MMORPG combat is too predictable. It's such a numbers game that the only real variable is players screwing up. A certain group of characters, with certain gear, can beat a certain number of certain mobs. Take one mob away and it's a trivial encounter. Add one more mob and the fight is literally un-winnable. That's not a recipe for fun.
Now, the roots of this are largely technical - you can't have things moving too fast and the AI is very limited by server load. This has led to the current state of auto-attack and wait combat that is highly dependent on crowd control methods. Every mob you remove from the fight has an exponential impact on difficulty. It's a shallow system that has it's moments but gets repetitive very quickly. And it leads to risk averse, efficiency focused gameplay. Think about "trash clearing" dungeon design - pull after pull of the same basic fight. Do you want challenge? Risk of losing and having to start over? No, because it's a tedious activity. So you go in overpowered and plow through as fast as you can. That is not gameplay.
Well, skill-based twitchy gameplay may be an answer, as may advances in tactical AI, but here is a simpler possibility. First, lower health, more mobs. When it takes 20 hits to kill a mob, the outcome is quite deterministic. He will run up to you and you sit there trading blows and it is quite simple to calculate about how much damage you will take before he dies. The outcome is not really in question unless you screw up. However, if there are 10 mobs that each take 2 hits to kill, the variance in how many times they will hit you dramatically rises. Range matters, line of sight matters, order of kills matters, and so on. Second, replace long term crowd control with movement impairment and positioning. Slowing, knockback, actual collision detection, teleporting, short stuns, etc. Instead of removing 1 of 4 mobs from the fight, you now have a continuous challenge of keeping 20 mobs out of attack position. That is a much more dynamic proposition.
Would it really work? No idea of course, but easy enough to try and find out. If there's a drawback it might be the exponential decrease in difficulty as these small mobs are killed off. If you start with 20, the fight might be really exciting until you get down to, say, 12, and then it's trivial. But big, high health mob fights are the same really. Often once the first 2 mobs are down, the fight is won. It only stays interesting if killing those first two effectively drains your resources such that you are less capable when fighting the last 3. And of course if that is the case then adds mean death, which is why you go in overpowered and risk decreases and blah, blah, blah... A constant stream of small mobs also drains resources and is simply more interesting.
Of course, you'd have to alter traditional AoE attacks which would anger lots of mage fans. But there's lots of interesting options there. Friendly fire would change everything. And if we're exploring positioning manipulation, AoE could play a big part there.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Saturday, October 13, 2007
The game outside the game
It is amazing to me that in a genre starved for content, so many game related activities are happening on message boards and websites rather than in the game.
Quest information websites are ubiquitous - everyone knows to go look up their quests on thottbot or allakhazam. Why not make trading knowledge about quests and mobs and drops part of the game? I'm not saying it would be easy, but what a rich opportunity.
Even more obvious is the constant whining and complaining about balance. Why not make nerfs and buffs part of the game play? Each "school" of combat in the game should be looking out for its own interests, right? Let players do quests for their schools, hold votes in game, play political mini-games to try and wrest control of the next ability changes. This would open up a whole new game mechanic, and there's plenty of space for experimenting with what sort of checks and balances would work best.
Quest information websites are ubiquitous - everyone knows to go look up their quests on thottbot or allakhazam. Why not make trading knowledge about quests and mobs and drops part of the game? I'm not saying it would be easy, but what a rich opportunity.
Even more obvious is the constant whining and complaining about balance. Why not make nerfs and buffs part of the game play? Each "school" of combat in the game should be looking out for its own interests, right? Let players do quests for their schools, hold votes in game, play political mini-games to try and wrest control of the next ability changes. This would open up a whole new game mechanic, and there's plenty of space for experimenting with what sort of checks and balances would work best.
Experience without the points
Since I'm against monotonic (always increasing) progression, I have to answer the question of what players are playing for. My answer is experiences. No, not XP, actual ones. It's a form of progression, but it puts the onus on the developers to create something that is worth spending time on. In the early stages of WoW there were plenty of experiences - getting a new ability to try out, seeing a new part of the world, following a new story line, meeting new people. As the game went on, however, it became less and less fun. Why? I'm going to say it's an even split between the constraints of keeping people playing (see last post for ranting on that) and simple, somewhat shallow game play becoming less interesting over time. Newness wears off, it just happens.
So the challenge in my mind is for a game to take its efforts away from keeping people playing through grinding progression and put them into keeping the game fresh and interesting.
Without going to far afield, let me throw out that such an effort begins with making the environment more dynamic. Now, there's a camp that says full PvP, player economy, player towns and all that goodness is the answer, and it certainly is an answer. But not, apparently, for the majority of players who like their more predictable PvE experience. No, I'm talking about dynamic PvE here.
Simulating the world isn't a hard thing, what is hard is getting it to play nice. NPC factions can gather resources, build things, attack each other, raze towns and all that RTS type goodness and how great would it be to have a world story that actually does something? But, such a story disturbs the individual characters' stories. Players don't like their quest objectives to change out from under them.
But what if you did log in and find that some faction you are aligned with, from who you reap certain benefits, had been wiped off the map? They now exist as a guerrilla presence harassing the factions in power. Is this a bad thing? Sure, there might be some inconveniences, but it opens up a new experience, to play as part of the oppressed group and fight the man. And perhaps a month later you shift loyalties or they regain ground and you get to play as the man.
Meanwhile, there are quests and goals of your own that do not rely on the shifts of power in the world. They provide a steady experience when that is what you are looking for. By giving players options, the game lets them choose for themselves the trade-off between dynamic experiences and control.
So the challenge in my mind is for a game to take its efforts away from keeping people playing through grinding progression and put them into keeping the game fresh and interesting.
Without going to far afield, let me throw out that such an effort begins with making the environment more dynamic. Now, there's a camp that says full PvP, player economy, player towns and all that goodness is the answer, and it certainly is an answer. But not, apparently, for the majority of players who like their more predictable PvE experience. No, I'm talking about dynamic PvE here.
Simulating the world isn't a hard thing, what is hard is getting it to play nice. NPC factions can gather resources, build things, attack each other, raze towns and all that RTS type goodness and how great would it be to have a world story that actually does something? But, such a story disturbs the individual characters' stories. Players don't like their quest objectives to change out from under them.
But what if you did log in and find that some faction you are aligned with, from who you reap certain benefits, had been wiped off the map? They now exist as a guerrilla presence harassing the factions in power. Is this a bad thing? Sure, there might be some inconveniences, but it opens up a new experience, to play as part of the oppressed group and fight the man. And perhaps a month later you shift loyalties or they regain ground and you get to play as the man.
Meanwhile, there are quests and goals of your own that do not rely on the shifts of power in the world. They provide a steady experience when that is what you are looking for. By giving players options, the game lets them choose for themselves the trade-off between dynamic experiences and control.
Progressing past progress
I'm going to go ahead and say that we've pretty well seen the limits of the achiever/progression model (diku, EQ, WoW). At its best, it takes a fun game and adds purpose, which is great. At its worst, it keeps people playing a game that ceased being fun long ago. But how else can you keep people playing? And I don't mean just from the cynical, bottom-line company viewpoint. Having reason to play is an important part of any game, and particularly those that try to build community. There are many intertwined assumptions that make it impossible to imagine something different, but perhaps by taking them out we can find new ground. Here's some I think need to go:
1) Playing 8 hours a day
It is assumed that any legit game must support players who play all the time. Consider that developers can only produce let's say 2 hours a day of entertaining content and is there any question why all MMOs involve grinding? Furthermore, anything you do that much becomes a job, that's just human nature. Thus the need for more and more dangling carrots. Wouldn't it be better to play a game say 2 nights a week that is really, really fun? With us gamers getting older and having families, I believe there is a sane audience out there that could power a game that doesn't bother supporting grinding.
2) Content must be endlessly repeatable
Companies want steady subscriptions. Conventional wisdom says that you cannot retain players unless they constantly have something to do, even something they dislike. This is a dead-end strategy. It is the equivalent of McDonalds locking the doors and trying to sell people as many burgers as they can before they get sick of them and escape. As consumers, it is ludicrous to play along with this. What we should be demanding is a quality meal that is good enough to bring us back. Perhaps we will complain about the delay between meals, but in a competitive market the winner is the game that puts out new content just good enough, just often enough to keep us coming back.
3) Diligence must be rewarded
This is tricky, because on the surface of it that is a good principle. If a player pays his money and puts in the effort, shouldn't he be rewarded? Problem is, that is antithetical to the competitive spirit of games. When you and your buddies get ready for a dungeon run, you're not wondering what is going to happen and whether you'll be able to surmount it, you're wondering how many tries it is going to take. By human nature, people in this situation become risk averse and focus on efficient use of time. At the end of an evening of playing a game we should be talking about the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, not how many beans we counted.
4) You can't take stuff away
When a game is based entirely on putting in huge amounts of time to gain things, taking those things away is a bad idea. Proponents of harsh death penalties seem to miss the fact that such a scheme does not generally encourage risk and excitement, it smothers it. However, you can't have winning and losing, risk and reward without some concept of failure. Gaining and losing things are both part of a vibrant, interesting experience. If losing is too painful, make gaining easier.
5) Progression never ends
The whole idea of a progression-based game continuing on and on is broken. Any progression aspect of a game has a clear end to it. Attempting to stretch it out with an "end-game" that is merely another form of progression is propagating the grind. Either make a game that ends (and possibly starts over) or make a game that isn't based on things constantly increasing.
1) Playing 8 hours a day
It is assumed that any legit game must support players who play all the time. Consider that developers can only produce let's say 2 hours a day of entertaining content and is there any question why all MMOs involve grinding? Furthermore, anything you do that much becomes a job, that's just human nature. Thus the need for more and more dangling carrots. Wouldn't it be better to play a game say 2 nights a week that is really, really fun? With us gamers getting older and having families, I believe there is a sane audience out there that could power a game that doesn't bother supporting grinding.
2) Content must be endlessly repeatable
Companies want steady subscriptions. Conventional wisdom says that you cannot retain players unless they constantly have something to do, even something they dislike. This is a dead-end strategy. It is the equivalent of McDonalds locking the doors and trying to sell people as many burgers as they can before they get sick of them and escape. As consumers, it is ludicrous to play along with this. What we should be demanding is a quality meal that is good enough to bring us back. Perhaps we will complain about the delay between meals, but in a competitive market the winner is the game that puts out new content just good enough, just often enough to keep us coming back.
3) Diligence must be rewarded
This is tricky, because on the surface of it that is a good principle. If a player pays his money and puts in the effort, shouldn't he be rewarded? Problem is, that is antithetical to the competitive spirit of games. When you and your buddies get ready for a dungeon run, you're not wondering what is going to happen and whether you'll be able to surmount it, you're wondering how many tries it is going to take. By human nature, people in this situation become risk averse and focus on efficient use of time. At the end of an evening of playing a game we should be talking about the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, not how many beans we counted.
4) You can't take stuff away
When a game is based entirely on putting in huge amounts of time to gain things, taking those things away is a bad idea. Proponents of harsh death penalties seem to miss the fact that such a scheme does not generally encourage risk and excitement, it smothers it. However, you can't have winning and losing, risk and reward without some concept of failure. Gaining and losing things are both part of a vibrant, interesting experience. If losing is too painful, make gaining easier.
5) Progression never ends
The whole idea of a progression-based game continuing on and on is broken. Any progression aspect of a game has a clear end to it. Attempting to stretch it out with an "end-game" that is merely another form of progression is propagating the grind. Either make a game that ends (and possibly starts over) or make a game that isn't based on things constantly increasing.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Crafty
Inspired by a discussion on KTR, was thinking about what the point is of crafting. Three come to mind.
First, it's a time and money sink, gives players some goals. Although I'm generally against anything that looks like it could encourage grinding, there's definitely some value in this. Collecting and harvesting resources is another topic, but it can be a fun activity and requires that you can do something besides vendor them. This type of crafting seems most appropriate for consumables - potions, ammo, one-time use items and repairing things.
Second, it's a mini game. Something to do besides combat. Some games have explored this avenue, making crafting like combat. This makes a lot of sense - attacks become techniques and mobs are replaced by materials and recipes. The key is to have enough possibly variety in the crafted items to make the game challenging and interesting. I believe this approach would be helped significantly by having "crafting centers" in towns and cities where the forges and looms and whatever are placed together. This would allow for group crafting, analogous to group combat, and also to give different locations their own crafting "feel" with specific breakdowns of techniques.
Third, there is real crafting - player created content. This could work even in a WoW clone. Imagine that there is a type of item, let's say weapons. The developers publish the 3d model format and even provides some helpful samples so that players can use their modeling software to create their own models and textures. It's amazing how many really talented people there are out there who would do such a thing. Now, you can't just flood them into the game, but you could allow players to submit "plans" to an NPC in game, let's call him the BigCity Blacksmithing Authority. Then players can come in game and browse the plans "under review" and vote for the ones they like. Every month, the highest ranked plans are added to the game world, say the top 10. Such a small number is trivial to have an underpayed employee screen for the inevitable Huge Phallus, and no big deal to download to the game clients. Add to crafting the ability to learn how to reforge a sword of some level of quality into one of the new models and just like that you have new, dynamic player created content that people will work hard to get. And the designer could get fame or some level of control over the plan. Lots of possibilities. Now think about armor, pets, furniture, hairstyles, animations...
First, it's a time and money sink, gives players some goals. Although I'm generally against anything that looks like it could encourage grinding, there's definitely some value in this. Collecting and harvesting resources is another topic, but it can be a fun activity and requires that you can do something besides vendor them. This type of crafting seems most appropriate for consumables - potions, ammo, one-time use items and repairing things.
Second, it's a mini game. Something to do besides combat. Some games have explored this avenue, making crafting like combat. This makes a lot of sense - attacks become techniques and mobs are replaced by materials and recipes. The key is to have enough possibly variety in the crafted items to make the game challenging and interesting. I believe this approach would be helped significantly by having "crafting centers" in towns and cities where the forges and looms and whatever are placed together. This would allow for group crafting, analogous to group combat, and also to give different locations their own crafting "feel" with specific breakdowns of techniques.
Third, there is real crafting - player created content. This could work even in a WoW clone. Imagine that there is a type of item, let's say weapons. The developers publish the 3d model format and even provides some helpful samples so that players can use their modeling software to create their own models and textures. It's amazing how many really talented people there are out there who would do such a thing. Now, you can't just flood them into the game, but you could allow players to submit "plans" to an NPC in game, let's call him the BigCity Blacksmithing Authority. Then players can come in game and browse the plans "under review" and vote for the ones they like. Every month, the highest ranked plans are added to the game world, say the top 10. Such a small number is trivial to have an underpayed employee screen for the inevitable Huge Phallus, and no big deal to download to the game clients. Add to crafting the ability to learn how to reforge a sword of some level of quality into one of the new models and just like that you have new, dynamic player created content that people will work hard to get. And the designer could get fame or some level of control over the plan. Lots of possibilities. Now think about armor, pets, furniture, hairstyles, animations...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)