On Sustainability Of Play

[Archade]

One concern i have about this game, and one that I hear mentioned frequently is a problem with 'lack of motivation to play'. Im conflicted because while the game is still in beta, that very sentiment often times results in the problem never getting fixed. This is not a problem of content, and not a thing that can be fixed by simply adding 'more' to a game, it is a problem with the underlying mechanisms and goal of gameplay, so just waiting around for more stuff to be added may yield poor results.

Most people like playing this game when they first try it. It has a nice combat system and it seems fairly addicting to start unlocking those planets heading towards some greater goal. However many people after just a few weeks of play meet their goals and then feel like they have ran out of purpose. One may think that more things to do would fix this, but that is the wrong approach. An approach like that is similar to what WoW has done, it works for them because they sell the content updates. They don't care if people stop playing for a while in between updates since they are counting on the box sales. This game doesn't sell updates like that, it makes money from people actually playing the game. The assumption is that the more people play, the more things they will want to spend platinum on, so the more they will buy - with even people not wanting to buy any at all still providing a support structure that keeps the game populated enough that the players who do want to buy do not feel like the game is empty and 'dead'.

Of course things like new frames and new weapons are things that can help with platinum income, but in order for people to be around to even have an interest in buying them, the game needs to have sucked them in and kept them. Don't mistake the purpose of a game such as this, its design is to be as addicting as possible so that people never even realize they could be playing something else, you want them to play it as often as they can and when they are not playing it you want them to think about it. So the question arises how do you construct a game to keep people playing it as vigorously as when they first started?

Do not be deluded into thinking that unique content can be created as fast as it is consumed - it never has been and until we can replace game developers with AIs it won't be. The key is to design game that, right out of the box, sustains itself - Which inherent to its core mechanisms keeps people playing indefinitely.

Its really not that difficult to do. Take a look at why people enjoy playing the game before they 'burn out' on it. Starting out you have a job presented to you. You are given a bunch of things to unlock - you may not know why exactly you need to, but its there in front of you so unlocking it is what you do. Every new mission you are closer to completing that goal, so every mission leaves you feeling satisfied even if nothing of any particular note was gained from that mission itself. Moreover you are gaining levels and exp for your frame and weapon and are feeling that you are progressing that too. You are progressing so many things with every action, its a great payoff and it becomes addicting. As time goes on and you fill in most of the planets, you start to run out of steam, by then you have probably gotten the frames you want leveled and the weapons you want leveled and you start to slow down, there is less motivation to play.

Here is where the mistake happens. More frames and weapons and planets are fine, but they are at best temporary fixes and not all players will even be interested in them. What has happened is that, on reaching or near reaching their goals, players have been given time to stop and realize that they allowed themselves to get caught up in the progression and have not been thinking clearly, and that there are other things they could be doing instead. This is a huge danger and something that MUST be prevented at all cost!

The way you do this is to never let the player rest. There needs to be no slump or pause in the progression, they must always feel like they are working towards something meaningful. This is not something that can be done if you hand people obtainable goals, so quite simply what you must do is create an unobtainable one - an ideal which is unachievable but something which can be gotten nearer too by a solid measure, so that every step of the way the player feels encouraged and rewarded, even if where they are going is nowhere. In simple terms you design a good grind, not one based off of chance or luck and of diminishing value as the current mod grind is, but one that gives steady linear progress and which will always give back what you put into it.

There are many ways to try and do this, and I of course have some ideas of both small and large scale, but i did not write this post to suggest ideas, i wrote it to attempt to outline something that is lacking and to try and ilustrate why that thing is important for long term viability of any game. The lack of this very element is why so many modern day online games end up launching with huge expectations then falling short - they make the mistake that unique consumable content can sustain a game - it can't.

[Cawkslapjones]

I actually read that whole post.

I agree with most of what you posted, but the lack of suggestion leaves it a bit hollow. To add grind with reward, IMO, could be changing the Alert system to provide a type of currency that can get rare blueprints (Catalyst, Reactor, Helmet, melee weapons) but is given in sparse quantities. Alerts with a "?" should still give what they do now, but also the currency. This would give people purpose. For one, to see an Alert requires that you have already sufficiently cleared a planet to be at that "hot spot." For another, when that alert does pop, you *want* to do it, which is lacking.

The "?" alerts will still be superior and desired. You get the currency you need, and have something extra on top of it. Keep Artifacts as unique to alerts. However, for access to the Alerts (never more than 3 at a time, often only 2, and not uncommonly, none at all) you need to be playing actively. On these forums we call out the "?" all the time, but there are hundreds that no one sees, or cares about.

This would create a form of grind that not only gives regulars a reason to keep playing, but also gives casuals a sense of urgency. They can't always get those rare "?" ones, but when they see that it's occurring, they hop to it. It might even draw them into the game more. Those without patience can buy plat, which is the desired goal for DE.

Personally I think this system, if executed well, is a win-win for all involved.

[Davante]

Update 7 seems to solve at least some of your concerns. But as always this is closed beta and this game is always moving forward.

[Archade]

^^

That would result in people just doing nothing until an alert pops up, this interrupts gameplay.

My ideas are more along the lines of creating endless defense missions, that provides no disruption to play, how many times do you see groups fall apart between xini runs? Often, so just have it be nonstopped, let people come and go, maybe each wave is based on the ease and speed at which you handled the last so that its always challenging. Then have rank tied directly to exp so no matter what you do, you are increasing your rank, and then have perks associated with rank other than simply a few unlockable new weapons. Things like permanent stat boosts, either universal for your account or the ability to increase specific frames or weapons even more by 'spending' exp on them, with the things you can do dictated by your rank. Other things based around the low grade crafting materials, maybe a mod refinement system where you can improve the rolls on mods.

Of course thats an idea that just slightly modifies current things, adding entire new concepts would also be possible but not as easy. An important thing to remember is that since this is a strictly pve game there is no reason you can not have players be getting insanely powerful. Power for powers sake is one of the fundamental motivations to character progression in multiplayer (and thus social) games, its not just what you can do with it, its having it so you can show it off.

The key thing is you can not have gameplay be jittery. You need to be able to log in, start playing, and feel like you are accomplishing something, and continue doing so till you stop, thats the smooth motivation and reward, the games combat is already smooth and constant and only stops when the mission ends (which is why an endless mission is deal).

Edited February 22, 2013 by Archade

[Sealgaire]

No offense Archade, but you just spent a lot of words stating some very obvious things. Also, you've read the update 7 post, so you know a lot of your concerns are being addressed.

I'm not particularly worried myself, as I think the grind in this game is already more entertaining and addictive than many games that are doing very well for themeselves. That's without a bunch of new systems that are yet to be added, so it should only get better from here.

[neKroMancer]

Lack of motivation simply can't be remedied with more contents, this I wholeheartedly agree with. Adding more contents simply prolonged the inevitable without tacking the real problem - How to make players feel content with the current amount of content as long as possible? Alert system is not the answer since the current function is to alleviate the complaints about platinum-based content.

There's no sense emergncy. No sense of Tenno's impendng extinction.. No sense of war.

The game need a purpose that's bigger than each individual.

[Archade]

No offense Archade, but you just spent a lot of words stating some very obvious things. Also, you've read the update 7 post, so you know a lot of your concerns are being addressed.

I'm not particularly worried myself, as I think the grind in this game is already more entertaining and addictive than many games that are doing very well for themeselves. That's without a bunch of new systems that are yet to be added, so it should only get better from here.

If its so obvious why do games consistently ignore it? You can create a very simple system that is addictive and playable forever, it seems like very few games released in the last 10 years do so.

Also, i wrote this before the update 7 stuff came out, and posted it before seeing the update 7 stuff. Some of the things are indeed addressed, though some of the update 7 stuff looks like it could make things worse unless it also addresses some other issues. Hopefully its just not well explained enough in the update 7 post.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Archade

[Parrhesia]

For those of you looking for a TL:DR basically he's saying this game has no endgame, and it's basically a nice combat system waiting for a game to be wrapped around it.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Parrhesia

[Archade]

For those of you looking for a TL:DR basically he's saying this game has no endgame, and it's basically a nice combat system waiting for a game to be wrapped around it.

Im also cautioning against the kind of endgame that has consistently caused games released in the last 7 years to fail, and explaining what a self sustaining endgame needs.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Archade

[Sealgaire]

If its so obvious why do games consistently ignore it? You can create a very simple system that is addictive and playable forever, it seems like very few games released in the last 10 years do so.

Also, i wrote this before the update 7 stuff came out, and posted it before seeing the update 7 stuff. Some of the things are indeed addressed, though some of the update 7 stuff looks like it could make things worse unless it also addresses some other issues. Hopefully its just not well explained enough in the update 7 post.

The problem is obvious, not the solution to it. That's why most games get it wrong. Who can create a very simple system that's addictive and playable forever? If you can, you have a very valuable asset on your hands. I'm not trying to be an &#! about it, just pointing out that telling them they should do what every developer of games like this dreams of accomplishing isn't helpful without providing some very innovative ideas to go along with it.

DE seems to have a really iterative design process and don't appear to have an issue throwing out stuff that doesn't work. Most devs I've followed who had similar philosophies have turned out great work, so I'm confident they'll figure it out. I'll definitely wait and see till they've presented everything they want in the game before I start doomsaying.

[Archade]

The problem is obvious, not the solution to it. That's why most games get it wrong. Who can create a very simple system that's addictive and playable forever? If you can, you have a very valuable asset on your hands. I'm not trying to be an &#! about it, just pointing out that telling them they should do what every developer of games like this dreams of accomplishing isn't helpful without providing some very innovative ideas to go along with it.

All they have to do is give you infinite progression, its been done before and worked fine, its just something modern gamers, having never experienced, jump to conclusions about and are resistant to. It has its own set of problems but cultivating the requisite addiction and consistent play that keeps people glued to a game is not one of them.

[Sealgaire]

All they have to do is give you infinite progression, its been done before and worked fine, its just something modern gamers, having never experienced, jump to conclusions about and are resistant to. It has its own set of problems but cultivating the requisite addiction and consistent play that keeps people glued to a game is not one of them.

I wouldn't consider myself a "modern" gamer, though I guess what that means exactly is up to debate. I'm not aware of any games that pulled of infinite progression in a satisfying way, or really any games that pulled it off at all. Early online games like MUDs and Ultima Online got their longevity from focusing on player interaction or very slow progression rather than infinite progression. I haven't played many MMOs I could stand for long, but they all seemed to do the "grinding the same content over and over for better loot" as the only endgame option. I'd genuinely love to hear about any games that did infinite progression well, though.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Indeed, the game needs some sort of extension into endgame. You can level to your heart's content, but it's always disheartening to have to go back to level 0 for me on a new item and mourn the loss of feeling powerful. Each time I do so, I feel a bit less like playing the game more. Don't get me wrong, it is indeed a fun game, very much so in fact. I've thrown ~110 hours into this.

Not being on the design council, I don't know what's in update 7, but I assume more content (new weapons at least, perhaps a new frame, though I personally find this unlikely). A few balance changes, and some new mechanic will likely find their way in as well, though once again this is speculation.

I don't traditionally play grindy games. I mean, I've played some, but it's been a while so unfortunately I don't know what to suggest aside from saying that a straight linear increase in power is a poor choice. Does it really matter if your Snipetron has 500% multishot or 2000% multishot? Against most enemies, no. Ultimately, you'll hit a wall of instagibbing and while your damage can technically climb higher, TTK won't change. The only ways I can think of to achieve this are:

1. Increase power in some way other way than damage at higher levels. As before, TTK can only get so low until you're limited purely by how quickly you can move your mouse (Imagine a Gorgon with 500% ms and 50% piercing as an example here). I have no idea how this would work. Another aspect is influence. To take a page from Eve, the game is run in such a way that its economy and groups are incredibly dynamic, causing those that have been around forever to have places of prominence. This leads into the next option.

2. Give players something bigger than themselves. We can keep grinding indefinitely, but the fact is, the rate at which you get useful mods from Xini is frankly asymptotic. Giving players some organization. It doesn't even have to be social (though most would consider that a bonus). A game I played when I was younger had periodic events that though the game was a single player RPG, there were "war" events where the playerbase had to do something like kill 400k enemies in three days for a bonus in some regard for a duration. You didn't even have to interact with other players, but it still gave players some feeling of having a role in something bigger.

[Azure_Kytia]

Volt's Suggestion about long term goals is intriguing. I myself would love to log in and have a daily/weekly alert notifying me that the Tenno are actively seeking out Grineer outposts in order to try and thin their numbers; These events could also have changes during their run-time. What would happen if the Technocyte plague infected a number of Grineer in a locked room in the Asteroid Base and it were the Tenno's task to release them to infect others?

[Archade]

I wouldn't consider myself a "modern" gamer, though I guess what that means exactly is up to debate. I'm not aware of any games that pulled of infinite progression in a satisfying way, or really any games that pulled it off at all. Early online games like MUDs and Ultima Online got their longevity from focusing on player interaction or very slow progression rather than infinite progression. I haven't played many MMOs I could stand for long, but they all seemed to do the "grinding the same content over and over for better loot" as the only endgame option. I'd genuinely love to hear about any games that did infinite progression well, though.

Well there are a few games that come to mind. Before we go too far back in time, ill point out that EVE has effectively infinite progression.

Earlier than that, lineage 1 has no level cap, it just gets harder to level. This means that you never really run into a situation where you are completely maxed out, so anything you do is always going to be contributing to your progression.

As far as even older games, if you look up baram, an early korean mmo (1996), it had infinite progression, its NA version is still around, being 15 years running now, im not sure if the original korean version is still around, though i know it made 10 years, which is pretty significant. The same developers ended up making one of the first games with a 'rebirth' system, which i tend to not really like, though i suppose it was an attempt to deal with the obvious issue that comes up with a game of infinite progression, that eventually you get players literally thousands of times more powerful than others. Id say that there is nothing wrong with that in a pure pve game, because as a sort of case study we have this game thats been around almost as long as the genre, and the 'top player' is not locked in, the last time i checked the most powerful player had never even began playing until the game was 5 years old. (and that game by the way had a pvp system and it even worked there)

These game are hugely addicting to those who play it, which as i outlined is the most important quality of an online game, fostering addiction.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Archade

[Sealgaire]

EVE is definitley a game I'd classify as having slow progression while relying on player interaction in a huge way for longevity. Same for the Korean MMOs you're talking about, minus the strong "artifical society" aspect. I'm not really familiar with those, but from what I understand they almost all rely on a soul crushing grind and very slow player progression. Not exactly my idea of a good time. These games (aside from EVE which occupies a pretty specific niche) haven't done well outside of game cultures where this kind of endless repetition is accepted, have they?

I think horizontal progression is the concept Volt was looking for. Giving players a way to further customize their frames and things associated with them (cool S#&$ on the way in this regard) without neccessarily making them significantly more powerful. Things like (purely hypothetical) player ships you can customize either by yourself or as a clan that open up new gameplay opportunities, player "pets" that support you and let you do new things while customizing them, being able to keep specializing your frame to greater and greater extents, sacrificing power in some areas to focus it in ones you care about most. More incentive for players to interact and organize like in EVE would also help. Those types of things are what will keep me playing for a good long while.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Sealgaire

[neKroMancer]

2. Give players something bigger than themselves. We can keep grinding indefinitely, but the fact is, the rate at which you get useful mods from Xini is frankly asymptotic. Giving players some organization. It doesn't even have to be social (though most would consider that a bonus). A game I played when I was younger had periodic events that though the game was a single player RPG, there were "war" events where the playerbase had to do something like kill 400k enemies in three days for a bonus in some regard for a duration. You didn't even have to interact with other players, but it still gave players some feeling of having a role in something bigger.

This is what the game want. A dynamic universe which each force trying to gain dominance over the Sol system

Lore, progression, and endgame should be tied together to make the game 'alive'. Nothing is more addicting than watching small and large event develop, unfold, and change the course of the story as a whole. Releasing content based on the result of these events with make the game more dynamic and addicting.

[Archade]

from what I understand they almost all rely on a soul crushing grind and very slow player progression.

And this is that reaction from people only used to modern day concepts im talking about.

See, grind is grind, its not good or bad, its just a thing. If a game is not fun, then its grind makes it less fun, if a game is however exciting and enjoyable to play (such as this games combat system), a grind enhances it.

Right now there are many people who want an 'excuse' to play this game, they are looking for something in the game to do. They want to just play the game, as it is, but with out any sort of purpose to it, they just cant motivate themselves to do it.

A grind does this, it gives them something they are working for, something to justify spending the time playing, so that they can go ahead, log on, and enjoy the gameplay. Something that at the end of the day they can look and say "I made this much progression today, it was not wasted time".

The entire grind=bad mindset comes from most mmo gameplay being stale and boring. People in these games complain about 'grind', but what they are actually complaining about is needing to play the game to accomplish anything, they are complaining about needing to play the game.

And all the 'grind reduction' in the world wont save a game from bad gameplay. We have seen that in the repeat failure of the super-fast progression 'questgrinding' games of the last 5 years.

Grind stretches out the purpose of playing a game. This is good if the game is fun to play.

EVE has a niche because its not really a very exciting game. Ive often said eve is a game that's more fun to think about playing than actually play. Its slow progression really only works because its automated, but i felt that i should include it in my examples since it is a game with infinite progression. I was more showing it as an example of how infinite progression does not horribly unbalance things, eve is even mainly a pvp game with infinite progression, but it does not result in game breakingly unbalanced gameplay - a common argument i encounter when promoting infinite progression. In fact none of the games i cited have issues with that, and they all deal with it in their own way.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Archade

[Sealgaire]

I have nothing against grind. It can't be avoided in games like this unless you can produce new content as fast as people can run through it, which is obviously impossible. My emphasis was on the "soul crushing" part. I had friends who played those Korean style MMOs, and they were basically zombies 99% of the time when playing. They even admitted they didn't enjoy playing, but were just addicted to seeing their characters grow stronger. When they finally stopped playing they were almost all incredibly regretful of the time they spent on the games.The only Korean style MMO I enjoyed was Space Cowboy Online (changed to ACE online later I think) because the gameplay itself was enjoyable. It's only when I had to start grinding for dozens of hours on end just to stay competitive that I stopped having fun.

That's not the only way to increase a game's longevity. People play shooters with zero character progression for hundreds or thousands of hours while enjoying almost every minute because the gameplay itself is inherently fun. I think that's the key rather than "infinite" (but in reality just very slow) progression, but slow progression is more tolerable when the game is fun to play. I think Warframe is in a unique position to combine the best aspects of action games and MMOs without having to rely solely on skinner box mechanics to keep people playing.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Sealgaire

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Players will play something endlessly if they can do something they love, have a purpose, and can empathize with their character. Of course however there are some games that have a mechanic that is so stupidly amazing that it dominates all else and can remove the necessity of the other two altogether.

People love playing as gratuitously overpowered heroes in video games. That said, there must still be challenge. There must still be a chance of death. I think DE's revive system actually accomplishes this quite well by giving players a temporary punishment for death and encouraging the reliance on teammates. People love playing as space ninjas that can wipe out hordes of enemies and survive. That is fun. The trick of course is how to prevent this from becoming stale. Becoming more and more overpowered isn't going to make you enjoy it more past a point. People have suggested making energy regen based on style points. This is one of the best ideas I've seen on here for the simple fact that it gives you points for style in a TPS, something you don't see very often. It gives you realistic achievable improvements to your gameplay that come through skill, not just grinding for better loot.

Likewise, a purpose can give a player motivation when being Death is insufficient. The purpose can be large (Planetside's faction loyalty comes to mind) or small (playing with a friend). In either case, the feeling of being part of something larger is awe-inspiring and people crave that sensation. They crave meaning, and it would of course be wise for the devs to give them that meaning. It can't be found through content or as Archade pointed out, it isn't through grinding as the feel of the grind is really just an expansion upon the mechanics of the game itself. I don't know precisely what the best course of action for Warfame is in this regard, but social play will have to be part of it. I've never been a social gamer (I grew up without any close siblings and don't have any friends that play the same games I do), but I understand the importance of it to others.

The original version of Dark Sector suggested the idea of bounties on players' heads. This is not necessarily a bad idea. Accumulating reputation both from bots marking you for death "that's the guy from the wanted poster!" to something a bit like the Honor system in League (which IMO is a fantastic idea) may be a good start. This gives players a feeling that they are impacting both the game world (through accumulation of bounty) and the real world (through the accumulation of honor as they improve the experience for others). Bounty and honor fit intuitively in such a game as this where we have race based upon martial discipline. As before whatever this system evolves into, it must give the player the feeling they are part of something larger.

Finally, empathizing with the character. This is a bit of an obvious one and the root of customization. The more you can customize your character, the more you dive into the game. This is the sole thing I have actually bought in the game: color (though I have plans to get a founder's package before they expire). Being able to choose the appearance of one's avatar goes a long way towards making the player feel at home in the world. Now, this game does have some inherent difficulties as opposed to other games because to change classes, you must drastically alter your appearance. Empathy with one's avatar however must go far beyond appearance and into the very nature of what makes the character tick. In some games, you don't even need a representation at all. Sins of a Solar Empire is an RTS with no hero units. You don't have a character in the game, there is no campaign, there is only sandbox. But boy is it the largest sandbox you've ever seen. Games can last from 10 minutes to hundreds of hours. In a game like that, you feel so immersed as the leader of your faction's military that despite only ever seeing things from a God's eye view, you feel an immense amount of empathy.

Why do I mention an RTS? I mention it because it provided a depth that let players be what they wanted without having hardly any actual in-game content that allowed it. The very nature and mechanics of the game allowed players to be what they wanted unconditionally. In the game we have now, things are very linear. There is but one way to win the game: kill and advance. If you spray bullets and progressively move forward, you will inevitably win (provided you take cover at obvious times). More paths to victory, particularly when playing in single-player would give players the ability to act as they pleased. I'm not asking or suggesting an open world which obviously conflicts with the tile-based construction we currently have, but the fact is, ships have more than one weak-point. Alternatively to go back to the bounty system from earlier, interaction with the game world on a deeper level will also give players more of a feeling that it is they who are acting, not some collection of polygons. Perhaps even something as simple as giving players choices as they go through a ship: left or right. Both might lead to the same location, but one might have denser collections of enemies than the other and Lotus should tell us such. In this way, the player has some impact on the rate at which the game flows and feels. The game isn't just presented to you as a series of things to kill, but a world in which to live and breathe combat.

On the subject of grind which has come to dominate this thread, grind is ever-present in online games by their very nature. It often isn't known as grind though in good games because it doesn't feel like a "grind" to perform. If a game is fun, you hardly notice the grind in many cases. I've never felt I had to grind for Rubedo because I was so wrapped up in getting that next multishot mod from Pluto that I just happened to accumulate a few thousand of the stuff. This of course only lasts so long, but as before, the way to alleviate the feeling of grind is to make the player want to be immersed in the world for the sake of immersion, not to get that next great thing. If you get that next great thing or the devs add new content, great! But that isn't why you play. You play because the game mechanics are intrinsically conducive to enjoyable immersion. Accomplish that, and all else falls into place.

[Archade]

I have nothing against grind. It can't be avoided in games like this unless you can produce new content as fast as people can run through it, which is obviously impossible. My emphasis was on the "soul crushing" part. I had friends who played those Korean style MMOs, and they were basically zombies 99% of the time when playing.

Thats what you want. Retains players - its not zombies, i call that grindstate, its a trance. Quite enjoyable, its like time speeds up and your progression increases and you become empowered with a sense of being able to accomplish anything. Athletes could call it the zone, warriors would call it a martial trance. Its intense focus but with out actually focusing on anything. its zen

They even admitted they didn't enjoy playing, but were just addicted to seeing their characters grow stronger. When they finally stopped playing they were almost all incredibly regretful of the time they spent on the games.

This is a problem with how games started changing over time. They really had things down pretty pat at the start, i think it was the influence of the addicting arcade games and the more simple games of the 80s and early 90s on the game industry in general. Then as time went on, the century turned, people started wanting to try new things. I have many issues with what has become the standard korean mmo model today (i particularly hate the random chance based item upgrade system that almost every modern korean mmo has), many of their mechanics are tedious and take away from the game, but thats not the fault of the grind.

The only Korean style MMO I enjoyed was Space Cowboy Online (changed to ACE online later I think) because the gameplay itself was enjoyable. It's only when I had to start grinding for dozens of hours on end just to stay competitive that I stopped having fun.

SCO was a good game

That's not the only way to increase a game's longevity. People play shooters with zero character progression for hundreds or thousands of hours while enjoying almost every minute because the gameplay itself is inherently fun.

pvp is its own sort of progression, you are progressing yourself as a player. The same could be said of skill based pve games like monster hunter. This game has fun combat, but it doesn't have pvp or the combat depth (or difficulty) to make it into a self-progression type pve game. It needs to use rpg style character sheet progression.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Archade

[Sealgaire]

Thats what you want. Retains players - its not zombies, i call that grindstate, its a trance. Quite enjoyable, its like time speeds up and your progression increases and you become empowered with a sense of being able to accomplish anything. Athletes could call it the zone, warriors would call it a martial trance. Its intense focus but with out actually focusing on anything. its zen

I'm familiar the concept. It's called "flow" in psychological terms. I achieve it when practicing parkour, training MMA, or especially fighting. I've never reached it doing something as dull as grinding in a game, but that's obviously a very subjective thing. It's a state I can only reach when doing something that challenges me. That may be why I could never get into those grind heavy games.

pvp is its own sort of progression, you are progressing yourself as a player. The same could be said of skill based pve games like monster hunter. This game has fun combat, but it doesn't have pvp or the combat depth (or difficulty) to make it into a self-progression type pve game. It needs to use rpg style character sheet progression.

It might not have that depth or difficulty yet, but I think that's what the game has the potential to aspire to. The difficulty in particular is what needs to be polished until it requires a level of concentration that can trigger a state of flow. That's one of the reasons I get a little frustrated when people call for endgame content to be easier.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Sealgaire

[Archade]

I'm familiar the concept. It's called "flow" in psychological terms. I achieve it when practicing parkour, training MMA, or especially fighting. I've never reached it doing something as dull as grinding in a game, but that's obviously a very subjective thing. It's a state I can only reach when doing something that challenges me. That may be why I could never get into those grind heavy games.

It takes a while for it to kick in. The most heightened sense of it doesn't start till after doing it for several hours. You have to get past the unpleasant first few hours. I think most people give up before it kicks in. Once you experience it though you start learning to cope with the difficulty of getting there, and even speed it up. I can even experience it farming xini for a few hours. (assuming no buggs or annoyances in gameplay bother me).

It might not have that depth or difficulty yet, but I think that's what the game has the potential to aspire to. The difficulty in particular is what needs to be polished until it requires a level of concentration that can trigger a state of flow. That's one of the reasons I get a little frustrated when people call for endgame content to be easier.

Well see. Im a big fan of games like demons/dark souls and monster hunter, and i always start a game on the hardest difficulty setting (which is actually not as hard as it sounds since you learn to play the game on harder settings, i actually think the people who 'play it safe' and learn the game on normal mode have a harder time on hard mode since much of what they know stops working)

Thing is, as ive said, currently xini farm is like, half way to this game being an excellent grind game. It wouldnt be difficult to turn this into an addictive grinder. Their comments of wanting to move to open beta in a month or so makes me worried. Though update 7 seems like it has a lot, ive see late changes turn into horrible changes before (STO)

Edited February 22, 2013 by Archade

[Sealgaire]

It takes a while for it to kick in. The most heightened sense of it doesn't start till after doing it for several hours. You have to get past the unpleasant first few hours. I think most people give up before it kicks in. Once you experience it though you start learning to cope with the difficulty of getting there, and even speed it up. I can even experience it farming xini for a few hours. (assuming no buggs or annoyances in gameplay bother me).

God almighty... I think at this point I'm just going to go ahead and say we're looking to get very different experiences out of games. I can reach that state your talking about in a few minutes of intense exercise or training. I can't imagine ever spending several hours doing something over and over in a game to reach it.

Well see. Im a big fan of games like demons/dark souls and monster hunter, and i always start a game on the hardest difficulty setting (which is actually not as hard as it sounds since you learn to play the game on harder settings, i actually think the people who 'play it safe' and learn the game on normal mode have a harder time on hard mode since much of what they know stops working)

Thing is, as ive said, currently xini farm is like, half way to this game being an excellent grind game. It wouldnt be difficult to turn this into an addictive grinder. Their comments of wanting to move to open beta in a month or so makes me worried. Though update 7 seems like it has a lot, ive see late changes turn into horrible changes before (STO)

It seems we're on the same page as far as difficulty, but I hope they never aim to elevate the importance of grind to the level you seem to want. No offense, as I said above, I think this just stems from a vast difference in what we want out of games. I actually hope they remove stuff like the Xini farming. I think it cheapens the rest of the game when the only thing worth doing is running the same mission over and over again in autopilot basically.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Sealgaire

[Volt_Cruelerz]

pvp is its own sort of progression, you are progressing yourself as a player. The same could be said of skill based pve games like monster hunter. This game has fun combat, but it doesn't have pvp or the combat depth (or difficulty) to make it into a self-progression type pve game. It needs to use rpg style character sheet progression.

While I agree that the game lacks this mechanic at this point, I disagree that it needs to rely solely on sheet progression. I believe it would be possible for changes to be made that result in a bit of a hybrid system.

Regarding your love of good farming, I personally have nothing against farming, but most people here seem opposed to feeling obligated to running Xini exclusively for mods. Also, the state you're talking about getting into after hours of doing this, I can hit within minutes of playing any number of games (Legions, Sins of a Solar Empire, and Perimeter come to mind). I don't mind grind, but it is repetitive. While I'm running Xini all day, there's not a whole lot of variation in the play. There's effectively no spice, just lots and lots of starch in that diet. If grinding is to become as important as you seem to want, this game will need to gain some sort of spice to allow that. I am fully capable of running Xini all day long; I have the attention span for it, but unless I get something fantastic, I feel empty after all those hours. Two days ago for instance, I ran it probably a dozen times and got one decent mod. The unfortunate part was that this was for the Strun, the only gun in the game that gives me motion sickness if I fire it while using ADS. I saved that mod because I desperately want to use it (I liked using the Strun), but I won't be able to until something is done about screen shake. As a result, I don't feel like I actually accomplished anything that day on Xini.

I don't feel a sense of accomplishment at a rate great enough to be enough to run on in this game. In the same way, there's not enough depth of combat to justify combat for combat's sake. Personally, I'm inclined to believe that this game should work more towards the second so that you can burn five hours on Xini without noticing simply because of how immensely fun every moment was.