Will raiding in MMOs one day be a thing of the past?

[HazardousMatt]

You make a fair point, and I don't disagree with it.

 

Thank you.

But could anyone honestly claim that the majority/all of content development in SW:TOR has been targeted toward endgame progression raiders? Particularly over the last year (and change)?

 

As for TOR itself, I've been here less than a year so I have no idea what the development history was like before that. I was just talking in general terms about raiding and MMO's overall.

[WSRB]

This is flawed logic. I don't do space missions (PvE or PvP). Does this mean I'm "paying for content that I'm not going to use"?

 

NO IT DOESN'T. What I'm paying for, is the content that I AM using, not the content that I'm NOT using.

 

Take a player that never PvPs. He or she does leveling, crafting, heriocs, maybe a few flashpoints. Are you trying to say they're "paying for content they're not going to use"?

 

I completely disagree with your perspective here. Just because I don't like something in this game doesn't mean I want it to be removed. I'm happy to do the things I like and ignore the things I don't.

 

Of course it's flawed logic. I didn't say that it's my perspective on the subject at hand, however it is the reasoning that a great many players are using when feeling disenfranchised by the current MMO set up of "funnel everyone into raiding" style of endgame progression that presently exists in pretty much every MMORPG: there are a lot of people feeling like their money is being used to subsidize minority interests.

 

The point stands though: the current way of doing things doesn't work. WoW's great innovation was making solo play viable for leveling up, as that was a huge barrier prior. However, as that process was refined, we came to the point where not only did leveling up in MMOs start encourage solo play, in many ways grouping up during leveling is now seen as detrimental; as such we now have an audience that enjoys the non-isolated single player experience/ shared world game of the leveling experience, but is quite put off by the complete 180 that happens at the max level; in fact the drastic change from a solo game to grouping environment feels exclusionary to those who found the solo game more appealing.

 

Whether you think "they're playing the game wrong" or not, it doesn't matter: it's a huge part of the customer base, and you have to start to develop your games for how players are actually playing your games, not the way you want them to. The longer that developers have failed to account for a large portion of the playerbase that is not interested in large group content, the more they have sewn the roots of their current player retention issues. There is an increasingly transient group that is searching for an MMO that doesn't treat them like second class citizens for not wanting to participate in what appears to them as something that should be a side game, given that group content, much like PvP, is introduced as optional during the leveling experience: players don't tend to react well when they're told something is optional, and then later told that it's "mandatory".

 

My point in all of this was this: First: heavily scripted, large group encounters that are presently used by only a small portion of players have too low a ROI versus scaling encounters that could be potentially played every single player, whether solo, duo, or up to groups of 16. Second: non-raiding players reach a glass ceiling on their eldergame progression rapidly upon hitting max level; and this process should be opened up to heavily favor those who do large group content, but not exclude those who don't. It's not a perfect solution, from a player standpoint scaling encounters are "not as good as actual raids", but overall I think that's the beginning of what it's going to take to create MMOs that have more stable, long-term populations with overall less contentious communities.

[WSRB]

You make a fair point, and I don't disagree with it.

 

But could anyone honestly claim that the majority/all of content development in SW:TOR has been targeted toward endgame progression raiders? Particularly over the last year (and change)?

 

SWTOR has been opening up in the last year, which is fantastic, and I'm honestly hoping that we see the devs actually take that last step as we get past 3.0 and introduce a method for the solo player to acquire a few Elite and Ultimate comms everyday from entirely solo'able content; no Heroics in there either, I mean 100% you can do this all by yourself content. I don't mean a lot of Elites and Ultimates, maybe 8 elites and 4 ultimates per day, but just enough give the soloers some measurable progression (although very slow), and perhaps raise their interest in getting into group content: I know that tactic worked at getting me into more group content last year when they started to buff up the comms rewards for flashpoints.

[JattaGin]

Has the time factor been mentioned in either the article or this thread?

 

Raids as a game mechanic are surely not the problem in my opinion. The problem lies somewhere else: time.

 

Raids simply take way too long. No wonder that only a small percentage of players does raids. It's not because players dislike it per se.

 

They should change raids to quick-raids. Maximum 3 bosses with only very few trash mobs on the way. But you would still need 8 or 16 players to finish it. 5-10 minutes max. per boss + 15 minutes for the trash = 30-45 minutes raid.

 

I am absolutely sure the percentage of quick-raiders would be much higher than the percentage of raiders.

 

Just take S&V. I would love to play this more often. But when? With travelling time to work and back, I am 10-12 hours per day away for work. Add sleep 6-8 hours. Breakfast and dinner, some sports. That leaves absolutely no time for a S&V run at all.

 

Everyone is talking about casual players these days. This is a farce in my opinion. It lowers the value of these players. Casual players are very often not casual. They just have to cope with life first. Would I play 15 hours per day if I could? Yes. How much time do I have for gaming per day? 1, maybe 2 hours. Does this make me a casual player? No.

 

The gaming industry should rethink their strategy. Not easy content for the casual player is what is needed, but challenging quick-content for all players.

 

There are no casual players. There are only players and non-players. Either you are into gaming or not. There is no "just a bit into gaming".

 

TL;DR: Quick-raids should be the future. Difficult, but doable in 30-45 minutes.

[Karkais]

my point is still is that this game's main focus is the story.

This concept is ludicrous and it astounds me how game developers can think it at this time and age. It takes you few hours - couple days to go through this "main focus". What are we supposed to do the other 363 days of the year until next update? I don't watch movies 300 times. I watch them once or twice. The purpose of MMOs should always be to create an engaging world and allow players to have fun interacting with each other. The story-based repeatable content is anathema to me, yet it is what modern MMOs are about. I have never understood this.

 

And in SoR case my point is even stronger since because you know...Revan. Ppl have loved this character since the KOTOR games and they want to see what's going to happen to him;)

 

 

We already know what happened to him. He DIED. That was the story, why can't people like you deal with it?

 

If you must know, I absolutely HATE revan. To have Bioware resurrect him after I killed him is a slap to my face. (even though I suspect its not really him. Thats the thing about masks) This whole expansion is polar opposite of what I wanted from this game, and I will likely exit stage left despite having bought the expansion against my better knowledge and having 3 months of sub time remaining. More gear progression, more repeatable content, more story about something I absolutely loathe, character skill system stupified, having my main character nerfed, and most important, all the work from previous year negated. Whats the bloody point.

Edited November 26, 2014 by Karkais

[Elracor]

TL;DR: Quick-raids should be the future. Difficult, but doable in 30-45 minutes.

 

I'd like to see this, if nothing else then as a supplement.

Alternatively, current raids could be available in 2 variants, one as fullfledged raids with all bosses, and then a Group Finder "random boss mode" for a quick raid where you fight a couple of trash pulls, 1 boss, loot and get out.

Edited November 26, 2014 by MFollin

[LordArtemis]

The definition of casual and hardcore has also been changing in recent years.

 

It used to be that both were defined by the amount of time they would play a game....in that focus, those that played the most most often were raiders and/or PVP players other than OWPVP, and folks that did not participate in those activities tended to play very little in comparison.

 

In recent years, however, players that participate in hardcore qualifying activities have fallen dramatically, but the amount of time playing has remained the same, or in some cases increased. I would assume that most traditional hardcore players either moved on to other types of games (MOBAs and FPS) or left the market, while casuals and former hardcore players that remained in the market began to expand play time with activities added by modern games to appeal to a different goal set.

 

So, recently the definition has transformed more into "what drives you" as your basis for classification, IE if you are driven by progression, reward and recognition you are likely a hardcore player, most similar to old hardcores. If you are a casual you are likely driven by content, leveling and alternate gameplay interests.

 

This is why I think casuals dominate the market at present. Some hardcores shifted priorities, others left the market, and the casual crowd started to play more often.

[Vhaegrant]

I would recommend reading this paper by professor Bartle from May 2013, he raises some interesting points

http://mud.co.uk/richard/The%20Decline%20of%20MMOs.pdf

 

An interesting read, but I get the feeling from reading it that some of the solutions are dead ends.

 

Take 'Size matters', advocating for smaller server populations so a player feels important. I would argue that what players really want is convenience, when they want to play they want to play now, not wait for an hour or so while their group forms. The solution of many servers of smaller populations was effectively tried at the launch of SWTOR and was very nearly the nail in the coffin as populations stretched across the content and it was nigh on impossible to PUG any content.

 

I strongly agree that the large cost it takes to develop an average MMO makes investors risk averse, but that is hardly a stunning revelation, most businessmen appreciate this, they also know when you are using other peoples money and those investors are expecting a return you tend to look at what the market already has and go similar.

 

His specific mention of SWTOR was bang on the money though. SWTOR marketed itself on story, and more specifically the unique 8 class stories. Time and time again we were told that SWTOR was effectively KOTOR 3,4,5 & 6 etc... However, the transition from solid story into the endgame was like hitting a brick wall. The elements of story were hardly there and the content was meant to be run over and over again. Maybe we will see a slight pick up with the new expansion, but really 1 class specific quest doesn't do the initial promise justice.

 

There is a video somewhere of the lead designer of 'Age of Empires Online' talking about how they handled it wrong. The takeaway message was that players ultimately were so trained by experience to want progression as extra levels that if you don't deliver that content eventually your core audience will drift away. Going through the same lower levels with a new civilisation acted as a stop gap but didn't hold any long term solution. By the time the developers had seen the figures the games population was too low to support further development.

 

So, when you attach a players sense of achievement to gaining levels it should come as no surprise that players learn to see this as the major content worth playing. Factor in that MMOs have been around long enough for players to see that expansions that raise a characters level invariably reset the gear grind as well, reducing the content to be cleared to 1 maybe 2 Operations. And you can see why players are more nomadic. They'll get their levelling fix, maybe play through a raid once or twice to see if it's any good and then leave to see what else is out there. Maybe they'll come back for the new expansion, maybe they won't.

 

Raiding (Operations) should remain an important part of MMO structure. However they need to be integrated more intelligently and with less emphasis on gear progression as the be all and end all of character progression.

[Vhaegrant]

Whats the bloody point.

Hehe, the time honoured existentialist cry of the end-game player at the release of a new expansion

[Khevar]

My point in all of this was this: First: heavily scripted, large group encounters that are presently used by only a small portion of players have too low a ROI versus scaling encounters that could be potentially played every single player, whether solo, duo, or up to groups of 16.

It's an interesting idea. I'm not sure how an encounter could be scaled from solo to 16 players while actually making it fun both for the solo-only player AND for the group-content player.

 

Color me a skeptic, but I think such an endeavor, attempting to please everyone, would instead disappoint everyone. And the glass-half-empty in me thinks that a company like EA would rather chew broken glass than to spend development money on it.

Second: non-raiding players reach a glass ceiling on their eldergame progression rapidly upon hitting max level; and this process should be opened up to heavily favor those who do large group content, but not exclude those who don't.

Here's the thing. I believe that TOR has many tools in hand for the non-raiding players. This "glass ceiling" you describe doesn't actually exist. Dailies and tacs give Elite commendations. HM flashpoints give Ultimate commendations. For the 100% solo player, 180-rated gear is purchasable on the GTN.

It's not a perfect solution, from a player standpoint scaling encounters are "not as good as actual raids", but overall I think that's the beginning of what it's going to take to create MMOs that have more stable, long-term populations with overall less contentious communities.

It's a nice theory. But do you honestly believe that this community is contentious because "raiding exists"? It seems to me that this community (like any online community) is simply contentious because "the internet is anonymous".

Edited November 26, 2014 by Khevar

[WSRB]

It's an interesting idea. I'm not sure how an encounter could be scaled from solo to 16 players while actually making it fun both for the solo-only player AND for the group-content player.

 

Color me a skeptic, but I think such an endeavor, attempting to please everyone, would instead disappoint everyone. And the glass-half-empty in me thinks that a company like EA would rather chew broken glass than to spend development money on it.

 

Here's the thing. I believe that TOR has many tools in hand for the non-raiding players. This "glass ceiling" you describe doesn't actually exist. Dailies and tacs give Elite commendations. HM flashpoints give Ultimate commendations. For the 100% solo player, 180-rated gear is purchasable on the GTN.

 

It's a nice theory. But do you honestly believe that this community is contentious because "raiding exists"? It seems to me that this community (like any online community) is simply contentious because "the internet is anonymous".

Like I said, scaling is not a perfect solution, but it makes more sense in terms of ROI than building your pinacle PVE content as something that will only be utilized by a small portion of the base. I literally said that in the post you're responding to.

 

Now non-raiders are no longer glass ceiling capped in SWTOR, provided that they are group players: unfortunately, many still aren't group players and they are capped. As I said in another post, opening up the comms just a little bit more will change the game for the better for thousands of players. Also, much of the criticism is directed at MMOs in general, and not necessarily at SWTOR in the specific. As for buying upgrades via credits? A full set of 180 rated gear would probably cost upwards of 100 million: I've been playing for 2 years and have yet to see that much combined on my 12 level 55s.

 

As for a less contentious community, if you rid the endgame of its exclusivity in terms of progression being solely the realm of raiders: you remove a point of contention, you have less to argue about, thus you probably argue less.

Edited November 26, 2014 by WSRB

[Khevar]

A full set of 180 rated gear would probably cost upwards of 100 million: I've been playing for 2 years and have yet to see that much combined on my 12 level 55s.

Pardon me for cherry picking this one line out. I don't particularly have an argument with the other points you've made.

 

I've seen this sort of statement made a lot, when the subject of credits come up. And frankly it bugs me.

 

Sure, making 100 million credits is hard. But so is getting 8 people together that like raiding, are good enough to beat the operations, and are willing to run it over and over enough times so that you personally win all the drops you need.

 

When someone complains about not wanting to do group content AND complain about not wanting to make the large sum of money needed to purchase it as a solo player, it doesn't sound like they're trying to "fix" the game. It sounds like they're trying to make the game "easy".

[Vhaegrant]

Pardon me for cherry picking this one line out. I don't particularly have an argument with the other points you've made.

 

I've seen this sort of statement made a lot, when the subject of credits come up. And frankly it bugs me.

 

Sure, making 100 million credits is hard. But so is getting 8 people together that like raiding, are good enough to beat the operations, and are willing to run it over and over enough times so that you personally win all the drops you need.

 

When someone complains about not wanting to do group content AND complain about not wanting to make the large sum of money needed to purchase it as a solo player, it doesn't sound like they're trying to "fix" the game. It sounds like they're trying to make the game "easy".

 

I don't have a problem with mods being put up at ridiculous prices, if there's a market for them so be it.

Making 100 million credits is pretty easy if you want to drop some cash on the cartel market (I suspect this cash shop by any other name works as intended, and again no complaint here as it has kept the game around longer than I thought it was going to be at one point )

But, as a solo gamer I would have to question your sanity if you want to dump that kind of investment into something that just isn't required for your game style. The free set from Oricon is about all you need to get through the regular dailies, to be honest you can probably survive on Makeb Planetary coms

 

A further comment on OPs, gear grind and challenge.

It's always struck me as odd that the challenge from OPs drops off as you gather the drops to provide the better gear that lets you put them onto brain numbing farm mode. It seems an inherently flawed balance between progression and challenge.

[WSRB]

Blame that on developers for making solo oriented content unchallenging. Opening up the content to soloers to make 4 Ultimates per day means they would still have to grind for a year to gt a full set of top gear (and this is something I advocate), and in that year it's still likely that they player won't make 100 million credits. Edited November 26, 2014 by WSRB

[bdatt]

I hope Bioware doesn't remove operations. Sometimes I log in these days, realize I only have 30 min to play, and just log out because it isn't enough time to run an Op and nothing else interests me. This will change at 3.0 when I'll resume all the activities that support Operations like reaugmenting gear (dailies, mat farming, crafting). But without the end goal of the operation, those activities would be moot. Then I'd quit the game after seeing the story, so hopefully it remains in the developer's interest to keep making operation content.

[bdatt]

Has the time factor been mentioned in either the article or this thread?

 

Raids as a game mechanic are surely not the problem in my opinion. The problem lies somewhere else: time.

 

Raids simply take way too long. No wonder that only a small percentage of players does raids. It's not because players dislike it per se.

 

They should change raids to quick-raids. Maximum 3 bosses with only very few trash mobs on the way. But you would still need 8 or 16 players to finish it. 5-10 minutes max. per boss + 15 minutes for the trash = 30-45 minutes raid.

 

I am absolutely sure the percentage of quick-raiders would be much higher than the percentage of raiders.

 

Just take S&V. I would love to play this more often. But when? With travelling time to work and back, I am 10-12 hours per day away for work. Add sleep 6-8 hours. Breakfast and dinner, some sports. That leaves absolutely no time for a S&V run at all.

 

Everyone is talking about casual players these days. This is a farce in my opinion. It lowers the value of these players. Casual players are very often not casual. They just have to cope with life first. Would I play 15 hours per day if I could? Yes. How much time do I have for gaming per day? 1, maybe 2 hours. Does this make me a casual player? No.

 

The gaming industry should rethink their strategy. Not easy content for the casual player is what is needed, but challenging quick-content for all players.

 

There are no casual players. There are only players and non-players. Either you are into gaming or not. There is no "just a bit into gaming".

 

TL;DR: Quick-raids should be the future. Difficult, but doable in 30-45 minutes.

 

I think the current raids are perfect, Five bosses rah DF and DP and take exactly the amount of time you note. I'm guessing and hoping the two new ones in 3.0 are about the same. This is also a reason I didn't even give Wildstar a chance after one month. Their first raid (while also too big for my taste at 20 man) was also a 5 hour clear by te top guilds in the world after having farmed for months. You had to dedicate 20+ hrs a week for any progression simply because it took 5 hrs to get to the final boss with perfect play.

 

DF and DP were perfect for me, I hope the next pair is the same.

[Mavery]

This has been a really good discussion and one that is worth having.

 

My two cents.

 

Whether raiding is a thing of the past is squarely on developers and players shoulders.

 

The days of exclusivity of raiding -- at least from a developers point of view -- should be over. They key is accessibility. WarCraft does accessibility best -- although if this game had a better queue system,you could make the case for SWTOR as well -- and that makes the investment justifiable. It is so much so that I know WarCraft's participation number is larger than 10%, much larger. Unfortunately, however, this is not the only concern in the raiding paradigm.

 

I do want to state, however, what I feel are the problems of raiding as a long time raider, raid leader, and guild master:

 

i) Coordinating the schedules (this is much harder than you think) of 7-15 people (plus a few reserves) that have sufficient player skill (and by this I mean class mastery) and appropriate situational awareness to complete the content.

 

ii) Pushing progress forward enough to keep everyone happy. This is related to point i, but also a bit different. At the high end raiding game, top end guilds are always looking to acquire talent. If you can't kill enough bosses -- be it because of raid days, weaker players not being able to do the content as fast, or whatever else -- you wind up losing your best players. This, in turn, slows down progression even more because a) your team gets worse and b) you have to train new replacements. Oh, and even if you get back to where you were, more people could leave because they're tired of training new people, and then a and b repeat itself.

 

iii) Balancing egos. I always play with adults, but when you run a raiding guild, it feels like babysitting children. You can lose good players -- and thus fall behind -- because of conflicts between guild members. It's not fun.

 

--

 

If you're a player who doesn't raid, and thinks raids are full of elitists, reading what I just wrote probably re-affirms that belief. I can't say I'd argue with it.

 

In light of what I just articulated, if raiding is to survive the following needs to happen on the player side:

 

i) Raiders need to be more socially responsive individuals. I've often felt that a lot of problems can be solved by talking to your fellow raiders and / or guild leadership in a respectable way. Whether it is a clash of egos, upsetting others by what you say, or being disgruntled with progress.

 

ii) Log on more, do entry content, to prep newer players to the guild for the harder content. I can't tell you how many raiders log on only during raid days and then are unhappy when newer players can't perform. Work together.

 

iii) Patience. What we need is patience. We're humans, not computers. Mistakes happen. Wipes happen. Real life happens. Don't hold it against the group.

 

--

 

This is kinda a tl;dr. Raiding will die if players don't become more socially responsible entities. I believe most of the issues stem from unrealistic expectations, poor behaviour to other "anonymous humans", and guild jumping. By being better people, raiding will survive. Otherwise, it will die.

[WSRB]

Parts two and three of the article at Massively are now up. I'm on my phone which is crap for posting text links, but go check them out. The second two parts actually say a lot of what has been stated by others in the thread already., but it's a good read.

[LyraineAlei]

Parts two and three of the article at Massively are now up. I'm on my phone which is crap for posting text links, but go check them out. The second two parts actually say a lot of what has been stated by others in the thread already., but it's a good read.

 

Thanks for the update, I'm on my phone as well, so posting the links isn't as friendly for me to do. I just carefully deleted the #continued and -1 was replaced with -2, found a search hint that lead to part three and got a tab open for part two.

 

Pretty much said what we all did as well, including addressing the elitist attitude of the loudest raiders. (Not the best ones, just the loudest ones)

[LordArtemis]

The OP has been updated with all three parts. Thanks for the heads up.

 

And thanks to everyone that has participated in the discussion so far.

[Khevar]

Parts 2 and 3 of the article are definitely interesting and food for thought.

 

Since I don't have enough knowledge or experience to speak for the industry as a whole, I can only speak for what I personally enjoyed about "raiding". It's possible that my experiences are rare and that I'm one of the tiny-percenters.

 

I ended up in a guild of friendly people, and we started tackling the storymode, easier instances of those raids. I was encouraged to get into vent, we chatted, we laughed, we poked fun at each other. When the first guild imploded due to drama issues, a small handful of us got together and a new guild was formed composed exclusively of the laughing, joking people.

 

It was these people that kept me coming back to the game. Heck, we would sometimes be late for a scheduled raid because we were choking of laughter playing an R rated version of online Cards Against Humanity while in vent. It's a good group of people. Many became real life friends and we have stated in touch by phone and social networking in our real lives.

 

This group came to exist because of raids.

 

SW:TOR is my first mmo. (Well technically I tried GW1 but only made it 45 minutes before stopping). I didn't think I would enjoy raiding and so had no plans on doing so. It was the lure of teh new shiney, and that fact that I lucked into a group of other players that were good at the game and were willing to help me get better.

 

If large-group content never existed in TOR, and if everything could have been accomplished by a solo player (due to scaled instances or whatever), this awesome group of people would never have come together. I would have become bored with TOR many many moons ago and would have probably abandoned the genre as something I didn't care for.

 

Again, this is just from my own perspective. And it's apparent from the responses in this thread that many people don't feel the same what that I do. And if it's in the cards that raiding goes away from TOR, and that there is no more content that requires a large group of skilled people to master, I will be sad.

 

Sad because this group of friends I have would have fewer reasons to play together in this game.

Edited November 26, 2014 by Khevar

[Max_Killjoy]

I wonder if there's a way to get all the story content out from behind the group-wall, without removing the group stuff.

 

Even if they'd never say it, some "hardcore" players seem to react to that idea negatively out of the fear that a lot of players just won't engage in ops and flashpoints and whatnot if there's less of the game that's exclusively accessible either only through teaming up for going back solo 10-15 levels later.

[ThorgrimLutgen]

...........................That's a question worth asking here: what is the developer's intended goal for the player? In some games, it's to be addicted to the gameplay, like with the Sims. In some, it's to experience a unique story, like in Bioshock. In some, it's to compete and win against other players, like LoL. MMOs have multiple possible "goals", including pvp, stories, etc., but the players are not guided to raids once they reach level cap. SWTOR does not spark interest in raids at a low level and does not guide players into them once they are at level cap save for a few couriers on the fleet.................................

 

For SWTOR, the goal is to keep people playing long enough to buy more cartel packs.

 

Seriously, beyond the short term desperation to extract every last penny, they really do not care.

 

They rely on someone subbing "just one more month" in the hope they get a Rancur Mount or Taluk Horde's helmet to keep that person happy enough to keep playing. We are very much in the "sims in space" era.

Edited November 27, 2014 by ThorgrimLutgen

[Yorioko]

Interesting article. I really like MMOs but raiding has never been fun for me. I would be ecstatic if developers introduced a new form of endgame to replace raiding.

 

revan is comming by..............

[LordArtemis]

I do think that we will see more efforts placed toward giving casual players access to raiding, something like KDY.

 

I think it would likely start with graduated difficulty modes designed in, when they get their ducks in a row, so that every flashpoint has a solo/scaling mode, story mode, hard and nightmare mode.

 

This is probably the best way to encourage casuals to participate. The other thing I hope we see at some point is the end to the gear slot machine....some kind of token for everyone that a person can turn in for gear would be much better IMO, something like the way dailies work, which I expect has very high casual participation.