How I would make a Witcher MMO

Cryomatrix · February 2020

Just finished the Witcher on Netflix.

If was going to make the game an MMO, I would make it hardcore in the following way.

In the lore, 3/10 people survive witcher trials. So everyone starts the game bland, the first 10 levels are basically a tutorial in the game, where they introduce you to the types of mechanics in the game. Melee, range, crafter, mage, witcher, etc.

Then if you choose to be a witcher, there is a long quest, mini game to pass, it is designed so only 30% of characters take it and survive. If they fail, character dies permanently.

Similar process with mage, etc.

My thought process is as follows. If you have a game world where only a chosen few can become a jedi for example or in a world where most people arent "special". Why make everyone a hero or start off as a jedi.

The game population should mirror the lore in a sense. Now i dont want most people to be peasants, i just want a select few people to be special based on some part of skill that doesnt include grinding.

Have certain puzzles that are account specific so they cant be cheesed.

Overall, this wont happen as games are geared for microtransactions, etc. To get around this, i'd just have different server types.

paul43 · February 2020

There would still be way too many witchers. The way I would distribute witchers is that everyone has to create a normal character, then through ingame actions they can win a witcher or mage coin that will allow them to make a witcher in character screen.

For example I would have a monthly pvp event, running from 18-22 on the server local time. Each event starting every 30 mins during "prime time". 12 players end up in a death match and for every player you kill you get 1 point +whatever rank the player you killed had. Each account can only sign up for 3 events per day.

So after each game your event pvp rank would be say 8 kills+combined rank of those you kill. Noone looses rank, you can only gain. Pvp events are ofcourse ranked so you'll meet similar ranked players as the event goes on. With 3 ranked events per day, and you can only meet players who play their daily ranked game too.

Whoever is the highest ranked player after a month, wins the coin to create a witcher.

That would make the witcher or mage rare on the servers, and only in the hands of good players.

Erinak1 · February 2020

30% on a 10 level tutorial, you could just brute force it. When you intend to spend 100/1000s of hours on an MMO, re leveling a few characters to get the 30% chance for the one you really want is insignificant. No matter any of the methods used in previous games, there will never be a lore-friendly number of classes. People say about Beornings in LOTRO but realistically there are not that many adventurers in general, especially hobbits. Most of the campaigns of War of the RIng were done by factions rather than independent individuals. Having a realistic class/race split in an MMO is just not viable. Ultimately people want to play what they want to play and limiting that is only going to lose subscribers so the only option to have a realistic number of witchers would be to not have them as a class.

Amathe · February 2020

This I think would result in the Star Wars problem, where everyone wants to be a Jedi, but Jedis are supposed to be rare.

Your solution, which is a good attempt, would run into some of the problems in early SWG. Cool at first, long term gets messy.

ultimateduck · February 2020

The SWG reference is a perfect example. Another would be stealthers in the early days DAoC. It was just really hard to level up a stealther in DAoC when the game first came out. They were not group friendly so you had to solo almost everything. It wasn't until everyone started powerleveling that stealthers became more commonplace. The end result was a PvP nightmare, at least early on in the game.

I think the same holds true here.

The process to become a Witcher would have to be so long and tedious and undesirable that most people wouldn't want any part of it... and it would have to be a solo class so getting to become a Witcher wouldn't be something that big guilds could just churn out by powerleveling.

TEKK3N · February 2020

Or maybe no one gets to be the a Witcher.
Just use the world and the lore, where every player is just a peasant looking for fortune.

Let’s not make the same mistake Star Wars did by allowing everyone to play the Jedi.

Gutlard · February 2020

Maybe you could play as other classes, but "hire" a Witcher to tackle some tough stuff for you or allow you to take on the Witcher role for a limited amount of time.

Kind of like how LOTRO handled the Ranger/Troll classes in the 'Moors, but of course blow out that game mechanic to something greater and more useful for this specific Lore.

Gut Out!

alkarionlog · February 2020

Cryomatrix said:

Just finished the Witcher on Netflix.

If was going to make the game an MMO, I would make it hardcore in the following way.

In the lore, 3/10 people survive witcher trials. So everyone starts the game bland, the first 10 levels are basically a tutorial in the game, where they introduce you to the types of mechanics in the game. Melee, range, crafter, mage, witcher, etc.

Then if you choose to be a witcher, there is a long quest, mini game to pass, it is designed so only 30% of characters take it and survive. If they fail, character dies permanently.

Similar process with mage, etc.

My thought process is as follows. If you have a game world where only a chosen few can become a jedi for example or in a world where most people arent "special". Why make everyone a hero or start off as a jedi.

The game population should mirror the lore in a sense. Now i dont want most people to be peasants, i just want a select few people to be special based on some part of skill that doesnt include grinding.

Have certain puzzles that are account specific so they cant be cheesed.

Overall, this wont happen as games are geared for microtransactions, etc. To get around this, i'd just have different server types.

because you want the game to sell, star wars made this, you become a jedi/sith if you survive the training till jedi master, dead during that time it was game over, then they changed.

take note too if you want just a MMO on witcher world its a normal fantasy setting, nothing new, the selling point would be be a witcher.

so I don't see a witcher MMO being good

AlBQuirky · February 2020

TEKK3N said:

Or maybe no one gets to be the a Witcher.
Just use the world and the lore, where every player is just a peasant looking for fortune.

Let’s not make the same mistake Star Wars did by allowing everyone to play the Jedi.

I see a cash shop item... $100 and you get the Witcher class in one slot...

Akulas · February 2020

Witcher as a non playable class (but still an important part of the game) would be the solution to the problem of too many Witchers.

AAAMEOW · February 2020

AlBQuirky said:

TEKK3N said:

Or maybe no one gets to be the a Witcher.
Just use the world and the lore, where every player is just a peasant looking for fortune.

Let’s not make the same mistake Star Wars did by allowing everyone to play the Jedi.

I see a cash shop item... $100 and you get the Witcher class in one slot...

I see a loot box item...

And there are people complaining about spending 500$-1000$ and still not get it.

Cryomatrix · February 2020

I could see how my idea wouldnt necessarily work but im sick and tired of seeing the MMO players with the most time or money have the coolest shit. There should be some kind of skill based progression that doesnt involve only grind.

Im okay with a tad of RNG, but i prefer some sort of skill based way to earn your stuff. Puzzles that cant be cheesed, ability to clear solo dungeons in a short amount of time. Have counting stats as well as skill based stats.

If someone in a game is a witcher, then i want that person to be revered like a grandmaster starcraft player is, not just to be seen as a no lifer.

Same with mage and a few other prestige classes, if a person reaches that level they should be head and shoulders above anyone else. Now it shouldnt be able to be achieved in a few weeks but at least 6 months if everything goes perfect. Once, this is achieved, chatacter is reborn as a witcher.

I'd also have bland classes like:
Soldier, archer, 1h vs 2h, cavalry, crafter, diplomat, bard (dandelion), thief, archeologist, beast tamer and go from there. Leave mages abd witchers as prestige classes like the Jedi was in the beginning of SWG.

Also what was problem with jedi in early SWG?

Edit: read up on how jedi system was bad, i get it now. My idea above is trash.

cameltosis · February 2020

Cryomatrix said:
Also what was problem with jedi in early SWG?

Edit: read up on how jedi system was bad, i get it now. My idea above is trash.

Alpha classes in general are bad, but thats not to say they can't ever work, it just depends on the implementation. I like the above idea where it works like LotRO's ranger/troll mechanic - you're capped to just 2 per server and when someone activates and plays one, they have a limited time.

So, you could do something like pay 1m gold (or equally high value) so that someone in guild could play a witcher for 3 hours. Long enough to help you with whatever difficult task u have, not long enough to unbalance the game.

Another idea i quite like is make it based on voting. Each server can have 100 witchers, each month all active players vote and top 100 votes gets to play a witcher for a month. (obviously you'd want a better system than a popularity contest, but u know what i mean!)

Or, make it a more arbitrary choice by the GMs. Make them pay attention to the server and then assign players a witcher based on some criteria, like how friendly they are, or how active, or how many pugs they run, or how much roleplaying they do.

All that said, I would never make a witcher MMO. The witcher games and series are based on STORY, and story is really bad to base a multiplayer game on. The rest of the witcher world is pretty generic and bland, so I think it would be a waste to build an mmo based on it. There are far more interesting worlds to build in which we could have our own stories.

Vermillion_Raventhal · February 2020

Erinak1 said:

30% on a 10 level tutorial, you could just brute force it. When you intend to spend 100/1000s of hours on an MMO, re leveling a few characters to get the 30% chance for the one you really want is insignificant. No matter any of the methods used in previous games, there will never be a lore-friendly number of classes. People say about Beornings in LOTRO but realistically there are not that many adventurers in general, especially hobbits. Most of the campaigns of War of the RIng were done by factions rather than independent individuals. Having a realistic class/race split in an MMO is just not viable. Ultimately people want to play what they want to play and limiting that is only going to lose subscribers so the only option to have a realistic number of witchers would be to not have them as a class.

The only way is to make the selection process random and limited by hard numbers.

delete5230 · February 2020

xD_Gaming said:

quick answr : you don't .

Agree,
All you really need is to use the quality of the game.

Not only should everyone NOT be Witchers, but the lore of everyone chasing Ciri and Yennefer around the map makes it impossible too.

Best thing about the Witcher is the skill tree, easy crafting and alchemy. But combat would have to be modified without the lock on targeting.

Thane · February 2020

yep, doesn't work.

either people would start witch(er) hunts - as it happened with jedis in SWG, or they would just sell the witcher class via MTR

don't think they'll do an mmo any time soon. those guys seemed to like their IP, but ofc i could be wrong... maybe.... don't think so tho, hehe

cheyane · February 2020

Having too many Witchers is like too many Jedis just not done. SWG should never have allowed Jedi period. They should have been NPCs not playing characters.

Utinni · February 2020

ConnorWatkins said:

I made $64,000 so far this year working online and I’m a full time student. I’m using an online business opportunity I heard about and I’ve made such great money. It’s really user friendly and I’m just so happy that I found out about it. Here’s what I’ve been doing..........https://bit.ly/3bxYzmy

This is a better idea than a Witcher MMO.

laserit · February 2020

Witchers should be NPC's and if your having trouble getting by that dungeon boss, you should hire one.

Po_gg · February 2020

Cryomatrix said:

Just finished the Witcher on Netflix.
[...]

Read the novels too!

Cryomatrix said:

[...]
Edit: read up on how jedi system was bad, i get it now. My idea above is trash.

That was quick

Btw. there was already a discussion about that, with the similar line of thought (playable witchers) where I too used jedis as an example against the idea

https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/comment/7556525#Comment_7556525

(and LotRO's ranger play too what cameltosis mentioned)

Maurgrim · February 2020

Would be better that you cant play a witcher or a mage, rather you can play other classes types, and you meet witchers and mages around the world, so you live in the world not be an epic class like everyone else.

Adamantine · February 2020

The player character is always a hero and the exception, not the rule. Thus if you can play a witcher in such a MMO it should be balanced with other character classes. Just like for example in The Old Republic, if you play a Jedi or Sith, you're not stronger than the non-Jedi, just different.

kitarad · February 2020

If you're making a Witcher game you would expect to play as a Witcher. I don't want to play it and be Thaler or Abigail.

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