It struck me while responding to a thread 'way off in the boonies of Feedback, that there might be some varying definitions of what constitutes 'endgame content' that is being asked for, required, and/or demanded.
So, I figured I would ask: What, for you, is end-game content?
Be as specific as you can. We all know it means 'Stuff for people at the level cap to do,' but what does that mean? Putting aside anything and everything else, what for you would you keep playing a game for, after you hit the level cap?
In every MMO I've played end-game content generally consisted of Raids, PvP, Crafting, and grinding for purples/rare items. I'm not sure there really is anything viable beyond that.
To me end-game content is content that is playable by max-level characters that is repeatable and enjoyable. I don't care about whether it awards shiny things or not (I'll not complain if it does mind you) all I really care about is whether I enjoy playing it.
Similarly teamed versus non-teamed. It can require teaming or be soloable but it should ENCOURAGE teaming. Content that is impossible to solo does not encourage teaming, it requires it. Content that can be solo'd but is more fun with a team is infinitely preferable to content that requires a team.
Finally it should be as accessible as possible. I don't want to have to worry about finding a person with spec X or gear Y I want to grab a team and get going.
What is there to do(After leveling to cap)?
What is the goal?
Why do I want/need to do that?
Whats in it for me?
Will I experience something new?
Is it challenging?
Is it worthwhile?
Is it repeatative?
These are just a few of the questions that defines end-game content. If we answer some of those questions, we will be on the "right track".
End game content to me is just more missions and interesting story arcs for me to play through. Something that's extremely time consuming to make I'm afraid. Not much of a big raider. Though I do find myself spending hours fighting at Starbase 24 with all of my toons. If I feel the need to mix it up with some big nasties. Starbase 24 takes care of that good for me.
I would think something like the City of Heroes/Villains Mission Arc system will go along way to cure those who crave story arcs.
Provided it can draw the interest of enough players who can write good story arcs to make them. Writing a Story Arc isnt anywhere NEAR as easy as people think it is....
End game content to me is just more missions and interesting story arcs for me to play through. Something that's extremely time consuming to make I'm afraid. Not much of a big raider. Though I do find myself spending hours fighting at Starbase 24 with all of my toons. If I feel the need to mix it up with some big nasties. Starbase 24 takes care of that good for me.
I would think something like the City of Heroes/Villains Mission Arc system will go along way to cure those who crave story arcs.
Provided it can draw the interest of enough players who can write good story arcs to make them. Writing a Story Arc isnt anywhere NEAR as easy as people think it is....
In other news, coderanger is working on User-Generated Content.
Could we see players develop mission sotry arcs, especially in a setting as conducive to roleplaying as Star Trek Online?
Letting players create high content (even if it isn't the emergent content JacobFlowers loved) would be a great feature. All that bad fan-fiction of mine could be dusted out from gradeschool in the early nineties.
To me end-game content is content that is playable by max-level characters that is repeatable and enjoyable. I don't care about whether it awards shiny things or not (I'll not complain if it does mind you) all I really care about is whether I enjoy playing it.
Similarly teamed versus non-teamed. It can require teaming or be soloable but it should ENCOURAGE teaming. Content that is impossible to solo does not encourage teaming, it requires it. Content that can be solo'd but is more fun with a team is infinitely preferable to content that requires a team.
Finally it should be as accessible as possible. I don't want to have to worry about finding a person with spec X or gear Y I want to grab a team and get going.
Could you go into more specifics, or give some examples? Even pie-in-the-sky ideas.
Basically, one of the goals for this thread is to put brainbugs in the minds of developers as to what, specifically, we as a community and individually want for end-game content... because I suspect that the 'common knowledge'* of end-game content is raids, raids, and more raids. Maybe that's not the case! Maybe we can break out of the box here. Maybe people have different ideas of what end-game content is. In fact I'm certain of it, which is why I'm asking before we get countless STFs in Gamma Orionis, and people are clamoring for End-Game content and the devs are all scratching their heads, saying that they've been making end-game content.
What is there to do(After leveling to cap)?
What is the goal?
Why do I want/need to do that?
Whats in it for me?
Will I experience something new?
Is it challenging?
Is it worthwhile?
Is it repeatative?
These are just a few of the questions that defines end-game content. If we answer some of those questions, we will be on the "right track".
Of course, we the players are the only ones who can answer those questions...
I would like to see end game consist of epic episodic story archs for PVE and Persistant PVPVE Conquest for those who are into that sort of thing.. I think that would give the deversity that STO needs.
The ideal for me would be just being done with all the current quests and storylines.. Just roaming around in a sandbox universe filled with fun social activities.
I don't want to grind for gear or timesinks.. I want my gaming experiance to be driven by fun, not compulsion.
to me endgame is the reason to log in after you hit max level. it has to be something repeatable but fun
for me personally that would be open pvp sector block with goals and targets to hit. a sector block with systems and starbases we can attack, defend capture, improve and kit out etc.
even though its the same thing every day, the players themselves shape the gameplay. one day your attacking, one day your defending, one day your being overrun by a hundred klingons, desperately trying to coordinate your defence and and another your the one zerging the enemy into submission knowing that at anytime they enemy could get their act together and launch a counter attack.
that to me would be a good reason to log in every day
End game content cannot be hand written content (Quests). It gets old very quickly, neither should it be single player content. MMOs are not permanently continued single player games. So what makes a good MMO?
1. Single player content should be continued with the Genesis engine but greatly improved.
2. Multiplayer content are currently Raidisodes, which aren't too bad but still take too long to complete and require too many deaths in space in order to complete the mission in time. Dying offers quicker full heals than getting healed by players. Reduce the deadly striking ability of NPC ships and give players (Cruisers/Sci-ships) a chance to either tank or heal. There is not much tanking "agro holding" for cruisers right now. Whoever becomes the "chosen one" by the enemy ship is as good as dead.
3. Roleplaying. Hm, not present yet. Open pvp could solve this. We need borderworlds that need to be convinced to join either the FEDs or KDF. Going there means you are attackable by either faction on your attempt to make a world join you. Could be on ground or in space. Aid the planet would get a whole new meaning. Have your cruisers loaded with the stuff such a planet (world) needs. Once you have delivered enough supplies they may decide to join either side.
Fed side never attacks KDF unprovoked. If a Klingon attacks and destroys a single Fed ship it counts as dishonorable and the player loses faction points. So if the Klingon decides to not attack the Fed he could beam down to that planet as well and deliver his supplies. May the better/faster one win.
We need an equal amount of players on both sides, though.
OR
It could be similar to SWGs city defense/attack. Every 3 hours the fight starts. If you choose to attack, then a planet is under the control of the enemy. If you select a defense mission you have to defend that planet.
This could be a two-pronged operation, starting in space and continued on the planet surface. The summary of both counts either as a victory or defeat for us. After that the planet score percentage either increases or decreases for our faction. Its very popular in SWG. The planets to capture could be in a new sector block and accessed by the queue system. Staring every 3 hours, lasting for one hour. No certain amount of players required, just go or don't go. Teaming up before is recommendable. Auto grouping might help as well when you arrive ungrouped.
to me endgame is the reason to log in after you hit max level. it has to be something repeatable but fun
for me personally that would be open pvp sector block with goals and targets to hit. a sector block with systems and starbases we can attack, defend capture, improve and kit out etc.
even though its the same thing every day, the players themselves shape the gameplay. one day your attacking, one day your defending, one day your being overrun by a hundred klingons, desperately trying to coordinate your defence and and another your the one zerging the enemy into submission knowing that at anytime they enemy could get their act together and launch a counter attack.
that to me would be a good reason to log in every day
What he said...
High end raids, that are actually challenging and fun even when you repeat them. And if ya fail ya fail (you should almost NEVER have your high end raids or missions completed in the 1st attempt, make it challenging).
Open PvP sectors. A great one time investment for cryptic years of content for both factions and any future factions.
Id also add:
A good crafting system (yeah for both factions)+Player based economy (wich means crafted items need to be better than the looted items, in fact looted items should be rare crafting items or addons.).
A good resource gathering system (like SWGs) wich will be tied into the crafting system.
Item decay everything needs repaired or replaced eventually. This will give players something to do with all thier credits and points they are accumulating. And would insure crafters and resource gather'ers will stay in demand.
Fleet cities or stations with player housing.
Other just for fluff stuff to do;
Recreational and social area's like the Sims (Fleets can open up thier bases as Cassino's, Bars, Host Fight tournaments, high end crafting malls, ect).
For me "endgame" is a mixture of all these things (at least most of). You need player driven PvP to suplement the Raids and other PvE content so neither gets stale or old. If you give people at least good (and by good I mean challenging) PvE and PvP you will have Subs for years.
The current raid system that STO has inplace isnt end game content for me, end game content IE going to do a raid should be fun.
So far none of the STFS have been fun they have been plagued with problems which could be fixed by
1. lowering the level of the trash mobs
2/ reducing the number of the trash mobs
3/ fixing the end mob so its not so retardingly difficult to do without the perfect team
currently out of the ones ive done, cure and infected i never want to do them again.
and yet in Age of Conan with the first dungeon with a 7 day lockout and the dragon i enjoyed both of these encoutners even though they were incredibly tough. none of them had any of the above problems with them. THey were challenging but fun.
as for crafting thats even worse, the problem being is that you cant farm for specific resouces its random and that in itself is a bad thing. if i want an item and i need to farm it ill go to that resource point and farm it till i dont need to any more. I dont want to be drifint around a nebula doing random missions and scanning everything to end up with a inventory full of items i dont need.
and looking at the crafting system NOTHING actually appealed to me to even start i went and sold all my resources because crafting looked a waste of time. NOT fun.
A daily mission (PvE, PvP, Federation, Klingon, exploration, or patrol),
or a Mining (PvE or PvP),
or a Trading Mission (PvE or PvP),
or a diplomatic mission,
or relax Crafting stuff requested by fleetmates or for profit
Plan the next Starbase expansion with the fleet on our website
Contribute to the forums
Not entering a bug report or needing a GM (no offense GMs)
Weekly (2-3 hrs)
Fleet Event (e.g., Raidisode, Fleet Action, or PvP action (either attacking or defending Starbase)
Fleet Promotion Events
Try out the latest user generated content and leave my feedback
Bragging to my friends what a fantastic game STO is
Monthly (45 min)
Participate in a scheduled GM event
Test upcoming features on Tribble
A dream schedule, lots of variety on a daily level, high interaction with my friends, stuff to continually work for, and various characters to work on. Yep, can't wait for Starbases!
End game content is quite simply content specifically designed for people who have reached max level. However, STO has a unique system that scales to your level, whether you are low or high: exploration. Furthremore, the difficulty slider allows people who really want a challenge to have one, even if they are max level. Exploration just needs a bit more variety and it would be great end game content.
end-game contents for me is simple. epic crafting, dailies for gear that is actually worth the grind and large scale dungeons that take your team weeks to progress through and contain multiple bosses with epic gear to collect,all the while saving your progress.
end-game contents for me is simple. epic crafting, dailies for gear that is actually worth the grind and large scale dungeons that take your team weeks to progress through and contain multiple bosses with epic gear to collect,all the while saving your progress.
Imagine if an STF were a grueling open area as large as the Canada map.
So, I figured I would ask: What, for you, is end-game content?
There is no endgame content, since in an MMO, there is no "endgame". The very point of an MMO is that it never ends.
There is just content, some of which you can do at max level. As for the max level content, it obviously needs to feel "new", too. So basically, there are only two sorts of content viable for that:
a) genuinely new content (new missions)
b) randomized content (that alters in some aspects every time you do it)
Everything else just sucks. Particulary if the so-called endgame exclusively consists of group-mandatory "Raids" you need to be in a zerg guild for even trying to complete. It's that or mindless grind as in trying to keep people busy by making them the repeat some content 500 times over to achieve some meaningless title/achievement which is why I hate most "endgame" content.
Imagine if an STF were a grueling open area as large as the Canada map.
It would be drop dead beautiful, there'd be some language barriers, if you made a wrong turn you might not see another soul for months, anyone from Risa would complain about the temperature, and all Borg would say, "Resistance is Futile! You will be assimilated, eh!"
Comments
Similarly teamed versus non-teamed. It can require teaming or be soloable but it should ENCOURAGE teaming. Content that is impossible to solo does not encourage teaming, it requires it. Content that can be solo'd but is more fun with a team is infinitely preferable to content that requires a team.
Finally it should be as accessible as possible. I don't want to have to worry about finding a person with spec X or gear Y I want to grab a team and get going.
What is there to do(After leveling to cap)?
What is the goal?
Why do I want/need to do that?
Whats in it for me?
Will I experience something new?
Is it challenging?
Is it worthwhile?
Is it repeatative?
These are just a few of the questions that defines end-game content. If we answer some of those questions, we will be on the "right track".
I would think something like the City of Heroes/Villains Mission Arc system will go along way to cure those who crave story arcs.
Provided it can draw the interest of enough players who can write good story arcs to make them. Writing a Story Arc isnt anywhere NEAR as easy as people think it is....
In other news, coderanger is working on User-Generated Content.
Could we see players develop mission sotry arcs, especially in a setting as conducive to roleplaying as Star Trek Online?
Letting players create high content (even if it isn't the emergent content JacobFlowers loved) would be a great feature. All that bad fan-fiction of mine could be dusted out from gradeschool in the early nineties.
Could you go into more specifics, or give some examples? Even pie-in-the-sky ideas.
Basically, one of the goals for this thread is to put brainbugs in the minds of developers as to what, specifically, we as a community and individually want for end-game content... because I suspect that the 'common knowledge'* of end-game content is raids, raids, and more raids. Maybe that's not the case! Maybe we can break out of the box here. Maybe people have different ideas of what end-game content is. In fact I'm certain of it, which is why I'm asking before we get countless STFs in Gamma Orionis, and people are clamoring for End-Game content and the devs are all scratching their heads, saying that they've been making end-game content.
* - which is neither!
Of course, we the players are the only ones who can answer those questions...
So what are your answers?
I don't want to grind for gear or timesinks.. I want my gaming experiance to be driven by fun, not compulsion.
That word of lootcraft bs is getting really old.....really old.
for me personally that would be open pvp sector block with goals and targets to hit. a sector block with systems and starbases we can attack, defend capture, improve and kit out etc.
even though its the same thing every day, the players themselves shape the gameplay. one day your attacking, one day your defending, one day your being overrun by a hundred klingons, desperately trying to coordinate your defence and and another your the one zerging the enemy into submission knowing that at anytime they enemy could get their act together and launch a counter attack.
that to me would be a good reason to log in every day
1. Single player content should be continued with the Genesis engine but greatly improved.
2. Multiplayer content are currently Raidisodes, which aren't too bad but still take too long to complete and require too many deaths in space in order to complete the mission in time. Dying offers quicker full heals than getting healed by players. Reduce the deadly striking ability of NPC ships and give players (Cruisers/Sci-ships) a chance to either tank or heal. There is not much tanking "agro holding" for cruisers right now. Whoever becomes the "chosen one" by the enemy ship is as good as dead.
3. Roleplaying. Hm, not present yet. Open pvp could solve this. We need borderworlds that need to be convinced to join either the FEDs or KDF. Going there means you are attackable by either faction on your attempt to make a world join you. Could be on ground or in space. Aid the planet would get a whole new meaning. Have your cruisers loaded with the stuff such a planet (world) needs. Once you have delivered enough supplies they may decide to join either side.
Fed side never attacks KDF unprovoked. If a Klingon attacks and destroys a single Fed ship it counts as dishonorable and the player loses faction points. So if the Klingon decides to not attack the Fed he could beam down to that planet as well and deliver his supplies. May the better/faster one win.
We need an equal amount of players on both sides, though.
OR
It could be similar to SWGs city defense/attack. Every 3 hours the fight starts. If you choose to attack, then a planet is under the control of the enemy. If you select a defense mission you have to defend that planet.
This could be a two-pronged operation, starting in space and continued on the planet surface. The summary of both counts either as a victory or defeat for us. After that the planet score percentage either increases or decreases for our faction. Its very popular in SWG. The planets to capture could be in a new sector block and accessed by the queue system. Staring every 3 hours, lasting for one hour. No certain amount of players required, just go or don't go. Teaming up before is recommendable. Auto grouping might help as well when you arrive ungrouped.
You like that?
- Episode (~45 minute mission)
Bi-weekly:- C-Store updates
Monthly:Bug-fixes/Rebalance/Etc. (gives significant time to test and have hotfixes to test on tribble)
- Supplemental Updates (this allows for more testing of a given item - possibly higher quality)
- STF (this allows for more testing - possibly higher quality)
- Exploration Mission Updates - new missions types available
Quarterly:- Season Updates:
- Major New Features
Yearly (or 1.5 years)As for endgame itself:
What he said...
High end raids, that are actually challenging and fun even when you repeat them. And if ya fail ya fail (you should almost NEVER have your high end raids or missions completed in the 1st attempt, make it challenging).
Open PvP sectors. A great one time investment for cryptic years of content for both factions and any future factions.
Id also add:
A good resource gathering system (like SWGs) wich will be tied into the crafting system.
Item decay everything needs repaired or replaced eventually. This will give players something to do with all thier credits and points they are accumulating. And would insure crafters and resource gather'ers will stay in demand.
Fleet cities or stations with player housing.
Other just for fluff stuff to do;
For me "endgame" is a mixture of all these things (at least most of). You need player driven PvP to suplement the Raids and other PvE content so neither gets stale or old. If you give people at least good (and by good I mean challenging) PvE and PvP you will have Subs for years.
So far none of the STFS have been fun they have been plagued with problems which could be fixed by
1. lowering the level of the trash mobs
2/ reducing the number of the trash mobs
3/ fixing the end mob so its not so retardingly difficult to do without the perfect team
currently out of the ones ive done, cure and infected i never want to do them again.
and yet in Age of Conan with the first dungeon with a 7 day lockout and the dragon i enjoyed both of these encoutners even though they were incredibly tough. none of them had any of the above problems with them. THey were challenging but fun.
as for crafting thats even worse, the problem being is that you cant farm for specific resouces its random and that in itself is a bad thing. if i want an item and i need to farm it ill go to that resource point and farm it till i dont need to any more. I dont want to be drifint around a nebula doing random missions and scanning everything to end up with a inventory full of items i dont need.
and looking at the crafting system NOTHING actually appealed to me to even start i went and sold all my resources because crafting looked a waste of time. NOT fun.
- A daily mission (PvE, PvP, Federation, Klingon, exploration, or patrol),
- or a Mining (PvE or PvP),
- or a Trading Mission (PvE or PvP),
- or a diplomatic mission,
- or relax Crafting stuff requested by fleetmates or for profit
- Plan the next Starbase expansion with the fleet on our website
- Contribute to the forums
- Not entering a bug report or needing a GM (no offense GMs)
Weekly (2-3 hrs)- Fleet Event (e.g., Raidisode, Fleet Action, or PvP action (either attacking or defending Starbase)
- Fleet Promotion Events
- Try out the latest user generated content and leave my feedback
- Bragging to my friends what a fantastic game STO is
Monthly (45 min)A dream schedule, lots of variety on a daily level, high interaction with my friends, stuff to continually work for, and various characters to work on. Yep, can't wait for Starbases!
[Darren - Most Excellent Format Dude!]
There is no endgame content, since in an MMO, there is no "endgame". The very point of an MMO is that it never ends.
There is just content, some of which you can do at max level. As for the max level content, it obviously needs to feel "new", too. So basically, there are only two sorts of content viable for that:
a) genuinely new content (new missions)
b) randomized content (that alters in some aspects every time you do it)
Everything else just sucks. Particulary if the so-called endgame exclusively consists of group-mandatory "Raids" you need to be in a zerg guild for even trying to complete. It's that or mindless grind as in trying to keep people busy by making them the repeat some content 500 times over to achieve some meaningless title/achievement which is why I hate most "endgame" content.
New Episode Content
Open PvP Sector Space.
More options at customizing ships
more variant ship classes added for Tier 5.
Additional character slots.