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
Excuse me while my imagination runs wild. But not for the typical stuff we've seen in games. Something very special that all players would love.
I think about things like why doesn’t a city get invaded and taken over by the forces of evil and the community has to retake it.
All kinds of ideas. We were kids and had to play with wooden sticks and think shit up.
Games do that all the time. The way it's usually structured is that an NPC will tell you, this city has been invaded and overtaken by the forces of evil. In order to help us retake the city, we need you to kill ten rats.
I've seen 3 to 5 awesome MMORPG ideas bandied about here! I'd dip my toes into most them at least to try them all out and see what catches my interest most.
Anyone know where to send these ideas?
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
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.
Was a similar experience on Atlantic where I started and still am on 25 years later , but let me dial back the time machine..
When I saw an advert in PCGamer mag (a magazine I later invested in) for UO I was smitten , right away with its world and systems, I right away got in beta , Had trouble getting PC and dialup working well so missed alot of beta .
At launch I started in E Brit , wa having a great time , but began to get ganked.. So I took some time to read the entire manual from to back .. And the 2 tools that jumped out at me to fight getting ganked early on were Stealth and Magery (Recall)..
So ok easy I'll learn that ... but problem needed about 365 gold to get magery trained up and recalls ..
So I just started cooking meat and selling it to the inn .. made enough to train Magery .. but dam it no Recalls ..
Side note got my camping skill to 68 doing that .. which was useless otherwise .. but ya know I enjoyed the struggle , surviving the challenges to earn enough coin to train myself .. Turned camping down at later date..
So for recalls I rolled an Alt with magery and inscription . I still have that same Mage in my Main house 25 years later making recalls and stuff ..I used to put the recall scrolls in a chest in the Inn (because insta log out) and my Archer in same room to log in and grab them ..
The Stealth took a big longer but before long I had high enough where it was reliable .. After that the ganking was basically gone for me .
Soon after that, I was E Brit bank one nite and there was a lot of heated discussion on the PKS , a guy named McMillian wanted to form up a group to fight back , 6 of us jumped in ..
Waldo, Arno , Stra , Mxilplix(McMillan bro)Saffire and some guy named Scorch..
That nite began our fight back against the PKS , we made quite a name for ourselves the PKs would avoid us leaving areas when we showed up at times , really recall patrolling the Oasis and Papau Desert keeping the PKS away , we would also patrol 1 or 2 dungeons a week all nite ..
Was so much freaking fun. .. and what the game was designed to do ..
The biggest problem over years when I have spoken to people that were getting ga7nked alot, they did not take the time to learn what tools were/are available to give themselves an edge and would not try to group up ..
Many choosing to Quit , which is a real shame they missed out on so much fun by not learning the game systems or socializing to find players of similar interest and goals..
Well , after I got my build set which took me a good year I got my leather working high enough to sell leather bras to the NPCs they were the best money for hides used and weight carried . Sew a bunch of bras , recall to town sell , I sold thousands of them .. Enough to buy and place my first 8x8, it was a glorious day which led to many more adventures..
I think 8 people in a group like City of Heroes allows for a decent spread of skills and the thing I enjoyed about City of X were all the different combinations of power pools that made those groups so much fun but I think that worked because of the type of game City of X was.
That won't work for more restrictive class combinations and holy trinity games. I enjoy large groups and have always had a gas in City of X. So unexpected how you can handle the content depending on which combinations are available. Brilliant game.
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
Excuse me while my imagination runs wild. But not for the typical stuff we've seen in games. Something very special that all players would love.
Let me count the ways
A jury of ones peers with victims and witnesses
edit: just think, the game could supply the evidence for real
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.
UO still has great events and invasions going on regularly .. Awesome stuff, and what every MMORPG Virtual World should be doing ..
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.
UO still has great events and invasions going on regularly .. Awesome stuff, and what every MMORPG Virtual World should be doing ..
I remember back in the early days we were all hanging out in a cave somewhere, 20 of us, hunting for mobs to kill. Things were really bad at the time. All of a sudden a GM took control and started popping and controlling mobs.
I had the time of my life and for the death of me, I can't figure out why they didn't expand on the concept.
I think about things like why doesn’t a city get invaded and taken over by the forces of evil and the community has to retake it.
All kinds of ideas. We were kids and had to play with wooden sticks and think shit up.
Games do that all the time. The way it's usually structured is that an NPC will tell you, this city has been invaded and overtaken by the forces of evil. In order to help us retake the city, we need you to kill ten rats.
My guess is laserit is also talking about change in the game state of that city to up the stakes. You talk about the actual game loop to take it back.
Changing the state of the city could inconvenience the typical average gamer that just wants to jump in and do something in it, sadly, and might not always go down well. Ashes of Creation goes for something like that, lets see how this plays out.
Make an MMORPG a little more believable and immersive, less predictable, less a game loop.
edit: That requires some sort of AI or human intervention.
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?
Not necessarily. Between friends list, guild, and alliance (which should be a necessity for any MMORPG including guilds), the player would have quite the pool to pull from assuming they aren't avoiding player-made organizations.
Even if they do, giving bonuses seems a much easier pill to swallow than "Oh no. You can't even try this content unless you have the appropriate group together." Being gated seems worse than losing out on some bonus progression.
With regards to the daily/weekly, that's a problem with how rewards are given in general. Farming one 45 minute piece of content over and over because it drops "your" upgrade is an archaic and inefficient system. The daily and weeklies are literally a bandaid over that system to avoid rendering content useless and unused. Better to look towards fixing the underlying issue, instead. These bandaid have only allowed the genre to limp along behind pretty much every other genre.
I think about things like why doesn’t a city get invaded and taken over by the forces of evil and the community has to retake it.
All kinds of ideas. We were kids and had to play with wooden sticks and think shit up.
Games do that all the time. The way it's usually structured is that an NPC will tell you, this city has been invaded and overtaken by the forces of evil. In order to help us retake the city, we need you to kill ten rats.
Respect, walk, what did you say? Respect, walk Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? - PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
I think about things like why doesn’t a city get invaded and taken over by the forces of evil and the community has to retake it.
All kinds of ideas. We were kids and had to play with wooden sticks and think shit up.
Games do that all the time. The way it's usually structured is that an NPC will tell you, this city has been invaded and overtaken by the forces of evil. In order to help us retake the city, we need you to kill ten rats.
My guess is laserit is also talking about change in the game state of that city to up the stakes. You talk about the actual game loop to take it back.
Changing the state of the city could inconvenience the typical average gamer that just wants to jump in and do something in it, sadly, and might not always go down well. Ashes of Creation goes for something like that, lets see how this plays out.
Make an MMORPG a little more believable and immersive, less predictable, less a game loop.
edit: That requires some sort of AI or human intervention.
I've said to my friends before that, truly, to capture that spirit of adventure and the unknown, all game calculations (skill checks, hit/miss, etc.) should be strictly hidden from the player. No stat numbers to allow gamers to crunch numbers until they find every single loophole in your design. Just intuitive features: blunt weapons generally will do better against skeletons, but a good sword works better against fleshed creatures. An enchanted flaming sword will obviously work even better than a regular ole sabre. Even better with a system where one weapon isn't going to be the best for all situations.
The ubiquity of internet guides has made adventuring a truly boring feature without dynamic content creation and hidden calculations. We have dynamic content, I would like to see the numbers stripped in favor of a more holistic, intuitive approach.
I think about things like why doesn’t a city get invaded and taken over by the forces of evil and the community has to retake it.
All kinds of ideas. We were kids and had to play with wooden sticks and think shit up.
Games do that all the time. The way it's usually structured is that an NPC will tell you, this city has been invaded and overtaken by the forces of evil. In order to help us retake the city, we need you to kill ten rats.
My guess is laserit is also talking about change in the game state of that city to up the stakes. You talk about the actual game loop to take it back.
Changing the state of the city could inconvenience the typical average gamer that just wants to jump in and do something in it, sadly, and might not always go down well. Ashes of Creation goes for something like that, lets see how this plays out.
Make an MMORPG a little more believable and immersive, less predictable, less a game loop.
edit: That requires some sort of AI or human intervention.
I've said to my friends before that, truly, to capture that spirit of adventure and the unknown, all game calculations (skill checks, hit/miss, etc.) should be strictly hidden from the player. No stat numbers to allow gamers to crunch numbers until they find every single loophole in your design. Just intuitive features: blunt weapons generally will do better against skeletons, but a good sword works better against fleshed creatures. An enchanted flaming sword will obviously work even better than a regular ole sabre. Even better with a system where one weapon isn't going to be the best for all situations.
The ubiquity of internet guides has made adventuring a truly boring feature without dynamic content creation and hidden calculations. We have dynamic content, I would like to see the numbers stripped in favor of a more holistic, intuitive approach.
Here here! I swear, I think some gamers play through this window...
I never understood why numbers were needed when you can watch the health bars and grasp what's going on.
It's strange to me that some people don't want their head in the game, and would rather read reports all day long.
A group friendly MMORPG used to be one of my top desires. Now, I think it better that a game accommodates my life. I hurt, a lot. The pain and discomfort prevent me from spending the amount of time in an escapist game that I'd really like too. I've spent most of my waking hours this week lying prone on a heating pad, hoping that I'll feel good enough to go to sleep that night. I simply don't have the patience or durability for even half-hour gaming sessions anymore, much less the 12-14 hour marathon sessions I used to enjoy. Too many other things get in the way.
A group friendly game first off needs a clear focus on how much time the player has available, and how much time activities require in-game. I can want to go to zone X and kill 10 vampires, but if I only have 90 minutes available and killing a single vampire takes 15 minutes, after a mandatory 20 minute journey to the zone, and spending 10-15 minutes hoping to find enough help to form a group, it becomes increasingly difficult to accomplish anything in the game.
If a task or goal is going to take a realistic 3 hours to complete, the game definitely needs to state that up-front and stick to it. Rushing shouldn't be trivial or an advantage.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I think about things like why doesn’t a city get invaded and taken over by the forces of evil and the community has to retake it.
All kinds of ideas. We were kids and had to play with wooden sticks and think shit up.
Games do that all the time. The way it's usually structured is that an NPC will tell you, this city has been invaded and overtaken by the forces of evil. In order to help us retake the city, we need you to kill ten rats.
My guess is laserit is also talking about change in the game state of that city to up the stakes. You talk about the actual game loop to take it back.
Changing the state of the city could inconvenience the typical average gamer that just wants to jump in and do something in it, sadly, and might not always go down well. Ashes of Creation goes for something like that, lets see how this plays out.
Make an MMORPG a little more believable and immersive, less predictable, less a game loop.
edit: That requires some sort of AI or human intervention.
I've said to my friends before that, truly, to capture that spirit of adventure and the unknown, all game calculations (skill checks, hit/miss, etc.) should be strictly hidden from the player. No stat numbers to allow gamers to crunch numbers until they find every single loophole in your design. Just intuitive features: blunt weapons generally will do better against skeletons, but a good sword works better against fleshed creatures. An enchanted flaming sword will obviously work even better than a regular ole sabre. Even better with a system where one weapon isn't going to be the best for all situations.
The ubiquity of internet guides has made adventuring a truly boring feature without dynamic content creation and hidden calculations. We have dynamic content, I would like to see the numbers stripped in favor of a more holistic, intuitive approach.
Here here! I swear, I think some gamers play through this window...
I never understood why numbers were needed when you can watch the health bars and grasp what's going on.
It's strange to me that some people don't want their head in the game, and would rather read reports all day long.
So right.
Many gamers play MMORPGs like they were spreadsheets these days.
So sad, too.
Respect, walk, what did you say? Respect, walk Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? - PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
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?
Not necessarily. Between friends list, guild, and alliance (which should be a necessity for any MMORPG including guilds), the player would have quite the pool to pull from assuming they aren't avoiding player-made organizations.
Even if they do, giving bonuses seems a much easier pill to swallow than "Oh no. You can't even try this content unless you have the appropriate group together." Being gated seems worse than losing out on some bonus progression.
With regards to the daily/weekly, that's a problem with how rewards are given in general. Farming one 45 minute piece of content over and over because it drops "your" upgrade is an archaic and inefficient system. The daily and weeklies are literally a bandaid over that system to avoid rendering content useless and unused. Better to look towards fixing the underlying issue, instead. These bandaid have only allowed the genre to limp along behind pretty much every other genre.
The problem that I am trying to solve is that it is very common that, in the entire currently online playerbase for a game, there aren't enough people online and currently interested in the content that you want to do to get a group. You're proposing restricting your search to a minuscule subset of the currently online playerbase. That makes the problem massively harder, not easier.
Some people might think that relying on a guild works for group content because they only want to do a little bit of content, and only the most popular things in the entire game. Sometimes it's because they don't mind having a wildly inappropriate group for the content, likely including someone so high level that he could easily solo it. But apart from those narrow situations, what you're advocating has been consistently a complete failure in just about every MMORPG ever made.
I think about things like why doesn’t a city get invaded and taken over by the forces of evil and the community has to retake it.
All kinds of ideas. We were kids and had to play with wooden sticks and think shit up.
Games do that all the time. The way it's usually structured is that an NPC will tell you, this city has been invaded and overtaken by the forces of evil. In order to help us retake the city, we need you to kill ten rats.
My guess is laserit is also talking about change in the game state of that city to up the stakes. You talk about the actual game loop to take it back.
Changing the state of the city could inconvenience the typical average gamer that just wants to jump in and do something in it, sadly, and might not always go down well. Ashes of Creation goes for something like that, lets see how this plays out.
Make an MMORPG a little more believable and immersive, less predictable, less a game loop.
edit: That requires some sort of AI or human intervention.
I've said to my friends before that, truly, to capture that spirit of adventure and the unknown, all game calculations (skill checks, hit/miss, etc.) should be strictly hidden from the player. No stat numbers to allow gamers to crunch numbers until they find every single loophole in your design. Just intuitive features: blunt weapons generally will do better against skeletons, but a good sword works better against fleshed creatures. An enchanted flaming sword will obviously work even better than a regular ole sabre. Even better with a system where one weapon isn't going to be the best for all situations.
The ubiquity of internet guides has made adventuring a truly boring feature without dynamic content creation and hidden calculations. We have dynamic content, I would like to see the numbers stripped in favor of a more holistic, intuitive approach.
I think that you greatly underestimate the ability of players to reverse engineer formulas. If combat situations are as easily repeatable as they are in most MMORPGs, then unless your playerbase is so small that no one cares, formulas with complexity on par with what most MMORPGs use would be reverse engineered and quickly.
That's true even if players get absolutely no feedback on damage other than that a character died or not--and even though that situation would be tremendously frustrating to a lot of players. If you have health bars, even without displayed numbers, that only makes it massively easier to reverse engineer formulas. It's not difficult to screenshot a game and count pixels to extract the numbers from the game.
At that point, the numbers and formulas would be readily available for anyone who wants to look them up outside of the game. If they matter much, then players who don't bother would be at a huge disadvantage. People you group with would get angry at you if you haven't bothered to look them up. At that point, all that you have is a really bad GUI for the same situation as we have now.
I've said to my friends before that, truly, to capture that spirit of adventure and the unknown, all game calculations (skill checks, hit/miss, etc.) should be strictly hidden from the player. No stat numbers to allow gamers to crunch numbers until they find every single loophole in your design. Just intuitive features: blunt weapons generally will do better against skeletons, but a good sword works better against fleshed creatures. An enchanted flaming sword will obviously work even better than a regular ole sabre. Even better with a system where one weapon isn't going to be the best for all situations.
The ubiquity of internet guides has made adventuring a truly boring feature without dynamic content creation and hidden calculations. We have dynamic content, I would like to see the numbers stripped in favor of a more holistic, intuitive approach.
Here here! I swear, I think some gamers play through this window...
I never understood why numbers were needed when you can watch the health bars and grasp what's going on.
It's strange to me that some people don't want their head in the game, and would rather read reports all day long.
So right.
Many gamers play MMORPGs like they were spreadsheets these days.
So sad, too.
@ all three quoted: Not really. Part of the fun for such players is disassembling a game and trying to find out what makes it tick, new strategies etc. Some players (me included) value this more than "complexity through obscurity". It does not necessarily harm immersion either. See games like EVE, where players immerse themselves in the world, becoming miners, traders, diplomats, dictators etc, with all the data exposed to them and all the data crunching that the game involves.
What's the difference between: (1) Swords do X damage to that, while Hammers do X+# to it. and (2) It takes me 6 hits to kill that with a sword, but I can kill it in 4 hits with a hammer. ??
Plus, when it's a resource that you're mining, you can count the results.
(1) Some people might think that relying on a guild works for group content because they only want to do a little bit of content, and only the most popular things in the entire game.
(2) Sometimes it's because they don't mind having a wildly inappropriate group for the content, likely including someone so high level that he could easily solo it.
Numbers by me.
(1) Guilds are very helpful for less popular content as well. We have been clearing popular content with randos in GW2 and were usually calling on the guild and helping one another in more niche/challenging content (like chasing some specific hard achievements).
(2) This problem is more real, but not for everyone. There are games (or audiences) where the "endgame" is more important. For those games/players, getting help from someone of a higher level is just the means to that end.
What is it about "End Game" that's so appealing to them? And why don't they want it at "Beginning Game" and "Middle Game" too?
What's the difference between: (1) Swords do X damage to that, while Hammers do X+# to it. and (2) It takes me 6 hits to kill that with a sword, but I can kill it in 4 hits with a hammer. ??
Accuracy and rigorousness. It is a lot fun for players like me being able to theorycraft a strategy and prove its efficient with numbers before applying it.
Seeing the numbers flashing in front of me btw is not important, I assume we are not talking about that, just availability of the data.
I think we're talking about attracting two different kinds of players.
Achievers need the numbers. They gotta hit the highest number they can achieve, or kill the toughest mob they can find, etc.
Adventurers enjoy a little bit of ambiguity. The kind of folks that spend hundreds of hours in games like The Outer Wilds. They want to do a bit of intentional stumbling, for lack of a better phrase.
im ok with the numbers and meters and such for anyone who likes that, its in the gameplay itself that needs to be more accommodating for alternative strategies to combat.
What's the difference between: (1) Swords do X damage to that, while Hammers do X+# to it. and (2) It takes me 6 hits to kill that with a sword, but I can kill it in 4 hits with a hammer. ??
Accuracy and rigorousness. It is a lot fun for players like me being able to theorycraft a strategy and prove its efficient with numbers before applying it.
Seeing the numbers flashing in front of me btw is not important, I assume we are not talking about that, just availability of the data.
Yeah, I prefer to learn through experiencing the game. I can understand your point though. It's just not the way I want it to happen. Maybe it's too convenient, too static? I'm not sure I'm finding the right reasoning here.
What is it about "End Game" that's so appealing to them? And why don't they want it at "Beginning Game" and "Middle Game" too?
We see the part before the endgame as "transitory" and unimportant, whereas the endgame is where you can either compete or push boundaries by exploring/doing things noone else has done, or at least try to (I am one of the "endgame" guys, for games that have a somewhat well defined end game anyway).
I just don't understand that. I'd want my entire game play to have that in it. But to each their own.
I think about things like why doesn’t a city get invaded and taken over by the forces of evil and the community has to retake it.
All kinds of ideas. We were kids and had to play with wooden sticks and think shit up.
Games do that all the time. The way it's usually structured is that an NPC will tell you, this city has been invaded and overtaken by the forces of evil. In order to help us retake the city, we need you to kill ten rats.
My guess is laserit is also talking about change in the game state of that city to up the stakes. You talk about the actual game loop to take it back.
Changing the state of the city could inconvenience the typical average gamer that just wants to jump in and do something in it, sadly, and might not always go down well. Ashes of Creation goes for something like that, lets see how this plays out.
Make an MMORPG a little more believable and immersive, less predictable, less a game loop.
edit: That requires some sort of AI or human intervention.
I've said to my friends before that, truly, to capture that spirit of adventure and the unknown, all game calculations (skill checks, hit/miss, etc.) should be strictly hidden from the player. No stat numbers to allow gamers to crunch numbers until they find every single loophole in your design. Just intuitive features: blunt weapons generally will do better against skeletons, but a good sword works better against fleshed creatures. An enchanted flaming sword will obviously work even better than a regular ole sabre. Even better with a system where one weapon isn't going to be the best for all situations.
The ubiquity of internet guides has made adventuring a truly boring feature without dynamic content creation and hidden calculations. We have dynamic content, I would like to see the numbers stripped in favor of a more holistic, intuitive approach.
There is no right or wrong way.
We all enjoy different things. Sometimes the things we enjoy, collides with others
Comments
But not for the typical stuff we've seen in games.
Something very special that all players would love.
Once upon a time....
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
When I saw an advert in PCGamer mag (a magazine I later invested in) for UO I was smitten , right away with its world and systems, I right away got in beta , Had trouble getting PC and dialup working well so missed alot of beta .
At launch I started in E Brit , wa having a great time , but began to get ganked.. So I took some time to read the entire manual from to back .. And the 2 tools that jumped out at me to fight getting ganked early on were Stealth and Magery (Recall)..
So ok easy I'll learn that ... but problem needed about 365 gold to get magery trained up and recalls ..
So I just started cooking meat and selling it to the inn .. made enough to train Magery .. but dam it no Recalls ..
Side note got my camping skill to 68 doing that .. which was useless otherwise .. but ya know I enjoyed the struggle , surviving the challenges to earn enough coin to train myself .. Turned camping down at later date..
So for recalls I rolled an Alt with magery and inscription . I still have that same Mage in my Main house 25 years later making recalls and stuff ..I used to put the recall scrolls in a chest in the Inn (because insta log out) and my Archer in same room to log in and grab them ..
The Stealth took a big longer but before long I had high enough where it was reliable .. After that the ganking was basically gone for me .
Soon after that, I was E Brit bank one nite and there was a lot of heated discussion on the PKS , a guy named McMillian wanted to form up a group to fight back , 6 of us jumped in ..
Waldo, Arno , Stra , Mxilplix(McMillan bro)Saffire and some guy named Scorch..
That nite began our fight back against the PKS , we made quite a name for ourselves the PKs would avoid us leaving areas when we showed up at times , really recall patrolling the Oasis and Papau Desert keeping the PKS away , we would also patrol 1 or 2 dungeons a week all nite ..
Was so much freaking fun. .. and what the game was designed to do ..
The biggest problem over years when I have spoken to people that were getting ga7nked alot, they did not take the time to learn what tools were/are available to give themselves an edge and would not try to group up ..
Many choosing to Quit , which is a real shame they missed out on so much fun by not learning the game systems or socializing to find players of similar interest and goals..
Well , after I got my build set which took me a good year I got my leather working high enough to sell leather bras to the NPCs they were the best money for hides used and weight carried . Sew a bunch of bras , recall to town sell , I sold thousands of them .. Enough to buy and place my first 8x8, it was a glorious day which led to many more adventures..
But I digress ..
That won't work for more restrictive class combinations and holy trinity games. I enjoy large groups and have always had a gas in City of X. So unexpected how you can handle the content depending on which combinations are available. Brilliant game.
A jury of ones peers with victims and witnesses
edit: just think, the game could supply the evidence for real
I wonder how many people would watch it?
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
I had the time of my life and for the death of me, I can't figure out why they didn't expand on the concept.
Too much labor I would imagine.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
edit: That requires some sort of AI or human intervention.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Even if they do, giving bonuses seems a much easier pill to swallow than "Oh no. You can't even try this content unless you have the appropriate group together." Being gated seems worse than losing out on some bonus progression.
With regards to the daily/weekly, that's a problem with how rewards are given in general. Farming one 45 minute piece of content over and over because it drops "your" upgrade is an archaic and inefficient system. The daily and weeklies are literally a bandaid over that system to avoid rendering content useless and unused. Better to look towards fixing the underlying issue, instead. These bandaid have only allowed the genre to limp along behind pretty much every other genre.
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
The ubiquity of internet guides has made adventuring a truly boring feature without dynamic content creation and hidden calculations. We have dynamic content, I would like to see the numbers stripped in favor of a more holistic, intuitive approach.
I swear, I think some gamers play through this window...
I never understood why numbers were needed when you can watch the health bars and grasp what's going on.
It's strange to me that some people don't want their head in the game, and would rather read reports all day long.
Once upon a time....
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
Some people might think that relying on a guild works for group content because they only want to do a little bit of content, and only the most popular things in the entire game. Sometimes it's because they don't mind having a wildly inappropriate group for the content, likely including someone so high level that he could easily solo it. But apart from those narrow situations, what you're advocating has been consistently a complete failure in just about every MMORPG ever made.
That's true even if players get absolutely no feedback on damage other than that a character died or not--and even though that situation would be tremendously frustrating to a lot of players. If you have health bars, even without displayed numbers, that only makes it massively easier to reverse engineer formulas. It's not difficult to screenshot a game and count pixels to extract the numbers from the game.
At that point, the numbers and formulas would be readily available for anyone who wants to look them up outside of the game. If they matter much, then players who don't bother would be at a huge disadvantage. People you group with would get angry at you if you haven't bothered to look them up. At that point, all that you have is a really bad GUI for the same situation as we have now.
(1) Swords do X damage to that, while Hammers do X+# to it.
and
(2) It takes me 6 hits to kill that with a sword, but I can kill it in 4 hits with a hammer.
??
Plus, when it's a resource that you're mining, you can count the results.
You can add "on average" if there's randomness.
So that game play is "in", regardless.
Once upon a time....
And why don't they want it at "Beginning Game" and "Middle Game" too?
Once upon a time....
Achievers need the numbers. They gotta hit the highest number they can achieve, or kill the toughest mob they can find, etc.
Adventurers enjoy a little bit of ambiguity. The kind of folks that spend hundreds of hours in games like The Outer Wilds. They want to do a bit of intentional stumbling, for lack of a better phrase.
Maybe it's too convenient, too static? I'm not sure I'm finding the right reasoning here.
Once upon a time....
But to each their own.
TheDalaiBomba said: I think this is probably right.
Once upon a time....
We all enjoy different things. Sometimes the things we enjoy, collides with others
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee