Is there too much hand holding?

[Zavon]

Every new MMO that comes out seems to have the same damn complaints for things like "no group finder", or "need dual specs plz".

I can't help but wonder if we have all just become way too coddled. I suspect (e.g. The d3 thread) that a lot of the " inconveniences" we faced as gamers historically, made the experience of the games more rewarding.

Also I sincerely believe that it has also spoiled the new mmo'er.

Thoughts?

[VKhaun]

I think a person's opinion on this comes from how 'open' a game is. DAoC was fine with no hand holding because you could wander. You could level on blues if you found them easily pulled/camped, yellows if you had an edge to reduce downtime, or you could level on oranges if they fit well with what you could counter (like ranged mobs you interrupt with your own ranged). There were times I leveled on greens that were super easy because of my class (Trees by Galpen vs 2h axe XD) and times when a friend and I could take on reds one at a time.

In a modern and linear themepark MMO where you level by quests 20x faster than mob killing you just hit brick walls. A boss you can't beat, a thing you can't find, an area where you have horrific downtime because the enemies are your perfect counter, etc. In that situation you can's just go do something else and you really need all your group find features and extras to help people along, otherwise anyone who gets stuck anywhere on anything now thinks your game is bad. You funneled them there, and then they at least believe that didn't give them any way to progress. The more linear your game, the more commonly that'll happen.

[Boxy Brown]

I agree. I miss the days where you'd sit in the forest killing boars, and when those no longer gave you enough XP, you'd move to a higher level camp of boars. Tethers and quest grinding REALLY killed the MMO leveling experience for me. You can't pull 100 mobs in WoW and kite them across the zone because every single fucking mob has a hard tether. Sure, DAoC had soft tethers, where the mob would just stop chasing you, but they didn't EVADE EVADE EVADE and regen to 100% instantly.

Also, people talk about grinding being boring and monotonous and questing being cool and interesting, but in reality it's the exact opposite. Try pulling cook room in DF and kiting all 30 mobs down to diamond entrance xroads while avoiding additional aggro and panning for realm enemies and you'll see just which leveling style is monotonous and boring. Seriously, you can't exactly go from chain pulling BAFing trees and liches and having to throw down at least 2 types of CC so you can kite to one-at-a-timing Red Bandana Thieves because you need to collect 20 of their toenail clippings for some bitch's stew.

[Alex Mars]

Dual spec is the sign of a badly designed game, not hand holding, your spec should be viable under all conditions. Group finders are needed under certain conditions based on population spread and zone design and have nothing to do with hand holding, for example the last time I played wow there were very few players in the sub-max level band (as in I had Stranglethorn Vale all to myself, I was the only player in the zone, but I did get all the herb nodes), you needed a cross server group finder to get a group for any dungeon run.

Boxy, you are a fucking shit brained moron and you need to pull your head out of your ass and either grow up or shut the fuck up. Different people like different things, and frankly I suspect than anything you like I would find absolutely worthless and moronic.

[Sillywilly]

LOL Alex you need to get some pussy man.

I agree with the hand holding. The MMO genre is struggling right now because after WoW the majority of the MMO population is morons and kids and if you give morons and kids what they want they will hate it.

The MMO genre right now is made up of these people who bitch about how hard it is to find a quest item and that there should be an arrow pointing the way, then they complain about how boring the game is because all you're doing is "following an arrow around for fed-ex quests". They complain about a "grind" and and that it took them a whole 3 weeks to hit level 50 in The Old Republic , they burn through 20 epic raids in 2 weeks with their loser group of unemployed aspergers kids, then complain about there being nothing to do at endgame.

Apparently MMO developers are under the impression that the MMO genre is like being a democrat, that if you cater to all the loudest minorities you can generate massive support. But it doesn't work that way in an MMO. All the easy mode and hand holding is taking away the challenge and the fun.

[Valec]

Dual spec is the sign of a badly designed game, not hand holding, your spec should be viable under all conditions. Group finders are needed under certain conditions based on population spread and zone design and have nothing to do with hand holding, for example the last time I played wow there were very few players in the sub-max level band (as in I had Stranglethorn Vale all to myself, I was the only player in the zone, but I did get all the herb nodes), you needed a cross server group finder to get a group for any dungeon run.

Boxy, you are a fucking shit brained moron and you need to pull your head out of your ass and either grow up or shut the fuck up. Different people like different things, and frankly I suspect than anything you like I would find absolutely worthless and moronic.

You're just a condescending old fuck. You don't really care that people like different things, unless it's the different things you like. Fuck off with your obnoxious attitude and grow up. Go play whatever the fuck you're playing now and be quiet about it. Nobody else likes what you like.

[Sillywilly]

You're just a condescending old fuck. You don't really care that people like different things, unless it's the different things you like. Fuck off with your obnoxious attitude and grow up. Go play whatever the fuck you're playing now and be quiet about it. Nobody else likes what you like.

Jeebus you need to go get some dude booty man.

[Andile™]

Apparently MMO developers are under the impression that the MMO genre is like being a democrat, that if you cater to all the loudest minorities you can generate massive support.

Not true. The industry caters to everyone. I hear Teabaggers Online launch is only delayed as they made it Free2Protest.

[Alex Mars]

While there are a lot of players who are dumb as rocks, part of what is perceived as hand holding is actually a result of developer incompetence.

Back in old LotRO the quests had directions but no map indicators of any sort, you had to search for your objective based on directions like "to the north" or "somewhere near the monument to Fred" or some such. Unfortunately the players became frustrated because a quest objective that was described as "to the north" was found to the north, but it was also significantly off to the east, in many cases far further to the east than it was to the north. Knowing that the devs were too stupid to give proper directions (honestly, if you were Fred the Farmer and you wanted me to find your prize pig, wouldn't you mention that I should go north and east?) we would have to search in a wide zig zag path. Part of not needing on-map objective locators is being having developers capable of writing a decent set of clues to follow.

[Sillywilly]

While there are a lot of players who are dumb as rocks, part of what is perceived as hand holding is actually a result of developer incompetence.

Back in old LotRO the quests had directions but no map indicators of any sort, you had to search for your objective based on directions like "to the north" or "somewhere near the monument to Fred" or some such. Unfortunately the players became frustrated because a quest objective that was described as "to the north" was found to the north, but it was also significantly off to the east, in many cases far further to the east than it was to the north. Knowing that the devs were too stupid to give proper directions (honestly, if you were Fred the Farmer and you wanted me to find your prize pig, wouldn't you mention that I should go north and east?) we would have to search in a wide zig zag path. Part of not needing on-map objective locators is being having developers capable of writing a decent set of clues to follow.

So sorry gang but I gotta agree with Alex on this one. Developers in their very limited life and educational experiences are essentially good for 2 things: Coming up with nerdgasmic plots and coding. (not so much coding it seems sometimes but you know.....)

The typical developer is absolutely fucking horrible at giving directions or anything else organizational related. I hated to see LotRO go to "easy mode" with the directional arrow but for fuck sake some of the directions given in that game were butt ass horrible. Like Alex said "north of here" when here was somewhere at the bottom of the map pretty much meant any area within a 150 degree wide cone area north of where you were.

This hand holding scheme pretty much came from the fact that developers have no attention to detail and thus are horrible at descriptions/directions.

[Marou]

So sorry gang but I gotta agree with Alex on this one. Developers in their very limited life and educational experiences are essentially good for 2 things: Coming up with nerdgasmic plots and coding. (not so much coding it seems sometimes but you know.....)

The typical developer is absolutely fucking horrible at giving directions or anything else organizational related. I hated to see LotRO go to "easy mode" with the directional arrow but for fuck sake some of the directions given in that game were butt ass horrible. Like Alex said "north of here" when here was somewhere at the bottom of the map pretty much meant any area within a 150 degree wide cone area north of where you were.

This hand holding scheme pretty much came from the fact that developers have no attention to detail and thus are horrible at descriptions/directions.

So, I'm playing DDO again as I'm prone to doing for a month here or there once or twice a year and every time I play it it's even further from the concept of "streamlining" and idiot proofing. Everything is complex, sometimes irritatingly so, but as a result customizable as hell. I think most people that have played it long term play it like people used to play Diablo 2 back in the day. Getting a completely esoteric build that should never work in a million years to solo raid content, or micromanaging every aspect of itemization, feats, attributes, and multi-classing to make their favorite quirky character concept effective in all content, or even min/maxxing a standard build to peaks of effectiveness that approach rediculous. It's a very different experience considering so many companies doing away with talent trees, attribute allocations, etc.

They give pre-defined "paths" you can choose for a character that auto-allocate everything and roll a basic toon in a generic role, but where is the RPG in that? It's all about customization and developing your own playstyle.

[Alex Mars]

I really hate what they did to WoW talents, I used to build my characters using 2 trees to get what I wanted, sometimes never taking one tree to max so I could spread out more. However, we must remember that a lot of players are bone stupid and cannot think their way out of a wet paper conundrum. I mean, come on, how often did you hear people whining in chat that they couldn't find some quest objective in the orc starting area in WoW? You see the same thing happening in software that has to be useable by Joe and Joan Sixpack, the developers take out any confusing options and replace them with autoconfiguration because they know that most end users are too stupid to think. Face it, those of us who know a hawk from a handsaw are in the minority these days.

[Draconian]

Face it, those of us who know a hawk from a handsaw are in the minority these days.

People used to saw things by hand?

[Boxy Brown]

Boxy, you are a fucking shit brained moron and you need to pull your head out of your ass and either grow up or shut the fuck up. Different people like different things, and frankly I suspect than anything you like I would find absolutely worthless and moronic.

Woah, slow your role, Father Time; you're going to give yourself an aneurysm.

First off, you probably would find anything I like worthless and moronic, in much the same way that I think most of the stuff you grew up with is old and outdated, like ragtime music or horse-drawn carriages. Anyway, I'm certainly sorry you feel the way you do. All I did was state the aspects of a certain type of gameplay that I like and compare them to the aspects of a type that I don't like. I'm not sure how that warrants that kind of attack, but who knows, maybe you just had a bad run of luck at Bingo night with the rest of the living dead at the retirement home. I was also responding to VK about what I feel the shortcomings of the quest based leveling system are, and expressing my frustration that I can't level the way that I want to in modern MMOs. I'm not exactly sure how I'm failing to recognize that different people like different things with any of that. In fact, at no point in that post did I even reference the types of people who like the style that I don't like. Sounds to me like you're the one passing judgments on people who like different things than you. But hey, what else can I realistically expect from someone who grew up during slavery? Also, I should grow the fuck up? Why? So I can be like you? So that someone saying they like things a certain way, while not condemning the people who like to do things differently, can set me off so I call them a "fucking shit brained moron?" If that's your idea of maturity, then I think I'm good here. I'd tell you to fuck off and die alone while you wait for your grandchildren to call, but I'm not that vindictive, so I'll just say enjoy your remaining years instead.

[Draconian]

[Marou]

Woah, slow your role, Father Time; you're going to give yourself an aneurysm.

First off, you probably would find anything I like worthless and moronic, in much the same way that I think most of the stuff you grew up with is old and outdated, like ragtime music or horse-drawn carriages. Anyway, I'm certainly sorry you feel the way you do. All I did was state the aspects of a certain type of gameplay that I like and compare them to the aspects of a type that I don't like. I'm not sure how that warrants that kind of attack, but who knows, maybe you just had a bad run of luck at Bingo night with the rest of the living dead at the retirement home. I was also responding to VK about what I feel the shortcomings of the quest based leveling system are, and expressing my frustration that I can't level the way that I want to in modern MMOs. I'm not exactly sure how I'm failing to recognize that different people like different things with any of that. In fact, at no point in that post did I even reference the types of people who like the style that I don't like. Sounds to me like you're the one passing judgments on people who like different things than you. But hey, what else can I realistically expect from someone who grew up during slavery? Also, I should grow the fuck up? Why? So I can be like you? So that someone saying they like things a certain way, while not condemning the people who like to do things differently, can set me off so I call them a "fucking shit brained moron?" If that's your idea of maturity, then I think I'm good here. I'd tell you to fuck off and die alone while you wait for your grandchildren to call, but I'm not that vindictive, so I'll just say enjoy your remaining years instead.

-5 points for attempting high ground rebuttal.

[Boxy Brown]

-5 points for attempting high ground rebuttal.

Not really a whole lot of places I can come from when someone yells at me from a hole in the ground.

[Zavon]

Not really a whole lot of places I can come from when someone yells at me from a hole in the ground.

The mature thing to do, would have been to not reply at all.







Get it? Mature?

[Norska]

What about screaming obscenities at him? That's mature, right?

[Andile™]

What about screaming obscenities at him? That's mature, right?

You don't want to promote that kind of behaviour. Not with them Norskies around.

[Marou]

Not really a whole lot of places I can come from when someone yells at me from a hole in the ground.

Your attempted "high ground rebuttal" failed because it was laced with extreme passive aggressiveness. If you want to pull off such a thing convincingly you have to strip all of the venom out of your post. Also, you had a good point that you should have defended and made your high ground.

That is, that games used to let you just wander around and do whatever you wanted out of a big list of potential activities to advance. Now you ride the train to each different little section of the park and do exactly what the tour guide tells you to do. As a result modern games are way less social and everything is a harried rush from place to place. It's about 100 times less enjoyable much of the time than just sitting on hill, claiming it for Spain, and earning 2-3 levels with your pals. It *is* more enjoyable than farming mobs solo with large downtime, but doing that was a choice; not a requirement. Sometimes you didn't want to deal with people and that was the path that enabled it.

[Alex Mars]

That is, that games used to let you just wander around and do whatever you wanted out of a big list of potential activities to advance.

Well, that isn't really true. You could kill things to advance, and that was it. Depending on your level (and the game) you had certain places you could go to kill things and many that were unsuitable for various reasons. In a given zone you had some camps, and some diffuse spawn areas to hunt in. In DAoC you could get some exp for pvp, but I don't really recall earning that much doing so (of course, I was a healer and fucked by game mechanics and the stupidity of my team mates so it might have been different for non-healers).

As far as pve, as I recall for my high level druid there was one dungeon in Hibernia where there was one hallway where there were worthwhile monsters to fight, I don't recall there being any outdoor hunting areas that were worth my time but it was a long time ago. There was also the pvp dungeon (Darkness Falls?) but it wasn't always open.

EQ1 had a bigger world so there were more zones for a given level to hunt in but even then you had to wait in line for a spot on a camp. In AC1 it was find a camp to kill things or wander around and kill things. I don't see that as offering a huge variety of advancement activities.

In any case, there is nothing stopping you from wandering around killing things in camps or open field in WoW, RIFT, SWTOR, or any other theme park game. In all these games they even offer rest exp to make it more rewarding to randomly hunt critters, so I am not really sure why I see all the complaints about modern MMOs limiting your choices. No one is holding a crossbow to your head and forcing you to quest.

[VKhaun]

In any case, there is nothing stopping you from wandering around killing things in camps or open field in WoW, RIFT, SWTOR, or any other theme park game. In all these games they even offer rest exp to make it more rewarding to randomly hunt critters, so I am not really sure why I see all the complaints about modern MMOs limiting your choices. No one is holding a crossbow to your head and forcing you to quest.

There was nothing stopping anyone from leveling on quests in DAoC either...
For a long time they didn't.
Then they did kill tasks.
And then for a while they looked for camp bonuses.
And then for a time they did instance dungeons.
But then for at time, they did do quests.
You see where I'm going with this?

When you tell the player there is a single best way to level up (quests in a theme park) then give them barriers without 'hand holding' sooner or later any given average gamer is going to hit a barrier they can't pass and when they do they don't want to be told to go do something for far less EXP just because 'rest xp makes it more rewarding'. They want to continue playing the way they were, the way they perceive the game is meant to be played.

You can certainly have an opinion on how much hand holding you do or don't like, but any online game needs to hold a population and that means you can't let every challenge cost you players when someone inevitably gets frustrated. Even the best gamers overlook something, make a mistake, are bad at some part, or simply back themselves into a corner with the advancement choices their given. You have to accept some balance of hand holding and the game being easy, or you end up with a niche player base who likes difficulty/depth and no hand holding (TSW/DDO). WoW is still #1 AFAIK.

The only solutions ever presented to make gamers feel challenged and not turn your community into a bunch of whiners were open worlds with lots of ways to get XP where none were considered secondary. That turns going and finding a way of getting XP with the group comp you have into a real adventure rather than painting by numbers and never walls the player. All the theme parking since that model came out has been a step back for the thread topic and has either created gameplay at the expense of lower populations, or created a strong population at the expense of gameplay.

[Ero Elohim]

I can't believe people still think MMOs were more difficult back in the day. More punishing for failure? Yeah. Less coherent? Definitely.

Remember when DAOC first came out? You selected a character based on a brief description of what it did and then you were asked to place some stat points with absolutely no idea what you were doing. Then, you got dropped into a field. The only hint to how you should progress was that you could spin around and see a dozen other people smacking rabbits, so you followed suit. You ignored that this was the stupidest thing you've ever played because it was new and the rabbits made your bar go up, which got you new abilities.

People weren't any smarter back then. More tolerant of bad game design, sure. Instead of having big glowing quest markers and arrows, we had the internet. Catacombs itself was a big source of information. Remember the DAOC Atlas, which gave you maps to all the areas with towns and camps marked? Games incorporated these features because the community adored them.

The one thing that older games did better was foster a community. That's why the new games don't have the charm of the older ones. You're very rarely asked to work with other people and, when you do, you aren't rewarded for it appropriately. It was damn near required in older MMOs to have a ton of friends because, even if the game didn't directly reward it, it meant you had people willing to form groups with you, camp out rare bosses, and swap information. New games, like World of Warcraft, do all that for you. It'll find you a group. It'll provide an instance boss for you. It'll give you all the tooltips, quest markers, and directions you need.

The cancer that's killing the MMO genre isn't that it's getting easier. It's that we used to hold each others' hands instead of the game holding them for us. Bad game design was like a drill sergeant: It treated you like shit so you'd band together against a common enemy. Without that common enemy, we all turn on each other. Hence, MMOs being infested with trolls and brats.

I don't think removing the hand-holding is the answer, though. All that would do is kill the genre as we're all reminded that old MMOs weren't actually much fun to play (and modern MMOs are hardly a step up most of the time.) It was the social aspects that kept us playing. In my opinion, MMOs need to rediscover the MUD/sandbox roots and start empowering the players. Let the players form the enemies and create the content they want to be a part of.

So, too much hand-holding? No. However, the "game" of MMOs used to be organizing the developer's garbage. Now that developers do a much better job of presenting the information to you, there's not much game left. They need to get back to the drawing board and start redesigning the content to accommodate this.

[Alex Mars]

There was nothing stopping anyone from leveling on quests in DAoC either...
For a long time they didn't.

I don't remember being able to level by quests before WoW, there were quests earlier MMOs but the bulk of my exp in DAoC and earlier games came from killing things as far as I can recall. Maybe they added that after I left DAoC but certainly you could not level by quests in the games before that. I wouldn't be surprised if older MMOs added questing after WoW got popular, though.