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Why can't MMORPG's be more like Pen & Paper??
Jhereg
Member UncommonPosts: 55
Well since Dan and some others here are talking about aspects of game play in the MMORPG world I thought I would write a tidbit on this subject.
I know that some things cannot be translated from pen and paper, however here are some things I would have like to have seen in an MMORPG. I will be using D&D 1st and 2nd edition to site some of my references:
1) Flat Rate XP: Why do we have to play with dynamic XP, instead of flat rate XP. In other words, If a monsters xp at a specific level is a specific amount then it should stay that specific amount no matter what level you are to attack it. For example, If you attack a 20th level monster and its XP is 2500 and you are 20th level. Then you raise your level to 21 the XP should stay at 2500 not drop to 2000 just because you leveled. This makes more a grind fest out of the game. Now the third edition rules of D&D have gone to this type of XP and it causes a really slow leveling process.
2) Archers in all games being so powerful: Ok so why does an archer get to hit for like 4X the amount of damage a melee character does?? In the first and second edition rules of AD&D I never hit anyone that hard with a bow. The damage was comparable to a melee character with a weapon, the only advantage an archer should have is range. I mean come one if you are going to make a melee character hit someone with Heavy armor for less damage than someone with robes, then you should do the same for archers as well. There is no reason why the archers of any game have to be so super uber! Remember I am comparing this to an actual pen and paper game not the special effects from Hollywood.
3) Magical saving Throws: Ok I have always wondered about this one. Yes, magic is supposed to be very powerful, however, it does not need to be super uber either. Melee characters or any characters should be given a saving throw to resist the effects of the magic. D&D had a good idea with this one as mages and magic were made to be powerful in the game and rightly so. However, no one would have wanted to play if everyone wanted to write a mage.
4) Most games being made have no balance: Why is it almost every game has one class that is more powerful than the others. Not to mention everyone wants to play this one class just so they be the pownage of the server. Big deal! Ever heard of playing a game to play it and have fun with it, not to be a super gank fester who has nothing better to but ruin someone else's gaming experience. If the classes were more balanced so that no one class would be more powerful then the gankers would be history in the making. PVP would be a lot more fun then because then you would really have a reason to duke it out and all the classes could get in the mix and have a chance of winning.
5) The quests: Ok so why do quests have to be so shallow. Go here and collect this or go here and kill these 15 mobs and get me their claws. That also brings up another point if I have a quest to get claws from a specific mob and that mob has four claws and I kill him and don't get a claw then what the heck is with that. I have to kill 30 mobs to get 5 claws to turn in for the quest, and then the XP is so measly its like what was the point? ALL quests should have XP as a reward and it should be a fair amount compared to the quest being done. Why don't they try telling a story in the quests instead of making it go kill or go collect?
Anyhow these are some things I have always felt should be in an MMORPG and I am very disgruntled that the designers of most games don't seem to think on this level. I mean did any of the designers ever play D&D or are they just graduates fresh off the street?
I know that some things cannot be translated from pen and paper, however here are some things I would have like to have seen in an MMORPG. I will be using D&D 1st and 2nd edition to site some of my references:
1) Flat Rate XP: Why do we have to play with dynamic XP, instead of flat rate XP. In other words, If a monsters xp at a specific level is a specific amount then it should stay that specific amount no matter what level you are to attack it. For example, If you attack a 20th level monster and its XP is 2500 and you are 20th level. Then you raise your level to 21 the XP should stay at 2500 not drop to 2000 just because you leveled. This makes more a grind fest out of the game. Now the third edition rules of D&D have gone to this type of XP and it causes a really slow leveling process.
2) Archers in all games being so powerful: Ok so why does an archer get to hit for like 4X the amount of damage a melee character does?? In the first and second edition rules of AD&D I never hit anyone that hard with a bow. The damage was comparable to a melee character with a weapon, the only advantage an archer should have is range. I mean come one if you are going to make a melee character hit someone with Heavy armor for less damage than someone with robes, then you should do the same for archers as well. There is no reason why the archers of any game have to be so super uber! Remember I am comparing this to an actual pen and paper game not the special effects from Hollywood.
3) Magical saving Throws: Ok I have always wondered about this one. Yes, magic is supposed to be very powerful, however, it does not need to be super uber either. Melee characters or any characters should be given a saving throw to resist the effects of the magic. D&D had a good idea with this one as mages and magic were made to be powerful in the game and rightly so. However, no one would have wanted to play if everyone wanted to write a mage.
4) Most games being made have no balance: Why is it almost every game has one class that is more powerful than the others. Not to mention everyone wants to play this one class just so they be the pownage of the server. Big deal! Ever heard of playing a game to play it and have fun with it, not to be a super gank fester who has nothing better to but ruin someone else's gaming experience. If the classes were more balanced so that no one class would be more powerful then the gankers would be history in the making. PVP would be a lot more fun then because then you would really have a reason to duke it out and all the classes could get in the mix and have a chance of winning.
5) The quests: Ok so why do quests have to be so shallow. Go here and collect this or go here and kill these 15 mobs and get me their claws. That also brings up another point if I have a quest to get claws from a specific mob and that mob has four claws and I kill him and don't get a claw then what the heck is with that. I have to kill 30 mobs to get 5 claws to turn in for the quest, and then the XP is so measly its like what was the point? ALL quests should have XP as a reward and it should be a fair amount compared to the quest being done. Why don't they try telling a story in the quests instead of making it go kill or go collect?
Anyhow these are some things I have always felt should be in an MMORPG and I am very disgruntled that the designers of most games don't seem to think on this level. I mean did any of the designers ever play D&D or are they just graduates fresh off the street?
Comments
Doktar - 70 Troll Priest - Perenolde
Why are Casters & Archers so powerful? Kids & companies like the wow factor, and magic being special.
I like melee characters better cause you earn everything you get, not like casters that push a few buttons,
blast you into oblivion or damage over time. Casters can teleport or just run away like the cheapo's they
really are. Not all casters are cheap, but the majority are.
Casters get powerful skills and equipment, while melee are dependent on their equipment & usually their guilds.
It doesn't take a genius to balance rangers vs melee, but companies don't want to do it. Not many games
cater to adults. Some of the best balanced games I've seen were WC3 & Muds.
Priest have mind control and Warlocks have fear, but theirs little resistance to mind control and fear.
How fun is it to spend 9months on a warrior and have him controlled and run away like a wimp at the site
of a caster that wield very powerful magics.
Archers can also kill very easily. They don't even have to aim, they auto-attack and send their powerful pets
in to keep them off you. And WoW hunters have mana, so their basically caster too, not even archers/rangers of
lore.
As a 20yr player of D&D I have used that game as a comparison to all MMORPGs I've played/tested.
My 2cents....
Flatrate XP:
This concept is rather decent in most respects. In the MMORPG world it would work if the quests required a player to travel in order to advance, this way the 'lowbie' areas don't become grind fests for 20+ lvls. The idea of dwindling XP is the counter to this idea, it is also a way (though not very effective) of making farming less desireable. If someone earns no xp and/or no gold for their farming then the players will get less out of their farming.
Uber Archer:
I agree totaly, archers have become increasingly overpowered. There are special classes in D&D which allow you to 'cast' magic arrows, even then you are limited to the amount you can do this by your stats, spell points, and even the spell itself. These manners of restrictions are all but non existant in many games today.
Magic Saves:
Um...what happened to them? The idea behind the mage in D&D was to start of slow, have the 'meat shields' cover your arse while you did what little you could, then fall back on your missle weapon because you only had 4 hitpoints to start with. The stronger your spells became the more obsolete the lower level spells became (with the exception of magic missle lol). This was due to the inherent resistances earned by the monsters and players, even the fighters could resist at least half of the magical damage of many spells if they were of equal level to the mage. These saves are outside of the range of special equipment which could raise said resistances.
Balance:
Always has been an issue, poor balance = nerf = upset player base + unbalance in alternate class = nerf =.......well you get the point.... To be completely honest though balance is something which can not be obtained in the sense of fairness to all classes. As long as there are min/maxers (something I confess to doing), twinkers, and all the other types like that, we will have someone claiming that it is an unbalanced system.
Quests:
Yup, the fetch quests, kill x monster x times quests, and the errand quests are always present. They will always be present so long as there is a necessity to cater to the masses. Even as I write that I shiver, with a mmorpg as one of the games we intend to design, I know that there will be instances of these recurrant quests involved. In the beginning of a game they are ideal for the "feeling out" process, but to rely on them is just horrenous. I must admit that if at all possible there should be depth in even the most minor quest, Why am I doing this, What goal does it serve, How do I/the NPC gain from it? even a subtle answer to these types of questions should be addressed prior to, and after, the quest is completed. If at all possible there should be an "after effect" as well.
One other thing which I would like to see implemented more in MMORPGs is the 'ripple' effect of player actions. Good/Evil players (yes it should be possible to be evil) should have an effect on the world outside the instance they are in.
Dramatic example:
If you decided to poison a well in the starting city of the 'good' players, the NPCs should die (yes all of them). This activity should not be isolated only to that town though, the surrounding cities will have an increase in commerce, news of the deaths will travel, people will learn of the foul doings, rumors will be spread, and a bounty will be put out on those suspected of the evil deed. All out war will be waged by the PCs and the NPCs (yes the NPCs will react with more hostility towards 'evil' characters.). This would give the players an immersion that makes them feel like the world does revolve around them, as it should.
---
"I have never met a man so ignorant I could learn nothing from him"
You show very little comprehension of programmatic design. You also seem to show very little comprehension of rules exploitation.
The vast majority of your desires are deeply complicated issues for a computer program with a playerbase who has an infinite variety of objectives, ethics, and motives.
Just to add a touch of humor this this:
Dork Tower - April 27, 2007
A very interesting topic. I sure think MMOs could and should incorporate more of the good old Pen and Paper games. However, analyzing what you wrote, you seem to like the D&D 1 and 2 rules more. I will go to your points directly.
1) Agreed. A mob should have a fixed XP rate. It has a fixed power and the rising needed amount of XP should be sufficient to prolong it. I never was a friend of "greyd out mobs", ether.
2) Archers... hmm. I think some classes were quite weak in the older days, and archers were one of them IMO. Few ppl would play Archer if they would return to the older weakness. Are they uber now? I am not sure, really. It depends. Archers still have their weakness I think, so I dont feel they are too uber. I always play melee classes as main, so I cant really say, but I never felt archers were so uber compared to me.
3) Magic IS always difficult to incoporate. You have a class with some great strengths, and some great weaknesses. To balance that in MMOs is a VERY difficult thing and not 100% like in a Pen and Paper game, where essentially only a handful of ppl plays against monsters in a short time. In that way magic in a MMO is something very different like in a pen and paper IMO. Thats one of the areas MMOs have to go other ways. You need the classes more or less balanced in a MMO, and that at all levels. In a pen and paper game that is not so much needed, because you always go into the adventure with your group and usually the setting is tailor-made for a certain number of ppl of a certain level range. In MMOs you have an open system with much less controllable variables, so to make the risk vs reward in a way ppl can calculate on it, classes need much greater balance in every level.
4) I think the imbalance is not that big and involuntary. IMVPO most imba talk is just that: talk. If ppl play their classes well, I never see such a big difference in the MMOs I played. Some classes are however harder to play and need more thought to play them good.
5) 100% agree. Alas most MMOs are just quests. I so lack the spirit to undertake a greater story a big adventure as in D&D. But the upcoming MMOs seem to incorporate that more. I didnt like D&D online, for many reasons I cant elaborate in short. Spellborn seems to go that way a bit. LOTRO has a good selection of stories covering their world as far as I saw, but the essential feeling of a big adventure you are in as in the pen and paper evenings is not there. alas.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Yes most of you are right games can be balanced but the devs don't really want to do it I guess. It really would not be hard to learn some of the examples from pen an paper and incorporate them in to programming. I mean most of the information us just numbers that need to be crunched and programmers are made to do just that. I just don't see how it can be so hard to not balance the game to begin with.
I really believe that if you asked like 50 developers if they played any pen and paper RPG games as a kid that only 25% of them would answer yes. At least this is my feeling about the state of our MMORPG's of late. I played a little bit of WoW but I could not get past the cartooneness of the whole thing, not to mention I have played it as an RTS and the MMORPG just doesn't do the RTS justice.
I guess playing most pen and paper games for over 2 years just makes me think that some devs just want to make a quick buck instead of making a truly awe inspiring game.
http://www.forceofarms.com/index.php
I have never really liked melee classes myself. They generally have the least amount of choices tatic wise. Generally their choice is to run in and press a few buttons exactly the way the dev team designed things to happen. On the other hand ranged classes can use terrain to their advantage using speed reduction and increse , charm spells, fear, etc., combined with ranged damage to creatively beat mobs that a melee could not do to their reliance on having to run up and beat on the mob.
Anyway I always felt that magic classes should be the most powerful in a fantasy setting though there is balence issues as have been mentioned. Personally I like to see the games move more twords reliance on terrain negotiation then on number cruching on behind the scene. WoW sorta moved in this direction which helped warrior types actually with things like charge for the warrior. It makes things a bit more exciting.
One thing I always enjoyed about magic-minimal PnP campaigns was that magic-users/wizards/warlocks were somewhat rare. They were extraordinarily weak at low levels, had to rely on trickery and imagination at the mid levels and at the highest levels they were near demi-gods.
It would take a team of hardened adventurers with significant magical help to take on a high level wizard in his domain. Of course in mmorpg terms this would mean a majority of the populace would then want to be wizards because the 'endgame' supposedly means everything. :P
(Shades of Jedi)
I also appreciated that gaining a magic item in this world actually meant something and it probably had a story behind its acquisition. Again, in mmorpg terms this would simply mean that the 'hardcore' would be equipped with numerous magic items while the average player had little to none. A nightmare for balancing.
The player characters might actually have a story behind their development and the ongoing story would reflect that past.
...but this leads us back to the fundamental difference already mentioned. There is a person behind the mechanics of the world in a PnP setting.
I read your entire post. all I can say is try DDO. while most people in the MMO community hate it, the combat system and how it translated P&P gaming to an MMO is impressive.
the only thing it lacks is a non-linear world. its very linear and thats where it fails for a pen/paper game.
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a robot foot stomping on a human face -- forever."