Debate topic: Journey vs Endgame

I think getting to the end-game level (or in DT, skill cap) should not take very long. What it should be is just long enough to make the player proficient at using the particular skills. Reaching the end-game cap should be like getting your bachelor’s degree. It means, “I’m proficient in a broad sense of my skills” and not “I’ve reached the end”. I always thought “end-game” content in video games should just be called “content”, really. The grind is stupid – I understand some people are addicted to that system – and in any moderately sophisticated video game, and hopefully this will be true of DT, the end-game is what the players make of it collectively, not what random skill set or gear they happened to pick up. If I’m skill-capped and setup to be a shipwright or something, the only thing that should separate me from other people with the same skill-caps is with whom I do business and how I conduct business. If I’m a combatant, it’s who I fight with and what tactics we use. The reason all the other stupid games have endless supplies of “gear” and stuff to grind is because there are too many idiots who don’t like thinking so they grind endlessly to get gear which will just make them “better”. This isn’t to say DT shouldn’t have equipment – it obviously should – but it should be a very marginal component to your combat effectiveness (at the end of the day, a sharp blade is a sharp blade). It’s a morbid analogy, but in my perfect idea of a game, a bullet from a child soldier kills just as much as a bullet from a trained soldier.

Hmm, this is a hard one Pathy. Though I agree it needs to be slower, a sandbox mmo should not take forever to level up. At this point you can max yours skill out in a week, I dont agree with this. I say, 1 month-3 months should be the time frame.

Yeah. I guess what you think should be the end game I think should just be the game. To restate my point more simply, I would prefer that grinding skills is a learning process with steps along the way that will ease you into more sophisticated methods of production/combat (learning new recipes, moves, etc.). Once you have reached the end, you have simply become graduated from the game’s meta-tutorial. It is at this point that you can begin to forge your own identity in the community, armed with the tools necessary to do this without any of the fat.

I would like to see skill progression to be slow, reaching skill cap should take 6 month or more. Understand that not everyone likes it as hard core but to me it gives a bigger sense of accomplishment in game when I can’t max everything out in a matter of a few weeks, there are already too many MMORPGs out there like that.

i started in a MUD called Dragonrealms so I have no problem with slow progression – the Journey.

You are right Pathy, that the journey was removed over time in games because the challenge was removed, therefore anything that took time was just tedious, not a fun challenge.

so….

IF dawntide isnt easy mode and you need other people to progress and progressing is a challenge and fun and engaging, then a long duration advancement is good.

if not, then just skip people to endgame :)

I say just solve this by manipulating resources to give people a reason to go to war, add all the features that are left out. Make ship building, and architecture real skills so that you have to work on lower level buildings/ships to level up. Also make boats transferable to other players, and maybe even make it so boats have to be built in a shipyard. The key to a sandbox game I think, is to keep players busy, give them things to do, while also limiting them so there is a real economy, real trade between players. Add carts/horses/other mounts to make traveling a little faster, but also make sure these have to be raised, and crafted by skilled players, not just anyone…

MMO’s are always about the grind. Whether “end-game” or levelling it is really just the nature of the activity that needs to be completed which changes peoples view. Some like to work on their own and enjoy quests and PVE killing, others like to complete raids or dungeons, collect materials to craft or PVP. Either way, MMO’s are always about working over a long period and getting a reward for it. If people want to just jump to the “end game” you might as well just go and play an FPS (traditional style not the new bs level system ones).

What I hope DT can to some extent achieve is making each phase or option of how to play the game valuable. The resources that can be collected or crafted by a beginning player should be valuable to more advanced players. There is nothing more frustrating in a game than having to collect a pile of sh*t and craft it into the same useless piece of sh*t over and over again so you can then craft the item you actually wanted. I think a better system would be one in which what beginning characters can create is useful to either themselves or more advanced players. This can be done by making the items crafted or collected by new characters necessary but inefficient for older characters. Guilds should require a range of players over different levels to achieve their goals (or force older characters to complete the lower tasks = less efficient and they have already been there so less interesting to do), not simply be full of older characters that hold out any new players.

This kind of system would mean that while there is of course a grind and progression through the skill system. At each point players make a valuable contribution to the world and have a purpose and place in the game. This would allow players to not only increase their own skill as they play the game but also get a sense of satisfaction and worth right throughout the process. By this I don’t mean that the system needs to be linear either. There should be a number of different paths that players can go down and guilds should need resource collectors, crafters, PVE’ers and PVP’ers just as much as one another. Obviously this is not an easy thing to do as the balance is difficult and dependant not only on game mechanics but also how the community interacts with and plays the game.

IMO the goal of an MMO should not be to remove the “grind” but rather embrace and diversify it. Give it worth and purpose so that players of all levels can get a sense of enjoyment, satisfaction and value from playing the game and being a part of its world. If players are given a range of different paths to take, each with value then this system would allow for many different but dependant game styles.

Given all this, I therefore support long and slow, but never tedious or worthless skill progression.

• This reply was modified 132 days ago by  Moeman.