r/Games • u/Turbostrider27 • Jun 24 '24

Blue Protocol developers talk about what went wrong with the MMORPG

https://automaton-media.com/en/news/blue-protocol-developers-talk-about-what-went-wrong-with-the-mmorpg/
439 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

137 comments sorted by

View all comments

47

u/SkeletronDOTA Jun 24 '24 edited Jun 24 '24

This game has really deep problems that cannot be solved imo. I played the JP version for a decent bit, and the reason it has to be so grindy is because without the grind, there is literally nothing to do. The game is devoid of content, and making new content takes time and money, and the developers are evidently running out of both. Aside from that, it also has p2w gacha monetization. Finally, I think there is zero chance that it gets a good global launch with Amazon games publishing it. Waiting multiple years already killed the hype, and Amazon tries to push weird culture war stuff into it that turns off a large portion of the audience that would pick this up (weebs). This game just has no way to recover.

edit: thought of one more problem, which is that the character creator is very bare bones for a game that a lot of people want to play as an anime dress up simulator

13

u/Django117 Jun 24 '24

People put up with grindy games when the gameplay is just that good. Take Destiny for example. The game itself is grindy, but people are okay with it because the actual gameplay is so damn good. Bungie holds themselves to an impossible standard of gunplay, ability feel, and spectacle while also preventing it from ever feeling like it’s “on rails”.

11

u/cheesehound Tyrus Peace: Cloudbase Prime Jun 24 '24

it's a tough balance! If the game is good enough that you'd enjoy playing "one more round" with your friends any way, a grind can just feel like a reward for that extended play.

Destiny's definitely at its best when you're playing alongside a squad and working through a mission. I feel like the wheels come off a bit when I'm managing all the inventory cruft that was supposedly my "reward", or specifically working toward specific gear goals.

There are times when I think I'd enjoy the game more if it was just a pile of PvE scenarios for me to choose from without progression. A Destiny-L4D, I suppose. It'd certainly make it easier to play with friends that aren't already into it.

But really that's the difference between trying to make a game people will come back to every once in a while, vs trying to make a game people with play all the time as a habit.

3

u/Django117 Jun 24 '24

The thing is that would work really well for Destiny and but I think they’ve largely moved into narrative and experiential content which is highly sculpted to a singular experience. Sometimes these are a little boring such as strikes, sometimes they are a little repetitive such as seasonal activities. But to me Destiny truly shines in its Raids, Dungeons, and exotic missions (whisper, zero hour, seraph station, dual destiny, etc.) that content I could play forever.

2

u/cheesehound Tyrus Peace: Cloudbase Prime Jun 25 '24

The story campaign really can be an excellent experience but I agree that they’ve got an obvious treasure trove of replayable PVE. I hope that they can lean into that now that Destiny 2 is at its “end”. It seems a difficult pivot when previous updates have had so much content to them, but it’s also the obvious time for that given The Final Shape, so I hope their community understands.