Kilsin said:Have you ever been bored in an MMORPG and if so, how do you alleviate it, is there something that takes the boredom away for you? :)
I probably ought to have prefaced my response by stating the factors that contirbute most to my boredom in MMOs are:
1. Excessive soloable content. Dependency on more group content and requirement of other PC interaction throughout most game material helps resolve this.
2. Pace to & through end content too quick. Varied horizontal & verticle leveling requires slow methodical approach that is dense and meaningful.
3. Creative guild activities. Focus on only streamlined guild objective rather than a variety of activities seems to create burnout for me.
4. Lack of change. Environments that remain similar over time, lack of diverse situations, stagnating gameplay. You only grow through change and adaptation.
I have been bored in most MMO's but back in the day when Everquest was around, not once did I get bored in that game, well atleast I remember it that way.
This was due to having a much tighter guild and friends to play with, regardless of what was going on in the game there was always someone or something to do it with. There was no hand holding which makes games way to easy these days which I beleive leads to boredom as you are told how to do everything. Leveling to fast gets boring, getting drops all over the place gets boring. I need to be challenged. Make levels take a while, bring back the days of corpse runs, lower guk, Karnors Castle, the good ol days :)
EQ of old was the way MMO's need to be, the problem now is everyone is just given everything with minimal effort and I am praying that Pantheon will be more like EQ of old. There are many people who are seeking the old EQ days, there was no boredom in EQ like there is in today's MMO's.
The worst thing is sitting on your PC and wanting to play a game, but knowing you are already bored.
To be fair, you can play a 99% accurate classic EQ on Project 1999 and you'll probably get bored.
EQ's model was great for people like us, but to say it can capture your interest indefinitely is kind of misleading. I would be interested to know how much of that interest we had was pure novelty, and how much of it was actual interest inspired from the game itself. I'm sure it was mostly that the game was just amazing, but I can't help but feel that a significant part of that draw was because it was new.
Liav said:To be fair, you can play a 99% accurate classic EQ on Project 1999 and you'll probably get bored.
EQ's model was great for people like us, but to say it can capture your interest indefinitely is kind of misleading. I would be interested to know how much of that interest we had was pure novelty, and how much of it was actual interest inspired from the game itself. I'm sure it was mostly that the game was just amazing, but I can't help but feel that a significant part of that draw was because it was new.
I doubt that any game will capture indefinte interest. In our current world gaming experience, the problem lies in diminishing those factors that result in boredom as much as possible. At least until technology allows to hook up into VR that includes all of our senses, including proprioception, that nothing will completely capture our indefinite attention.
Back in EQ circa1999, even though I might get bored with repetative content, it was the idea that I had so much to get through to reach where others farther ahead already were. But that wasn't quite the deterent one might think because as soon as I started working on something, I tended to get really into it. Along the way, or at the end of a goal, I'd realize that there were lots of other things to get interested in or focused on. So there seemed to always be options, choices, and alternatives. But I never felt rushed. I never felt pressure to get anywhere before anyone else or just to feel like I was keeping up with the Joneses. That pressure really didn't set in, at least for me, until MMOs became wildly popular and the over-arching, universal, goal was to get raid worthy and acquire the best, bright new shiny trinkets and stuff before all others.
@OakKnower
Yeah, we pretty much agree. I'll probably take my time leveling up my main, but then I'll probably speed run all of my alts to max level, which a few select toons at the lower level ranges.
Ah man, just thinking about playing Pantheon alpha does things for me that are too inappropriate to talk about on this forum.
Things that make me bored:
Daily quests: doing the same 5 - 10 quests every day for a token that will after a few months get me a decent piece of gear, not even top tier, just decent? i dont see that as anything but boring. but having said that if something like LDON was installed (without the Linear Instanced dungeons) where i could dive into dungons and while collecting decent loot from named also complete milestones for tokens that will allow me to gain top tier gear, or maybe completely custom near top tier gear. i could be content for a long time. especially with how diverse the ldon scene was. it wasnt just one dungeon, but many. and it had different encounters and mob types. if i got bored with one type i could move to another Ldon dungeon.
LFG: I get bored while LFG. i think that if i am allowed to camp one character outside a dungeon while i go and solo on another character and can keep the main character on the lfg list it would be a nice solution.
Speed Leveling: if the only purpose of the game is to hit max level then the process of leveling becomes tedious. make the journey to max level fun as well. maybe even have raids that are for lower level characters. DDO also does this well, they have raids spaced out along the leveling curve, and the raid loot is useful for a long time. i even had a max level character still wearing raid loot from a level 10 raid because it was just the best thing i could find to use.
Raid lockdowns: I have been in a few raiding guilds. one of which was a "Hardcore" raiding guild. it is boring to me when the same guild or guilds keep total control of the raid content killing it whenever it spawns not allowing for the more laidback guilds to experience raiding as well. it is also boring to me when i have to spend all my time online in raids and do not get to experience the rest of the game because my guild wants to monopolize raid loot. In all the games i have played i think that VG did the best to combat this with raid lockout timers.
Lazy mechanics: i like to see things in different dugeons or mobs that are, well different. if every dungeon is basically a clone of each other and most mobs all follow the same patterns or characteristics this is something i find boring. Variety really is the spice of life (and MMOs)
Lack of Alone time: Now i like most players here play MMOs for the social aspect not just the game. but sometimes i want things i can do by myself that feel rewarding. maybe i dont have the time that day to group, maybe i am sick and just dont want to deal with people, whatever the reason i would like to have things i can do by my lonesome sometimes. and most importantly these things need to make me feel like i am at least in some small way still advancing my character, still becoming stronger. be it crafting, collecting shinys, Dipllomacy, or soloing, there need to be things that can be done without a group and still give a sense of accomplishment.
Diplomacy in Vanguard was my "chill" mode where I just wanted to take it easy that night or if nothing else was going on. Sometimes I may not have had a ton of time to play, but it gave me as much time of entertainment as time allowed. Only got 30 minutes before work? I'd just hop on and do a little diplomacy. Wasn't enough time to get involved in groups, raids, etc, but still felt I could do something in game.
The diplomacy meta game as well as making nearly all NPCs have a purpose was something interesting (nevermind the comedic value of my diplo gear making me look like a pirate, a pimp, and a jester all rolled into one).
Aside from working on AAs, my next "downtime" item that I enjoyed most over the years to break things up would be diplomacy. Diplomacy was a pretty unique mechanic/sphere and would love to see it make a return someday.
Liav said:It's a multi-faceted thing that has contributed to games becoming anti-social.
- Combat systems reward nonstop mashing of keys to optimize performance, which leads to having no time to communicate during combat.
- Downtimes are extremely minimal or non-existent with lightning fast expendable pool regeneration, which means that there is no time between combat to communicate either.
- The widespread adoption of the 100% soloable quest hubs that carry you from character creation to endgame means that you aren't required to play with other people to level up. In addition to that, grouping actually becomes detrimental because finding people on the exact same quest as you is exceedingly rare, and you'll have to backtrack to get them caught up, which wastes time.
Liav makes some great points here... and yes, to me an anti-social game contributes greatly to whether I get into it or not. When it is full of life, unexpected, or full of multiple things to work on (skills, AAs, tradeskills, side skills, epic quests, mount quests, GM events, rare mobs, ooc or open trades, etc...) it really keeps you involved and immersed.
I get bored when there is repetition or when I run out of lists or goals to check off. A good example is Mindcraft. I LOVE going back to it and knock out the extensive checklist I created for myself, but I can knock that out in a week. Then I move on..
Give us a LOT to work on, in many different areas of the game. Do not design it to level or progress fast at all, slow it down where it matters more to spread out your gains. Keep it social, very social... And probably the most important thing missing, introduce and maintain custom GM events that require player presence and interaction to fix or solve. This will really keep things dynamic and make us feel like we are missing out if not logged into the world.
@Pyye
In addition to that first paragraph, there's something else too. In EQ, there were almost always a variety of places you could go in a given level range to get xp. This flies in the face of the extremely linear gameplay offered by a lot of modern games where a specific region of the world is labelled "10-19". Granted, Vanguard had the level range labels too, but it was mostly suggestive and there was always a ton of overlap all over the world.
I think both EQ and Vanguard did this pretty well. You always had the option for a radical change of scenery, NPC type, etc., and at no point in time was the narrative surrounding a certain region handed to you on a silver platter. I was always a fan of games like Dark Souls for this - the type of games where you really have to look at the world and dig to decipher the intention.
Hell, even EQOA did this well. The most fascinating/appealing places to me in these games too were the areas where you could clearly see that there is some anomalous design, but even after investigating, you can't turn up any meaningful information. It really leaves a lot up to the imagination and almost becomes a bit of a mini-game.
I'm rambling on a bit here but I guess ultimately I'm saying that I think a very carefully crafted game world alleviates a lot of this boredom. There's a difference between a world that looks really nice, and a world that really invites you to investigate it. They're not mutually exclusive, but I do notice that often times too much detail and care is put in to making the world look nice that not a lot of time is put into making the world have some character and depth.
I know it has been said several times already, but I can't stress enough how BORING "daily" quests are. They are the definition of repetition. They just seem extremely lazy on the developers part too...Just create some lame content to force players to repeat every day instead of creating a world where players can chose what to do every day without feeling like they are "missing out" on the content with the best "payout."
I guess you could argue that sitting at a camp with a group and pulling mobs to kill for hours is repetitive too, but I think there is a difference. Other than the obvious socializing aspect, you can always choose to move your camp for a change of scenery, or to go fight different types of enemies.
Sitting LFG can also be boring for sure. I mained a ROG in EQ "back in the day" so I know all about group dependency and the inability to solo. However, I still don't think everyone should be able to solo all the time wherever they want. I don't expect to be able to instantaneously find a group the moment I log on, especially if I decide to hop on during off hours or whatnot. Instead of making it so everyone can solo, I would rather have other things to do while I wait, such as crafting, gathering, etc.
A lot of people here have said they avoid boredom by rolling an alt, so I am probably a minority here, but I don't like feeling the need to roll an alt to stay interested. I think that if I chose to play my main for 1000 hours I should be able to, and have something meaningful to show for it. I have never really been an alt guy for the most part. Sure, I'll roll one from time to time, but I would much rather have the option to make my main better. I played WoW during BC, and by the end my rogue had everything BIS from my rings to my warglaives, got gladiator in arena, maxed factions I cared about, maxed trade skills blah blah. I hate having the feeling that there is absolutely nothing else to do on my main to improve myself. This is why I loved AAs in EQ, as others have said. I want to be able to make meaningful permanent improvements to my character for my time investment, not just gear that is obsolete as soon as the next expansion comes out.
Liav said:To be fair, you can play a 99% accurate classic EQ on Project 1999 and you'll probably get bored.
EQ's model was great for people like us, but to say it can capture your interest indefinitely is kind of misleading. I would be interested to know how much of that interest we had was pure novelty, and how much of it was actual interest inspired from the game itself. I'm sure it was mostly that the game was just amazing, but I can't help but feel that a significant part of that draw was because it was new.
Maybe and maybe not, you are partially correct in your assumption about it been a newer game, but for me it was more than just the game. The fear of death in the game made it exciting, the classes. Nothing has come close to a Cleric or Mage from EQ so I cant wait to dive into this with the cleric and see how things are. I enjoyed the game, the dungeon crawls, the epic raids, the overall immersion I had with EQ I have never had again. Might just be me, but that is how it is for me and I am hoping the Pantheon brings some of that back.
Kilsin said:Have you ever been bored in an MMORPG and if so, how do you alleviate it, is there something that takes the boredom away for you? :)
If the game has different races, different classes and different starting areas, that at least gives me the option for replayability. You then have to make a point of avoiding, as much as possible, following the same path with a new character as you did before? Played a priest? Try a melee. Played a melee? Try a pure caster. Ignored tradeskills? Try them out. Avoided talking with any NPCs? Try looking for all those quests you've heard about.
Basically each time try a different path and see how that re-energizes your interest in the game.
EDIT: One approach I had in EQ1 was thinking of different ways to apply class abilities just for entertainment purposes. Sand Giant Punt and Zombie Golf were games my friends and I played. Sand Giant Punt was a game where you aggroed a sand giant, debuffed its resists, snared and rooted it. The point was to use Gravity Flux and a knockback effect to see how far you can launch the Sand Giant. Zombie Golf was similar but you were calling how many 'strokes' it would take you to get the zombie from one end of the zone to the other (provided you didn't kill it which then gave you a 2 stroke penalty while you went to get another zombie.)
Then there were the drunken naked gnome runs (A'Kanon to Qeynos, no teleports, no PoK, must keep drinking Tumpy Tonics the entire trip). Gnome diving off Kelethin to see who could land closest to the Priest of Discord.
If you get bored with the game, start playing IN the game.
Boring things for me in an MMO:
Daily quests. Ugh. (We all seem to agree on this one...)
Grinding. I don't mind some grind, but when that's all there is to do to reach your goal, I tend to opt out.
Diplomacy (VG). I know a lot of people loved it. And I loved the benefits of it, so I did it, but I didn't enjoy it. Crafting was okay though.
Crafting in most games (not VG) - buy your materials at the auction house...press the button...watch the bar move...bam...20 fuzzy sweaters. Boring.
Dungeons where you just run in and AE everything.
Worlds that you can't fully explore (invisible walls, buildings you can't go into, mountains you can't climb...).
Classes that just spam 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,2,3,5!
Mobs that present no challenge...I like my NPC's to actually fight back and have skills.
Too much alone time...a lot of games these days only group for dungeons/raids (and no one talks to anyone else)...everything else is solo. I play MMO's to hang out with people...otherwise I would just play single player games. Some solo content is good, for those times you just wanna chill or aren't feeling social, but for the most part, killing monsters is just way more fun to do with other people around.
And, last, but certainly not least: I tend to get bored when there is no PvP. And I don't mean warfronts...those actually do get boring. I mean open world PvP. When I played Vanguard, on Sartok, there came a point that there were very, very few people on the server...I still didn't get bored. There was always someone to PvP with. If there wasn't, my guild would just kill each other...for practice. :) The nuances of PvP in the open world can keep PvPers busy for a long, long time.
Raidan said:I think it's a catch-22. The fear of players being bored in games and always needing to have "fun" have led to endless fetch/collect/kill quests, quick leveling, lack of downtime, loot handouts etc. Now, can downtime be boring? Absolutely, but I think it's necessary to have a quality MMO that promotes grouping, interdependence, dangling carrots, and resource management. So, to alleviate it, if I was soloing, was bored, and was having long downtime periods - I would group.
If the boredom is due to "lack of things to do," then that's just bad design. /Agreed with Sypderoptik's point on EQ's AA system. It was one of the main reasons I played EQ for so long because I always had a way to meaningfully progress my character at max level without needing or being forced to raid. So, to alleviate boredom at max level, there needs to be options outside of "just" raiding to advance a character.
I agree with Raidan here on most points. I personally hope that raiding isn't a huge part of the development time for the game. I hope that content for leveling takes the longest amountof time. This way visiting multiple places for gear as you level is almost endless. And if you create an alt you can play it all again without needing to see the same places over and over. Again some of the locations should have to have some lower/higher level content imo.
Great posts...
I do agree that it would be incredible to have multi-level possibilities all within one big zone. And it would always be possible to traverse it, if intentional. It really provides caution and danger, and certainly takes away from linear boredom. You would have to work and discover places that were your optimal level, instead of the whole zone being perfect. It just makes sense to be honest, a real world would be much the same way. Dungeons would be the only exception because that would be harder to do unless epically HUGE.
good stuff...
Alts/crafting/diplo/raiding/epic quests/camping/foraging or collecting mats. When VG came out with the Isle of grazumalt or whatever it was called and the 50-55 lvl increase and you knew that put those faction grinds out to slow us down on the raiding and keep us busy is when VG lost me.
Some very nice and detailed responses and it makes me so happy to see that most of you picked up on it being such an in-depth question that was posted in a very general and vague wrapping, which is the intent with most of my posted content to reach and engaged with as many community members as possible, if I narrow the questions down to absolute specific points, only a few would answer and as good as I am sure those posts would be, it would be missing the majority of the community, so by posting "vague" general questions that have much deeper and detailed meanings, I get the most responses, best feedback/ideas/replies etc. and it helps me not only get to know everyone better but it gets lots of people talking amongst themselves, which is important for any community to build and grow. ;)
So when I post things that sound very simple on the outside, I am not being lazy, haha, know that I am looking for much more in the replies than what the question may let on, and you folks usually always deliver, so thank you!
P.S. I don't mean quantity either but the detail and quality of your posts are what impresses me, so don't think or feel like you need to write the great novel, if you can express your feelings in a few lines then that is just as good but either way, I enjoy everyone's replies a lot :)
Sorry just getting a chance to catch up on the forum discussions and actually make a post. I like to sometimes see a topic and let it sink into my mind a bit.
For me boredom can occur in anything I do if it's gets to a point where it's redundant and revolving, this isn't just solely to do with and MMORPG either. A look back at all the MMO's I have played since the start (Everquest) and I can pretty much narrow the reason I do not play them anymore is due to "boredom". Eventually a game just hits a point to me that I wonder why I even continue playing and I evaluate whether or not I am having "fun", since well that is the entire purpose in playing anyways.
I'm speaking in an overall generality when it comes to being bored though and I think it mostly comes down to content available, or possibly doing what is current in a game.
WoW has been the most recent title I've quit over this exact thing and I have done this many times with WoW. I feel like I hit a major lull in the game, and simply log in to just do the same thing over and over. Even when trying to find something new to break the mold, I eventually realize that it's not really benefitting me in the whole scheme. I'm really just wasting my time and not having fun.
To answer the OP question in regards to how I alleviate it, would quite simply be "I find something else to do". Which unfortunately starts the search, even if it doesn't end up being another MMO or game at all.
If I was to look at boredom on a smaller scale then I know I've been bored working on a particular quest line, or waiting for spawns, farming etc. I usually alleviate this kind of boredom by listening to music, watching tv or just being more social in game. I may even take breaks from those tasks that are boring me and look for something else to do.
-War
I agree with others that there are differnt types of boredom. The one to fear is the boredom fo the game itself, the lack of desire to even log in, and when you do you wonder why and log out.
Boredom comes in many forms, and in same cases leads to adventure and fun. One can be bored and decide to eleviate that bordedom by trying something new, or going somewhere they hadn't been. That boredom is typicall just the "nothing on my to-do list today" type bordeom, where you log in with no specific plans, and just hope something happens. If it doesn't happen quickly you beginto find other things to occupy your gametime.
You have that I don't want to log in boredom. This can be caused by many things, not all game related. Sometimes RL just gets complicated and your desire to play in that mindset is non-existant. You choose to watch TV or some other hobby rather than log in. Sometimes, it's because someone you play with almost religiously is not available (vacation, out of town on work, sick, etc). Sometimes you just want to take a short break, or have other things that need to get done.
You also have in-game repetativeness boredom. While doing the same dungeon over a long period can be fun, at some point, it becomes tedious and boring. If the group doesn't want to move on, one can easily become bored or disinterested.
Like I said in the beginning, the one to worry about most is the lack of desire to even log in anymore. Occasionally having this feeling isn't an issue, but when it extends to longer periods of time where you don't log in for a week or more, there is a problem.
Myself, I tend to like the middle of game, IE: EQ I loved the 20-40 range (When max was 50), There was a wide array of things to do that still provided accomplishment, but yet I was powerful enough not to worry about getting jumped and one hit killed by a random mob. I could help lower level players, I could do trivial content just for the laughs.
But I also have a RL good friend I often play with, but his desire is to race to max level, so he will play much more often than I, and he quickly out levels me, then wants to PL me to catch up to him, which takes out the fun for me. I have never really enjoyed the end game enough where it was what I wanted to do every night. I enjoy an occasional raid, but I don't want it to be my nightly game plan. When that happens, I get bored. :)
MMORPGs encourage alts. Alt's are primarily there to keep us interested in the game longer. This is a fundamental mechanic which either makes or breaks a game as far as I am concerned.
One key element is whether playing the alt gives me a substantially different in game experience. Both race and class need to be significant choices, preferrably much beyond what my starting city is and what quests I start off close to.
We love to play our alts so a few things would accelerate my boredom with a game.
I don't want things to get too easy for my noob character just because I have a level 99 character already on the server. If it's too easy, then I hit end game too quickly, start to get bored with max level alt #5. I know, you don't have to twink, but if the option is there and every other level 5 has level 50 gear, you're going to have to follow suit.
I also get bored with my high level characters if they are too one dimensional in the end game. If all my raiding cleric does is spam the heal button, I'll be looking for an alt much sooner. If I've been doing CC with my enchanter for 50 levels and now find myself relegated to the role of buff-bot on raids... Every class needs to have multiple elements/roles to keep it interesting.
I'm goal driven in real life and in game. Outside of main stream adventuring, if I'm going to craft, it needs to be relevant to other players. If there is diplomacy, player housing or road hockey tournaments, it all needs to feel organic and relevant to the world and the lore. If something feels like it was just bolted on as an afterthought, it probably doesn't have the depth to keep me interested.
Most important - and I really mean this is at the very very top of my wish list. Pantheon needs to be engaging enough so that people don't feel the need to watch YouTube/Netflix while they group and raid with me. There need to be meaningful mechanics that involve more than AUTOATTACK/FRIDGERAID/YOUTUBE/CHECKIFMOBDEADYET/RINSE/REPEAT. By the same token, I'm not looking for whack-a-mole. There have been some very exciting suggestions of multi-class abilities which require more than character to trigger, presumably with some kind of coordinated effort that will make the semi-afk players very obvious and unwelcome in groups. LoTRO did this quite effectively and was one of the most fun elements of grouping, encouraging people to be on the ball, communicating and really working together to trigger some pretty cool buffs, HoTs, DoTs, etc... One aspect of this (digressing somewhat) is that the combined group spell had a single and generally very cool shared visual effect, thus making it obvious what spell/effect was triggered while reducing overall visual spell spam. (OK now I"m wayyy off topic.) The combined/group spell was semi-difficult to time properly and pull it off to maximum effect so when you had a group who was really rocking it, the whole experience was fun and rewarding.
I tried not to read too many of the previous posts in an effort to stay fresh, but one thing I did see as I was scrolling down was mention of the community. If there are fun people to play with then almost any activity is more enjoyable and something I'm going to want to repeat.
Celandor said:One key element is whether playing the alt gives me a substantially different in game experience. Both race and class need to be significant choices, preferrably much beyond what my starting city is and what quests I start off close to.
This is the number one factor of whether I will start an alt class or not. To me, an "alt" is not just a second character on my account. If the guild needs a healer and has too many tanks and my current main is a tank. Switching to a healer is not an alt but a new main. An alt to me is truly an alternate character I will play when not playing my main. So it has to have a different starting area, Different playstyle and different quest/area to XP in.
Alt's can be a great way to break boredom, but if done wrong have to potential to only add to the boredom rather than alleviate it!
