The Real MMORPG Killer (and how to fix it)

[@IdylOnTV]

Play World of Tanks here: tanks.ly/3WENbiA Thank you World of Tanks for sponsoring this video. During registration use the invite code COMBAT to receive a lot of freebies. please like the video if you miss the roman republic and hate power creep for killing it :/

[@wimble6330]

Where do we play World of Hanks??? I find the idea of playing as a white guy unique and compelling! Is there MTX? Please say there's MTX

[@HI-kb2cg]

post the power creep doc

[@roxaskinghearts]

world of tanks is a scam

[@ZachKeller-ne9jz]

Ironic that the video about power creep is sponsored by an extremely power creeped game.

[@DewJrRC]

@@roxaskinghearts in what way?

[@ThatOhhio]

Can't believe games like Guild Wars 2 weren't included in the discussion here, as its entire system is horizontal and the same BiS gear from the base game is still relevant in the most recent expansion. They still add new specs and stat types, but the level cap hasn't even changed.

[@grimmftw8044]

This is what I said and people said it wasn't true, lol. You can tell who hasn't played the game at all.

[@tabe2278]

Gw2 not being included feels even worse cuz it IS in the thumbnail

[@bernardogomesdemelo6217]

lmao right!!

[@nerdicusdorkum2923]

It does have some power creep, such as elite specializations at times making vanilla non-elite specs feel behind the power curve, especially the dumb ones that are basically 'vanilla+'. But overall, it's a LOT less then a lot of mmos. If you made a warrior with a greatsword and rifle in 2013, in full exotic zerker gear, and then came back after 10 years, that warrior will still be plenty viable. Maybe your build is dated, and skills have had changes, but it will still mostly function as it did back then, and it can still clap cheeks with bull rush->frenzy->hundred blades. Though people might question it a bit if ya bring it into higher end content. But overall, instead of power creep, we get convivence creep. Which frankly, I think is a great direction to go in. Especially when you gate a convivence behind an ironic inconvenience, aka a grind. My skyscale has made getting 100% map completion much less of a headache, but the amount of time and effort I put into that, I could of just gotten it done on foot! It gives you goals and asperations, and you can use the new convinces ya unlock to do other things you want to unlock. Right now I am doing LS3 content because I want an item that can help clean my inventory of unsellable bloat, and turn it into more liquid assets. And that skyscale is making what would of been a massive headache grind into something much more manageable.

[@tabe2278]

@@nerdicusdorkum2923 friendly reminder, the new mastery unlocks a vendor that can also eat up the junk materials you are trying to get rid of. If you haven't done it yet, go for it

[@grimmftw8044]

Im kinda sad you never touched on GW2 and its horizontal progression and how its done correctly in a sea of bad examples. You can take a 5 year break from GW2 in all epics, come back and your player power has barely budged an inch. Just the adding of new afixes for gear, and those rarely mean just better than what you had for your build. Hell, if you grind out the legendaries, they literally cannot become bad as they always add the new afixes to them as a choice.

[@NazzyDragon]

especs and new statlines are very, very much power creep. core classes are nowhere near as good in most cases than elite specs. there's still power creep.

[@Fvoarin]

I'm in legendary gear rn after playing for 2 months after a 3 year break. And I'm way worse now than I was back then in exotics. GW2 is perfect int he sense of horizontal progression, for the literal reason that progression as a player, and how you perform at the game, is almost everything

[@Fvoarin]

@@NazzyDragon The difference is very minimal, and a great player in pretty decent core equipment, will outperfom a good player in meta spec equipment. Obviously, the same player in both types of equipment, will see an improvement. But it's not to the level of other mmos where, in most cases, the equipment will decide who stomps

[@diamondsanchez224]

The biggest problem with GW2's progression is that it can make high-level content feel less rewarding. New raid drops and all you get from it is a title. It can make longer hiatuses from players, if not straight-up boredom upon gaining BiS gear.

[@jrrystone1398]

​@@diamondsanchez224 i used to feel like this but i think its just a preference. Some people get bored BiS hunting even in gw2 thats why mmos have different types of content. Ppl just like different stuff

[@calvinnguyen1870]

World of Tanks: I sleep World of Hanks:👁️👁️

[@LordButtersI]

2020 Idyl: Pothead j1mmy 2024 Idyl: Pothead JoshStifeHayes

[@thecodeson99]

Well said 😅

[@SetariM]

>implying josh and j1mmy aren't already potheads and just hide it well in their videos

[@TheHerpthatderp]

@@SetariM josh? a pothead? where it's still super illegal? that's dude's just a teahead.

[@CaptianSwan]

@@TheHerpthatderp wait people do illegal things? But thats illegal!

[@XenFPV]

​@@TheHerpthatderp There's plenty of potheads over here. I definitely was one. I don't get pothead vibes from JSH though

[@Hoopaugi]

I think guild wars 2 has managed the issue pretty well since launch. Ascended gear is probably the only form of "better" gear that has been added over the years.

[@Jalae]

technically there has been power creep in other forms - elite specs, expac stat combinations, food, etc all these have crept power a bit. but generally yes, compared to other games its age the actual dps curve from launch to today is practically flat.

[@Bigsolrac]

Made a video about power creep and didnt mention GW2 horizontal progression as an alternative, its not perfect but works as a snowball of content since old content keeps being relevant, and people focus on unlocking new mounts, skills, etc. which is already similar to people focusing on farming mounts in wow. i dont believe its a perfect system since it can get boring too but i find it to be closer to a ''perfect system'' than just vertical progression.

[@Jalae]

i personally am of the opinion he hasn't played gw2 at all. #notmypresident

[@enkidorado4187]

That PoE dev is right on the money, though. Players of today are just on a whole new level compared to what they were in 2006. I'm not sure if we'll ever really be able to get those kinds of MMOs again, honestly.

[@zedorian6547]

Idk I’ve seen some REALLY bad players even today. The majority of players arent try hards like the vocal players like you to think.

[@julianrogers8608]

​@@zedorian6547you're missing the point lmao there's alot more sweaty players now than there was in 2006 ofc theres still shit players there always will be 😂

[@lepsek]

RPG subgenres like MMOs and ARPGs are fairly niche and the core audience of these genres are the exact same people who were in 2006. But the dumbass kids and teenagers of 2006 are now in their 20s/30s/+ with 20 years of experience behind them. Another big things is the amount of information available. Back than, we'd scrape together bits of info from various forums. Now, we have full wikis and 1000s of youtube/written guides within a week of any game release.

[@TreesPlease42]

Fortnite is an MMO

[@Vexreal_]

we also wont ever experience that type of mmo because they are expensive asf to make and seemingly have to be subsidized by microtransactions.

[@jonasalmstrom4986]

Like other people have said, talking about progression and not mentioning GW2 whilst having it in the thumbnail? I feel like I've been robbed

[@dragonfangalexander]

You now owe all connoseiurs a full video on GW2 horizontal progression. It is not perfect. But is an absolute good that it exist. Also mandatory WoW copied Fractals from GW2.

[@hunger4wonder]

"MMORPGs really have to nail just one thing to be considered a success and that is, progression." laughs in brighter shores... actually, cries in brighter shores.

[@Ra_views]

I don't even like MMOs i just like this guys' vibe

[@carsonspears8568]

Right?

[@Turahk]

heck ye

[@haruhirogrimgar6047]

Same.

[@GarredHATES]

I thought GW2 was known for not having Powercreep

[@shamwaw336]

It has noticeable power creep, but it's not as bad as other mmos. Much of it stems not from player's stats but using proper team comps to provide the necessary buffs. Unlike traditional power creep. It's not as easy to solo/1 shot many old content

[@tabe2278]

The powercreep in gw2 is player/balance based. For one, since most of the content stays relevant in gw2, players do the same content for years and find new stuff to "exploit". As for the balance, over the years Anet tried to bring every class on a really high baseline dmg, so casual players can also do endgame content. This obviously came with higher dps builds becoming easier to learn. The highest possible dps didn't change much tho

[@Rabidconscience]

Makes a video about power creep in mmos. Puts guild wars 2 on the thumbnail. Doesn’t explain anything about guild wars 2’s horizontal progression system. Also you bring up mythic plus like it’s WOWs invention as if they didn’t copy Fractas of the mist 21:00. Also, literally no one was complaining about them making a woman a “samurai”. One, that’s a ninja. Two, people weren’t complaining that there was a woman ninja.

[@chatjayasuriya7567]

GW2 has minimized power creep. I’ve played that game for 10+ years without having to schedule life around it just for the sake of getting the “most powerful items” 😊

[@Skyztamer]

13:25 - 13:50 Funnily enough in GW2 there has been power creep with mounts. Starting with the skyscale released mount during the Path of Fire expansion. That was also the expansion that released mounts in that MMO. Instead of mounts being static they all have unique movement that excel at different terrain. The skyscale is decent on land as well as flying (they control like helicopters, so they're not particularly fast. Flying speed is where the griffon excels) which makes its the overall most reliable/useful mount for most situations. The current expansion too, Secrets of the Obscure, added new masteries that can improve the skyscale's movement abilities even more; and added some combat abilities too. The recently announced next expansion, Janthir Wilds is also adding new masteries to improve the warclaw mount (the only mount accessible in the large scale PvP mode, but now might get some useful PvE functions). Edit: The griffon also got some of the same masteries as the skyscale for extra movement functions this expansion; but not the combat related ones.

[@rept7]

Skyscales and gryphons might be responsible for turning Dragon's Stand into a joke. That map meta used to be pretty fun due to it having a fair bit of challenge.

[@Skyztamer]

@@rept7 At first I didn't think too much of that when I was still new to the game back in early 2022. However since I revisited that meta somewhat recently after having acquired both mounts I completely agree.

[@ocanica3184]

Was really hoping to hear about horizontal progression like in Guild Wars 2 but loved the video regardless

[@notobi-wan8344]

I dont know how you will take this but your videos are perfect background noice when im trying to sleep. Im not saying they are boring this is actually a compliment

[@PhenomRom]

It’s a nice stable flow and volume level. Not everyone gets this right, but he does.

[@TheZeagon]

Amazing second monitor slop

[@matty4376]

Deeper Specialization and new unique build tools should be the appeal for expansions. Gw2 expansions and the added weapons per class is a good example. Power creep is just number. Bigger numbers doesn’t make things more interesting or fun.

[@MylesJacobSwie]

You highlighted a lot of OSRS, but I think a cool method of addressing Power Creep from RuneScape comes in the RS3 skill Invention. The skill allows you to disassemble any item into components which can then be used to make useful tools and upgrades for late game equipment. This means that the value of early game gear suddenly shoot’s up because it can be used for end game upgrades, which allows new players to still get value out of their skills during progression. It doesn’t fix power creep, but alleviates an issue for new players entering the game!

[@brandonmolcyk3085]

Also of note: power creep makes it harder for newer players to catch up to long time players in games with a player driven economy. While formerly very powerful items become easier to obtain because they get less valuable, newer players also have a harder time obtaining relevant gear because the former wealth progression also gets thrown out the window and the economy reaches a point where the only way to afford end game gear is to already own it

[@Fvoarin]

"Is it wrong to find Judy Hopps objectively attractive?" "N-" "Yes, it is, please go to therapy" Sooooooooo.....No real reason guys, but anyone know of a good therapist?

[@vonrelevanz1963]

Rumor has it there's an expert therapist for that: Dr. J. Hopps.

[@Eyevou]

I hear that rule 34 has the best therapy but only lasts for a few hours, at best.

[@BearTheManPk]

I was gonna smoke pot while watching this, but I got high 30 seconds in before I found my lighter

[@Phirestar]

My favorite example of the Fight Caves becoming easier in modern times is when Settled didn’t want to redo his hour long inventory setup for the Inferno on McTile, so he just did an on-the-fly Fight Caves run using no resources to get a second Fire Cape.

[@ericjohnson6455]

That's an example of people just knowing the game better not it getting easier. RuneScape added harder content which made players get better. Leaving fight caves to be pretty easy. You can still do fight caves in the gear you'd have back in '07 and beat fight caves easy because you know what to do.

[@rufur2]

You gotta play Elder Scrolls Online and Guild Wars 2 and check out their horizontal progression to make a point how to avoid Power Creep (kinda)

[@ynybody1382]

The "don't nerf, only buff" isn't a developer philosophy, it's a player demand. Players prefer it because players are focused on short term enjoyment, because they can always leave if their short term enjoyment goes away. This is why hardcore players tend to be more pro nerf than the majority of players - they don't want to leave if it stops being fun, they'd rather stay forever (Look at the divinity nerf that happen ~2 years ago, and who was for and against it). Developers are also more interested in long term player retention, which is why they'll nerf things despite player outrage. Generally speaking, nerfing more, buffing less slows power creep, keeping the game alive longer, and player outrage usually goes away after a week or two.

[@Sebs-FFXIV]

Im FFXIV player so i can only say this for XIV: Its completely opposite for XIV, in XIV the actual longterm player who do midcore/hardcore content want stuff to get nerfed (the classes mostly, XIV gear and stats are actually really worthless, the jobs aka classes are just OP by design since the skills numbers are too high) but square enix refuse to nerf stuff even when its clearly OP, when the Endwalker expansion was released the reaper class was really busted, it did like 1k more DPS than any other job, it was by far the easiest job to play, it had insane AOE raidwide party heal and a ton of movement and freedom, instead of nerfing this absolute monster, they decided to buff everything else... yeah its not going well with XIV at the moment, tanks and healers are completely worthless and there is actually a movement going on atm called #healerstrike where healers would be on a strike and refuse to do content before SE does some changes to the role, increasing queue times a ton since nobody wants to play healer. So in the end SE likes to give players power without taking any away, they dont care about loyal or lasting players, they care about the new casual players who buy the game, do the story and leave, the game is dying and a lot of people are mad at SE because of this

[@GaryTheGreat55]

judy hops aint got shit on that rabbit from space jam

[@zedorian6547]

Lola. Her name is Lola Bunny. Also, you are correct.

[@wolfspirit12223]

Power Creep did not kill leveling in WoW. It was just that nobody wanted to level more characters, or that there was less players starting that made all the quests and dungeons that needed other people completely undoable. At times it wasn't very weird to be the only person leveling in certain zones because every one was sitting at the end game. Plus wow players constantly remark that the "TRUE" game begins at max level which makes leveling more of a chore since it isn't billed as real content. As time kept on going it became longer and longer to reach max level making it time consuming to catch up with what was practically everybody at this point if you started late.

[@jackalo34]

I don't think it's wrong to say that power creep also played a role even if it's a minor one.

[@ultimaxkom8728]

Length creep > power creep It affect all long running franchises with years of continuity by principle. One Piece is a classic example.

[@ericjohnson6455]

So minor that it really didn't do anything

[@ericjohnson6455]

Most of his examples and reasoning had nothing to do with power creep really. Or he oversimplified it so much

[@birdenthusiast5421]

That paper on the power creep that destabilized the Roman Empire is so perfect holy shit

[@ArrgsDev]

"Racing through early game to get to good content". Yes! this is exactly why we need more OSRS content like Scurrius. Making the levelling process as fun as possible means it won't feel like a chore just to get from A to B. Also teaches players how to do the end game content so that it's not a huge learning curve once they have the requirements to do it.

[@Gruesome420]

Not mentioning my beloved GW2 when you have it in the thumbnail....😭

[@JRileyD]

Your humor is my favorite on KZbin. You are literally my mmo president and I think we need more speeches like this. Lead us great one.

[@SnaccHBG]

Why is GW2 in the thumbnail?

[@steamyrobotlove]

GW2 can get boring. I agree with everyone here who has said as much. But it’s also still fun and not a gear treadmill. Continue taking my money, Anet.

[@MrDraehl]

My favorite anti-power-creep mechanic is full loot PvP/losing items. It makes lower tier gear still useful since you don't always want to use your best set. And even your best items can be lost, creating a reason to farm up multiple sets, etc. Albion Online does this pretty well, but has leaned into P2W mechanics over the past couple of years making the game feel less genuine than before. Additionally: 1) It doesn't fully answer the PvE side of the equation. Not everyone likes PvP. How can this general idea expand to a more PvE focused game? 2) Many players seem to struggle with the idea of items as disposable tools rather than a permanent unlock. Even players who like the mechanic sometimes get "gear fear" anxiety when using the items they've grinded for. 3) Full loot PvP has a tendency to create some pretty toxic behavior. Namely the N+1 phenomenon where bringing more people to win fosters larger and larger group sizes. Making players either the victim of larger groups OR joining them and ceding individual agency to the group, which also feels bad. TLDR: full loot PvP feels like the best solution, but has accessibility and balance considerations that for many make the downsides outweigh the benefits. I think the core idea of *scarcity* could be utilized, without necessarily having it stem from full loot PvP?

[@ManicForMetal]

Even outside the realm of MMOs, I really appreciate it when RPGs have horizontal layers to their progression systems, offering unique rewards that remain useful throughout more of the game than a typical raw stat bonus weapon/armor piece that will just get replaced within the next few hours of gameplay usually. A good example is the materia system in FF7. Throughout the game there are useful and unique, or at least very limited in supply, materia that can be acquired by exploring, doing side quests, and generally just engaging with the game more thoroughly than the bare minimum needed to progress the story.

[@oldmanbanjo]

Dude your videos are insanely good. Makes me actually anxious at a content creator. Keep it up man!

[@antoninolandolina8174]

I'm honestly impressed how you've never quit making videos these last few years, stuck to your guns, and now are on your way to becoming a "professional" KZbinr. I don't even know you Idyl, but I'm kind of proud of you to be honest. I wish I had even half of your commitment!

[@grudley]

here's a way to fight power creep in an expansion based mmo like WoW: You have a base game with a base max level, say 60. This defines the core of all the characters. Then each expansion has its own 10 levels on top of that where that core character gets remixed. So it would be like, in base Azeroth, your max lvl is 60. Go to TBC and you can get to lvl 70. Go back to Azeroth and you're lvl 60 again but your progress in TBC is saved. Then when WotLK comes out, you go from the core game into Northrend and can get to 70 again, but those levels give you different skills and stuff. Progression becomes branching instead of linear. Then on top of that you can do something like a Cataclysm where you revamp the core game, but I think that should function like OSRS from RS3 where the world is entirely new and progress is reset. Maybe you can bring a character from the old world but that only comes with achievements and cosmetics and stuff, not progression. The benefit of doing things this way is that you can replay old content as it was. New content doesn't completely invalidate everything

[@TurboV8boi]

That's a pretty cool idea. Like "yo you went through a time/space portal I don't know what to tell you but you left that stuff there"

[@grudley]

@@TurboV8boi yeah, or like, that stuff only worked because of magic that was special to that area

[@fluktuition]

@@grudley Adding new content separated from the base game will only divide the player base even further. A mmo doesn't really feel like a mmo if you can't see a soul anywhere except in hot spots like major cities.

[@grudley]

​@@fluktuition you can't have an mmo produce content for 10 years and have people play every single piece of content all the time. In my plan, you will see people in the base 1-60 areas (which in later expansions function as tutorials for new characters), you will see people in whatever the current expansion is, and you will perhaps have some kind of periodic weekly or monthly event where the content of an old expansion - factions, dungeons, raids - is highlighted and has some kind of current expansion relevant reward to them so you will see people there. You won't see people in expansion content that is neither the latest expansion nor the periodic highlighted expansion, but that's ok. When you have so much content, you're going to need to focus the playerbase in a few places in order for those players have a chance to run into each other. If you want to increase interaction between people progressing in the current expansion and people in the base game there are a bunch more things you can do there too, and its much easier to do if people in the current expansion can't bring their power back into the base game.

[@Asumji]

Sooo where do I download World of Hanks

[@ashleyanne2056]

The self proclaimed president of MMOs really feels like he's only really played RuneScape and Wow

[@ashleyanne2056]

Because Guild Wars 2 has had the same end game gear for over 9 years, it has the much slower power creep discussed as a solution in this very video -- and he seems 100% oblivious to this fact

[@druidbern]

As a WoW addict, it's fantastic that we have retail WoW, Classic Era, Season of Discovery, Hardcore Classic, and Cata Classic (for some reason.) There are so many choices to find your perfect game style. I am character capped for my retail toons because I do like mount, pet, toy and transmog farming, and it's easy to learn a new class with as easy as they made it to level. There's something for everyone. I'm a retail AOTC tank. I play retail, classic, SoD, and hardcore classic.

[@CaptianSwan]

13:30 Not quite on mounts, A) there are some mounts that do stuff like there were bank mounts and crafting mounts and B) The crazier mounts get, the less interesting old mounts get to an extent. Like is riding a dragon still cool when there's the elder constellation dragon of legend in 6 colours? Its not as straightfoward as numbers power creep but it does lead to the same sort of thing where there are so many mounts and there are so readily available "epic" mounts that each mount individually becomes much less interesting.

[@Lorentari]

The problem with Mythic+ in Wow is that gear with more power it dropped from it instead of cosmetics etc.

[@chriswillis4960]

My brain got so confused when the Pyrite Town music started playing as Im actively playing Pokemon Colosseum while watching this.

[@matthewfera2954]

Niiice. I haven't played in a bit. Hard game! What team to running?

[@jimmy13morrison]

The best exemple of power creep is the 9th generation of pokemon. A lot of pokemon who were amazing for the last 20ish years and were great during the 8th generation are now niche picks and that's if they're still viable

[@jellocook]

what wow did with power creep caused by new expansions is that they cut the level cap in half, made the damage numbers fall down from 1 mil to a couple of thousand but while changing the level cap they made old content have similar levels and made old content scale with your level

[@lEFCl]

The irony of talking about power creep after a WoT ad is not lost on me

[@Melethrion]

didn't mention that wow literally just did a "numbers squish" twice by now, where they just stomped everything down to reasonable numbers again, as the name might imply. they did it even before implementing m+ and it worked quite well. everybody was going "well yea, that kinda makes sense" bc dmg numbers where going into the hunderd millions and it really began to lose its sanity at some point. now content just scales and old content somehow just shows relatable numbers in relation to actual power despites numbers in actual content being smaller. if that's not some video game magic...

[@dethmin173]

Only having serious OSRS experience has led to a fundamental misunderstanding of how power creep works in other games. In Wow, unlike OSRS, player power is completely reset every expansion. It doesn't matter if something was overpowered in a previous expansion, and nerfs are easier to make because the player's power level will only ever last as long as the expansion. The extra difficulty levels were added in response to increased player skill, not power creep. Also, Wow's early game being unbalanced isn't power creep, it's just bad game design. Also, Guild Wars 2.

[@Lillybonnet22]

For me the game monster hunter frontier is a prime example of power creep. The end game became a fight between players being incredibly powerful and new bosses that eventually devolve to arena-wide AoE attacks. One of the last updates included a weapon that was intended to trivialize the game as much as it could

[@Dewkeeper]

I think there's something to be said for the power curve not being global across the game. Having, for example, a once per expansion power shift that justifies progression within an expansion for the purposes of clearing content inside that expansion is a good system imo. It prevents the accumulation of progress from getting so long that new players feel gated out of it. Non-power rewards are also good at incentivising the clearing of old content, the important thing is the power creep doesnt affect the challenge of that content excessively. Lateral progression can work too but without some vertical progress the game can begin to feel a bit stagnant, and the problem is that in order for those upgrades to remain lateral they have to be constrained in their utility. If it's more useful in everything then that's just vertical progression.

[@rept7]

On one hand, I wonder why GW2 is in the thumbnail when its whole deal is horizontal progression. On the other hand, I've seen Dragon's Stand go from "Oh crap, we might not actually beat the final boss in time" to "easy peasy" all because of flying mounts. So maybe I'm not as confused about its inclusion in the thumbnail at all.

[@carmillaaaa]

I honestly don’t see how the mounts would be making this kind of difference, since the map already had layline gliding as the primary function you could easily zip between the islands. All people had to do to clear (with or without mounts) is be on a was have a heavily populated map with 3 active commanders so everyone splits up between the islands, the only times I’ve seen the meta fail were on maps with too few players (before or after flying mounts) Though I’d also argue that frequently failing metas due to timers makes the content frustrating and unrewarding. That’s why people hate the Dragon’s End meta so much. So even if the mounts did solve a timer issue, that might be a good thing.

[@rept7]

@@carmillaaaa Without mounts, I recall that people would need to stay in a cluster of islands unless a mechanic required otherwise. With mounts, they can just fly wherever they need to because it's faster than even leyline gliding between islands. But maybe I'm pointing at the wrong cause of the symptom I was experiencing. All I know for sure is that Dragon's Stand used to be fun midcore content, which my experience was before mounts, and now it doesn't have that difficulty sweet spot I'm looking for. If I knew what content didn't require meta builds or rotations, but wasn't a literal joke like fractals, I'd probably not even be all that bothered.

[@Jalae]

@@carmillaaaa consider that now it's possible to mount a skyscale while still in combat, then dash twice (or even 4 times with bond of vigor) from one island to the next while raining fireballs down. it changed the whole nature of the fight to the point that I personally feel like it should have a mount disabling aura for the duration of that whole encounter.

[@carmillaaaa]

@@Jalae I’d heartily disagree with disabling them. Personally I find the fight really fun when you can freely alternate between gliding and skyscale. It makes more sense for people who don’t like using the mounts to simply not use them during the fight, rather than to take the option fun away from people who do enjoy it.

[@Jalae]

@@carmillaaaa don't really have the option not to. if you decide to do it unmounted everything is cleared by the time you get there. i suppose a decent middle option would be to add invuln phases or buff the hp, to allow those without mounts a chance to participate, but i'd guess that would be met with hate as well. stuff like octovine suffers from mount based power creep as well, but not to the same extent, you can still participate, just less efficiently on that, and the reason for that is the more time based phasing, and the smaller area so the mount buff isn't game breaking. adding a 10-15 second invuln to each step in dragon stand might 100% solve the problem

[@hoodiegal]

I think something to consider is also "content creep", where a game adds so much content over time that it gets overwhelming to approach. If you go to a burger place and they have 12 different burgers on the menu, you can probably pick out one you'd like, and maybe you have one in mind you wanna try next time you go there. If you go to a burger place and they have 100 different burgers on the menu... I'd give up. There's too much stuff going on here. All of these burgers can't be equally good, and figuring out which ones are the best is a chore.

[@Retro64_]

What Blizz needs to learn is levelling is where people get invested, not just in their character but also the game. I get that end game has all the challenges/content/loot but if you're not invested you won't bother and just play something else.

[@psyjinx]

Not sure what you call games like Phantasy Star Online, Monster Hunter, Dragon Nest, Warframe, ETC, but I really dig the "Congested multiplayer hub into 10-20 minutes of caring about your team" type of games. Walking/Mounting across a map is like driving to work in MMOs. It's a waste of time, but you occasionally catch a nice sunrise on the way to work. Don't need it or want it anymore.

[@your-username-here2308]

""Walking/Mounting across a map is like driving to work in MMOs. It's a waste of time"" If you have a Virtual World with Stuff to do and Players dont run around and meet each other you kill your Game World. Thats what happend to WoW. And it's less convenient, which is a good thing because what the World and also Games need, is less of convenience. Espacially in Games that want to give People the sense of an Adventure, removing traveling is just BS. Spawning and despawning from Work could sound to some cröckhead good at first, but would drive them insane later. What you are describing is the remove of 3th Places.

[@benetnasch1774]

The only game I know that could've probably nail the progression and power creep, was an mmo that barely lasted 5 months, the character got more powerful from collecting stuff like wings, so anything you had before was still good and useful, no need to equip the strongest other than customization, and the gear was actually unique, you started with the basic armor, but you don't drop it when you get a new one, because there is no new one, instead you get more pieces of the same first armor and fuse em to evolve the armor, while still keeping the old armor designs for customization, instead of having to drop the armor you worked so much for in the next cap, you just make the armor you have again to fuse it and get the new armor and then sell the armors you don't need, or any new player still need to make the armors gradually

[@Eyevou]

That ending gave me "GET IN YOUR CAR", "I am in my car." vibes.

[@Eyrothath]

A good way to fight power creep is by getting rid of character levels in favor of a use based skill system which eliminates classes as well.. Theoretically the game should be easier to balance so long as gear progression isn’t a key focus and you are able to gather what you need quickly and are able to make the best gear in the game instead of having a system of numbers and whoever has the numbers and the person with the highest numbers in the winner, all because they had no life.. UO Outlands is a really great example..

[@widget5963]

The other part about Path of Exile is that they actually do just nerf 20-50 items/skills every league. The permanent game mode is extra-busted because you get access to every pre-nerf item that got rolled over from the various leagues. (It's a miracle that that code base continues to work so well with all the interactions)

[@alewis514]

and the game itself is beatable in gear that is way below absolute best. Even the hardest maps and level 85 uber bosses can be beaten by many builds that wear gear costing (in total) much less than 1 mirror which is a currency used to dupe just ONE item slot. So this broken shit in standard league can exist and nobody cares about it, because the content ceiling is relatively low compared to power levels attainable by players, even on current league let alone standard league.

[@tomhammer802]

item degradation is annoying but it helps stave off inflation aka "money creep"

[@SetariM]

Casuals HATE item degradation. MMORPGs will never introduce that.

[@Slayerlord13]

@@SetariM What kind of item degradation are you referring to? Lots of mmos have gear that needs to be repaired for a fee from time to time (which is what I assume the original commenter is referring to with the comment about "money creep") and heck runescape even has a few pieces of gear that degrade and can't be repaired

[@tomhammer802]

@@Slayerlord13 Yeah I'm talking mainly about gear that needs repairing. Consumables being consumable are, you know. A-ok. Degrading without being repaired would help even more against items eventually flooding the market, but would be equally annoying and needs a good tradeoff. Like the abyssal tentacle.

[@Jorvalt]

I think systems like this where you can repair the item with money/resources are fine, but I HATE the ones where you can't repair the item and it just breaks and you need to get a new one. It was really the only reason why I didn't like BotW.

[@tomhammer802]

@@JorvaltI remember that, it was lame. Plus if it can't be repaired it's not a money sink, only an item sink. And withdrawing gps from the economy is more important.

[@lucasLSD]

There's an open world gacha called Tower of Fantasy, the power creep there is so bad the game didn't even had a tier list, the tip was just to keep getting the new characters as they come. Thing is, now that they took everyone's money for the characters they can't just nerf them or players will do chargebacks and stuff, so they had to do a whole new server from zero and make it optional to play there. But I still didn't come back to try it out, would be surprised if the whales ever move over.

[@mfsoab]

"The Roman Republic, with its once carefully balanced Power Curve, had now become unrecognizable." Best sentence in the paper!

[@Zemilia22]

I think the way jagex handles power creep in some ways is incredibly good, actively listening to the playerbase trying to make sure something wont completely throw things out of wack is good. But the way they handle bis items is incredibly toxic at least from my perspective, Instead of just gradually allowing more and more players to slowly acquire bis gear what they have instead done is routinely take large quantities of bis items and deleted them which is effectively just creating artificial scarcity. The twisted bow and to a lesser extent the other max combat weapons are power creep, the only reason its not seen as terrible compared to something like the blowpipe is because they actively remove the chance for 90% of players to ever obtain bis items. Instead of time gradually making bis item goals more reasonable the goal post is forever locked, so instead of just slowly offering side grades for specific content they instead went the route of keep people chasing a carrot on a stick that never gets closer even tho the way the game systematically works should be the case.

[@UltimaKeyMaster]

Here's some examples for some games. OSRS: ...This video, I don't need to go over it again. FF14: "You're going to do the entire main story from Level 1 to 100 to get access to anything and you're going to like it, don't rush to the end just because the friends that wanted you to play it are there, they can Level Sync down to you for instances." ESO: "What curve? Your gear capped at 160 Champion Points and any more points are just fueling minor passive numbers." Guild Wars 2: "What curve? You only level up in the base game, there's no more vertical progression, just various side things to do."

[@througtonsheirs_doctorwhol5914]

@19:20 - new Mode !!! Mythic fRIGGIN +++ every room you enter one of you f*ck*rs dies on the spot. Manage that healers!!! Next level, every 20 seconds a CASTER turns into a cat, a rogue into a fox, a fighter into a sheep,. ... enjoy! NExt tier : each warlock gets possessed by a god tier summon of their most powerful kind - both summon and warlock turn against the party... they can spread the curses ...

[@ImmaBitKiller]

This is amazing. As a OSRS player for.... coming on 20 years, this video is pretty accurate. We've dealt with this for so so long. Everytime new content comes out, especially raids they introduce new BIS gear.... making the old gear seem weak by comparison. I just want new mechanics, not a funny bow that melts enemies from a giant lizard in a cursed underground maze filled with enemies that a magical crackhead made...

[@obscurereference8798]

Isn't part of project rebalance to add more significance to the different types of damage and defense?

[@Baterodalo]

I just have this to say... In some old mmo reaching max LVL was a achivment of itselft, it was a journey and a exiting one... every time I saw a max lvl player passing it was like I was seeing the king waslking in front of me. Todays mmo its just lets get this boring task out of the way so we can play the game, where you dont even need to improve your gear at all to each max lvl , just equip the quest rewards and you are done

[@SupachargedGaming]

11:13 This is the equivalent of a "Previously on..." in TV shows, 6+ seasons in. Obviously it's not going to be the same experience for someone just starting to watch as it was for someone who watched those 6+ seasons. 11:50 Surely something as glorious and majestic as the perfect levelling experience that vanilla so obviously is wouldn't have a level boost... wait... it does? Maybe it's not so perfect after all. Something, something, joker Blizzarding mobs for 2 days to hit 60 first.

[@Rakupenda]

What I love about OSRS is you can take a multi-year break from the game, come back and go right back into the content you were doing before you left, with the same strategy and gear, and (in most cases -- bp nerf) it is exactly the same as it was before you left. Take solo Bandos/Graardor in GWD for example: melee meta works just as well today as it did back then, we just have markedly better methods for tackling it now like red-click Bowfa or Tumeken's Shadow. The same goes for skilling methods, old methods are just as viable as they always were but we might have better methods to train now. Over time, those old pieces of gear lose demand and as a result become cheaper to acquire, but they are just as powerful as they were which makes the old meta methods more viable for newer players to use. Staple items like the Abyssal bludgeon, Ghrazi rapier and the Dragon warhammer have become way more affordable over the years as they have been replaced with better alternatives. Power creep like this also acts as a soft nerf to old content. Combat achievement speed tasks become easier as new gear pushes up the damage you can output and bridges the skill gap and also reduces the amount of "good rng" you need to have on the speed run attempt. This doesn't negatively affect the CA system as a whole because the new content is set/balanced around existing metas/gear, which means as new PVM is released, it also raises the difficulty bar to achieve a tier's rewards keeping the CA system as a whole relevant.

[@TE-eq1dc]

Oh man Ian hazzikostas still had hair in WOD. I wonder who’s gonna go bald first? Him or the king of the attic goblins

[@Iianization]

2:24 "If you're a new playdurr" Describes World of Tanks perfectly. (Yes I listen to the ads for algorithm)

[@Skele_RS]

I was concerned using the song but I am glad to hear the Pyrite town theme in a place that is not my loop playlist

[@wwerdo4]

Holy shit that Lego island mention and clip was a hell of a throwback

[@MrHuntervad]

Temporary power creep is great, but there should be a "reset", and isolated content progress post new patch. Old group content could have been a solo challange.

[@bits360wastaken]

1:00, not all these mmos are currently alive, rip monkey quest

[@benjaminsmit781]

Rip lego legends of chima online

[@Moist_E]

a solid plugin idea would maybe be to add a safespot location. where to stand for slayer tasks and bosses

[@Guy-McPerson]

The problem is live service as a business model. It ultimately leads to developers destroying their own product in an attempt to squeeze every cent they can out of it.

[@AsheOfAx]

I love the shout out to Extra Credits! Anyone who likes the content Idyl has been doing lately should go and binge their whole catalogue of game design commentary! Like I did, half a decade ago!

[@ukyoize]

What if there is a monster that hunts down powercreeped players and just removes their progression?

[@EvanMeds]

I think a bit on context is due on the Deathtouched Dart example from RS3: the thing doesn't work on many of the high end bosses in the same like Zuk, Solak, Zamorak, Raksha, Kerapac, Arch-Glacor, etc. In some instance like Telos, it would only bring you into a new phase and not actually kill the boss. Arguably the best thing it can kill is Nex or the Ambassador, which is a tiny sliver of end game content. To be clear, I'm not saying this isn't a problem or that its good -- its not -- but I think its misleading to say there's an item that insta-kills "almost anything" in RS3.

[@TheZeagon]

But think back to when the darts came out...

[@jackalo34]

If it instakills many things except for a few bosses like those you listed, then saying it instakills almost anything is actually very accurate.

[@Dunwichruler]

Do you think it would be possible to makes lower bugget/audio only versions of your videos

[@Chimpyg0ttrix]

Can you review the MMO Palia? My friend keeps telling me to play it and it just looks so... overly modern?

[@Sir_Lagg_A_Lot]

OSRS has one more problem with power creep that other games do not. OSRS has a 99 HP system. In WoW, if players gain 10x damage from powercreep, they can gain 10x health from gear, and enemies can gain 10 damage and health too. In OSRS, there is a cap to the amount of health players can get.

[@hans.m.j]

Power creep in gw2 is weird... 1 ish week to max level then a day or 2 to get near max gear stats (exotic quality) and a few weeks after that you have full (ascended 5% better than exotic) and thats the best gear and weapons in the game. after that it is just your personal knowledge. People either stay playing Fashion wars 2 or leave the game because of the lack of progression

[@nawab256]

This is what I liked about OSRS, it has changed but still easy to understand and uptain as well as your old stuff is still good.

[@maxspooky8991]

“This thing has more spikes than a warhammer chaos model”

[@einer1314]

EQ had the best progression by far of any mmo I played. It felt by far the most rewarding.

[@jonasvanmaldeghem688]

Patreon song is new BIS, power creep in music is real

[@phillipshrader5726]

I think we need to get away from leveling characters and focus more on equipment and skills. Leveling your main character forces you to need gear based around that level. If we can level and max cap our skills and equipment, we would not have to really worry whether we are too low or high a level or not having a particular meta gear set that's on the dlc you have not bought yet.

[@Pompomatic]

It's really weird to me that economical power creep wasn't really mentioned. Sure, durability systems may be bothersome, but they include a valuable gold sink. Look at the economy of WoW Era, which has no other good gold sink (maybe) snd doesn't receive new content. Meaning not only new content creates power creep, but also the lack of it.

[@Mistimestv]

I think the example of instakilling death touch darts is quite misleading, the whole point is that they are rare and also dont work in majority of difficult content

[@aaallen23]

Or you just make the game skill based and make it so you have to perform well with others to clear the fight instead? The gear still gets stronger but if you want to clear even older fights you still need to know the fight while also not taking away the intrinsic value of the strength of the gear itself.

[@totalposer]

Oh we are so going

[@Wingedarc]

@20:20 Even project rebalance does not solve the issue it just sweeps it under the rug until players find what ar ethe new bis items or ways to kill monsters/bosses and JaGeX will still continue to power creep the game as they aways have done. I kind of see runescape as the ultimate example of powercreep and has always been as pretty much every power item in that game can be purchased and very little has to be earned.

[@aero1989]

I know it’s not technically an mmo, but Destiny has a lot of mmo-like qualities. Overall I think Bungie has handled power-creep fairly well by implementing periods of times where certain gear types and abilities are strongest, specifically through the seasonal artifact mods and additionally some stat tweaks. There are weapons and builds that can be extremely strong by synergizing with these mods for a season and then, without actively nerfing them, something else is stronger. You can still use the older stuff it just won’t be the meta and eventually it will rotate to being the strongest again in some form.

[@Artikudo]

Having my comment pinned by the President of MMO’s is more important to me than having it pinned by the U.S. president

[@TheMangovnik]

No link to the paper? Seriously?

[@Phuzzi]

@21:34 Extra Credits had to make the main channel 'Extra History' so people would forget they made the classic 'Stop Normalizing Nazis' video.