Too much damage progression damaged MMORPG genre

iixviiiix

It's seem like MMORPG designer obsess with damage progression aka one hit everything

IMO , MMORPG designer and developer need to stop this kind of obsess , because it's a dangeous type of progression that will kill the game with power gap .

Ability to kill thing too fast before it able to do anything pretty much ruined every strategy in both PVE and PVP , it's a worst . Though i understand that people enjoy killing everything fast but it kind of anti cinematic , specially in multiplayer game

For me , i prefer defense progression instead of damage progression

For example , in old games

you start with 1 hearts and 1 damage then though the progress you earn 9 hearts , totally 10 hearts , but your damage still 1 , it give you more room for error but still make the boss (with 100 hearts) challenge since you need to hit it 100 time while avoid making mistake

same with this design if you replace the hearts with damage then it only need 10 hit to finish the boss

Some of you may say , wa , it's harder with only 1 heart and 10 damage ... yeah , maybe . But image it's a multiplayers game with 10 players vs 100 hearts boss . Well it is a matter of seconds.

it's suck

Aeander

I can definitely say from personal experience that I stopped playing PvP in Guild Wars 2 because it was too glassy. They kept removing tank amulets and ramping up damage in order to make things "deadlier." Which only really phased out anyone with less than perfect reflexes or a preference for bunkering. 

Amathe

I have never played a mmorpg that measured damage and health with hearts. What ones are you thinking of?

Quizzical

Since the original poster cites "hearts", I'm guessing The Legend of Zelda or some of its sequels.  But while you did get more hearts after a while, mobs commonly dealt more damage, too.  You could get blue armor and then red armor to bring the damage down, but that only partially offset the increased mob damage.  Ganon hitting you in red armor might still take more hearts off your lifeline than the first octorok you meet hitting you in green armor.

Scot

All part of making every game solo, arcade, "fun" and easy mode.

Amaranthar

Amathe said:

I have never played a mmorpg that measured damage and health with hearts. What ones are you thinking of?

I thought it was a rather ingenious way to boil his point down to simplest terms.
My mind went to the math, and all the combination possibilities, but in the end his point of defensive growth vs. time is what it is. 

Amathe

Amaranthar said:

Amathe said:

I have never played a mmorpg that measured damage and health with hearts. What ones are you thinking of?

I thought it was a rather ingenious way to boil his point down to simplest terms.
My mind went to the math, and all the combination possibilities, but in the end his point of defensive growth vs. time is what it is. 

The reason I ask is that I am used to a system where there is a trade off between damage and defense. Wizards have high damage and low defense. Warriors have lower damage and higher defense. And so on amongst the classes, with various ratios. I have not seen any mmorpgs where there is a universal ratio. But to be honest, and not to throw any shade, I may be missing the point. If so I apologize.

Amaranthar

Amathe said:

Amaranthar said:

Amathe said:

I have never played a mmorpg that measured damage and health with hearts. What ones are you thinking of?

I thought it was a rather ingenious way to boil his point down to simplest terms.
My mind went to the math, and all the combination possibilities, but in the end his point of defensive growth vs. time is what it is. 

The reason I ask is that I am used to a system where there is a trade off between damage and defense. Wizards have high damage and low defense. Warriors have lower damage and higher defense. And so on amongst the classes, with various ratios. I have not seen any mmorpgs where there is a universal ratio. But to be honest, and not to throw any shade, I may be missing the point. If so I apologize.

No, that's a good point. It fits in with the combination possibilities when we start think of that. 
That's why I called it "ingenious." It's obvious these days to think about these things. 

Edit to add: 
I think the good iixviiiix, who's always been a bit of a stirrer-upper, was trying to do is make us think of the full range of possibilities. What with all this recent talk of things like "Skill Hunting." 
I could be wrong, but why else would he post such an overly simplistic thing from the distant past? 

ChildoftheShadows

If there is any player vs player it does kind of break down a bit though.

In a PVE game if you just you get more HP, but deal the same damage, then monsters would be built in such a way that they dealt a little more damage (like Quiz mentioned) and they have roughly the same health or more health if they're meant to take longer to kill.

Come pvp the players gain more health and take longer to kill by every other player.

I think it would serve better if, in pvp and pve, the ttk was the same no matter what. This means your health and damage never change. You might think this is terrible that there isn't any progression, but pvp arena type games have progression without increasing HP or Character stats for a while now. This horizontal type of progression gains you access to different types of items, which happens with most MMOs along with character stats anyway.

This means "level 1" mobs would still kill you at level 100 and level 1 players could provide some assistance against level 100 mobs and if the game happens to have pvp they're viable from day 1.

Mendel

Developers learned pretty quickly that the basic HP concept was very easy to manipulate.  Just add HPs to every item imaginable and balance between characters and mobs went out the window.  Players bought it, hook, line and sinker.  If you are level 1, but have +300 HP due to your armor, not many level 1 skeletons are going to challenge you, no matter what weapon or skill you have.

This is all on the developers undermining their own systems.

iixviiiix

Scot said:

All part of making every game solo, arcade, "fun" and easy mode.

nothing wrong with let player able solo in a less stress game , IMO.

But in MMORPG you need to create room for players to cooperate . The game should  be easy to solo , but faster and easier when you go with group .

I don't like the idea of make the game harder so people have to group up , that's too forced . What if we run out of people to group up ?

aRtFuLThinG

I mostly agree.

Too much damage on every expansion after a while just becomes meaningless numbers. Things start to become stupid when you are getting figures like 10000 damage or 30000 damage.

It starting to become like watching the later seasons of Dragonball anime.

AAAMEOW

Sound like diablo, in tier 13 mob have 2,108,107% more health than normal mode mob.

And you get item which do 13,462% more damage...

Palebane

I feel that many players get bored once the “progression” stops. That’s probably why devs just double down on the grind. To me, playing purely for the progression is the most boring way to play. I enjoy progression, but it’s so much better when I’m not thinking about it because I’m having so much fun naturally by focusing on the story, exploration, and character/combat systems.

Amaranthar

iixviiiix said:

Scot said:

All part of making every game solo, arcade, "fun" and easy mode.

nothing wrong with let player able solo in a less stress game , IMO.

But in MMORPG you need to create room for players to cooperate . The game should  be easy to solo , but faster and easier when you go with group .

I don't like the idea of make the game harder so people have to group up , that's too forced . What if we run out of people to group up ?

I agree. 
What I'd like to see is a game that's challenging for a small group, larger groups draw more MOBs, and Solo-ers are able to play a much more challenging game that includes tactics not fit for group battle, i.e. stealth, separation, and assassin tactics. 

I'd also like to see stealth and invisibility to be playable in scouting or exploring the depths of a Dungeon or Ruins, but with the greatest risk of all. 

Add in Mage Familiars, such as cats, rats, and bats as Scouts with a mind link, under control of the Mage. 
Add also Scrying Crystal Balls and Seeing Eye Spells, things like that, as a more limited version of Scouting. But also with defensive spells against them. 

Scot

iixviiiix said:

Scot said:

All part of making every game solo, arcade, "fun" and easy mode.

nothing wrong with let player able solo in a less stress game , IMO.

But in MMORPG you need to create room for players to cooperate . The game should  be easy to solo , but faster and easier when you go with group .

I don't like the idea of make the game harder so people have to group up , that's too forced . What if we run out of people to group up ?

Not finding a group is an issue, but it is also the excuse for why you make a MMO that has no requirement to group and because it can be all done solo has to be as easy as eating pie. Rather than try to address the grouping issue, you just give up and go easy mode. But I am not saying there are any easy answers to grouping, just that it is worth the effort for gaming to try.

Nothing wrong with a challenge, that is what gives you a real sense of achievement, just going from location to location, hearing ding after ding, that is banal.

nastilon

Well that was my problem. I enjoy playing tanks and the whole game is about bursting through every encounter as fast as possible.

#Aeander said:

I can definitely say from personal experience that I stopped playing PvP in Guild Wars 2 because it was too glassy. They kept removing tank amulets and ramping up damage in order to make things "deadlier." Which only really phased out anyone with less than perfect reflexes or a preference for bunkering.

lahnmir

I don’t think we should talk about easier or harder when it comes to solo versus group play, all of it should be reasonably challenging, not a sudden spike or drop in difficulty.

I think group play should be more rewarding though, it does require a bit more effort. That doesn’t mean the best gear should be locked behind group content but increased xp rates or more crafting mats/reagents could and should be a great incentive, not a requirement, to group up.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

AAAMEOW

iixviiiix said:

It's seem like MMORPG designer obsess with damage progression aka one hit everything

IMO , MMORPG designer and developer need to stop this kind of obsess , because it's a dangeous type of progression that will kill the game with power gap .

Ability to kill thing too fast before it able to do anything pretty much ruined every strategy in both PVE and PVP , it's a worst . Though i understand that people enjoy killing everything fast but it kind of anti cinematic , specially in multiplayer game

For me , i prefer defense progression instead of damage progression

For example , in old games

you start with 1 hearts and 1 damage then though the progress you earn 9 hearts , totally 10 hearts , but your damage still 1 , it give you more room for error but still make the boss (with 100 hearts) challenge since you need to hit it 100 time while avoid making mistake

same with this design if you replace the hearts with damage then it only need 10 hit to finish the boss

Some of you may say , wa , it's harder with only 1 heart and 10 damage ... yeah , maybe . But image it's a multiplayers game with 10 players vs 100 hearts boss . Well it is a matter of seconds.

it's suck

It is designed that way to time gate content.

Developer don't want people to start their game and immediately kill the last boss.  So developer make sure player need to keep farming higher tier of gear to kill harder boss.

Your method dont' work because some player with 1 heart can immediately kill the last boss in the game and skip everything.

Rungar

dungeons of daggeroth  ( old old skool) had a "heartbeat" healthbar and you died when it was beating to fast. I thought it was cool but i can see how it would be annoying to some lol. 

AlBQuirky

Amaranthar said:

Amathe said:

Amaranthar said:

Amathe said:

I have never played a mmorpg that measured damage and health with hearts. What ones are you thinking of?

I thought it was a rather ingenious way to boil his point down to simplest terms.
My mind went to the math, and all the combination possibilities, but in the end his point of defensive growth vs. time is what it is. 

The reason I ask is that I am used to a system where there is a trade off between damage and defense. Wizards have high damage and low defense. Warriors have lower damage and higher defense. And so on amongst the classes, with various ratios. I have not seen any mmorpgs where there is a universal ratio. But to be honest, and not to throw any shade, I may be missing the point. If so I apologize.

No, that's a good point. It fits in with the combination possibilities when we start think of that. 
That's why I called it "ingenious." It's obvious these days to think about these things. 

Edit to add: 
I think the good iixviiiix, who's always been a bit of a stirrer-upper, was trying to do is make us think of the full range of possibilities. What with all this recent talk of things like "Skill Hunting." 
I could be wrong, but why else would he post such an overly simplistic thing from the distant past? 

That's the direction I read it.

Look at single player games. The difficulty mode alone is just fudging damage/health meters. Are opponents in the hardest mode using better AI or "smarter?" Not in the least. They hit harder and you hit weaker or there are more of them.

The other part I got from iixviiix is the length of battles becoming shorter and shorter. The only MMO I've played lately that has any length of battle to it like EQ did is Wizard101, where each round has a 30 second timer on it.

Scot

Rungar said:

dungeons of daggeroth  ( old old skool) had a "heartbeat" healthbar and you died when it was beating to fast. I thought it was cool but i can see how it would be annoying to some lol.

Can you imagine that as a gameplay mechanic in any genre today? The outrage, the downvoting, gaming reviewers saying to is too old skool (been a while since I have seen that spelling). They would need some serious marketing to sell it.

How about getting sponsored by a heart foundation? At least then the reviews would go on about how gaming needed to talk about this issue, good intentions, a game worth making, an important issue for us all. Even if the game was itself crap.

Theocritus

Sounds like Pantheon is the OPs kind of game......

iixviiiix

Theocritus said:

Sounds like Pantheon is the OPs kind of game......

  pantheon ROTF follow hard route , being a hard game that force player to group up . So it not my kind of game i prefer more casual and friendly enviroment

AIBQuirky hit right point about length of battle .

Palebane

Variety is the spice of life. All content should have a range from solo to raid with varying subsets of difficulty, imo. Well as close as possible anyway. I like a challenge, but sometimes it would be cool to experience the harder content without resorting to youtube. I never liked that some content is exclusive, especially if I am paying for the content. I know that sounds entitled, but not irrational I hope. 

Solo, dungeon, and raid difficulty sliders would be cool though. Would that be good or bad for progression? Depends on the player, probably. Some prefer more control, while others like a more rigid and well defined climb that everyone else will have the same experience with, which I can understand.

Iselin

I honestly don't really see much difference between you or the mob or both being the bullet sponge nor whether the hit numbers are in single digits or the trillions (D3, probably the worst modern case of power creep gone wild, actually goes from single digits to trillions BTW )

It's all about the TTK in most games with the "epicness" of a fight usually being differentiated only by how much longer than normal the fight lasts. 

Some games do spice things up a bit using cover mechanics and numbers of enemies you have to deal with all at once or they add special moves to elite mobs. That's actually a bit better but still canned. What we really need is adaptive AI to make combat more interesting but that's a ways off.