Quote:
Originally Posted by tarek1500
In my opinion you should focus on the grinding part more than the end-game (I found that it more fun for me), also you might introduce new gameplay style which is able to be applied. I found that the end-game is so silly for us, we aren't childs anymore, and we need more activities for our ages.
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There's so much to talk about in this thread, there's not enough time or space, so I'll point out something about this reply that is relevant to the topic.
Over the years, I've come to see that there's two main groups people fall into when it comes to playing MMOs. You have the more prominent "endgame destination" group, and then you have the "enjoy the journey" group.
The endgame group doesn't care about anything before endgame, because for them, the game actually begins at endgame. For them, it's a race to endgame so they can work towards getting the best gear, and doing all the endgame content.
The journey group (which best describes me) is the opposite. Their enjoyment is everything leading up to endgame. When they typically get to endgame, the game is "ending" for them for that character,, and then it's on to the next one to try new builds or try different factions and stuff.
It's like the difference of people who only main 1 character and don't use alts ever and focus solely on making their 1 character as strong as possible, and then people who prefer having a bunch of alts (which in turn means weaker characters overall due to not focusing on any one unparticular).
MMOs have struggled to cater towards both groups of people, as it seems most hardcore players end up being in the endgame group. They speed through content, using whatever is the most efficient build to level, and then transition into focusing on endgame, never giving anything earlier any second thought. This is why so many games offer "catch up" systems of sorts to allow new players to skip through pre-endgame stuff so they can join everyone else in end-game (or at least the newest expansion content).
Silkroad went down this path to a degree when gold stopped dropping under level 70, and then you can just farm tokens to get any SoX item. Then, pservers have done things where lower levels have higher rates so you just "go through the motions" of leveling from 1 to near-cap, and then grind out your SP or end-game gear with lesser rates. It seems widely accepted that if you just start people out at end-game, very few actually like that or enjoy it, and it ends up being a dead server after a few days, so the process of leveling up is still important, even though it's superficial.
I myself think the solution MMOs use to address this problem is terrible. Large portions of a game are basically thrown away and are just filler areas no one cares about anymore, and I think that's a waste. "Paragon" or "Rebirth" systems are systems I support for keeping earlier content relevant for sure, but they're not enough on their own to improve the grinding experience.
To me, ARPGs provide the solution for making grinding more interesting over time. "Diablo-style" loot systems have been used in all sorts of non-arpg games to breath new life into them. I myself have thought about the implications of designing such a system for SRO. However, more interesting loot in itself isn't enough to make SRO interesting again for most. You need some combat or mob fight changes to compliment it.
"Diablo-style" mobs is naturally the first change, but then you need to solve a problem of unbounded leveling progression in a way that keeps everyone playing in the same relevant level ranges, yet doesn't punish people who want to play more. The idea I've thought about is along the same lines of progressive cap raises over time, where you spend some amount of time trying to grind out the best tier gear for the current cap, and then when the server moves to the next tier, there's some pve event where you can put all your efforts to the test for rewards before the next tier transition.
Ultimately though, players need something new to work towards. Silkroad is an incomplete idea I think. The whole premise was become a trade/thief/hunter with the "Silkroad" theme to acquire a bunch of gold, but for what? What exactly do you do with all this gold that you can also just grind mobs for or trade/sell items? Modern mmos have way more gold sinks and things to do because of this. Some do it via housing systems, various craft/gather systems, and so on. I think systems like these need to be added as well to give people a concrete goal to work towards rather than just hitting cap and maxing out end-game gear.
There's always going to be technical hurdles trying to do something as extensive as I'm talking about, but I think solving the game design problems are much harder than trying to mod the client/server to do more advanced stuff. Game design and balance is a really hard field, so what might seem good on paper or what people say they would like, might turn out just not feeling good when actually playing it. Likewise the opposite, what people say they'd not like or don't like the sound of, might end up being really enjoyable once they get a chance to try it.
That's part of the risk/gamble of game development and trying to make something new, so if someone did decide to try out stuff like this, they need a rock solid vision of what they hope to achieve to make it to the end, as it'll most certainly be a rough road anyway you look at it. Also, you can just give up after a month or two.
Seeing real results in game development can take years, so if you gauge the success of something based on how many people are playing after a few months, then almost everything new will "fail". People have to stick with things longer, keep evolving and trying to build up something, rather than just expect success within the first few months. A totally different example is Among Us, an unknown dead game for nearly 2 years before blowing up to be a massive success. Imagine if they threw in the towel after a few months, much less a year of just not having the results they probably wanted by then?
Anyways, I think the past 15 years of gaming has provided enough ideas and innovations to copy and apply to SRO to solve most of the problems a game this old has. It's certainly going to be a challenge to remake the game with a bunch of new systems like that, but before that happens, figuring out how much is "enough" to refresh the game is the bigger problem that needs to be solved I think.