Is Pirate101 better off for NOT having all the activities that Wizard101 has?

[Willowdreamer]

I had a thought just now, that Pirate101 is a better game because it isn't crammed with all kinds of other things to do besides questing, pet morphing or farming for gear and ship equipment. Since my secondary accounts still have questing Pirates, I don't lack for things to do like all-maxed players are suffering, so possibly my viewpoint isn't common, but, overall, I prefer the quieter pace of Pirate101.

Logging in to Wizard101 and being faced with the Crown Shop big-and-bold first thing, telling me to do daily assignments, quest, pvp, buy packs, etc., and all of the constant Events going on, the feeling is much more obnoxious and stressful.

Anyone else who plays both games feel like this?

[Kingurz]

As a player that plays both games, yes to a degree. There are no competing events to have to choose between. However, for the game itself it probably isn't good. The main reason MMOs even come up with events, side activities, etc is to keep players logging into their game.....because the longer you spend in someone else's game.....the more likely you are to spend your hard earned money in the other game.

[monkeycrew]

I do agree with this point. It's one reason why I can't stand wiz - all the activities and crown shop stuff it comes and throws at you all the time. In Pirate, all I wanna do is quest!!!

[Flash33]

That's debatable as that depends on the quality of the side activities but overall I'd say no. The reason I say no is because while on the surface there are less distractions from questing, once you're done with questing then what? Sure you could always quest again on other characters but eventually you'll run out of quests to do and will be forced to delete characters if you REALLY want to do nothing but quest all day, which is honestly an unrealistic playstyle long-term in my opinion. Games need a good amount of engaging side activities to keep players engaged and playing the actual game, as without them players are more likely to find other games to play. Believe it or not not everyone wants to just quest or farm 24/7.

For Pirate101 specifically aside from farming the only side activities to do are decorating, pet training, pet sparring, smuggler's arena, arena pvp and ship pvp. If none of those interest you then you're out of luck. Compared to Wizard101 where you also have things like gardening, monstrology, fishing, pet derby (pet racing instead of pet sparring), beastmoon hunt, beastmoon monster mayhem, crafting and deckathalon. While Pirate101 is still fun and enjoyable in its own right, it's undeniable that Wizard101 has so much more to do than Pirate101 does, which is partly (keyword: partly) why some P101 players play W101 more these days.

[Willowdreamer]

That's debatable as that depends on the quality of the side activities but overall I'd say no. The reason I say no is because while on the surface there are less distractions from questing, once you're done with questing then what? Sure you could always quest again on other characters but eventually you'll run out of quests to do and will be forced to delete characters if you REALLY want to do nothing but quest all day, which is honestly an unrealistic playstyle long-term in my opinion. Games need a good amount of engaging side activities to keep players engaged and playing the actual game, as without them players are more likely to find other games to play. Believe it or not not everyone wants to just quest or farm 24/7.

For Pirate101 specifically aside from farming the only side activities to do are decorating, pet training, pet sparring, smuggler's arena, arena pvp and ship pvp. If none of those interest you then you're out of luck. Compared to Wizard101 where you also have things like gardening, monstrology, fishing, pet derby (pet racing instead of pet sparring), beastmoon hunt, beastmoon monster mayhem, crafting and deckathalon. While Pirate101 is still fun and enjoyable in its own right, it's undeniable that Wizard101 has so much more to do than Pirate101 does, which is partly (keyword: partly) why some P101 players play W101 more these days.

Yes, but there is some point of saturation, no? I think that possibly Wizard101 has tipped from the simple, charming, family-friendly game it once was into a complicated, competitive, teen-focused, stat-conscious MMO. Somewhere along the line, the idea that more and more side activities were needed, more and more packs and perfect pets and bundles, etc., etc., just turns some of us off.

[RealDux]

Pirate101 for me has become more of a medium than anything else, where I can talk with other people that have played for years (we have that in common, for starters). It's still so enjoyable to come up with new combinations of gear and pets to try out in combat, and those endeavors never seem to come to an end. We have all been making our own personalized activities for a long time, and that's part of the appeal over Wizard101, in my opinion.

[Kingurz]

Pirate101 for me has become more of a medium than anything else, where I can talk with other people that have played for years (we have that in common, for starters). It's still so enjoyable to come up with new combinations of gear and pets to try out in combat, and those endeavors never seem to come to an end. We have all been making our own personalized activities for a long time, and that's part of the appeal over Wizard101, in my opinion.

This was one of the main highpoints of FreeRealms when it was around. It was far more a social/chat game than an MMO adventure/quest game. The frequency of updates while maintaining a diverse selection of side activities, in my opinion, were well balanced. You were not saturated with constant new things and I was able to play both FreeRealms and Wizard101 at roughly the same, but at an alternating time frame. Unfortunately FreeRealms was one of the first games to be shuttered by SOE. Sometimes I wonder if that was due to their execs not jumping on the loot box scheme bonanza that started to plague similar games during that time or the lack of almost continuous small updates of random things to keep marketing/advertising/social media a buzz with exposure to potential new players.

[Flash33]

Yes, but there is some point of saturation, no?

An argument could be made for over-saturation but personally speaking I think W101 currently has a good amount of side activities to do without being too overwhelming, especially considering they're introduced gradually over time for players (new ones especially).

I think that possibly Wizard101 has tipped from the simple, charming, family-friendly game it once was into a complicated, competitive, teen-focused, stat-conscious MMO. Somewhere along the line, the idea that more and more side activities were needed, more and more packs and perfect pets and bundles, etc., etc., just turns some of us off.

For things like packs and other premium items I do agree that there are too many being introduced with little variety, quality or alternative means of getting them and KI should consider dialing down the amount of those they introduce, though I doubt they will any time soon.

As for the game turning into a "complicated, competitive, teen-focused, stat-conscious MMO" I would disagree about competitive in regards to PvE and agree somewhat with the rest. I say somewhat because while the cheats and innate damage of some later mainline bosses can be too much at times I don't think enemies in later worlds need to be total pushovers and need to provide at least a reasonable challenge (keyword: reasonable) to make sure players are still paying at least some attention to what they're doing. For stat and teen focused it's debatable: on one hand placing too much emphasis on stats over strategy is harmful and could alienate some players over time but on the other hand I don't think it's too unreasonable to expect players to upgrade their gear slowly over time in order to face the challenges a new world and/or fight may provide regardless of their age or skill level.

Finally as for the game losing its magical charm I feel that's something all players face over time the more they play a game and whether that happens to someone and to what extent it does will vary from person to person.

Overall I still stand by my belief that a game needs a healthy amount of quality side content to keep players engaged and coming back after they've finished the main campaign. If the only side content available is stuff like "do dailies/decorate a house/PvP/farm" then you're gonna lose players fairly quickly.

[Khione]

Yes, but there is some point of saturation, no? I think that possibly Wizard101 has tipped from the simple, charming, family-friendly game it once was into a complicated, competitive, teen-focused, stat-conscious MMO. Somewhere along the line, the idea that more and more side activities were needed, more and more packs and perfect pets and bundles, etc., etc., just turns some of us off.

But that shift in Wiz is what makes it still have a constant playerbase. The changes to pvp there show that they finally moved in an evolving field the correct direction. One of the biggest issues KI had was for the last 4 years they saw no changes in a gaming industry that drastically shifted from the grindy PVE boss battle to the more competitive PVP competition focussed teen goal. And while they finally took that step on Wiz, it doesn't change the fact it is coming at a point where the gaming atmosphere is changing again into a more multiplayer party game. You need to make new activities and changes to adapt to a drastically shifting market or else you do become irrelevant. You always need to be looking to do the next big thing or be the first on the new hype train to stay at the top.

And for the same reason there, I have to disagree that with not having lots of activities. One thing is, many games have been way more relevant and able to keep a lock down on their player base in a dwindling game by purely having too much that you can do infinitely. I think great example of this was the 2018-2019 Gacha game boom where people were making new cash grab Summoner War games and they used hunt mechanics that were RNG gear stat drops that you could never get enough of, while also having 3 forms of PVP (guilds, arena, real time arena). This format forced players who wanted to stay relevant to always be actively playing whenever possible and this meant if you spent so much time to stay competitive you were also finding yourself allocating a budget to invest into new characters, etc. For a game to survive in this modern time you need to have some replayable aspects that can be done quickly or keep players engaged and always striving for something. May that be a super difficult exclusive item(s) to grind to complete the quests (AQW classes is a great example of this) or the hunt system in those Gacha games. If you can't make a key part of the game infinitely repeatable in some shape or form you're gonna find yourself not keeping the attention of even your most dedicated players very long, mostly in KI's case where they have 3-6 month breaks in between their updates. Wiz is able to get around this by having multi-level pvp ranges where you can have every class maxed but still spend months just creating a new magus pvp character because you have to farm lore to get a certain spell, so imagine trying to create one for every single class on a second account. PVP is the easiest way modern games have created that infinite loop to trap players into as it's naturally designed to do so. I think Wiz and Pirates could've easily created something else like a similar hunt/long multi-grindy quest for special stuff that fits them, but as a pvp guru I don't mind this outcome either.

So to answer the question, no I do not agree that the lack of activities compared to W101 is better for the game. And at the end of the day, the state of the game showcases that already.