While many people, myself included, enjoy mindless mob killing, it's still mindless. It does not take a whole lot of wherewithal to figure out your characters optimum configuration/tactics for fighting mobs. I would never want to see an MMO remove the ability for a player to just go out and kill stuff if they wish, it just should not, IMO, result in the same or better rewards than for questing.
I would question then the game itself, not the method. Inevitably, questing or quest grinding involves these same mobs that we are discussing. The question then becomes how much interaction with them, or how much slaying results in it become 'mindless' or not enjoyable?
If you consider that - at least in group scenarios akin to the old EQ and FFXI days - there was more to it than simply bashing a monster and being successful in mere seconds. While the act and the animations may have been simple or simplistic, the entire process at times was quite complex. Once you became good at said activities, it netted more of a return than just loot or coin, but also a sense of achievement. Group building, travelling, camp placement, monster pulling, resource management(health/mana), speed and efficiency, adaptiveness, awareness, reflex, communication - it's a all part of the overall requirements. And in a way it's a form of management or micro management, which is really really popular to people.
You are correct, we would never want mobs to simply disappear - that would possibly remove the need for 'open world' locations. We might as well simply dungeon crawl from a lobby menu like Diablo type games.
Though if you want to look at a game that embodies the downfall of MMORPGS in regards to quest oriented progression, than look no further than FFXIV:ARR. The open world mobs are mere back drops and fillers, until they become part of a quest.
Interestingly, ESO in fact has gone so head first into this method, that rather than balance it by making mobs have more experience reward, they've done the opposite and tried to support this system by making quests have stories in them that you may get attached to. Which in itself is a super welcome addition, yet not at the expense of never having the need or the advantage to simply go out and hunt at your own discretion. As eluded to before, they have dressed it up fairly well by spreading things out.
I agree with you in that there has to be a balance to both. For instance, if you get a new weapon and want to become more proficient at it, you go out and use it. This, however, should definitely have diminishing returns. That brings up the age old argument as to whether characters in a game should have levels at all, as opposed to just becoming more proficient at their chosen abilities over time. By removing levels, you in effect remove the "magical quest completion" component of making a character better.
We are on the same page mostly here. Though the only correlation I see between 'skilling' progression and numerical level progression is in whether they can make them mutually exclusive - and I believe it can be done(in some games it sorta has already).
The question of 'magical quest completion' is or can be treated as a separate issue. It's only a sub component of the transcending progression system, whatever that may be.
This also brings up the issue with repeating quests, "quest grinding" if you will. The result of quest completion should reward the player with something that is specific to the quest (ie. The Super Awesome Ultra Mega Sword of Doom). Once completed, a player should be able to redo the quest with others, but should not receive anything other than some gold and any proficiency gained by using abilities. Again, this is this my opinion.
I'm pretty old school in that I do not expect any reward from a quest, especially not initially. You remember EverQuest, some things took MONTHS, and they had several stages where you received nothing but more items to carry on the journey - which is what it became.
However if we had to meet in the middle and provide a bit more instant gratification, than at least remove experience from some quests and/or reduce them so they have less impact and are therefore not seen as primary source of progression. This of course though only works if there's alternative methods, such as monster experience!
I've tried to do as much dungeon play as possible in ESO without boring myself, and for a while you can rack up fair experience gain from the monsters, however it's not a steady rate and I cannot determine the variables to the equation(metaphorically speaking). I need more time, however it's fair to say, they do not intend for you to dungeon crawl all the time - which is a shame really, because at times there's some real brilliance in the action when you play with others. You would think that developers would try to find that moment of clarity and capture like a Kodak moment, then reproduce it wherever possible.
As for the social aspect of MMOs, they are without a doubt a social mechanism to get people to play together. I don't think that this should exclude a player from venturing out on their own if they so choose. As an old school dice rolling D&D player, one of the things that made the games fun was that no matter what you tried to do, there was always a "chance" (however slim) you might succeed. Most of the games fail in this manner in that it is simply impossible to take on something that is considerable higher level than you, whether a mob or another player in PvP, if you are not part of a group. Should it be easy? Not at all. Should it be possible? Yes.
It may have been Smedley, or McQuaid whom once said that they never intended EverQuest to be a place where you were
forced to interact with others, or relied on others to succeed at all aspects of the game. Unfortunately, any misplaced intolerance towards solo play, was more down to mechanics and how they were going into something a bit blind, unchartered territories so to speak. They still respected those who wanted a challenge alone.
And I have always believed and agreed that adventuring with others is a bonus, a boon, and a part of the questing experience itself - it's "random, unforseen and unpredictable."
When you force people to do something, whether alone or together, you will not win their hearts and minds the same as if you inspire or encourage them to do it.
It's odd to think that we've been forced into quest progression and games that cater to the solo play, and yet we still try to shout down the idea of concepts like monster grinding. I often wonder if people understand fully what they are saying.
As for the challenge aspect, yes, there's a significant satisfaction in being able to succeed alone, where others require assistance. Fallen Earth is great modern online game for that, and I often reference it as an example of how you can make a successful online game that's solo oriented, but not apologetic about it.
I am actually looking forward to whether ESO's world mobs will get a bit of an AI tweak and balance, so that we get more of them, but downgraded slightly so they can be solo or double teamed, rather than having to wait on thirty random strangers to come to a 'dynamic event' and then spam abilities until all the spell particles stop exploding a.k.a. the fight is over.
I also am not so sure I agree with your statement that just a player "can" do something alone that they will opt to do it that way, or vice versa. When you read about EVE Online you are presented quite bluntly with the fact that if you like soloing it was not the game you want to play. I soloed exclusively and loved it, which goes back to the comment that players should be given a choice on their preferred play style, even if it's not the most effective means to accomplish things.
Unfortunately it seems to be a growing trend. When you do not need to communicate or interact, and you know you can do things alone, you often end up heading down that path. We could call it lazy, selfish, paranoid, anti-social - it doesn't matter how we describe it, it does happen and I can understand why.
Alternatively you do not want to force people together as previously mentioned, as that can have even worse side effects.
I think that like every other MMO on the planet, over time the developers of ESO will adjust game balance, implement changes to the way things work, and eventually find a good balance for what people want in the game. While you cannot cater to one side or the other, I think that given the game is still in Beta and that it might possibly takes years of content addition and adjustment, it's a little too early to say what ESO will turn out to be like, or if they will ever "take the risk".
I'd also like to believe that ESO will eventually band people together a bit more through subtle means and if the game play gets better, there will be more people out in the open world engaging monsters for the simple play enjoyment and therefore cross paths.
The conclusion here though is that nothing about these views dictate whether or not quest progression as a concept or a template, is better than monster grinding - or maybe more importantly, why developers cannot give more credence and focus on both types of foundations.
I knew ESO might become a let down, when I started to notice various aspects that were a-typical of modern MMORPGs, and of course I realized they must only be implemented because the transcending game style and it's progression method is quest driven. And sure enough I was exactly right.
And while most of ESO's failures as a break through game are a direct result of quest progression, there's a whole host of other little things it does very very wrong, that make even the most optimistic of it's players, wish they'd never even tried the game to begin with.
It's like idolizing someone for a long time, and then when you finally get to meet them, you wish you hadn't.
Thanks for the discussion !!!
Of course, likewise.
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