My basic thesis is that the most challenging part of non-endgame group content in an MMORPG should be something other than getting a reasonable group together. That's rare, even in games with automated group finders. Elsword is the only game that I can think of where that was true.
It will take an elevated social system in place that funnels players based on regular play times/time zones. The system would have to create direct, significant incentives for repeatedly completing group content with other players, including additional bonuses for playing with the same players repeatedly. For example: a system that keeps track of the players you played with over the past rolling week, and you get reward multipliers for every other player you played with X amount of times that week, with bonuses per player capping out at X number of group sessions with that player over the past week.
Survival games have encouraged cooperation in a de facto manner by making the grind and certain game elements pretty much impossible without having some fellow players to help, but I think in an MMORPG it should be paired with some hefty boons instead of just gating content behind having the correct amount of friends in-game. There would have to be a good balance that encourages players to expand and maintain a list of other players they regularly coordinate with without making it so gamers count the instances ran with a group of players, then discards them for the next 6 days after hitting a threshold "optimal maximum."
I also personally feel that things like daily/weekly bonuses for running one specific instance of group content is a rather stupid and basic way to incentivize cooperation. A better system would increase rewards for A ) doing different instances and types of content, instead of "farming" one thing over and over, and B ) creating lasting affiliations with other players, such as bonuses per guild member included, bonuses per alliance member included, grouping with players on your friend' list, etc. The goal should always be to encourage players to coordinate with their guild, alliance, and any players they meet along the way that they have fun playing with.
This is why i think a three man group is the ideal group size.
... seriously ?
In any game which has tanks and healers you want an as large group size as possible so if you get your hands on at least one tank and at least one healer you can go with as many other classes you want.
Having only three characters and still tanks and healers in place means the urgency to play tank or healer would be completely maximized.
yes we have to get rid of the tank/dps/healer baggage.
It's not baggage.
it is baggage because everyone wants to play dps. This mean 2/3 of roles will always be underrepresented in play. There is no fix for that. Its broken because players choose for it to be broken.
it doesnt have to be this way though. In my model that uses situational mitigation, that is, mages tank other mages and fighters tank other fighters, the tanking role still exists youve just changed the focus of it to magic and physical instead. Fighters can kill mages, but not defend against them which is how it should be.
this allows all players to be dps, just not all the time because their dps wont always be effective. Since everyone can dps there would be a much better distribution of of roles since, in my model at least, players can choose between mage, fighter and rogue archetypes. No matter what you pick youll never always be an "all the time" tank, dps or crowd controller. You literally cant choose dps so instead youll go with what flavor you like best.
all can dps so all can solo in the right situation. All can tank in the right situation and all have crowd control that's also useful in the right situations.
the only difference is you have to be alot more picky about what you want to pick a fight with becasue you will get fucked up against enemies you have a hard time hurting or defending yourself against.
I believe if you design a really good virtual world, the group-friendly should come organically.
If one just wants boss fights. battle grounds and raids, there is no need for a world.
Why waste the resources on one?
I'm all about the World and Immersion, otherwise the MMORPG is just not for me, and that's ok.
I want to be part of a World, that is what originally sold me on the MMORPG
The way the general public behaves in MMORPG's.... Just hurry up with the AI already
UO was very organic. Mainly because you got to know other Character names, and whether they were good players or jerks, etc. Because you saw them all the time, in Dungeons, at the banks, or sometimes even at Player Run Events.
So you could go to a Dungeon, enter inside where Dungeons were designed for the lower Skills, and as you Skilled up you could go deeper into the Dungeon. You were always running into some of the same people, who were close enough to your Skills because it wasn't a divisive game of Levels.
Repetitive meetings meant you got to know them a little, their Guilds, their banks and favorite Cities, etc.
Also, while UO was well known for the rampant PKing, what lots of people don't know is how much Players would help each other out. Friendships and trust were built that way, and many Players found their Guild that way.
UO sold me on the MMORPG. I loved that game to pieces.
Things started going downhill from there
If one wants to design good group content, you need to make it organically happen.
UO did that.
and UO made me despise MMOs.....If not for a friend that asked me to come play EQ I never would have touched another MMO again after my experience in UO.....I couldn't even leave Brittain without being killed 10 feet outside the gates by teams of gankers...It was no fun at all....I have no idea how people enjoyed that unless they were the ones killing other players.
yes we have to get rid of the tank/dps/healer baggage.
It's not baggage.
Of course it is. It's an archaic, outdated game mechanism that only appeals to players who can't think outside the box. It's a ball and chain to game developers though and I'm glad the games I play don't use the very uninspiring "Trinity".
I believe if you design a really good virtual world, the group-friendly should come organically.
If one just wants boss fights. battle grounds and raids, there is no need for a world.
Why waste the resources on one?
I'm all about the World and Immersion, otherwise the MMORPG is just not for me, and that's ok.
I want to be part of a World, that is what originally sold me on the MMORPG
The way the general public behaves in MMORPG's.... Just hurry up with the AI already
UO was very organic. Mainly because you got to know other Character names, and whether they were good players or jerks, etc. Because you saw them all the time, in Dungeons, at the banks, or sometimes even at Player Run Events.
So you could go to a Dungeon, enter inside where Dungeons were designed for the lower Skills, and as you Skilled up you could go deeper into the Dungeon. You were always running into some of the same people, who were close enough to your Skills because it wasn't a divisive game of Levels.
Repetitive meetings meant you got to know them a little, their Guilds, their banks and favorite Cities, etc.
Also, while UO was well known for the rampant PKing, what lots of people don't know is how much Players would help each other out. Friendships and trust were built that way, and many Players found their Guild that way.
UO sold me on the MMORPG. I loved that game to pieces.
Things started going downhill from there
If one wants to design good group content, you need to make it organically happen.
UO did that.
and UO made me despise MMOs.....If not for a friend that asked me to come play EQ I never would have touched another MMO again after my experience in UO.....I couldn't even leave Brittain without being killed 10 feet outside the gates by teams of gankers...It was no fun at all....I have no idea how people enjoyed that unless they were the ones killing other players.
The Pk's were a big problem. It took community to deal with them, just like in the real world
I believe if you design a really good virtual world, the group-friendly should come organically.
If one just wants boss fights. battle grounds and raids, there is no need for a world.
Why waste the resources on one?
I'm all about the World and Immersion, otherwise the MMORPG is just not for me, and that's ok.
I want to be part of a World, that is what originally sold me on the MMORPG
The way the general public behaves in MMORPG's.... Just hurry up with the AI already
UO was very organic. Mainly because you got to know other Character names, and whether they were good players or jerks, etc. Because you saw them all the time, in Dungeons, at the banks, or sometimes even at Player Run Events.
So you could go to a Dungeon, enter inside where Dungeons were designed for the lower Skills, and as you Skilled up you could go deeper into the Dungeon. You were always running into some of the same people, who were close enough to your Skills because it wasn't a divisive game of Levels.
Repetitive meetings meant you got to know them a little, their Guilds, their banks and favorite Cities, etc.
Also, while UO was well known for the rampant PKing, what lots of people don't know is how much Players would help each other out. Friendships and trust were built that way, and many Players found their Guild that way.
UO sold me on the MMORPG. I loved that game to pieces.
Things started going downhill from there
If one wants to design good group content, you need to make it organically happen.
UO did that.
and UO made me despise MMOs.....If not for a friend that asked me to come play EQ I never would have touched another MMO again after my experience in UO.....I couldn't even leave Brittain without being killed 10 feet outside the gates by teams of gankers...It was no fun at all....I have no idea how people enjoyed that unless they were the ones killing other players.
The Pk's were a big problem. It took community to deal with them, just like in the real world
Thus it was never dealt with. Instead they made a duplicate copy of the world where you couldnt do that, and that was that. Having never played it, that is my understanding.
I believe if you design a really good virtual world, the group-friendly should come organically.
If one just wants boss fights. battle grounds and raids, there is no need for a world.
Why waste the resources on one?
I'm all about the World and Immersion, otherwise the MMORPG is just not for me, and that's ok.
I want to be part of a World, that is what originally sold me on the MMORPG
The way the general public behaves in MMORPG's.... Just hurry up with the AI already
UO was very organic. Mainly because you got to know other Character names, and whether they were good players or jerks, etc. Because you saw them all the time, in Dungeons, at the banks, or sometimes even at Player Run Events.
So you could go to a Dungeon, enter inside where Dungeons were designed for the lower Skills, and as you Skilled up you could go deeper into the Dungeon. You were always running into some of the same people, who were close enough to your Skills because it wasn't a divisive game of Levels.
Repetitive meetings meant you got to know them a little, their Guilds, their banks and favorite Cities, etc.
Also, while UO was well known for the rampant PKing, what lots of people don't know is how much Players would help each other out. Friendships and trust were built that way, and many Players found their Guild that way.
UO sold me on the MMORPG. I loved that game to pieces.
Things started going downhill from there
If one wants to design good group content, you need to make it organically happen.
UO did that.
and UO made me despise MMOs.....If not for a friend that asked me to come play EQ I never would have touched another MMO again after my experience in UO.....I couldn't even leave Brittain without being killed 10 feet outside the gates by teams of gankers...It was no fun at all....I have no idea how people enjoyed that unless they were the ones killing other players.
The Pk's were a big problem. It took community to deal with them, just like in the real world
It took Trammel to deal with them. UO was bleeding subs from PK activity. The devs were tearing their hair out weekly trying to deal with the latest anti-social cleverness.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
I believe if you design a really good virtual world, the group-friendly should come organically.
If one just wants boss fights. battle grounds and raids, there is no need for a world.
Why waste the resources on one?
I'm all about the World and Immersion, otherwise the MMORPG is just not for me, and that's ok.
I want to be part of a World, that is what originally sold me on the MMORPG
The way the general public behaves in MMORPG's.... Just hurry up with the AI already
UO was very organic. Mainly because you got to know other Character names, and whether they were good players or jerks, etc. Because you saw them all the time, in Dungeons, at the banks, or sometimes even at Player Run Events.
So you could go to a Dungeon, enter inside where Dungeons were designed for the lower Skills, and as you Skilled up you could go deeper into the Dungeon. You were always running into some of the same people, who were close enough to your Skills because it wasn't a divisive game of Levels.
Repetitive meetings meant you got to know them a little, their Guilds, their banks and favorite Cities, etc.
Also, while UO was well known for the rampant PKing, what lots of people don't know is how much Players would help each other out. Friendships and trust were built that way, and many Players found their Guild that way.
UO sold me on the MMORPG. I loved that game to pieces.
Things started going downhill from there
If one wants to design good group content, you need to make it organically happen.
UO did that.
and UO made me despise MMOs.....If not for a friend that asked me to come play EQ I never would have touched another MMO again after my experience in UO.....I couldn't even leave Brittain without being killed 10 feet outside the gates by teams of gankers...It was no fun at all....I have no idea how people enjoyed that unless they were the ones killing other players.
I know what you mean. There was a brief time on my server where we had that too. But it didn't last long. I saw "Anti-PKers" going after them so I always assumed that they forced the PKers away from that, just as laserit said.
I eventually joined an "Anti-PKer" Guild, and had a blast getting revenge for all the times I got PKed. It was quite a Guild, I have to say. Our "War Leader", 2nd in command of the Guild, was one hell of a PvPer. There was a famous PKer/PvPer who was hired by a game company to help design their PvP system. And on his website he stated that our War Leader was the best PvPer he ever ran across. But it was another Guild member that I remember most. Whenever we went somewhere, this guy always stuck close to our War Leader, and one utterance from the War Leader caused this guy to charge into action like a Lion! I mean, he was fast, INSTANT DEVASTATION! And by "utterance", I mean a simple "attack" or even "go", and it was instant. Of course, the rest of us went into action too, but this guy was something else. He must have had the perfect build for a warrior, and he always knew exactly who to target (knew the PKers by name). Fast as a cheetah and strong as a lion.
I believe if you design a really good virtual world, the group-friendly should come organically.
If one just wants boss fights. battle grounds and raids, there is no need for a world.
Why waste the resources on one?
I'm all about the World and Immersion, otherwise the MMORPG is just not for me, and that's ok.
I want to be part of a World, that is what originally sold me on the MMORPG
The way the general public behaves in MMORPG's.... Just hurry up with the AI already
UO was very organic. Mainly because you got to know other Character names, and whether they were good players or jerks, etc. Because you saw them all the time, in Dungeons, at the banks, or sometimes even at Player Run Events.
So you could go to a Dungeon, enter inside where Dungeons were designed for the lower Skills, and as you Skilled up you could go deeper into the Dungeon. You were always running into some of the same people, who were close enough to your Skills because it wasn't a divisive game of Levels.
Repetitive meetings meant you got to know them a little, their Guilds, their banks and favorite Cities, etc.
Also, while UO was well known for the rampant PKing, what lots of people don't know is how much Players would help each other out. Friendships and trust were built that way, and many Players found their Guild that way.
UO sold me on the MMORPG. I loved that game to pieces.
Things started going downhill from there
If one wants to design good group content, you need to make it organically happen.
UO did that.
and UO made me despise MMOs.....If not for a friend that asked me to come play EQ I never would have touched another MMO again after my experience in UO.....I couldn't even leave Brittain without being killed 10 feet outside the gates by teams of gankers...It was no fun at all....I have no idea how people enjoyed that unless they were the ones killing other players.
The Pk's were a big problem. It took community to deal with them, just like in the real world
It took Trammel to deal with them. UO was bleeding subs from PK activity. The devs were tearing their hair out weekly trying to deal with the latest anti-social cleverness.
That's true. The Devs kept adding "Justice" code to deal with it, but they always wanted to do the least, trying to find the sweet spot. They almost had it, too. The "Blue Healers" was the last hurdle that they didn't implement in time before EA made them add Trammel.
What they did add helped slow PKing down quite a bit, just not enough.
25 years later Ultima Online still has the best MMORPG Virtual World
SHUT UP SCOR... er ... actually you make a fine point.
Here's the thing, you want to make an MMO group friendly, first you need to stop making players compete against each other, thereby making a less proficient player the group's enemy. So much of dungeon and raiding mechanics have come to rely on pure gear score, and not skill, that it makes the more hardcore players come to absolutely hate the more casual players. And more importantly, hate and reject the biggest majority of the player base. Stop basing your game mechanics around how big an e-peen your players have and instead create tasks and goals all types and levels of players can contribute to, and then just maybe you'll have a game worth playing by all.
And relative to the OP, UO dungeons are really done well , open world, difficulty amps up deeper you go , Mob stats and spawn points vary , one Dragon for ex. can be much easier or difficult than the next depending on the stats it spawned, .. yes Death has meaning making dungeon delving much more interesting , immersive, blindly rushing to 3rd level of Destard and dying carelessly can you lead to some corpses deteriorating..
Also mobs looting your corpse is just fucking brilliant and every game should do it , especially when they do it in an intelligent way ( a lichen will take reagents for ex) a Ogre may take a weapon or armor ..
If you are in Trammel , folks coming I to help in tuff situations is a regular occurrence which leads to some great friendships and comraderie...
Randomized loot I just love , the fact that you can get an item that there is truly only 1 of in the entire game is just amazing ..
And yes UO is very much a skill driven game , you will certainly know when you see a skilled player in action
"Also mobs looting your corpse is just fucking brilliant and every game should do it , especially when they do it in an intelligent way ( a lichen will take reagents for ex) a Ogre may take a weapon or armor ."
Your whole post is good, but I agree that MOB looting was brilliant. Players helped each other to recover their gear a lot, and many found a good Guild to join because of it. Raph Koster has blogged about "building trust" in MMORPGs, and this was a classic example.
My basic thesis is that the most challenging part of non-endgame group content in an MMORPG should be something other than getting a reasonable group together. That's rare, even in games with automated group finders. Elsword is the only game that I can think of where that was true.
It will take an elevated social system in place that funnels players based on regular play times/time zones. The system would have to create direct, significant incentives for repeatedly completing group content with other players, including additional bonuses for playing with the same players repeatedly. For example: a system that keeps track of the players you played with over the past rolling week, and you get reward multipliers for every other player you played with X amount of times that week, with bonuses per player capping out at X number of group sessions with that player over the past week.
Survival games have encouraged cooperation in a de facto manner by making the grind and certain game elements pretty much impossible without having some fellow players to help, but I think in an MMORPG it should be paired with some hefty boons instead of just gating content behind having the correct amount of friends in-game. There would have to be a good balance that encourages players to expand and maintain a list of other players they regularly coordinate with without making it so gamers count the instances ran with a group of players, then discards them for the next 6 days after hitting a threshold "optimal maximum."
I also personally feel that things like daily/weekly bonuses for running one specific instance of group content is a rather stupid and basic way to incentivize cooperation. A better system would increase rewards for A ) doing different instances and types of content, instead of "farming" one thing over and over, and B ) creating lasting affiliations with other players, such as bonuses per guild member included, bonuses per alliance member included, grouping with players on your friend' list, etc. The goal should always be to encourage players to coordinate with their guild, alliance, and any players they meet along the way that they have fun playing with.
At that point, you're asking people to schedule their lives around a computer game for the sake of repeatedly grouping with the same other, random people. That's an enormous problem. It's a cancel my account because I'm quitting to play some other game that lets me play when I want to level of problem.
The reason some games offer bonuses for running some particular piece of group content is to get all of the group content touched at least occasionally. Without that, people figure out which group content gives the best rewards and the rest will never have anyone. If a game has a hundred group dungeons, but it's only possible to get a group for five of them, then does it really have a hundred dungeons, or does it only have five?
I'm just going to make a short comment... FORCING people to do something they don't want to only makes you lose players.
There's always going to be players with competing requirements and mutually exclusive designs though. You could see it as "choosing your audience". Some studios have the bandwidth to provide both playstyle options, others don't, or just select designs which are incompatible with one of them.
The design of @Quizzical sounds very linear though, with little exploration or surprises... a bit like SW:TOR actually.
There's probably a public for such games though, I'm enjoying that kind of games in solo (Tomb Raider) or ARPG (Diablo III), but in a MMORPG I rather have a wide open world than to be on rails. That's what made me stop playing WoW.
Yes and no. Yes, it is extremely linear. The problem is that if the leveling portion of a game consists entirely of 50 group dungeons and you leave it completely open-ended as to which ones people play, then some 10 or so get picked as getting the best loot and everyone will loop those ones endlessly. It's also faster to do a dungeon when everyone knows exactly what to do. And then people won't be able to get a group for the other dungeons. All that work to create 50 dungeons will thus result in a game that effectively only has ten.
As for surprises, which do you think will surprise people more often? A game where the leveling process consists of doing 10 dungeons five times each, or one where you do 50 dungeons exactly once each? If you give players the choice of doing whichever dungeons they want without strong incentives for variety, you'll get the former situation. The latter is what I'm pushing for, as a game where most players are working on a dungeon that they've never before cleared has the potential for a lot more surprises. A game where everyone does a handful of dungeons many times each leads to everyone knowing the dungeon very well going in, and that leads to zerg rushing it and being upset if someone dares to join a group without already knowing exactly what to do.
I believe if you design a really good virtual world, the group-friendly should come organically.
If one just wants boss fights. battle grounds and raids, there is no need for a world.
Why waste the resources on one?
I'm all about the World and Immersion, otherwise the MMORPG is just not for me, and that's ok.
I want to be part of a World, that is what originally sold me on the MMORPG
The way the general public behaves in MMORPG's.... Just hurry up with the AI already
UO was very organic. Mainly because you got to know other Character names, and whether they were good players or jerks, etc. Because you saw them all the time, in Dungeons, at the banks, or sometimes even at Player Run Events.
So you could go to a Dungeon, enter inside where Dungeons were designed for the lower Skills, and as you Skilled up you could go deeper into the Dungeon. You were always running into some of the same people, who were close enough to your Skills because it wasn't a divisive game of Levels.
Repetitive meetings meant you got to know them a little, their Guilds, their banks and favorite Cities, etc.
Also, while UO was well known for the rampant PKing, what lots of people don't know is how much Players would help each other out. Friendships and trust were built that way, and many Players found their Guild that way.
UO sold me on the MMORPG. I loved that game to pieces.
Things started going downhill from there
If one wants to design good group content, you need to make it organically happen.
UO did that.
and UO made me despise MMOs.....If not for a friend that asked me to come play EQ I never would have touched another MMO again after my experience in UO.....I couldn't even leave Brittain without being killed 10 feet outside the gates by teams of gankers...It was no fun at all....I have no idea how people enjoyed that unless they were the ones killing other players.
The Pk's were a big problem. It took community to deal with them, just like in the real world
It took Trammel to deal with them. UO was bleeding subs from PK activity. The devs were tearing their hair out weekly trying to deal with the latest anti-social cleverness.
I believe if you design a really good virtual world, the group-friendly should come organically.
If one just wants boss fights. battle grounds and raids, there is no need for a world.
Why waste the resources on one?
I'm all about the World and Immersion, otherwise the MMORPG is just not for me, and that's ok.
I want to be part of a World, that is what originally sold me on the MMORPG
The way the general public behaves in MMORPG's.... Just hurry up with the AI already
UO was very organic. Mainly because you got to know other Character names, and whether they were good players or jerks, etc. Because you saw them all the time, in Dungeons, at the banks, or sometimes even at Player Run Events.
So you could go to a Dungeon, enter inside where Dungeons were designed for the lower Skills, and as you Skilled up you could go deeper into the Dungeon. You were always running into some of the same people, who were close enough to your Skills because it wasn't a divisive game of Levels.
Repetitive meetings meant you got to know them a little, their Guilds, their banks and favorite Cities, etc.
Also, while UO was well known for the rampant PKing, what lots of people don't know is how much Players would help each other out. Friendships and trust were built that way, and many Players found their Guild that way.
UO sold me on the MMORPG. I loved that game to pieces.
Things started going downhill from there
If one wants to design good group content, you need to make it organically happen.
UO did that.
and UO made me despise MMOs.....If not for a friend that asked me to come play EQ I never would have touched another MMO again after my experience in UO.....I couldn't even leave Brittain without being killed 10 feet outside the gates by teams of gankers...It was no fun at all....I have no idea how people enjoyed that unless they were the ones killing other players.
The Pk's were a big problem. It took community to deal with them, just like in the real world
It took Trammel to deal with them. UO was bleeding subs from PK activity. The devs were tearing their hair out weekly trying to deal with the latest anti-social cleverness.
I absolutely 110% agree
The Community completely failed.
Was the failure really on the part of the community? Or was it on the part of developers who gave the community the incentives to do what it did?
maybe the rewards need to be more than loot. Ive always envisioned that achievements would be like an alternate advancement system and dungeons would be full of specific achievements for players to get.
Thus they can be all useful. You just need the right reward systems. Get rid of levelling and replace it with skill capture instead ( and every dungeon has some skills to learn) and there will be more reasons to visit dungeons than just to get x loot.
I believe if you design a really good virtual world, the group-friendly should come organically.
If one just wants boss fights. battle grounds and raids, there is no need for a world.
Why waste the resources on one?
I'm all about the World and Immersion, otherwise the MMORPG is just not for me, and that's ok.
I want to be part of a World, that is what originally sold me on the MMORPG
The way the general public behaves in MMORPG's.... Just hurry up with the AI already
UO was very organic. Mainly because you got to know other Character names, and whether they were good players or jerks, etc. Because you saw them all the time, in Dungeons, at the banks, or sometimes even at Player Run Events.
So you could go to a Dungeon, enter inside where Dungeons were designed for the lower Skills, and as you Skilled up you could go deeper into the Dungeon. You were always running into some of the same people, who were close enough to your Skills because it wasn't a divisive game of Levels.
Repetitive meetings meant you got to know them a little, their Guilds, their banks and favorite Cities, etc.
Also, while UO was well known for the rampant PKing, what lots of people don't know is how much Players would help each other out. Friendships and trust were built that way, and many Players found their Guild that way.
UO sold me on the MMORPG. I loved that game to pieces.
Things started going downhill from there
If one wants to design good group content, you need to make it organically happen.
UO did that.
and UO made me despise MMOs.....If not for a friend that asked me to come play EQ I never would have touched another MMO again after my experience in UO.....I couldn't even leave Brittain without being killed 10 feet outside the gates by teams of gankers...It was no fun at all....I have no idea how people enjoyed that unless they were the ones killing other players.
The Pk's were a big problem. It took community to deal with them, just like in the real world
It took Trammel to deal with them. UO was bleeding subs from PK activity. The devs were tearing their hair out weekly trying to deal with the latest anti-social cleverness.
I absolutely 110% agree
The Community completely failed.
Was the failure really on the part of the community? Or was it on the part of developers who gave the community the incentives to do what it did?
Playing fair and by the rules is the responsibility of the player imho.
If one can't handle losing, maybe they shouldn't play games.
I believe Garriott and friends tried the better side of human nature first. A kick ass virtual world might tell us what will happen with our own.
maybe the rewards need to be more than loot. Ive always envisioned that achievements would be like an alternate advancement system and dungeons would be full of specific achievements for players to get.
Thus they can be all useful. You just need the right reward systems. Get rid of levelling and replace it with skill capture instead ( and every dungeon has some skills to learn) and there will be more reasons to visit dungeons than just to get x loot.
You'd need to randomize that "skill capture", i.e. "learning", or else Players will concentrate on those Dungeons that have what they want. While all Dungeons would get use, each Player would still be limiting their activities. That's not good, I don't think.
But I've always liked the idea of adventuring for new "knowledge."
maybe the rewards need to be more than loot. Ive always envisioned that achievements would be like an alternate advancement system and dungeons would be full of specific achievements for players to get.
Thus they can be all useful. You just need the right reward systems. Get rid of levelling and replace it with skill capture instead ( and every dungeon has some skills to learn) and there will be more reasons to visit dungeons than just to get x loot.
While that can give people reasons to visit every dungeon, it's also likely to lead to people waiting until they've leveled way past a dungeon to go back and do a lot of them. A group finder that has to deal with 1/3 of the players being strong enough to solo a dungeon and another 1/3 of the players being too weak to do much besides stay out of the way or die isn't going to generate very many interesting groups.
Part of my proposal was that I wanted for it not just to be possible to get some group for every dungeon, but to get an appropriate group that was strong enough to have a real shot at clearing it, but not so strong that it would be trivial. Such appropriate groups in non-endgame dungeons are extremely rare in most MMORPGs. There are really only two ways to do it that have ever worked: on-rails design that forces people into level-appropriate content, or having little to no further progression once you start dungeons. An MMORPG with no progression is also a legitimate game design, but would be a different proposal that meets with different objections.
levels is problematic so its better to get rid of them. ESO gets by just fine without levels. Sure they have them but they are of no consequence really. Everybody is the same level for the most part and it works fine. Skills and gear matter alot more.
they also had a great system to ensure dungeons would be more popular. Every day there was a bunch of quest givers called undaunted and you would get keys for doing these daily quests.
Not saying their dungeons were the greatest ( they arent bad for standard linear stuff) but the any level combined with the undaunted made it very easy to do any dungeon as long as it was thats dungeons day and each day was three dungeons.
gotta give credit where its due and they did a good job there.
levels is problematic so its better to get rid of them. ESO gets by just fine without levels. Sure they have them but they are of no consequence really. Everybody is the same level for the most part and it works fine. Skills and gear matter alot more.
they also had a great system to ensure dungeons would be more popular. Every day there was a bunch of quest givers called undaunted and you would get keys for doing these daily quests.
Not saying their dungeons were the greatest ( they arent bad for standard linear stuff) but the any level combined with the undaunted made it very easy to do any dungeon as long as it was thats dungeons day and each day was three dungeons.
gotta give credit where its due and they did a good job there.
The problem with level scaling is that if someone isn't good enough to clear a dungeon, then they get completely stuck. If you keep leveling with every failure, then you don't get stuck. When someone gets stuck, he probably quits pretty quickly. Developers thus have strong incentives to make sure that no one ever gets stuck, no matter how bad at the game he is. And the way to do that is by making the game really easy, so that it will be dreadfully boring for all but the most unskilled of players.
There can be other ways to allow difficulty to scale without having long-term progression. But if you're not going to have real long-term progression, then you'd better do something to handle difficulty to prevent bad players from getting stuck without making it trivial for good players.
IMHO another failure of MMOs is that the main actions are usually limited (fight/gather/craft shit/ make money) creating a lack of variety in goals.
Objectives are:
- kill
- craft
- becoming rich
I am oversimplifying but you see the idea.
When you combine this with the fact that player characters are immortal you get as a result an endless meaningless loop.
Players and devs forgot that a journey is getting from A to B and not from A to A'.
What players need in order to play together (and also against each other) is common (and conflicting) goals. Goals that would go beyond kill-craft-make_money.
What about ...
- build something together (a monument, a fortress, a kingdom, a magic guild, a criminal organization)
- summon a otherworldly entity to destroy the world
- delivering justice
- making an incredible discovery
- getting rid of the orcs!
- get the head of the king
- nations wars
- end all wars
- whatever...
That would incite players to play naturally together.
Let's go beyond this. Now a faction completed its goal first. Let's say Justice is complete and all bad actors have been properly dealt with! Impressive.
We would then declare the justice-bringers the winners of this chapter of history. Everybody would shelve their character, and following a dynasty system, you would create a new character which would take advantage of some interesting perks won by its shelved ancestor.
Then rinse and repeat. It would be even better if the next chapter would include cleverly what happened in the last one, for a true follow up. Let's say the cultists managed to summon their entity, then in the new chapter that entity is here.
You could even give primary goals and secondary goals to players.
For example your secondary goal is to build a kingdom, and in a general manner you would help others to do it. But secretly your primary goal is to summon an Archidemon, and if given the opportunity you would support this first.
It can lead to pretty interesting temporary alliances like
- Player A wants to build a kingdom and a criminal organization
- Player B wants anarchy and a criminal organization
So these players could work together for building the criminal organization one day, and kill each other over politics the next day.
That was PvE, I didn't see very much PvP involved other than a few who tried it. But there were so many Players there that the PvPers couldn't do much and pretty much stopped.
There's two ways to go with an idea like that, PvE and PvP, depending on the game. And they both can work very well for their game style.
That was PvE, I didn't see very much PvP involved other than a few who tried it. But there were so many Players there that the PvPers couldn't do much and pretty much stopped.
There's two ways to go with an idea like that, PvE and PvP, depending on the game. And they both can work very well for their game style.
Imagine a justice system where your character could be executed into oblivion
Comments
Survival games have encouraged cooperation in a de facto manner by making the grind and certain game elements pretty much impossible without having some fellow players to help, but I think in an MMORPG it should be paired with some hefty boons instead of just gating content behind having the correct amount of friends in-game. There would have to be a good balance that encourages players to expand and maintain a list of other players they regularly coordinate with without making it so gamers count the instances ran with a group of players, then discards them for the next 6 days after hitting a threshold "optimal maximum."
I also personally feel that things like daily/weekly bonuses for running one specific instance of group content is a rather stupid and basic way to incentivize cooperation. A better system would increase rewards for A ) doing different instances and types of content, instead of "farming" one thing over and over, and B ) creating lasting affiliations with other players, such as bonuses per guild member included, bonuses per alliance member included, grouping with players on your friend' list, etc. The goal should always be to encourage players to coordinate with their guild, alliance, and any players they meet along the way that they have fun playing with.
it doesnt have to be this way though. In my model that uses situational mitigation, that is, mages tank other mages and fighters tank other fighters, the tanking role still exists youve just changed the focus of it to magic and physical instead. Fighters can kill mages, but not defend against them which is how it should be.
this allows all players to be dps, just not all the time because their dps wont always be effective. Since everyone can dps there would be a much better distribution of of roles since, in my model at least, players can choose between mage, fighter and rogue archetypes. No matter what you pick youll never always be an "all the time" tank, dps or crowd controller. You literally cant choose dps so instead youll go with what flavor you like best.
all can dps so all can solo in the right situation. All can tank in the right situation and all have crowd control that's also useful in the right situations.
the only difference is you have to be alot more picky about what you want to pick a fight with becasue you will get fucked up against enemies you have a hard time hurting or defending yourself against.
and UO made me despise MMOs.....If not for a friend that asked me to come play EQ I never would have touched another MMO again after my experience in UO.....I couldn't even leave Brittain without being killed 10 feet outside the gates by teams of gankers...It was no fun at all....I have no idea how people enjoyed that unless they were the ones killing other players.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
I eventually joined an "Anti-PKer" Guild, and had a blast getting revenge for all the times I got PKed.
It was quite a Guild, I have to say.
Our "War Leader", 2nd in command of the Guild, was one hell of a PvPer.
There was a famous PKer/PvPer who was hired by a game company to help design their PvP system. And on his website he stated that our War Leader was the best PvPer he ever ran across.
But it was another Guild member that I remember most. Whenever we went somewhere, this guy always stuck close to our War Leader, and one utterance from the War Leader caused this guy to charge into action like a Lion! I mean, he was fast, INSTANT DEVASTATION!
And by "utterance", I mean a simple "attack" or even "go", and it was instant.
Of course, the rest of us went into action too, but this guy was something else. He must have had the perfect build for a warrior, and he always knew exactly who to target (knew the PKers by name). Fast as a cheetah and strong as a lion.
Once upon a time....
The Devs kept adding "Justice" code to deal with it, but they always wanted to do the least, trying to find the sweet spot. They almost had it, too.
The "Blue Healers" was the last hurdle that they didn't implement in time before EA made them add Trammel.
What they did add helped slow PKing down quite a bit, just not enough.
Once upon a time....
Your whole post is good, but I agree that MOB looting was brilliant.
Players helped each other to recover their gear a lot, and many found a good Guild to join because of it.
Raph Koster has blogged about "building trust" in MMORPGs, and this was a classic example.
Once upon a time....
The reason some games offer bonuses for running some particular piece of group content is to get all of the group content touched at least occasionally. Without that, people figure out which group content gives the best rewards and the rest will never have anyone. If a game has a hundred group dungeons, but it's only possible to get a group for five of them, then does it really have a hundred dungeons, or does it only have five?
As for surprises, which do you think will surprise people more often? A game where the leveling process consists of doing 10 dungeons five times each, or one where you do 50 dungeons exactly once each? If you give players the choice of doing whichever dungeons they want without strong incentives for variety, you'll get the former situation. The latter is what I'm pushing for, as a game where most players are working on a dungeon that they've never before cleared has the potential for a lot more surprises. A game where everyone does a handful of dungeons many times each leads to everyone knowing the dungeon very well going in, and that leads to zerg rushing it and being upset if someone dares to join a group without already knowing exactly what to do.
The Community completely failed.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Thus they can be all useful. You just need the right reward systems. Get rid of levelling and replace it with skill capture instead ( and every dungeon has some skills to learn) and there will be more reasons to visit dungeons than just to get x loot.
If one can't handle losing, maybe they shouldn't play games.
I believe Garriott and friends tried the better side of human nature first. A kick ass virtual world might tell us what will happen with our own.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
While all Dungeons would get use, each Player would still be limiting their activities. That's not good, I don't think.
But I've always liked the idea of adventuring for new "knowledge."
Once upon a time....
Part of my proposal was that I wanted for it not just to be possible to get some group for every dungeon, but to get an appropriate group that was strong enough to have a real shot at clearing it, but not so strong that it would be trivial. Such appropriate groups in non-endgame dungeons are extremely rare in most MMORPGs. There are really only two ways to do it that have ever worked: on-rails design that forces people into level-appropriate content, or having little to no further progression once you start dungeons. An MMORPG with no progression is also a legitimate game design, but would be a different proposal that meets with different objections.
they also had a great system to ensure dungeons would be more popular. Every day there was a bunch of quest givers called undaunted and you would get keys for doing these daily quests.
Not saying their dungeons were the greatest ( they arent bad for standard linear stuff) but the any level combined with the undaunted made it very easy to do any dungeon as long as it was thats dungeons day and each day was three dungeons.
gotta give credit where its due and they did a good job there.
There can be other ways to allow difficulty to scale without having long-term progression. But if you're not going to have real long-term progression, then you'd better do something to handle difficulty to prevent bad players from getting stuck without making it trivial for good players.
All kinds of ideas. We were kids and had to play with wooden sticks and think shit up.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
UO has the two "Invasions of Trinsic", and most Players loved it.
They were both tied to the game's Lore, and to the Black Necklace.
https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/487824/the-greatest-quest-artifact-to-ever-exist-in-mmorpgs#latest
They both lasted for days. One, I think, lasted for more than a week. Maybe two weeks.
That was PvE, I didn't see very much PvP involved other than a few who tried it. But there were so many Players there that the PvPers couldn't do much and pretty much stopped.
There's two ways to go with an idea like that, PvE and PvP, depending on the game.
And they both can work very well for their game style.
Once upon a time....
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee