Would randomized content work in a MMORPG?

Z3R01

I play a lot of ARPG, games like torchlight, Diablo2 and Path of Exile. These games don't have much content. Maybe 20-30 hours. Thing is the content they have is randomized. 

Map layouts, mob type, placement and abilities, chest placement, boss placement all different everytime you play. This keeps the games replayability really high.

When I come to a MMORPG forum I read that people are devouring content. Content that's damn near ten times of what ARPGs offer. Thing is all of that content is static. It never changes, you run through it and then thats it.

What if content was randomized? Randomized questing, randomized dungeon layouts and mob placement? Maybe people would play MMOs more without becoming bored and complaining about a lack of content?

Would something like that work in a MMO? Would you play a MMO that offered that type of content? 

 

botrytis

All those games are dungeon crawls not RPGs really. I do not think randomized content would work in an MMORPG as it would over complicate the game engine and also the story told.

Z3R01

Originally posted by botrytis
All those games are dungeon crawls not RPGs really. I do not think randomized content would work in an MMORPG as it would over complicate the game engine and also the story told.

Yes ARPG are dungeon crawlers but they also randomize over world maps, quests, events and many other things to keep people playing. 

Also last i checked all MMOs boil down to basic dungeon crawlers once you exhaust leveling content. Wouldn't dungeons being randomized increase the games replayability?

Nilden

Oh you mean like missions in Anarchy Online?

nikooo0

Star wars galaxies missions were randomized

Loke666

Originally posted by Z3R01

I play a lot of ARPG, games like torchlight, Diablo2 and Path of Exile. These games don't have much content. Maybe 20-30 hours. Thing is the content they have is randomized. 

Map layouts, mob type, placement and abilities, chest placement, boss placement all different everytime you play. This keeps the games replayability really high.

When I come to a MMORPG forum I read that people are devouring content. Content that's damn near ten times of what ARPGs offer. Thing is all of that content is static. It never changes, you run through it and then thats it.

What if content was randomized? Randomized questing, randomized dungeon layouts and mob placement? Maybe people would play MMOs more without becoming bored and complaining about a lack of content?

Would something like that work in a MMO? Would you play a MMO that offered that type of content? 

MMOs do have some random elements already like looting lists and adding a few more shouldnt be a problem, like giving bosses random abilities as well as loot (or letting them use the loot against the players like in NWN).

But too much content like entirely random dungeon wouldnt work since for every good one you would get a few really bad. Mix it and have some random spawns and maybe part of the dungeon random. D1 for example had many none random room as well as random, like the butchers room always looked the same but could appear in different places in different games.

So yes, to some degree.

Loktofeit

Originally posted by Z3R01

Also last i checked all MMOs boil down to basic dungeon crawlers once you exhaust leveling content. Wouldn't dungeons being randomized increase the games replayability?

On the first sentence... How far we have fallen. 

On the second, procedural content and stronger world event managers have been used a lot in MMOs, with the most notable and extensive being Dungeon Runners. The content often does exactly what you present - adds replayability, however, it also creates a less contextual and more chaotic (in a bad way) game world. It's important to note there is a distinction to be made between randomized content and content generated based on a ruleset. The former is often useless, but i assume the latter is what you were referring to.

On the flip side, some dungeons need to be static. Scripted experiences can sometimes be a more engaging one-off experience than a replayable changing dungeon. Also, some dungeon experiences are designed as content for the players to learn, master and then successfully complete. Changing that up often works against that.

 

I'd really like to see an evolution of player-generated challenges like what is seen in Dungeon Empires and, to a lesser extent, COH's architect system.

dave6660

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Z3R01

Also last i checked all MMOs boil down to basic dungeon crawlers once you exhaust leveling content. Wouldn't dungeons being randomized increase the games replayability?

On the first sentence... How far we have fallen. 

On the second, procedural content and stronger world event managers have been used a lot in MMOs, with the most notable and extensive being Dungeon Runners. The content often does exactly what you present - adds replayability, however, it also creates a less contextual and more chaotic (in a bad way) game world. It's important to note there is a distinction to be made between randomized content and content generated based on a ruleset. The former is often useless, but i assume the latter is what you were referring to.

On the flip side, some dungeons need to be static. Scripted experiences can sometimes be a more engaging one-off experience than a replayable changing dungeon. Also, some dungeon experiences are designed as content for the players to learn, master and then successfully complete. Changing that up often works against that.

You can randomize parts of an instanced dungeon and still keep the scripted boss encounter.  It's the fight itself that is scripted, not the path getting there.  The locations of the bosses could be randomized.  That would force groups to explore the dungeon each time instead of making a beeline to the desired boss.  The patrols could also be easily randomized.

fenistil

Originally posted by dave6660

 

You can randomize parts of an instanced dungeon and still keep the scripted boss encounter.  It's the fight itself that is scripted, not the path getting there.  The locations of the bosses could be randomized.  That would force groups to explore the dungeon each time instead of making a beeline to the desired boss.  The patrols could also be easily randomized.

Actually some games have path heavily scripted as well and challanging trash. 

Not all have just few mobs thrown into corridor.

 

=====

 

More on topic:

I would like to see much more randomized open world content.

In example - open world bosses, elite mobs, etc should not be same mobs re-spawning, but more randomized.

and what is more important they should not spawn in the same place (or 2-3 places) and always follow same route.

They should be able to spawn almost anywhere. Excluding maybe middle of villages, cities.

 

Same with resources. With where they spawn and what resources they are (see SWG for randomized resources).

 

It should be impossible or hard to predict and camp mob spawns, resources, etc

 

GW2 DE's does not fix that since DE's are still quite static and repetable. Like boss attacking same village every 10 minutes.

 

As for dungeons - some small randomization - sure. 

Totally random like in hack&slash?

Nope.

If mmorpg gameplay would be about completing and farming randomzed dunegons like in hack&slash games- they why in the world I would want to play mmorpg and not just fire up PoE or Torchlight?

On the other hand most mmorpg's are about farming dungeons or sometimes also farming things like Rifts.

Strenght of mmorpg's originally have not lied in it's pure combat gameplay.

 

Reducing mmorpg's to pure combat gameplay like in most mmorpg's in last years is what making them lose players fast to pure combat games without mmorpg overhead like LoL, WoT, hack&slash games, PvE lobby games like Vindictus, etc

Of course if mmorpg did not streamline into almost pure combat games then mmmorpg playerbase would never be as big as it is, and WoW would not have that much players.

Thing is this is not sustainable.

There is more online multiplayer games about combat without hassle of mmorpg overhead now then ever before and there will be more of them.

 

Mmorpg's wonn't be able to competer with them for huge part of playerbase.

Time for investors to relize that.

Loktofeit

Originally posted by dave6660

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Z3R01

Also last i checked all MMOs boil down to basic dungeon crawlers once you exhaust leveling content. Wouldn't dungeons being randomized increase the games replayability?

On the first sentence... How far we have fallen. 

On the second, procedural content and stronger world event managers have been used a lot in MMOs, with the most notable and extensive being Dungeon Runners. The content often does exactly what you present - adds replayability, however, it also creates a less contextual and more chaotic (in a bad way) game world. It's important to note there is a distinction to be made between randomized content and content generated based on a ruleset. The former is often useless, but i assume the latter is what you were referring to.

On the flip side, some dungeons need to be static. Scripted experiences can sometimes be a more engaging one-off experience than a replayable changing dungeon. Also, some dungeon experiences are designed as content for the players to learn, master and then successfully complete. Changing that up often works against that.

You can randomize parts of an instanced dungeon and still keep the scripted boss encounter.  It's the fight itself that is scripted, not the path getting there.  The locations of the bosses could be randomized.  That would force groups to explore the dungeon each time instead of making a beeline to the desired boss.  The patrols could also be easily randomized.

Test that theory out and let us know how that works out for you.

 

Quizzical

If done well, yes it would work.  In fact, it would work extremely well.  But it's a holy grail type of problem, and if done badly, it would destroy the game.  The game would have to be built from the ground up around randomly generated content, and it wouldn't be until the game was far into development that they'd have a good idea of whether it was going to work well or not.

truthhurts

Originally posted by nilden
Oh you mean like missions in Anarchy Online?

Or LDoN from EQ1?   Wasnt completely random of course, but definitely had some major random elements.

nariusseldon

Originally posted by Z3R01

I play a lot of ARPG, games like torchlight, Diablo2 and Path of Exile. These games don't have much content. Maybe 20-30 hours. Thing is the content they have is randomized. 

Map layouts, mob type, placement and abilities, chest placement, boss placement all different everytime you play. This keeps the games replayability really high.

When I come to a MMORPG forum I read that people are devouring content. Content that's damn near ten times of what ARPGs offer. Thing is all of that content is static. It never changes, you run through it and then thats it.

What if content was randomized? Randomized questing, randomized dungeon layouts and mob placement? Maybe people would play MMOs more without becoming bored and complaining about a lack of content?

Would something like that work in a MMO? Would you play a MMO that offered that type of content? 

 

It should. I am surprised no MMORPG tries this yet. The playstyle of themepart MMOs are very close to ARPGs anyway ... log on .. hit the LFD button .. wait for a dungeon to pop .. then crawl the dungeon.

The key difference is that the focus of MMO dungeons are always on the bosses, while ARPGs are not. For example, in D3 you kill more elite/champ packs more than bosses, and that is where the fun is (since the paks have random abitities in random terrain) and where the loot is.

I think a system like that should work in a dungeon focus MMO.

Loktofeit

Originally posted by nariusseldon

It should. I am surprised no MMORPG tries this yet.

Anarchy Online, Vindictus (an ARPG, for the nitpickers) and Dungeon Runners are three that have gone that route. The first two are still around.

 

 

Z3R01

I don't know...

I think if they found a way to randomize pve content, then maybe we wouldn't have to read a forum filled with players that consume static content at an insane pace complaining about lack of content.

I know in the ARPG genre we get very little content compared to whats offered in a MMO and people seem to be happy just running randomized stuff the whole time. Maybe this would be the case in the MMO space.

 

SnarlingWolf

Originally posted by Z3R01

I play a lot of ARPG, games like torchlight, Diablo2 and Path of Exile. These games don't have much content. Maybe 20-30 hours. Thing is the content they have is randomized. 

Map layouts, mob type, placement and abilities, chest placement, boss placement all different everytime you play. This keeps the games replayability really high.

When I come to a MMORPG forum I read that people are devouring content. Content that's damn near ten times of what ARPGs offer. Thing is all of that content is static. It never changes, you run through it and then thats it.

What if content was randomized? Randomized questing, randomized dungeon layouts and mob placement? Maybe people would play MMOs more without becoming bored and complaining about a lack of content?

Would something like that work in a MMO? Would you play a MMO that offered that type of content? 

 

 Asheron's Call doesn't have random map layouts but they have some quests where rocks randomly block different paths so you go through the dungeon differently. They also have where the boss spawns in one of many locations so you can't just run to the one spot you know he's at and beat it. There is even a mazey dungeon where your drop point in the maze is random.

 

So it has been done to a certain extent.

Dewm

Originally posted by Z3R01

I play a lot of ARPG, games like torchlight, Diablo2 and Path of Exile. These games don't have much content. Maybe 20-30 hours. Thing is the content they have is randomized. 

Map layouts, mob type, placement and abilities, chest placement, boss placement all different everytime you play. This keeps the games replayability really high.

When I come to a MMORPG forum I read that people are devouring content. Content that's damn near ten times of what ARPGs offer. Thing is all of that content is static. It never changes, you run through it and then thats it.

What if content was randomized? Randomized questing, randomized dungeon layouts and mob placement? Maybe people would play MMOs more without becoming bored and complaining about a lack of content?

Would something like that work in a MMO? Would you play a MMO that offered that type of content? 

 

 

I am not saying randomized content would work in a typical MMO, BUT....

 

That is one thing that keeps me from playing other classes. Its like, sure I could play a diffrent class but 93% of the content is the same. so why bother?

maplestone

There are a lot of different ideas that fall under the title of randomized content and I think there are a lot of ways to do it badly (usually resulting in the "grey goo effect" where none of the variation seems to matter).  

Behind a door might be a group of kobolds or a group of goblins.  What difference does it make to the player?  If you're going to mash the same buttons, then your randomness makes no difference at all.  If you're going to spam ability 2 instead of ability 1 for a minute before moving on, it makes a little bit of difference (eg: elites in Diablo3).   If you look at an old game like nethack, the randomness had a snowball of consequences - finding a shop or wandering across an out-of-level creature could dramatically alter the entire course of a dungeon crawl.  If you look at minecraft, just wandering around exploring random terrain and posting good seeds/coordinates is a playstyle all its own.

I prefer to dream about simulation-driven content.  Although it includes random elements, the focus is not on the randomness, but on the way events interact and accumulate to make the world feel alive.  My dream game world essentially takes a themepark MMO thens tries to write the writers out of it - replace them with simulations where the stories that have been written are just one example of what can emerge from world sim unfolding.

VirusDancer

You may have noticed a dislike amongst part of the populace in regard to RNG.  In bringing up how encounters could be made better (yes, an opinion) by the inclusion of RNG elements that randomize the content - that dislike of RNG tends to come across with the full onslaught of hate.

You can't read a guide for random content.  You can't min/max your toon/gear/party for random content.  You can't have addons that flash the screen to tell you to do X, Y, and Z with random content.

It's a common discussion...and folks come out of the woodwork complaining about how it would be terribad.  Meh... I'd like it.

waynejr2

Originally posted by maplestone

There are a lot of different ideas that fall under the title of randomized content and I think there are a lot of ways to do it badly (usually resulting in the "grey goo effect" where none of the variation seems to matter).  

Behind a door might be a group of kobolds or a group of goblins.  What difference does it make to the player?  If you're going to mash the same buttons, then your randomness makes no difference at all.  If you're going to spam ability 2 instead of ability 1 for a minute before moving on, it makes a little bit of difference (eg: elites in Diablo3).   If you look at an old game like nethack, the randomness had a snowball of consequences - finding a shop or wandering across an out-of-level creature could dramatically alter the entire course of a dungeon crawl.  If you look at minecraft, just wandering around exploring random terrain and posting good seeds/coordinates is a playstyle all its own.

I prefer to dream about simulation-driven content.  Although it includes random elements, the focus is not on the randomness, but on the way events interact and accumulate to make the world feel alive.  My dream game world essentially takes a themepark MMO thens tries to write the writers out of it - replace them with simulations where the stories that have been written are just one example of what can emerge from world sim unfolding.

Virtual worlds are dead as far as mmorpgs are concerned.  I mean that for the masses which is where the business interest is focused.

nariusseldon

Originally posted by VirusDancer

 

You can't read a guide for random content.  You can't min/max your toon/gear/party for random content.  You can't have addons that flash the screen to tell you to do X, Y, and Z with random content.

 

You *can* optimize DPS but that would be the whole game. And yes, you can't use addons to help with the encounter.

I also like random dungeons. That is why i like D3 much more than most MMOs, including WOW. The fights (not with boss, of course .. but you can skip all the boss fight in D3 after you do it once) are much more variable and situation dependent. It also  helps when the "boss" (i.e. champ or elite) are embedded in many mobs ... so it is seldom a player-against-one-boss fight.

 

nariusseldon

Originally posted by waynejr2

 

Virtual worlds are dead as far as mmorpgs are concerned.  I mean that for the masses which is where the business interest is focused.

You don't need a virtual world to have random dungeons. The goal is to spice up the combat, and make dungeon crawling more fun. In that regard, RNG helps.

And ARPGs are very successful business-wise, so there is no reason why MMO cannot try to incorporate these features.

maplestone

Originally posted by waynejr2

Virtual worlds are dead as far as mmorpgs are concerned.  I mean that for the masses which is where the business interest is focused.

I'm just an armchair dreamer who doesn't have to actually present business plans to boardrooms, so I feel no compulsion to restrict my dreams to only ideas I feel I can successful pitch to an investor.

waynejr2

Originally posted by maplestone

Originally posted by waynejr2

Virtual worlds are dead as far as mmorpgs are concerned.  I mean that for the masses which is where the business interest is focused.

I'm just an armchair dreamer who doesn't have to actually present business plans to boardrooms, so I feel no compulsion to restrict my dreams to only ideas I feel I can successful pitch to an investor.

Nothing wrong with dreaming.  I too would love Virtual worlds to be the thing but it isn't. 

maplestone

Originally posted by waynejr2

Nothing wrong with dreaming.  I too would love Virtual worlds to be the thing but it isn't. 

I'm not sure you've entirely embraced the concept of dreaming.  Let go of what you think will happen and just doodle about what you want to happen.

(unless of course you're in the industry trying to make a living, in which case listening to anything I have to say is probably a dangerously bad idea)

VengeSunsoar

All CoH Door mission maps were random.  It doesn't really add that much replayability.  You just memorize the layout out that hall, or that room.... all the intereconnections were random.  While CoH itself was pretty fun, door missions get stale after about 2.