Hello I am Zac, i'm normally into gaming, computers, and tech in general, but the past year cryptocurrency has taken over my life. I am heavily trying to become a day trader, but for now I like to swing trade. Today I want to talk about MMORPG's, the state that their in, and what I want to see in future MMORPG's.
The first on my wish list is something I just cannot make it past. Its the holy trinity, or some form of. I think its very important to have Holy Trinity or some way to have reliance on teammates. With Classes that have no reliability on other Classes, it tends to make people play selfishly, whether it be DPS trying to get the highest damage at the expense of other teammates health (Example: Not breaking his/her rotation to save a squishy character), or damage output (Example: Not breaking his/her rotation on the boss to kill mobs). Holy trinity is a great way to keep players playing as a team and communicating. Healer Dies, everyone dies. Tank Dies, Healer Dies, everyone Dies. DPS dies, boss enrages, everyone Dies. Look at a common shooters like Call of Duty. Its constant dying and re-spawning, even in a team death match, there is generally no teamwork. Games like Guild Wars (which I have not played) I understand its about dodge moves and sustaining your own health. Although that game may be great, I think the teamwork aspect is very important in an RPG.
The second item on my wish list is targeting. Targeting in a game like WoW has always been a burden. To be upfront, I started playing during vanilla WoW up until Cataclysm playing the hardest raids at the time and placing #2 top Druid Tank on my realm. The reason I am stating this isn't to brag, but to show I wasn't a newbie. Just think, can you raid in WoW with zero addons? Not a chance. Now I prefer hard or soft targeting. For those who don't know what I mean, hard targeting would require you to aim your spells or weapons yourself with your mouse. There are not many games out there that do this. The second type I prefer is soft targeting. This would be in games like ESO and Tera where you have to aim near your target and your spells or weapons would find their way to the target. The reason I find this to be a big deal comes down to one word. Immersion. Tab targeting in my opinion ruins immersion. You can hit targets that are up to 89 degrees to your left or right out of your field of view.
Next on my MMORPG wish list is the view or camera angle. Have you ever played a game where its 1st person only and can't hide behind a wall while looking around it at an enemy. Now, imagine playing PvP in an MMORPG where you hear enemies running by while your hiding behind a wall. Or, your face to face in a melee with someone who is trying to take you out instead of being zoomed out 300% where you can see the entire town. Which brings me to my next point. It is definitely easy to see enemies coming from behind you when your zoomed out in 3rd person, but wheres the fun in that? Wouldn't it be more exciting to be snuck up on or have to place your teammates to watch each others backs? How about fighting a giant boss in 1st person making you feel much smaller. Wouldn't that be pretty rewarding when your team takes the boss out? One way to solve this could be you automatically enter 1st person when engaged in combat.
Let's talk about levels. One reason I quit playing WoW was the expansions. Getting to max level, lets say 60, then they release an expansion and all that gear is officially vendor junk. All the work you put it in to get to max level, all the time, and all the pain was just reset. Now, you have 10 more levels to go, then you have to raid your butt off to get the best gear again. Don't forget, once you do, there's another expansions or content update coming out to get you again. I get it, content is good so whats our options? Well lets get rid of levels! I know what your thinking "how on earth would that work"? Easy.....Ready?..... Star Wars Galaxies. I did not play this game when it was out and I only played it very little after, but I am infatuated with the mechanics. For those who don't know, there aren't any levels. Instead you have professions. The gist of it is this. You want to be a rifleman? Use your rifle. When you use your rifle, you earn skill points and can spend those to unlock the next tier in rifleman making your character better. This works for all Classes (professions). It makes total sense to me. You want to become a great rifleman you use your rifle a lot. Duh. So why didn't this game work out? Well you can google the drama. Basically they released a very very very crappy expansion.
Now to one of the things I hate the worst. That's right...Pay to win. I understand the devs need to get paid, but for heavens sake can we please keep it to cosmetic items only and YES XP boosts ARE P2W.
To conclude this post, I would like to share some other ideas or thoughts I have. Story cannot be excluded. I will say it again. Story cannot be excluded. A good story goes a long way and I will tell you why. I am not a story kinda guy. Never got into it, but games like ESO, SWTOR, and Metal Gear 2 (I know not an MMO, but it is RPG) sucked me right in. I find myself playing boring content just to find out the story. The best one I can think of is the storyline on the Voss planet of SWTOR. The next thing that comes to my mind is Professions. This ones easy, copy Black Desert Online. Man oh man if BDO was a holy trinity with dungeons I wouldn't have a life right now.
For my final piece dungeons and raids are fun. ESO does this very well. BDO not so much. I like fighting my way to a boss not just reading a paper on a beach and spawning one. If they are costly and time consuming to make I, and many other people don't mind if you charge a subscription. It weeds out the crappy "F2P" games.
This concludes my thoughts. I really had to get them off my chest. There are so many "almost great" MMORPGs and so many waste of time MMORPGS out there. I know this is long, so if you made it this far I really appreciate you reading this. If you like it please upvote it. If you have additional ideas or disagree with something I said leave a comment. Thanks for reading.