Unfortunately, your idea of a game or games without your "dragonball z" progression have been done before and ultimately those games have died or have become extremely niche. I'm not saying that it can't be done, but with games that have little to no progression are found to be short lived.
This is prominent so much that almost all games today are taking on a level, stat, or gear progression system because people enjoy a growth in power.
And yet LoL and Minecraft remain industry leaders and the biggest recent hit we've had is PUBG. None of them with any form of permanent character progression. Sure games have tried to incorporate stat progression into many genres but most of them have been total duds like Age of Empires Online on that one MOBA on my phone with stat growth I can't even remember the name of because I deleted it shortly after downloading it.
I would actually say generally games with less progression have longer shelf lives these days for the most part. Grinds are a gimmick people have grown weary of and it no longer anchors people to games with the same power it once did. Largely because most people who do get addicted to stat progression to the point they will never leave a game already committed to a game some time back. The people trying MMOs these days are in large part a fad chaser crowd who gravitate to new games as they are released.
Long term viability means finding the crowd who will say "Wow. I've never tried anything like this before. And I really like it." AKA titles that are to be successful longterm need to identify and cater to a niche. The fad chasers are going to be on to the next big game when it hits either way.
Those games are not mmo's and build their entertainment value in very different ways. I'll agree that some MMO's take the grind too far, especially korean games, and they tend to do it with very limited or repetitive content, often to force you to the cash shop to speed up the mindless grind.
MMO's in general though would not be the same without progression, the problem is finding the sweet spot of enough content, and good enough content that makes what grind there is enjoyable and the progression noticeable without going overboard.
Then there's games like Shadowbane - you could get leveled relatively fast, and despite having what would normally be called crap content other than pvp, the game still would not have been the same without the progression. Some games can manage the fun factor even with crap graphics. I think the OP and people like him haven't seen any progression other than the mindless grind there is in most games lately. I guess I don't blame them for wanting to be rid of that kind of grindy progression, but dumping progression altogether is not a good fix.
Honestly, I'll just say there's no real fix. The problem isn't really with game design but game competition. Companies conform to numbers, not so much players. You dont really needs a health player base if you have people willing to throw money. FFXIV and Archeage are prime examples of this. FFXIV loves to throw out "X million adventurers" but the game has only a consistent fraction of that, which is fine. Also keep in mind that China and Korea are F2P, which get thrown in there as well. At least 50% of their revenue comes from the cash shop, which is updated monthly with many items that are for a single character (in some cases for a gender as well). Archeage is archeage so even if you had 10 people whaling hard in that game, that would mean more than 100 people paying 15$ each. My point is, until you are able to control competition and outlier practices such as selling power or game features, it wont matter what systems are suggested to keep people interested. The reason many games 10+ years ago had solid enough systems was because of minimal competition, so what choices did people really have back then if they didn't like waiting killing place holder mobs for 4 hours to get a rare to spawn or shouting in town for 6 hours to form a raid that only would wipe to the first boss?
It’s far more than just my problem. Stat disparity is the most commonly recited reason I see most people leaving both particular MMOs and MMOs altogether. As MMOs fall in popularity the playerbase moves to games such as Minecraft, LoL, and PUBG that address these issues. The MMO industry becomes more and more of an echo chamber as this happens but even here on these boards there are many who want to see stat-gaps addressed.
In general as far as stat gap making people leave games, you are right when it comes to mostly korean games that like forcing you to grind, once again to drive you to the cash shop.
Even in games like WOW though with huge stat gaps, that's generally not why people leave, and if it is its not level based stat gaps, its gear based, and then it's usually only an issue when it comes to end game pvp. Wow does have some issue with this, a casual player may struggle and never reach top tier gear before the next set comes out.
This is the fault of the developers choice of scaling though, not in the idea of progression itself. You are right that the difference in top gear vs fresh max lvl doesnt have to be as high. There could be more tiers but smaller gap from bottom to top. You just cant throw out progression entirely unless it's a different kind of game entirely.
I want to get stronger as I play...The point of playing is usually to improv,e not stay the same as when we started.
How much stronger do you feel the need to become?
Noticebly stronger is all it takes. It is just an unavoidable problem that after years of getting stronger, there is going to be a gap. It can be less than what some games have made it, but overall unless the end game grind is too strong, Big Deal. The issue there is too much grind, not too much gap.
What is funny, Shadowbane came the closest to your ideal game. Power Level to max in day and a half and end stats are more dependent on runes then anything.
Yup had alot of fun with a ton of different builds in that game. Just the right amount of grind to get max lvl runes and gear and then have fun, then try something new, play around and experiment without feeling like your main was falling behind.
Unfortunately, your idea of a game or games without your "dragonball z" progression have been done before and ultimately those games have died or have become extremely niche. I'm not saying that it can't be done, but with games that have little to no progression are found to be short lived.
This is prominent so much that almost all games today are taking on a level, stat, or gear progression system because people enjoy a growth in power.
And yet LoL and Minecraft remain industry leaders and the biggest recent hit we've had is PUBG. None of them with any form of permanent character progression. Sure games have tried to incorporate stat progression into many genres but most of them have been total duds like Age of Empires Online on that one MOBA on my phone with stat growth I can't even remember the name of because I deleted it shortly after downloading it.
I would actually say generally games with less progression have longer shelf lives these days for the most part. Grinds are a gimmick people have grown weary of and it no longer anchors people to games with the same power it once did. Largely because most people who do get addicted to stat progression to the point they will never leave a game already committed to a game some time back. The people trying MMOs these days are in large part a fad chaser crowd who gravitate to new games as they are released.
Long term viability means finding the crowd who will say "Wow. I've never tried anything like this before. And I really like it." AKA titles that are to be successful longterm need to identify and cater to a niche. The fad chasers are going to be on to the next big game when it hits either way.
For the life of me I have no idea why people enjoy LOL, Minecraft, PUBG, or GW1, must be a defect in their character I guess.
With no real progression I can't fathom playing any of those games, hence why my favorite genre has always been MMORPGs, which I like to define as Massive Multiplayer Online Regular Progression Games. (Leave the RPing to the Larp crowd)
There may be room for some games with limited progression, but I won't be playing it.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Kind of sounds like a carebear who doesn't want do the hard grind like everyone else. The reality is, if you get equal stats , the player who has bever been in the deep end, will get that much more wrecked.
End game is end game for a reason, it rewards those who have learned the mechanics and figured out the class, blaming a stat gap for poor mind set of pvp is pretty redundant.
I've complained about classes sure, but I know , it is just me who needs to "get good"
You missed the point.
Catch me streaming at twitch.tv/cryomatrix You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
Unfortunately, your idea of a game or games without your "dragonball z" progression have been done before and ultimately those games have died or have become extremely niche. I'm not saying that it can't be done, but with games that have little to no progression are found to be short lived.
This is prominent so much that almost all games today are taking on a level, stat, or gear progression system because people enjoy a growth in power.
And yet LoL and Minecraft remain industry leaders and the biggest recent hit we've had is PUBG. None of them with any form of permanent character progression. Sure games have tried to incorporate stat progression into many genres but most of them have been total duds like Age of Empires Online on that one MOBA on my phone with stat growth I can't even remember the name of because I deleted it shortly after downloading it.
I would actually say generally games with less progression have longer shelf lives these days for the most part. Grinds are a gimmick people have grown weary of and it no longer anchors people to games with the same power it once did. Largely because most people who do get addicted to stat progression to the point they will never leave a game already committed to a game some time back. The people trying MMOs these days are in large part a fad chaser crowd who gravitate to new games as they are released.
Long term viability means finding the crowd who will say "Wow. I've never tried anything like this before. And I really like it." AKA titles that are to be successful longterm need to identify and cater to a niche. The fad chasers are going to be on to the next big game when it hits either way.
Those games are not mmo's and build their entertainment value in very different ways. I'll agree that some MMO's take the grind too far, especially korean games, and they tend to do it with very limited or repetitive content, often to force you to the cash shop to speed up the mindless grind.
MMO's in general though would not be the same without progression, the problem is finding the sweet spot of enough content, and good enough content that makes what grind there is enjoyable and the progression noticeable without going overboard.
Then there's games like Shadowbane - you could get leveled relatively fast, and despite having what would normally be called crap content other than pvp, the game still would not have been the same without the progression. Some games can manage the fun factor even with crap graphics. I think the OP and people like him haven't seen any progression other than the mindless grind there is in most games lately. I guess I don't blame them for wanting to be rid of that kind of grindy progression, but dumping progression altogether is not a good fix.
With his specific post he was talking about games as the parts I bolded shows. So I was countering the fact with three of the most prominent games in the industry (If not THEE three most prominent games in the industry) do not rely upon character progression at all.
Back to MMOs. I do agree that MMOs need progression but I wouldn't necessarily agree it needs to be character progression (which includes gear progression) and I think that 99% of MMOs take it way too far.
I'll haul bricks to my guild's castle all day long and enjoy the heck out of it as long as building that castle isn't a prerequisite of enjoying competitive play or being able to play together with my weaker/more powerful friends.
If character progression is small enough that it's not a prerequisite to those things though I can enjoy it.
Basically, what @eldurian ; is saying is to minimize the discrepancy seen in stat gaps.
I think that is a great idea.
Cryomatrix
Right. I'll give a great example of this.
In Lord of The Rings Online I made a hobbit character. I really wanted to immerse myself in the character so I did every single quest in the Shire. Completely explored the zone, if they had zone based achievements at the time I would have like 100% Shire completion.
By the time I left the zone I was one shotting everything and gaining no XP from anything I did.
It felt more like a punishment that a reward and totally broke immersion. I can only imagine what it would have been like if I had max leveled a character then decided to go back and do the Shire quests.
I think progression is more important in a PVE centric game than a PVP one, but even in a PVE one I want to feel like hero instead of a god.
I think the problem with stat gap (power gap) is the view of developer being short . Sometime i feel like they just add more power in game without any try to balance it . Too lazy maybe .
IMO , when you make an MMORPG you need to plan for at lease 10 year after release , i think quick money is what they want so the gap happen .
I think the problem with stat gap (power gap) is the view of developer being short . Sometime i feel like they just add more power in game without any try to balance it . Too lazy maybe .
IMO , when you make an MMORPG you need to plan for at lease 10 year after release , i think quick money is what they want so the gap happen .
It's not even really 10 years it's more 10 minutes. The stat climb is commonly so steep that your stats double multiple times in your first few hours of play. It seems like to some watching the numbers go up is an addiction like pulling a slot machine and the faster the numbers go up the happier they get.
But feeding this addiction doesn't translate into compelling gameplay. Not saying there shouldn't be games for people to get their numbers fix, but I do think it's a bad mechanic if you're targeting your game at any demographic that didn't come there to mainline XP.
Be it PvPers, story lovers, people who love immersion, people who like to play with their friends, whatever. They're all better served by a game with more realistic stat disparity.
Hate to break it to you OP but this has already been done.
Elder Scrolls Online: One Tamriel is the MMO you are looking for. . . Lower level players are given buffs to compensate for the fact that every zone is now max level.
Max level players are more powerful as the stats they get from their level appropriate gear, abilities and champion points outscale the buff lower level players recieve.
this gives max level players the opportunity to defeat world content like Dolmens, public group dungeons, and World bosses solo if they are skilled enough, as even being in BiS gear and max CP is no guarantee of success when tackling group content solo.
I actually directly addressed that in my refutation of common counter-arguments.
"Why Not Just Make Levels Scale To Zone / Party?
Why make levels scale to zone / party? Why include Dragonball Z progression just to include another system that entirely guts it? Wouldn’t it be better to just start with a realistic progression system that can be constantly in-place rather than systems with counter systems just so you can watch your health scale from 100 to 5,000,000,000,000?"
ESo doesn't have dragon ball z progression. . . they have little stat differential in the form of gear and champion points, but no where in the game can a player one shot someone in a realistic scenario so I will say it again.
IT HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE.
I thought I made that abundantly clear in my post but apparently you missed that somehow.
They must have completely overhauled the system. I haven't played it in like 2-3 years but last time I did the PVE progression was nowhere near realistic. I was intentionally not leveling while my fiancé was offline so we could be the same level and play together enjoyably.
In Lord of The Rings Online I made a hobbit character. I really wanted to immerse myself in the character so I did every single quest in the Shire. Completely explored the zone, if they had zone based achievements at the time I would have like 100% Shire completion.
By the time I left the zone I was one shotting everything and gaining no XP from anything I did.
Not a great example, since it has nothing to do with gaps Long (and already discussed) story short: that's because of LotRO got easier over the years PLUS it has way too much xp for giving out to players. So while you should stay on level (or even 1-2 levels below) with the content if you want challenge, it is very hard to do without the xp-disabler item since xp is raining over you all the time.
I'm not saying the gap is not there, LotRO is a typical game in that regard, compared to a new character a levelcapped one is like a smaller god. Actually in an earlier thread with the same topic I've used LotRO's numbers as the basis to present how small a gap percentage is in an another game. You see, Mtibbs was right with
Unfortunately, your idea of a game or games without your "dragonball z" progression have been done before and ultimately those games have died or have become extremely niche.
TSW was built like that what you seek, very small gap between a new and a fully decked character itself, and the progression was more on the gear. It was niche at first, then died. (not because of the small gap though, it died because of the greed of Funcom)
All weapon types and armor types has strengths and weaknesses to certain armors and weapons, with augments to boost a strength or limit a weakness. no level growth, just 5 stat points. 5 stat points per level period. this includes HP. so ones that can one hit can also be one hit by very low levels if he doesn't invest in HP. so ones that are very strong are also very weak to someone's else's attacks. so a few low levels with the right combination of stats and weapon and armour type can defeat a high level. a simple example would be a mage with a robe should't be able to defeat 3 warriors in close combat no matter what level he is. skills: you want power? longer cast times, longer swing speeds. No running through characters. a powerful mage protected by large shield wielding warriors? well metal is weak against electrical weapons, arrows, and spells...want to be fast and strong? fine. just know that you'll have no health or accuracy. get the right type of party members together and you could form a formidable team. etc. etc. you can create a decent system but it will take time, because you'll have to factor in distance, running speeds and projectile speeds, body size, weather and terrain, time of day, etc. its possible. just a lot of work.
TSW was built like that what you seek, very small gap between a new and a fully decked character itself, and the progression was more on the gear. It was niche at first, then died. (not because of the small gap though, it died because of the greed of Funcom)
TSW was one of the worst 'stat-gap' games I've ever
played... i.e. the difference between gear of each tier was, IMO, far too high,
and is one of the reasons I stopped playing (it just wasn't fun having to constantly
get new gear just to be able kill the next level of mobs in a reasonable time).
Ironically, TSW is also a game I would say could work very well with minimal vertical
progression, as the stories and (although it needed much better balance)
horizontal progression of skills were by far the more enjoyable aspects of it.
Edit: Something like The Division (though not really an MMO) could also work well with minimal vertical progression, as it's combat is far more enjoyable when 'balanced' than it is when under or over geared.
In Lord of The Rings Online I made a hobbit character. I really wanted to immerse myself in the character so I did every single quest in the Shire. Completely explored the zone, if they had zone based achievements at the time I would have like 100% Shire completion.
By the time I left the zone I was one shotting everything and gaining no XP from anything I did.
Not a great example, since it has nothing to do with gaps Long (and already discussed) story short: that's because of LotRO got easier over the years PLUS it has way too much xp for giving out to players. So while you should stay on level (or even 1-2 levels below) with the content if you want challenge, it is very hard to do without the xp-disabler item since xp is raining over you all the time.
I'm not saying the gap is not there, LotRO is a typical game in that regard, compared to a new character a levelcapped one is like a smaller god. Actually in an earlier thread with the same topic I've used LotRO's numbers as the basis to present how small a gap percentage is in an another game. You see, Mtibbs was right with
Unfortunately, your idea of a game or games without your "dragonball z" progression have been done before and ultimately those games have died or have become extremely niche.
TSW was built like that what you seek, very small gap between a new and a fully decked character itself, and the progression was more on the gear. It was niche at first, then died. (not because of the small gap though, it died because of the greed of Funcom)
Actually it has a lot to do with gaps. While it is most evident in PVP the gap is not purely a PvP concept. The gap measures the disparity between a fresh character, and a fully maxed one.
In PvP this is evident by the fact that if you can one shot someone but they can barely dent you (or perhaps not even do more damage than your natural health regen) the disparity between your characters is absolutely ridiculous.
In PvE this is evident by the fact that if you can one shot mobs that were previously challenging and they can barely dent you, then the advancement in your character stats has been ridiculous.
If you can one shot mobs that were previously challenging and they can barely dent you before you have even left the first zone of the game, then the advancement of your character stats has been beyond ridiculous.
This incident happened before the Moria expansion so the game wasn't even a year old yet.
To be clear. This is not purely a PvP centric argument. This is a problem that I have with most all content of most all MMOs. Stat gaps and their negative effects on PvP may be why and many of my friends left ArcheAge but stat gap and it's negative effect on co-op PvE is why I and a few of my friends left WoW back during vanilla. Stat gap and the way it craps on your previous accomplishments with every expansion of a themepark is why I left LOTRO later on. And statgap and it's tendency to render previous content completely irrelevant is why so MMOs are filled with generic cut and paste quests most of which we will never do.
Lowering stat-gap can make PvP more competitive and enjoyable. Lowering stat-gap can make friends play together more enjoyably. Lowering stat-gap reduce or remove the need to render previous accomplishments irrelevant with new expansions. Lowering stat-gap can allow for a smaller amount of more engaging quests by keeping all content relevant and enjoyable.
Lowering stat-gap positively effects nearly every level of play for those without an addiction to big numbers.
Maybe you missed this line "I'm not saying the gap is not there, LotRO is a typical game in that
regard, compared to a new character a levelcapped one is like a smaller
god. "
I only said using it as an example was not correct... since in the Shire you had that experience due to the botched amount of xp, normally you couldn't level above 12-13 in the Shire, and the difficulty was higher too.
TSW was one of the worst 'stat-gap' games I've ever
played...
Point is, that was from gear i.e. in your hands. OP is about "if you can one shot mobs that were previously challenging and they can
barely dent you, then the advancement in your character stats has been
ridiculous" (from above) and if it's in the gear, you can remove it for increasing the challenge.
Sticking to the two games as examples, if you go back to earlier zones in LotRO (not even level capped, let's say as level 60 go back to the Shire) you will be invulnerable, no matter what you do, you can even strip to naked and swinging a flower you will one-shot everything. In TSW even the Savage Coast zombies ripped you apart if you went back without gear, since the character itself got barely any boost during the "leveling". (game had no levels)
I didn't miss it. But I also caught the "Not a great example as it has nothing to do with gaps".
Being able to one shot previously challenging content (Maybe challenging is a stretch but it at least required a pulse) has everything to do with gaps.
I love MMOs, I love everything about them except the stat-gap. I love building a character in a persistent world even if all I have to show off are titles and accomplishments. I love organically encountering players out in the open world. I love defining myself in the community and building a reputation. I love territorial control, exploration, I don’t even mind well written quests that are put there as an enjoyable option as opposed to a barrier to progression.
What I don’t like is not participating in content that I want to be doing because “It doesn’t give good XP” feeling forced into particular content because “It gives the best XP” wielding unrealistically huge amounts of power in lower level zones or having it wielded against me. Feeling separated from my friends for separated from the world by a constant driving need to keep progressing.
There is no reason that I and other’s like me who enjoy all the former need to be denied that content just because we dislike the latter.
Why Not Just Make Levels Scale To Zone / Party?
Why make levels scale to zone / party? Why include Dragonball Z progression just to include another system that entirely guts it? Wouldn’t it be better to just start with a realistic progression system that can be constantly in-place rather than systems with counter systems just so you can watch your health scale from 100 to 5,000,000,000,000?
It’s Just Like Practicing Guitar! The More You Do The Better You Get!
Except it’s not. But I can tell you what is.
When you play a lot of StarCraft or Halo and get good at the game, that is just like practicing guitar. Time investment pays off with more skill. But it’s more than just time investment. Someone who just sits there and plays “Hot Cross Buns” for 10,000 hours cannot just suddenly switch over to playing “Through The Fire and Flames”.
To advance they must push their envelope constantly and seek challenges worthy of their skill level. That is the way you master anything. As a StarCraft player advances through the leagues they learn more advanced strategies and face more powerful opponents who present a greater challenge and this is what pushes their skill level to its limits. They don’t 3 pool rush over and over and over with no adaptations or advancements to their strategy and suddenly become the best Star Craft player.
In Dragonball Z progression, running through the motions doing the easiest content available to you for 10,000 hours absolutely will enable you to beat someone who pushes their limits but has a much lower level or gearscore.
So skill based gameplay that must be mastered perfectly simulates practicing guitar. Dragonball Z progression perfectly simulates a participation trophy.
It’s About The Hero’s Arc of My Character
Yeah. I remember the part where Frodo got to Mordor and one shotted all the orcs. And those Ringwraiths he faced early in his journey, total chumps by the end! I think my favorite part of the books is where Aragon took a blow from an orc and it pinged off him for 1 damage. Then he did that shout move that one shot every orc within 20 meters.
Hey wait… none of that happened.
Hero’s Arcs don’t have to be ridiculous to be engaging. In-fact hero’s arcs make a hell of a lot more sense when the reskin of the mob you faced a level 5 and can now one shot isn’t the new level 100 enemy.
Actually Frodo did level up in LotR RPG's, in Middle Earth Role Playing (MERP) or it might have been the Rolemaster version he went from level one to level six I think. But that was for the purposes of the game as much as anything. But I do take your point, even in those games, he did not level up that much, Nazgul could have killed him with a look.
I hate power gaps in MMOs and have long backed the call for a move to horizontal progression. But, shifting to horizontal progression alone is not enough, designers need to go back to the drawing board for how they design MMOs for a lot of different things.
My Issues With Power Gaps (vertical progression):
Trivialises old content
Sets the difficulty via stats, rather than gameplay
Often forces a linear progression route
Removes player choice
Segregates the community
It is the last one that I have the biggest issue. Power gaps cause segregation in our online communities. You can only have meaningful interactions with people of the same power level, so even if there are 10,000 people on your server, there may only be 100 at your power level and only 5 who are interested in the same content as you.
That sucks. We're playing massively multiplayer games! The entire design of these games should be focused on getting us to play together, whether that means teaming up in a group, a raid, pvping or just randomly cooperating whilst out and about. Community lies at the heart of the genre and community is the key to retention, yet power gaps make it much harder to form good communities.
This is something I saw first hand as a guild leader over 4 years. When putting together guild raids, player power (and role) was the most important thing I had to consider. I regularly had to turn down skilled players because they were behind the power curve. It sucked for everyone involved. Power gaps force a certain amount of elitism on anyone who participates in endgame, and thats not what you want to breed in your community. For new members joining the guild and leveling up, it would be really hard to help them out due to power disparity as it wouldn't be fun for anyone.
Why horizontal progression? Many people really struggle with the concept of horizontal progression. To me, horizontal progression is about choice and specialising but many people view it as pointless bloat. Who cares if I do 50 direct damage or 50 damage over time?! Horizontal progression can be so much more than that.
Lets take your standard melee dps character. In most MMOs, vertical progression puts you on a fairly linear path, your stats get bigger, you unlock more skills but the way you play mostly stays the same. You might have trait trees that allow you to specialise, like in lotro, a champion can be single target, aoe or tanky. But, your choices are severely limited and usually one way is vastly superior.
With a well designed horizontal progression system, a player can choose to go whatever direction they want. Single target vs aoe. Direct damage vs damage over time. Steady versus burst. Glass canon versus tanky. Hell, maybe you want to through some support abilities in there and specialise in slows / debuffs.
Horizontal progression should put the player in control of how they progress and give them real, meaningful choices. It should allow them to find a build that is perfectly suited to the way they want to play, rather than forcing them down one set path. Balance is definitely an issue, but balance in a horizontal progression game comes in the form of rock-paper-scissors, rather than 1v1 balance.
What else needs to happen? Progression systems are just one part of the overall game and cannot be viewed just by themselves. Vertical progression (power gaps) are a leftover from single player RPGs. The whole design, from progression to questing to gear, fits together nicely to give a great single player experience where everything makes sense.
That doesn't work in MMOs, we have enough evidence of that now, however the single player design paradigms are still used because thats what we're used to.
So, the first thing that needs to change is how we design content. If we're moving to horizontal progression and putting the player in charge, we should do the same with content. Lets get rid of this linear content design, it's boring. Lets get rid of this hyper-fixation on questing for xp, that's boring too. Give players more options.
ESO has taken a good first step in this direction. Whilst I hate the level scaling tech, it does at least give the players the option to go wherever they want to earn XP. The issue is that the content is still designed in a linear fashion, so to experience the good stories you still need to go through in a fairly linear manner. A lot of XP is also still tied to quests, so players are still strongly encouraged to spend all their time questing.
Lets break that tradition. First, remove XP from quests. Lets return to a point where quests are actually about the stories and not about xp. Dramatically reduce the quantity, but dramatically increase the quality of what remains. Give us some truly epic stories to play through, not the garbage we currently receive.
Second, lets give players more options for how they progress. In your modern themepark, you're basically forced to follow the set path of quests in order to progress. That sucks, especially if you hate the generic quests. So, lets open things up. You can still have xp and levels as the primary form of unlocking progression, but by removing xp from quests players can now earn that xp however they want. maybe they still stick to quests as a way to guide their experience. maybe they're an explorer, and with no power gaps they can explore everywhere from the get go. Maybe they love a certain zone, well, with horizontal progression they can stay in that zone until they hit cap. Maybe they're a pvper, well, let them earn all their xp through pvp. Putting the player in control is what matters.
Third, lets revisit combat. How many people think MMO combat actually involves much player skill? I certainly don't. In PvE, difficulty is currently set via stats, player skill barely counts. It's only at endgame, where player power is fixed, that difficulty is actually set by gameplay.
If we're removing power gaps then some difficulty can still come from stat differences (between players and npcs) but it is through the gameplay that difficulty needs to be set. This will likely mean better use of AI, but can also come from just coming up with new mechanics. Lets bring back proper collision detection, so that movement in combat becomes important again. How about group formations, so that working together means more than just tanking and healing?
Finally, it's time to rethink loot. Loot is yet another way of controlling players, essentially forcing them to do certain content to get certain loot. With no power gaps, loot can no longer offer you more power. So, lets remove loot drops for the most part and return to a full player economy with degrading items. Give crafters proper control over the stats on their gear so that they can tailor their output to match their clients. So, if I'm a tanky melee dps, a crafter can make me armour to support that role, rather than only being able to craft one option.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
You are lvl1 hitting a 100hp mob with a 10damage weapon.
You are lvl100 hitting a 10000hp mob with a 1000damage weapon.
Where is the difference? Its all in the peoples minds that they get stronger.
IMHO progressing through new appearance, new skills that are different but not stronger and titles may be enough to keep people interested. Its just, no one after GW1 tried it.
GW1 also showed that it is possible to create lots of different skills with synergies, or that allow to play classes differently and still keep the classes identity.
IMO a new GW1 but with open world would be hilarious.
Add some more features that force more social interaction (skill trainers not always stand at the same place), global chat costs Mana (like in Meridian59)) and I'll be happy again.
uch, this thread looks like some worship song to horizintal progression, and like christians, most have no idea what they pray to ^^
i have no idea what that wall of text tried to say about horizontal progression, but on the other hand, i dont think the OP knew it :P
"With a well designed horizontal progression system, a player can choose to go whatever direction they want. Single target vs aoe. Direct damage vs damage over time. Steady versus burst. Glass canon versus tanky. Hell, maybe you want to through some support abilities in there and specialise in slows / debuffs."
sounds more like you want a game without progression... where do those abilities come from? everyone has em? from start? shesh.... yea. players will be bored after half a year, bc there is nothing new to "farm", no more items to "grind", and no more levels to gain
it's a myth no one was able to pull off till now (even PS2 couldn't do it). and people keep hunting the golden goose. how are skills you need to gain more horizontal than items you need to farm?
imo you guys miss the old days, with less people, with known enemies, with people you could hate and love in oposite to random groups, guilds and servers.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Comments
MMO's in general though would not be the same without progression, the problem is finding the sweet spot of enough content, and good enough content that makes what grind there is enjoyable and the progression noticeable without going overboard.
Then there's games like Shadowbane - you could get leveled relatively fast, and despite having what would normally be called crap content other than pvp, the game still would not have been the same without the progression. Some games can manage the fun factor even with crap graphics. I think the OP and people like him haven't seen any progression other than the mindless grind there is in most games lately. I guess I don't blame them for wanting to be rid of that kind of grindy progression, but dumping progression altogether is not a good fix.
Even in games like WOW though with huge stat gaps, that's generally not why people leave, and if it is its not level based stat gaps, its gear based, and then it's usually only an issue when it comes to end game pvp. Wow does have some issue with this, a casual player may struggle and never reach top tier gear before the next set comes out.
This is the fault of the developers choice of scaling though, not in the idea of progression itself. You are right that the difference in top gear vs fresh max lvl doesnt have to be as high. There could be more tiers but smaller gap from bottom to top. You just cant throw out progression entirely unless it's a different kind of game entirely.
With no real progression I can't fathom playing any of those games, hence why my favorite genre has always been MMORPGs, which I like to define as Massive Multiplayer Online Regular Progression Games. (Leave the RPing to the Larp crowd)
There may be room for some games with limited progression, but I won't be playing it.
Just can't see the point.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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I think that is a great idea.
Cryomatrix
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
Back to MMOs. I do agree that MMOs need progression but I wouldn't necessarily agree it needs to be character progression (which includes gear progression) and I think that 99% of MMOs take it way too far.
I'll haul bricks to my guild's castle all day long and enjoy the heck out of it as long as building that castle isn't a prerequisite of enjoying competitive play or being able to play together with my weaker/more powerful friends.
If character progression is small enough that it's not a prerequisite to those things though I can enjoy it.
In Lord of The Rings Online I made a hobbit character. I really wanted to immerse myself in the character so I did every single quest in the Shire. Completely explored the zone, if they had zone based achievements at the time I would have like 100% Shire completion.
By the time I left the zone I was one shotting everything and gaining no XP from anything I did.
It felt more like a punishment that a reward and totally broke immersion. I can only imagine what it would have been like if I had max leveled a character then decided to go back and do the Shire quests.
I think progression is more important in a PVE centric game than a PVP one, but even in a PVE one I want to feel like hero instead of a god.
Sometime i feel like they just add more power in game without any try to balance it . Too lazy maybe .
IMO , when you make an MMORPG you need to plan for at lease 10 year after release , i think quick money is what they want so the gap happen .
But feeding this addiction doesn't translate into compelling gameplay. Not saying there shouldn't be games for people to get their numbers fix, but I do think it's a bad mechanic if you're targeting your game at any demographic that didn't come there to mainline XP.
Be it PvPers, story lovers, people who love immersion, people who like to play with their friends, whatever. They're all better served by a game with more realistic stat disparity.
IT HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE.
I thought I made that abundantly clear in my post but apparently you missed that somehow.
Long (and already discussed) story short: that's because of LotRO got easier over the years PLUS it has way too much xp for giving out to players.
So while you should stay on level (or even 1-2 levels below) with the content if you want challenge, it is very hard to do without the xp-disabler item since xp is raining over you all the time.
I'm not saying the gap is not there, LotRO is a typical game in that regard, compared to a new character a levelcapped one is like a smaller god.
Actually in an earlier thread with the same topic I've used LotRO's numbers as the basis to present how small a gap percentage is in an another game.
You see, Mtibbs was right with
TSW was built like that what you seek, very small gap between a new and a fully decked character itself, and the progression was more on the gear.
It was niche at first, then died. (not because of the small gap though, it died because of the greed of Funcom)
All weapon types and armor types has strengths and weaknesses to certain armors and weapons, with augments to boost a strength or limit a weakness. no level growth, just 5 stat points.
5 stat points per level period. this includes HP. so ones that can one hit can also be one hit by very low levels if he doesn't invest in HP. so ones that are very strong are also very weak to someone's else's attacks. so a few low levels with the right combination of stats and weapon and armour type can defeat a high level. a simple example would be a mage with a robe should't be able to defeat 3 warriors in close combat no matter what level he is. skills: you want power? longer cast times, longer swing speeds. No running through characters. a powerful mage protected by large shield wielding warriors? well metal is weak against electrical weapons, arrows, and spells...want to be fast and strong? fine. just know that you'll have no health or accuracy. get the right type of party members together and you could form a formidable team. etc. etc. you can create a decent system but it will take time, because you'll have to factor in distance, running speeds and projectile speeds, body size, weather and terrain, time of day, etc. its possible. just a lot of work.
Edit: not very simple but possible.
TSW was one of the worst 'stat-gap' games I've ever played... i.e. the difference between gear of each tier was, IMO, far too high, and is one of the reasons I stopped playing (it just wasn't fun having to constantly get new gear just to be able kill the next level of mobs in a reasonable time).
Ironically, TSW is also a game I would say could work very well with minimal vertical progression, as the stories and (although it needed much better balance) horizontal progression of skills were by far the more enjoyable aspects of it.
Edit: Something like The Division (though not really an MMO) could also work well with minimal vertical progression, as it's combat is far more enjoyable when 'balanced' than it is when under or over geared.
In PvP this is evident by the fact that if you can one shot someone but they can barely dent you (or perhaps not even do more damage than your natural health regen) the disparity between your characters is absolutely ridiculous.
In PvE this is evident by the fact that if you can one shot mobs that were previously challenging and they can barely dent you, then the advancement in your character stats has been ridiculous.
If you can one shot mobs that were previously challenging and they can barely dent you before you have even left the first zone of the game, then the advancement of your character stats has been beyond ridiculous.
This incident happened before the Moria expansion so the game wasn't even a year old yet.
Lowering stat-gap can make PvP more competitive and enjoyable.
Lowering stat-gap can make friends play together more enjoyably.
Lowering stat-gap reduce or remove the need to render previous accomplishments irrelevant with new expansions.
Lowering stat-gap can allow for a smaller amount of more engaging quests by keeping all content relevant and enjoyable.
Lowering stat-gap positively effects nearly every level of play for those without an addiction to big numbers.
I only said using it as an example was not correct... since in the Shire you had that experience due to the botched amount of xp, normally you couldn't level above 12-13 in the Shire, and the difficulty was higher too.
Point is, that was from gear i.e. in your hands. OP is about
"if you can one shot mobs that were previously challenging and they can barely dent you, then the advancement in your character stats has been ridiculous" (from above)
and if it's in the gear, you can remove it for increasing the challenge.
Sticking to the two games as examples, if you go back to earlier zones in LotRO (not even level capped, let's say as level 60 go back to the Shire) you will be invulnerable, no matter what you do, you can even strip to naked and swinging a flower you will one-shot everything.
In TSW even the Savage Coast zombies ripped you apart if you went back without gear, since the character itself got barely any boost during the "leveling". (game had no levels)
Being able to one shot previously challenging content (Maybe challenging is a stretch but it at least required a pulse) has everything to do with gaps.
Actually Frodo did level up in LotR RPG's, in Middle Earth Role Playing (MERP) or it might have been the Rolemaster version he went from level one to level six I think. But that was for the purposes of the game as much as anything. But I do take your point, even in those games, he did not level up that much, Nazgul could have killed him with a look.
I hate power gaps in MMOs and have long backed the call for a move to horizontal progression. But, shifting to horizontal progression alone is not enough, designers need to go back to the drawing board for how they design MMOs for a lot of different things.
My Issues With Power Gaps (vertical progression):
- Trivialises old content
- Sets the difficulty via stats, rather than gameplay
- Often forces a linear progression route
- Removes player choice
- Segregates the community
It is the last one that I have the biggest issue. Power gaps cause segregation in our online communities. You can only have meaningful interactions with people of the same power level, so even if there are 10,000 people on your server, there may only be 100 at your power level and only 5 who are interested in the same content as you.That sucks. We're playing massively multiplayer games! The entire design of these games should be focused on getting us to play together, whether that means teaming up in a group, a raid, pvping or just randomly cooperating whilst out and about. Community lies at the heart of the genre and community is the key to retention, yet power gaps make it much harder to form good communities.
This is something I saw first hand as a guild leader over 4 years. When putting together guild raids, player power (and role) was the most important thing I had to consider. I regularly had to turn down skilled players because they were behind the power curve. It sucked for everyone involved. Power gaps force a certain amount of elitism on anyone who participates in endgame, and thats not what you want to breed in your community. For new members joining the guild and leveling up, it would be really hard to help them out due to power disparity as it wouldn't be fun for anyone.
Why horizontal progression?
Many people really struggle with the concept of horizontal progression. To me, horizontal progression is about choice and specialising but many people view it as pointless bloat. Who cares if I do 50 direct damage or 50 damage over time?! Horizontal progression can be so much more than that.
Lets take your standard melee dps character. In most MMOs, vertical progression puts you on a fairly linear path, your stats get bigger, you unlock more skills but the way you play mostly stays the same. You might have trait trees that allow you to specialise, like in lotro, a champion can be single target, aoe or tanky. But, your choices are severely limited and usually one way is vastly superior.
With a well designed horizontal progression system, a player can choose to go whatever direction they want. Single target vs aoe. Direct damage vs damage over time. Steady versus burst. Glass canon versus tanky. Hell, maybe you want to through some support abilities in there and specialise in slows / debuffs.
Horizontal progression should put the player in control of how they progress and give them real, meaningful choices. It should allow them to find a build that is perfectly suited to the way they want to play, rather than forcing them down one set path. Balance is definitely an issue, but balance in a horizontal progression game comes in the form of rock-paper-scissors, rather than 1v1 balance.
What else needs to happen?
Progression systems are just one part of the overall game and cannot be viewed just by themselves. Vertical progression (power gaps) are a leftover from single player RPGs. The whole design, from progression to questing to gear, fits together nicely to give a great single player experience where everything makes sense.
That doesn't work in MMOs, we have enough evidence of that now, however the single player design paradigms are still used because thats what we're used to.
So, the first thing that needs to change is how we design content. If we're moving to horizontal progression and putting the player in charge, we should do the same with content. Lets get rid of this linear content design, it's boring. Lets get rid of this hyper-fixation on questing for xp, that's boring too. Give players more options.
ESO has taken a good first step in this direction. Whilst I hate the level scaling tech, it does at least give the players the option to go wherever they want to earn XP. The issue is that the content is still designed in a linear fashion, so to experience the good stories you still need to go through in a fairly linear manner. A lot of XP is also still tied to quests, so players are still strongly encouraged to spend all their time questing.
Lets break that tradition. First, remove XP from quests. Lets return to a point where quests are actually about the stories and not about xp. Dramatically reduce the quantity, but dramatically increase the quality of what remains. Give us some truly epic stories to play through, not the garbage we currently receive.
Second, lets give players more options for how they progress. In your modern themepark, you're basically forced to follow the set path of quests in order to progress. That sucks, especially if you hate the generic quests. So, lets open things up. You can still have xp and levels as the primary form of unlocking progression, but by removing xp from quests players can now earn that xp however they want. maybe they still stick to quests as a way to guide their experience. maybe they're an explorer, and with no power gaps they can explore everywhere from the get go. Maybe they love a certain zone, well, with horizontal progression they can stay in that zone until they hit cap. Maybe they're a pvper, well, let them earn all their xp through pvp. Putting the player in control is what matters.
Third, lets revisit combat. How many people think MMO combat actually involves much player skill? I certainly don't. In PvE, difficulty is currently set via stats, player skill barely counts. It's only at endgame, where player power is fixed, that difficulty is actually set by gameplay.
If we're removing power gaps then some difficulty can still come from stat differences (between players and npcs) but it is through the gameplay that difficulty needs to be set. This will likely mean better use of AI, but can also come from just coming up with new mechanics. Lets bring back proper collision detection, so that movement in combat becomes important again. How about group formations, so that working together means more than just tanking and healing?
Finally, it's time to rethink loot. Loot is yet another way of controlling players, essentially forcing them to do certain content to get certain loot. With no power gaps, loot can no longer offer you more power. So, lets remove loot drops for the most part and return to a full player economy with degrading items. Give crafters proper control over the stats on their gear so that they can tailor their output to match their clients. So, if I'm a tanky melee dps, a crafter can make me armour to support that role, rather than only being able to craft one option.
You are lvl1 hitting a 100hp mob with a 10damage weapon.
You are lvl100 hitting a 10000hp mob with a 1000damage weapon.
Where is the difference?
Its all in the peoples minds that they get stronger.
IMHO progressing through new appearance, new skills that are different but not stronger and titles may be enough to keep people interested.
Its just, no one after GW1 tried it.
GW1 also showed that it is possible to create lots of different skills with synergies, or that allow to play classes differently and still keep the classes identity.
IMO a new GW1 but with open world would be hilarious.
Add some more features that force more social interaction (skill trainers not always stand at the same place), global chat costs Mana (like in Meridian59)) and I'll be happy again.
1997 Meridian 59 'til 2019 ESO
Waiting for Camelot Unchained & Pantheon
i have no idea what that wall of text tried to say about horizontal progression, but on the other hand, i dont think the OP knew it :P
"With a well designed horizontal progression system, a player can choose to go whatever direction they want. Single target vs aoe. Direct damage vs damage over time. Steady versus burst. Glass canon versus tanky. Hell, maybe you want to through some support abilities in there and specialise in slows / debuffs."
sounds more like you want a game without progression... where do those abilities come from? everyone has em? from start? shesh.... yea. players will be bored after half a year, bc there is nothing new to "farm", no more items to "grind", and no more levels to gain
it's a myth no one was able to pull off till now (even PS2 couldn't do it). and people keep hunting the golden goose.
how are skills you need to gain more horizontal than items you need to farm?
imo you guys miss the old days, with less people, with known enemies, with people you could hate and love in oposite to random groups, guilds and servers.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"