why doesn't more MMORPGs use random scaling dungeons

Ecoces

I know City of Heroes use to do this and that game was made way back when? so why don't you see more MMORPGs take a page from COH and games like Diablo 3 or Torchlight 2 and give dungeon runners near inifinite replayability.

 

Randomized Scaling Dungeons

1-6 players can enter

mobs scale depending on number of players

randomized layouts

randomized bosses

rare loot chances are raised the more players. so even 1 player if lucky can recieve a rare drop if they down a boss.

 

i think this would give players of all types tons of fun, from the soloer to the duoer up to the guild groups. I am just surprised more MMORPGs haven't tried a system like this.

Quizzical

Ah, but here's the catch:  random with what probability distribution?

It's a lot harder to design a random dungeon that plays decently than to make one manually.  I agree that I'd like to see it done well, but it's not easy to do.

maplestone

I like to speculate that the industry just has a collective mental block that thinks and communicates in storyboards rather than simulations.

Loktofeit

Originally posted by Quizzical

Ah, but here's the catch:  random with what probability distribution?

It's a lot harder to design a random dungeon that plays decently than to make one manually.  I agree that I'd like to see it done well, but it's not easy to do.

 This ---^ 

 

A crappy random scenario is very easy to create. One that is engaging, can't be easily gamed, and offers balanced, rewarding gameplay is pretty damn difficult.

Wraithone

For the basic reason that doing it *right* is a VERY difficult proposition at this time.   Start here if you want some idea as to why that is, and what the current state of understanding is.

http://pcg.wikidot.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_generation

http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2011/12/02/procedural-generation-cost-analysis/

Azrile

Originally posted by Ecoces

I know City of Heroes use to do this and that game was made way back when? so why don't you see more MMORPGs take a page from COH and games like Diablo 3 or Torchlight 2 and give dungeon runners near inifinite replayability.

 

Randomized Scaling Dungeons

1-6 players can enter

mobs scale depending on number of players

randomized layouts

randomized bosses

rare loot chances are raised the more players. so even 1 player if lucky can recieve a rare drop if they down a boss.

 

i think this would give players of all types tons of fun, from the soloer to the duoer up to the guild groups. I am just surprised more MMORPGs haven't tried a system like this.

I think your expression ´near infinite replayability´ is a bit misleading.   Take any heroic dungeon in WOW.. it is ´near infinite replayable´, but it gets boring fast..  Now if the devs used the same artwork, and just randomly moved some walls, it would make it a little better,  if the monsters and rewards scaled, it would make it a little better.  By the way, DDO uses this type of scaling with their dungeons ( but the map doesn´t change).

But in the end, it is still the same dungeon and would get boring fast.  It would also have a hard time justifying a subscription model.  Which is why it is used in games like Diablo3.    Players want new monsters, new environments and new rewards in an MMO.  Players that are playing Diablo3 aren´t paying a subscription so can´t complain about no new content.

Already in WOW there are complaints if players go months without new content, there are complaints about having to do the same daily quests for a month.   The system that Diablo3 has is ONLY there to give some sense of ´change´ to what is basically a game about grinding the same dungeon for a year.

Sovrath

hmmm, well i don't unless there is some sort of lore/storied reason that everything should be changing. Or if there is a procedure for filling that dungeon.

It becomes less of a "place" if It's just a door leading to an instance where everything is different based on level and number generator.

I assume that the initial question is "who doens't want..." as there is a typo.

 

Loktofeit

Great links, Wraithone

ShakyMo

I agree.

Get rid of 5 man dungeons, 20 man raids etc..

Just make all dungeons scale for between 2 and say 40 players.

Also add random stuff to them like gw2 is doing. Or arpgs like Torchlight 2 do.

Then you need less dungeons for more replayability, grouping is easier and you can do cool things like just take everyone in guild into a leveling dungeon and gave it play like a raid.

Also take the difficulty slider from coh also.

Coh got a lot right as far as pve is concerned I'm suprised more mmos haven't copied it. Mind you could say same about daoc and pvp until recently so maybe a bunch of games will draw from coh next year. (i see both tsw and gw2 borrow a little from coh with things like state driven combat)

nariusseldon

Originally posted by Quizzical

Ah, but here's the catch:  random with what probability distribution?

It's a lot harder to design a random dungeon that plays decently than to make one manually.  I agree that I'd like to see it done well, but it's not easy to do.

But it is not like it hasn't been done well before. Diablo 1,2 & 3, torchlight 1 & 2 .. plenty of examples.

nariusseldon

Originally posted by Azrile

But in the end, it is still the same dungeon and would get boring fast.  It would also have a hard time justifying a subscription model.  Which is why it is used in games like Diablo3.    Players want new monsters, new environments and new rewards in an MMO.  Players that are playing Diablo3 aren´t paying a subscription so can´t complain about no new content.

 

What subscription model? Most MMOs are going F2P anyway. If players cannot complain about no new content for D3, they should be even happier when the game is free.

maplestone

Originally posted by Sovrath

hmmm, well i don't unless there is some sort of lore/storied reason that everything should be changing. Or if there is a procedure for filling that dungeon.

What the lore/strory reason why that boss you killed yesterday is back today with all the same minions as if nothing ever happened?  

Quizzical

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Quizzical

Ah, but here's the catch:  random with what probability distribution?

It's a lot harder to design a random dungeon that plays decently than to make one manually.  I agree that I'd like to see it done well, but it's not easy to do.

But it is not like it hasn't been done well before. Diablo 1,2 & 3, torchlight 1 & 2 .. plenty of examples.

Someone wins the Super Bowl every year, but that doesn't mean that anyone who wishes to go win a Super Bowl can easily do so whenever he feels like it.

If you want to do random dungeons and have a chance of it working well, you'll need to have someone on your staff with both a much stronger background in probability and much more talent for it than most computer programmers.  (I don't mean a programmer who is better than most other programmers at all things programming, but only at probability in particular.)  If you don't have at least one such person on your staff, then randomly generated content isn't going to end well.

There's also the question of what exactly you want to randomize.  Do you hand-craft everything except randomize the loot?  A lot of games do that to some degree.  Do you randomize which mobs will spawn and where?  Do your random levels consist of hand-crafting a bunch of components of levels and then picking which ones will appear at random, or do you try to randomize things more than that?  Is all of your artwork going to be generated by hand, and then which piece gets placed where is random?  Or do you want to randomly generate artwork, too?

Sovrath

Originally posted by maplestone

Originally posted by Sovrath

hmmm, well i don't unless there is some sort of lore/storied reason that everything should be changing. Or if there is a procedure for filling that dungeon.

What the lore/strory reason why that boss you killed yesterday is back today with all the same minions as if nothing ever happened?  

You assume I'm ok with having the boss killed today back tomorrow. Which I'm generally "not".

However, one could create a reason to allow the respawning of that boss. Something along the lines that the space is guarded by a "blank from beyond" and  if anything happens to it then another will be summoned "blah blah blah". Shooting form the hip of course because there are other issues with that such as "if it keeps getting downed why is there another that is not stronger?"

Additionally, depending on the world lore, one could have it that if a boss is some sort of demi-god (or whatever) that it can get defeated but only it's corporeal form and that it will reform in a set amount of time.

Nadia

Originally posted by Ecoces

I know City of Heroes use to do this and that game was made way back when? so why don't you see more MMORPGs take a page from COH and games like Diablo 3 or Torchlight 2 and give dungeon runners near inifinite replayability.

 

Randomized Scaling Dungeons

1-6 players can enter

mobs scale depending on number of players

randomized layouts

randomized bosses

rare loot chances are raised the more players. so even 1 player if lucky can recieve a rare drop if they down a boss.

 

i think this would give players of all types tons of fun, from the soloer to the duoer up to the guild groups. I am just surprised more MMORPGs haven't tried a system like this.

Everquest LDON did some of this back in 2003

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EverQuest:_Lost_Dungeons_of_Norrath

each dungeon was instanced with around 10 variations

supporting player levels 20 thru 65

at least 4 players were required  (out of 6)

 

LDON supported raids too

http://otherworlds31279.yuku.com/topic/858/LDoN-Dev-chat-0904#.UP7bGfL2_6g

Quizzical

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by maplestone

Originally posted by Sovrath

hmmm, well i don't unless there is some sort of lore/storied reason that everything should be changing. Or if there is a procedure for filling that dungeon.

What the lore/strory reason why that boss you killed yesterday is back today with all the same minions as if nothing ever happened?  

You assume I'm ok with having the boss killed today back tomorrow. Which I'm generally "not".

However, one could create a reason to allow the respawning of that boss. Something along the lines that the space is guarded by a "blank from beyond" and  if anything happens to it then another will be summoned "blah blah blah". Shooting form the hip of course because there are other issues with that such as "if it keeps getting downed why is there another that is not stronger?"

Additionally, depending on the world lore, one could have it that if a boss is some sort of demi-god (or whatever) that it can get defeated but only it's corporeal form and that it will reform in a set amount of time.

The reason a boss has to come back as if nothing ever happened is so that the next player who comes along can have something to do.

But randomly generated content is the solution to that.  If you can randomly generate levels well, then you don't just have to randomly generate one for each player.  You can randomly generate a million areas, or a billion, and stitch them together in an enormous open world.  Then if you kill a boss, it doesn't have to respawn tomorrow or ever.  Because there are a billion other bosses out there, and someone who comes along tomorrow can simply go somewhere else in the game world and kill some other boss.

But if you're going to do that, you don't want your game world to have 10 million identical boss characters.  You want a lot of different bosses.  And how do you do that?  That's on top of the problem of randomly generating an area.

Corthala

Anarchy Online have random dungeon, you pick a quest and it will generate a dungeon based on the player level and you can pick solo/group and easy/medium/hard, if players kill all mobs they will get an experience/credits bonus(if you are in RK yopu get a token).

olepi

City of Heroes had instanced "dungeons". The dungeon didn't scale, the mobs within the dungeon scaled. The mobs were always in the same places, in the same dungeon, but the number and type of mobs could scale.

This is quite different than a random dungeon.

Sovrath

Originally posted by Quizzical

 

The reason a boss has to come back as if nothing ever happened is so that the next player who comes along can have something to do.

But randomly generated content is the solution to that.  If you can randomly generate levels well, then you don't just have to randomly generate one for each player.  You can randomly generate a million areas, or a billion, and stitch them together in an enormous open world.  Then if you kill a boss, it doesn't have to respawn tomorrow or ever.  Because there are a billion other bosses out there, and someone who comes along tomorrow can simply go somewhere else in the game world and kill some other boss.

But if you're going to do that, you don't want your game world to have 10 million identical boss characters.  You want a lot of different bosses.  And how do you do that?  That's on top of the problem of randomly generating an area.

Yes I'm very clear on that which is why I suggested that the only way to do that is to create some sort of "lore reason" to explain why it's happening. The original title of the thread before the OP changed it was "who doesn't want more randomly scaling dungeons" and I answered. I think, unless one can create a lore reason why it changes all the time (which is possible) the dungeon or encounter just becomes some thing to do as opposed to a place.

Also, not having a new boss every time is probably same reason we don't have every npc killable and replaced by some "new guy". It will become ridiculous after a while.

But if all encounters start becoming something random then at some point I fail to see the reason for the world as it would seem that one could just log into a screen, pick one's encounter and be spawned into that random encounter, group and all. Not saying that anything is wrong with that but it does change how an mmo world is viewed.

Akulas

D2 with D3 graphics + randomized dungens and a hardcore mode with a D&D theme to it to make it more roguelike would keep me going probly for years. I liked the thought of seeding and randomly created dungeons. Still get out the old rogue everynow and then too.

Ecoces

sorry but lore should never be an excuse for possibly good gaming design. and yes I forgot about EQs LDON i guess thats what happens when you post late at night and need sleep.

 

why can games made back in early 2000's have this cool feature yet games of today don't the technology is obviously there. I am tired of getting to the endgame with my wife and have it be basically the games end. this would be great for those who want to solo or duo ... or hell anyone who wants to play in smaller groups.

nariusseldon

Originally posted by maplestone

Originally posted by Sovrath

hmmm, well i don't unless there is some sort of lore/storied reason that everything should be changing. Or if there is a procedure for filling that dungeon.

What the lore/strory reason why that boss you killed yesterday is back today with all the same minions as if nothing ever happened?  

Why do you need a reason? Millions of gamers don't.

Quest/lore are just excuses to kill stuff and progress your toon.

What is the lore/story reason why you die and load a save game in a SP game? None .. but you still want to play, do you?

Lore/story is not that important .. otherwise, no one will do the same raid in WOW 10000 times, or figure out the most efficient farming route in D3. It is a game .. duh!

Icewhite

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Quizzical

Ah, but here's the catch:  random with what probability distribution?

It's a lot harder to design a random dungeon that plays decently than to make one manually.  I agree that I'd like to see it done well, but it's not easy to do.

 This ---^ 

 A crappy random scenario is very easy to create. One that is engaging, can't be easily gamed, and offers balanced, rewarding gameplay is pretty damn difficult.

Not to mention dynamic loot tables appear to be anathema to some players.

Always easier to hardcode something, without question.

But sometimes the devs do pay a price for it later on ("What? Every other game has armor dyes, what's so hard about it?")

azzamasin

Because most game studios decide to take the easy way out and develop things within their own preconcieved notions.

 

This is why I am most interested in Neverwinter, because I get to design dungeons and missions with what ever number of people involved.

Sovrath

Originally posted by Ecoces

sorry but lore should never be an excuse for possibly good gaming design. and yes I forgot about EQs LDON i guess thats what happens when you post late at night and need sleep.

 

why can games made back in early 2000's have this cool feature yet games of today don't the technology is obviously there. I am tired of getting to the endgame with my wife and have it be basically the games end. this would be great for those who want to solo or duo ... or hell anyone who wants to play in smaller groups.

I would take the opposite tack and say that a well detailed world with a sense of congrency with each facet that makes up the world can only help inform good game design.

Just like one can say that rules actually help free the artist as opposed to adopting an "anything goes" mentality.

 

Sovrath

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by maplestone

Originally posted by Sovrath

hmmm, well i don't unless there is some sort of lore/storied reason that everything should be changing. Or if there is a procedure for filling that dungeon.

What the lore/strory reason why that boss you killed yesterday is back today with all the same minions as if nothing ever happened?  

Why do you need a reason? Millions of gamers don't.

Quest/lore are just excuses to kill stuff and progress your toon.

What is the lore/story reason why you die and load a save game in a SP game? None .. but you still want to play, do you?

Lore/story is not that important .. otherwise, no one will do the same raid in WOW 10000 times, or figure out the most efficient farming route in D3. It is a game .. duh!

Well, that brings the discussion to the type of gamers who play these games.

On one hand you have the people who just want to do encounters and on the other hand you have a group of players (perhaps smaller?) who want a sense of "world" in their "game world" and probably don't run the same dungeons thousands of times. I know I would never, ever do that.

One could also point to all those players who were upset that SWToR didnt' have day/night cycles. Some players (yourself included?) probably dont' care. I would wonder if the same was done for LOTRO if players wouldn't notice and complain?

So "of course it's a game" but there are players who are interested in being immersed in their play space.

Perhaps the players who would be compelled to have random dungeons and encounters are really the players who would be doing raids over and over again or even be the players who are more compelled by a diablo 2 experience over say "a world" experience. Then again I doubt it's that black and white.