I've never understood MMO's and other "Live" games (i.e. Destiny) shuttling players to end game.

[Musubi]

So I have to think WoW popularized this but with every new WoW expansion you'd usually have a way to get free level boosts and progression jumps straight to the end of the game. I've always been baffled by this or why anyone would want to do this. (Unless your leveling alts) You have games with years of content in them and instead of finding ways to make that content relevant again your just enticed to skip all of that.

Do people not want the full context of the game? It just seems weird to me that developers would spend so much time making so much content just to encourage players to skip all of it. Help me understand ERA.

 

[Deleted member 49438]

Because normally those level boosts are monetized.

 

[Strangelove_77]

People want to play with their friends. They can't if they're not high enough level. That's my assumption anyways.

And at least in Destiny you get a lot of rewards if you play all the content. There's a reason to do it. It's irrelevant.

 

[Furfur]

because most of the older content is dead, most classes are broken at low levels due to skill pruning in later expansions and just arent fun to play, and outside of xpac launches there are very few active players who arent at endgame, leading to older areas being isolated ghost towns.

I started playing FFXIV in January of 2017. The early game was an incredibly isolating experience, the overworld was mostly dead, and every player hub town was almost devoid of any activity.

I remember thinking the entire time 'Oh no, did i pick a dead server? Where the hell is everyone?" but then I got to Idyllshire (which at the time was the main endgame hub, it too has since become completely deserted lol), had my frame rate drop to like 10 fps and was like "ohhhhh, so thats where everyone has been hiding xD)

 

[Phellps]

Because normally those level boosts are monetized.

Click to shrink...

Except quite often they're not. Even the OP talks about free boosts in WoW, and Destiny has those too.

 

[Strakt]

Because you still have the option to play through all that content once you "boost" up to endgame

 

[Musubi]

because most of the older content is dead, most classes are broken at low levels due to skill pruning in later expansions and just arent fun to play, and outside of xpac launches there are very few active players who arent at endgame, leading to older areas being isolated ghost towns.

Click to shrink...

That's kind of just the thing though. Final Fantasy XIV constantly gives players new reasons to run old content. Its one of the reasons I think its the best MMO going right now. There is some stuff that falls between the cracks that is hard to find a group for but almost everything in the game you can find groups for and can get rewards for as a current end game player.

 

[RunJumpStomp]

If someone new wants to try out the game with their friend going through 120 levels of content before you can hang out with your friend isn't a great experience.

 

[TheGhost]

In Wow's case, you have like 10 years worth of quests that pale in comparison to the modern quests.

Also easier to get burned out by level 28 when you're off in the hinterlands somewhere.

Also those boost tokens cost a lot of money, when people have like 25+ characters spread across 10 servers, they sell alot

It doesn't put you at end game either. Just puts you at the start of the new expansion. You still have to hit capable finish quest lines before you even start end game grindwhich you will probably be doing with your guild.

 

[KarmaCow]

The people coming back are usually doing it for the new content instead of all the old content that didn't entice them. In the case of many live games, the older content is often defunct or at least fundamentally different from the new content as well since it's such an iterative process. Add in friends who have been playing since launch who want to play with the their friends just joining without playing hours and hours of old content, it makes sense they want to make that process easier.

 

[DontHateTheBacon]

Because that's where most of the updated content is, among with most of the playerbase.

 

[Rotobit]

from what I can tell it was something of a tradition and when new expansions dropped no one would really want to play the old content anyway, meaning newbies playing through the old stuff would have long wait times. That + the story not being as integral to the experience as something like FFXIV is probably part of it.

I'd also never skip stuff (not even the "kill X number of enemies" quests) but I kinda get why some people would.

 

[mclem]

So I have to think WoW popularized this but with every new WoW expansion you'd usually have a way to get free level boosts and progression jumps straight to the end of the game. I've always been baffled by this or why anyone would want to do this. (Unless your leveling alts) You have games with years of content in them and instead of finding ways to make that content relevant again your just enticed to skip all of that.

Do people not want the full context of the game? It just seems weird to me that developers would spend so much time making so much content just to encourage players to skip all of it. Help me understand ERA.

Click to shrink...

An MMO's lifeblood is its population, and where its population is affects the experience hugely. WoW has made some moves towards aiding population imbalances at low levels, but they're still not exactly plentiful.

(and on the specific subject of Wow and "ways of making that content relevant again", Timewalking)

 

[TheRulingRing]

So I have to think WoW popularized this but with every new WoW expansion you'd usually have a way to get free level boosts and progression jumps straight to the end of the game. I've always been baffled by this or why anyone would want to do this. (Unless your leveling alts) You have games with years of content in them and instead of finding ways to make that content relevant again your just enticed to skip all of that.

Do people not want the full context of the game? It just seems weird to me that developers would spend so much time making so much content just to encourage players to skip all of it. Help me understand ERA.

Click to shrink...

Not really. As far as I'm concerned, the story missions (particularly in DLC expansions) are usually just filler that I'm forced to wade through to reach the endgame.

I'd much rather they just cut the story missions from expansions and went straight to adding endgame content.

Also sucks being locked to a tiny portion of the total content in the game, especially when you jump in years later after hearing how much content the game has. It's not like you can't go back and do the initial stuff later if you want to.

 

[Velocity:Design:Comfort]

Because normally those level boosts are monetized.

Click to shrink...

This was true about mmo game design long before any of those were being sold.

 

[Perfect Chaos]

People want to play with their friends. They can't if they're not high enough level. That's my assumption anyways.

And at least in Destiny you get a lot of rewards if you play all the content. There's a reason to do it. It's irrelevant.

Click to shrink...

This is pretty much the gist of it. The largest amount of active players naturally accumulate at level cap, so they need to put new players on a fast track to get them into the most active content types. I think FFXIV handles it the right way by having roulettes that can put people in Low level content and scale them down with other newer players, so the content is never really dead.

 

[Jest]

That's kind of just the thing though. Final Fantasy XIV constantly gives players new reasons to run old content. Its one of the reasons I think its the best MMO going right now. There is some stuff that falls between the cracks that is hard to find a group for but almost everything in the game you can find groups for and can get rewards for as a current end game player.

Click to shrink...

In the case of Destiny, the boost serves two purposes. One, to enable new players to play with their friends who have already been playing and are at Endgame. Two, to allow veteran players to level up Alts, should they care to do so. It also helps lapsed players skip past the content they weren't interested in which caused them to lapse. Destiny does keep a lot of the older content relevant through dailies, weeklies, and what is essentially a random dungeon queue. Though it doesn't do so with the Raid content.

At the end of the day though, most players don't really care about the content they "missed." They want to play the new cool stuff with their friends.

 

[SugarNoodles]

I'm not really sure either.

My personal experience in Vanilla WoW was that the game got far less interesting once I hit the level cap. End game raids were boring as hell and the content no was no longer about exploring the world or interacting with other players organically.


Having just picked up FFXIV I have to assume it's because end game is really the only content they actually put effort into developing. FFXIV's early game content is mind numbing trash that you just have to go through in order to unlock worthwhile content.

 

[Razgriz417]

because people want to play with friends and those that do tend to stick around longer

 

[Musubi]

I'm not really sure either.

My personal experience in Vanilla WoW was that the game got far less interesting once I hit the level cap. End game raids were boring as hell and the content no was no longer about exploring the world or interacting with other players organically.


Having just picked up FFXIV I have to assume it's because end game is really the only content they actually put effort into developing. FFXIV's early game content is mind numbing trash that you just have to go through in order to unlock worthwhile content.

Click to shrink...

They learned a lot over the years. ARR can be a bit of a chore but I think its worth doing to have the context for the rest of the story. A lot of story beats in Stormblood and Shadowbringers don't have the same impact without the foundation that is laid in ARR content.

 

[SugarNoodles]

I started playing FFXIV in January of 2017. The early game was an incredibly isolating experience, the overworld was mostly dead, and every player hub town was almost devoid of any activity.

Click to shrink...

The most bizarre thing about FFXIV so far as been that I'm playing an MMO where it makes me kick my friend out of the party in order to do the main quest line because it needs to be done solo.

Like, how did that get past concept planning?

 

[Finaj]

Because it allows players to immediately get together with friends and experience new content with them. The level boost is also optional. You could level from 1-120 and just save the boost for an alt.

The problem with trying to find ways to make old content relevant again is that it's not nearly as well designed as current content. You -could- revamp older content, which Blizzard tried with Cataclysm. It made the old world less of a slog to get through, but it limited the amount of endgame content Cataclysm could bring, which was a huge criticism of that expansion.

Blizzard is launching a new feature in 8.2.5 called "Party Sync," which I hear is very similar to a feature FFXIV has. It should allow players to engage in content with their friends more easily.
"
During this PTR we're experimenting with a new mode that makes it easier for players in a party to do quests and play together: Party Sync. When players activate Party Sync, everyone in the party becomes aligned to the same quest state, including phases. By mousing over a quest in your tracker, you can see who is on the quest, what their progress is, and who's ready to turn in the quest. There's something else we're going to try out on the PTR, a "replay" quest feature. This will allow players who have already completed certain quests to replay those quests with their friends for rewards that are appropriate to their current level, regardless of the original level of the quest.

We're also relaxing level restrictions on queueing for instanced content with your friends. This allows lower-level players to queue for content in their level range, and higher-level players can choose to join them by having their level scaled down while they're in the instance. This feature will be available for dungeon instances for PTR Week 1, with PvP instances being flagged in the following weeks. Please note that unlike Timewalking, when your level is scaled down via Party Sync you will temporarily lose access to abilities and powers (such as Azerite traits) with requirements that exceed your reduced level."

 

[Johann Mistletoe]

Seems to me like the developers goofed by implementing grindy exp/growth systems which the older content depended upon, and then ultimately submitting that nobody wants to grind exp.

 

[SugarNoodles]

They learned a lot over the years. ARR can be a bit of a chore but I think its worth doing to have the context for the rest of the story. A lot of story beats in Stormblood and Shadowbringers don't have the same impact without the foundation that is laid in ARR content.

Click to shrink...

I mean that much I can understand but the thing is that important story beats happen for the first time at level 15. Up until that point it's hours of gameplay where it just wastes your time with the duuuuuumbest cutscenes of dirt nose and Yda.

The dialog in general has wayyyy too much self importance. If you're writing a 6 paragraph monologue for becoming a level one carpenter you're doing something wrong.

 

[snausages]

You've got to kind of cluster your playerbase as close together as possible progression wise to keep engagement up. The more content you have the harder that is.

I do wish they'd do something for XIV tho and just boost the numbers on things like old EX primals to make them more relevant and playable with modern rotations.

 

[Jest]

They learned a lot over the years. ARR can be a bit of a chore but I think its worth doing to have the context for the rest of the story. A lot of story beats in Stormblood and Shadowbringers don't have the same impact without the foundation that is laid in ARR content.

Click to shrink...

This is true of WoW and Destiny as well. Those of us who played those games from or near the very start have a different context for the story beats in the newest content than those of who didn't. But that doesn't change the fact that most people really don't care about story in these types of games.

I think that's where FF players are the most different from other MMO style games. At least from my perspective from the outside looking in. FF players constantly talk about the story. People who prefer other MMO gametypes tend to talk about the other content. Mechanics, Raids, Class Balance, etc...

 

[Tuppen]

I'm not really sure either.

My personal experience in Vanilla WoW was that the game got far less interesting once I hit the level cap. End game raids were boring as hell and the content no was no longer about exploring the world or interacting with other players organically.

Click to shrink...

Agreed. It was a lot more fun exploring the world and level than turning in to a foot soldier in the weekly raid.

 

[jotun?]

Because normally those level boosts are monetized.

Click to shrink...

Rushing to endgame was popular way before there were paid level boosts. Diablo 2 for example

In addition to the playing-with-friends aspect, I think a big part of it is the gear. All the gear you get in the leveling process just gets thrown away, so none of it has any lasting value. People want to get to the end-game where they can get the best gear available. Of course that will just get thrown away with the next update or expansion so it's still not permanent, but it has more perceived value.

 

[Ruruja]

older areas being isolated ghost towns.

Click to shrink...

That's what annoys me most. I started FF14 quite a bit earlier than you and the starting cities and areas etc were pretty populated, but after HW they became ghost towns like you say.

There must be a way to keep those areas populated. Maybe have more quests and whatnot take you through those areas again?

It's pretty depressing going through Ul'dah now.

 

[DrArchon]

I only play a handful of live service games, but thoughts are as follows:

9 times out of 10, endgame is when the game actually opens up to players. You're not constrained by not being able to use certain skills or gear because you haven't hit the right level, you aren't waiting for tutorials to pop up before you can use certain mechanics, and you're able to play all of the content (you might not be challenged by it, but it's there at least). Endgame is when you can finally build the build you've been working towards, or when you can experiment with skills and gear to see what kind of build you'd like.

 

[Musubi]

This is true of WoW and Destiny as well. Those of us who played those games from or near the very start have a different context for the story beats in the newest content than those of who didn't. But that doesn't change the fact that most people really don't care about story in these types of games.

I think that's where FF players are the most different from other MMO style games. At least from my perspective from the outside looking in. FF players constantly talk about the story. People who prefer other MMO gametypes tend to talk about the other content. Mechanics, Raids, Class Balance, etc...

Click to shrink...

That's kind of the thing that was making it hard for me to try to get into WoW a few summers back when i tried it. There is such a history of that game that is just... like... not there anymore. Especially since they really changed the game with cataclysm. I guess I can see that stuff not mattering to some people but context really matters to me which kind of put me off trying to get into WoW back in like 2017. lol

 

[Crayon]

Good question. This made Diablo 3 a bunk purchase for us. We were both looking forward to going through the game. ONCE. Turns out the first time there's all sorts of messed up easy so that you can blow through the game and get to the end where apparently things get interesting. Lack of research on my part, but that's besides the point. I want to stay away from games at do this.

 

[Finaj]

That's kind of the thing that was making it hard for me to try to get into WoW a few summers back when i tried it. There is such a history of that game that is just... like... not there anymore. Especially since they really changed the game with cataclysm. I guess I can see that stuff not mattering to some people but context really matters to me which kind of put me off trying to get into WoW back in like 2017. lol

Click to shrink...

Maybe WoW Classic would be up your alley. I don't think Vanilla WoW is well designed (at all) and it has certainly not held up over time, but I'll check it out out of morbid curiosity.

 

[shark97]

Because normally those level boosts are monetized.

Click to shrink...

Nah. Its because they dont want people being scared to jump in at an expansion because they know it will take them five years to catch up. Then the purchasing base for any expansion gets smaller and smaller.

Destiny handles it pretty well imo. Theres a decent amount of grinding to catch up, but not too much. And the catch ups dont give you the full breadth of what a longtime player will have, such as all the gear and exotics

 

[Deleted member 8468]

It's because endgame content is generally easier to get groups together to do a wide variety of content. No level gaps, less issue with "oh I'm not eligible because I didn't do a prerequisite quest" stuff. Comparatively the level grind in these games is usually longer and tougher to keep a group together for unless you wait to progress with your friends.

I'm not a big fan of skipping this stuff, but I'm sure it appeals to the types who care less about story and more about playing with their friends. From the companies perspective more players can jump on with their friends with no confusion or grinding necessary, so more player engagement overall.

 

[Not Spaceghost]

Do people not want the full context of the game?

Click to shrink...

So destiny still allows players to experience the entire game, you can still get insanely good weapons from doing the launch raid but the idea is to get players to the point where they are playing with the rest of the player base.

This is an issue with WoW in particular, almost everything from the previous expansion is automatically irrelevant so progressing through the game linearly doesn't exactly work. There just wouldn't be enough people who would be running icecrown citadel at the point where it is story relevant to make it worth while

 

[Deleted member 49438]

Nah. Its because they dont want people being scared to jump in at an expansion because they know it will take them five years to catch up. Then the purchasing base for any expansion gets smaller and smaller.

Destiny handles it pretty well imo. Theres a decent amount of grinding to catch up, but not too much. And the catch ups dont give you the full breadth of what a longtime player will have, such as all the gear and exotics

Click to shrink...

Why can't it be both? The level boost is an added "value" to the monetary expense of purchasing the expansion (at least for WoW which is where my experience is). Then, if you'd like to boost more characters, you have to pay more money. Obviously the goal is to get more players to endgame so they can increase engagement, but they're doing it because a fraction of the population will pay for it. They're rarely free w/ no strings attached from what I've experienced anecdotally.

 

[flashman92]

In PSO2, I have 3 characters, each made years apart. They are all the same level, but there's a 200 hour difference between each character (100, 300, 500).

Every time I load up the game and see this, I get hit with this feeling I can't quite describe. I don't feel like I wasted my time, but damn it's something close to that.

 

[Euman]

WoW Classic. Join us brother.

It's about the journey. Take your time leveling, enjoy the world. It's better than the hand-holding-rush-to-the-end that is current WoW.

 

[Musubi]

WoW Classic. Join us brother.

It's about the journey. Take your time leveling, enjoy the world. It's better than the hand-holding-rush-to-the-end that is current WoW.

Click to shrink...

Honestly I might have to try.

 

[Iadien]

So I have to think WoW popularized this but with every new WoW expansion you'd usually have a way to get free level boosts and progression jumps straight to the end of the game. I've always been baffled by this or why anyone would want to do this. (Unless your leveling alts) You have games with years of content in them and instead of finding ways to make that content relevant again your just enticed to skip all of that.

Do people not want the full context of the game? It just seems weird to me that developers would spend so much time making so much content just to encourage players to skip all of it. Help me understand ERA.

Click to shrink...

Most people don't really care all that much, for most people it's about being able to easily join with friends and playing the latest content. This has been a trend since WoW launched and was much more accessible than MMOs before it. WoW Classic may be considered difficult today, but back when it launched it was considered a carebear MMO by many that had been playing MMOs for years already.

 

[Euman]

Honestly I might have to try.

Click to shrink...

I played consistently from Vanilla thru Wrath. Vanilla might be the best time I had with the game, and I was an alt-oholic at the time who never even hit cap during vanilla. Can play it anyway you want. PvP? Got it starting at lvl 10. PvE raid progression? sure. Small 5 man dungeons? abundant. Fuck around and just spend all your time fishing? go for it.

I'm excited just to get back into the world I haven't seen in forever. Hell, might not even hit cap this time around either.

 

[Shoichi]

In regards to WoW,
It's monetized level boosts (outside of the 1 free level boost per expansion with purchase).
It also allows players new to the game to experience the expansion if they so wish to on the server they wish to play on. Without having to wade through the old content to do so. Of course they will suck for a while with the load of new spells and stuff pushed into their face without slowly learning what they do through leveling.

Also it gives veterans a free level boost of their choice on another class they want to play on and don't have to play through the old content numerous times.

I have a few dozen toons above 100 scattered across various servers (rl friends server hopped a lot/joined another group of friends when old group died off the game). I was able to get 110's of every class with Legion due to a number of boosts I never used. Personally would never pay for a boost though.

BFA though, my group of friends died out and so did I. Came back though for a small bit of time because I wanted flying and the anniversary stuff lol

 

[TheMan]

because most of the older content is dead, most classes are broken at low levels due to skill pruning in later expansions and just arent fun to play, and outside of xpac launches there are very few active players who arent at endgame, leading to older areas being isolated ghost towns.

I started playing FFXIV in January of 2017. The early game was an incredibly isolating experience, the overworld was mostly dead, and every player hub town was almost devoid of any activity.

I remember thinking the entire time 'Oh no, did i pick a dead server? Where the hell is everyone?" but then I got to Idyllshire (which at the time was the main endgame hub, it too has since become completely deserted lol), had my frame rate drop to like 10 fps and was like "ohhhhh, so thats where everyone has been hiding xD)

Click to shrink...

I think this is it really. I haven't had any problems or felt alone while doing the ARR MSQ in FFXIV myself, but I remember trying to (re)jump into Destiny 1 after the last DLC had been released. It was pretty difficult to find people to do old raids with because of course the bulk of the community had moved on long long ago by that point. Eventually I said fuck it and just skipped the content, which sucks, but I'm learning that's the price you pay for jumping in late into online games like this.

 

[shark97]

Why can't it be both? The level boost is an added "value" to the monetary expense of purchasing the expansion (at least for WoW which is where my experience is). Then, if you'd like to boost more characters, you have to pay more money. Obviously the goal is to get more players to endgame so they can increase engagement, but they're doing it because a fraction of the population will pay for it. They're rarely free w/ no strings attached from what I've experienced anecdotally.

Click to shrink...

Destiny gives you at least one free boost right? I'm actually not sure except 99.99 it is one, maybe more? Now they do sell the boosts for your third alt...maybe your second. The boosts dont go far anyway, I believe currently for Destiny they go up to the Forsaken campaign start, which means you've got grind a TON to catch up still, at least as far as unlocking all the activities.

I mean I think the debate is divorced from the monetization. If monetization didn't exist they'd still do it that way as a game design decision.

Destiny was my first MMO and I was the same way as OP at first. When Vault of Glass (1st raid) got deprecated I didnt understand it at all. New players would miss that great raid. Plus the knock on Destiny was "content starved", and here they were eliminating content.

Over time I started to get it, though. It's the same thing WOW does. What they market is the expansions. They dont want joe bob to think he'll have to level up for 5 years to even get to the actual expansion content, and so just forget it. It gets more unwieldy as time goes on as well.

Again it's not like it's an instant catch up. It's more like, grind for a few hours (like I dont know, 12?) and you'll be at a place to begin to experience the newest endgame content. 12 hours is like a whole single player campaign for most games.

And again a longtime player will have tons more gear, cosmetics, titles in Destiny's case, triumphs, the list goes on. I've got a gigantic stuffed vault. I'm not sure either if even things like the Black Armory forges or Menagerie will be unlocked by any shadowkeep boost? If not, that's more grinding to unlock that stuff if you want it.

I dunno, I still have a little bit mixed feelings on it. The way Destiny works I dont even know how they'd keep the entire grind intact though, even if they thought it was a good idea.

 

[Listai]

I'm with you OP but there are certain games where the content just isn't worth the time investment. The ARR content in XIV for example is such a drawn-out tiresome marathon of fetch-quests.

 

[Critch]

Having just picked up FFXIV I have to assume it's because end game is really the only content they actually put effort into developing. FFXIV's early game content is mind numbing trash that you just have to go through in order to unlock worthwhile content.

Click to shrink...

Stay with it past ARR (Though I still enjoyed the story with ARR). Game gets incredible and stays there.

 

[Irrotational]

People want to play with their friends.

Click to shrink...

Destiny devs have been very specific on this - these kinds of games live/die by the communities they create, and sustain over time.

You'll have to do a bit of skimming but Luke "throw dat money" Smith and Noseworthy discuss it with Giant Bomb. They explain how they've struggled to balance having a big end game for regular players, whilst allowing their friends to dip in and join them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsQCs5g9Fks&list=PLXlhzeWIuTHJ1khKC2jjyj2fxBvjnCeE-&index=20&t=0s

shark97 - check out some of the quotes in the video and how seasons are intended to work in the future. They're offering free boosts when you buy into a particular season, and you don't need to buy previous seasons and expansion passes to get stuck in.

It's about the least egregious they could make it while keeping the lights on IMHO.

 

[rayhorakhty]

WoW Classic. Join us brother.

It's about the journey. Take your time leveling, enjoy the world. It's better than the hand-holding-rush-to-the-end that is current WoW.

Click to shrink...

This. And here's hoping it's popular enough to give us expansions that don't ruin the journey again.

 

[Nome]

This is one of those cases where a feature is actually monetized as a deterrent.

The developers do want new players to experience as much of the game as possible, but they also want to make sure they can also get to "end of content" to keep up with the product zeitgeist. The longer a product runs for, the more difficult that process becomes, and it's a conundrum for developers to be able to shuttle players along that funnel in a way that's beneficial for the product. In most live services games, your player distribution has two peaks: one at the start of progression and one at the end. Basically, any effort you put into the middle is rarely worth the money, as the lowest number of active players at any one point will experience the fruits of that effort.

Thus, a monetized end of content skip is offered for those who are willing to take the jump (and presumably the transaction barrier filters out players who would benefit from going through the funnel). Generally, an unmonetized skip is not offered to new players because they'd likely take that option regardless of whether it'd negatively impact their experience.

Anyway, the actual revenue contribution of these sorts of features is minimal. I think some game like Destiny use it purely for monetization, but most MMO's do not.