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[Column] Crowfall: The Active Passive Training Bottleneck
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Characters are Persistent, but Campaign Worlds are not, this is the tagline for Crowfall. As an Immortal Champion in an eternal War of the Gods, we have to choose our path after rebirth, actively and passively training towards our desired skillset. However, are there enough training options to the paths we pick that are flexible enough to maintain a sense of progress, or is character progress just a smokescreen to choice?
Read more of Franklin Rinaldi's Crowfall: The Active Passive Training Bottleneck.
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Comments
I agree with your concerns. I personally despise passive training/skill gain. I should have to do something to get better at something.
We will see how it all plays out.
tl;dr: I can't really agree with your concerns about Crowfall character development.
You talk about a Build of the Week because of the lack of options in our character development. And less investment in said character because of this. I can't agree with that at all!
You mentioned WoW so I'll take that game as an example. Mistakes are easily to correct by re-speccing. Decisions you make don't matter as much. You can't screw up really. You can play whatever character style you want at any time. Because you're able to switch your spec on the fly, I feel you have no investment in your build or character at all. So I think it's rather the opposite then what you believe.
Because you're not able to change certain parts of your character in Crowfall, the builds we'll see will be more diverse because of it. Decisions you make about your character matter. This is the 'old way' of doing character development in an MMORPG and people praise this 'no hand-holding' all the time. A re-balance can screw the flavor of the week. People will make mistakes and because you have invested so much time, they won't switch to a new character that quickly imo. Here is where the diversity comes in.
I think we have more options in our character development than many other games out there. We just miss the details on how everything works. And that is pretty normal in this stage of development. Besides this I believe you assume way to much about the active and passive training. Also, I believe you take the wrong conclusions about said character investment. I simply can't share your concerns. It's way to early for that. Let's talk again in Alpha or Beta.
Looks to be an article that is at its base, speculation. While I can see being worried about particular types of gaming structure, it is kinda early to for full tilt bemoaning.
There are reasons to be cautious: Will the 'important choices' be presented with enough information for the player to make an informed decision? That'd be my number one. And I personally stress the RPG in MMORPG: My characters are not collections of numbers. Games that have only a thin veneer over their numbers play (roll playing...) tend to not hook me much.
Crowfall really seems to be making a lot of good, interesting decisions in their design, and that's coming from someone who has little interest in PvP. Definitely watching it carefully, as it looks good enough to possibly overcome that particular prejudice. Maybe.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
The OP does not strike me as a person who has played Shadowbane. The system is very similar to that game with the addition of passive skill gain. Shadowbane had widely different builds for the race/class combos. Locking the players into a archtype is something I favor as it has in my gaming experience added complexity rather then lowered it.
There will be alts and this is also not a bad thing. Alts create demand for different item types, resources, and places to 'level.' The limited amount of character slots I think can make those choices you make more meaningful.
I won't go into a long ordeal with passives,simply put i can't stand them and enough to not want to play a game like that no matter what.
What i would like to mention is the false pretense players have some control over their actions.The developer will NEVER allow a player to be o/p ,if there was such a thing then every player would have the same build and the game would be dead.The developer is still going to utilize limitations as well as in this case negative actions to achieve a better choice,even still you should realize the developer knows your likely choice and will again only allow you to achieve what they want you to.
You can say it is a no hand holding idea,i guess it is which i have always wanted in my games but it is an area where it doesn't matter,unless one thinks that the ONLY way to go is down is a good thing.It is basically a game where the dev is saying,GUESS what build is the one we want you to have and if you can't guess you are penalized with an inferior build.
In a sub class system as in my fave game of all time ffxi,you get to test 22 class combinations and always have the choice to change from one class to another on the same player.Altaholic games are just so bad and not a good old school design.I want to make one thing clear,i do understand you need limitations but i feel the system designer here is looking in the wrong places.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The game's not even in the earliest of early alpha, and you're complaining that "after this point, there's nothing left to do". Also, don't assume that "most" players feel a certain way about anything, unless you've personally spoken to most players.
You are awarded no points, etc. etc.
EVE is a unique snowflake.
Crowfall =/= EVE.
CF does not appear to be an attempt for some super deep RPG game, but rather a strategy game that incorporates much of what many enjoy from mmorpgs and such.
Incorporating features from multiple games/genres and trying to find a middle ground seems like a great idea to me and why I backed it.
I'd be fine with them going with something like GW2's sPVP where you just pick all your gear/stats/builds and then get to work, I'm looking forward to the player conflict and what I do with a build, not countless hours looking at spreadsheets to get that .0001% advantage or try everything with one character.
EVE ships =/= RPG races/classes. While I understand things start blurring here and there, should be obvious that it isn't easy to copy & shoehorn in one system into an entirely different type of game.
That's they great thing about variety, pick what you like. Stop trying to make everything into what you like.
They said character progression has DEFINITE end, that progression isnt that long in the forst place, unless you change disciplines all the time, and after that you have alts for different type of play.
Cant really see the problem. They arent aiming for some long vertical progression. Its PvP game.
Sadly, the MMORPG player base has figured out how to get around having to "do something to improve skills". They write macro's and run/swim/jump/fight AFK 24/7.
Trying (and inevitably failing mostly) to fight this abuse becomes a major pain for the developer, taking time and money away from game development. Players are infinitely resourceful when it comes to finding ways to game the system (i.e. cheat).
I actually like that they disappear. The market is full of games for people who like what you are describing, where as there are almost no games for people who like the more punishing systems of old games like Eve online or Diablo 2. I think this combined with the resetting world is a nice way to make meaningful decisions in builds (I don't consider any decision you can change around at will meaningful) without being too punishing about mistakes.
It really has the feel of a cross between a Spreadsheet/Player driven MMO like Eve (or dare a say puzzle pirates) and a MOBA which is something refreshingly different for a change.
The Crowfall forums are turning into a little hub for snarky jerk fanboys who snap off at any person raising concerns. Now they're gating the discussion to white knights only. Don't worry though, if you donate to a game that doesn't actually exist yet you can join the discussion and get mean girl treatment from the whale "backers". Fun times.
Crowfall Forums = Firefall Forums
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's my understanding that the purpose of the passive training is to allow players to get to fun part of playing more quickly (and with less monotony) than the normal MMO process of making folks grind up through 50 -90 levels to get to endgame.
I've played everything from SWG to Tera and at this point the idea of killing 10 more pigs to get xp and a hat from an npc then starting the lather rinse repeat cycle for 50 levels is just bone numbingly dull.
CF does not have levels. It does not have xp. It does not have normal character progression that people are used to from MMO's. It has skill advancement and that's what the passive training is all about. Getting skill levels up in a few months rather than 6 months so people can jump right into the fun of the game - which is the emergent gameplay.
CF has no quests. It's a bunch of huge worlds that you drop into, explore, find resources, fight other players, build structures, defend the structures, attack other groups structures, die and die again but it's all good because it's no big deal to die in CF.
So the premise of this article - that a character will be stuck with no options after leveling forever is just goofy to me. CF is a sandbox game and the players are generating the content. Whatever build you create there's no endgame raid that it won't fit because there's no endgame raids. There's no "I can't find a group cause I did not spec right!" because there are endless groups and endless things to do that don't specify builds required.
The reason for a build is to create a toon that does what you want to do in the game. If you want to craft, build a crafter. If you want to PvP, build a PvP spec. If you wind up with a spec that you don't like, dump it and start over. You've not lost much in time or effort.
I can't help but think that the author of this article either has not done much research or does not understand the structure of CF. I suggest that if folks are interested in the game head over to the crowfall forums and get your info from there.
Well, as someone that has raised concerns on the CF boards (to the point where JTodd once called my post hyperbolic) I have had little or no trouble expressing concerns about the game.
The Crowfall boards pendulum back and forth between "oh those meaniepants pvp'ers and their forumfall hate!" and "great, another squishycore carebear trying to change the dev's vision!" It's gotten pretty quiet recently since we're in the after Kickstarter before Alpha part of things (the long Winter!) but even so it's an interesting read and there is a ton of info there about the game.
I'd err on the side of checking it out if you are interested in Crowfall. As a non-whale backer, I have a good time there most days.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I can't help but respond though I'm not sure where your angst is coming from.
Yep, players have 30 day access to the boards and then have to kick in (at least $5.00 US I think) to stay on the forums.
Not all games lock their forums to subscribers/backers only but plenty do. CF is a good 2 years from launch and the work being done now is all about core systems. There's no need for huge forum numbers at this point and IMO the community is doing just fine.