What types of game elements enable, benefit from, or need large player numbers?

Dammam · April 28

Recent conversations about the number of people needed for an MMO got me thinking about the effect of scale on how different game systems or activities play out. Maybe it's foolish of me to assume this won't just turn into a discussion about defining MMOs, but that's not what I'm getting at. Instead, when I think about systems like exploration, resource gathering, crafting, trade, combat, and so on, they aren't all affected the same way by the number of other players engaged in those activities.

The way I see it, assuming the game is not simulating other people, things like the economy, crafting, and trade seem to benefit the most from truly massive engagement. On the other hand, scripted encounters as an example seem to be harder to pull-off effectively when there are too many people present. Intuitively, it makes sense that tuning battles requiring more complicated strategies to a smaller number of coordinated players is easier because realistically getting 1000s of players to coordinate combat is a tall order. But I think there's more to it than that.

First, in the economy, both the competition and cooperation come from other players - they are your market, your consumers, your suppliers, all of it. Since the market is that of goods that are collected or crafted to aid in other in-game activities, it scales very well with increased participation across the whole game. The more people doing anything, even if each is doing their own one thing, the better for you. This pairs really well with another advantage of how the economy works, which is that participation in it can largely be done independently. In other words, the gathering, crafting, selling, buying, and consuming of goods don't have to be directly coordinated by each player or group of players doing those activities. This allows for 1000s of players to effectively engage with each other without much overhead, making it a very scalable part of the game. That said, these points also mean that engaging in the economy doesn't have to feel particularly social, which is ironic.

In contrast, scripted PvE encounters have players fighting NPCs so increasing the number of players only affects one side of that equation directly. The other side is up to the developers. They can leave the NPCs as they are, scale them in number or in health, power, or abilities to match the number of players. It doesn't naturally scale. Additionally, player abilities and the situational demands of the encounter can be tuned towards player independence (solo-play) or interdependence (group-play). A large battle where each player is just bashing their own abilities surrounded by particle effects of other players feels different than one in which coordinated use of offensive and defensive abilities, positioning, and timing are needed to succeed. The more I think about it the more I feel that systems made up of simpler, more specialized parts scale much better while encouraging interdependence. Regardless, the quality of such content diminishes past whatever optimum number it was tuned for, and many may find playing simpler, highly specialized roles less engaging.

To sum up, not all the game elements I see even in games that support a lot of players benefit from having all those players engaging with it concurrently. So when we discuss how many players a game has or can support, what are the systems we expect to be positively affected by the game being massively multiplayer?

Sovrath · April 28

I would offer that sieges require a lot of people.

Also, if the game is open pvp then having more than less people on your side is a huge help.

Additionally, the raids in Lineage 2 required a lot of people, far more than the 40 or 60 (or whatever amount) amounts in other games.

Having said that, I would say this is because of how many hp and how difficult it was to inflict damage. I'm sure the encounters could have been retooled for smaller groups but the developers wanted the fights to take resources as well as be very hard and not something you just stroll in and do.

Scot · April 28

Let me address the War Elephant in the room, PvP. Clearly, the massively in MMORPG's is well suited to this, it what's separates MMO's from many other genres. Indeed what Dammam has described is a PvE MMO, though with a top notch economic system. The other thing you need a large player base for is group activity like raids of course.

But where I agree is that players benefit from engaging in activities concurrently, something rather lost in todays MMOs. Indeed for me that is as important as Massively, otherwise why have other players there?

Dammam · April 28

Scot said:

Let me address the War Elephant in the room, PvP. Clearly, the massively in MMORPG's is well suited to this, it what's separates MMO's from many other genres. Indeed what Dammam has described is a PvE MMO, though with a top notch economic system. The other thing you need a large player base for is group activity like raids of course.

But where I agree is that players benefit from engaging in activities concurrently, something rather lost in todays MMOs. Indeed for me that is as important as Massively, otherwise why have other players there?

Oh, I'm not trying to describe any single game but just gave examples of elements of games and there can be many others. I think you and Sovrath are absolutely correct in that PvP stands out as something that, like the game's economy, can benefit from having many other people. But even with PvP, how combat and player roles are designed can tune the game to benefit from different numbers of people. I still think that having more specific, specialized roles for individuals to fill enables strategic PvP at a much larger scale. EVE is a good example, where someone's main job in a PvP battle may be to pin down (tackle) an opposing player's ship so that other ships can blast it. On the other hand, PvP with less defined roles becomes harder to coordinate at scale. That's more of what I'm wondering about, how systems allow for, benefit from, or encourage different numbers of players to engage together.

Take your second point about concurrent activities as it relates to PvP in MMOs. Players aren't always going to be online so quick, on-demand engagements will simply favor whoever is online in that moment. Slowing things down by design can allow players to coordinate outside the game and hop on in response to in-game build-up. As an example, EVE's player-owned structures have vulnerability windows that artificially limit when attacks on them can continue. Such a system helps enable the coordination of far larger groups to attack or defend.

What are other examples you've found that benefit from or promote massive engagement, including in PvP?

[Deleted User] · April 28

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Dammam · April 28

tzervo said:

[--snip--]

- RvR rulesets/loops: GW2 WvW (where zerg busting technics show that under a skilled commander, individual skill can matter even in large player number fights), Foxhole's wars (with interesting efforts executed by large groups fighting, building fortifications and doing logistics for large war fronts.

[--snip--]

My experience with GW2's WvW is limited to the early days of the game. It was definitely fun to see large groups of people clash across the map with siege weapons and all. At that time I don't recall much coordination but that may have improved. I think the idea of designated commanders is an interesting mechanic to bridge group strategy and tactics at scale.

cameltosis · April 29

Despite "massively multiplayer" being the only unique selling point of MMOs, I don't feel that they have many, or sometimes any, features that make use of the feature.

In general, PvP seems to be the only activity that actually makes use of being massively multiplayer. But, even there, players are rarely given the tools to help manage large numbers of players.

Stuff like the economy, or a background simulation in ED, benefits from having large numbers of players engaging with the same system. But, that engagement is rarely multiplayer gameplay. You don't craft stuff in teams, you don't setup player shops as a group of 100 players.

What I would personally like to see is larger scale combat. PvP already exists at large scale (i still play WAR for example), but could be greatly improved upon by providing players with better tools, like in game voice chat, better group structures etc. Not to mention a whole better setup in general, like deep combat mechanics and horizontal progression.

But I also want to see large scale cooperative combat. I imagine things like Helms Deep, but with 100s of real players defending the walls against hordes or uruk hai npcs. Or, in an FPS, I'd love to have 500+ players storming the beaches of normandy together.

I'd like to see large scale crafting projects too. These wouldn't be synchronous (multiplayer), but having 100s contributing to a new, massive cathedral, or fortress, would be fun.

[Deleted User] · April 29

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Amaranthar · May 1

I think the first thing to recognize is that there are 2 ways to go about this.

The first is the system, like with the economy, where anyone can join in and it's open to all. But think about this point. The thing that brings economies together is Trade. The rest are parts of that system.

The second is direct player cooperation. Economies offer this in the sense of Auction Houses. UO didn't have those by coded design, Players did that on their own.
Other than that, Player Houses had Player owned NPC shopkeepers loaded with inventory to sell. "Location, location, location" was a thing in UO. Players who wanted to see a lot wanted to have their houses near city entrance roads or other prime real estate. This was a form of player cooperation too, loosely.

What this is getting at is that you need a "social structure" to bring these systems together, easily seen in economies through "Trade."
And you want these structures to be meaningful to the Players.

This is where it gets complicated. How to do this with other systems besides economies.

Dammam · May 1

Amaranthar said:

I think the first thing to recognize is that there are 2 ways to go about this.

The first is the system, like with the economy, where anyone can join in and it's open to all. But think about this point. The thing that brings economies together is Trade. The rest are parts of that system.

The second is direct player cooperation. Economies offer this in the sense of Auction Houses. UO didn't have those by coded design, Players did that on their own.
Other than that, Player Houses had Player owned NPC shopkeepers loaded with inventory to sell. "Location, location, location" was a thing in UO. Players who wanted to see a lot wanted to have their houses near city entrance roads or other prime real estate. This was a form of player cooperation too, loosely.

What this is getting at is that you need a "social structure" to bring these systems together, easily seen in economies through "Trade."
And you want these structures to be meaningful to the Players.

This is where it gets complicated. How to do this with other systems besides economies.

I think that's why developers need to consider what type and scale of multiplayer gameplay they are aiming for and how the experiences they're designing are affected by or necessitate multiplayer engagement. You can't just throw people into a game and hope meaningful and fun "social structures" form. Too often it feels like people "need to cooperate" out of poor design and so there's a push towards more solo-friendly features. To be clear, I'm not saying solo games are bad, just that they don't make the most of the social potential of MMOs. But plenty of games where multiplayer features are a central component to the game-loop do exist and the interdependence on others is key to that experience. Multiplayer FPS, MOBAs, etc.

If I understand your post correctly, they can't just have a system for the economy and call it good. They need to consider how the player cooperation driving that economy, i.e. trade, is achieved.

Dammam · May 1

cameltosis said:

[--snip--]
But I also want to see large scale cooperative combat. I imagine things like Helms Deep, but with 100s of real players defending the walls against hordes or uruk hai npcs. Or, in an FPS, I'd love to have 500+ players storming the beaches of normandy together.

I'd like to see large scale crafting projects too. These wouldn't be synchronous (multiplayer), but having 100s contributing to a new, massive cathedral, or fortress, would be fun.

I agree. There's a lot of untapped or unexplored potential for massively cooperative gameplay and I hope we see things like that in the future. Sounds really fun!

Amaranthar · May 2

Dammam said:

Amaranthar said:

I think the first thing to recognize is that there are 2 ways to go about this.

The first is the system, like with the economy, where anyone can join in and it's open to all. But think about this point. The thing that brings economies together is Trade. The rest are parts of that system.

The second is direct player cooperation. Economies offer this in the sense of Auction Houses. UO didn't have those by coded design, Players did that on their own.
Other than that, Player Houses had Player owned NPC shopkeepers loaded with inventory to sell. "Location, location, location" was a thing in UO. Players who wanted to see a lot wanted to have their houses near city entrance roads or other prime real estate. This was a form of player cooperation too, loosely.

What this is getting at is that you need a "social structure" to bring these systems together, easily seen in economies through "Trade."
And you want these structures to be meaningful to the Players.

This is where it gets complicated. How to do this with other systems besides economies.

I think that's why developers need to consider what type and scale of multiplayer gameplay they are aiming for and how the experiences they're designing are affected by or necessitate multiplayer engagement. You can't just throw people into a game and hope meaningful and fun "social structures" form. Too often it feels like people "need to cooperate" out of poor design and so there's a push towards more solo-friendly features. To be clear, I'm not saying solo games are bad, just that they don't make the most of the social potential of MMOs. But plenty of games where multiplayer features are a central component to the game-loop do exist and the interdependence on others is key to that experience. Multiplayer FPS, MOBAs, etc.

If I understand your post correctly, they can't just have a system for the economy and call it good. They need to consider how the player cooperation driving that economy, i.e. trade, is achieved.

Add on the end of that:
"And then add that driver into other systems."

If you think about that, you might see that it's a different thing than the "prefab" designs that games usually create, i.e. grouping to run quests (and then going their separate ways).
There's a reason why players have gone mostly solo. That needs to be addressed.

Dammam · May 2

Amaranthar said:

Dammam said:

Amaranthar said:

I think the first thing to recognize is that there are 2 ways to go about this.

The first is the system, like with the economy, where anyone can join in and it's open to all. But think about this point. The thing that brings economies together is Trade. The rest are parts of that system.

The second is direct player cooperation. Economies offer this in the sense of Auction Houses. UO didn't have those by coded design, Players did that on their own.
Other than that, Player Houses had Player owned NPC shopkeepers loaded with inventory to sell. "Location, location, location" was a thing in UO. Players who wanted to see a lot wanted to have their houses near city entrance roads or other prime real estate. This was a form of player cooperation too, loosely.

What this is getting at is that you need a "social structure" to bring these systems together, easily seen in economies through "Trade."
And you want these structures to be meaningful to the Players.

This is where it gets complicated. How to do this with other systems besides economies.

I think that's why developers need to consider what type and scale of multiplayer gameplay they are aiming for and how the experiences they're designing are affected by or necessitate multiplayer engagement. You can't just throw people into a game and hope meaningful and fun "social structures" form. Too often it feels like people "need to cooperate" out of poor design and so there's a push towards more solo-friendly features. To be clear, I'm not saying solo games are bad, just that they don't make the most of the social potential of MMOs. But plenty of games where multiplayer features are a central component to the game-loop do exist and the interdependence on others is key to that experience. Multiplayer FPS, MOBAs, etc.

If I understand your post correctly, they can't just have a system for the economy and call it good. They need to consider how the player cooperation driving that economy, i.e. trade, is achieved.

Add on the end of that:
"And then add that driver into other systems."

If you think about that, you might see that it's a different thing than the "prefab" designs that games usually create, i.e. grouping to run quests (and then going their separate ways).
There's a reason why players have gone mostly solo. That needs to be addressed.

Yeah, as a general rule I agree that interlinking systems into a cohesive experience is important. To further drive the point, I'll also add that how those individual systems scale by themselves matters as well. If you take a system that scales well with large player numbers, like an economy, and surround it with many systems that don't really need large player numbers, like crafting or gathering or even questing in the way it is often implemented, even if those activities directly tie into and drive the economy we'd end up with the same problem you mentioned in the end. I think many MMOs rely on one or two systems like the economy to provide that massively multiplayer glue that holds their other less multiplayer-dependent systems together and that only goes so far before feeling forced and disjointed.

[Deleted User] · May 2

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Slapshot1188 · May 2

Dammam said:

cameltosis said:

[--snip--]
But I also want to see large scale cooperative combat. I imagine things like Helms Deep, but with 100s of real players defending the walls against hordes or uruk hai npcs. Or, in an FPS, I'd love to have 500+ players storming the beaches of normandy together.

I'd like to see large scale crafting projects too. These wouldn't be synchronous (multiplayer), but having 100s contributing to a new, massive cathedral, or fortress, would be fun.

I agree. There's a lot of untapped or unexplored potential for massively cooperative gameplay and I hope we see things like that in the future. Sounds really fun!

But the challenge in a PvP game is what happens when you LOSE that massive cathedral or fortress you and your allies spent 2 months building?

Thats what happened in games like Darkfall. The building was great. Gave folks goals to work together to achieve. But when that is taken away by another group, there is a large segment of players that just quit.

So maybe... better suited to PvE at the end of the day.

Sovrath · May 2

Amaranthar said:

Dammam said:

Amaranthar said:

I think the first thing to recognize is that there are 2 ways to go about this.

The first is the system, like with the economy, where anyone can join in and it's open to all. But think about this point. The thing that brings economies together is Trade. The rest are parts of that system.

The second is direct player cooperation. Economies offer this in the sense of Auction Houses. UO didn't have those by coded design, Players did that on their own.
Other than that, Player Houses had Player owned NPC shopkeepers loaded with inventory to sell. "Location, location, location" was a thing in UO. Players who wanted to see a lot wanted to have their houses near city entrance roads or other prime real estate. This was a form of player cooperation too, loosely.

What this is getting at is that you need a "social structure" to bring these systems together, easily seen in economies through "Trade."
And you want these structures to be meaningful to the Players.

This is where it gets complicated. How to do this with other systems besides economies.

I think that's why developers need to consider what type and scale of multiplayer gameplay they are aiming for and how the experiences they're designing are affected by or necessitate multiplayer engagement. You can't just throw people into a game and hope meaningful and fun "social structures" form. Too often it feels like people "need to cooperate" out of poor design and so there's a push towards more solo-friendly features. To be clear, I'm not saying solo games are bad, just that they don't make the most of the social potential of MMOs. But plenty of games where multiplayer features are a central component to the game-loop do exist and the interdependence on others is key to that experience. Multiplayer FPS, MOBAs, etc.

If I understand your post correctly, they can't just have a system for the economy and call it good. They need to consider how the player cooperation driving that economy, i.e. trade, is achieved.

Add on the end of that:
"And then add that driver into other systems."

If you think about that, you might see that it's a different thing than the "prefab" designs that games usually create, i.e. grouping to run quests (and then going their separate ways).
There's a reason why players have gone mostly solo. That needs to be addressed.

I can’t speak for other early games but lineage 2 didn’t do that. I don’t think EverQuest did that either.

lord of the rings online surely did.

not sure what the developers were thinking. I can only assume this started with world of Warcraft.

Dammam · May 2

tzervo said:

Dammam said:

Yeah, as a general rule I agree that interlinking systems into a cohesive experience is important. To further drive the point, I'll also add that how those individual systems scale by themselves matters as well. If you take a system that scales well with large player numbers, like an economy, and surround it with many systems that don't really need large player numbers, like crafting or gathering or even questing in the way it is often implemented, even if those activities directly tie into and drive the economy we'd end up with the same problem you mentioned in the end. I think many MMOs rely on one or two systems like the economy to provide that massively multiplayer glue that holds their other less multiplayer-dependent systems together and that only goes so far before feeling forced and disjointed.
I thought that some ARPGs have robust economies, without needing other systems with similar scale. Economies in particular are one of those systems that can scale independently without feeling odd or disjointed imo.

Oh, absolutely. I guess I wasn't clear. What I'm saying is if most of what your game is doesn't require large scale interaction but you tune your game as if it does because of the few systems that do scale, you create a disjointed experience. I agree it doesn't mean those other systems can't work well. It's in the implementation and how you fit things together. Take crafting in WoW, for example, though I don't know much about the current state of retail. When I played there were so many useless crafted items and some of the truly useful ones were Bind-on-Pickup (BoP), meaning only the character who crafted them could use them. So there was an economy but also arbitrary barriers to using it. Multiple characters in the same guild would all level up the same profession, instead of there being a guild engineer who supplied everyone with equipment, for example. I'm not in a guild when I play an ARPG and crafting things for my own use seems in-line with the other parts of the game. There is a cohesive identity to how the game systems fit together that is missing in some MMOs.

Dammam · May 2

Slapshot1188 said:

Dammam said:

cameltosis said:

[--snip--]
But I also want to see large scale cooperative combat. I imagine things like Helms Deep, but with 100s of real players defending the walls against hordes or uruk hai npcs. Or, in an FPS, I'd love to have 500+ players storming the beaches of normandy together.

I'd like to see large scale crafting projects too. These wouldn't be synchronous (multiplayer), but having 100s contributing to a new, massive cathedral, or fortress, would be fun.

I agree. There's a lot of untapped or unexplored potential for massively cooperative gameplay and I hope we see things like that in the future. Sounds really fun!

But the challenge in a PvP game is what happens when you LOSE that massive cathedral or fortress you and your allies spent 2 months building?

Thats what happened in games like Darkfall. The building was great. Gave folks goals to work together to achieve. But when that is taken away by another group, there is a large segment of players that just quit.

So maybe... better suited to PvE at the end of the day.

Yeah, that was my understanding with the idea of 100s of players defending against Uruk Hai NPCs, for example.

The loss of investment to PvP in games is an interesting question and I generally agree that most successful PvP games are ones that minimize that loss. They allow for experimentation, practice, and growth. You hop on and enjoy competing against others. But there can be games that involve loss in PvP that do work, so long as they are implemented well and can hold on to their niche audience. Take EVE, for example. There can be so much invested and so much lost, from ships to regions of space and even corporations themselves. And yet for those who stay and play that is a big reason why. So I wouldn't say there is never a PvP scenario where it can work, it depends on the implementation and even then it's not for everyone.

Slapshot1188 · May 2

Dammam said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Dammam said:

cameltosis said:

[--snip--]
But I also want to see large scale cooperative combat. I imagine things like Helms Deep, but with 100s of real players defending the walls against hordes or uruk hai npcs. Or, in an FPS, I'd love to have 500+ players storming the beaches of normandy together.

I'd like to see large scale crafting projects too. These wouldn't be synchronous (multiplayer), but having 100s contributing to a new, massive cathedral, or fortress, would be fun.

I agree. There's a lot of untapped or unexplored potential for massively cooperative gameplay and I hope we see things like that in the future. Sounds really fun!

But the challenge in a PvP game is what happens when you LOSE that massive cathedral or fortress you and your allies spent 2 months building?

Thats what happened in games like Darkfall. The building was great. Gave folks goals to work together to achieve. But when that is taken away by another group, there is a large segment of players that just quit.

So maybe... better suited to PvE at the end of the day.

Yeah, that was my understanding with the idea of 100s of players defending against Uruk Hai NPCs, for example.

The loss of investment to PvP in games is an interesting question and I generally agree that most successful PvP games are ones that minimize that loss. They allow for experimentation, practice, and growth. You hop on and enjoy competing against others. But there can be games that involve loss in PvP that do work, so long as they are implemented well and can hold on to their niche audience. Take EVE, for example. There can be so much invested and so much lost, from ships to regions of space and even corporations themselves. And yet for those who stay and play that is a big reason why. So I wouldn't say there is never a PvP scenario where it can work, it depends on the implementation and even then it's not for everyone.

Oh I didn’t say it can’t work or that I dislike it. When my city fell in Darkfall we lost over half our members, but I played on for months just lurking in the shadows of our old home and taking my revenge when I could.

But there’s no doubt that many, if not most, players have an absolute revulsion to losing their pixels.

Crowfall tried to counter that by having fixed duration worlds. So you knew that eventually everything would be lost and start over. But people never really bought in.

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What types of game elements enable, benefit from, or need large player numbers?

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What types of game elements enable, benefit from, or need large player numbers?

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