When we were deep-diving Aloft earlier this year, MOP commenter Jon Wax said something that caught my attention. He thought the game looked neat, but the “scav loop” has just burned him out. “It was a great mechanic when it was new,” he said. “I realize now that the closer games become to simulation, with too much depth it’s just trading the tedium of life for the tedium of game. I really hope someone trends away from this game style into something more organic and less repetitive.”
I thought this would be a perfect topic for Massively Overthinking because while a lot of gamers associate the scavenger loop – harvesting, collecting, salvaging, survival grinding – with survival games, it was born and bred in MMORPGs. Sandboxy MMOs would surely consider that gameplay loop their domain, and I know I spent more time in games like Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies gathering and salvaging than fighting, and yet themeparks offer the same sort of gameplay, if with less existential meaning behind it.
So let’s talk about it. Are you tired of survival gameplay in MMORPGs? Should we leave it to survival games, or are we sick of it there too? Or would you prefer MMORPGs adopt more and more gathering, construction, and survival gameplay into their gameloops?
Brianna Royce (@nbrianna.bsky.social, blog): Obviously I think Jon’s post was worthwhile, else I wouldn’t have taken note of it, and I totally get where he’s coming from on simulation. There are so many simulationy things I just don’t want to be bothered with. I don’t actually want to wait for the boat, I don’t actually want to have to eat or die on a timer, I don’t actually want the world to be so dark I literally have to prioritize carrying torches, I don’t want to drop everything I am doing to build a tent or hunt a deer, and so forth.
But at the same time, I enjoy the heck out of gathering as an activity in MMOs, and I want to see it enhanced rather than diminished. Like Jon, I think it can become boring and tedious and repetitive in smaller-scale survival titles because you have to do it – it’s the whole game – and you have to do a lot of it and all of it. There’s nobody else to turn to. You can’t do gameplay you love and then trade it for labor from somebody else who likes some other gameplay you don’t. It’s not optional.
But in MMOs, there are thousands of people in the economy, so you can make those trades, and everybody gets to play the way he or she wants. So weirdly, I think scavenger gameplay is actually better suited to MMORPGs than single-player (or tiny-multiplayer) titles, specifically because it’s there when you feel like it and ignorable when you don’t. It’s the “optional” nature of the gameplay in an MMO that makes it palatable and feeds into the activity ecosystem. Of course, I would probably say this about most any gameloop in MMOs – this is just one more. Or should be.
Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes.bsky.social, blog): I’m coming from a place without any major knowledge of survival mechanics and their parallel to sandbox MMORPGs because I missed that boat, so feel free to ignore my .02 here; it would not surprise me if you did already. That is to say I’m coming at this from an angle of what I would like to see versus what I have seen and want to come back.
I think having some light survival mechanics in a sandbox MMORPG would kind of fulfill some of that long patrol/explorer fantasy, but I absolutely must emphasize the light portion of that. Making my own tools out in the wilds, putting together some good shelter, and getting benefits from food? Great. Feeling some relief when I see a player settlement where I can stock up on provisions? Even better!
Having to manage thirst, hunger, or poop meters every five seconds? Not great! Annoying, even! It’s obnoxious in survival games now, it would be even more annoying in sandbox MMORPGs, particularly if they’re the hard-bitten, full-loot, “THE PLAYERS DRIVE THE HARDCORE NARRATIVE” sort of game.
Justin Olivetti (@Sypster, blog): The most I ever got into survival gameplay is Fallout 76, where there is a whole lot of scavenging, fixing, and building. It’s not my favorite part of the game but can be satisfying to find some rare materials and make something good out of it. However, I would be fine playing that — and most other survival games — without most of the crafting elements and minimal scavenging. It can skew to tedium, annoyance, and even anxiety, detracting from the rest of the game. So for me, at least, it’s not a draw but a mild caution sign.
MJ Guthrie (@MJ_Guthrie, blog): TL;DR Yes, MMORPGs should adopt more survival elements, but this should also be measured and in some respects allow for personal choice to participate or not.
Long answer: I have to say that survival mechanics are stealing me away from the modern MMOs. I’d love to get back into a MMORPG more heavily, but it’s the survival genre that is meeting the needs for the gameplay that I enjoy the most. Gathering and crafting with meaning is, well, meaningful. Building outposts/houses/cities (and decorating them!) is a main source of pleasure for me, so I obviously want more. But it’s not an all-or-nothing situation when it comes to survival elements.
When the survival mechanics of eating/drinking/etc. are too punishing, it is annoying, off-putting, and has led me to abandon those games. It can be too hard to even get started, much less advance to experience the later game. Need to make a shelter to actually start to survive? Too bad! You starve to death quickly and repeatedly before you can make any progress! Astroneer is a great example of doing it well; it utilizes only a single mechanic — breathing. Personal and custom servers also allow for modified mechanics to make the fun parts shine without being overshadowed by the body mechanics.
Of course, in MMOs, you can’t change server settings, so the best would be to adopt the external survival elements of gathering, crafting, and base building while limiting the body mechanics. Games could also offer special regions that implement a body mechanic, like deserts where folks get parched and need to drink occasionally. In AQ3D, the desert causes a constant DoT that drinking alleviates. Perhaps zones or dungeons where you need to pack in food and water to survive until the end. That makes the more brutal survival elements a conscious choice to participate in or not.
Sam Kash (@samkash@mastodon.social): My experience with survival mechanics has largely been that I really like the idea of them in theory, but in practice they always annoy me until I hate them. It sounds really cool to me that your hero has a hunger meter that constantly goes down and has to be maintained. Same with the exhaustion or sleep meter. But then when I’m actually playing, it’s just so annoying.
I might be out chopping trees and then suddenly I have to stop to eat for a sec. Now I can get back to what I was actually trying to do. And I think that’s where it begins to lose its luster. It’s a mechanic that is constantly getting in the way of what you’re actually trying to accomplish in the game – which also goes into what Jon Wax was getting at, I think. Tedious minutiae gets in the way of the fun stuff I’m actually trying to do everyday IRL; I don’t want it to also get in the way of my gaming.
I think going into a survival game with the expectation that you’re always dealing with the interruptions is fine, since I suppose it’s part of the point. But let’s leave them there. There’s a reason Crowfall removed its hunger bar before release.
Tyler Edwards (blog): My lukewarm take for this week is going to be that I want more survival mechanics in MMOs and fewer survival mechanics in survival games.
I really enjoy the fantasy of living off the land and being self-sufficient, and I appreciate the immersion of needing to worry about my character’s basic needs (food, shelter, etc) to at least some degree. However, most survival games get way too far into the simulationist nitty-gritty of this to the point where the entire game just ends up feeling like a chore, and they don’t tend to provide much gameplay or sense or purpose outside the subsistence loop.
What I would like is a happy medium between the two. I think this is part of what initially drew me into New World. It captures a lot of that “live off the land” vibe I enjoy about survival mechanics while building a more complete MMO around them.
Every week, join the Massively OP staff for Massively Overthinking column, a multi-writer roundtable in which we discuss the MMO industry topics du jour – and then invite you to join the fray in the comments. Overthinking it is literally the whole point. Your turn!
