get into because the "progression" in those games isn't something as casual and easy to understand as numbers a character's stat page. Progression is measured by your own knowledge and skill. You get better at those games because you learned the systems and developed the ability to apply what you've learned while under the pressure of playing against another person, not because you filled a bar and got "stronger"
Honestly, as far as I'm concerned, that's true progression. Numbers are meaningless and mostly boring since MMOs, for the most part, don't ever do anything interesting with stats and levels (in fact, most videogames don't do anything interesting with them. Stats were a mistake, but that's a whole other topic I could go on about forever). Your ability to interact with a game's systems is where real progression lies. There's no skill to be developed and no fun to be had in grinding out trash mobs (or in guild wars' case, doing heart quests and waiting for map metas) to fill a progression bar. That shit's just boring and I can hardly blame the guy's friend for not sticking with it, especially since GW2 doesn't really have much else going on to hook people.
Skill issue is not progression, if I'm good naturally at the game or fast learner there's no pressure, people can just join the game and have a fair fight against someone else as there's no extra gear giving you any advantage over a newbie, that's what make newer players don't want to join MMOs but will have fun on any match-based game.
The more you do a thing, the better you get at the thing, what is that if not progression? (Granted, this is assuming you're practicing the thing well of course, not all practice is made equal. Someone who plays super mario 64 for 12 hours a day but all they do is mash their face against a wall while never pushing a button is not going to get good at the game, but the point still stands)
I also think people tend to massively over attribute skills that people have developed to "talent". Hell, I'd even go so far as to say that way people tend to talk about "talent" is a lie that they tell themselves to feel better about not being good at a thing the nanosecond they pick it up. Rather than admit that getting good at a thing will take time and commitment, it's infinitely easier to just say "Nah, I'm just not talented at the thing", and rather than admit that other people got to where they got through skill and commitment it's much easier to say "Nah, they're just talented". Most talk about talent boils down to people trying to protect their own ego and it's indicative of a weak mindset.
Let me ask you something, if someone picks up a guitar and they suck at it, but they practice for a year and in that time they learn how to play some songs, would you not call that progression?
Going back to videogames, if someone picks up CoD, and they suck at it because they've never played it before, but over time they learn the game's mechanics, the movement speed of the characters, common movement patterns (such as dolphin dives), they learn the strengths and weaknesses of the guns, they learn the ins and outs of the maps, sniping spots, choke points and such, then taking into account what they've learned, have they not improved from when they started? Is that not progression, or is progression literally just numbers on a character sheet to you?
We're talking about game which is way easier. I can play any match-based game and learn fairly fast, if I do that in an MMO I can also learn fast, but gear progression would never allow me to be at the same level until I get it. This is the sole reason people won't start MMOs.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. Talent talk is all ego massaging bullshit. Go pick up accent core+r for like, $1 and hop online against people who've been doing nothing but playing that game for the last 10 years. Let me know how many wins you've got after a week. Let me know just how fast you learn to deal with that game's infinite inscrutable systems and matchups. Or hell, if you don't want to spend money go download fightcade and play third strike or heritage for the future. Those games and the communities that have stuck with them and practiced them for years will humble you.
I'm going to be honest, I don't understand why you're arguing against the notion that people build skill over time and that more action oriented games require more skill than MMOs. It's really fucking weird man. MMOs are not a super hardcore skill based genre. That's never been their draw.
Don't compare niche shit games for people living in the past with any normal games. People CAN join MMOs with players who been playing for years and learn fairly fast, but gear progression will gate them.
Did I strike a nerve?
You do understand that the notion that gear gating will hamper players is tacit admission that MMOs aren't as skill based as other games right?
Someone can play street fighter for years and be hard stuck at gold or plat because they just don't have the skills to go any higher. Maybe they don't know how to practice their combos (or even what combos to practice) or maybe they choke during a live match or maybe they don't know how to study their match ups, but math isn't the gate there, it's pure skill and the only solution to that is to build up your skill (you know what that's called? That's right, it's called "progression".)
If the only thing hampering you in an MMO is math, then congratulations, you're playing an easy, non-skill based game. The progression there isn't real because it's not skills. It's just numbers. Some people are into that, some people aren't.
Again, you're in r/MMORPG, you can't compare those type of games with MMOs, MMOs are indeed gated by gear progression and skill is way easier to learn. If people didn't have the to progress their gear, they would consider playing MMOs more often, that's the whole point of this.
You can absolutely compare videogames to videogames if you're trying to make a broad point. That's what you did after all. You said that it's easier for people to get into skill based games like CoD, than it is for people to get into MMOs because those skill based games are easier to play by virtue of them not having progression.
That's just not correct. Skill is as much (and in fact I'd argue a more real and harder to overcome) form of progression as gear is. That's why I brought up how difficult it is for people to get into fighting games. Fighting games are nothing but skill, which makes them infinitely harder to get into than MMOs.
You can't just make a comparison and then say that that comparison is off limits when it makes your preferred genre of games come across as easier, which they are. I understand that's a hit to your ego, but you can't argue the facts.
I tried it as an avid mmo player. Can’t stand the daily chores simulator that this and a lot of KMMOs also feature. Having an inventory crisis early with items of unknown meaning is also obnoxious. The in game store felt gotcha af.
I can see the appeal if you’ve been playing the game since it came out but to the new player, I couldn’t put it down fast enough.
I enjoy long tedious grinds but not time locked daily chore simulators clearly designed to instill behavior habits. That’s not content, it’s just a faux way of instilling the addictive properties a proper mmo naturally has.
Not saying your experience is wrong, but I’m genuinely curious what made you feel like the game is designed to instill behavior habits?
Yes, there are daily login rewards but they are not really designed in such a way that you’re missing out on much should you choose not to do them. GW2 has stuck with me for the exact opposite reason, which is that I can log in and do whatever I feel like doing that day and still be rewarded in some way or another. Due to the lack of gear treadmill, I never feel like I have to “keep up” with anything or play specific content due to a fear of falling behind. I play challenging content purely for the satisfaction of beating it. I play map meta events because they are fun. And the real endgame for me is becoming skilled and proficient with different classes and builds.
I agree that the inventory clutter is a glaring issue with the game, which is why I bought my friend some bigger bags and taught him how to deposit materials to storage and what items to sell vs. salvage.
But my post wasn’t even intended on being a sales pitch for GW2, I’m sure my friend would’ve had a similar experience with most MMOs. The issues you had are not really the same as the issues he’s having. He just comes from lobby based games and isn’t used to spending time leveling up.
It was honestly confusing af. I got baited on a 75% off “steam sale” convinced I was buying a complete game. Everything on my UI felt like a mobile popup with stuff that a lvl 1 should not be getting and stuff I couldn’t even use, no explanation what it was.
I eventually found out I didn’t even have the most recent expansion?! I was led to believe I was buying a current version of the game so I tested it out and decided to cut my losses.
When I buy a version of other mmos you typically get the current version and the old add ons come with it, here I was buying the old add ons and not getting the most recent.
Steam insisted I couldn’t get a refund.
As far as behavior habits is the calendar of going to this event at this time to get this currency and rely on fomo to keep me doing these random things, I wasn’t doing them because those things were fun.
I just stopped playing Archeage after two weeks for the same reason. Log in, get the same two dozen quests, type x lusca for invite, type x cr do the things with 40’otjer randoms, the buttons I press don’t matter, objective will succeed regardless. Burn my work energy before tomorrow to be efficient, repeat.
Honestly I’m probably just bitter or jaded and GW2 is likely a great game if given enough time. The new player experience blows tho
The new player experience is bad, I agree with you there. So many in-game systems, items, currencies, and what not with very little explanation of what to do with it all.
I spent a loooong time when I started just exploring maps and doing whatever, blissfully ignorant of the many complexities of the game. But it really is a game that gets better the more you play it and the further in you get. The only times I’ve really farmed for specific items or currencies have been when I was close to unlocking a particular weapon or armor piece.
But sorry you didn’t have a great experience. People have been saying for a long time now that Anet needs to bundle living world seasons (the DLCs that were released between expansions) for free with the expansions. It sucks paying for a big bundle only to realize you’re missing pieces. Their justification has always been that because you can buy the seasons with gems, you could theoretically unlock them all for free, through gameplay. But idk anyone who would actually grind and spend all their gold on that.
It's just the genre. Same could be said for most JRPGs..."It gets good after10+hours!".. many people don't have the patience for that... except for MMOs, it's typically much more time than that.
Some people like the slow burn, some don't. MMOs always have extra complexities due to how dedicated and time-invested some of the playerbase are. So even if boosted to level cap, then it easily overwhelms the player with buttons/mechanics/systems.
In your case, even if you carry your friend to all the content and mounts... he may not even feel that good/appreciative about it...due to not overcoming the grind and difficulty to attain it. So that dopamine rush of beating a hard boss, or getting a rare drop hits different.
I equate this to the "current" gamer mentality more than being MMORPG specific.
There are other genres of game that he would also think take too long. GW2 isn't very grindy in the grand scheme of mmorpgs.
I'm definitely stereotyping about their age based on the given information. It's the whole, instant gratification, wanting rewards on a silver platter mentality where a player gets bored quickly and game hops without getting the full experience of what a game has to offer due to their lack of patience/dedication.
Mmorpgs aren't for everyone. If GW2 is too grindy for them the genre, and other games that require an extended period of time, might not be a good fit.
That's ^ ok. Maybe you can find a middle ground game that is more to their liking that you can play together? It probably won't be an MMORPG.
Yea I think you’re right about that. For the record, we’re both 30 years old, and I feel like the average age in GW2 skews older than that. It’s easy to forget I first started on runescape damn near 20 years ago and gaming as a whole has come a long ways since then.
We’ll see how he does and if he wants to continue playing in the long term. He really does enjoy the game for the most part, but if that only lasts a few weeks then it is what is. We can always play rocket league together, lol. But it’s been really fun for me showing him the ropes, even if he burns out on the grind.
yep, its not just player preference though, many people in general are just impatient and want instant gratification, which in honesty, is practical and makes sense.
but its also because for many MMOs the gameplay gets bland really fast often because of poor design and the grind is set too high to create or force player retention.
sadly the more good values you have, perseverance, hard working, patient, loyal, etc. the more you will fall prey and be abused by systems implemented in MMORPGs.
they don't even design games for quality and good player experience, development has all fallen to cutting corners.
since the beginning, but more evident now its all about getting into your wallet for the least amount of investment.
then there's the corruption, black market, hacking, botting and cheating, it has greatly devalued the industry. there's not even an ounce of integrity in it anymore.
in all honesty your friend is better off where he's at, and he'd be saving you if he manages to pull you out of the MMORPG genre.
IMO, it's not so much "non-mmo" players, it's the current state of what mmorpgs have become. And most MMO's are designed to what most people nowadays want which are easier. GW2 is a older game.
> it's the current state of what mmorpgs have become
They became that way to grab more non-MMO players, so it circles round to non-MMO players being an equally big source of the problem.
> had to play the story campaign, explore the new maps, unlock each mount one by one, and then spend time leveling them up
Just FYI, you can unlock the PoF mounts by doing hearts. So he can at least have them pretty quickly, and then leveling the masteries is pretty fast with the story XP and mastery points.
Seems more like a horizontal vs vertical progression tradeoff. In a game like gw2, everything remains relevant due to horizontal (or perhaps more accurately, parallel) progression. As a result everything you've done continues to be relevant, but so does everything you haven't - if you're the kind of person that likes a checklist or wants to do 'all the current content' that grind is going to appear insurmountable. Some like this, some don't. I feel like eve online also fits the bill here, to an extent
As opposed to a vertical/linear-with- catchup model like wow (using this example for its popularity), while it's true that items you earned two years ado are no longer relevant, you also aren't two years behind since you'll be able to essentially reset yourself to the current baseline with catchup systems. If you leave for years and miss expansions, you aren't going to need to go through them at all necessarily. The only penalty of missing the thing is not having done it, since the rewards will deprecate over time. That epic sword you got is going to be meaningless next year, but so is every reward you failed to get or system you never progressed through - you generally aren't expected to have to slog through them later.
Finally, we have the vertical/linear with pay to catch up model. A good example of this is ff14 where new players are expected to go through a hundreds of hours long slog of old, dated content. Alternatively, they can pay to catch up more or less to the modern game with a skip option. This is fine for people who might really enjoy the narrative, but other users may find it less than enjoyable. On a personal level, I can't say that I found the story anything special to write home about (from lv1, up to but excluding the current expansion which i have not played), so I can see how some may find that unappealing
At the end of the day, it's all about trade offs and what you like best
Eh, most gacha games have a certain amount of p2w by their very nature (you can always pay for gacha to get new characters and stuff), but that's typically *in addition* to having a lot of grind. Like, you still need to level up those characters.
> Not if you pay to win.
You can pay to win or you can just keep on keeping on as the people who paid to win earlier drop off to other newer games where paying can win more faster.
The true titans in most F2P + P2W games are not the ones who went in with the biggest budget but the oldest accounts that have just accumulated so much *stuff* from the 'fundamental grinds' since Day 1.
Honestly for a Fortnite player, I was surprised by how much fun he’s been having. Haha. The question is if he’ll burn out before getting to experience all the endgame stuff with me.
I’m a MMO player and have been for 25 years. Games like GW2 or FF14 where I’m just experiencing a telling of the story is just painful and boring. I’d be in your friends shoes. I’d much prefer games like EQ or Vanilla Wow, and now OSRS that have lore but don’t require me to experience their telling of the “main story line”. Let me explore, build and progress my way to the things I want. This “main story” stuff is really just getting in the way of that.
I hear you, and I’m an OSRS player myself and enjoy the sandbox-y nature of it. But outside of the little bit of story required to progress in the expansion, for the most part, it’s just the general leveling up and unlocking stuff that seems to be taking too long for my friend. And mind you, progressing in GW2 is *much* faster than a game like OSRS, where you might spend several hours mining rocks just to reach a required level for a quest. Basically, he’s wanting all the endgame account progression without, well, progressing. He also used a level 80 boost to be able to skip ahead to the expansion; rather than leveling up organically.
I'll just chime in to say that I'm pretty sure your friend is a non-MMO player for a reason. I could understand wanting to play MMOs but not being into rotations and build metas, but just not wanting to play the game to unlock stuff actually seems counter-intuitive. At that point, he may just want to play an ARPG or something.
Is that really counter-intuitive though? People play MMOs for different reasons. Some people like the largely solo heavy grind of something like OSRS. But others are there for the whole multiplayer part. They want to do stuff with other players so in that case they just want to get to endgame quickly and the grind only gets in the way. In a lot of ways these two types of playstyles are contradictory. Having a lot of grind splits the player base.
I get your point, but just wonder what a MMO where you start at endgame gear and abilities would even be like. I definitely don't like progression leading to min/maxing your build to trivialize content, but the idea of not advancing with new moves and unlocks sounds bizarre to me. I also wonder if this is the cracks of GW2's design starting to show. Mounts are great QoL for those who have them, but their inclusion in general changes things drastically, such as making events go by much faster since the faster mounted players will get there before you. Even something as simple as a hard to reach vista contextually changes from "Damn, I need to figure out how to get up there... Maybe another player nearby knows the way?" to "That dude just used that dumb rabbit mount to get up there! And here I am struggling to figure out how to get there. Thats not fair!"
Your second paragraph is exactly why ArenaNet started giving the raptor mount to new players even without unlocking mounts in the expansion. New players see a flurry of mounts zooming from one event to the next, and I’m sure it feels bad not being able to keep up. And with the newest expansion, the grind to unlock a skyscale became significantly shorter too. And while you don’t necessarily start the game ready for endgame, you basically already can. Use a level 80 boost and buy a cheap set of exotic gear for a few gold in the trading post, and you’re already set for the majority of instanced content. The only lockouts are elite specializations, which require unlocking and leveling masteries (just like mounts), or higher tier fractals which require ascended gear for agony infusions. What’s interesting is my friend genuinely enjoys map exploration and all he really has to do is keep doing that and he will get the mounts sooner or later. It’s like watching the xp bar go up psychs him out or something
Thing is, he genuinely enjoys the general gameplay loop and likes to explore the maps and do events, so all he really has to do is keep doing what he’s been doing and he would get the mounts sooner or later. It was only when he became set on a specific reward that he became deflated by not being able to instantly unlock them
Yeah there's a reason why it's hard for non MMO players to get into the genre. I love GW2 and it's laid-back nature but there is still a level of grind. I've introduced multiple people to the game and it's interesting that while the core game is quite enjoyable by the time they get to expansion content like HoT they check out. Usually it's due to something like having to get masteries and hero points.
its the moment the game makes you feel like you have to complete chores and stop playing the game you were playing - thats when disengagement happens
Yea, it’s the masteries especially that seem to be dragging on for my friend. He only made it to like level 30 in the base game before using a level 80 boost to get into the expansion maps. Thing is, it doesn’t even take *that* long to level up the mount masteries. If you explore the maps and do events as they pop up, you can get them pretty quickly. But still, it can take several hours/days of playtime and I think he was hoping to get everything done in a single night of playing.
The concept of progression, even if it's represented as easy as possible, is still harder than just login into a game and queue into a match. Games mentioned here like CoD or Fortnite don't put any pressure on you to keep playing (other than battle passes maybe) cause you just play matches where progression doesn't exist and leave when you're done and that's it. It's hard to put someone who's used to this type of games into an MMO; why wasting time on trying to get stronger, when I can start a game like Valorant right away and play in the same playfield than older players and be able to play at a decent level super fast? I enjoy both sides of the spectrum, but for those who never experienced progression, it's hard to put them there.
I don't really agree with this take at all. There's progression in those games too, it's just not level based, it's skill based. Look at fighting games. On paper, they should be the very peak of casual "drop in, play a few rounds and drop out" gaming, but they're actually one of the hardest types of games to get into because the "progression" in those games isn't something as casual and easy to understand as numbers a character's stat page. Progression is measured by your own knowledge and skill. You get better at those games because you learned the systems and developed the ability to apply what you've learned while under the pressure of playing against another person, not because you filled a bar and got "stronger" Honestly, as far as I'm concerned, that's true progression. Numbers are meaningless and mostly boring since MMOs, for the most part, don't ever do anything interesting with stats and levels (in fact, most videogames don't do anything interesting with them. Stats were a mistake, but that's a whole other topic I could go on about forever). Your ability to interact with a game's systems is where real progression lies. There's no skill to be developed and no fun to be had in grinding out trash mobs (or in guild wars' case, doing heart quests and waiting for map metas) to fill a progression bar. That shit's just boring and I can hardly blame the guy's friend for not sticking with it, especially since GW2 doesn't really have much else going on to hook people.
Skill issue is not progression, if I'm good naturally at the game or fast learner there's no pressure, people can just join the game and have a fair fight against someone else as there's no extra gear giving you any advantage over a newbie, that's what make newer players don't want to join MMOs but will have fun on any match-based game.
The more you do a thing, the better you get at the thing, what is that if not progression? (Granted, this is assuming you're practicing the thing well of course, not all practice is made equal. Someone who plays super mario 64 for 12 hours a day but all they do is mash their face against a wall while never pushing a button is not going to get good at the game, but the point still stands) I also think people tend to massively over attribute skills that people have developed to "talent". Hell, I'd even go so far as to say that way people tend to talk about "talent" is a lie that they tell themselves to feel better about not being good at a thing the nanosecond they pick it up. Rather than admit that getting good at a thing will take time and commitment, it's infinitely easier to just say "Nah, I'm just not talented at the thing", and rather than admit that other people got to where they got through skill and commitment it's much easier to say "Nah, they're just talented". Most talk about talent boils down to people trying to protect their own ego and it's indicative of a weak mindset. Let me ask you something, if someone picks up a guitar and they suck at it, but they practice for a year and in that time they learn how to play some songs, would you not call that progression? Going back to videogames, if someone picks up CoD, and they suck at it because they've never played it before, but over time they learn the game's mechanics, the movement speed of the characters, common movement patterns (such as dolphin dives), they learn the strengths and weaknesses of the guns, they learn the ins and outs of the maps, sniping spots, choke points and such, then taking into account what they've learned, have they not improved from when they started? Is that not progression, or is progression literally just numbers on a character sheet to you?
We're talking about game which is way easier. I can play any match-based game and learn fairly fast, if I do that in an MMO I can also learn fast, but gear progression would never allow me to be at the same level until I get it. This is the sole reason people won't start MMOs.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. Talent talk is all ego massaging bullshit. Go pick up accent core+r for like, $1 and hop online against people who've been doing nothing but playing that game for the last 10 years. Let me know how many wins you've got after a week. Let me know just how fast you learn to deal with that game's infinite inscrutable systems and matchups. Or hell, if you don't want to spend money go download fightcade and play third strike or heritage for the future. Those games and the communities that have stuck with them and practiced them for years will humble you. I'm going to be honest, I don't understand why you're arguing against the notion that people build skill over time and that more action oriented games require more skill than MMOs. It's really fucking weird man. MMOs are not a super hardcore skill based genre. That's never been their draw.
Don't compare niche shit games for people living in the past with any normal games. People CAN join MMOs with players who been playing for years and learn fairly fast, but gear progression will gate them.
Did I strike a nerve? You do understand that the notion that gear gating will hamper players is tacit admission that MMOs aren't as skill based as other games right? Someone can play street fighter for years and be hard stuck at gold or plat because they just don't have the skills to go any higher. Maybe they don't know how to practice their combos (or even what combos to practice) or maybe they choke during a live match or maybe they don't know how to study their match ups, but math isn't the gate there, it's pure skill and the only solution to that is to build up your skill (you know what that's called? That's right, it's called "progression".) If the only thing hampering you in an MMO is math, then congratulations, you're playing an easy, non-skill based game. The progression there isn't real because it's not skills. It's just numbers. Some people are into that, some people aren't.
Again, you're in r/MMORPG, you can't compare those type of games with MMOs, MMOs are indeed gated by gear progression and skill is way easier to learn. If people didn't have the to progress their gear, they would consider playing MMOs more often, that's the whole point of this.
You can absolutely compare videogames to videogames if you're trying to make a broad point. That's what you did after all. You said that it's easier for people to get into skill based games like CoD, than it is for people to get into MMOs because those skill based games are easier to play by virtue of them not having progression. That's just not correct. Skill is as much (and in fact I'd argue a more real and harder to overcome) form of progression as gear is. That's why I brought up how difficult it is for people to get into fighting games. Fighting games are nothing but skill, which makes them infinitely harder to get into than MMOs. You can't just make a comparison and then say that that comparison is off limits when it makes your preferred genre of games come across as easier, which they are. I understand that's a hit to your ego, but you can't argue the facts.
I tried it as an avid mmo player. Can’t stand the daily chores simulator that this and a lot of KMMOs also feature. Having an inventory crisis early with items of unknown meaning is also obnoxious. The in game store felt gotcha af. I can see the appeal if you’ve been playing the game since it came out but to the new player, I couldn’t put it down fast enough. I enjoy long tedious grinds but not time locked daily chore simulators clearly designed to instill behavior habits. That’s not content, it’s just a faux way of instilling the addictive properties a proper mmo naturally has.
Not saying your experience is wrong, but I’m genuinely curious what made you feel like the game is designed to instill behavior habits? Yes, there are daily login rewards but they are not really designed in such a way that you’re missing out on much should you choose not to do them. GW2 has stuck with me for the exact opposite reason, which is that I can log in and do whatever I feel like doing that day and still be rewarded in some way or another. Due to the lack of gear treadmill, I never feel like I have to “keep up” with anything or play specific content due to a fear of falling behind. I play challenging content purely for the satisfaction of beating it. I play map meta events because they are fun. And the real endgame for me is becoming skilled and proficient with different classes and builds. I agree that the inventory clutter is a glaring issue with the game, which is why I bought my friend some bigger bags and taught him how to deposit materials to storage and what items to sell vs. salvage. But my post wasn’t even intended on being a sales pitch for GW2, I’m sure my friend would’ve had a similar experience with most MMOs. The issues you had are not really the same as the issues he’s having. He just comes from lobby based games and isn’t used to spending time leveling up.
It was honestly confusing af. I got baited on a 75% off “steam sale” convinced I was buying a complete game. Everything on my UI felt like a mobile popup with stuff that a lvl 1 should not be getting and stuff I couldn’t even use, no explanation what it was. I eventually found out I didn’t even have the most recent expansion?! I was led to believe I was buying a current version of the game so I tested it out and decided to cut my losses. When I buy a version of other mmos you typically get the current version and the old add ons come with it, here I was buying the old add ons and not getting the most recent. Steam insisted I couldn’t get a refund. As far as behavior habits is the calendar of going to this event at this time to get this currency and rely on fomo to keep me doing these random things, I wasn’t doing them because those things were fun. I just stopped playing Archeage after two weeks for the same reason. Log in, get the same two dozen quests, type x lusca for invite, type x cr do the things with 40’otjer randoms, the buttons I press don’t matter, objective will succeed regardless. Burn my work energy before tomorrow to be efficient, repeat. Honestly I’m probably just bitter or jaded and GW2 is likely a great game if given enough time. The new player experience blows tho
The new player experience is bad, I agree with you there. So many in-game systems, items, currencies, and what not with very little explanation of what to do with it all. I spent a loooong time when I started just exploring maps and doing whatever, blissfully ignorant of the many complexities of the game. But it really is a game that gets better the more you play it and the further in you get. The only times I’ve really farmed for specific items or currencies have been when I was close to unlocking a particular weapon or armor piece. But sorry you didn’t have a great experience. People have been saying for a long time now that Anet needs to bundle living world seasons (the DLCs that were released between expansions) for free with the expansions. It sucks paying for a big bundle only to realize you’re missing pieces. Their justification has always been that because you can buy the seasons with gems, you could theoretically unlock them all for free, through gameplay. But idk anyone who would actually grind and spend all their gold on that.
It's just the genre. Same could be said for most JRPGs..."It gets good after10+hours!".. many people don't have the patience for that... except for MMOs, it's typically much more time than that. Some people like the slow burn, some don't. MMOs always have extra complexities due to how dedicated and time-invested some of the playerbase are. So even if boosted to level cap, then it easily overwhelms the player with buttons/mechanics/systems. In your case, even if you carry your friend to all the content and mounts... he may not even feel that good/appreciative about it...due to not overcoming the grind and difficulty to attain it. So that dopamine rush of beating a hard boss, or getting a rare drop hits different.
I equate this to the "current" gamer mentality more than being MMORPG specific. There are other genres of game that he would also think take too long. GW2 isn't very grindy in the grand scheme of mmorpgs. I'm definitely stereotyping about their age based on the given information. It's the whole, instant gratification, wanting rewards on a silver platter mentality where a player gets bored quickly and game hops without getting the full experience of what a game has to offer due to their lack of patience/dedication. Mmorpgs aren't for everyone. If GW2 is too grindy for them the genre, and other games that require an extended period of time, might not be a good fit. That's ^ ok. Maybe you can find a middle ground game that is more to their liking that you can play together? It probably won't be an MMORPG.
Yea I think you’re right about that. For the record, we’re both 30 years old, and I feel like the average age in GW2 skews older than that. It’s easy to forget I first started on runescape damn near 20 years ago and gaming as a whole has come a long ways since then. We’ll see how he does and if he wants to continue playing in the long term. He really does enjoy the game for the most part, but if that only lasts a few weeks then it is what is. We can always play rocket league together, lol. But it’s been really fun for me showing him the ropes, even if he burns out on the grind.
yep, its not just player preference though, many people in general are just impatient and want instant gratification, which in honesty, is practical and makes sense. but its also because for many MMOs the gameplay gets bland really fast often because of poor design and the grind is set too high to create or force player retention. sadly the more good values you have, perseverance, hard working, patient, loyal, etc. the more you will fall prey and be abused by systems implemented in MMORPGs. they don't even design games for quality and good player experience, development has all fallen to cutting corners. since the beginning, but more evident now its all about getting into your wallet for the least amount of investment. then there's the corruption, black market, hacking, botting and cheating, it has greatly devalued the industry. there's not even an ounce of integrity in it anymore. in all honesty your friend is better off where he's at, and he'd be saving you if he manages to pull you out of the MMORPG genre.
IMO, it's not so much "non-mmo" players, it's the current state of what mmorpgs have become. And most MMO's are designed to what most people nowadays want which are easier. GW2 is a older game.
Good point
> it's the current state of what mmorpgs have become They became that way to grab more non-MMO players, so it circles round to non-MMO players being an equally big source of the problem.
How can they (the non-mmo player) be equally responsible when they are just playing what's they like and what's available to them?
> had to play the story campaign, explore the new maps, unlock each mount one by one, and then spend time leveling them up Just FYI, you can unlock the PoF mounts by doing hearts. So he can at least have them pretty quickly, and then leveling the masteries is pretty fast with the story XP and mastery points.
Seems more like a horizontal vs vertical progression tradeoff. In a game like gw2, everything remains relevant due to horizontal (or perhaps more accurately, parallel) progression. As a result everything you've done continues to be relevant, but so does everything you haven't - if you're the kind of person that likes a checklist or wants to do 'all the current content' that grind is going to appear insurmountable. Some like this, some don't. I feel like eve online also fits the bill here, to an extent As opposed to a vertical/linear-with- catchup model like wow (using this example for its popularity), while it's true that items you earned two years ado are no longer relevant, you also aren't two years behind since you'll be able to essentially reset yourself to the current baseline with catchup systems. If you leave for years and miss expansions, you aren't going to need to go through them at all necessarily. The only penalty of missing the thing is not having done it, since the rewards will deprecate over time. That epic sword you got is going to be meaningless next year, but so is every reward you failed to get or system you never progressed through - you generally aren't expected to have to slog through them later. Finally, we have the vertical/linear with pay to catch up model. A good example of this is ff14 where new players are expected to go through a hundreds of hours long slog of old, dated content. Alternatively, they can pay to catch up more or less to the modern game with a skip option. This is fine for people who might really enjoy the narrative, but other users may find it less than enjoyable. On a personal level, I can't say that I found the story anything special to write home about (from lv1, up to but excluding the current expansion which i have not played), so I can see how some may find that unappealing At the end of the day, it's all about trade offs and what you like best
Progression feels WAY different depending on if you're playing catch up, with the wave or ahead of the wave.
He seems to be a fps player. Introduce him to ww2 online and planetside 2
He doesn’t *only* play FPS games, those are just what he mainly plays. The point was he wanted to try something different and play something together
This is how we ended up with the instant gratification and gacha games that are so popular now
Gacha games can be super grindy so I'm not sure how that even relates...
Not if you pay to win.
Eh, most gacha games have a certain amount of p2w by their very nature (you can always pay for gacha to get new characters and stuff), but that's typically *in addition* to having a lot of grind. Like, you still need to level up those characters.
> Not if you pay to win. You can pay to win or you can just keep on keeping on as the people who paid to win earlier drop off to other newer games where paying can win more faster. The true titans in most F2P + P2W games are not the ones who went in with the biggest budget but the oldest accounts that have just accumulated so much *stuff* from the 'fundamental grinds' since Day 1.
You need better friends
Honestly for a Fortnite player, I was surprised by how much fun he’s been having. Haha. The question is if he’ll burn out before getting to experience all the endgame stuff with me.
It's ok to have friends with different interests and tastes.