I think I'm done

[Karnot]

I think I finally came to the point of : "I am not the player type for mmo's". While I like alot of things about them, there is always one thing that I am always missing in them, and that is challenge. over the past 2 years I have tried GW2, ESO and now ended with Wildstar. All three games are great in my opinion and offer fun content.

However I am just missing the challenge in the open world/leveling process. a large portion of the game I feel like there is no counter-pressure. Mobs die easily And I never feel any threat of dying. And yes in most mmo's there is challenging content like dungeons and/or raids.
But I just don't feel like wading trough hours upon hours of content just to get to the challenging parts (I always found the "you need to get to endgame" argument kind of weak). And are there any mmo's with a challenging leveling/open world content?

I am probably not the only who feels this way (probably), However I am wondering if I am in a really small minority? so for the people who quit mmo's; do you feel the same? or do you have a different reasons? please share.

In addition I'm thinking if there would be enough demand for an mmo esqe RPG that is smaller ,perhaps more instanced if need be and focused towards smaller groups 4-6 or 4-8 players. And where difficulty would be more customizable to fit the needs of different type of players?

 

[Saelune]

They need to make an action MMO. Imagine Dark Souls gameplay in an MMO. I wish Dragon's Dogma online came to the west, that game looks neat, since it simply seems to be DD...but an MMO, in terms of gameplay atleast.

I also wonder how an action MMO, again with Dark Souls style gameplay, but no levels. Or I guess Chivalry (though I haven't played it myself, if I am wrong). Everyone always says (as you pointed out) that an MMO doesn't start until you reach max level anyways. Why waste people's time? Just an idea that no one will ever have the guts to try I'm guessing.

 

[someguy1231]

They need to make an action MMO. Imagine Dark Souls gameplay in an MMO.

You should check out TERA Online. It's free-to-play on Steam and is probably the closest an MMO gets to what you describe.

 

[sanquin]

They need to make an action MMO. Imagine Dark Souls gameplay in an MMO.

You should check out TERA Online. It's free-to-play on Steam and is probably the closest an MMO gets to what you describe.

Just don't play the brawler. She's so overpowered that you blaze through most enemies. At least last time I played.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I am probably not the only who feels this way (probably), However I am wondering if I am in a really small minority? so for the people who quit mmo's; do you feel the same? or do you have a different reasons? please share.

As someone who still enjoys the classic loot/level EQ style MMO experience (as popularized by World of Warcraft) but is fully cognizant of how stale the formula is getting...the problem is simply a lack of innovation. WoW was such a massive, unprecedented, breakaway success that it completely transformed a burgeoning genre, and not for the better. It's not that there's anything wrong with that game play model, it's that "MMO" contains a nearly infinite universe of possibilities, and we keep getting tiny iterations on the same theme. Linear treadmill MMOs have significant sunk cost, so the market only really has room for a few 800 lbs gorillas, and the cost of competing was so high that everyone was as conservative in their design as possible. These games aren't first person shooters or adventure games...you can't play a dozen in a year at 10 hours each. You play one for hundreds, sometimes thousands of hours. Then you're going to pick up another one that is almost mechanically indistinguishable? It's no wonder the genre is contracting.

TLDR - People need to get adventurous again with online games, and to some degree we've already seen it, we just haven't been paying attention. League of Legends, Day-Z, Minecraft...there's been quite a few breakaway success stories in multiplayer space, they just haven't all been "massive", and we've become conditioned to expect "an MMO" to look and play like WoW.

 

[Paragon Fury]

TERA is probably close to what you're looking for. It has great combat, even the leveling enemies once you get out of the first few areas will put you on your ass if you don't play correctly and its pretty fun overall. Its basically Monster Hunter: The MMO in the way it plays.

It has three main issues though;

1: Yes, its Korean and full of cheese. But you know what? Its equal parts cheese, with both the guys and gals getting into ridiculous and sexy outfits in equal measures and both sides being made of cheesecake and beefcake respectively. Battle bikinis and combat banana hammocks away!

2: It stupidly relies on GPU processing over CPU processing (or that might be reversed. Haven't read the technical explanation in a long time). Basically, it means that it has performance issues in big PVP areas or with big encounters because it uses the less effective form of processing that most other games avoid.

3: The Brawler and Gunner are a little ridiculous, so avoid them if you want to preserve some of the challenge.

 

[SweetShark]

I feel you my friend...
Just recently I wanted to start playing a pure MMO game for the first time in my life, specifically WildStar, but I couldn't do it...
It was....bizarre...start seeing the monsters around you and not attacking you or just be in a spot and just attack by pressing 10+ different buttons....

However like many other users did here, they also suggested me to play a action MMO, so maybe there is still hope for me and you in the future.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

They need to make an action MMO. Imagine Dark Souls gameplay in an MMO. I wish Dragon's Dogma online came to the west, that game looks neat, since it simply seems to be DD...but an MMO, in terms of gameplay atleast.

I also wonder how an action MMO, again with Dark Souls style gameplay, but no levels. Or I guess Chivalry (though I haven't played it myself, if I am wrong). Everyone always says (as you pointed out) that an MMO doesn't start until you reach max level anyways. Why waste people's time? Just an idea that no one will ever have the guts to try I'm guessing.

there are a few, but they tend not to be all that much more fun then the old. The mmo problems persist in action combat.

 

[Areloch]

I've always felt that we need to get a few AA studios to take a stab at a modernization of more classic MMORPGs, like Ultima or Ragnarok, where it's more just about setting up a huge open world sandbox and let the players make it function. Those have a much smaller comparative scope, meaning they require less money to do, meaning the devs are free to try for more innovation and uniqueness.

With all MMOs attempting to hit the WoW market, it's making budgets for MMOs shoot into the hundreds of millions, which means they're going to play it as safe and formulaic as possible, which doesn't do the genre any favors.

 

[Karnot]

They need to make an action MMO. Imagine Dark Souls gameplay in an MMO.

You should check out TERA Online. It's free-to-play on Steam and is probably the closest an MMO gets to what you describe.

The weird thing is, I was researching Tera I read alot of complaints that the game has gotten super easy. So I am hearing conflicting things.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

I've always felt that we need to get a few AA studios to take a stab at a modernization of more classic MMORPGs, like Ultima or Ragnarok, where it's more just about setting up a huge open world sandbox and let the players make it function. Those have a much smaller comparative scope, meaning they require less money to do, meaning the devs are free to try for more innovation and uniqueness.

With all MMOs attempting to hit the WoW market, it's making budgets for MMOs shoot into the hundreds of millions, which means they're going to play it as safe and formulaic as possible, which doesn't do the genre any favors.

MMOs are really neglecting the field play now. They reserve so much of their gameplay to one off quest and instances and it is such a waste. You get so much more from putting that out in the open and letting it bounce off things to produce unexpected results.

 

[Raddra]

Themepark killed MMO's for me. I like to see worlds designed to be worlds and have the players dropped in to it, as opposed to having each zone be a 'ride' that takes you from level 5-10, 11-15, etc.

 

[MHR]

Me quitting an MMO has nothing to do with "challenge." You want a challenge, all you have to do is PuG any non-trivial dungeon.

The problems for me come from lack of balance in PvP, lack of interesting content and interaction in PvP, and no, stupid arena constructed matches don't count. PvE endgame is a joke to me.

I'm not playing any MMOs currently because most are formulaic. There's the basic leveling loop, which gets done in a trivial amount of time now, entire levels get flushed away by irrelevance. You gather up the items to have your things and jump on the gear treadmill. You might get a token PvP mechanic or have some decently built dungeons, but that's really all there is. To make things worse, more and more content is becoming instanced. It's getting to the point you could call something like Left 4 Dead an MMO because it's multiplayer and has servers.

 

[Liljumpman]

Everyone mentioning Tera probably hasn't played in ages, let me fill you guys in.

Leveling up is easymode babytier streamline and can be done in a few days.

Classes are gender and race locked to the most popular player choices (which is the little girl race, elin), so if you want new content enjoy rolling an annoying loli in short skirts. Almost zero new male content.

Endgame, which is usually the calling card of MMO's, is deserted with the raids being easy and few.

Teras combat is sick, and pretty enjoyable, but I would whole heartedly recommend waiting for a new MMO if you're actually looking to play one. Tera is dead.

 

[DementedSheep]

They need to make an action MMO. Imagine Dark Souls gameplay in an MMO. I wish Dragon's Dogma online came to the west, that game looks neat, since it simply seems to be DD...but an MMO, in terms of gameplay atleast.

I also wonder how an action MMO, again with Dark Souls style gameplay, but no levels. Or I guess Chivalry (though I haven't played it myself, if I am wrong). Everyone always says (as you pointed out) that an MMO doesn't start until you reach max level anyways. Why waste people's time? Just an idea that no one will ever have the guts to try I'm guessing.

I had hopes for DDO but I played it and it's not that good. At base it controls pretty much the same and it even has some improvements (specific pawn commands like "use fire", I actually like active reload on bows and would like the hunker down mechanic if they didn't make it brainless with flashing symbols) but the things they did change make a massive difference. You can literally grappling hock up to an ogres face, hack away at it until a gigantic flashing red icons appears, jump off briefly (don't even need to touch the ground) and grappling hock back on. It can't do anything to you at all and you don't need to pay attention to anything but the symbols, the only thing stopping just soloing with ease is the amount of time it takes to kill. Even if you don't jump off with flashing symbol all it dose some damage and knocks you off but probably won't kill you. They don't grab and eat you or anything like that.
They also made very repetitive because you have to grind the same couple of quests over and over again to level up a zone before you can unlock more quest and zones. It takes you ages to unlock some of the classes because they have minimum levels for the quest (plus zone grinding) and when you do they are at level 1, they don't keep your stats so you have to go back to the same low level quests AGAIN. It's infuriating. Perhaps they have added more but from what I played of the game, the good points are ruined by the bad.

I would play Tera but I hate everything else about it apart from the combat.

 

[Worgen]

I agree with giving Tera a shot. Its got bams (Big ass monsters) which offer a nice challenge and are just really fun to fight. The normal fights aren't much harder then in most mmos but the bams are great and require smart usage of offense and defence.

 

[Trunkage]

I only started ESO earlier this year. As to challenge, I just played areas higher than my level. I missed complete zone, which screws with the story though. I don't know how the new update affects that though, as like you, I don't want to start again

 

[Wrex Brogan]

I'm still stuck in World of Warcraft hell, so I'm not much help to you - while WoW does get quite challenging later on in regards to Heroic/Mythic content, that stuff usually requires larger groups (10+ for Raids), though Mythic Dungeons (5 man) in Legion (next expansion) are supposed to be raid-equivalent in their challenge. Leveling up is SUPER easy though, you don't really get a challenge in regards to solo play until you reach current content.

I'll agree with BloatedGuppy above in how MMOs are pretty... stagnant. As big a WoW fan as I am, it's disturbing to see how many follow in it's footsteps so closely, and that's so unappealing given I'm STILL playing the fucking thing. I only really play one MMO, since I'm just not interested in investing the time to explore anymore that are just going to be WoW with different graphics. Online Multiplayer games have seen more interest from me, with shit like Warframe (1-4 player TPS game) and the various Mobas have taken more of my interest than diving into MMOs that I won't know I like until the 60 hour mark.

I'd love it if MMOs did explore more with the genre and really push the boundaries of what they do, but until then, I'm sticking with WoW.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

I dunno about you, but I'm having fun with Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn. It might not be your cup of tea - the combat is decent enough and it's a fairly decent story - but for someone like me, it suits me well enough. Better than WoW or any other MMO out there.