Dungeons and Raids should NOT be endgame only [MMOPINION]

[@anti-macro]

I think the bigger issue is that MMOs are ever expanding, and if only the latest content is relevant it puts new players further and further away from having those experiences. Because of that, one of the biggest things MMOs can do right is not phasing out older content. I remember thinking I would have to go through hundreds of hours of MSQ in FF14 before I could experience raids, only to find out that I could do Extremes and Coils of Bahamut synced as soon as I finished the base game. Managed to put together a static with random people and every few days we would "prog" content that was 8 years old, which turned out to be one of the best experiences I've had in an MMO despite being nowhere near the actual current endgame.

[@embreis2257]

if 'only the latest content is relevant' then you are playing a badly designed game. it means the developer failed to keep their older content relevant, interesting and rewarding. look for games which do this better, e.g. _Guild Wars 2_

[@SinaelDOverom]

>one of the biggest things MMOs can do right is not phasing out older content And then Bungie outright deletes all the Destiny2's early level content and story including story DLCs people paid for.

[@stawkey9186]

That's why GW2 is so great. Things released 10 years ago are still playable and fun

[@SouthernGuy5423]

@@ILubBLOfficial WoW decided years ago that leveling up was just what you did to get to the good content. Instead of trying to find ways to keep old content interesting and relevant - like FF14 - they made it so easy you can faceroll your way through it... and guess what happens when all the players who are used to facerolling their way through content reach max level? That's right, they want to faceroll their way through that, too. Leveling from 1 to whatever max level currently is should be a training tool, at the very least, to show players what they'll be doing at maximum level. It isn't. Between Heirloom gear, and the fact that old content is dialed down to so easy its silly even in whatever greens and blues you get from quests and dungeon runs, there's hardly any point to even leveling a character anymore, as far as fun is concerned. At least to me. There's a reason ActiBlizz makes so much money off of selling level boosts...

[@balancebreaker1561]

That's because they expand in the wrong way, we are able to split a fucking atom, but you telling me these mfs cant figure out a way to keep gear and old content relevant? The problem with mmos is that all followed the super power stupid formula where the players reach the point they are stronger than the content, what was hard becomes easy, its not just doing a challenge and be happy about it, why not? Why cant we have bosses and adventures, dungeons, all around the world with challenging difficulty and instead of making your character be super powerful why not open new skills, or variations of skills, or new talents, or simply get certain rare mats to make certain armor, or sword, killing a boss, doing a dungeon once or twice doesnt mean that shit has to become fucking easy. New content can be put into the game with similar difficulty than existing content. World will never be irrelevant

[@ignisaer]

City of Heroes had this figured out more than 15 years ago. "Sidekick" (bring lowbies up to high player level) or "Exemplar" (allow high level player to participate in low level content via voluntary nerfs) let players play together instantly, and experience (or re-experience) content far outside their own. This actually led directly into something really interesting: since players had *unique* quest storylines based on their superhero's Origin, they would not experience any of the other Origin storylines without making another character, *OR* voluntarily Exemplaring themselves and helping out other new players through *their* origin storylines.

[@Darkwave10]

Came here to say the exact same thing. Having Task/Strike forces throughout levelling not to even mention being able to scale any mission to the number of players was gold. Combined with SK'ing and whatnot it was so damn good. I really hate that this never became the standard.

[@mag51284]

I miss CoH ;'(

[@Mechazoid5116]

Yeah I feel like 14 did similar and has already solved this to

[@jacobpaige741]

@@mag51284 You can still play it. Just search for City of Heroes Homecoming to find the free fan server.

[@MisterLobb]

That game pioneered so many things that other games added (as a poor knockoff) later

[@n00bnetrum]

FFXIV has noticed this in recent patches. They've been remaking the early dungeons to have actual mechanics like you'd see in a max level dungeon, just a bit slower and easier to dodge.

[@kyuven]

Most of the time it isn't making new mechanics (except the Gaius fight, where he uses mechanics he has in later fights and Emerald Weapon) but rather recoloring/contextualizing old wonky mechanics to better fit with how the same mechanics would appear later down the road. Which is still really good.

[@supertrexandroidx]

You can access dungeons at a very low level in ESO, too. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much it's helping with the whole socializing thing. FFXIV is moving toward making more and more endgame content soloable, and I won't be surprised if ESO eventually follows in it tracks

[@Chymai]

And high level players can usually level sync and play with new players as if they were at the same place!

[@sweatyraider7241]

And they chose to remake the vault brutal 😂

[@Stevemastersreason]

Theres not even one below 50 dungeon with an actual mechanic. You just stomp through every dungeon with zero effort and wall to wall pulls. Ffxiv is the worst example you could come up with.

[@TheInternetHelpdeskPlays]

What I'd really love to see is having to do a dungeon raid as the end of the tutorial partnered with higher level players offering protection and you both have different targets. Then as you hit a higher level, you do a mission where you "rescue" new players from the tutorial dungeon.

[@spunky718]

This was my issue with Lost Ark. All I wanted to do was run dungeons, kill bosses, and get cool loot. Watching ppl play the end game looked so fun. I played probably close to 30 hours and barely experienced any of that before burning out after my 62nd "kill 15 spiders" quest. UGH

[@Rynjinivar]

The bigger issue with Lost Ark is that all the real content seems to be instanced solo shit. It's a Diablo clone amsquerading as an MMO but you CAN'T play with your friends? Cringe.

[@charalamposkallimanis9609]

The things you had to do daily to keep up were very nice at start but repeatitive to bore you to death.

[@Fallenangel_85]

I don't even know if Lost Ark has spiders Oo Most of the questing is running around and pressing G to get through dialogues, killing things is barely 10% of what you need to do for questing. And I'd recommend anyone starting lost Ark, if them have the money to buy at least a North Vern or Punika Powerpass to skip days of questing.

[@dylan__dog]

the end game there is a grindfest, theres so much daily shit to do from the very second you get your ship and the ability to sail around to events and islands

[@Maluuh]

As someone who played lost ark for 880 hours and quit, you're right. I did have LOTS of fun playing with my boyfriend at the time on release and we did manage to get to the levels most of the player base was at, but if it wasn't that superb timing we really wouldn't have the willpower to get to the "good stuff", I just cant get more friends into the game at its current state, the early levels feel so dead and desolate

[@RawBerserker]

Maplestory was great for early level party quests. Not only was it the best way to level, but they were some of the most social aspects of the game. So many buddies were made in the depths of LPQ, and it prepares you a bit for the boss runs later in the game too. Absolutely no reason not to have them in early.

[@zealous404]

Every old school player has some fond memories of PQing no matter what level they're playing at - from waiting at KPQ sewers to abusing DC exploit in moon bunny PQ & 113-221-333-123-111

[@haschwell2757]

Absolutely. PQ's being a huge part in leveling forced me into interacting with other players regularly. MapleStory created a lot of opportunities for social interactions really well.

[@zac-1]

Nexon seems to not like party content outside of bosses lol

[@plaguedoctor5657]

@@haschwell2757 MapleStory Pq’s are legendary. Nothing else was quite like them back in the day. Especially LPQ

[@Sadarac152]

The last few times I played Maple, PQ weren't a big part of it. The first ~100 or so levels were just "aight, to powerlevel you go to this map and fight these till you hit this level then you go here for this level" and so on. Yes PQ existed, but you didn't really do them unless you were playing with friends and they took you on that as a detour because its something cool.

[@dragonsswarm1987]

Early raids and dungeons is a good idea, in pretty much any game, making the early game resemble the late game to hook you on a experience is something known and used, it's a good idea to let a MMO have that same concept built in, MMOs are big games, and players need more than the nebulous promise of "eventually".

[@RiveroftheWither]

That's one of the reasons Final Fantasy XIV is so popular. By lvl 15 you unlock the "Hall of the Novice" which gives good gear that lasts you another 15 levels and teaches the basics of how to play your role for multiplayer content. By lvl 17 (Free companies, certain servers and items can give small exp boosts so you might be a higher level than the story progression) you're doing the first 3 dungeons of the game in pretty quick succession, by 30 you're doing your first trial (a single tough boss fight) and unlocking side dungeons to do. Raids are still "end game" but there is still a whole post game story to enjoy and unlocking harder versions of the dungeons and trails for rewards like mounts and weapons before the start of the next expansion. After the baby steps you're never left with nothing to do. Also the regular quests aren't bad either and don't creep, I think there might be 3-4 quests total that have "collect/kill 8 of X" in the base game but most, even in the latest expansion only have you collect/kill 2-5. The only real grind is if you level multiple classes at once and if you want the best gear the expansion has for it's raid series.

[@helgenlane]

Tera early in it's life cycle was like that. While you played through the story, you visited a lot of dungeons and because the game was popular there were a lot of other low-level players who played these dungeons together with you. Not only that, but you actually needed to play these dungeons multiple times to get the experience and relevant gear. But there's no way to keep older players playing this low-level content.

[@laoch5658]

so just make the early open world even more empty?

[@draknusdesderdus7506]

This is kinda how FF14 feels right now. Yes you still have to play the MSQ, but you get early game versions of raids and such throughout every tier of play. And it does well at teaching you with the sprout training.

[@Deuzen_FIN]

Even more so with the redesigned early-game dungeons utilizing mechanics and markers you'll see used throughout the game, teaching you even if you DON'T attend the Hall of the Novice.

[@strikingdummy8001]

Also there will always be old players playing with them since we have daily roulettes and the mentor system

[@madlinkers8595]

still deeply lacking im sorry im a veteran raider in ff14 and i wont make 3 paragraph of what is missing but they fail at teaching new players a lot of things then people now can do trust which make it worst (you learn faster with other people then bots doing everything for you)

[@draknusdesderdus7506]

@@madlinkers8595 sorry it sounds like you don't understand the difference between a raid and an ULTIMATE. Those things are brutal and definitely not for everyone. The rest of the game is perfectly challenging for a normal player and gives that taste of something more. The gap in between gets learned when they feel ready for it.

[@Deuzen_FIN]

@@strikingdummy8001 It's a pity Mentors are such a mixed bag, since there's no oversight and the only requirement is practically "must have played enough FFXIV".

[@PPSzB]

Early game dungeons from WoW are one of my best memories from any MMO game

[@ornlu_the_wolf]

Same. I suppose it still took a good amount of hours to get to deadlines but I loved it. SM, ZF. Many hours but not end game. Fave dungeons

[@PalaceofVision]

There’s an interesting premise here, namely that every player playing an MMO is playing there with friends. My experience is that many MMO players start with no friends playing the game and that making friends in-game is part of their progression. There’s also the assumption that new/inexperienced players will only get a challenge out of ‘endgame’ content, when my experience is that there is challenge at all levels and many new players (without in-game friends) can find many challenges that are every bit as satisfying to them as doing early-stage endgame dungeons, raids or trials. Many MMOs have a heirarchy of challenging content to keep players interested. And in the best of them, both new and experienced players can work together. And while playing with my in-game friends is a big part of why I enjoy my game, it wasn’t a big thing when I started.

[@zeehero7280]

MMO does not mean anyone should be forced to play with others. Even the most social person has times they want to play the game but be left the F alone. someone who thinks MMOs should be group only needs to be banned from online gaming for life.

[@ChuckFinelyForever]

I start and end my mmo journey with no friends Lol

[@MrWhateverfits]

I am a anti social person. I don't make friends cause its hard for me to talk to new people. I play MMOs almost purely solo unless it has a pug que to do some things. Like right now I am playing Elder Scrolls Online and I have never grouped or done a group dungeon ever and I have played it off and on over the years. I tried making friends in FF14 but I got kinda frustrated as I get ignored or left behind to much and so I just go off by myself till I got tired of it and just went to ESO and GW2.

[@ChuckFinelyForever]

@@MrWhateverfits ESO solo for life

[@DaedalusRaistlin]

Some of my favourite memories from EverQuest 2 are from the early game. Level 20 had raids. There were more available too. These days you can just solo them, which gives a bit of that memory, but really nothing compared to grouping up with 11 other people in a spontaneous raid. (That was an x2 raid, x4 raids were available too.)

[@yaldabaoth2]

I remember low level dungeons but low level raids? There might have been a few world bosses at that level but I certainly don't remember a raid zone.

[@mitchellhorton9382]

I played EQ1 for like 3 years when it came out and never hit lvl 25

[@ravencrovax]

There were lower level raids, but the lowest level raids I remember were Vox in Permafrost, Mistmoor Castle, Karnor's Castle, Plane of Fear, and Growth. I think the lowest level of raid was 50-55 iirc. The lowest group zone I remember was something like a lvl 11-15 gnoll cave in Commonlands or something. Or the mushroom caves in Gfay. I remember I started playing just before Veeshan's Peak came out and people were still running the old zones and raids just for fun. I was even on one of the smaller servers (Permafrost which got turned into Skyfire) and there were always people willing to help run lower zones with new people.

[@manadecide]

@@ravencrovax There was a raid in Qyenos Aqueducts for lvl 10 players. I dont know if they removed that or not.

[@ravencrovax]

@@manadecide That may have been the tutorial/starter raid I think. I think I went there exactly once when I was working on the achievement for visiting all the zones in an area. Also, I started in Gfay so I didn't go to the other starting areas unless I had to.

[@RQS321]

I agreed with this for so many years, and I still do. The moment I found out in SWTOR I could level through raids, I was like "Yes, this is awesome!" If they were literally at the same level bracket as the first flashpoints/dungeons, they would be as awesome as epic bgs in WoW. Mass multiplayer content has been something I personally enjoy and only a few MMO's let you do this from the get go. GW2's eternal battle grounds is one of the best experiences i've ever had in an MMO, opening it to low levels was one of the best things they could have done for that game. Even if you don't have all the crazy equipment and skills/levels in it, you still feel you can help, you still feel you can make a difference in some way. You are still playing that core part of the game, and you can just do that with your friends. More MMO's should embrace this idea, because the best bits of an MMO is what keeps people there. I have barely ever recommended an MMO to someone I know in RL because I know for a fact there is no fun in the early game, and time is valuable.

[@whiteraven562]

I love that SWTOR lets you get in on flashpoints so early in the game. Means you don't have to play through the exact same planetary storyline and sidequests you've done a million times when you can just go run Hammer Station a few times to stay on the level curve

[@Mediados]

Ironically, I forgot the early game experience of WoW to 90%, but the moment that stuck with me was the day the day didn't work. There was a bug that made the blue fiends in the Valley of Trials one-shot everyone. So, to progress in this mandatory quest you were forced to share work with other people. One taunted and got killed, the other attacked. I had honestly one of my most memorable player interactions when the game was broken.

[@arcan762]

GW1 was great for this. The "endgame" started really early as the low max level of 20 (can easily get in a few days of casual play) meant that the power ladder plateaued quickly and everyone was on the same level for most of the experience, and your progression as a player was more about collecting new abilities to create interesting skillbar combinations with. The story mode instance "dungeons" content leading up to level 20 did a great job of introducing players to the kinds of challenges they should expect later on in terms of enemy group compositions, and the fact mobs used the same abilities as players meant players could learn from how the mobs interacted with each other and how different team dynamics worked, preparing the player for their own role in groups of other players, as opposed to just being damage fodder to grind your way through.

[@SharienGaming]

and dont forget, that essentially the entire game past the tutorial WAS group based play... once youre out of the tutorial, you HAVE to have a party unless you know fairly well what to do to make a solo run work... and the henchmen did a reasonable job of filling up when youre short on people... but they were entirely inadequate for some of the more complex stuff that some of the missions required...but they will do until you have learned the ropes of how a party generally works =)

[@fartloudYT]

group play and individual skill (actual skill not abilities) and preparations for encounters was fantastic and it is what i miss in games in general. I it is also why atleast for me GW2 is not exactly a proper sequel.

[@AeriFyrein]

@@SharienGaming I would disagree that the henchmen were 'inadequate.' Sure, there were some missions where you couldn't just randomly choose 3 henchmen and expect to complete it. However, it is entirely possible to do everything in the game solo + henchmen. They certainly aren't the best, but they can 100% get the job done. And that's what makes them so great. They allow you to play the game *fully*, but they don't let you play the game *optimally*. This is also one of the reason FF14's new Trust/Duty Support system is so great. The NPCs aren't the best (I have some *serious* issues with them in the newest dungeon), however, outside of a few (relatively) rare AI issues - unless you try and speedrun things with them, then the issues are *much* more common - they allow a player to complete all of the available instances solo. These are the kinds of systems that should be added to *every* MMO, as well as a lot of non-MMO multiplayer games.

[@kaltaron1284]

With the base game you were expected to reach max level about halfway through. It was fairly easy to do it earlier of course. With the expansions their tutorials would get you to max level so you would be on a (somewhat) even ground with other players. I think they tried to do something with World Bosses and Dungeons in GW2 to that effect and it somewhat worked in the beginning. Years of neglect have made that content a bit irrelevant though. I'm not sure yet what I think about the new Emboldened buff in Raids. Sure it allows groups to defeat bosses they would have otherwise not defeated and maybe it removes a bit of the reluctance to try raids for some players because you can expect to get positive results. It also trivializes some bosses and mechanics for groups who don't really have the abilities to justify it.

[@kaltaron1284]

@@AeriFyrein Yeah, Henchmen were good enough for most content whereas going with random players could lead to "interesting" runs. Although isn't that also a bit of the point of an MMO?

[@Rasgarroth]

One of the biggest problems I find every time I want to convince a friend to join me in my adventures throughout the world of MMORPG's is exactly this. The fact that I can't join them until they have played solo for a long time, which goes against the main reason they joined the game in the first place: to play together.

[@Tokru86]

Why not just create a new character? That's what I often did in WoW. I would create a new character to level together with a friend which I obviously only used when that specific friend was online to not level too far ahead. But I guess in some games this is not possible, because you are limited in new characters you can make.

[@Blisterdude123]

@@Tokru86 That's not really a solution though, is it? That's kind of a sideways compromise. The game hasn't provided you with an option, you're actively removing yourself from your investment in the game, to sidestep a gameplay limitation because in an online MMO you can't actually play multiplayer with your friend.

[@Ghost-Raccoon]

@@Tokru86 Often the issue is not that you are a much higher level but that the game forces you to play solo in the early game. I love FFXIV but it's no exception there. Until you can really play together, a new player has to go through a lot of solo content first.

[@flame_of_the_west8909]

Gw2 has solved that issue imo. You can join a new player with your main toon and the game lowers your lvl based on the map level you are both playing. And if you've never been to that map before you also get to advance your world completion

[@doubleclick4132]

@@Blisterdude123 well, what the fk kind of "option" do you want? you want content thats gonna be engaging for both a person whos at level cap whos been playing for years or even a decade and somebody who just got into the game 5 minutes ago for the first time? no such thing exists. cause its either gonna be one of them is gonna get absolutely wrecked, or the other one is gonna be bore out of his/her mind. this was a stupid premise for a video! its a non issue that didnt need to be brought up! you slog through leveling content FOR A REASON! to get familiarized with your toolkit little by little. what you people are saying is the equivalent of "drrrr we need to SOMEHOW find a way to let people who never threw a punch in their whole life be able to be in a boxing match with mike tyson in his prime". these are mmos. this is the price you pay for an expansive, ever evolving world that builds on itself. if you dont like it, play a self contained, 1 year shelf life game with your friends. (or wait for them to get to your level). cause its not like youre gonna have THAT MUCH fun schlepping somebody who doesnt know what theyre doing around anyway.

[@Meoii33]

To answer the question while sitting back and think "it was awsome", it's when Endwalker came out. I picked up FF14 kinda late and catch up the MSQ to start EW. I've played it day one and being with other players discovering the new places and the dungeons, i think this was the coolest thing/feeling ever

[@deficit06]

THIS!! Oh holy gods, I love that expansion! I was there, waking up at 7 am to dodge the 7000 people queues to play and i have never regretted it XD

[@Verpal]

@@deficit06 Which miracle server do you play in!? Only 7000 ppl queue? Thats actually very good during launch, like, probably just two hours wait (if only you don't have to babysit the queue.....)

[@deficit06]

@@Verpal I WISH. Nah, first time i tried to log on It took me 5 hours, because the kept kicking me out XD

[@Darkasasin80]

I don't know. Way back in the day when I was much younger and still played WoW, I had a lot of fun finding groups to run Deadmines.I never made it to endgame on any of my characters so it's one of my standout memories of playing the game.

[@sinisa79]

original deadmines was one of best early game dungeons ever made in any MMORPG

[@asch220]

@@sinisa79 Agreed simple yet challenging

[@keoun9759]

@@asch220 It had just the right amount of spells/abilities at that point too. You had to manage your mana correctly where you quickly learned it and felt rewarding, instead of having a dozen crowd control spells and an unlimited mana pool. Learning threat but you didn't instantly die, yet posing a big risk, and healers pulling aggro too. Low enough level where you weren't a specialised class so could actually fulfil a hybrid role on the fly. The best experiences I had were going in there slightly underleveled. A fun and challenging learning experience, and not just 'do your rotation' like in later dungeons.

[@TehFabled]

@@ILubBLOfficial I think servers are an outdated concept that are just a technological restrictions of the past that doesn't need to exist in 2022. Everyone should be able to play with everyone. Like, you don't need to be in the same server to actually get to know people, but you also need to realize, communicating online isn't a new novelty like it was 20 years ago.

[@soulofmen]

FFXIV did a lot of right things when it comes to getting people comfortable in group settings. Having players do a dungeon 1-2 hours after starting sets the stage for the rest of the game; group PvE tasks for gear and xp.

[@RealTanku]

Yes, you are shown early on what a manic speedrun frenzy FFXIV dungeons are. Rabid people trying to finish the whole thing in 5 seconds flat, then cussing like crazy when you ask to pace it, since you can't tank all the pulls at once.

[@thepintsizedgamer]

​@@RealTanku Sounds like you had a WoW Refugee. Most of the FFXIV community will be understanding but it's a give and take. You can't expect them to let you put one enemy at a time but they can't expect you too pull 5 packs at a time. Tanking does have the stigma behind it though sadly of where you are expected to know everything. And that is just sadly a thing, perhaps consider doing a couple of dungeons as a DPS or Healer n get used to a few mechanics then swap back. Or better yet just play too your strengths, continue doing what you're comfortable with! If you're on Cerberus - Europe server I'd be happy to give you some pointers on how to Tank, sadly the toxicity is in every video game n is fully unavoidable. Do hope your future dungeons go well though O7

[@mr_oger]

I still feel that it shoved you there too heavily, without any incentive other that progressing through the story. With how msq is showering you with gear it's just... mildly interesting, and that's it.

[@raptoraurion]

@@thepintsizedgamer The WoW refugee thing is such a cope, there has always been toxic players in FFXIV, it's not a brand new thing

[@TheAssirra]

@@thepintsizedgamer Can we please stop blaming all FFXIV issues on " wow refugees". This has been a thing since forever.

[@erincraig11]

My partner and I started playing FFXIV 2 years ago when we were invited by friends who were max-level. They took us through many of the first dungeons and trials, and then when we got comfortable in the mid-level playing style we went through Palace of the Dead (ie Deep Dungeon) together. It was new content for ALL of us which was really fun to be able to do! Now my partner and I are max-level, and are inviting other friends to play with us and being able to do the dungeons and trials with them is SO rewarding and cool. Also wanna mention FFXIV’s “hall of the novice” - I had never played an MMORPG when I started XIV, and those friends told me to go do that before going into Sastasha. Got lots of info that helped, as WELL as a new shiny set of gear! XIV isn’t perfect but it does a lot of these things really well.

[@Salmacream]

The only issue with the game is how easy the base mobs are. XI did the MMO thing a bit better, IMO. But the raids in XIV remind me of the old XI raids, and that's fantastic.

[@AriAnemos]

Very well said. Guild Wars 2 does a good job with their zone scaling design to supplement this idea, and FFXIV roulettes and dungeon scaling make a good attempt at this solution too. I hope developers continue to realize the disparity that's slowly grown between the MMO and RPG elements of their games over the years, and remember that we wanted to do this thing together.

[@chrisrose323]

Gw2 did good. Sometimes I miss that game. Then I remeber why I left and move on with life.

[@chrisrose323]

@@Oni_Ran A bitter guy baited me in PM. Then Made up some story that im a huge racist. One of the guild founders had a crush on him and kicked me. No matter how much my friends of a decade stood up for me I was never welcome back. So I lost the Will to play. Great game otherwise.

[@chrisrose323]

@@Oni_Ran One of the best games I ever played.

[@CharrREDR]

@@chrisrose323 i heard similar stories with some new guild members. Dont lose hope in the game for some idiots, try again with a new guild, and one day you will find a really good group of friends. Keep it up!

[@chrisrose323]

@@CharrREDR I had good friends, now Im on to playing wierd and obscure indie mmos and tf2 with my son XD

[@Melsharpe95]

In the ESO social guild I'm in it takes a fair bit of coaxing to get people to sign up for Trials. The 12 player raids. The usual thing is that they're nervous of doing such "big" content and don't want to fail it. To mess up for the group. I tell them Trials are just basically dungeons with bigger groups and the ones that are willing to come always end up enjoying it. So they encourage others. It's the initial hurdle. Once you get players over that hurdle they're always happy to run.

[@SageRuffin]

I've seen similar sentiments. I think what's happening is that people have seen to many horror stories of a new player being _mercilesly_ berated for not knowing a dungeon works,which then turns other people away because "What if that happens ro me...?" Keep in mind, there are still may, _many_ players who are unable or outright afraid to navigate certain social interactions.

[@MapleLeafAce]

I mean, most veteran players will literally kick you out of the trial if you aren't running the absolute latest meta build, and will flame you mercilessly if you so much as make a single petty mistake. Veteran players are so obsessed with minmaxing every ounce of content that the concept of newcomers not being familiar is absolute alien to them.

[@michaellehner3339]

Exactly the same thing here. I am in a mid-sized social guild and we regularily have players new to the game. And the story does not even start at trials. Even normal dungeons are generally disregarded by new players. The game basically does many of the things requested in this video: dungeons are available early on. The activity finder makes sure that a low level character only gets rather easy dungeons, and they become harder the higher your level is. At the same time, the level scaling system means that players of all levels can work together there. And due to how the sets work, even the loot some low level dungeons is still relevant for a more advanced player. But people generally don't know this. They come to this game, thinking that it's all the same as all the other MMOs they played: dungeons are to be done when you reach end game. It sometimes really requires a good deal of persuasion to make people even try normal difficulty dungeons. While actually, the earlier they start with that, the better for them. They learn in the very easy first dungeons, and then while leveling get access to harder and harder content.

[@khandimahn9687]

Back when I played Guild Wars 2 one thing I loved was how the game auto-scaled the player. It wasn't perfect, but it meant that low level content never became irrelevant, and grouping with someone far above or below your level wasn't the huge power gap as it can be in other games.

[@idontcare9041]

I think GW2 did a really good job at this. Usually scaling means that power gains are irrelevant but you can actually feel changes in your equipment/skills. I picked up a class I never played before and learning it has been incredibly fun so far. There are a few flaws with the game but when it comes to gameplay it's one of the best.

[@RMartian76]

I also think that GW2 is one of the best for new players who love PvP. You get equalized for the most part as far as equipment and can PvP all the way to level 80 mostly based on your skill.

[@helgenlane]

Too bad there's pretty much no content that is worth doing together other than Raids and Fractals

[@CharrREDR]

@@helgenlane well, i love getting achievments. That a mechanic that very few people do.

[@bennett475]

It's a question I've asked ever since I first saw the "Level Boost" purchase option, why would you encourage players to skip thousands of hours worth of development just to get to the "Good bit" isn't that a HUGE design flaw? or is it just because the formula is so old the developer feels they need to follow it?

[@annana6098]

I think the problem is that questing and exploring are fundamental to the RPG genre, but a large portion of players think of it as "filler." They want a show or movie that is only fight scenes. You put anything in front of them that isn't a boss fight and they whine and wander off. I love questing, so skipping dozens of hours of content makes no sense to me.

[@progamasEjogos]

In my case in GW2 i played too many hours on a mesmer, but as a support my friends stoped playing, so i boost a dps to continue playing the endgame

[@Kraftigebub]

An honest reason to use it: Alts. If I've already done it, maybe i don't want to do it again just because I want to play a different character.

[@Captain_Cas]

The biggest issue I have when trying to get my friends to play a MMO with me is that they claim "the genre is dead" or "the game is dead". I play games like League of Legends and Apex with my friends but I also play lots of MMOs when I don't feel like those games. Recently I got back into GW2 and when trying to convince them to play I was just met with "all MMOs are the same and I already played WoW as a kid, plus I heard the genre/game is dead". I try to convince them otherwise but I guess they just go off what they have heard other content creators or gaming new sites say. It's a shame and I wonder how much the outside perspective of "genre is dead, all MMOs are WoW clones" negativity effects new MMO players from trying them out.

[@Klespyrian]

I haven't watch a Josh Strife Hayes video in a while, and it really surprised me how I immediately felt a nostalgic sensation of joy when I opened up this video. Perhaps Ill be finding some time to get those charming british tones in the coming days.

[@VerisMitsu]

Something Dark Age of Camelot added for their low levels, well before they were able to participate in the grander Realm vs Realm battles, were smaller Realm vs Realm experiences called Battlegrounds. These battles over a singular, centralized keep, were some of the most memorable and enjoyable times I had in DAoC. And it was a perfect reflection of what to look forward to in the endgame!

[@hugoshoyru]

This reminds me a lot of Dungeons and Dragons Online (which I still hope you will play for 'wordt mmo ever' one day). There are raids from as early as level 6. And because a lot of the game is based on restarting a capped character at level 1 with some benefits, the low level raids were run quite often.

[@BM03]

This is why I feel XIV is in such a good place. I invited someone recently and they haven't even finished the base game but we've done plenty of FATEs, dungeons, trials and stuff like Palace of the Dead and having a blast as they slowly learn what to do in content that isn't "right click NPC to read text". All the while getting me currencies and EXP too. On the flip side it was so, so hard to get friends to play WoW with me back in the day, even with the super expedited EXP of recruit-a-friend. I honestly gave up inviting people to it. Even the way the game works now, I don't think I'd want to foist into them the quick(er) but still mostly solo leveling experience so we can play at the end.

[@michaelm6179]

Different for me. I enjoyed the fast paced levelling through WoW. My buddy leveled up a monk while I was playing druid and he would tank and instant queue us into a dungeon every time. When I reached max level, I joined the raid team and everyone got me geared up and ready to Prog. It was a great time. On the flip side, I started playing FF14, there was so much to love and do, but I had to quest, oh I wanna play samurai, well, gotta wait till 50 and complete quest ect.. ok let me go do that, ok, 450 quests to go till I can be the weeb I always wanted. Talk about a fucking slog. Great content, sure, but it was still a barrier preventing me from going where I wanted.

[@jakel2272]

These days they both do it well - WoW now has a "level sync" feature for parties members that you can toggle on in a party that will bring everyone down to the party leaders' level. Or if you're a solo player, all the dungeon content outside of the current xpac is sync'd to your level

[@BM03]

@@jakel2272 Oh man that level sync feature in WoW is exactly what I needed all those years ago to keep me from making like 7 alts. It's embarrassing I toured Shadowlands a little at the start and didn't even hear of it! Though at that point I didn't need it anymore, sadly...

[@stevenparker9911]

How does this man not have 1 million subscribers yet??? Everyone share this video with 1 thousand of your closest friends.

[@adaenis]

You absolutely nailed it. One of my favorite MMOs, Dungeons and Dragons Online does this well. It's a flawed game, but every quest has a unique dungeon where multiple players and classes and roles are encouraged from the get go. Ton of fun, and you can get into raiding by like... Level 7, if I remember correctly (with level cap having just been raised to 32).

[@pattycake427]

Most epic moment for me was taking down the Lich King for the first time in Wrath. Did it with a group of friends, not just a random guild. Was an incredible experience after hours of trying and it was 3 am.

[@seankkg]

In a hypothetical game where leveling is the majority of the experience and is designed to take a long time, I can definitely see a rich "midgame's endgame" experience working well. In the games that currently exist where 1% of your playtime is dedicated to leveling, it would be a severe waste of development time.

[@powerbeard5653]

you're right, but "endgame is the only game" is a stupid design philosophy. Why even have leveling if it just serves as a time wasting cockblock to the "real" game?

[@seankkg]

​@@powerbeard5653 Oh, I'm not in defense of leveling. I wanted that out of WoW since Legion went over 100. The gear treadmill is already a replacement for the need for leveling, and FFXIV patches have shown that max level story is still completely viable entertainment.

[@notLura]

But a "leveling" dungeon/raid could be upscaled for the endgame, so you wouldn't waste nothing

[@MCLuviin]

@@notLura a la dungeoneering in rs3

[@mennomaman3399]

Solving this issue can be huge for a game. Destiny 2, for all its faults, actually does this pretty well provided you have a friend to play with. Because after an expansion is no longer current, the content of said expansion (including dungeons and raids) essentially have their item level requirement lifted. This is how my friend got me into the game. After i got done with the tutorial + a tiny bit of grind to show me the rest of the game and get some gear, she took me into the Shattered Throne dungeon and it was awesome. It was challenging and fun to take on something hard together. It showed the game from its best side and if not for that I dont think i'd have stuck with the game for much longer, if at all.

[@TTMS-Khaz-kun]

As someone who jumped into MMO's in very early 2000's ( Runescape specifically and then WoW as well as some smaller ones that are shut down these days ), I've grown up with exactly the idea of doing quests and dungeons to eventually get to raids, so I admit I felt a bit skeptical of the point presented in the title - and in the video itself - but.. I must say you made very good and fair points and I am indeed convinced. Having raids and dungeons to help prepare you for playing your class and your role in the dungeon now sound like an awesome idea and as a nervous tank ( sometimes ) this would have been greatly helpful.

[@Midaspl]

DDO was the game that made this "playing dungeons together with friends" the best for me. Unfortunetly it's not that popular game and now it's a bit outdated. Also predatory payment system doesn't help. It's a pitty because it had fully narrated (yes, there's narrator talking as you progress), story driven dungeons, that were really fun to go through, especially with a permament group. The dungeons were usually short (although there were longer ones as well) and often you'd want to replay them (there were optional parts to them, that you might not have noticed/known about in the furst run for example), so catching up by other guys absent for a day or sth was not a problem.

[@kathrynchen8396]

Omfg I'm so glad someone else knows about DDO. It was my first MMORPG and I was shocked to find out other MMOs aren't like DDO. Played dungeons with a few friends and those were fun experiences. It's also nice that the tutorial is a simple dungeon with NPC allies so players aren't thrown into dungeons blind when they play with other people.

[@garga2]

DDO! Still alive and well. But its really complicated and kinda needs a pilot's licence to play. I love it, but I know full well that opening the character customization options is a quit moment...

[@kathrynchen8396]

@@garga2 Haha when I convinced several of my friends to download it, I kind of had to walk them through the process until they got to the tutorial. Had to pull up the wiki for a few parts of the character stat/class/race stuff

[@hansbansor5170]

Totally agree, DDO had the best dungeon experience by far.

[@yamaddie]

I actually started playing DDO (never tried it before) last week! I enjoy the different approach to dungeons a lot and the feel that you have a dungeon master telling you whats happening lol, its great

[@nickm413]

I do think dungeons should be spread across the leveling experience and have some High end Dungeons for late game but when i think of raids i do think of something that is Late/ End game

[@alyssavanderklift9296]

in a way, eso has kinda nailed that, all dungeons/raids/trials etc have a regular and a veteran version with different requirements. from what i understand, the veteran versions just crank the challenge and unforgivingness of mechanics to 11 while the regular ones are for helping you learn everyhting you need to know about them (as well as part of the levelling process and story) very much how ffxiv has done with dungeons and trials. imho the 'raids' equivalent of ffxiv is very much the same as the eso ones only more seperate. of all the mmos i'veplayed gw2 pissed that bed on that one with how impossible their dungeons are ON level that even the community doesn't touch them before lvl-cap

[@Zack_Wester]

@@alyssavanderklift9296 that said Im not sure what I think about letting player join a raid/dungeon at level 1. as the first 10 level out of let say 60. the player is supposed to learn its class join a group of 1-2 other player at most. get learn how spells works and see how a spell works in the wild. if I joined a group I would have no ide how im doing. if im soloing and casting a few spell and see the mobs HP bar go down in X second and mine to 1/3 of max hp I know okey this feels okey. try another spel and see it not even make a practical dent after X-X secound and Am at 1/10 of max HP (I know this does not work). in a dungeon I got no clue how im performing (presuming we dont sit whit DPS addons that shows it). because stearing on the DPS addon is bad on its own right. because maybe one of the DPS are using a spell that does next to no damadge but let say removes armor form the target so that other player can hit it for masive amount of damadge.

[@mamayareborn]

@@alyssavanderklift9296 I dunno about you but it sounds extremely boring and anticlimatic to me that an endgame raid's just gonna be the same thing I already did 40 levels ago or whatever, just harder. I'd rather just have new content. Final Fantasy XIV's raids are objectively the best, whereby they still require level cap, but are generally easy and story-focused -- but right after clearing the normal mode, you can go ahead, unlock the Savage version, which not only has new mechanics but sometimes even new bosses/boss phases entirely.

[@cracmar03]

@@mamayareborn Considered you seem to refer to ESO .. they release 4 new dungeons + 1 new 12-man trial per year. So by end game you have plenty of 4-people dungeons as each year brings 8 new ones and additional trials. Add to that missions people grind for these and you have an image. Besides that, the unspoken truth is that ESO endgame is housing lol. New mechanics are also on vet versions for ESO though, so it's not just FFXIV thing. New content wise out of all MMO's ESO to my memory has new content on fastest pace.

[@ZZNESSA77]

@@mamayareborn I can tell you the raids in eso in normal vs veteran vs hardmode are completely different things. you can enter normal raids with level 10 and most of the boss mechanics are not there it is a real easymode. Veteran is cranked up in difficulty several times and the hardmodes are a such a complete different kind of beast that only extreme well coordinated teams will get through it. There is really nothing boring about Sunspire vet hm. (for example) really nothing XD

[@DJ_Treu]

This is something my dad has talked about before; he wants something he calls "Raid level" where the raid has a total level requirement not a minimum level requirement. Raid level to be something like 300 while player level cap is like 90. So then you can take 10 lvl 30s and clear it as long as you have the right roles, or 5 lvl 60s or 4 lvl 90s or 1 lvl 30 and 3 lvl 90s or 2 lvl 30s and 4 lvl 60s - etc. then people can make groups more easily as well while still feeling a sense of progression. Then the gearing would be mainly based on crafting / hordes tied to lore. - eg. Bob the dragon is known for attacking a king who was a holy knight - bobs loot table has holy heavy armor, priest armor, a harpbow of light and obviously dragon items to make dragon gear.

[@brandonkruse6412]

Cool concept but wouldn’t work in practice because of loot. It would either be too high lvl for the lowbies to use or to low that the high level players wouldn’t want to run it in the first place.

[@sluggie1018]

both of you have a great idea but only at the surface. in reality it's gonna fall apart really quick. there will be nothing but boosting raid teams. in world of warcraft this is very difficult to do for this reason, but it still happens and willing players pay an exorbitant amount of gold. if it was easy? so many people would do it. also theres another problem. it makes gearing incredibly easy due to quicker access to raids with insufficient lvl and gear, and thus faster reaching of end game. one common complaint of many mmos is that theres not enough end game content VS its too much of a grindfest. pumping out content fast enough to ensure players are entertained is essential so it ruins the pacing if end game can be reached that fast.

[@redlunatic2224]

Interesting concept, but it assumes thst level progression is linear (a lvl20 character is equivalent to 2 lvl10s, for example) and that there are no distinct roles. If one of the roles is either over or underpowered, things can go pretty badly. Imagine 2 lvl50 dps, a lvl90 tank and a lvl10 healer. The tank may be doing more damage than the dps at this point and the healer is not only incredibly fragile, but also very ineffective. Not a great experience for anybody, I'd say.

[@brandonkruse6412]

@@redlunatic2224 Yeah, the only realistic way to work is dynamic-scaling similar to what’s used in timewalking, but that’s kind of a different thing of it’s own.

[@DJ_Treu]

@@redlunatic2224 I see your point but in that case it would mean that tanks are not there for DPS, they are there to soak. So youre correct in a sense, the healer would be there to take care of the small things, like dispells and decurse and cleanse to use wow terms as an example - The tank would be able to take literally any hit thrown at him being level 90 however he cant save himself from a Doom mechanic or a Poison that is geared to be % based instead of a flat number. Then low level healing is more about learning what debuffs to deal with first and what ones you can ignore. Gearing wise is a whole other topic which ill post below as reply to brandon.

[@TheBobzzito]

I think FFXIV does a good job of bringing older raid content to the leveling experience. Even if a lot of it is optional and lot part of the leveling itself, I had a ton of fun doing Coil, Alexander, and Sigmascape with my friends when we played.

[@WalkerRileyMC]

I also think XIVARR has always done well in getting the parting up content out quickly. First dungeon is unlocked at lvl 15ish, which even in the ARR days you could get to in under an hour. BUT...even then you could party up on the overmap and do FATES. XIVARR+ also has one of, if not the, best stories out of any MMO on the market.

[@samaeltheundying]

Respect. Here's to hoping the font has to be size 2 to fit on one page for your supporters!

[@shadycat8898]

Issues I see with the implementation of dungeons/raids/group content in early game are: 1. The genre has an issue with anything not endgame slowly drying up over time. Games don't update their early or midgame experiences that often because the content has to be focused on the growing population of players at endgame who want fresh things to do. 2. Building off point one, a game that doesn't maintain a near constant stream of new blood will in turn have the early content severely underpopulated. This makes the new player experience worse and games tend to opt to charge boosts to just skip the old content instead. 3. The linear nature of most level/gear progression systems encourages players to race to max level because any sort of gear or reward from early game group content will be outclassed by simply leveling up, possibly within a matter of hours. This makes harder content less appealing if easier content can get you leveled up faster. FFXIV tries to fix this problem by the daily roulette system that groups endgame players with leveling players. The issue I have with this system is that the downscaling feels horrible as you lose many of your skills. What an MMO needs to keep early game content healthy and productive is a few things: 1. Encourage late/endgame players to be participants from the start. Could be through cosmetic rewards, reputation experience, gold, etc. Give them a reason to interact with newer players and help train them on the relevant game content. Downscale them so they don't stomp their way through, but don't remove skills that make the experience unfun. Let people play their class in the state they have achieved, just with lower numbers. 2. Update the early game experience more often. If you integrate endgame players into this content, then the changes are to their benefit as well. 3. Provide some kind of reward from doing group content that isn't just gear. Encourage players to pause their level journey and get something cool rather than just a mad dash to max level. 4. Add some level of variability to group content. Endgame players repeating old content will get boring. If the content has some amount of randomness to it, then you can provide some spice that makes it less of a chore and more fun for everyone.

[@xSaraxMxNeffx]

while FFXIV downscaling does feel quite bad in terms of losing skills; the other option would be locking dungeons to only classes that existed when the dungeon was released since FFXIV dungeons are balanced around the expected kits players would have at the time. If they let us keep all our abilities (even with potencies lowered) many dungeons would be basically pointless without whole rewrites which would then make it just harder for people who are basically at the level they are meant to be for that instance. Other than that point, I agree with pretty much everything you're saying.

[@shadycat8898]

@@xSaraxMxNeffx perhaps there could be some sort of scaling in both directions. Players with higher levels/higher progression have potencies reduced but get to use the things they have. Players with lower progression have a higher boost to provide more value with the little they have. Both players get to have fun. Any solution would require them to look back at how the old content is designed. If devs are serious about keeping content relevant and therefore populated, then I expect them to be reassessing old content on a semi-frequent basis. Few do this.

[@finalfantasy50]

@@shadycat8898 constantly requiring devs to keep rebalancing every dungeon whenever they add a new skill is a stupid idea and would require too much time, downscaling to keep an even playing field is simple and effective and keeps low level dungeons challenging because you dont have access to the damage reduction or healing you have at higher levels

[@tantricoath]

So FF 14, you have to play your first dungeon at level 15. Outside the dungeon is an NPC who will take you through the basics of your role Tank, Healer, DPS and will reward you with gear. You can then join the dungeon with either a team of players which can include endgame players or friends. Or you could join with NPCs which will help guide you through the dungeon. FF14 is not the only example of giving you a glimpse of what you will be doing throughout the game SWTOR and ESO are two other good examples of this type of early game hook into multiplayer mechanics in MMOs. This is the reason why it took me 4 time to get into wow, because id start at the beginning and not know where to start or boost and be confused on what I had to do next.

[@drunkyucko]

This is why Project:1999 (Everquest), will never die. The game's design of dungeons that can also be cleared further to a raid is somehow never seen in most other games. It's why Black Rock Depths and LBRS and UBRS are so fondly remember in WoW.

[@kahoshi]

I'm happy with how FF14 does it. I had 15 levels, which didn't take long, to get used to the game and its controls, get introduced to the story, and learn my class. The trust system hadn't been added yet, but I think that makes it even better as those nervous about their first dungeons can play solo and not be stressed about messing up.

[@SoraaHalohm]

I was going to say something like this myself. I very much appreciate the XIV approach towards early game content, especially now that the Duty Support system has been extended into ARR. The other thing is that the level sync system also means that dungeons are almost always relevant in one way or another and will see frequent clears outside of those needed for the story thanks to the roulettes.

[@MrLightlike78]

Aye, ff14's roulette system keeps content evergreen and incentivizes veteran players.

[@blaineandhiskeyboard8362]

This is where Phantasy Star Online 2 shined for me. Being able to do raid bosses in urgent quests, according to my level at the time, made me want to keep playing because they were fun, but not the end all for content

[@gentlemandemon]

One of the few MMOs I've sunk substantial time into was Vindictis, and I appreciated that. I had a high level friend, and we'd do raids or the normal combat missions together, which made the game a lot more fun

[@DrBob66]

I loved DDO because the entire game was dungeons, and most you couldn't solo even starting from level 1. You always had to use the group finder and actually whisper someone "Hey I'm a rogue looking to run x dungeon, can I join your party?" Nothing automatic, super social, and you often found groups you would stay with for the entire evening running dungeon after dungeon after dungeon... unlike recent MMOS where you just queue up, do the dungeon without speaking, then queue back up and find a new group to run the next dungeon

[@Sandycheeks6699]

Damn, I have so many fond memories of DDO for that exact reason. It's one of the few MMOs to actually capture my attention long term because I loved the social aspect of it. A fantastic game for sure.

[@ThomasstevenSlater]

unfortunately the huge xp bonuses for doing all the dungeons on the hardest difficultly mode first time, xp penalty for having a high level character help out and for anybody dying mean that a lot of your experience is staying way way back, maybe even the dungeon porch whilst one or two uber powerful dudes that have reincarnated about 12 times have the actual adventure.

[@spiceywolf15]

@@ThomasstevenSlater ugh I hated when they added the reincarnation mechainic.

[@Skyztamer]

While it could still be better, I really like how FFXIV incorporates dungeons and trial bosses into the main story progression. Even the solo questing isn't really obnoxious. "Kill or collect X quests" usually have us only kill 1-3 enemies or gather 1-3 items on average and report back. The dialogue before and after is usually long, but interesting while the request from the NPC is usually over within a few minutes. Doesn't really feel like I'm wasting much time in comparison to the "kill or collect X quests" I did in TERA in which the amount needed was usually 10 and might not have guaranteed drops from every kill; or I had to wait for the enemies to respawn to farm the amount needed. Instead in FFXIV we kill the mobs or gather the items at a predetermined spot that spawns (or a highlighted radius on the map) exclusively for the quest.

[@TheSilverSkeejee]

I was very much going to type the same. Similarly, even though a lot of this content gets released at the 'end game' of an expansion, it's still remains relevant for old and new players alike. You can try your first 8 man trial/normal raid/alliance raid out in FFXIV at level 50, and then every 10 levels from there on.

[@clangauss4155]

Ditto this!

[@Skyztamer]

@@TheSilverSkeejee Agreed. I really appreciate how every endgame point is still relevant for various activities, including the roulettes which scale higher level players down when necessary and rewards them for completing the duty. Even better rewards if there's a "first timer" in the group.

[@BazzFreeman]

Saved me posting the same thing. Also, to note, FFXIV ALSO has a tutorial for group play that you're funnelled into, that actually gives GOOD gear rewards and a bunch of XP. The first MSQ dungeon is at level 15, which takes about a half hour to get to.

[@LeeJayBird21]

FFXIV is nice because if the quest asks you to kill 3 enemies, you only have to kill 3 enemies. None of that " Collect 10 items from this enemy but the item only has a 20% drop rate" crap.

[@123Dargor]

I remember TERA one time implemented a way for high level players to queue on low level dungeons to help low level players. Ofc the high level players would get equilized level and gear, but the catch was the gear was weaker than the gear the low level players had, so high level players could easily die if the weren't careful. It ultimately died because the rewards for high level players wasn't very appealing and you couldn't queue together with your low level friends.

[@SoBgkiller]

I remember spamming low level dungeons as a war tank just because I enjoy playing with newer players more than I do pushing the hardest content. The day they took that and the nexus away was when I quit tera forever.

[@ShadeKoopa]

I remember that feature. This was back when the game was subscription based and was actually decent. I actually did that as a healer. Que into the low level dungeons to give the newbies and lowbies a hand. It was nice. I missed that.

[@YannMetalhead]

That was actually a great idea.

[@zappodude7591]

The story of every failed MMO mechanic: it didn't give end-gamers shiny reskins.

[@ShadeKoopa]

@@zappodude7591 Not sure I'd agree with that, but it's true the rewards were sub-par. Still, it was nice to able to help level up my buddies that were just starting the game.

[@mrbananoid]

New to MMOs, here's a quick summary of my experience from creating a character to getting into the first dungeon: Guild Wars 2: got to level 25 mostly doing mundane quests in the open world and some shared quests with other people. It was decent but kinda boring. First dungeon was a bit hard as I was underleveled. Wasn't an amazing experience overall. Elder Scrolls Online: quick and decent tutorial area, levelled up doing a whole quest arc in an island, it was pretty fun and engaging, there were plenty of different side quests and activities like fishing and crafting. Probably took around 5 hours and got to level 10 which unlocked the first dungeon. Everyone in the group played pretty fast so I had to catch up but exploring said dungeon was fun. Final Fantasy XIV: dunno how much I've played at this point, probably 10 hours or so doing main quests and some side quests, including a two professions (classes) quests. Haven't got to dungeons yet lol, but it's been fun so far. I think this game has the best atmosphere out of all the other MMOs. World of Warcraft: finished the tutorial island (it was alright) and got into a big quest right away. Got into the first dungeon maybe around 3 or 4 hours in (via group finder). Choose healer and got immediatly called out by another member of the group for not healing enough, two seconds later the group disbanded and couldn't join another dungeon for 30 mins. Pretty bad experience overall. New World: completed the tutorial zone, explored some settlements and did a bunch of repeatable, side and main mission quests. Gathering is pretty fun and so far it's been the most social MMO I've played. There's funny conversations in the global chat, there's always people playing the instruments minigame or fishing, and there's even voice proximity chat which has led to some funny moments to. Anyway, got to level 25, which took quite some time, and did my first dungeon. Was kinda fun but it was pretty slow paced compared to ESO or GW 2 dungeons. The visuals are great but the enemies were rather tanky, there's also some floating spirits which were pretty boring to fight.

[@NoVACorpsGaming]

I’ve just taken my friends through both Dungeons and their FIRST RAID on only their second/third days on Destiny 2 :) we just had a really fun time

[@pluto3194]

That's why I love the fact that normal modes for raids/dungeons don't have their normal modes scaled up. You can take new players through them and give them a taste of endgame at literally any time. The way level scaling works means that high level players don't just breeze through it either so it's fun for everyone involved.

[@vonneely1977]

I remember going Krayat Dragon hunting back in SWG with a character that was less than a week old. My combat skills were zero, but I was grinding up my medical skill and no hunting party - regardless of their own level - ever refused adding another medic to their team. So I took a backpack full of medkits and dashed around healing up the actual hunters. Anyway point being here was a system where veterans and newbies could work hand-in-hand with no issues.

[@TransparentLabyrinth]

SWG in its original form was an amazing advancement in the MMO genre. It's tragic that its designs tend to get ignored while 99% of MMOs copied WoW instead. No MMO I've played since has felt more like a virtual world. And I see GW2 get talked about like it's the most cooperative, open-ended MMO ever, when SWG was worlds ahead of it before it was ever a thing. GW2 is like a remnant of the kind of design philosophies that got SWG made, by comparison.

[@ashlebeau9802]

I always wish I had a chance to try SWG in its original form. It wasn't gone by the time I _could_ try it, but as I understood from the people I talked to, it was a shadow of its former self at that point. I did GW2 for a long time, but it mostly felt like a fairly hollow experience outside the WvW and PvP aspects, for me. I usually never felt like I made a difference in a group, or like the group made a difference in anything I was doing in most things PvE.They finally lost me for good when I took a break only to come back to get nickled and dimed if I wanted to get up to date on the living story. I picked up the 2nd expansion and was so lost as to what was going on that I just never logged back in.

[@TransparentLabyrinth]

@@ashlebeau9802 Sorry you didn't get that chance. I'm not sure if it's still going or where the progress is at, but there is something called SWGEmu that was/is an attempt by volunteers who really loved it to bring back the old SWG. If you were to try that, it might give you some idea of what it was like, at least in the general sense of design, even if not in the community experience of back then. I think you might need game disk tho, for legal reasons, and I'm not sure how easy it is to get one at this point. Also, I feel you on GW2 living story. It seems to be a common complaint about the cost of it and I wish anet would just make it free or packaged with expansions.

[@makaronmadownahihi]

one thing i like about lost ark is that early dungeons "prepare" you for endgame ones (for example similar but harder to dodge mechanics, battle items usage etc)

[@megaposter2437]

Vanilla World of Warcraft had a solo leveling experience that was fun on it's own and that also encouraged spontaneous grouping up with strangers, because you can kill a gnoll on your own but the further you go into the gnoll camp the more of them there are. The main problem is that the leveling areas become empty after everyone is max level.

[@Broockle]

Vanilla WoW is all I know. Is there no need to group with randos anymore?

[@Zack_Wester]

@@Broockle retail wow no need ever to group when doing quest (I started to see that in wrath). classic wow and maybe early burning crusade back in 2008-2009. sure you could solo level but it was hard, it was slow and it was risky. you could not nuke down a group of mobs like you can do in today retail heck most classes could not even nuke down 1 mob less take on two of them at the same time.

[@Broockle]

@@Zack_Wester What level we talking? I mostly grouped up for instances and the occasional raid upon Ogrimmar which never got me any exp lol I did level with friends sometimes but it didn't feel necessary, it did speed it up tho I think. I do remember spending a lot of time in my 30s-40s in the Arathi Highlands, but 50+ plus in the plague lands was quick. Things got way faster once I got a mount. I think that's the main slow down before level 40. You could do all quests by yourself outside of maybe wanted poster quests which had you fight an elite with guards sometimes. I never did Onixia or Molten Core cause those required a guild basically. There was no way to coordinate a raid to those otherwise. One of my few regrets. 😆

[@Zack_Wester]

@@Broockle was going to say from level 6 forward. you could solo but it was slower in classic and riskier (2008 not the 2018 release). and in wrath and I know its easier in retail to solo as mobs are weaker/player are stronger. in classic most player could not nuke down multiple mobs at ones, in retail that looks like its really easy. so leveling was harder in that combat was a 1 vs 1 fight whit pauses (presuming you was not a alcamist or rich and could eat potions and had good armor all the way). vs today where a player can easily take on several mobs at ones.

[@marciusnhasty]

@@Broockle Durotar in Vanilla and BC, you had to team up or get lucky for Malazan and for Fizzle. There was a level 9 huge murlock in Eversong Woods that perhaps a paladin was able to solo in BC. Already in Wrath all of these can be completed solo and being level down. Same level 9 murlock is "use first boost food to solo" at level 6 in Cataclysm. All scorpoids, ville familiars and felstalkers in Valley of Trials are switched from red to yellow and you don't see red mob until leaving start location in Wrath. Post Cataclysm they teach you how to attack training dummy through a quest.

[@1ばかぶた]

in a raid-focused game, agree japanese online game actually has monthly events that making people of all levels can have fun playing it. usually the event's duration is a week or two weeks and the events usually isnt about "getting as much as possible point in the duration", but really fun events

[@jacksparda997]

This is what I’ve been talking about with my homies, glad to finally have it covered for more people by you.

[@kingscrump]

It’s very jarring when you play through the whole story of an MMO and not have to really worry about any kind of mechanics and then you hit the endgame and everyone expects you to know every single mechanic as soon as you unlock it. Why would I assume the endgame dungeons have complex mechanics if I haven’t experienced anything like that in the entire game?

[@Brekner]

I mean, ESO allows you to run dungeons from early on, they even queue you up with any level of players because of scaling. That means, people who only queue for their "daily dungeon" bonus or quests...and they speed run everything, sometimes not even allowing people the time to complete the quests...it's a horrible experience to run a dungeon for the first time in the same group as people who've done it 10-50-100 times already... The alternative is to have level brackets, like you can only run Dungeon XXX from level 20-30 via the dungeon finder. But that requires a pretty huge playerbase, because otherwise you're gonna get super long queues because not that many people run dungeons while leveling. Except if you make running dungeons the best way to level, in which case you're gonna get the exact same thing that happens in ESO where people on alts run the dungeons on "x2 speed" to be as efficient as possible.

[@peculiarburrito7726]

Or you always get the "you should be watching videos or looking up guides by now" or "the fight has been out for x amount of time, you should know this by now" -- Not everyone no lifes the game as much as a lot of people do.

[@mamayareborn]

In MMORPGs, like which? In FFXIV, normal story dungeons introduce you to almost everything you need to know; abilities and skills are slowly doled out over the course of the levelling experience so that you can experiment and read up on what they do as you get them -- by the time you receive another one you've already been using the last one, so it slowly builds up. You're not supposed to "know every single mechanic as soon as you unlock it" and literally nobody would expect that from you. But you're supposed to at the very least know what your Job can do, which IS something you've had ample time to experiment with and learn up on by then.

[@MapleLeafAce]

@@Brekner ugh doing dungeons in ESO is SO painful. You're either grouped with people who don't know a single thing about dungeons, or you end up with CP 2500 players who don't even wait for the party before sprinting to the end boss.

[@kiwi3085]

@@mamayareborn I think WoW and Destiny 2 are more what OP meant. Most of your early and mid game is grinding out systems to level to endgame. Your 100 hours of mindnumbing monster and reputation farming and mashing through NPC dialogue don't prepare you for any of the mechanics you'd see in a dungeon or raid. Even still, there's an expectation that you should have been taught it by now or that you should have just learned yourself via KZbin or something.

[@diego_chang9580]

I never realized but FFXIV does all of this pretty well, you have first of all the Hall of the Novice where they teach you, although kinda slowly, all of the basics based on your rol and general stuff like avoiding telegraphed AoEs, etc. Then you have the dungeons and your character progression which complement each other really well because both grow in difficulty as you level up, giving you time to learn the rotation of your job as you do increasingly difficult and fun mechanics, and you may play leveling dungeons with any of your friends given they have it unlocked, doesn't matter if they are max level already, thanks to FFXIV's scaling system which puts you at the level of the content you are doing with every ability you had only at that level. And then you reach 50, your first endgame, which is not at max lvl as some may think (There are endgames with raids and dungeons every 10 levels after 50, marking each expansion), here after hours of MSQ and dungeons you get your first set of raids both 8 and 24 man and a basic kit for your job including most of your utility and a toned down rotation from what max level endgame is, which thanks again to FFXIV's level scaling system let's you play with your friends each endgame.

[@andrewrobillard7192]

Plus they just went back through all the level 1-60 dungeons, revamped them so their more mechanically engaging and consistent with the rest of the game, and added the option to run the dungeons with AI companions if you're new and anxious about playing with other more experienced players. The AI companions even give added lore giving experienced players who are into lore a reason to use the system as well.

[@_Crowuh]

"Including most of your utility" at level 50? Tell that to Dancers, lol

[@diego_chang9580]

@@_Crowuh Yeah, for some reason SE decided for us to get all of our good stuff above 50 including DP lmao

[@jeremyoverton7047]

The other key thing for FFXIV are the FATEs, Levequests and Guildhests, all content that can be played multiplayer from Level 1.

[@phamtuan1840]

@@_Crowuh and BLM

[@Zersetzor]

Medium heat take: By designing a tedious beginning for players, developers can trigger the sunk-cost fallacy deliberately, thereby setting up a captive audience.

[@1IGG]

And losing most players because of this.

[@Zersetzor]

@@1IGG Remember Pareto. One whale is worth more than a thousand casuals. A whale among whales is wort more than a thousand million causals.

[@skylerfreeman1173]

@@Zersetzor Games are in fact, businesses. :D haha imagine they do whats best for the individual 'player'

[@otrikas]

But you can make someone spend time having fun. It will even strengthen the sunk cost fallacy because you add fun to the time they spend.

[@Zersetzor]

@@otrikas Possibly. But is it worth the effort?

[@totem95]

I used toplay a Korean hack n slash mmo. Each of the six classes had a special perk to help with the grind. The mage was a glass canon who could cc, the archer had great mobility, the healer was also an assassin, the tank could have more enemies aggroed to him, the summoner had a compagnion and the knight had a wide variety of play styles. We all intuitively learned our roles in a party by seeing what we did other than damage. We eventually got a multi-party dungeon/weekly event. It had cons but a great feature was that it had tiers (every player experienced the exact same dungeon but the enemy levels were adjusted, the good stuff was always there) and rewards that everyone appreciated (huge exp and if your party won, your teammates and you would get a good pile of cash or an upgrade item (max 1 per party)). I believe the dungeon was well done, you got the main reward from advancing in the dungeon, every player got to do the same dungeon as long as they fit in a level bracket

[@WeebJail]

this is what i loved about maplestory. party quests were set to certain levels. from 20-30 you'd be in kerning, and from like 35-50 you'd be in ludi, etc. this created these hubs where the entire playerbase was centred around and you could party up and make friends and the game really felt like a community, or rather several interspersed communities. you COULD go and grind somewhere but that's boring, and there were really valuable drops you could sell from the party quests. this imo really made the game

[@bumbertyr]

I think the best part was that classic maple had so much variety in ways to progress even in the early levels. Wanted To be social? you could go Party quest, party train, quest with friends Didn't want to interact with people? you could go Solo grind (main benefit being keeping all valuable drops to yourself), mini-boss hunt, or quest. The game also did a great job keeping that variety up through the higher levels actively adding party quests for new level ranges. Once you got high enough and could raid, you could also do Zakum Arm runs with a buddy or by yourself for the EXP. Also, the way you interacted with the game changed with each Job Advancement milestone helping to keep the different grinds feel fresh. I seriously miss MMORPGS like Maplestory that have more emphasis on the journey to soft cap and a gradual level curve with the Late-end game grind acting more like a post-game rather than the main course.

[@dunkace]

I remember an MMO called Global Agenda where right from the start you went on raids with other players. And i remember rightly, this was so you could level up and gear up for the PVP. No idea if the game still exists. I dont think it even had an open world actually.

[@ShadingNight]

Glad you remember Global Agenda, cause Hirez sure as fuck doesn't lmao

[@ChuaPotato]

Oh my lord. I played GA from alpha. It was the only game ever where the alpha was significantly better than launch. That game had so much potential.

[@dunkace]

@@ChuaPotato Its bizarre, i remember playing it loads and loving it. but i cant think why i stopped and now i dont know if you can even play it?

[@ChuaPotato]

@@dunkace It was shut down a few years ago but relaunched again early this year. Check steam? I think.

[@atrocious7766]

That game was fun and weird. Always nice to see someone remember obscure titles.

[@Guilherme-ro2ek]

I think what is missing in the mmo is precisely the "Adventure", to be walking and discover an unmarked cave on the map where a raid starts I don't think it's fun to just press a button and be teleported to the dungeon/raid

[@skylerfreeman1173]

Maybe the first discovery can be that but if the map is large enough then that will get tiresome very quickly. And after the 'unmarked cave' has been unearthed by the community, it being 'unmarked' means nothing in an mmo in our age of information sharing. Especially if the rewards/experience in the dungeon are GOOD players will advertise it - this particular sense of discovery is better left for Singleplayer rpgs. Not saying discovery cant be in MMOs by default, but they are there in other ways. A quick workaround in my game dev brain would be to make dungeons like that but allow teleportation after first discovery and raids would be something you have to physically be at in the world to start perhaps with a waypoint nearby so its not cumbersome for players to get there. Players are becoming more and more impatient as well with the advancement of tech/life (we see this with New World not having mounts) so you have to walk a delicate line when designing these things unless you want a specific niche audience which most dont aim for and may ALSO be part of the problem ..

[@theaveri]

I would take this to an even further logical extreme. What makes every MMO a complete piece of garbage is that every person has to have the exact same experience copy pasted over and over. The way most MMO'S are designed they give you the illusion of freedom will realistically you're on the rails of a terrible ride. They could really use a game that isn't just grinding and then boss raids. Fighting bullet spongebosses isn't fun... It's just frustrating and monotonous especially when you have to deal with the incompetencies of other players. What we need is a MMO centered around immersive gameplay. Right now they are all just derivative time syncs.

[@Seority]

Thank god group finder is optional :)

[@saemitatsuya8419]

Unfortunately it would get spread on forums and people who just want the raid/dungeon will just look it up. On paper, it sounds great, but in practice it’s just one more unnecessary step for a lot of people.

[@xomegaweapon1987x]

FFXIV does this really well with its class quests , forcing you to tank DPS or heal depending on your class x this paired with the trust system allowing you to do most dungeons with an AI team so you can learn dungeons/how to play your class without the pressure of other players

[@lucasdelmicon1685]

I'm new in the mmo genre and one thing that really hooked me was that ice shaman boss showing up at shiverpeaks in gw2. That made me look forward to what the game has to offer.

[@bknysz45]

There’s 2 games produced by Ankama (Dofus and Wakfu) which has early level dungeons, basically there’s dungeons and group activities at every level brackets, hope you will try those someday

[@Symb1a]

This is one of the reasons I love FFXIV so much, the party content is all integrated into the main story of the game and are used throughout the levelling process (less so raids, but they have trials which are basically just mini 1 boss raids).

[@Mav10]

and almost most of them are braindead easy until you reach savage

[@AROAH]

WoW succeeds by having you do “gather X items and kill Y enemies” quests even at max level, so you are being trained even from the beginning of the game. Cough.

[@JR-001]

Josh, I agree! MMORPGs really should have a standardized solo-friendly NPC dungeon at the earliest levels that allow you to test Tank/Healer/DPS roles with NPCs and/or friends and these dungeons should scale with the players and allow for experimentation and testing of roles and characters classes and skills. It could be kept relevant easily by dropping some resource that is traded to NPCs connected to that dungeon!

[@carlybrown3263]

World of Warcraft actually addressed this problem! In the Shadowlands expansion they added "Exiles Reach" for new players. It's a questing experience level 1-10 that ends in a dungeon. There are also ways to help your friends level through dungeons and learn their class. It's not perfect (WoW is almost 20 years old lol) but so far it's been one of my favorite new-player experiences :)

[@Blobby90]

Said it before but I kept avoiding mythic tier dungeons on WoW because the community had been horrible when I dipped my toes in. I was then stumped to find out that Operation Mechagon, a dungeon I had been excited about because I genuinly think Gnomes are awesome, was Mythic only I was sad. I spent a good while just ignoring that dungeon before I finally got a quest to do it and I just told myself. "If the other players can't laugh at faliure and learn from it, I'll just leave". What followed was the best five hours (not kidding, we died a lot) of my Warcraft experience EVER. Our Tank was a fellow gnome in heritage armour like my little mage self and that comradary cemented our friendship which continues to a degree though not as much I admit. The Healer was patient, our Tank knew when to take breaks and the other DPS were decent people who didn't embody the DPS mentality of 'gogogo'. We died so many times and we learned and laughed all the way. Then I started having to actually use my Crowd Control abilities for mobs close to the final boss which was kinda cool. Last we came up against King Mechagon himself. We sucked, we honestly didn't do well. We were all tired. It was very late or very early morning by this point and we all agreed to one last try. We won. We beat the boss and holy shit did the dopamine hit wake me up. We'd just beaten one of the harder encounters of that patch. A group of people who were brought together by chance (or fate) and we finished the dungeon with goofy grins (I did at least) and it was an experience I will never forget. To me that was what an MMO should be and nothing has compared to that since.

[@Zefar77]

The problem I have seen with plenty of MMORPGs is that they go "We have these RAIDS for you to do" and you then ask, "is there something more?" Often the answer is no, there isn't much more than Raids because that's where you get the best gear, armor, special items and what not. I don't like to do the same raid 20+ times. This is why I liked Ragnarok Online and it is my all time favorite MMORPG. Sadly Gravity the owners of it killed it with a patch in 2009 that drastically changed core parts of the game to a more linear gameplay. Which just made it worse. Anyway in that game, vast majority of the areas in the game would have at least 1 enemy that would drop something useful for you. Because the game did not have progressively stronger gear as you leveled up you actually had to get your end game weapon yourself. This is by getting the weapon drop with the correct amount of slots and then farm for the Cards of a monster that'll boost damage to a certain enemy type/race/element/Size and slap them onto the weapon. The weapon then would only be useful to those enemies with lets say you have 3 cards that give 20% more damage to Wind element and then 1 for Demi human. You would now need to find a monster that is Wind based and Demi human to get the most damage out the weapon. So you could make several of these weapons which would have certain cards in them to deal with certain areas. This made the most of the areas useful because good cards where spread out all over the world and they would only be dropped by a certain monster. The most used card was the Hydra Card. This card gave you 20% more damage to Demi Humans which is what the player character race is. The Hydra monster is a low level trash mob that just annoys you because it attacks on range and dying to it with a high level character is only possible by afk in the area with a large amount of them in. So the best PvP card in the game is dropped by a weak enemy that anyone past level 15 can kill without a problem. Max level is 99. At higher levels you can slaughter these weak monster with any AOE ability. There where plenty of more cards that are good for you to get and they would be located in various areas. Forcing you to gear up properly which would mean farming lower level areas or medium level areas. Higher level areas sometimes contained really good items but for most parts it was to power level and feel good about doing so which it was. But Gravity decided to screw over that system and now all of those damage cards are utterly useless. As it will only boost the weapon damage and not the end damage. So much else changed too.

[@amassasa]

Ragnarok online Old times (maybe right before the transclasses) was a magical experience indeed. Never had quite the experience with any other game.

[@Silmeris]

God, it was one of my first MMOs and what an incredible experience it was. I still go back to play some old low-rate private servers from time to time- and the linear nonsense took all the fun out of roaming around, exploring- it took the fun out of even looking up on a website "Oh.. I need to hunt... Hylozoist? What the HECK is a Hylozoist!?" and the magical experience of setting off on a journey to find it. It had so so many answers to so many of the problems current mmos face baked into its DNA, it eschewed the boring trinity and build variety was absurd, and War of Emperium was some of the most fun I've ever had in an MMO, PVP-wise. Plus, the music was nonstop bangers and I still listen to the OST wahaha. Antique cowboy? Dancing Christmas in the 13th month? Muay thai king? They're bangers all, you can't go wrong.

[@lkmdude8094]

This reason is why I love recommending rotmg to friends. The game has a ton of issues, but getting to max level takes less than an hour and you can be having fun doing dungeons in the same night that you started downloading the game.

[@BETRvids]

Final Fantasy 14 has something like this. I mean the early dungeons aren't super exciting, but they introduce you to your job roles slowly and without too much stress. At level 15, you actually need to do 3 dungeons, 1 right after the other. So you get plenty of practice with your chosen role.

[@DarthRadical]

One thing I loved about City of Heroes was the sidekick system. A high level character sidekicks you and you get a level boost so that you can go hero-ing together so long as you stick close. You weren't quite as good as a character who was actually that level due to having fewer buff spots etc., but good enough to play together for normal instances.

[@TheotherTempestfox]

Elder Scrolls online had 4 player dungeons that become available every 10 levels starting from level 10. Playing through the game with my friends we loved them. We had to sort out roles within the builds we were working towards and work together to suceed.

[@Xanderqwerty123]

I enjoy that in GW2 I'm currently leveling my first character and can still join in massive boss fights with veteran players. Not perfect but it is better than a lot of games

[@battlebots1]

You can also do the core Tyria dungeons (they're now obsolete for farming because of fractals, but still fun for story and explorable modes). First one unlocks at 30 and then every 10 levels, the story modes are meant to go along with the Personal Story. And 80 doesn't take super long to get to for the 'real' stuff with fractals and whatnot.

[@nakofoefire]

Do the early dungeons with a party of novices - they are challenging and would learn tons about your class - exactly what Josh is describing in the video. The problem is the downscaling is not aggressive enough and high level players would carry you too much.

[@battlebots1]

@@BlueNorth313 I guess I just meant people don't normally grind them and they don't work towards ascended gear.

[@bass679]

After many years of WoW I was shocked by how old content is integrated into every day activities in FFXIV. As I was leveling through old content this last year I was able to go through all the Raid lines very easily.

[@gabrielp.40]

The absence of group content available is actually one of the reasons I never play “theme park” MMOs. As you said there is just no point in killing 20 boars together. Also, if you or your friend play 10 minutes without the other, you are at different phases of the story and you cannot do anything meaningful together until you catch up again. This is mostly the reason why I only play “sandbox” MMOs, like Elite Dangerous or Warframe. At any point, you can just get together with a group and do stuff that is relevant and meaningful. I think this mentality should be adopted by all MMOs, since… well isn’t it the bloody point of playing an MMO?

[@jtspender]

I think "theme park" MMOs actually make it *easier* to create play experiences with very disparate character advancement. Because each piece of content is highly self contained, it's easier to "sync down" the more advanced player for participating in the actual content, but provide different rewards relative to each player's progress in the game.

[@jshtng78]

"There is just no point in killing 20 boars together." 'Burn parties' in FFXI are highly regarded oldschool MMO content and that's more like killing 2 million boars together in a well coordinated party.

[@jtspender]

I think it's a bit of a stretch to say burn parties are "highly regarded". They may be highly regarded by the class of people who still play "old school" MMOs because they like that style of play, but a lot of reason those types of games have generally fallen out of favor is that repetitive random mob grinding parties, even highly optimized ones, are not considered fun content by most people interested in MMOs. They may be popular because they are efficient, but that efficiency may actually be an unintended, degenerate form of gameplay. (That said, that degeneracy & pushing a system to it's limit is one draw for certain classes of players who still like old school MMOs)

[@Qwertzalcoatl]

I don't really play MMORPGs but have had some experiences with RuneScape, Ran Online, FlyFF and such during my childhood. I however am currently a heavy player of Genshin Impact, WHICH I KNOW IS NOT AN MMORPG but it does have the multiplayer aspect in it that I can relate to. As a Day 2 to current day player, I find it lonely that my brother and cousin who are essentially GI virgins, are practically prevented from joining in my adventures in the latest regions namely Inazuma (Japanese inspired) and Sumeru (Tropical based + Arabic inspired) because the game gates new players to having complete the MSQ as prerequisites. It's a very sad and lonely existence and I feel sorry for both them and myself that we can't team up any time soon. So, yes, I wholeheartedly agree with everything that you mentioned here, Josh.

[@xe-nofrank4399]

I've felt for a long time that there are ways to make a MMO teach you how to play a class for group play through quests, like have a village under siege and as a tank your job is to make sure a healer doesn't die so you can all make it out so you learn to taunt, as a healer you need the tank to survive so you don't get one shot, with the damage your shown who to focus on first. I know ff 14 has a training course for that but I feel like you could integrate it into quests, make the questing more varied and learning the basics of your class along the way.

[@Fernando-ek8jp]

I like how warframe goes about it. You can carry players to interesting bits, and since you can basically completely respec every "class" and weapon in a matter of seconds, you can also play at a lower level so as not to completely overpower your friends

[@rokkraljkolesa9317]

you can only taxi someone to a later node, though, and even then the best part imo are the quests, which you can't taxi to best you can do is bring them to a boss that doesn't have some entry additional requirement

[@Fernando-ek8jp]

@@rokkraljkolesa9317 Depends, I find the overall game play loop to be satisfying, and you can also take new players to railjack (a friend of mines loves getting on the turrets and blasting away), some of the open worlds, while you focus on healing. And you can also join them while they go at their own pace by taking unmodded gear

[@tadaokou4919]

​@@Fernando-ek8jp When I played Warframe, my friends were far ahead of me which demotivated me big time. Than someday we choose to play in a group and it was one of the worst multiplayer experiences I ever had in any multiplayer game. If you are the beginner, you are just getting dragged along. Nothing to do for you. Most of the time, you also don't know what is going on simply due to your friends killing everything before you even get the chance to witness enemies appearing. If you are the advanced player, you just run through everything with your high gear. Most likely, you will choose easy areas for the beginner, which means you downgrade your own gameplay. The 1 exception to that in Warframe is endless survival mode. At least in terms of fun. And just to clarify: I considered myself being a ,,new" player with over 300 hours of gametime. At least compared to my friendgroup. Edit: And if you put on low end gear to make your gameplay more equal to the ,,newbie" player, that's not really the game being good at balancing. That's you choosing to balance the game so that it's not unfair. Unequipping gear (in Warframes case, mods) to nerf yourself is something you can do in ANY game.

[@ia3630]

I don't think you realize what you said really sounds like, "carrying players to interesting bits" or taking them to features otherwise inaccessible to them is the exact opposite of the point of the video: people don't want to be carried or taken to gate-kept content. It's the "it gets good after x100 hours" on steroids, "grind x100 hours or depend on me to get there".

[@Fernando-ek8jp]

@@ia3630 Well, most of the game play loop remains the same throughout the game. It doesn't really get more mechanically complex except in some specific areas

[@bigmilk13_]

Absolutely. I love the raids in Lost Ark, but asking a brand new player to level a character all the way up to i1415 is just.... not fun. There were WAY too many quit moments before the really fun endgame raiding begins, it's tiring trying to convince all of my friends that it gets better after 100+ hours

[@prasunkumar1125]

it's why lost ark sucks

[@Skyztamer]

Is the endgame gearing entirely rng based via honing? If so, doesn't really seem like a sustainable model for most people assuming the max ilvl is always increasing and new content is locked behind higher ilvls.

[@bigmilk13_]

@@Skyztamer Not really. Honing has a pity system that prevents that. ilvl increase is pretty steady, but there are other rng-based systems that also increase your power in various ways once you hit endgame. Overall progress is pretty steady if you play enough

[@ffaustus2651]

The Lost Ark new player experience is abysmal. I really hope they improve it somehow, because a mokoko icon doesn't entice players to help them besides the kindness of their own heart. In a game where time is literally money, why would you want to? If they don't do anything about this soon, it'll just be a bunch of veteran players circle jerking each other in busses and whales gatekeeping end game raids. Its sad because it really is a cool game.

[@tomkc516]

I wonder when Josh is gonna come out with his perfect MMO! Can't wait!

[@charalamposkallimanis9609]

I hope he will be recruited in an upcoming MMO as a CEO :)

[@MelvinCheeKL]

Sorry I know this not related to this video , but I came to know you through a podcast. I came to know you as “the man with great self control” about Diablo immortal. You earn a subscriber and patron as well 🤗

[@BruceNJeffAreMyFlies]

I hate to bring up Maplestory 2 as an example of an MMO doing something right, but I did love that the progression involved 'raids' at every level of gameplay.. From level 1 to max, there are raids that people were joining often enough to solely level through those if that was how you wanted to play. Or you could wander around and quest your way through the game, only doing raids when they were brought up in quests.

[@TheDragonshunter]

Basically FFXIV with ARR, that is the whole tutorial.

[@TheRetifox]

Funny enough, I think ARR dunegons are like the best of the series, since Hevensward anwards, dunegon layout is just straight line lol

[@tyhjyys]

@@TheRetifox dungeons in ARR might aswell be straight lines though since nobody ever wants to go down those routes. hardly any of the few optional bosses give you any unique rewards to strive for, just a few more pieces of level appropriate gear or some pet in rare instances. i think the mechanics are the important thing to get used to for the only required raid in that whole game, crystal tower.

[@Darqueness]

FFXIV definitely goes a long way towards teaching newer players the basics and working them up to knowing what they need to do in group content. Some time ago WoW added the Exile's Reach starting zone as well, which sadly started with the same fetch nonsense at first, but culminated in teaching you how to queue for a dungeon and walked you through simplistic fight mechanics to give you a general idea of how things would be. Raiding from the onset might be rather overwhelming but early dungeons if presented in a way that actually informed the players of what to do and how to do it could be great for bringing in new players and refreshing older players on whats actually what. Throw in active tutorials baked into the questing/gameplay that teach you how your class works in general, then move on to how to work in groups and you got the beginings of a recipe for something potentially great already.

[@Sohbek]

Yeah, but then when I started playing - which was right before Heavensward, by the way, I had to go through literally weeks of story content and solo stuff before I got on to anything relevant to them or even interesting to do. Now the level cap is 90 and there are multiple expansions and this problem has not gone away. Make no mistake, I enjoy the hell out of the game and it's one of my favorite MMORPGs. But getting "current" to play relevant content with friends is utterly miserable. And I always tell people the same thing my friends told me back then - it gets better, just keep playing. Ultimately, they were right. But it doesn't make the experience any less of a miserable slog.

[@haydenmaines5905]

I always thought mixed-level raids might be an interesting idea: have the big endgame tier boss that the high level players fight, but the boss also has a number of underbosses scattered around the dungeon. These underbosses are super weak, a total pushover for the higher level players, but they're too far for the high level players to consistently fight them. Additionally, if the underbosses go unoccupied, then the big boss gets massive power boosts, making it so you have to take on the underbosses - providing a niche for lower leveled players to participate in raids alongside high leveled ones

[@Sllandre]

Sounds kinda like what FFXIV did with the Baldesion Arsenal. It was this big raid in an area, meant to be the hard end-challenge of the whole place, and partway through a boss outside in the area itself would spawn that anyone in the area could do, and it needed to be done to keep the boss inside the raid from killing everyone. In addition, the support boss gave the best loot of any boss in the outside area, *and* 8 portals showed up after killing it, each one letting another person into the raid itself. So for the first part of the raid, you had 48 people, but for the last two bosses you could have 56.

[@yaldabaoth2]

Eh, you know what would happen? Instead of bringing more low level players, if the raid has a max player count, they would just send 1-2 max level players to occupy those underbosses and have the rest smash the main guy. You are not thinking like a raid group.

[@andermedievil]

is a good idea,but probably a lot of high level players will rush the dungeon killing the mini bosses in seconds and taking care of the last boss while the newbies just walk around.

[@mamayareborn]

Most people would just go in as full max levels to clear everything faster. This is why you're not a game designer! lol

[@haydenmaines5905]

@@mamayareborn ......did you miss the part where I said it would be physically impossible for a single person or a small team to complete every task all at once??? The underbosses need constant intervention to keep the boss from wiping the party. Sure, you could send in a max level player to do that, and they'd get low level rewards out of it

[@CTMUSIC70]

Josh, just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to talk to my lad a couple of times yesterday at I69. As a Dad wondering around with him, trust me, it makes his day!!

[@lisat4334]

I am actually one of those players that enjoy leveling - weird I know :). But I think your idea is great especially in games such as non-Vanilla Wow. There are so many fun raids or challenges that you will likely never experience while leveling in a later expansion of the game because its not part of the "strategic min/max-leveling route" and while it is occasionally a challenge to fill up your dungeon grp, I believe it would be next to impossible trying to make a raid grp for outdated content (unless you pay to play). So thumbs up that would be a great addition to the game.

[@Teguchii]

I think a really good way an MMO did this was back with Perfect World International. I see other examples in the first few comments, but PWI had dungeons ever major level point; I remember the first was at level 21, if I remember right, and then every 10 or 20 levels after that. They were also incredibly difficult, so if you had two options to clear them; either ask a high level person to piggy-back you through, or manage to get a team of like-leveled people together and get through with teamwork and strategy. It was far easier to find a high level person willing to bring you through low level dungeons, but it was also cool if you could find others to go through it with. On that note, if it isn't, I'd love to see you review PWI- it's fairly old, and I don't know how much longer it'll be around seeing as it's mostly dead as of the last time I checked. There's lots of options for races to play, but for a review it'd probably be most interesting to be an elven cleric- unlike other races elves start with wings, and as cleric you'll have more mana to play with- meaning you can get to far more places and look at them, even if you aren't of level (wings on the elves take mana to fly). They are slow, but you can set a spot you want to go to on the world map, set the character to fly high up, and go make a cup of tea while it flies there. edit: I almost forgot to put this bit in, but I love when games do dungeons in progressively more awesome levels; for instance, at the start maybe the dungeon is fighting just some orc chieftain or lord, not nearly as impressive end game- but then later dungeons near the end get the crazier enemies with more extreme reasons you're there and far more impressive battles.

[@WannaComment2]

I played PWI and I've never seen of heard about anyone clearing a dungeon at level in that game. It was always high level carries because they get massive exp rewards for doing so. My brother and I played as a tank/healer duo and I distinctly remember that it was basically impossible for us to out-heal the damage these dungeon mobs would deal to even a well geared tank. In a way, dungeons in PWI were about the player getting carried eventually becoming the player doing the carries, but afaik nobody actually cleared those dungeons on level.

[@michaellehner3339]

Nah. I played that one. And most of the game in my eyes was "grind and watch videos", interrupted by some "and after so many hours of solo grind, you better now have some friends to help you through this hard content". There's games that do it much better. ESO was mentioned and for good reason. In theory GW2 would also do it well, due to how things work there, but it fails badly in guiding people to the group content. I personally would give a honorary mention to old times TSW. (Not the yucky SWL reboot, though. ) It had a dungeon in every zone and the story always made sure that you would get to it. Not forcing you to enter it, but nudging you towards it. And those dungeons actually were pretty well scaled for the levels. The only drawback: still no scaling, like ESO or GW2 do, which allows people of different levels to work together there and all having a fun experience and getting useful loot.

[@RiseInAfterlife]

What I absolutely loved were the lv.19 dungeons in each races territory. Cause they had some dungeon mobs outside the dungeon, close to the entrance. I remember getting absolutely slaughtered by one as I got too close to the dungeon entrance while questing.

[@nakano15]

I stopped reading when I read the being carried part. That also happened when I played Perfect World, and was the least enjoyable part of the game, since it made me feel useless, powerless, and feels like the 20 levels I spent leveling up my character were for nothing. If to do that kind of content I need high level players to cheese it for me, then what is the point of that? Making high level players feel useful?

[@Teguchii]

@@nakano15 It's a balancing act, and likely an unintentional one at that. You could do the dungeon with a full party with all the needed bases covered and feel incredible having done it legitimately after a struggle- but on the flip side, there weren't enough low level players with balanced enough roles to do it often, if ever, for most players. That's where the high level players, knowing the helplessness of not being able to do the dungeon and progress, step in- plus for them it gets to be a short power fantasy moment where they realize all they've achieved. I won't call it an ideal system at the time or now, but it worked; the devs probably just took it as a small miracle and wrote it off as a problem for another day.

[@domihase8148]

I think, that's a great idea. But it depends havily on the community. I did a dungeon as a new player at WoW once and after I died (because I didn't know how to behave properly with my class), the other players started to abuse me. That's not an environment, you want to learn in your skills and classes. 😧

[@YannMetalhead]

I believe Elders Scrolls Online does this well; dungeons are available as soon as you hit level 10, and players of all levels are scaled and can do the dungeon together.

[@YannMetalhead]

@Flare Agreed, but at least they have it at low level.

[@andersfaret11]

While I agree, their dungeons are still "nuke everything". If only the mini-dungeons was group content with elite mobs it would teach the players more about their roles.

[@YannMetalhead]

​@@andersfaret11 Yeah, they could do a far better job with the dungeons. Like, why not have a low level dungeon that actually challenge (a little, just so you have to pay attention what you doing), so you can actually have fun while leveling.

[@tine1012]

Wildstar had this to some extend. The first dungeon on around level 15 was a training dungeon. It basically instructed everybody about mechanics like the holy trinity, how to heal, how to keep aggro, how to do boss mechanics etc. It was really good, basically a boss rush meant to introduce basic MMO raid/dungeon mechanics. The dungeon ended on a raid style boss with some basic cover mechanics and a really long telegraphed move that oneshot the entire party. The only way to prevent this was by using interrupt moves, which every class got 1 off. This is where the problems started. The game clearly instructed that you need 2 interrupts to stop this move from happening. But people simply did not read or did not understand. I started running this dungeon with 2 interrupts on my hotbar, because people flat out refused to interrupt this boss and I wiped an ungodly amount of times on this simple dungeon because I presumed someone else would go for the second interrupt. It really showed me that raiding is not for everyone, and there should be a clear seperation between people who want to mindlessly play through content pressing buttons and farming XP, and people who are really interested in raiding and hard dungeons. I agree that raiding should be there at early levels, but there should be separate levels of investment for people who want to be challenged and people who want to grind mobs while watching netflix at the same time.

[@iron-knee]

OH! You hit the nail on the head! My problem with World of Warcraft started back in vanilla BC. It was my first game ever and even though I thoroughly enjoyed the exploration, killing random things, questing, and making friends who would show off their class/spec abilities. But, during WoTLK I finally hit endgame and tried some of the dungeons (my first dungeons) and was utterly humiliated and kicked from most of the few that I tried. I spent the next few years (WoTLK through MoP) leveling by questing and professions only. Then I discovered that I was good at soloing old content. I enjoyed my time but wanted more yet lacked the confidence Now, I play FFXIV and because it makes you do dungeons and trials as you progress through the game, I gained the skills at a slow pace. And I am always doing something relevant, regardless of where I am in MSQ. I may never get over my trauma and anxiety from WoTLK, so I don't do the most current content. Once guides are well established and gearing is not time gated, then I do it. But I still get a thrill out of leveling new alt characters, and I can do so without guilt or pressure because of the new Duty Support system. I don't mind grinds, if it is optional. My rule for grinds is that 1) I have to see some progress within two hours and 2) It cannot serve as a barrier to overcome before I can do other content.

[@TwilightWolf032]

I'm playing FF14 right now, still level 16-17 on all my three classes, but I still have to engage in the multiplayer aspect of the MMO. I feel like the game is encouraging me to just do quests until I am ready to get to the actual game.

[@Raven3557]

You'll soon reach the first dungeon, and there will be more afterwards. Focusing on the story quest might be a good idea (flaming circle around the "!") Be sure to do the "tutorial" quests you can start in your main city near the inn by speaking to the character with a sprout icon over their head. They give Lvl 15 gear that looks nice and will be your best hear for a small while

[@janbilek6984]

That might be because you're not playing a game that's primarily mmo. The developers themselves have said several times that it's primarily a final fantasy game and only then an mmo. That's why you have a huge amount of solo content in the game and even AI partners for dungeons.

[@derwaz969]

As someone who dropped FFXIV a couple years ago (for the same reason you're saying) and picked it back up early this year. I would really recommend playing with one class you're comfortable with until you complete ARR and reach Heavensward, ARR is a slow and highly flawed section of the game. The game is a Final Fantasy game first and foremost and as such it's major focus is the story, and holy hell does it have an amazing one. You should really only focus on the Blue side quests and the MSQ (Main Scenario Quests), those are really the only important ones.

[@nogamenolife1512]

you will soon be sent into dungeons and Raids that you need to clear for the Main story ^^ (they did add the option of using NPC support for at least the Dungeons but there is the 8man Raids you will need players for)

[@jackraiden1781]

Wait that's weird. The first dungeon is lvl 15.

[@Dumbledoresarmy13]

Dungeons and Raids have always been my least favorite part of MMOs, not so much because of when they're introduced but how involved they are compared to the other content. Playing regular quests, world events, crafting, grinding, it's nice to have some company to hang out with, maybe chat with some people in the same area etc. So, in that sense I want to play an MMO instead of a single player offline game. But then you go from doing essentially solo content that's fairly casual, to suddenly having to do a raid that requires 6 people that all know what they're doing and are somewhat coordinated or are the right classes to work well together. I'm an adult now, I can't come up with 5 friends I know that even play games anymore, let alone ones that want to play this specific game, happen to be the right level and right class and have free time at this specific moment to do the dungeon. So then I'm at the mercy of whatever matchmaking system the game has, which inevitably pairs you with silent people that instantly run off through the dungeon on autopilot. Which then means you better actively keep up with them or you're going to die midway through to some random mobs. Your party members certainly aren't going to come back and get you so when you respawn at the start of the dungeon you have nowhere to go as this is your first time in this dungeon and you don't know where to, plus you'll get killed if you try to run through a bunch of rooms alone. By the time you figure out the dungeon through many trial and error runs, you finally reach the boss with your randomly matched team and die trying to avoid attacks and use your abilities as best you can to deal damage. Then maybe the silent team will magically find their words to tell you how much you sucked and berate you for having a shit build or shit rotation or shit gear score or not divining some boss mechanic that was about to happen or whatever. Then you get some gear for a different class that isn't yours, sell it, and have to keep trying over and over and over again until RNGesus gives you the gear you want one piece at a time. Why can't dungeons just scale to however many people you want to play with? I would enjoy like a 2 or 3 person dungeon way way more than trying to coordinate a huge party to do a dungeon. I don't like gacha games much. I dislike the gambling-y ness. But Genshin Impact is great to play with a friend. It's so nice to spontaneously join your friend and go fight a boss just the two of you.

[@KromgashTheImpaler]

honestly FF14 does this the best, the raids you get to do at the end of expansions are a great tool, and i think even enjoying the story together with friends is amazing too. There are many facets to this that I don't think anyone has quite hit spot on. But we can hope and dream!

[@kerianhalcyon2769]

I actually think that ESO's setup for dungeon content is a good example of how dungeoneering in MMOs should be done - Trials (the equivalent of proper raids) are still end-game, and you ahve a dungeon finder that you can access with different dungeons unlocked as you level, usually based around where you would be zone-completion-wise if you were going through the base game. However each zone contains a series of delves and a "Public dungeon," essentially smaller instanced dungeon areas the equivalent of a cave or small ruin in Skyrim that you can explore, usually with a quest associated with the completion, a low-level boss at the end, and dailies to encourage you to return, with the Public Dungeon being more like a traditional dungeon and having more difficult bosses meant to be completed in a group. While instanced from the zone, both the Delve sand the Public Dungeon can be accessed by all the players at any time without needing a party (which to an extent is also one of their weaknesses), so players can complete them on their own time without needing to group up.

[@aetherfukz]

I think this is something Destiny 2 does very well. All the older raids and dungeons have a (power) level requirement that's exactly what you have when you come out of the games tutorial, so basically you're raid-ready after that - of course you won't have good armor stats and guns, but you'll have enough power level to do it if you have friends or LFG to help you. And since those raids and dungeons are still worth farming as endgame since only the stats of the loot matters and not the level which can be upgraded after the fact.