It's the same reason when you walk into a casino its nothing but flashing lights and loud noises. Pretty much the same thing just being disguised as a game.
I think Runescape is his comfort game or something. Like he'll get burned playing some terrible shit off Steam and goes back to Runescape for therapeutic purposes. Judging by his content, he probably ends up playing Runescape a lot.
@@thatonepipsqueak887 I think it's just the community of osrs that ruined it just a bunch of guys who think max Effiency=fun and if you're not doing things optimally they flame
As a graduate from game development where avoiding feature creep was brought up and in part drilled into our brains, it's nice to see it explored in MMOs and broken down; I'm looking forward to watching and seeing more of your content, it feeds a good portion of my brain that's now been tuned to breaking apart games LOL
Warframe is something that comes to mind when I think of feature bloat. There's just so much that doesn't interact or mesh into the core gameplay loop and is isolated. The whole point of the new zones and their exclusive resources is to prevent long time players from using their hoarded materials, which feels like a problem that should he focused on instead of just throwing it to the side and inflating the costs of certain components. It's a mess and one of the reasons I stopped playing.
@@anttimaki8188 How many different types of resources are there, again? Aren't there like star map, eidolon, fortuna, and deimos groups of resources, not counting anything like the currencies? Their whole "Islands of content" mentality is absurdly flawed because it sections off parts of the game instead of making it one cohesive experience.
@@BoisegangGaming Not even mentioning just how heavy a grind it really is for said resources. Anyone want to remember back to base Plains Amp farming? I don't.
"when a feature has a limited shelf life by design" This is basically the WoW design philosophy since Warlords of Draenor. They went from hitting the reset button for player power every expansion to doing it every goddamn patch and it made it impossible for me to care about playing any longer, when in know that in two months tops all the time I put into increasing the power of my character has been chucked down the memory hole.
thankfully they are going stop doing that, shadowlands is finally blizzard is addressing the issue, they truly learned their lesson in BFA, people hated that shit and level cap was getting way to high
@@kyotheman69 you think? The other issue with the design of wow, is how you take the power from the hands of the player, like every expansion now, and f*ck that sh*t system of shadowlands, the choice of the covenant matters so much that you can play meta or being a garbage that one wants
Yea even when artifacts were first announced, I knew they'd steal em from us using some contrived bs. So I could never really enjoy them. Bit of a moot point anyway since all the other pisstakes added up to me quitting a month or two after TOS started but yea
Yep that's why I quit WoW, it felt meaningless to do anything when I knew whatever progress on made on my garrisons, artifact weapon, artifact neck, wouldn't matter come next expansion. Those were much bigger time sinks than upgrading my gear and at least I got a whole new look with new gear.
I feel like this happens to me a lot when returning to an MMORPG. I recently returned to SWTOR and having not played it for years there were a ton of new systems. Same for WoW last I tried to play it. For me it just makes getting into the game that much more tedious. Especially because it's hard to know which new systems can be ignored because they are obsolete or irrelevant, and which ones will make your leveling experience much smoother.
@@jamesdagnan2845 Building off of your WoW experience, I came back for Shadowlands after I ran for the hills once WoD launched. I came back to so much stuff, so many mounts, people telling me I need to jump through a billion hopps just to get something to make my dps marginally better, etc etc. It took me 3 months to get fed up and quit again and I fear I wont be returning, it seems like the game gets bloated with every update.
Restore stamina = $ More tries or runs on dungeons = $ Rolling and Rerolling sub-stats = $ More inventory space = $ Extra Pet slots = $ More refining tries = $ Mounts = $ Enhancing talents = $ Gain "something" while offline = $ Get exclusive stuff = $ Get more exclusive stuff = $ etc. etc. etc. The list goes on, too many to name, but you all know where I'm coming at...
You can add to the list maplestory, a game where dailies take over 4h to finish, and a bunch of quests and low level maps are completely useless since you outlevel them even before having time to play them.
And so many classes upon classes. I remembered back in the day there were 4 classes I think. Now its like 20+ classes and none of the classes look unique anymore. Everyone can do everything.
@@hamzahussain7794 I remember when Pirates were first added. I'm still not 100% convinced they weren't just reskinned Thieves. Now every new class is just a reskinned [class]
Tiamat:"When will the older players come fight my dragons... we are so irrelevant" Archwing:"Dont worry, no one even likes me" Raid shadow legends:"Ah another month has passed, 14 more champions guys, the old ones need to be shit on. Oh and send out more ads"
When you said something about a specific defence reminded me of items that protects you from a specific enemy type or attack type. I hate those, I don't want to reevaluate my armor before every dungeon or new area!!
Feels like Glutonny is inevitable when talking about MMOs. You have to add something, but you have to be careful not to overdo it or make something useless.
@@nobodyshome6792 If you don't add content to a game, you don't grow the game. Not growing the game often ends in a slow but painful death. Modding, content updates, sunsetting/vaulting, and even temporary events are adding something. Even if it isn't official, something has to be added to the game or else people will stop playing it regularly, which kills almost all MMOs.
@@tyrantofcans465 not really. There are games that havent had updates or additions in a decade or longer, and their playerbase remains pretty good. Or havent decreased by any noticeable amount in the intervening time from the last update to current time. (And this channel even shows off a couple of those games regularly.) Why do games like COD Black Ops 2 have higher playerbases than any other COD game ? Why does Diablo 2 still have an active community and playerbase that numbers in the hundred thousands even 20 years after its last update ? Why does Runescape have more playere NOW than they did at the last update ? Why does Halo 2 have a higher playerbase than all other Halo games combined ? (And it hasn't been updated with new content since it was released.) Now, I understand that could become an issue for games that are relatively small in scope from the beginning. Or games that rely on their longevity to continue to generate earnings. But that doesn't necessarily mean it is a requirement for player retention or playerbase growth. (There is even an entire class about this topic in game design courses....) Why does Starcraft and Starcraft 2 still have hundreds of thousands of active competitive players ? (Neither have had a content update in years.....) Adding features just to add features has been proven to reduce playerbases, as can be seen by the majority of MMOs or other online games that regularly add new content. Hell, adding new content is what actually caused Shaiya to collapse. It has driven players away from WoW. Just adding new stuff doesn't always improve a game. It doesn't (and this has been proven by research) actually help retain players.
Also note. Too much content has also been proven to drive players away from games. It has also been proven to be a barrier to new player recruitment due to presenting players with too many things too quickly. If you want to grow a playerbase, you don't need to add new content. It has been mathematically proven that just adding content does nothing to draw new players in, it has been proven to actually be detrimental to playerbase growth. With 4 decades worth of research to back this up.
@@nobodyshome6792 One of the reasons some of the games you listed are still going strong is mostly because the playerbase is resisting the content added; COD has added content and multiple updates constantly over the years, and the reason these older versions are even popular is because it is in a wave of resistance to the content that is being made. Most people just like COD Black Ops 2 better than the previous or more recent installments. Content doesn’t have to be accepted. Diablo 2 is highly popular because it has a much different playstyle. In addition, there IS new content being added, just not by the official devs. I know a few mods that I use when playing, and even then, the players are making new content from the game itself, mostly in the form of markets and other trade centers. Runescape has more players now than last update mostly due to the amount of nostalgia pandering that we have been doing these days; the same thing has kinda applied to minecraft. While it’s not content in the game, per say, it is basically free advertising that is serving as a hook to get players back into the game. Also, there IS new content in the form of wages; there are some countries that are SELLING Runescape accounts and building legit (albeit short-lived) jobs from it. Again, more content. Halo 2 has been updated (if you count a remaster an update) and the new Master Chief Collection makes the game highly accessible. As for why it’s specifically 2, again, mods are playing a big part. Resisting Infinite is also a big part. Nostalgia brings out the trifecta, and BAM! You’ve got a game that people are still going to play for a long time. You’ve even proven my main point. Adding content is not always good, as I said in the original comment. Gluttony is one of the sins that brings a game to its knees, yet it is inevitable. I’ve said that you HAVE to add content in order to make sure that the game gets *ATTENTION*. It isn’t always good attention, it isn’t always going to work, but it gets you noticed. Without you or your community (or the unenlightened masses) making content for the game, be it UA-cam Videos, patch notes, or community tournaments (like with Starcraft), your game will fall and fade into the obscure black that is forgotten memory. To give you an example, Dark Spore was an MMO that was hyped as hell. I didn't get to play it, but it died within a few years, getting pulled from shelves and the servers discontinued. It failed because EA expected a certain result, and they pulled all features and content forever. Even with the community fighting tooth and nail to get it working, the game is basically dead. If it goes any further, we're just reanimating a dead corpse. I do want to note, however, I was talking about MMOs specifically in the beginning, and not FPS, Real-time-Strategy, or RPGs. An MMO lives or dies on content. A Massive, Multiplayer, Online game *needs* content in order to survive. Most of the examples you’ve provided are not MMOs. Runescape, Diablo 2, and *arguably* COD are MMOs, but Halo 2 never has and never will be a true MMO, not without mods.
I smell Warframe here. Not an MMO per sé, but have some of the characteristics of one. The developers are always putting things that doesn't improve the loop.
soon again. "these are NOT corpus liches.... they're just your own personalized nemesis that comes after you, gives you exclusive weaponry when killed, or (probably) something cosmetic when converted." yknow.....*NOT CORPUS LICHES*
@@deenman23 There are tons of effectively useless/forgotten (even by Blizzard) features that are still in the game, such as pet battles and archaeology. And the "things only last for an expansion" excuse doesnt hold water when BfA proves that you can have creep in the span of a single expansion. There was no reason there needed to be 3 different power systems over the course of BfA (Azerite, Essences, Corruption) other than purely *for the sake of having more systems* as a way of keeping addicts logging in for more grinds. Shadowlands hasnt been as bad as BfA, but both the Covenant system and Torghast are prime examples of systems that absolutely dont need to be there, but are just there for the sake of having more systems. Since the massive player exodus, they're at least making Covenant swapping easier since everyone hates the system, but that only proves that it was ill-conceived to begin with. Torghast could have been implemented as an optional mode for either altaholics or unique non-endgame/non-progression rewards (similar to the FFXIV deep dungeons), instead it's yet another endless grind system that's required for endgame progression and that everyone hates, but will still be there with no purpose once SL ends There are games out there that are worse offenders than WoW because they dont scrap similar systems (Warframe, PoE, a lot of Korean MMOs), but compared to the rest of the "Big 5" MMOs (FFXIV, Runescape, ESO, GW2) it's a blatant offender, and these are the types of things that have led to it profusely bleeding subs for a while now. FFXIV's systems are largely those that WoW had back in WotLK (also it really hasnt messed much with that since ARR), and that simplicity is a huge reason that a lot of longtime WoW players have flocked to it for a while now, and why it hasnt had any major play dips since early HW (when there were some raiding growing pains).
Looking at you Path of Exile. Game requires 5 hours of research and planning if you even want to make it to end game, then another 5 hours of research and planning to actually play end game. Playing that game feels like work.
I used to love PoE, I got the paid beta in late 2012 after I was disappointed with D3. It was a great game and the map system was such an ingenious way of creating a varied endgame that every other ARPG has now implemented something similar (looking at you, Rifts from D3). And then the updates came and almost every one bolted an overcomplicated end game progression on top of the existing content. You'll get crucified if you complain about it in any PoE community, but I just can't be arsed to put up with this shit. If they don't throw out 90% of the end game systems in PoE2, I'll won't even touch it.
I just can't get into it. I spent hours theory crafting a build to make cleave work as an ability and just got bored after level 80. The gameplay loop just isn't satisfying to me. The market feels convoluted and almost too core to the game. The core mechanics are simple while the design is complex, and spending more time thinking than having fun doesn't equate to a satisfying experience for me.
This channel really made me understand Path of Exile decisions. It is not about adding contents. Check out the videos on Monetization and Endgame. He divided the group into three. A is people who want to try the game. B is the group who want to be good at the game. C is the group is the ones already great at the game and found it easy. B is where the money is. PoE wanted people C to become B. That is why they don' t want to fix trade or loot drop or crafting. They want to make it more difficult, more frustrating, so that I would grind more, participate more in theorycrafting to reach an endgame that would change so that I must continued to do the same thing. At least that is just my opinion. When I first playing, it was only three acts, and I can feel myself slowly and continuously improving. Now it is way out of the reach and the endgame became the game.
"[...] without having the constant feeling of 'when will this be taken from me?' " No fam, for WoW it's more like "OH GOD WHEN WILL YOU FINALLY END MY SUFFERING AND REMOVE THIS?!" XD
Great video. Hopefully some games realize this and start removing or better integrating the new features with the existing game. Looking forward to the next video. Keep up the good work.
Its even worse in WoW than most other games since they make new bloated systems that nobody likes "relevant" by tying them to endgame progression as another mandatory grind
@@BroadwayRonMexico wow is not nearly as bad as other mmo's,because those systems are expansion or even patch related,they never stick around long enough to be bloated,like poe is
@@deenman23 There are games that have it worse, yes (PoE and Warframe come to mind), but even in the span of one expansion (BfA), WoW ended up with not one, but three parasitically designed borrowed power systems (Azerite, Essences, Corruption) that actively fucked a core aspect of the game (class balance and design, which outside of temporary bandaids in the form of these temporary systems, has been static since WoD) and forced PVPers into engaging with content they dont want to in order to gain BiS Compared to the other big MMOs (FFXIV, Runescape, ESO, and GW2), WoW has a huge problem with adding new systems nobody wanted just for the sake of having more systems that keep you locked in. And that's to say nothing of all the non-temporary features that *are* still in the game but nobody ever touches anymore and that Blizzard themselves pretty much forgets exist (pet battles, archaeology, etc)
Geez every game designer should be watching your channel. You could literally teach what it's like from the players perspective. Better yet, you should be hired as a tester
I really hated when I realized all my dreams of a garrison as a central hub were squashed as Legion was released. I knew artifact weapons were coming and imagined coming back to send peons out to mine and harvest new materials and someone in my garrison forging it all together but instead they wasted so much money making entirely new areas to go waste time in. There were so many things they could have done to merge it all together, even merging the heart of azeroth with a new artifact trinket slot but instead they convinced me that continuing to pay for the game was pointless.
By playing so much League of Angels footage in the background the video itself almost ended up suffering from feature creep. By the end I couldn't concentrate on what was being said because of the overwhelming amount of stuff, bling, pop-ups and glitter going on on the screen :P
This is why I like how you can start playing Classic WoW and have fun, compared to Black Desert, where you need to understand the (incoherent) UI, the systems and professions.
holy shit i never knew how much i needed to see this video until right this moment in time. i could never quite properly put into words my distaste for ffxiv around new expansions, it happened in stormblood and its happening to me now in endwalker where i just can NOT enjoy the game, everybody is so happy go lucky farming new dungeons and instances for gear when we know for a literal fact at the end of the expansion they will release far easier to obtain, far higher statted sets that will vastly outstrip what there is now. this is not "endgame grind" its just fucking "grind" and i am going to repost this video like 100 times to my friends lol thaaaank you for this gem!! {edit}: i was so flustered listening to this vid the first time around i hadnt even realized i just typed that paragraph in a rushed mess of gibberish but about everything you said after the WoW analogy applies to ffxiv and i could not for the life of me explain that to people because i felt it so much more than others seemed to. it was especially worse (and seemingly coincidental) it happened with almost all the classes/jobs that i played as well. every expansion entire jobs were changed, i dont mean "the stuff i liked about those jobs" i mean fkking literally summoner isnt even the same class anymore and as somebody who started the game as a bard and astrologian i can tell you almost every change thats occurred with those classes since launch. the game is entirely unreliable for me to play, its unenjoyable having the very fabric that my gameplay rests on be torn apart every single expansion or hell sometimes they cant even wait because from patch to patch you get mini shifts. ill never forget one of the first major patches that happened right after i decided to start playing again after 3 years break was the removal of certain unnecessary mats and mat qualities because the devs "decided" (aka finally had to admit) there was literally just too much crap in the game, bogging it down. one of the main reasons i quit before was just having piles of "stuff" everywhere no clue what to do with.
I might be late to the party in the comments here. But as an ex wow player i really enjoyed the way their were rotating their Main System. Yes you progress something what becomes irrelevant after a single expansion. Yet this gives fresh starts to new players without the fear of missing out and lowers necessary maintainance and overwhelming feature creep for exsisting veterans. Imagine what a clusterfuck it would be if you had to keep your Garrison from WoD, your Weapon from Legion, your Neck from BfA all up to date or how awkward it would be to always have to travel back to keep up your garisson even if they didn't rotate it out. A way better example for feature creep in a Game which does not make you pay for Gameplay (but heavily for cosmetics) is Path of Exile, where each new League brings a new mechanic and way to man of those league mechanics get taken over into the core game resulting in hundreds of different upgrade materials, game mechanics and such being present.
"Are there features in FF14 that dont assist the gameplay loop?" "Do you get Glamour from it?" "Yes!" "Then no. Glamour and Housing is the true Gameplay Loop of this game! Everything else is just a means to achieve Glamours or Housing Items!"' This is actually the best way to make an MMO, in my opinion at least. But I also have reason to say this, because of WoW. Artifact weapons and Heart of Azeroth were technically speaking the same. They were Items you upgraded by grinding and getting higher numbers gave you more options. So why did people absolutely love the Artifact Weapons and removing them made the Forums explode with player disaprovement, while the Heart of Azeroth was not liked at all and noone cried a single tear losing it? Why dont people like the new system in Shadowland? Because the Artifact Weapons made you look cool and upgrading them gave you more options to look cool. Unlocking hard to reach traits didnt just give you more numbers, it gave you a visual change to show off. And people loved it, because poeple love to have a cool looking character. Tier sets would have never been so popular if they were just invisible items or looked like ugly rugs. They were popular because on top of giving you abilities, they looked cool. Honestly, whenever you dont know how to reward players for anything, give them something thats absolutely useless but makes them look cooler. Professions in WoW could be super popular if they gave you special Transmog Items, just for an example.
I think it has more to do with the story investment with the artifacts, which is ruined when you just throw them away at the start of the next expansion because there are better stats.
Man, that league of angels game really feels *exactly* like the inside of a casino, with the flashing lights, garish colors rapidly oscillating, and numbers flashing everywhere... I don't think it's a coincidence.
It's not. It's called "Hot Time" or something like that where your senses are overloaded so you can't critically think and instantly turn into panic mode. And while you're panicking and can't process complex thoughts, you're told to spend money. It's extremely effective and is all over mobile games. It also exists in games like Candy Crush when you die and are instantly hit with "pay money to keep going." You instantly click before processing that you've just spent X amount of money.
I'd say that having a deep stat system, like elemental resistances as you mentioned, can be great. Vanilla WoW comes to mind-- frost resistance and nature resistance gear were necessary and tied to the experience for Naxx. It didn't impact 95% of the playerbase but it gave endgame raiders something else to work towards. The stat squish was needed but imo only for the numbers. The amount of stats were personally far more fun than having 3 stats: Primary, secondary and HP.
It's undeniable feature bloat and such is a thing, but I think how you defined it here actually has some serious flaws in regards to the MMO industry. You defined an MMO by its combat, exp, leveling, etc. But for many it's much more than that. Using the example you did of WoW, it actually was trying to follow the guidance you gave in this video, that all content should tie into the core. it's something they have stressed for years, and I can say for all those I know it is what chased us away. The example I'll never forget in regards to garrisons was Ion talking about how they didn't see the value in adding anything that wasn't tied to the core gameplay of raiding and loot. Despite the fact housing has been deeply requested for years, and in every MMO with housing it's an incredibly popular feature, even if it has no purpose towards gearing and player power, in fact that's optimal. So blizzard made garrisons as, in Ions own words "Wow's version of housing". That was what killed it. It poisoned the well of housing and gearing both. If instead it had been its own system, divorced from gearing and raiding it would have made so many happy, and had no negative impact upon the health of the raiding and gearing loop and ecosystem. Love these videos, but wanted to point out the way this one is worded and formatted feels off, especially in the face of a genre where the variety of content often is its greatest strength, not a singular laser focus. MMO's are big, and varied, and that is apart of the appeal. Think it is more a line to be walked than a simple good or bad.
I think the issue there is a misunderstanding of what the gameplay loop is-because mmos, _especially_ ones with a strong roleplay element, apply to a broad range of interests, and are therefore catering to not a single core gameplay loop but multiple. For a lot of people, their personal game loop revolved a lot more on roleplaying and socializing in a communal way than WoW provided much support for.
Developers are technically not the ones who decide what the core gameplay loop of an MMO is. Once the game has already been made, it's up to the market to figure out which loops stand out among other MMOs, which ones have communities, etc. It's very hard for a developer to say "no we don't want people to play that, THIS is the core loop" and actually succeed.
I might be the only player who thinks like this but Trouble Brewing is at its core great piece of content in Oldschool Runescape. I have participated in a couple of clan-run Trouble Brewing competitions and let me tell you it's up there with Castle Wars and If only they ironed out some of the mechanics and features -- especially the rewards -- it would attract more players and become overall a much more fun experience.
Feature creep sounds like when I got into dungeon fighter online and how it eventually sacrificed combo attacks for just aoeing everything to death with massive damage numbers because they were 'too hard'
Bro im new subscriber btw. Can you add some subtitles? Even english will do. I'm not demanding you or anything, i just want to suggest it to you. Your writing are actually good of quality.
8:42 ffxiv has a similar-ish problem with relic weapons each expansion, although they are kept somewhat relevant by being very pretty weapons, so even if there is no power incentive to do old relics, there may be a fashion incentive still.
Relic weapons exist first for the glam. They're great for BiS for half an expansion. However, I'd say the issue with FFXIV is grindy, horrific content islands like Bozja and Eureka. They're fine on their own, but when you tie in relic weapon and dyeable af gear to them, then you have a real problem. You're forcing casual and hardcore players alike to run honestly terrible content to obtain the most iconic, lore-accurate gear in the game. The playerbase constantly whines about how actually mentally taxing this is -- A VIDEO GAME SHOULD NEVER BE MENTALLY TAXING. _Especially_ by design. But 0.01% of players begged for the grind, and now the rest 99.9% of us have to pay. Especially with those 0.01% being content creators with very high influence *cough* ZeplaHQ *cough.*
The creep in WoW is in the maij game loop. Main game loop is run story-RAID/Mythic/PVP-Loot. So the gear and garrisons is part of the core loop. Wow is a little more complicated as it is loops inside of loops.
I still think that "depth not width" is one of the best ways to approach game design. There's exceptions, sure. But a few really intricate mechanics is so much more engaging than a bunch of shallow ones
6:00 the only way i see a vastly better spell like this existing would be if the much better spell was much harder to get, for example if both healing spells are acquired in the main story the better one is way at the end
this just screams Warframe. 20 resources that work exactly the same way, content islands all over the place, and content that even the developers have forgotten about
Seeing this only now, but gluttony describes what happened to Guild Wars 2 high level / "endgame" content. Bloated and massive resource farming for endgame items; they have similar things like a camp (housing?) system like WoW, yet fast-paced overthrown since it's tied to (temporal) story content; changings in the fighting systems which blows out (important) boons or mechanics, like in 2019 when they turned the Mesmer upside down, just to end where they started minus the boon sharing Chronomancer, completely blow up the implemented raid strategies by the community at that time. Even Warframe is less crammed than Guild Wars 2 in terms of ressources varation and needs. I tried several times to come back but was blown away where I stopped. Thanks for describing and giving words to what was the case for me leaving GW2 forever.
always nice to see my game in these videos... its the only one i recognize excluding wow. all the others might as well be one game cause i cant tell the difference.
The biggest problem with the Battle for Azeroth necklace is that it's a necklace. It does not modify your character's appearance. Legion artifacts are at least still slightly relevant to go back and work on because they are cool appearances that you can apply to your new weapons, and there are a bunch of alternate hidden appearances that you unlock by doing various things throughout Legion.
And Garrisons were at least cool because it was cool to get a stable or battle pet house to show off your favorite mounts and pets, and you had your own private place in WoW to chill out. The Heart of Azeroth blows chunks, and Shadowblands was even worse. At least Dragon Flying is somewhat interesting because it's at the very least fun.
i agree, difficulty does not equal complexity, difficulty does not equal bigger numbers, difficulty does equal how hard a goal is to achieve and avoiding the overinflation of either of those previously mentioned options is usually balance.
Makes me think about Path of Exile. Over the years the game has added tons of optional systems and minigames, some of which are weirdly complicated, but two things make it work for me: 1. Nothing pops up on your screen, all the subsystems are localized to specific areas and easy to walk past if you don't want to use them. 2. Everything boils down to variations on, "Kill stronger enemies to get stronger items." And just knowing this you can get through most of the systems fine. Edit: two more things. 3. It introduces the new systems slowly, over the course of 10 acts, so new players don't have to worry about them at the start. 4. All the systems scale with your level at roughly the same rate, meaning nothing is totally obsolete.
I'm surprised you didn't mention Warframe and Path of Exile. I know they're generally well liked, but holy crap do those two games have some insane years of feature creep piled up on top of them
Now that I've been reminded I used to play league of Angels a while ago before Facebook game room was pretty much redundant because flash player died. And now that I'm thinking about it the reason why I probably didn't play a lot is probably because there was just too much going on and it was hard to understand. The designs of the characters were really pretty but that was really it. There was nothing to really keep me playing.
League of Angels looks like a Slot Machine display to me with all those lights and bright colours. Kind of defines everything I dislike about 'spectacle fighters.'
I heard the words "Designed to become outdated" and went "Awh fuck, He's gonna talk about wow isn't he" And before he got to it I got this internal monologue: "You know, Classic's professions actually DO something for high end players... and we aren't expected to do something grand by ourselves like raise a whole fucking city from the ground. Solo content is quests, and then you go to raid. The features reflect the design philosophy. Retail requires you to interact with its systems and solo content well past 70 just to stay relevant even if those systems are despised and rejected."
Hihiii, this is so much borrowed power in World of Warcraft, love it! :D endgame = toss in some random resource grind that's outpaced instantly by the next expansion launch. I can understand it's easier to make than actual content, but I really wish they'd at least try - we don't need layers of grind, vanilla reputation or basic currency was enough. Just spend the time adding new world events or quests instead, or something - anything. I miss class quests :D
So, I find your channel recently after seeing a few random "Worst MMO ever" videos, I find this specific collection, and I'm I'm like "oooh, this looks interesting!" I love being able to just have a playlist of things to listen to, as I play my own games, and it looks like a lot of your stuff hits the spot, So yes, new subscriber here, As I'm listening to this video in particular, I'm finding a lot of similarities to the game Im currently playing; Warframe. I've never heard the term "feature creep " before, but boy does this sound akin to what I'm playing now, I started playing Warframe when Railjack was brand new, and after a while dropped out of it due to life stuff, Every attempt I made to get back into my old game just... it was too much! I was too high a lv, everything was no killing me, and the whole experience was just frustrating, after losing so much gameplay knowledge, I felt like I wanted to start the game fresh, so, new email, new account, new fresh game, this time with a different control system, (controller vs keyboard,) While I've been learning new things while relearning old things, the concept of... just so much involvement with this game, I'm no where near my previous lv yet, bc a lot of things are just time locked, or behind experience lvs, Mastery rank, ect, Theres so many more things that I've missed over a year, more warframes of course, but now there's more factions, more open worlds, more mods and weapons and guns than you can shake a stick at, I'm doing research just to find out that certain items I may be looking for are now locked behind other avenues that weren't there before, Where once Railjack was just an interesting space pirate ship design to play with friends, has not become a whole new 'meta' endgame system in itself, Like DE purposefully put special/powerful things behind only playing Railjack, Maybe thats a different sin altogether, My point is, I'm noticing a lot of newer things, and while I do enjoy playing fresh and solo, it feels like there will be some lvs or aspects that will be completely beyond me without a specific Warframe or build, which may be near impossible, idk, Thats at least, what it feels like for me now, It feels like a lot of feature creep in Warframe, Keep up the great work, love listening to your videos, it's better than most Warframe videos focusing too hard on meta,
I always said that WoW should find a way to make a cross expansion Glyph/Talent system that lets you pick a number of Minor, Moderate and Major abilities that you could pick from a pool of abilities that you'd unlock after getting them normally from the various borrowed power systems in each expansion (Garrisons, Order Halls, Artifact and Relics Powers, Azerite or Heart of Azeroth Powers, Covenant or Soulbind Abilities) at least this way the main gameplay loop can return back to "adventure and gain experience" in a manner of sense
I feel his with guild wars 2. I got it when it came out played for about a year and took 2 years off or so. Came back and character progression was totally different.
i think Feature Bloat may have been one of the major factors for Rift's downfall. As far as the core mechanic for gameplay building options, it was great. You only had four classes, but they each had 8 subclasses that you could swap between rather easily on the fly. Which had the benefit that you only really needed to grind gear for four characters. But they kept adding new subclasses that honestly outshined others. The physician for rogue was added late into it, and made most other single target healers seem inferior, for example. It's core method of progression and ability growth just, got bloated.
That clip from League of Angels was painful to watch, must feel more like having a virus on your PC with the hundreds of pop-ups you're trying to close to find your anti-virus program.
i agree with most of what you say in the video but i will say that adding minigames to MMOs isn't always bad a thing. sometimes it could just be added as a fun distraction for players. I Think the Gold Saucer in FF14 is a great example of mini games being added to MMO correctly
ESO simp here, back again! ESO's UI is not only very simple and easy to explore and understand, open API -supported Addons also allow you to start with the almost non-existent combat UI and only add the features you feel you need. Top scorepushers might have a crowded UI because they want as many metrics as possible to try to tune their performance. Personally as pre-trifecta player I just like to cluster my 3 resources and my DoT timers on the left side of my character. I also have some group ult coordination indicators when in group trials, and a couple popup text reminders above my head for potions and ults. I've managed to actually shrink the vanilla group member list. Hard to beat a minimalist UI where you start with the minimum viable coverage and can add whatever you feel you need.
See this shit right here is why I feel obligated to create an MMO. The only MMO I still enjoy playing is OSRS, I had played Elder Scrolls Online before, but I got tired of its timegating mechanics, also I was permanently annoyed by its cash shop. Thus, I'm taking a careful look at all the things I do like in games I play and am writing down a design document of what I believe would make the perfect game for me. Also, it is truly amazing how Oldschool Runescapes insanely simple systems with their flaws give rise to more complex things naturally. Like how the tilebased nature and limited monster pathing gives rise to mastering the skill of safespotting. How the game only updating once every 0.6 seconds gives rise to the skillcategory of tick manipulation and how all of those things are insanely hard to master. It is something I truly respect.
This actually makes me think of Destiny 2. It feels so giant and ever changing that even though i bought literally all the dlc and the season passes, i’ve hardly ever gotten the energy to actually play them. I just can’t bring myself to dive into that absolute pile of shit to do
Oh yea, the deal with pretty much any World of Warcrafts features unavoidably becoming outdated at some point is what made me switch over to Final Fantasy 14. The last straw was the Lvl Squish ...
![Can you Judge an MMO in just 1 hour? [MMOPINION]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/JpkGbVVLExw/mqdefault.jpg)
League of Angels' devs: "What is the maximum amount of flashy numbers we can shine on our players before seizures are induced?"
It's the same reason when you walk into a casino its nothing but flashing lights and loud noises. Pretty much the same thing just being disguised as a game.
before?
more like surely
mobile legends bang bang
the answer is "too many"
The first thing I think of when I read this comment is that one line from evil Mr. McBusinessman from Ready Player One
It's so wholesome how in the Runescape footage, the chat was greeting Josh like an old friend
I think Runescape is his comfort game or something. Like he'll get burned playing some terrible shit off Steam and goes back to Runescape for therapeutic purposes. Judging by his content, he probably ends up playing Runescape a lot.
It's a shame it's hot garbage now. Both games.
@@thatonepipsqueak887 I think it's just the community of osrs that ruined it just a bunch of guys who think max Effiency=fun and if you're not doing things optimally they flame
It's adorable.
That league of angels gameplay was fucking nuts. You click one thing and 4 more pop up.
it's like a virus
Genuinely, what is that game? And whatever in blazes are those character designs?!?
I almost had a stroke with the league of angels "gameplay". What the hell?
I played it for a solid hour on one of my 'worst mmo ever' reviews
@@JoshStrifeHayes you survived through that wasteland of mmo?
@@a4arick106 oh man you're gonna love the stuff i play on the 'worst mmo ever series'
Same, the League of Angels gameplay was physically exhausting to look at.
Literally pop-up menu simulator
As a graduate from game development where avoiding feature creep was brought up and in part drilled into our brains, it's nice to see it explored in MMOs and broken down; I'm looking forward to watching and seeing more of your content, it feeds a good portion of my brain that's now been tuned to breaking apart games LOL
good luck when you start working for and are forced to implement it because some manager wants you too
Warframe is something that comes to mind when I think of feature bloat. There's just so much that doesn't interact or mesh into the core gameplay loop and is isolated. The whole point of the new zones and their exclusive resources is to prevent long time players from using their hoarded materials, which feels like a problem that should he focused on instead of just throwing it to the side and inflating the costs of certain components.
It's a mess and one of the reasons I stopped playing.
Indeed, the amount of alt-currency is so high now that no-one can remember what was used where anymore.
@@anttimaki8188 How many different types of resources are there, again? Aren't there like star map, eidolon, fortuna, and deimos groups of resources, not counting anything like the currencies?
Their whole "Islands of content" mentality is absurdly flawed because it sections off parts of the game instead of making it one cohesive experience.
@@BoisegangGaming ughh... dunno. do you mean the fish livers off the moon or the mars?
@@BoisegangGaming Not even mentioning just how heavy a grind it really is for said resources. Anyone want to remember back to base Plains Amp farming?
I don't.
yup. I immediately thought of the stupid basketball like game in Warframe that I never played. Don't even remember what it was called
yup, this explains Warframe..
I love warframes game play, but it is so hard to get into as a new player
Yea warframe is the first game I thought of when I watched this video
@@TheRockLobsterMafia truth has finally spoken
+5 ice damage while jumping, sliding, dancing AND reciting sciptures for 1 second after using ultimate. yey, usefull.
Sucks that I haven't built my first Amp yet.
"when a feature has a limited shelf life by design" This is basically the WoW design philosophy since Warlords of Draenor. They went from hitting the reset button for player power every expansion to doing it every goddamn patch and it made it impossible for me to care about playing any longer, when in know that in two months tops all the time I put into increasing the power of my character has been chucked down the memory hole.
thankfully they are going stop doing that, shadowlands is finally blizzard is addressing the issue, they truly learned their lesson in BFA, people hated that shit and level cap was getting way to high
@@kyotheman69 you think? The other issue with the design of wow, is how you take the power from the hands of the player, like every expansion now, and f*ck that sh*t system of shadowlands, the choice of the covenant matters so much that you can play meta or being a garbage that one wants
@@kyotheman69 Well this aged like milk
and honestly this has been an issue since burning crusade.We were just too blind to see it until recently.
Yea even when artifacts were first announced, I knew they'd steal em from us using some contrived bs. So I could never really enjoy them. Bit of a moot point anyway since all the other pisstakes added up to me quitting a month or two after TOS started but yea
Yep that's why I quit WoW, it felt meaningless to do anything when I knew whatever progress on made on my garrisons, artifact weapon, artifact neck, wouldn't matter come next expansion. Those were much bigger time sinks than upgrading my gear and at least I got a whole new look with new gear.
Very overwhelming when there is way too much features in a game. I get confused on what everything is, how to get it, and why it exists.
I feel like this happens to me a lot when returning to an MMORPG. I recently returned to SWTOR and having not played it for years there were a ton of new systems. Same for WoW last I tried to play it. For me it just makes getting into the game that much more tedious. Especially because it's hard to know which new systems can be ignored because they are obsolete or irrelevant, and which ones will make your leveling experience much smoother.
@@jamesdagnan2845 Yup, perfectly. Playing games should be a fun, easy to get into task, not something that requires a university degree to comprehend.
I tend to stop playing when the features start to overwhelm the game.
@@jamesdagnan2845 Building off of your WoW experience, I came back for Shadowlands after I ran for the hills once WoD launched. I came back to so much stuff, so many mounts, people telling me I need to jump through a billion hopps just to get something to make my dps marginally better, etc etc. It took me 3 months to get fed up and quit again and I fear I wont be returning, it seems like the game gets bloated with every update.
Gacha games in a nutshell if you never played them. Tho that's why they want so you'll pay a few hundred thousand dollars but yea
Restore stamina = $
More tries or runs on dungeons = $
Rolling and Rerolling sub-stats = $
More inventory space = $
Extra Pet slots = $
More refining tries = $
Mounts = $
Enhancing talents = $
Gain "something" while offline = $
Get exclusive stuff = $
Get more exclusive stuff = $
etc. etc. etc.
The list goes on, too many to name, but you all know where I'm coming at...
I think you want greed for that
EA: The Game
Yeah I would say that's greed
Hi Black Desert Online
Greed. Definitely coming from greed.
You can add to the list maplestory, a game where dailies take over 4h to finish, and a bunch of quests and low level maps are completely useless since you outlevel them even before having time to play them.
Oh maplestory is on the wort mmo list, ill get round to it eventually :D
And so many classes upon classes. I remembered back in the day there were 4 classes I think. Now its like 20+ classes and none of the classes look unique anymore. Everyone can do everything.
@@hamzahussain7794 I remember when Pirates were first added. I'm still not 100% convinced they weren't just reskinned Thieves. Now every new class is just a reskinned [class]
"A game is not complete, when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to leave out." - Someone I cant remember
Wise words
_"A game isn't complete when there's nothing left to add, but rather when there's nothing to leave out."_
Fixed it. Much more coherent now.
"An idiot admires complexity. A genius admires simplicity." - the greatest programmer who ever lived
I heard that phrase from Yahtzee, of Zero Punctuation fame, and he heard it as a saying for engineering first
Tiamat:"When will the older players come fight my dragons... we are so irrelevant"
Archwing:"Dont worry, no one even likes me"
Raid shadow legends:"Ah another month has passed, 14 more champions guys, the old ones need to be shit on. Oh and send out more ads"
Me at the start of the video: I wonder if he's going to talk about WoW.
Me at 7:56: My man!
To be fair, wow ticks all the boxes on the definition of feature creep at 4:36.
Jesus Christ that angel game makes every character look like a Final Fantasy antagonists third form.
When you said something about a specific defence reminded me of items that protects you from a specific enemy type or attack type. I hate those, I don't want to reevaluate my armor before every dungeon or new area!!
Well i like that lol
Feels like Glutonny is inevitable when talking about MMOs. You have to add something, but you have to be careful not to overdo it or make something useless.
Why do you have to add something though ?
@@nobodyshome6792 If you don't add content to a game, you don't grow the game. Not growing the game often ends in a slow but painful death.
Modding, content updates, sunsetting/vaulting, and even temporary events are adding something. Even if it isn't official, something has to be added to the game or else people will stop playing it regularly, which kills almost all MMOs.
@@tyrantofcans465 not really. There are games that havent had updates or additions in a decade or longer, and their playerbase remains pretty good. Or havent decreased by any noticeable amount in the intervening time from the last update to current time. (And this channel even shows off a couple of those games regularly.)
Why do games like COD Black Ops 2 have higher playerbases than any other COD game ?
Why does Diablo 2 still have an active community and playerbase that numbers in the hundred thousands even 20 years after its last update ?
Why does Runescape have more playere NOW than they did at the last update ?
Why does Halo 2 have a higher playerbase than all other Halo games combined ? (And it hasn't been updated with new content since it was released.)
Now, I understand that could become an issue for games that are relatively small in scope from the beginning. Or games that rely on their longevity to continue to generate earnings. But that doesn't necessarily mean it is a requirement for player retention or playerbase growth. (There is even an entire class about this topic in game design courses....)
Why does Starcraft and Starcraft 2 still have hundreds of thousands of active competitive players ? (Neither have had a content update in years.....)
Adding features just to add features has been proven to reduce playerbases, as can be seen by the majority of MMOs or other online games that regularly add new content. Hell, adding new content is what actually caused Shaiya to collapse. It has driven players away from WoW.
Just adding new stuff doesn't always improve a game. It doesn't (and this has been proven by research) actually help retain players.
Also note. Too much content has also been proven to drive players away from games. It has also been proven to be a barrier to new player recruitment due to presenting players with too many things too quickly.
If you want to grow a playerbase, you don't need to add new content. It has been mathematically proven that just adding content does nothing to draw new players in, it has been proven to actually be detrimental to playerbase growth.
With 4 decades worth of research to back this up.
@@nobodyshome6792 One of the reasons some of the games you listed are still going strong is mostly because the playerbase is resisting the content added; COD has added content and multiple updates constantly over the years, and the reason these older versions are even popular is because it is in a wave of resistance to the content that is being made. Most people just like COD Black Ops 2 better than the previous or more recent installments. Content doesn’t have to be accepted.
Diablo 2 is highly popular because it has a much different playstyle. In addition, there IS new content being added, just not by the official devs. I know a few mods that I use when playing, and even then, the players are making new content from the game itself, mostly in the form of markets and other trade centers.
Runescape has more players now than last update mostly due to the amount of nostalgia pandering that we have been doing these days; the same thing has kinda applied to minecraft. While it’s not content in the game, per say, it is basically free advertising that is serving as a hook to get players back into the game. Also, there IS new content in the form of wages; there are some countries that are SELLING Runescape accounts and building legit (albeit short-lived) jobs from it. Again, more content.
Halo 2 has been updated (if you count a remaster an update) and the new Master Chief Collection makes the game highly accessible. As for why it’s specifically 2, again, mods are playing a big part. Resisting Infinite is also a big part. Nostalgia brings out the trifecta, and BAM! You’ve got a game that people are still going to play for a long time.
You’ve even proven my main point. Adding content is not always good, as I said in the original comment. Gluttony is one of the sins that brings a game to its knees, yet it is inevitable. I’ve said that you HAVE to add content in order to make sure that the game gets *ATTENTION*. It isn’t always good attention, it isn’t always going to work, but it gets you noticed. Without you or your community (or the unenlightened masses) making content for the game, be it UA-cam Videos, patch notes, or community tournaments (like with Starcraft), your game will fall and fade into the obscure black that is forgotten memory.
To give you an example, Dark Spore was an MMO that was hyped as hell. I didn't get to play it, but it died within a few years, getting pulled from shelves and the servers discontinued. It failed because EA expected a certain result, and they pulled all features and content forever. Even with the community fighting tooth and nail to get it working, the game is basically dead. If it goes any further, we're just reanimating a dead corpse.
I do want to note, however, I was talking about MMOs specifically in the beginning, and not FPS, Real-time-Strategy, or RPGs. An MMO lives or dies on content. A Massive, Multiplayer, Online game *needs* content in order to survive. Most of the examples you’ve provided are not MMOs. Runescape, Diablo 2, and *arguably* COD are MMOs, but Halo 2 never has and never will be a true MMO, not without mods.
So much footage of Neverwinter! With the need to get all new gear every 3-6 months it would've been worth mentioning
I actually do mention that in the sloth episode and how Neverwinter timegates everything
And when they get annoyed with old equipment being too strong they just nerf it.
Love these discussion pieces and this one in particular. Very excited to see the final 5 and where you go for each one. All the best good Sir
Yeah, it can definitely feel that way to a new player of any mmo. It can be easy to overdo something, both inside and outside of the game.
I smell Warframe here. Not an MMO per sé, but have some of the characteristics of one.
The developers are always putting things that doesn't improve the loop.
soon again. "these are NOT corpus liches.... they're just your own personalized nemesis that comes after you, gives you exclusive weaponry when killed, or (probably) something cosmetic when converted." yknow.....*NOT CORPUS LICHES*
Warframe AKA Feature Creep: The Game
One needs "200+ collective years of professional game design experience" to come up with such good new features^^
You manage to voice my exact problem with (for example RS3) while i even couldnt myself. Hats of to you sir!
This should be required reading for Ion Hazzikostas. He is the queen of feature creep.
"he is the queen" lul
there is no feature creep in wow....no feature lasts more than one expansion...and some are even gone after ONE PATCH like pearl gear in bfa
@@deenman23 There are tons of effectively useless/forgotten (even by Blizzard) features that are still in the game, such as pet battles and archaeology. And the "things only last for an expansion" excuse doesnt hold water when BfA proves that you can have creep in the span of a single expansion. There was no reason there needed to be 3 different power systems over the course of BfA (Azerite, Essences, Corruption) other than purely *for the sake of having more systems* as a way of keeping addicts logging in for more grinds.
Shadowlands hasnt been as bad as BfA, but both the Covenant system and Torghast are prime examples of systems that absolutely dont need to be there, but are just there for the sake of having more systems. Since the massive player exodus, they're at least making Covenant swapping easier since everyone hates the system, but that only proves that it was ill-conceived to begin with. Torghast could have been implemented as an optional mode for either altaholics or unique non-endgame/non-progression rewards (similar to the FFXIV deep dungeons), instead it's yet another endless grind system that's required for endgame progression and that everyone hates, but will still be there with no purpose once SL ends
There are games out there that are worse offenders than WoW because they dont scrap similar systems (Warframe, PoE, a lot of Korean MMOs), but compared to the rest of the "Big 5" MMOs (FFXIV, Runescape, ESO, GW2) it's a blatant offender, and these are the types of things that have led to it profusely bleeding subs for a while now. FFXIV's systems are largely those that WoW had back in WotLK (also it really hasnt messed much with that since ARR), and that simplicity is a huge reason that a lot of longtime WoW players have flocked to it for a while now, and why it hasnt had any major play dips since early HW (when there were some raiding growing pains).
The league of angels footage looks like a phone that an older family member just handed to me to fix from their excessive download of unkown apps
11:06 please say this again for the team working on Warframe
Looking at you Path of Exile. Game requires 5 hours of research and planning if you even want to make it to end game, then another 5 hours of research and planning to actually play end game. Playing that game feels like work.
Because it is work lmao
I used to love PoE, I got the paid beta in late 2012 after I was disappointed with D3. It was a great game and the map system was such an ingenious way of creating a varied endgame that every other ARPG has now implemented something similar (looking at you, Rifts from D3).
And then the updates came and almost every one bolted an overcomplicated end game progression on top of the existing content. You'll get crucified if you complain about it in any PoE community, but I just can't be arsed to put up with this shit.
If they don't throw out 90% of the end game systems in PoE2, I'll won't even touch it.
I just can't get into it. I spent hours theory crafting a build to make cleave work as an ability and just got bored after level 80. The gameplay loop just isn't satisfying to me. The market feels convoluted and almost too core to the game. The core mechanics are simple while the design is complex, and spending more time thinking than having fun doesn't equate to a satisfying experience for me.
if you wanna try a fun with some depth but not exagerated like poe,give grim dawn a try,its basicaly diablo 2 but better
This channel really made me understand Path of Exile decisions. It is not about adding contents. Check out the videos on Monetization and Endgame.
He divided the group into three. A is people who want to try the game. B is the group who want to be good at the game. C is the group is the ones already great at the game and found it easy. B is where the money is. PoE wanted people C to become B. That is why they don' t want to fix trade or loot drop or crafting. They want to make it more difficult, more frustrating, so that I would grind more, participate more in theorycrafting to reach an endgame that would change so that I must continued to do the same thing. At least that is just my opinion. When I first playing, it was only three acts, and I can feel myself slowly and continuously improving. Now it is way out of the reach and the endgame became the game.
I really love this Path of Exile review, very insightful, thank you Josh!
Was thinking the exact same thing lmao
Ultimately, why i don't play it anymore, i already have a job,
"[...] without having the constant feeling of 'when will this be taken from me?' " No fam, for WoW it's more like "OH GOD WHEN WILL YOU FINALLY END MY SUFFERING AND REMOVE THIS?!" XD
always one of the 2
They remove to put you in a new hell of feature creep... I am looking at you shadowlands and your stupid 9.2
Pls forward this video to the devs and producers of Neverwinter. They need to see it badly
Until they start losing money, they won't care
Warframe is the same, black desert is the same,skyforge might be the same...etc
That League of Angels clip made me gag lol, thanks for this. I ain't a game developer but I'm learning a lot. Thank you!
Great video. Hopefully some games realize this and start removing or better integrating the new features with the existing game. Looking forward to the next video. Keep up the good work.
Oh, God: in the "causes of feature creep" section you basically listed ALL of World of Warcraft systemic issues...
too much you have Classic to enjoy!
Its even worse in WoW than most other games since they make new bloated systems that nobody likes "relevant" by tying them to endgame progression as another mandatory grind
@@BroadwayRonMexico wow is not nearly as bad as other mmo's,because those systems are expansion or even patch related,they never stick around long enough to be bloated,like poe is
@@deenman23 There are games that have it worse, yes (PoE and Warframe come to mind), but even in the span of one expansion (BfA), WoW ended up with not one, but three parasitically designed borrowed power systems (Azerite, Essences, Corruption) that actively fucked a core aspect of the game (class balance and design, which outside of temporary bandaids in the form of these temporary systems, has been static since WoD) and forced PVPers into engaging with content they dont want to in order to gain BiS
Compared to the other big MMOs (FFXIV, Runescape, ESO, and GW2), WoW has a huge problem with adding new systems nobody wanted just for the sake of having more systems that keep you locked in. And that's to say nothing of all the non-temporary features that *are* still in the game but nobody ever touches anymore and that Blizzard themselves pretty much forgets exist (pet battles, archaeology, etc)
Please, please tell me I wasn't the only person watching that DS gameplay and whispering "Just kick him!" when he was fighting that shield Hollow
Josh: "Let's look at portal, one of my favorite games"
Me: "Yo that's my boy right there" XD
Geez every game designer should be watching your channel. You could literally teach what it's like from the players perspective.
Better yet, you should be hired as a tester
This is very informative for rpg design in general not just mmo's
Great series.
I really hated when I realized all my dreams of a garrison as a central hub were squashed as Legion was released. I knew artifact weapons were coming and imagined coming back to send peons out to mine and harvest new materials and someone in my garrison forging it all together but instead they wasted so much money making entirely new areas to go waste time in. There were so many things they could have done to merge it all together, even merging the heart of azeroth with a new artifact trinket slot but instead they convinced me that continuing to pay for the game was pointless.
In the words of the great prophet Yahtzee,
"FOCUS ON THE PRIMARY GAMEPLAY LOOP"
By playing so much League of Angels footage in the background the video itself almost ended up suffering from feature creep. By the end I couldn't concentrate on what was being said because of the overwhelming amount of stuff, bling, pop-ups and glitter going on on the screen :P
This is why I like how you can start playing Classic WoW and have fun, compared to Black Desert, where you need to understand the (incoherent) UI, the systems and professions.
holy shit i never knew how much i needed to see this video until right this moment in time. i could never quite properly put into words my distaste for ffxiv around new expansions, it happened in stormblood and its happening to me now in endwalker where i just can NOT enjoy the game, everybody is so happy go lucky farming new dungeons and instances for gear when we know for a literal fact at the end of the expansion they will release far easier to obtain, far higher statted sets that will vastly outstrip what there is now. this is not "endgame grind" its just fucking "grind" and i am going to repost this video like 100 times to my friends lol thaaaank you for this gem!!
{edit}: i was so flustered listening to this vid the first time around i hadnt even realized i just typed that paragraph in a rushed mess of gibberish but about everything you said after the WoW analogy applies to ffxiv and i could not for the life of me explain that to people because i felt it so much more than others seemed to. it was especially worse (and seemingly coincidental) it happened with almost all the classes/jobs that i played as well. every expansion entire jobs were changed, i dont mean "the stuff i liked about those jobs" i mean fkking literally summoner isnt even the same class anymore and as somebody who started the game as a bard and astrologian i can tell you almost every change thats occurred with those classes since launch. the game is entirely unreliable for me to play, its unenjoyable having the very fabric that my gameplay rests on be torn apart every single expansion or hell sometimes they cant even wait because from patch to patch you get mini shifts. ill never forget one of the first major patches that happened right after i decided to start playing again after 3 years break was the removal of certain unnecessary mats and mat qualities because the devs "decided" (aka finally had to admit) there was literally just too much crap in the game, bogging it down. one of the main reasons i quit before was just having piles of "stuff" everywhere no clue what to do with.
i like this series so far. good work
I might be late to the party in the comments here. But as an ex wow player i really enjoyed the way their were rotating their Main System. Yes you progress something what becomes irrelevant after a single expansion. Yet this gives fresh starts to new players without the fear of missing out and lowers necessary maintainance and overwhelming feature creep for exsisting veterans. Imagine what a clusterfuck it would be if you had to keep your Garrison from WoD, your Weapon from Legion, your Neck from BfA all up to date or how awkward it would be to always have to travel back to keep up your garisson even if they didn't rotate it out.
A way better example for feature creep in a Game which does not make you pay for Gameplay (but heavily for cosmetics) is Path of Exile, where each new League brings a new mechanic and way to man of those league mechanics get taken over into the core game resulting in hundreds of different upgrade materials, game mechanics and such being present.
That was very informative. Thanks!
Oh lawdy, watching that League of Angels footage gives me so much anxiety.
"Are there features in FF14 that dont assist the gameplay loop?"
"Do you get Glamour from it?"
"Yes!"
"Then no. Glamour and Housing is the true Gameplay Loop of this game! Everything else is just a means to achieve Glamours or Housing Items!"'
This is actually the best way to make an MMO, in my opinion at least. But I also have reason to say this, because of WoW. Artifact weapons and Heart of Azeroth were technically speaking the same. They were Items you upgraded by grinding and getting higher numbers gave you more options.
So why did people absolutely love the Artifact Weapons and removing them made the Forums explode with player disaprovement, while the Heart of Azeroth was not liked at all and noone cried a single tear losing it? Why dont people like the new system in Shadowland?
Because the Artifact Weapons made you look cool and upgrading them gave you more options to look cool.
Unlocking hard to reach traits didnt just give you more numbers, it gave you a visual change to show off. And people loved it, because poeple love to have a cool looking character. Tier sets would have never been so popular if they were just invisible items or looked like ugly rugs. They were popular because on top of giving you abilities, they looked cool.
Honestly, whenever you dont know how to reward players for anything, give them something thats absolutely useless but makes them look cooler. Professions in WoW could be super popular if they gave you special Transmog Items, just for an example.
I think it has more to do with the story investment with the artifacts, which is ruined when you just throw them away at the start of the next expansion because there are better stats.
Man, that league of angels game really feels *exactly* like the inside of a casino, with the flashing lights, garish colors rapidly oscillating, and numbers flashing everywhere... I don't think it's a coincidence.
It's not. It's called "Hot Time" or something like that where your senses are overloaded so you can't critically think and instantly turn into panic mode. And while you're panicking and can't process complex thoughts, you're told to spend money. It's extremely effective and is all over mobile games. It also exists in games like Candy Crush when you die and are instantly hit with "pay money to keep going." You instantly click before processing that you've just spent X amount of money.
I'd say that having a deep stat system, like elemental resistances as you mentioned, can be great. Vanilla WoW comes to mind-- frost resistance and nature resistance gear were necessary and tied to the experience for Naxx. It didn't impact 95% of the playerbase but it gave endgame raiders something else to work towards.
The stat squish was needed but imo only for the numbers. The amount of stats were personally far more fun than having 3 stats: Primary, secondary and HP.
Wow! I'm making an mmorpg and knowing what not to do really helps out, thanks so much!
You nailed WoW to the wall.
It's undeniable feature bloat and such is a thing, but I think how you defined it here actually has some serious flaws in regards to the MMO industry. You defined an MMO by its combat, exp, leveling, etc. But for many it's much more than that. Using the example you did of WoW, it actually was trying to follow the guidance you gave in this video, that all content should tie into the core. it's something they have stressed for years, and I can say for all those I know it is what chased us away. The example I'll never forget in regards to garrisons was Ion talking about how they didn't see the value in adding anything that wasn't tied to the core gameplay of raiding and loot. Despite the fact housing has been deeply requested for years, and in every MMO with housing it's an incredibly popular feature, even if it has no purpose towards gearing and player power, in fact that's optimal. So blizzard made garrisons as, in Ions own words "Wow's version of housing". That was what killed it. It poisoned the well of housing and gearing both. If instead it had been its own system, divorced from gearing and raiding it would have made so many happy, and had no negative impact upon the health of the raiding and gearing loop and ecosystem. Love these videos, but wanted to point out the way this one is worded and formatted feels off, especially in the face of a genre where the variety of content often is its greatest strength, not a singular laser focus. MMO's are big, and varied, and that is apart of the appeal. Think it is more a line to be walked than a simple good or bad.
I think the issue there is a misunderstanding of what the gameplay loop is-because mmos, _especially_ ones with a strong roleplay element, apply to a broad range of interests, and are therefore catering to not a single core gameplay loop but multiple. For a lot of people, their personal game loop revolved a lot more on roleplaying and socializing in a communal way than WoW provided much support for.
Developers are technically not the ones who decide what the core gameplay loop of an MMO is. Once the game has already been made, it's up to the market to figure out which loops stand out among other MMOs, which ones have communities, etc.
It's very hard for a developer to say "no we don't want people to play that, THIS is the core loop" and actually succeed.
When you are watching this video but you get an ad for a seven deadly sins mobile game 0. 0
2:40 I would say that "Rolling" is pretty key to Darksouls seeing as Rolling *Is* the combat. XD
I might be the only player who thinks like this but Trouble Brewing is at its core great piece of content in Oldschool Runescape. I have participated in a couple of clan-run Trouble Brewing competitions and let me tell you it's up there with Castle Wars and If only they ironed out some of the mechanics and features -- especially the rewards -- it would attract more players and become overall a much more fun experience.
Feature creep sounds like when I got into dungeon fighter online and how it eventually sacrificed combo attacks for just aoeing everything to death with massive damage numbers because they were 'too hard'
Bro im new subscriber btw. Can you add some subtitles? Even english will do. I'm not demanding you or anything, i just want to suggest it to you. Your writing are actually good of quality.
I can try. The closed captions youtube generates are usually quite good, have you tried those? :)
@@JoshStrifeHayes that's the best joke I've ever heard on youtube.
trouble brewing isn’t useless - it’s the fastest teleport to cave horrors :^)
World of Warcraft in a nutshell, why "Classic" was such a success tbh
This feels like it was completely describing the current state and problem of warframe sadly.
8:42 ffxiv has a similar-ish problem with relic weapons each expansion, although they are kept somewhat relevant by being very pretty weapons, so even if there is no power incentive to do old relics, there may be a fashion incentive still.
Relic weapons exist first for the glam. They're great for BiS for half an expansion. However, I'd say the issue with FFXIV is grindy, horrific content islands like Bozja and Eureka. They're fine on their own, but when you tie in relic weapon and dyeable af gear to them, then you have a real problem. You're forcing casual and hardcore players alike to run honestly terrible content to obtain the most iconic, lore-accurate gear in the game. The playerbase constantly whines about how actually mentally taxing this is -- A VIDEO GAME SHOULD NEVER BE MENTALLY TAXING. _Especially_ by design. But 0.01% of players begged for the grind, and now the rest 99.9% of us have to pay. Especially with those 0.01% being content creators with very high influence *cough* ZeplaHQ *cough.*
this is how I feel about seasons in destiny 2
This inspire me that not only game system, every system are like this and explain why they are all going down hill in the end.
The creep in WoW is in the maij game loop. Main game loop is run story-RAID/Mythic/PVP-Loot. So the gear and garrisons is part of the core loop. Wow is a little more complicated as it is loops inside of loops.
I still think that "depth not width" is one of the best ways to approach game design. There's exceptions, sure.
But a few really intricate mechanics is so much more engaging than a bunch of shallow ones
additional features should support the core gameplay loop, a useful and sumple rule, I like it.
6:00 the only way i see a vastly better spell like this existing would be if the much better spell was much harder to get, for example if both healing spells are acquired in the main story the better one is way at the end
this just screams Warframe. 20 resources that work exactly the same way, content islands all over the place, and content that even the developers have forgotten about
Seeing this only now, but gluttony describes what happened to Guild Wars 2 high level / "endgame" content. Bloated and massive resource farming for endgame items; they have similar things like a camp (housing?) system like WoW, yet fast-paced overthrown since it's tied to (temporal) story content; changings in the fighting systems which blows out (important) boons or mechanics, like in 2019 when they turned the Mesmer upside down, just to end where they started minus the boon sharing Chronomancer, completely blow up the implemented raid strategies by the community at that time.
Even Warframe is less crammed than Guild Wars 2 in terms of ressources varation and needs. I tried several times to come back but was blown away where I stopped.
Thanks for describing and giving words to what was the case for me leaving GW2 forever.
That Dark Souls clip threw me. Huge health and stamina, no damage and Estus +2. Shenanigans, bro.
always nice to see my game in these videos... its the only one i recognize excluding wow. all the others might as well be one game cause i cant tell the difference.
The biggest problem with the Battle for Azeroth necklace is that it's a necklace. It does not modify your character's appearance.
Legion artifacts are at least still slightly relevant to go back and work on because they are cool appearances that you can apply to your new weapons, and there are a bunch of alternate hidden appearances that you unlock by doing various things throughout Legion.
And Garrisons were at least cool because it was cool to get a stable or battle pet house to show off your favorite mounts and pets, and you had your own private place in WoW to chill out.
The Heart of Azeroth blows chunks, and Shadowblands was even worse. At least Dragon Flying is somewhat interesting because it's at the very least fun.
I wish you would have put like a text or whatever saying what game is in the backround xD
"You know you have attained perfection not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to remove."
i agree, difficulty does not equal complexity, difficulty does not equal bigger numbers, difficulty does equal how hard a goal is to achieve and avoiding the overinflation of either of those previously mentioned options is usually balance.
Makes me think about Path of Exile. Over the years the game has added tons of optional systems and minigames, some of which are weirdly complicated, but two things make it work for me:
1. Nothing pops up on your screen, all the subsystems are localized to specific areas and easy to walk past if you don't want to use them.
2. Everything boils down to variations on, "Kill stronger enemies to get stronger items." And just knowing this you can get through most of the systems fine.
Edit: two more things.
3. It introduces the new systems slowly, over the course of 10 acts, so new players don't have to worry about them at the start.
4. All the systems scale with your level at roughly the same rate, meaning nothing is totally obsolete.
I'm surprised you didn't mention Warframe and Path of Exile. I know they're generally well liked, but holy crap do those two games have some insane years of feature creep piled up on top of them
I have not finished this series yet but i can probably say right now that league of angels has all of the 7 sins at the same time
Now that I've been reminded I used to play league of Angels a while ago before Facebook game room was pretty much redundant because flash player died. And now that I'm thinking about it the reason why I probably didn't play a lot is probably because there was just too much going on and it was hard to understand. The designs of the characters were really pretty but that was really it. There was nothing to really keep me playing.
there's another term for what you are describing in this video : "Planned Obsolescence"
League of angels pop ups are insane, holy crap.
League of Angels looks like a Slot Machine display to me with all those lights and bright colours. Kind of defines everything I dislike about 'spectacle fighters.'
I felt overwhelmed when I tried to come back to Guild Wars 2 after being away for 3 and a half years.
I heard the words "Designed to become outdated" and went "Awh fuck, He's gonna talk about wow isn't he"
And before he got to it I got this internal monologue: "You know, Classic's professions actually DO something for high end players... and we aren't expected to do something grand by ourselves like raise a whole fucking city from the ground. Solo content is quests, and then you go to raid. The features reflect the design philosophy. Retail requires you to interact with its systems and solo content well past 70 just to stay relevant even if those systems are despised and rejected."
Hihiii, this is so much borrowed power in World of Warcraft, love it! :D endgame = toss in some random resource grind that's outpaced instantly by the next expansion launch.
I can understand it's easier to make than actual content, but I really wish they'd at least try - we don't need layers of grind, vanilla reputation or basic currency was enough.
Just spend the time adding new world events or quests instead, or something - anything. I miss class quests :D
So, I find your channel recently after seeing a few random "Worst MMO ever" videos,
I find this specific collection, and I'm I'm like "oooh, this looks interesting!"
I love being able to just have a playlist of things to listen to, as I play my own games, and it looks like a lot of your stuff hits the spot, So yes, new subscriber here,
As I'm listening to this video in particular, I'm finding a lot of similarities to the game Im currently playing; Warframe.
I've never heard the term "feature creep " before, but boy does this sound akin to what I'm playing now,
I started playing Warframe when Railjack was brand new, and after a while dropped out of it due to life stuff,
Every attempt I made to get back into my old game just... it was too much! I was too high a lv, everything was no killing me,
and the whole experience was just frustrating, after losing so much gameplay knowledge, I felt like I wanted to start the game fresh,
so, new email, new account, new fresh game, this time with a different control system, (controller vs keyboard,)
While I've been learning new things while relearning old things, the concept of... just so much involvement with this game,
I'm no where near my previous lv yet, bc a lot of things are just time locked, or behind experience lvs, Mastery rank, ect,
Theres so many more things that I've missed over a year, more warframes of course, but now there's more factions,
more open worlds, more mods and weapons and guns than you can shake a stick at, I'm doing research just to find out that
certain items I may be looking for are now locked behind other avenues that weren't there before, Where once Railjack was just
an interesting space pirate ship design to play with friends, has not become a whole new 'meta' endgame system in itself,
Like DE purposefully put special/powerful things behind only playing Railjack, Maybe thats a different sin altogether,
My point is, I'm noticing a lot of newer things, and while I do enjoy playing fresh and solo, it feels like there will be some
lvs or aspects that will be completely beyond me without a specific Warframe or build, which may be near impossible, idk,
Thats at least, what it feels like for me now, It feels like a lot of feature creep in Warframe,
Keep up the great work, love listening to your videos, it's better than most Warframe videos focusing too hard on meta,
I always said that WoW should find a way to make a cross expansion Glyph/Talent system that lets you pick a number of Minor, Moderate and Major abilities that you could pick from a pool of abilities that you'd unlock after getting them normally from the various borrowed power systems in each expansion (Garrisons, Order Halls, Artifact and Relics Powers, Azerite or Heart of Azeroth Powers, Covenant or Soulbind Abilities)
at least this way the main gameplay loop can return back to "adventure and gain experience" in a manner of sense
Hearthstone Has both Gluttony and Greed Sins.
I feel his with guild wars 2. I got it when it came out played for about a year and took 2 years off or so. Came back and character progression was totally different.
watching that League of Angels gameplay hurt my brain
i think Feature Bloat may have been one of the major factors for Rift's downfall. As far as the core mechanic for gameplay building options, it was great. You only had four classes, but they each had 8 subclasses that you could swap between rather easily on the fly. Which had the benefit that you only really needed to grind gear for four characters. But they kept adding new subclasses that honestly outshined others. The physician for rogue was added late into it, and made most other single target healers seem inferior, for example. It's core method of progression and ability growth just, got bloated.
This is the problem that associate deeply with the phrase "They keep thinking on how to do it, but never stop to think on should they do it?"
That clip from League of Angels was painful to watch, must feel more like having a virus on your PC with the hundreds of pop-ups you're trying to close to find your anti-virus program.
i agree with most of what you say in the video but i will say that adding minigames to MMOs isn't always bad a thing. sometimes it could just be added as a fun distraction for players. I Think the Gold Saucer in FF14 is a great example of mini games being added to MMO correctly
I have to agree the gold saucer is fantastic because its not outclassed or out dated, its just relevant, fun content...
Except the jumping puzzles.
That league of angels screen is more poluted when entering the worst websites full of trojan popus without any adblocks
ESO simp here, back again! ESO's UI is not only very simple and easy to explore and understand, open API -supported Addons also allow you to start with the almost non-existent combat UI and only add the features you feel you need.
Top scorepushers might have a crowded UI because they want as many metrics as possible to try to tune their performance. Personally as pre-trifecta player I just like to cluster my 3 resources and my DoT timers on the left side of my character. I also have some group ult coordination indicators when in group trials, and a couple popup text reminders above my head for potions and ults. I've managed to actually shrink the vanilla group member list.
Hard to beat a minimalist UI where you start with the minimum viable coverage and can add whatever you feel you need.
See this shit right here is why I feel obligated to create an MMO. The only MMO I still enjoy playing is OSRS, I had played Elder Scrolls Online before, but I got tired of its timegating mechanics, also I was permanently annoyed by its cash shop. Thus, I'm taking a careful look at all the things I do like in games I play and am writing down a design document of what I believe would make the perfect game for me.
Also, it is truly amazing how Oldschool Runescapes insanely simple systems with their flaws give rise to more complex things naturally. Like how the tilebased nature and limited monster pathing gives rise to mastering the skill of safespotting. How the game only updating once every 0.6 seconds gives rise to the skillcategory of tick manipulation and how all of those things are insanely hard to master. It is something I truly respect.
The 7 Deadly sins of... is a uh. Unique idea. I'd like to see the 7 deadly sins of collectible card games design.
This actually makes me think of Destiny 2. It feels so giant and ever changing that even though i bought literally all the dlc and the season passes, i’ve hardly ever gotten the energy to actually play them. I just can’t bring myself to dive into that absolute pile of shit to do
Oh yea, the deal with pretty much any World of Warcrafts features unavoidably becoming outdated at some point is what made me switch over to Final Fantasy 14. The last straw was the Lvl Squish ...