Any MMORPG that gives the same freedom and depth as a SP rpg?

[Cryomancer]

I wanna an MMORPG that gives to the player, the same in depth and freedom as an SP RPG, some things that i hate on mmos.

• Cooldowns - I an fine with any other way to balance skills. Casts/rest like DkS, very long casting time on Dragon's Dogma, require high resources like most games, but in general mmo's tends to have a lot of cooldowns. Kotor 1 and 2 has not cooldown but swtor has. Same happens to neverwinter nights. NWN1 and 2 has no cooldowns. neverwinter online has.
• Stats linked towards gear. On a RPG stats should measure your character capabilities, i can't fell immersed in a world where everyone is the same without the gear but can easily change everything about then by changing the cloths. On older fallout games, if you try play with very low int, you barely can talk. Requirements are good for very action focused games. For example, on demon souls to use Long Bow you need 15 STR. Fully draw an longbow requires a lot of strength, that makes sense. Some type of small bonus to not defense coming for armor is fine. But most of stats should be chooses by the player
• Very long repetitive fights. Like 40 people spamming the same rotation for many minutes to kill an mob. The challenge should be by putting heavy hitting enemies, punishing traps, etc. I don't mind get some one hit killed, if i can ohk certain enemies.
• No choices and consequences. For example, if you decide to become an vampire, it should give a lot of power, but make you much more weaker to fire and take sun damage. I can understand why an mmo will not allow this, it will make the player OP in certain situations and useless in another, but IMO the immersion and choices/consequences are far more important than the game balance. If you decided to heavily specialize on fire skills, then you should have an very hard time against fire resistant/immune mobs. I an playing DkS 2 as a pyromancer. Iron Keep is being very hard by it. If you decided to be an paladin, you should ve very powerful against undead but should have some weakness to compensate it.
• No amazing spell/s / "technology" - I wanna casters that can do more than trow fireballs. I wanna casters raising undead armies, petrifying enemies, using OHK on failed save spells, teleporting, flying, send enemies to hell, i wanna archers using all types of ammo, from realistic ones like bodkin and poison to fantasy ones like explosive and more important. No "you bow has 15m range and arrows disappear in mid air" BS, I wanna be able to snipe if i choose to be an archer. There are videos of people hitting targets at 300m with bows on youtube.
• Numbers more inflated than Zimbabwe currency that represents nothing. Like +69 longbow that deals 5643763765*10²³ damage.

I loved Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, but could't play neverwinter mmo from more than an couple of hours before i uninstalled due boredom.

 

[Reinhardt]

There is sp rpg games like this?

 

[Cryomancer]

There is sp rpg games like this?

Pathfinder Kingmaker

• No cooldowns - Check
• No stats linked towards gear - Check (gear only gives non stacking minor bonus)
  
• No very long repetitive fights - Even boss battles ends in few minutes
  
• Choices and consequences - Check
  
• Amazing spells - Check. And almost all examples - Dimensional door(teleport), be able to create an undead army - check but the range is nerfed compared to pnp.
  
• Numbers not inflated like Zimbabwe currency - Anything bigger than 100 damage is rare even at lv 15+(level cap = 20) and stats rarely past 30 combining gear, spells, mutagens and etc - Check

Baldur's Gate 1/2, Might & Magic VI-VIII, IWD 1/2, NWN1/2, VtMB, Arcanum <<<insert more classic examples>>> check most, if not all of this list.

But an game don't need to be an classic RPG. For example, Dark Souls 2 is very action focused and has no cooldown, no stat linked towards gear(minor bonuses from few pieces of eqquipment like Hexer hood), no very long repetitive fights, choices and consequences, if you are an pyromancer, demons, dragons and enemies "half underwater" will soak most of your damage and the numbers aren't inflated like Zimbabwe currency.

 

[deama]

Could try Wakfu:

• Cooldowns - Not sure if this will apply to Wakfu, but Wakfu uses a turn based combat system, cooldowns seem generous, and it's a mix between abilities requiring cooldowns and resources.
  
• Stats linked towards gear. In Wakfu you get stat points to destribute when you level up, after some levels you get special points to put into special stats like more AP, more movement points, much higher dmg/defence/elemental defence, crit, etc... Sadly some of them are capped like AP, oh well.
  
• Very long repetitive fights. Wakfu is turn based, so the fights can get long if you aren't used to turn based, although you can always go out and find a mob that's 50 levels higher than you and try to beat him 1v1 instead of going against a group.
  
• No amazing spell/s / "technology" - Wakfu has some interesting classes, my favourite one was a guy who could create portals, so you could create one from one end of the battle map and then another on the other end, and swap between them and cheese low movement speed enemies, you could also chain abilities off of these portals to give you higher range etc...
  
• Numbers more inflated than Zimbabwe currency that represents nothing. Not sure, but I don't think Wakfu has inflated numbers.

 

[Cryomancer]

Could try Wakfu:

• Cooldowns - Not sure if this will apply to Wakfu, but Wakfu uses a turn based combat system, cooldowns seem generous, and it's a mix between abilities requiring cooldowns and resources.
  
• Stats linked towards gear. In Wakfu you get stat points to destribute when you level up, after some levels you get special points to put into special stats like more AP, more movement points, much higher dmg/defence/elemental defence, crit, etc... Sadly some of them are capped like AP, oh well.
  
• Very long repetitive fights. Wakfu is turn based, so the fights can get long if you aren't used to turn based, although you can always go out and find a mob that's 50 levels higher than you and try to beat him 1v1 instead of going against a group.
  
• No amazing spell/s / "technology" - Wakfu has some interesting classes, my favourite one was a guy who could create portals, so you could create one from one end of the battle map and then another on the other end, and swap between them and cheese low movement speed enemies, you could also chain abilities off of these portals to give you higher range etc...
  
• Numbers more inflated than Zimbabwe currency that represents nothing. Not sure, but I don't think Wakfu has inflated numbers.

Thanks. Will check. Looks interesting

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

ESO.

 

[Mustawd]

I wanna an MMORPG that gives to the player, the same in depth and freedom as an SP RPG, some things that i hate on mmos.

• Cooldowns - I an fine with any other way to balance skills. Casts/rest like DkS, very long casting time on Dragon's Dogma, require high resources like most games, but in general mmo's tends to have a lot of cooldowns. Kotor 1 and 2 has not cooldown but swtor has. Same happens to neverwinter nights. NWN1 and 2 has no cooldowns. neverwinter online has.
• Stats linked towards gear. On a RPG stats should measure your character capabilities, i can't fell immersed in a world where everyone is the same without the gear but can easily change everything about then by changing the cloths. On older fallout games, if you try play with very low int, you barely can talk. Requirements are good for very action focused games. For example, on demon souls to use Long Bow you need 15 STR. Fully draw an longbow requires a lot of strength, that makes sense. Some type of small bonus to not defense coming for armor is fine. But most of stats should be chooses by the player
• Very long repetitive fights. Like 40 people spamming the same rotation for many minutes to kill an mob. The challenge should be by putting heavy hitting enemies, punishing traps, etc. I don't mind get some one hit killed, if i can ohk certain enemies.
• No choices and consequences. For example, if you decide to become an vampire, it should give a lot of power, but make you much more weaker to fire and take sun damage. I can understand why an mmo will not allow this, it will make the player OP in certain situations and useless in another, but IMO the immersion and choices/consequences are far more important than the game balance. If you decided to heavily specialize on fire skills, then you should have an very hard time against fire resistant/immune mobs. I an playing DkS 2 as a pyromancer. Iron Keep is being very hard by it. If you decided to be an paladin, you should ve very powerful against undead but should have some weakness to compensate it.
• No amazing spell/s / "technology" - I wanna casters that can do more than trow fireballs. I wanna casters raising undead armies, petrifying enemies, using OHK on failed save spells, teleporting, flying, send enemies to hell, i wanna archers using all types of ammo, from realistic ones like bodkin and poison to fantasy ones like explosive and more important. No "you bow has 15m range and arrows disappear in mid air" BS, I wanna be able to snipe if i choose to be an archer. There are videos of people hitting targets at 300m with bows on youtube.
• Numbers more inflated than Zimbabwe currency that represents nothing. Like +69 longbow that deals 5643763765*10²³ damage.

I loved Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, but could't play neverwinter mmo from more than an couple of hours before i uninstalled due boredom.

UO has what you want. At least the old UO did...

 

[Cryomancer]

UO has what you want. At least the old UO did...

Any way to play ultima online now?? No post wow BS would be amazing...

 

[deama]

UO has what you want. At least the old UO did...

Any way to play ultima online now?? No post wow BS would be amazing...

There's private servers.

 

[DarKPenguiN]

Greed Monger

 

[PapaPetro]

The religious devotion to "balance" development philosophy has produced the sameness across all MMOs. Can't really blame them because the same internet that allows for MMO also allows for communities to consolidate information and solve the metagame quickly.
I believe you can preserve imbalance (fun) in MMOs if you hide information from the players; damage rolls, stats, HP, economic value, etc. You can at least slow down the metagame before the basic noob can read a guide and pick the optimal choices.

 

[Cryomancer]

The religious devotion to "balance" development philosophy has produced the sameness across all MMOs. Can't really blame them because the same internet that allows for MMO also allows for communities to consolidate information and solve the metagame quickly.
I believe you can preserve imbalance (fun) in MMOs if you hide information from the players; damage rolls, stats, HP, economic value, etc. You can at least slow down the metagame before the basic noob can read a guide and pick the optimal choices.

If the player has no access to any numberic value, except price and even price having "ranges", for eg, an potion ranging from 1 to 4, but honestly, players will reverse engineer the game. ... Anyway, there aren't an single mmo who is an well written fantastic world living simulator instead of an action bar barbie dressing game???

 

[PapaPetro]

Then perhaps this "well written fantastic world living simulator" is an impossible utopia given the reductional ontological nature of computer games vs. lived reality. My suggestion is to at least attempt to design virtual worlds similar to our reality in regards to epistemology, if you're looking to achieve an acceptable simulation: hide the numbers.

When I get a paper cut in real life, a floating red -2 doesn't appear above me head. Yet I know that my health has diminished ever so slightly. Add sensory information to the players rather than explicit information. Critically hit an orc, show a major bleeding gash on it's model instead of showing arbitrary number. Character gets a drunk debuff, blur the screen. Remove the visible cooldown timers, add some variance, and have the players guess when they can use it again. Treat it less like a machine and more like life. Make the illusion believable.

However this is risky from a development and business standpoint, so we'll continue to get the same shlock MMOs that you're railing against (or as I like to call them, MMO spreadsheet clickers). Take the spreadsheet out, leave the color.

 

[Cryomancer]

Then perhaps this "well written fantastic world living simulator" is an impossible utopia given the reductional ontological nature of computer games vs. lived reality. My suggestion is to at least attempt to design virtual worlds similar to our reality in regards to epistemology, if you're looking to achieve an acceptable simulation: hide the numbers.

I an not saying perfect simulation. If the game is immersive like Dark Souls, is enough for me.

 

[PapaPetro]

That's fair.
In your opinion, what did Dark Souls do right?

 

[Cryomancer]

In your opinion, what did Dark Souls do right?

• Gearing. There are no "your IQ and muscle mass is tied to your shoes BS" from an mechanical side and armor looks like armor in therms of artstyle
  
• No cooldown
• Stats that represent what your char can and cannot do, what eqquipment you can use but has some flaws. Bows being an DEX weapon makes ZERO sense
• If you are playing as an pyromancer, demons and "submerged" enemies will be an pain in the ass.
• Armor also offers more resistance against slashing than blunt, but the difference is too little IMO
• Polearms are great as they should be
• Even respawn after death has an lore explanation
• If an item says that an boss is blind, the boss is blind and you can use this information in your favor. There are an high level of consistency/cohesion between lore and mechanics. I hate this games where "you can raise dead allies unless they died in the story"
• No numbers more inflated than Zimbabwe currency. 40~50 STR is a lot of STR. 400~600 damage from an axe swing is a lot. And the game have diminishing returns to reduce power creep/number inflation

And ignoring the """realism""" argument, tons of viable builds and viable playstyles, you can be an pure RP build using almost no gear and do well, on PvP or PvE.

 

[PapaPetro]

You think this can be translated into an MMO and still retain all those good gameplay qualities? It dabbles in it with the PvP co-op stuff, but I'm talking about hundreds to thousands of players in a world.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Just a note. An only comes before a word that starts with a vowel. An item, an empty world, an apple. Otherwise it's a. A birthday, a game, a car. The other exception is if the word starts with a vowel sound. An MMO, because it starts with an em sound. Hope this helps.

 

[Cryomancer]

You think this can be translated into an MMO and still retain all those good gameplay qualities? It dabbles in it with the PvP co-op stuff, but I'm talking about hundreds to thousands of players in a world.

There are PvP and PvE content on DkS 2, i agree that all qualities can't be, but some can. Ultima Online, a lot of people said that attended most of my requirements but i never played.

 

[grimace]

You think this can be translated into an MMO and still retain all those good gameplay qualities? It dabbles in it with the PvP co-op stuff, but I'm talking about hundreds to thousands of players in a world.

There are more players spread out more thinly across many different games.

Seeing 99 other players in Fortnite is about the highest population density seen today. PVP has moved from virtual worlds to shooter and survival games.

 

[Jeru]

Seeing 99 other players in Fortnite is about the highest population density seen today. PVP has moved from virtual worlds to shooter and survival games.

PVP was in those places years MMORPGs even became a thing and never left them either. FPS Shooters always were most common PVP place, so nothing really changed. It was news only for those miniority of PVP players that started to PVP/online play in MMORPG as first thing.

 

[grimace]

Seeing 99 other players in Fortnite is about the highest population density seen today. PVP has moved from virtual worlds to shooter and survival games.

PVP was in those places years MMORPGs even became a thing and never left them either. FPS Shooters always were most common PVP place, so nothing really changed. It was news only for those miniority of PVP players that started to PVP/online play in MMORPG as first thing.

Consider this difference:

The Role Playing players did not continue to role play in the first person shooters. Remember the RP-PVP servers?

 

[Jeru]

Ok but so what?

PVP was before MMORPGs, contunued to exist outsidie of them when MMORPGs were at it highest popularity and they still do exist today after MMORPG continue to slide into oblivion. So this PVP taking place in specialized PVP games between small amount of players per instance/server/match is nothing new. It was like that from beggining in 1990s. It is MMORPGs that were temporary abberation and not lobby-like PVP games being something new.
Fortite, Overwatch, LoL etc are just newest batch in type of specialized small scale PVP games that have new batch of super popular titles released every few years.
They were there played by thousands or millions (depending on title) even during highest craze of WoW.



As for ex RP-PVP players. They don't roleplay. Duh. They don't have place to roleplay anymore so they don't. Besides it is not entirelly true cause some players do roleplay in first person shooters i.e. ARMA 3 have servers with players being preety serious into RP-like stuff.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

People who take PvP seriously in MMORPGs ruin them with "muh balance". After a few rounds of the nerf-bat every class is essentially identical with different colors. Perfectly balanced.
Warframe(while not quite an MMORPG, it really teeters on the edge) is fun because nearly each frame is ridiculous in some way. If warframe's pvp was taken seriously by more than 10 people it would probably turn into a boring FPS with bad itemization and bland 'classes'(frames.) Hey, I just described Destiny 2.

 

[gurugeorge]

People who take PvP seriously in MMORPGs ruin them with "muh balance". After a few rounds of the nerf-bat every class is essentially identical with different colors. Perfectly balanced.
Warframe(while not quite an MMORPG, it really teeters on the edge) is fun because nearly each frame is ridiculous in some way. If warframe's pvp was taken seriously by more than 10 people it would probably turn into a boring FPS with bad itemization and bland 'classes'(frames.) Hey, I just described Destiny 2.

Thankfully, Warframe has a whole separate team doing PvP balance, which I think is the right way - but of course it's more work for developers. (Warframe PvP is an acquired taste, but if you like your PvP incredibly fast and furious, with ridiculous mobility, and actually fairly well-balanced, it's great twitchy fun.)

But yeah, I agree with much of the conversation above, that too much attention to balance in PvE does tend to make it boring; you want some "lumpiness" and sense of discovery. I also agree with hiding the numbers, as someone said above, but as that person said, it would mean implementing more life-like graphic/audio "tells" in the game, which again would be a lot of work for developers. Hiding the numbers also fosters a bit of community, as people gather around the number-crunchers and reverse-engineerers for tidbits of info. (Maybe developers should subtly change numbers from time to time too, just to throw people - you could even have an in-game rationale for that.)

The question of balance between gameplay and simulation has always been a fascinating topic to me. I definitely lean more towards wanting simulation (I always make a beeline to the "realism" mods in Bethesda games), but while I think the audience for simulation is not negligible, clearly the audience for drop in/drop out quick fun gameplay is bigger, so developers have over time ditched the more simmy elements from MMORPGs and trimmed down the virtual world aspects, so virtual worlds are now just effectively instanced multiplayer games with lobbies where people sometimes gather.

The other way round would be to make the numbers transparent but have an intelligent, unpredictable virtual world (the original idea of Daggerfall's developer, the computer as DM). But short of similar experiments with human DMs in an online context (NWN2's player-created worlds), it's going to take a long time yet before computer AI is smart enough to act as an intelligent DM and shift the scenery of the world outside the player's vision to respond to their choices.