My least favorite thing (after 50 hours)
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My least favorite part of this game is how mobs become completely irrelevant after its “knowledge points” are exhausted. Each time you exhaust a mob’s “knowledge” gains, you know it’s time to move on, and you’ll never come back to that mob again. That mob has no further value in the game to the player, even if you really enjoyed fighting it, even if you didn’t feel really feel done with it. That means each time you exhaust the knowledge of a creature, the game world shrinks by that amount, and soon you find yourself in a world where only your most hated mobs give you “knowledge.” It becomes very frustrating having to fight through mobs that don’t give you anything trying to get to those last few knowledge mobs. You’ve now forced me to play the game in a way that I don’t enjoy at that point, and the average player will probably leave a bad review.
My suggestion is to have mobs still give knowledge gains at 1/5 the normal rate or something along those lines. That way they don’t become completely meaningless. Alternatively, since I’m now presumably “knowledgeable” about a particular creature, its drop rates should double for gold or other important items. That way my “knowledge” of that creature serves some important function. Another alternative would be to have a secondary system where, after knowledge is exhausted, you begin earning something else – points or what have you.
A traditional “xp” mmo has the advantage here in that there’s a level playing field and no mob ever becomes completely irrelevant because it always gives you xp. Fractured needs to be able to ensure that none of its game world becomes irrelevant along the way. Let’s be honest, every MMORPG needs a grind; in fact, it needs a number of grinds. At this point, the grind in Fractured is not enjoyable because the longer you play, the less flexible it becomes.
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I totally agree.
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The idea is that creatures never become completely irrelevant because each is a source of a very specific resource.
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I love the suggestion about the loot. Higher drop chance of rare items or more gold coins is a great idea.
great thinking
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It is true that after hitting 100% you start to avoid those specific mobs and animals especially if those will not drop anything you are interested. It would be easy to continue get XP especially if the progression would continue. If I remember right at some point there was an idea to implement 3 tiers to abilities as well. Even these tiers would be only a small power ups (and/or vertical augments) those could still be something what players can continue to work with, and the KP gain would make sense at the same time. I wonder what happened this plan anyway...
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@Tredough said in My least favorite thing (after 50 hours):
A traditional “xp” mmo has the advantage here in that there’s a level playing field and no mob ever becomes completely irrelevant because it always gives you xp. Fractured needs to be able to ensure that none of its game world becomes irrelevant along the way. Let’s be honest, every MMORPG needs a grind; in fact, it needs a number of grinds. At this point, the grind in Fractured is not enjoyable because the longer you play, the less flexible it becomes.
I've been playing MMO's since they were called graphical muds and what you described is literally every MMO out there, maybe besides ESO. What happens in a 'traditional' xp MMO is you outlevel mobs and thus never have any reason to come back to that area again.
What this game has done is forced players to explore other areas to find more KP, what you are suggesting would actually remove the need to explore since I could just continue to grind the same mobs getting diminishing rewards but I don't care since I can solo all the easy mobs now and I'll just forever grind KP until what? They finally get hard capped and then your problem suddenly rears it's head again.
I get it, it sucks to have to find new areas to get KP but I'm pretty sure that is the point, since we don't have level ranges you could hypothetically sit on tutorial island and grind rabbits forever if KP wasn't limited per mob. Would you like to see me with a maxed out 60 talent point toon on newbie island? Because trust me, I'll do it if it's possible.
Also, before anyone brings up UO, if the OP says there's absolutely no reason to grind mobs in this game after KP capped (for loot) then the same point could be said about UO mobs since there's no XP system in UO and thus no real reason to grind mobs 'allegedly'.
Now if you want my actual opinion on this, I think there is a grind here, I'm about 90 hours into the closed beta and I can assure you I've been grinding just like everyone else. Just because the grind here isn't Silkroad doesn't mean it's not a grind to have to kill 50ish enemies in a row to cap a single mob to 100%.
Do you know what the real problem here is? People are just so used to the never-ending treadmill and power creep that exists in the popular MMO's they just have no clue what a well-made horizontal progression-based MMO would even look like. The idea of an MMO like this is not to separate players by how long they can grind mobs endlessly but to separate players based on how well they've designed their builds and how well they play them.
Please, I really don't want another endless treadmill, there's enough of those games already.
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@Ablabla One aspect I do like about the game is that almost all mobs are similar in difficulty, so I do not see the validity of your point about how it would be a bad thing for players to farm low-level mobs if they continue to give KP. What difference does it make, since they're all similarly difficult? Also, new mobs would have higher rates of kp, and therefore there would be an incentive to explore and seek out all types of mobs. And the game wouldn't feel so rigid.
We agree the game is already a grind, so I also don't see the validity of your point about how you don't want it to be a grind. It's already a grind. That grind needs more flexibility, because the further you get into it currently, the less fun it becomes.
I enjoyed the game for 50 hours, but I can't bring myself to play anymore because I just don't want to have to deal with trying to kill those last few difficult KP mobs as a solo player. The game does not seem to have any real end game loop currently.
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@Tredough The game being in Beta, they have not as yet put in any of the End Game content. Later-game content is supposed to be the Asteroids and to some extent, the Siege systems. Siege systems have been turned off to tinker with them, and Asteroids are expected in a few months according to the roadmap. Until then, the closest to End-Game content you will find would be Legend Raids, and that's about it...which is to be expected at this stage in the game development.
Beta-testing rarely gets to test much end-game content, because your often not beta testing consecutively long enough to simulate end-game conditions, and because end game content is what gets added later (and often comes about as extra DLC content after release as more is needed)
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I found myself killing wolf packs last night because I needed animal bones.
I killed Jotunns way beyond 100% because I needed the seer stones.
etc etc
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@GamerSeuss said in My least favorite thing (after 50 hours):
Beta-testing rarely gets to test much end-game content, because your often not beta testing consecutively long enough to simulate end-game conditions, and because end game content is what gets added later (and often comes about as extra DLC content after release as more is needed)
I do not know what games you have tested but typically beta phase is about balancing, testing and polishing nearly finished product and therefore, including end-game content as well.
If we think especially of Fractured players are end-game ready inside a week so there is no possibility to leave centric content for upcoming DLCs or players do not have enough content to work with. Of course new content is needed as well but those comes on top of the basic game.
Anyhow, I have not seen any mention of Maze feature anymore which was meant to be an end-game PvE content, I wonder if that is cut off. Asteroids should come in summer patch and sieges hopefully starts to work at some point. Then there is lost tales and the end-game is pretty much there. All these features needs to be tested properly before launch so that there will not be any issues in time of release, especially major or critical bugs.
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Sorry, I didn't mean to derail my original post with talk of endgame. I can appreciate that end game is still in the works.
My gripe for now is the KP system that kills the value of combat after KP is exhausted. For example, I really enjoyed fighting the thugs and I got a few recipes off those guys, so I planned to farm them for a while, but then you really lose your motivation after KP ends. The game basically forced me to move on before I wanted to. It seems that each mob in the game only gives you 1-2 hours of gameplay in the current scheme of things.
My point is just that they really need to make sure there's some other reason to grind mobs after KP is exhausted. The goal here seemed to be a game with no grind, but an MMORPG with no grind is an MMORPG with no players as far as I can see.
Ps. Needing an occasional wolf bone or specific mob item hardly counts as reason to farm mobs. Assuming a meaningful player base, I could just buy that on auction for 1 gold and save myself the trouble.
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@Tuoni I have been Beta-testing MMOs since EverQuest in the 90s.
You put out some end-game stuff, near the end of the Beta-test, but in the beginning, your still balancing the early game stuff. The real meat of End-game stuff is in the planned Expansions, however, once they see how the public takes to the game, and more importantly, how things are working in the beginning of the game's lifecycle.
