Probably one of my greatest and ongoing criticisms of the MMORPG genre is how developers populate these games with systems that are often cumbersome, complex, and needlessly obtuse. And what frustrates me is that they apparently can’t see it, because they’re often working with these systems day in and out (and have created them), so the systems are second nature to them.
MMOs already have a lot of moving parts and continually add on systems, so there is absolutely no need to make any of it harder than it has to be with bizarre progression mechanics, indecipherable statistics, and other game systems that some dev loved but makes players scratch their heads in confusion.
Have you experienced this? Which MMO system or feature — and feel free to list more than one — is stupidly complex and poorly designed?
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Everything about Black Desert’s progression systems (for Armor and Weapons). I dont have enough space here to detail the horror that Pearl Abyss created with this one and there’s been enough already said on the web about it. Literally the reason I quit an otherwise good game.
Hidden stats of all kinds qualify for needlessly complex (or rather needlessly hidden).
Legendary Weapon crafting in LOTRO. Took an amazing concept and turned it into a needless and confusing grind. How many millions of precious artifacts were melted down for worthless relics? Such a shame — it could have been really special.
What I have noticed over the years is no one is ever happy. They will always say a game is too complicated only to turn around and say it is too dumbed down. My opinion is that developers need to start designing for a target consumer. If you set out to make a deep and complicated game, don’t be swayed when some people complain about its technical nature.
Build a game to be a quick and easy pick up and play, don’t change it when folks balk at its simplicity. The problem we have now is too many developers trying to ride the fence line and in the end wind up disappointing everyone.
Lotro’s Legendary Item system. All we needed were weapons that levelled with our characters. Instead we got a bloated mess that is just a means to drive store sales. Also lotro’s epic battles system – massive waste of money.
For me it’s the crafting in sandbox games and that’s why I hate them and don’t play them.
They make it so complicated in order to compensate for the game lacking any content whatsoever, that it makes it more of a chore to learn than a fun experience.
If you take away the crafting of a sandbox MMO it’s just a walking simulator.
Star Trek Online’s exploration system is so complex that I gave up trying to figure it out long ago.
Gearing in SWTOR end game. What a nightmare. Even when you manage to get the tokens you have to literally run from one vendor to another to buy the gear :/
Hmm. Anything they want to monetize/time sink. It is evil, that is…
So let’s use color dyes as an example. In games that use dyes as their monetized/time sink, it isn’t enough to have a dye. Oh no, you need to have a combination of elements including some that are cash shop exclusives to generate a color. But wait. Here is the kicker. When you transmute the pieces together, including the cash shop goodie, the color generated is rng! [insert Price is Right, you lose music here] That’s right. You don’t get the badass color you have been looking for. Nope, you get the most common colors on the rng wheel which are usually the drab and uninspiring. Spend and grind some more and you might get your color, though. What a deal!
MMOs can use this little bit buggery for anything. And just to confuse and defuse you into believing it isn’t so, they will occasionally through some item specific currency in there. So, using the example above, to get the the building block dye, you need 50 Ebondrake Petals or some such nonsense.
Revelation Online was the worst with multiple items needed for endgame using the monetized timesink. And their “system” was used quite liberally across multiple items.
I did find the crafting of ascended items in GW2 long, tedious, and expensive. With that as a baseline, crafting legendaries must be a nightmare! As far as needlessly complex, I’m thinking of all the hoops GW2 makes you jump through with those items you get from the Season 2 episodes.
I played GW2 for about 3 months (after launch) and got a legendary in that time. It wasn’t a nightmare, just a grind. You gotta put in the time to farm materials.
Then again, that was years ago and I wouldn’t know about any changes to the system. Something tells me getting a legendary did not become harder, though.