As MMOs Age

I’m an MMO addict. Let’s forget about Wow and ones before that. Recently I play Elder Scrolls Online, Final Fantasy XIV and Guild Wars 2. Recently I got bored and went back to Guild Wars [1], but let’s ignore that in this comparison.

In these games I have many characters:

Each game has lots of choices for classes and races and so there are lots of combinations to try. Some I don’t find that interesting – Cat People [Khajiit] in ESO for example just aren’t that interesting to me personally. All the races in ESO are just head changes on basically the same body with or without fur. And new classes appear with new expansions. We just got Arcanist with the Necrom expansion recently.

For FFXIV, all classes [ jobs ] are available to all races and in every character. So you don’t have to make a new character to try a new job. So there aren’t so much as “Combinations” as just all the race choices. And more races and jobs with each expansion.

For Guild Wars 2, all races can play one of any of the classes [Professions] and each expansion brings along new “Specializations” for the classes.

So what happens as a game ages. All these game are more than or almost 10 years old at this point. What happens to the games over time and what does that mean for new players.

As An MMO Ages

Of course as an MMO ages, not only does the game add classes, maybe races, but more and more content and depending on how the game defines “Progression” in the game, this can be a problem. By Progression I mean what happens to a character in the game as it “Levels” in some way. How can that character participate in the new content and how does a player just starting out, in a game over 10 years old, see that content and that progression..

Each of these games has dealt with Progression in a different way.

Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 has defined progression in a horizontal way. While you need to level your character “Vertically” to level 80 to experience all the content, this is a pretty quick process, and leveling characters after playing for a while is quite a simple matter since you can share many items that help level up. Tomes of Knowledge are quite easy to obtain and after playing a few weeks on one character one typically has enough of these to level a 2nd character instantly to level 80. Yep. I have played for many years now – I started shortly after Guild Wars 2 released – and even after using a bunch of these to level up characters, I have over 300 in the bank right now.

Character boosts are given quite often as rewards and are often included when purchased with the latest expansion. So while it’s not necessarily a good idea to boost your first character to 80 before you learn how the game works, leveling future characters is by no means a chore.

All or any of the content is available in any order when you level up. You can skip the personal story and go back and do it later if you like. You can skip the base story and go play any of the expansions and never play the base story on a character if you like. The Personal Story differs by your race and your answers to some questions at character creation time.

Your experience is at your whim, as long as each of the expansions or living world seasons are started at the beginning. You can’t start an expansion or living world season in the middle. Sometimes these expansions and Living World Seasons cost a few dollars, but often they are given away as promotions. There is no subscription for Guild Wars 2, so some payment for content is reasonable.

Elder Scrolls Online

Elder Scrolls Online used to be a normal MMO with a standard vertical progression method. But back in 2016, ESO launched One Tamriel and changed the game to a horizontal progression model.

The progression is a lot like Guild Wars 2, in that you progress each character vertically to level 50, and then progression is oddly account wide with any character gaining Champion points for all of the characters on the account. These points are spent by each character in a cluster of three talent trees that benefit the strength and other functions of the class, crafting and other function of game play. Any of the expansions or zones can be played in any order.

There is an optional subscription for ESO. And each of the expansions cost a little more to purchase. But after One Tamriel, any of the zones / expansions can be played in any order. There is a Personal Story of a sort which involves a series of quests where the player follows the profit and learns about the history and lore of the Elder Scrolls. Unlike GW2, these quests are the same for all races.

Final Fantasy XVI

Final Fantasy XIV has a completely vertical progression model. Each job must be leveled vertically on its own and overall progression through the various expansions in completely linear and vertical. You must experience the stories in the order they arrived in the game and you must be a certain level [on at least one job] to progress that story line.

As you can see this is unlike these other games I’ve mentioned here, and indeed, unlike most other games in the market at the present time.

Even World of Warcraft changed to a quasi horizontal model some time ago. To summarize, Wow introduced some zone scaling in 2016, applied zone scaling to the rest of the world in 2018, and did a Level Squish to max level of 60 in 2020. The level was reduced to max level of 60 when it was going to pass 130. Since then it has increased to level 70. While not all the zones need to be experienced in order, Wow still used a Vertical progression model. The early experience is designed to quickly level characters to level 60 to experience the latest content.

FFXIV however, has stayed with a vertical and linear progression model. While there are level boosts, they are purchased for $25 [current USD] for one job only. There are also “Tales of Adventure” which skip story steps of an expansion, but do not affect the level of the character. These cost up to $25 [current USD].

So one can see that if you have a number of characters, or are starting a new character now in FFXIV, it is quite a daunting task [ many 10s of hours] to play through the MSQ [Main Scenario Quests] to reach the current end game. Another annoying feature of FFXIV is gating leveling of jobs behind once daily Roulette’s which queue for a random selection of only a few dungeons. While it is possible to queue for other dungeons, one can only queue for dungeons that have been unlocked through the MSQ progression.

At this point I have two out of my two dozen characters that have completed Endwalker [ the latest expansion]. Many of the other characters are at various other states of progression along the way. All of my ESO characters are at level 50, which much less game play involved and I’ve got about 500 out of 1300 champion points on my account. All of my GW2 characters are at 80 and I’ve enjoyed all the expansions on one or more characters, but not all of them.

What Will FFXIV Do?

I wonder when FFXIV developers will wake up and see that the long climb to level 90 through all the MSQ quests and leveling is just too much to expect new players to do to enjoy the game? When will they break the game up as all the MMOs have and allow folks to experience it in the way that they like?

We have heard about the upcoming FFXIV expansion, Dawntrail, and it has two new jobs and new zones and new MSQs. But it follows the standard well worn model they have followed for years? The new jobs require your highest job to be at level 80, which means you have completed Stormblood and be ready to start Endwalker. Which means that as a starting player, these new jobs are locked behind about 60 or more hours of gameplay and many days.

When Elder Scrolls Online released Necrom with the Arcanist class, I made a new Arcanist class, played a few hours to get to level 20 or so and did the Necrom expansion quests. It was a few more weeks before I had my arcanist to level 50, and I wasn’t doing the hardest dungeons, but I didn’t have to wait for weeks to play Arcanist or the new expansion.

A new Guild Wars 2 player needs to level a character with a Profession to level 80. I should do this again without using any boosts and see how long it takes. /age is chat will tell me how long I’ve played this character. Just level in the maps using Hearts, and the Personal Story and maybe some dungeons. No farming for XP and no Spamming dungeons. Just normal game play. I’ll report back.

But based on these summaries, which game do you want to play?
:ww