"Nah, not really."
"Why not?"
"That's just another funnel system MMO"
"What's a Funnel System MMO?"
What is a Funnel System MMO you may ask? Funnel System MMOs are MMOs that follow a typical formula, most popular MMO titles use the Funnel System because it's the most basic style of MMOs development. The reason for this is because it's the traditional gaming system derived from the game systems before video games were even developed. Most of this stems off the traditional systems of Dungeons & Dragons, there's no denying that. After that this system was also used in most traditional RPGs and then was tweaked into what we refer to today as the funnel system, specifically defined to describe the gameplay experience in a traditional MMO.
So what the heck is it? The Funnel System is a way to describe your path of gameplay through an MMO. From the very beginning to the very end. The Funnel System also describes where a majority of the players are in perspective of the entire gaming community of one individual MMO. So here it is:
What are some advantages we may see with this system? Well, to begin with, we see that from the beginning the player is continually engaging in new activities along the way, and the deeper into gameplay they go, the more exciting the experience is. (Hence why Raiding is at the very bottom.) This is because only the most diehard players of the community, after working hard get to be rewarded with the ultimate challenge of Raiding. Also, for those who tire of artificial intelligence, most people hold off on Player vs Player interaction until the very end. Many people feel that the most deadly enemy is another player, therefor, players at max level are on equal ground and all classes/archetypes should be balanced at this point.
The most successful MMOs have defined the genre with this system (A prime example, World of Warcraft), and if a player wants to play this style, then they'll play the MMO that did it best, logically speaking. So if so many MMOs use this system and it works great, hence why so many successful MMOs use it, then what's the problem?
There's a lot of problems with it. To begin with, lets use World of Warcraft, for example; The level cap (currently) is 85. The Funnel System is designed to push the player to max level to enjoy the new content. Well, when the content is complete, then what? Wait until next expansion pretty much. So this leaves players re-rolling and repeating the same motions on a new character. If the gameplay was immersive the first time, then that wouldn't be an issue. If the final stages of the gameplay were extensive enough to keep the player's attention until the next expansion, and continue the process again, that also wouldn't be an issue. When rerolling several times, the goal is to get back to the final level the fastest way possible (this often happens with twinking for a more enjoyable, and less tedious experience), but only to do the same rutine all over again on a new character. The same raids, but possibly with a different role.
Considering any time around after the first one is typically faster with a goal intended, most of the levels before the last one are, in fact, irrelevant. The reason why I call the levels irrelevant is because no matter what for you do, or how you do them, you still achieve max level all the same.
Hmm, 85 levels, and 84 of them are irrelevant... That's a lot of unnecessary filler gameplay if all that matters is the final level. For the most part, this is true! That's the main reason why the funnel system is bad.
The other problem you fall into is the lack of things to do. In a standard MMO at max level you typically have the following things to do:
Gear up
Get money
Raid
Craft
PVP
Help Friends
Quest (Ussually Daily quests)
Some MMOs have understood the funnel system and have implemented things to add some flavor to the mix.
World of Warcraft implimented phasing technology into their game. This is probably one of the best methods any MMO has ever done to both add diversity to questing, and divert the player away from grinding simply to gain EXP or loot. The phasing technology allowed access to a variety of things by overlapping new sections of the game, this included things such as gatherable nodes, vendors/quartermasters, flight paths and new most importantly, quests that opened up to move to the next section of the phase. Sometimes, completing phase quests was necessary for opening up endgame content.
The new game Rifts designed an interesting twist to the gameplay and it's one of the games most iconic features, the rifts! (Obviously.) Rifts designed periodic enemy invasions to happen all around the world and these invasions could wipe out cities which held a majority of the quest NPCs and vendors. So if you neglected to do the rifts, your towns would be destroyed and your quests won't be completed until the town is saved.
As much as people hated the game, Final Fantasy XI steered away from the funnel system as much as possible. People who played entirely through the funnel system were typically the people who enjoyed the title the least and is the major reason why there is so much negative feedback toward the game. Final Fantasy XI did not focus entirely on endgame being the center of the gameplay. Instead, they developed challenges you had to accomplish along the way.
These challenges were called Limit breaks, and without a max level player running the player through a majority of the quests, they were extremely difficult. Limit breaks disabled your player from leveling forward until the quest was completed, and these quests happened every 5 levels after the 50th level. other challenges that would greatly benefit your gameplay if the player chooses. A prime example of this was called Artifact gear. Artifact gear was the iconic gear sets for every class, the gear for the most part, provided critical stats that were almost necessary even at max level.
Lastly, the most unique part about Final Fantasy XI's anti-funnel system gameplay was your inability to progress into endgame without completing the storylines for each expansion pack. Example: If you did not complete Chains of Promathia, you could not raid Sea and/or Limbus endgame content. These quests were nothing like typical MMO quests (go kill x amount of x monster), but instead, were designed with a story in mind first, and then gameplay second. With that in mind, the storyline was your driving motivation to progress typically. The cutscenes demonstrated frequently through questing was the cornerstone of the gameplay style and almost forced the player to care about what's going on, instead of blindingly clicking through quest dialog and moving on. Secondly the quest objectives were intensely difficult, even at max level, up until recently, most expansion quests were incredibly difficult and required a full group (sometimes even an alliance!) of people to complete a single section of the quest.
With all this gameplay, most of it had no real relevance on your level, and had more to do with your usefulness to the group and your ability to cooperate with others. This brings me to my last reason why the Funnel System is terrible.
With the Funnel System, achieving max level is typically not difficult, and certain MMOs give you abilities to speed through the levels through certain advantages. Jade Dynasty, you can level simply by meditating in town. World of Warcraft rewards you with rested EXP your character resides in town. Aion and many other MMOs give players Double EXP weekends. All with the intent to progress the character to max level, as if this is really the problem.
The biggest problem with this module is by progressing through the game so easily, the player is more likely to do it all over quickly if desired on a brand new character. This becomes a serious problem with rude players. Rude players are able to abuse the system and do whatever the hell they want with no more than a slap on the wrist.
Steal loot at a raid, your account gets banned, re-roll and in two weeks you're back up to the top like it never happened. Most of the time players already have multiple players at max level and it's not even a problem, only a minor setback. Likewise, even if they don't get banned, if their character name becomes down as a bad player, they simply play a different character and hide from the problem until it passes. No consequence.
This level of negativity becomes a very serious issue and makes gaming for good, polite players, problematic and unenjoyable. Studies show that about 20-30% of an MMO playerbase evidently quits an MMO due to drama-related issues. Things such as a guilds or clans splitting, harassment issues, demotivational actions from other players and so fourth.
Looking back as Final Fantasy XI, the anti-funnel system MMO, the player community is significantly more social, and positive than other MMOs, this is because the morality system put in place by basic human judgment. If a player is bad and you know he's bad, typically you won't play with them. Considering the difficulty of leveling from the beginning in Final Fantasy XI, and the shear volume of required objectives to achieve before max level, very rarely does a player re-roll a new character. This is also solved with the ability to be any job in the game on the same character by job changing in your designated mog house.
There's no reason to re-roll, for most people, if they were banned for bad behavior they would simply quit instead of restart. This weeded out most of the negative players in the game and allowed a more enjoyable experience for polite players.
So now you know what the Funnel System is, it's positives and negatives in the MMO industry. If you notice, many new MMOs are developing new systems that make the game more dynamic outside of the funnel system. I can only hope that a lot of these systems happen pre-max level so the game is just as enjoyable before max level as it is at the end.
