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Grinding Time - On MMORPG Character Advancement
An anonymous reader alerted us that "Starglade has an editorial about character development systems, where the author discusses the two most common types of character improvement (classes & levelling, and skill based improvement), and makes some suggestions for future systems in MMORPGs."
The level grind is always a difficult issue in RPGs and particularly in MMORPGs. It does put a lot of people off and, yes, even I, a fairly avid MMORPG player, get pretty sick of it sometimes.
The problem is that all things considered, it's probably the "least bad" way of handling character advancement in a MMORPG. Ultimately, a sense of advancement is one of the best ways of keeping players interested in a game. If you could max out a character after a couple of days, you'd probably lose interest in the game pretty quickly. No matter how wonderful the quests and other content might be, you're going to start thinking "but why should I bother"? Moreover, given that it takes the developers a considerable amount of time to design quest-related content, you're never going to be able to get enough quests to allow them to replace the level-grind as a long-term option. The challenge for developers is to make the level grind as painless and even enjoyable as possible.
My MMORPG of choice is Final Fantasy XI. I think I can maybe shed some light on what I mean by pointing at some of the things it does right and wrong with regards to the level grind. First of all, the jobs system is a huge plus; being able to change to one job without losing my work in another is a huge plus and means that if I need a break from the level grind on my main job and there aren't any job specific quests I can go and do with it, I can switch to another job for a while and do some of the quests for that. I don't "do" crafting myself, but the skill system there seems fairly sensible; you gain skill in it by actually practicing making stuff, but there's a cap placed on your skill by your character's level, so advancing tradeskills requires a mix of practicing crafting and level grinding. The weapon skill system is similar; a level 50 character who's never used an axe before will be no better at using an axe than a level 1 character, although due to his high level, he'll learn more quickly if he tries. The requirement to form parties is also a big plus, in my opinion. Only one of the jobs in the game (Beastmaster) is capable of levelling up past about level 20 without being in a party. Personally, I don't get why people would play a MMORPG and then spend most of their time solo; if I wanted to do that, I'd be playing Morrowind. Interaction with party memebers is one of the best ways to take the sting out of the level grind, even if it can become time-consuming to put parties together at the higher levels (50+).
That's the good stuff. Now for the areas where I think there's room for improvement. By far my biggest gripe is the fact that you'll never be fighting anything other than the same few types of enemies on the level grind. There's a huge bestiary in the game, with some really great monsters, but as most players are so risk-averse, they'll happily go from levels 1-60 fighting nothing but bats, worms, crabs and beetles. Just to point out how stupid this gets; a level 60 beetle has the exact same abilities as its level 1 cousin. The only difference is that it gets higher stats. It would be nice if the game would force you to fight more exotic and difficult creatures as you got more advanced and if... shock horror... fights actually started to need more skill at the higher levels. As it is, the only times I get to fight the more challenging creatures are when I'm on a quest. Also, I'd like to see smaller penalties for dying. It's not so bad at the lower levels; a death there might set you back about 5 minutes worth of levelling. But a death above level 50 can set you back an hour or more of work. This contributes to players being so risk-averse. I understand the need for some kind of penalty for dying, but I think that being over harsh takes a lot of the fun out of things.
Anyway, to wrap up, the level grind is here to stay, but developers have a duty to do whatever they can to make it as fun as possible.
Not much here that isn't already in any gaming forum, though ussually less verbose. His ideal solution to gaining skills is to set a goal for your character when you leave and when you come back your character has made some progress, (reminds me of ... well I can't remember the name...little help .. not everquest but ...? ). Other methods of achieving this include World of Warcraft's "rest points" which punish players for playing too long by giving them fewer experience points on kills (Blizzard's euphamism:they'll tell you its a reward taking beaks).
?
EVE Online has that. Skill training happens in linear time. It doesn't matter
whether you're online or offline; your character spends ALL its time reading
through technical manuals and such, and you flying around trading/killing doesn't
affect this in any way (unless you get blown to bits and die - send in the clones!).
found it!!! Progressquest is a great little game, esp for fans of Diablo 2 or everquest. This really brings game playing into perspective and is perhaps what the author is suggesting taken to the extreme.
If my wife were to say that running about killing snakes and rats with a sword was boring, I would be outta the house faster than you can say "Bobbitt".
1000s Warcraft Gold while you sleep
A large part of the attraction to MMORPGs for the core players is the ability to distinguish themselves from everyone else. By having the biggest level, the baddest weapons, the toughest armor or the most exotic clothing, if you compare two people who've been playing the game for two years next to two months, the person who's been playing for 2 years expects a little something to show for their time and effort.
People absolutely get bored of fighting the same monster over and over again. I think reusing monster models for both high and low level content is an extremely easy way to shoot yourself in the foot. Variety in dungeon settings and monster types helps. And it helps even more when developers go with a theme that makes sense. Everquest had a Frog dungeon in a swamp, a haunted undead house tucked away on a bleak oceanside cliff, and an orc encampment on the border of elven territory. Good examples with good thought put into them. DAoC would have you fighting fire breathing lizards right next to undead barrow wights. Anarchy Online would have you fight a single mob type (heckler) for literally hundreds of hours to advance in level. Very bad examples there.
As far as I can tell, there are two types of ways to distinguish players from one another. Time investment based and skill based. Mix them how you will, but those are your options. Either players are going to be rewarded for playing 2 hours a day more than everyone else as in most MMORPGs, or players are going to be rewarded for being just a little faster and a little more accurate as in most FPS games. Outside of PvP, I can't think of any MMORPGs that require any level of skill. Sure, there are some classes in some games, like the calmer or healer, that require a small bit of brain power, but thats a far cry from minutia of skill making a difference.
So the trick of MMORPGs so far is to make the time sinks interesting. And thats accomplished with variety. Variety in monster, in dungeon, and the method of experience reward. Until we start seeing hybrid systems, where both player skill and character stats matter strongly (simliar to Deus Ex) then this is what we are stuck with.
Though I am looking forward to the day when there is a good MMORPG that uses both stats and player ability, I suspect it's a long ways off.
Advancement is one of the cornerstones i most MMOGs (if not all). Although you know you are just moving bytes on a server its still gives you a sense of achievement that for me (and i suspect many others) is very important. Although some games have tried "achievement reward" by making it possible to change the world somehow it has imo been with little succes. But as MMOGs are supposed to offer alot of playing time (today - i suspect someday there will be "short life" MMOGs) AND in the process give "achievement reward" there are bound to be stretches of playing time without rewards (or very small rewards). So imo the solution to the "grind" problem doesnt lie in the stat/skill/level system - the solution is to make the grind fun (imo to many MMOGs seems to have started with stat/level system, storyline and environment instead of focusing on what the players will be doing 90% of the time). Discussing different stat/skill/level strategies is ofcourse interrstion but i dont think anyone can be termend better than others - its highly game dependent. The one problem I think is very interresting regarding stat/skill/level strategies is how to make it possible for all players to play together regardless of "level" - and still being fun and rewarding for everyone.
What does D&D do exactly. It creates a ruleset for imaginary characters to behave in a fictional world. So it has rules stating that for each point of strength you have you can lift X amount of goods. That before you can do action X you need skills Y and Z. Nothing wrong with this being used in computer games right?
Wrong. D&D does something else as well. It has carefully twisted and tweaked the rules to be playable with nothing more then a piece of paper a pencil and some dice. This means that the calculations used are kinda simplified, way more simple then a modern computer could handle. It would be like playing a modern flight simulator but for some reason restricting your self to a flight model wich can be calculated by hand. Why? We have a bloody computer. Doing complex math and keeping track of stats is what it does best. Let the CPU sweat.
So if the D&D rules lost their pencil&paper&dice simplifications/optimizations then it would be perfect right?
Wrong. D&D games have something a computer does not have. A sentient game controller. Even if dungeon master is using a boxed adventure he will/should have the capability to adjust the game on the fly to the party playing it. If the thief of the party isn't there any half decent game master will of course quickly add a way around a crucial lock. If a roll fails that is going to kill the adventure to early or a party fails to pick up a clue he will make a choice wether he had enough or to step in and help out. An extra NPC helping in a fight, a monster that stumbles. Or just cut things short if the party is getting bored. The computer has no such capability. It can't adjust the game because it will never detect the need for it.
So if the ruleset started to make full use of the CPU capabilities and the game had godlike scripting to adjust the game to the player it would be good right?
WRONG. D&D has yet one more difference. D&D is a social game, you play it in a group. It is the going on an adventure together that makes Pen&Paper RPG's fun. But it also means a lot of the rules are there to make everyone a "equal" member of the party. No super powerfull everything devastating wizards wiping the battlefield clean while the thief is running for his life from everything bigger then a rat. The most famous adventure party, the fellowship of the ring, would be hard to put in D&D rules. Exactly what is the problem with a healing thief. A sword wielding wizard? Why am I so restricted in my classes? Simple, so that I need the other players in my party. BUT computer games are solo afairs. I am the hero, I am the center of the story, the universe revolves around me! No need to play fair. If I want to stab someone with the biggest sword available and then pour magic into the wound like there is no tomorrow then let me.
But no. Wizards don't sweep the battlefield. They can do 3-4 spells and then must go for a lie down. Constantly finding resting places. IS that supposed to be fun? I rarely use magic in D&D games. I prefer to kick ass.
Get rid of the limits. Battles do not have to be balanced, the computer controlled NPC's are not going to suffer confidence crisises because my player character scores all the kills. Or even the other way around, let the beginner player character have the help of a more powerfull older master. You know to stop the annoying killed by rat syndrome.
D&D has its uses but it is now more restraint on game development then an aid. One of my biggest peefs is that it shouts artificial. Take weapon skills. My character has totally mastered the long sword (one-handed) but if you put a short sword in his hands he has no idea wich end to hold. WTF? It is a bloody sword. Same with bows. Exactly how can someone master the long bow yet have no clue on how to use a short bow? Or going further. The art of using a bow involves working out flightpaths. A skill also needed in using a sling or a thr
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people think they are the first to think something, think their ideas are innovative and original, and that they should get an award for thinking the way they do. Replies on the other hand, are first come first serve; so unless someone else has typed it on that particular medium before you then it's on.
Regarding tweaking the rules for PnP: Ah, but a large part of the rules in a CRPG is that they are transparent and understandable by the player-making everything more complex would pull away from that.
Regarding the lack of a DM: This is a problem computer games have, period. However, they have two things to resolve this: good game design(ie, giving you the key to that lock) and saved games. The first resolves inability issues(missed that clue, can't open that lock), and the second solves the overmatched battle problems, as the combat in question can be replayed.
Regarding lack of character options: Try 3e, which does allow for all of that.(Keep in mind, 3e is what we will be seeing for awhile-good luck getting WotC to licence the 2e rules for a computer game).
Regarding Wizards not sweeping the battleground: They do-at higher levels. Playing a mage in D&D is always a trade off of short term gain for long-term power.
Regarding shouts artificial: I'm sorry, but D&D is a game, not a simulation. It is tied to its PnP base, and that group always chooses simplicity over realism. If you want realism, go play Shadowrun. Also, again, play 3e, which addresses each of your concerns-don't think directly, think of the abstract concepts the game terms represent. Sniper with the guns? I have a phrase for you, it's Base Attack Bonus.
Regarding fun to play: This has jack all to do with the rules-you get varying experiences with PnP DMs. Also, if the game rules are just background, then why do they need to be so realistic? Also, one of the two games you cited is from D&D.
D&D is the id engine of RPGs-used like crazy, scalable, and more concerned with a good game then realism. If that doesn't appeal to you, go play Counterstrike and a rules-heavy pen and paper system.
The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say. -Anais Nin
Actually it's more a satire on the grinding itself... quite funny :)
http://www.progressquest.com
... the alternatives don't yet seem viable.
(Initial caveat: posting while drunk, apologies in advance.)
Grinding is dull and pointless. It's a competition between players: who has the most patience? who has the least life outside a computer game? It was dull in LPMUDs and it's dull in the modern generation of online RPGs. There is more than enough tedium in the real world. Why on Earth do you want to do it in a game that is supposed to be fun?
In every online game I've played or seen so far, one starts off being totally incompetent. The 'mangy rat' is a challenge. Who wants to play someone who has trouble dealing with mangy rats? Those who persist and reach the end-game are orders of magnitude more powerful. Their in-game skills are incomparably better than the starting character. This is their reward for sheer bloody-mindedness.
Characters should develop and change over time, but they should start off being able to affect the world. To matter. To be someone. Otherwise it's either dull or a huge stretch of the imagination.
Case in point: take City of Heroes. You play a superhero. Yet when you start you have 3 powers, which are probably two attacks and a defence. You then run fleeing from all but the most innocuous of petty street thugs. By the end of the game, one is fighting off alien invasions and world-destroying foes, but at the start you are decidedly un-heroic. No one can even fly until 14th level. And City of Heroes is one of the least bad offenders. What's with this?
The big problem is that designing and implementing a world where people's online alter-egos can actually matter, is really hard. AI for the NPCs is not up to the task of creating a community in which the PC can shine, and it's unreasonable to expect a starting player to immediately make a splash in the community of other PCs. That coupled with possibly hundreds of thousands of players makes it especially difficult.
Nonetheless, until people can feel like they matter, the MMORPG is going to have limited appeal. The policies against auto-leveling and other forms of programmatical advancement simply exclude another class of players who would rather a machine take care of all the tedious aspects so that they instead can concentrate on the bits worth playing. Why is it so bad that someone skip 17 hours of mindless clicking? Where is the appeal?
Until AI tech and automated story-telling is vastly improved, MMORPGs seem stuck with this terrible grinding aspect. I'll play them as long as the other rewards make up for this huge deficiency, but the technology just isn't there yet to appeal to players who don't have a certain masochistic streak.
One huge exception comes to mind: Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates. There your character doesn't improve, you improve. You the player get better at doing the puzzles, and your ability in the game improves conmesurably. This is extremely cool, and is one of the reasons why Y!PP is such a damn fine game.
The concept that you start off fighting rats and snakes for a long time until you become "powerful" and can have fun fighting tough opponents is fundamentally flawed.
What defines a powerful opponent? Is it their hit points, their armor class, their level? For most characters in most MMOs a powerful opponent is one more than a couple levels higher than them, since those opponents will be able to kill them very quickly.
Perhaps it's just that "rats" are themselves boring, and don't seem powerful because they are rats. What this suggests is that it's important to pit players against interesting opponents at lower levels. There's nothing that prevents a low level monster from having all the characteristics of a higher level one, just at a lesser power to match that of the weaker character. There's nothing that forces the low level MMO game to be less fun than the high level.
I'm not suggesting there are no problems with leveling based system, but that section of the article does not identify a fundamental flaw with leveling systems.
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I support spreading santorum
This has already been discussed, dissected and deconstructed to death in a dynamic peer-review environment of experts in the field (i.e. the clued).
This "thoughtful" article is the equivalent of an uneducated amateur writing about his new theory of why things don't fall off the Earth.
There's nothing new to see here, move along.
I have lots of recovering Evercrack freinds (and a number who are still hooked). I still don't get the appeal of a game that would be so tedious at the lower levels that leveling is required. The only MMOG I play is Aces High. Version 2.0 will have a specific character that levels up depending on performance, and I'm not interested in that.
The current 1.0 version puts virtual pilots in a big (or a mid-size historical) arena, where you sink or swim based on real, between-the-ears experience. There is a ranking system. You can join a squad, particularly if you show a willingness to do team work and grunt work (like flying C-47s to resupply fields and mobile units). You can fly some of the higher-powered aircraft if you earn perk points (based on landing kills, not just getting kills). Ironically, many of the top-tier pilots don't fly perk planes because they're seen as too easy.
Newbies do get waxed every mission for the first week or two, but most players "get it" and start functioning as part of an official or ad-hoc team. Some don't, and that's fine. By and large, though, your experience is real, not something that can be automagically leveled without your intervention.
I guess I just don't get the appeal of games that require that sort of behavior. And, the funny thing is that none of my Evercrack freinds really seem to like playing. It's some sort of preference, definitely. And, I'm not deriding it (the call it Evercrack... I just picked it it because that's a funny way of looking at it). I just don't get it.
Amateurs discuss tactics. Professionals discuss logistics.
I think a good idea would be to separate players out into divisions and conferences.
As a new player, you could start out in a low division, but then to go up a division, you would have to be eligible (be on-line for long enough) and also complete a set of tasks that show that you are a good enough player now to qualify for the next higher division. Maybe have some adventure (or set of adventures) that require certain quick-thinking and problem solving skills to prove that you are now a better player and good enough to move up divisions. Ther would probably have to be a mechanism for forcing players up a division in order to keep them from being a big fish in a small pond.
A conference is formed to put certain players in direct competition with certain other players in the same division. You might not be the best guy on-line, but you could have a fair shot at being the best guy in your conference. This is not the same thing as a guild. A guild is typically more of a friendly establishment. Conference members are usually rivalries (think Georgia/Florida, Texas/Oklahoma, Ohio State/Michigan, etc).
As you become a better player, you would be able to get into better conferences. In NCAA football (where I'm taking this example from), there is a vote amongst conference members to determine who can join or who gets kicked out of a conference. This happens because most conferences would want to be the l33t conference by having the best l33t players in it. Now the best way to determine which conference is better than which other conference is get those conferences to compete with each other on a regular basis.
This system isn't perfect and it does require a good mechanism for competition amongst similarly qualified players, but I think it would be better than deciding who is best by who sits around and plays for hours on monotonous adventures just to get their level up.
Offline advancment is basically progress quest. Again, it's trying to fix a flawed system.
In an mmorpg, you need to differenciate yourself through looks and then somehow establish that you are better then other people. Or you just want your guy to look cool and kick ass.
I don't mind level grinds, as long as I can progress to a new area with a new skill and technique to use on the next monsters in a timely fashion, I'm still having fun playing.
But really what frusterates me about these games (besides the 15 a month AND expansion prices) is the problem with playing with people. Every game they say it is designed to be played with other people and force interaction. Great. I want to play with my friends. Too bad, you are level 30, they are just starting, you can't play together unless your friend plays by himself for a month.
I tried for a time to get into the achaea mud. This was my first mud, but I relized that to do it, I had to pay even less attention to the real world around me then in the graphical games. The scrolling text takes a lot of attention to read.
Anyway, they had some really interesting concepts there. The first of which is the status based pvp system. I didn't get far enough to really do anything in the game, but i read enough about it to get a feel for how it works. But there were a ton of status effects to inflict on people and a ton of ways to cure them. The way to kill someone off was to basically lock their status effects in such a way that they couldn't cure themselves and died from poison or something like that.
So a pvp system like that would make a phenominal game. But then some people hate pvp and don't want to have anything to do with it.
Another thing to implement, is to remove levels entirely. I get in the game, and I'm at max power. Basically I jump into everquest at level 65 or whatever the max is. Sort of like I bought a character on ebay. Except the game is massive, because all the content was designed around the idea that you have powerd up characters. Give me some skill points to allocate in the beginning to define a unique class or unique powers. Give me a lot of options for race and body type so I can look unique.
Make the game about aquiring items. Make the game in such a way that to get items, it takes a lot of work. I want a troll hat. I have to go get the keys from the 4 surrounding goblin cheifs to get into the troll layer where I can get the troll hat. When I get the troll hat, it looks cool, and I can parade around with my badass troll hat.
Give everyone a keyring that keeps track of areas they have unlocked. My avatar only has 3 of the 4 keys, the rest of my party has 4, but we need to get the 4th key for myself. But that's ok, because it's fun killing guys, and I don't ever see experience points anywhere. Give a way to change your class/skills, but make it take a long time.
Basically I want a sandbox where I can try everything out. My reward to show how long i've been playing are cool looking powerful item. Maybe I can win the look of an item, then I can go capture spirits of monsters to put in to the item to give it unique powers.
The thing that keeps me coming back to the mmorpgs are the fun of killing and exploring and interacting with people and improving my avatar. So why limit content and who I can play with and what skills I can use? Why don't you just give us all content that everybody can do, that is challenging and will require a group, and I can start playing with friends immediatly and forever.
Just make sure that everythings challenging enough to do that you won't blow through it all in 40 hours.
I hate level advancement for the sake of level advancement.
You've worked a 10 hr week grinding away at killing rats, and have what? Woot, now you can grind away at orcs. And after that, maybe ogres, onwards until the mud/mmorpg runs out of content.
Lame. Boring. Doesn't live up to the potential of the game.
You've got thousands of people all playing the same game, but beyond an immediate group and the vendors most of those other players effect your character's personal world not one bit. You might as well be playing on a server with just 10 friends.
Ditch level/skill advancement and replace it with social advancement. The whole idea of having a 120th level fighter/mage on a mmorpg instead of a solo game is so it can be compared with other players' characters.
So make it official: social standing is the attribute improved via gameplay. Every meaningful action rises your character up a social ladder. Skills and powers stay in the same ballpark as a brand new character.
Fights and other moments of excitment wouldn't be end-goal, just the obstacles. For example, you might gain standing in the Explorer's guild if you visit an espicially dangerous location. You'd also get standing via leading other players to these same special spots (which might be points of interest to their profession).
You'd gain standing in the crafting guild by making a rare object...even a starting character would be able to build these rare objects if they have the tools and materials. The adventure would be finding the exotic materials and tools required to make the object. The character's who made the best object of type B (the best sword, the armor, etc.) would receive the most social points, and down the line from there.
High social standing would give your character more access to the poltical aspects of the game, as well as perks. The top tier of the explorer's guild might recieve access to a cool mode of travel, for example.
back in the day there was a really wicked CDC platform that had very influential games, a few dungeon games especially that get mentioned in game histories. One game I played was called Krozair, had a few other names over the years, but anyway you could get a physically strong player and descend to a very low level, then stay by the stairs and maul whatever monster came along. If you were lucky you could make a high XP kill, then run up the stairs and instantly gain 15-20 levels. It was like skipping the most boring part of the game and cutting right to the good part. Those first few levels really are lame. Even when I play nethack, the first 3 levels are like the warm up .. nothing really to do, no real danger of dying (except through stupidity) I wish I could skip those levels sometimes..
music lover since 1969
Another point of the grandparent poster that 3e invalidates/corrects that I'm surprised you didn't mention...
It's still a class-based game, yes, but a much less rigid one. If you want to play a wizard who runs around slashing people with a greatsword, you can easily do that, even at level 1. (Spend your starting feat on martial weapon proficiency: greatsword.) No problem.
But there's an opportunity cost there; that level 1 wizard could have as easily spent that feat on plenty of other things. He could have learned to make some of his spells harder to resist, or how to avoid physical attacks better, or how to modify his spells for greater power or duration, or a hundred other things.
No character design is truly optimal for all situations, and, chances are, everyone else in your party can do SOMEthing better than you can -- but if you want to build a sword-wielding wizard or a rogue with healing powers, you certainly can. They just might not be as strong in their primary elements as part of the price for that diversity.
Take a look at some of the advance press for Dungeons and Dragons Online. They've explicitly stated a goal of making the game involve more `player skill' than most MMORPGs.
:-)
While no one yet knows for sure how it'll turn out, they've said a couple things on this issue:
a) The game isn't `FPS Fast' or `twitch-based', but you will certainly feel some pain if you don't know how to use the controls.
b) The mixture of traditional D&D abstract combat (all stat-based) and first-person action is tricky, but looks fun (at the moment, they have passable implementations of combat and stealth, so the demos feature that).
c) They explicitly want to break the idea `hit auto-attack and go to the bathroom', which was apparently a common enough theme that it got a serious laugh from nearly everyone in an audience chamber well above 500 people.
Is it any good? We'll see.
If you're an MMORPG and you want a skill OR level based system, or a hybrid, you're going to have a hard time breaking new ground.
Know what I'd sign up for? Q3 as an RPG.
I spent like 18 months, maybe 2 years playing Q3. I started off bad. Challenging was finishing the same single player on the middle of 5 modes. Deathmatch online? Good luck... if I got lucky, I might manage to finish in the middle of the pack of 20+ players. (And I had superior hardware and bandwidth)
But fast forward 18 months... and I'm at Quakecon in 2002, and I am delivering a spanking to the whole con. My railgun back-to-back hit-o-meter is popping up every few seconds (28...29...30 in a row) as I adjust to the LAN environment. *My* skills have improved enough that I'm dominating a 75-person server. (Actually, I was running slightly ahead of a guy I played with constantly of my 'main server' back at home, who was sitting right next to me)
I've been playing City of Heroes lately. And frankly, I find it irritating that there's a lack of skill. If I play my tanker, I turn on my fiery aura, walk up to something, and spam my axe attack. Sure, in a big group taking on purples there's a little bit of strategic decision making, but it's obvious there's a pretty solid "ceiling" on where you can go with your own skill... and your own skill applies ~0 to your early progress, where the few powers you have available makes any decision making moot.
CoH without a respec suffers additionally -- since if you learn from your mistakes building, you're currently forced to go through the grind again with a new build if you think it's better... that should be over come "Sep/Oct" when the 2nd update pack will introduce a respec, but still.
If you played Q3, you may have run across a pro. Despite my LAN domination at Qcon, I wasn't one, and didn't nearly have the skills...yet. And it was the coolest thing. These guys had the aim, but they had the skills to make the most of it with other things like movement and strategy to gain the upperhand against you. That's how my games against pros typically went -- start off even, we each get some power ups. Maybe I get a frag or two early, but before long, I show up a second too late to grab some key item, and that's it... I never score again, and I'm ground into the dust. But you knew when you went up against these guys that they were better. They outplayed you.
In City of Heroes, when some L50 flies along, it's clear he has a lot more time on his hands than you do... especially when you're me, without 10 hrs a day to play, and you're crushing the xp/hr rates that people report on the forums... and it's *still* "taking forever".
Someone needs to come up with something that has the fun eye candy of CoH, but adds "player skill" to the "character skill". I'm not saying make Q3 into an MMORPG... why not just play Q3? But make player skill ACTUALLY count. Make attacks more powerful as you level up, but force players to actually AIM.
It's going to come out sooner or later. And you know what? People aren't going to stop playing it. It's not going to get boring. Because when you stop and think: hell, it's been 3 hours and I've only got half a level?... you're going to realize your aim is improving. And you're going to smile and press on. (And it will make PvP a lot more interesting)
Players could have a scoring system based on their accomplishments and successes, minus points for death, with the penalty being reduced by getting beat by an stronger player (not character, but player, who might be an expert player playing with an character). Players would have to be encouraged to try new things, maybe by reducing the reward of doing something new. The only reason left for killing a dragon for the 1000th time would be for the enjoyment of the experience, not because you need to do it an ungodly number of times to acqire some skill.
Maybe take these, and create a legend ranking for the whole game world, that normalizes toward 0 over time, to give newer players an opportunity to move into the the top players list.
If you do this, and add more player skill, reducing the importance of character numbers, you should be able to reduce the grind, and create a system that reduces the grind, and encourages adventuring over advancing.
Play Planetside and stfu kthx
I played FFXI for months.
I leveled Monk up to 31, Paladin up to 43, Warrior up to 21 and Thief up to 14.
The game just sucks at the higher levels. You spend so often killing the same stupid bullshit that you become an expert -
"[Warrior,] this is a crawler. Switch to 2-h axe and use shield break for the love of god." "Oh no, I'm going to use 2 axes because I'm an uber warrior yadda yadda yadda"
The main problem is that leveling in that game takes absolutely no skill at all. If you spend long enough playing that game, YOU WILL LEVEL. In fact, there's a guy on one server that is his own static party - he controls five characters using five keyboards, and pays for five accounts. Last time I played, he was up to level 43 on all his characters.
It was boring bullshit - for every party full of decent people I got into, there'd be five that were barely passable, and three that'd flat out sucked. And considering that sometimes I could log on for hours and not get a party...
Even at the lower levels the game's not all that fun. You're just impelled to keep going by thinking that if you quit, you'll have wasted all the time you spent playing in the first place. I really didn't do ANYTHING for months during my senior year of high school but play this game, and I'm much worse off for it.
Just say no to MMORPGS. It's like having a gambling addiction that doesn't cost money - you waste so much more time because you DON'T hit a bottoming out point for that much longer.
I've often wondered why I've never seen the following implemented to lessen the dullness of the level grind:
Once a particular type of creature has been defeated, decrease the amount of experience gained for fighting it again. Perhaps a 5% decrease (heck...even 1%) per victory would still allow players to gain a significant amount of experience from a single type of creature, but eventually, it would become more advantageous to move on.
Pros:
This encourages people to explore more areas in search of other worthwhile encounters. Also, it seems more realistic. If I encounter a poisonous critter, and determine that an 'anti-poison' widget turns the tide from defeat to victory, I have 'learned' about this creature and have 'gained experience' by doing so. Following that, the battles are a whole lot easier, so my 'experience gained' and knowledge learned is much less.
Cons:
I'm forced to explore more, and possibly leave an area without having defeated all the 'boss' critters because I couldn't get experience by staying there and slaying minions. But, I can go elsewhere, gain more knowledge about the world, and return when I'm ready to take on the stronger foes.
This may require more content on the part of developers. Hopefully, that will mean more quests rather than just more creatures, but either way, at least it's more variation.
I'm not a big fan of class/level (it seems backwards; you class ditctates your profession/skills, instead of skills dictating your profession.)
........... $0.02 ..... $zero .. $Priceless
However, for some games, it works. D&D & Diablo are good examples, and I enjoy the level advancement.
Levels are quantized changes in skill. That is all.
A skill-based system, makes the changes more granular.
WAY too many people fall for the red-herring of realism in games.
Games are NOT about realism -- they are about immersion. (Go play some tradional card & board games, if you don't believe me.) The illusion comes, because the computer can simulate reality, better then tradional methods. Too many people complain that a game is unrealistic, when they really mean, "I find the immersion breaks." (Do these same people complain about movies being unrealistic. Hello, it's a M-O-V-I-E.)
The offline skill advancement is not new. It doe at first seem counter-productive - provide incentive to not play your game, so they want to play it in the future? What?! It does make a lot of sense. I'm surprised more MMRPGS haven't pursued this, as the more people you can OFF the system, the better (bandwidth) it is.
The offline system has to be capped. If I start a new character, and go offline for a year, how "powerfull" is he? The same as someone who plays 24x for 3 months? 6 months? 9 months? etc.
Peace
--
1. Complain
2. Friend listens
3. & offers solution
I can't believe EVE got so little attention in this discussion. EVE is the best game out there today. :>
:> You can mine, but there are plenty of other ways to make money. Hunting pirates (Both the NPC and PC type) can be very lucrative. So can buying and selling junk, or trading, or running agent missions or making ships, copying or researching blueprints, building modules.. there are hundreds of ways to make good isk without ever touching a mining laser.
:> I've been playing online games basically as long as they've been around, and have run my a couple of reasonably popular MUDs.
:>
You ''level up'' slowly because you train in real-time. That means that Joe Schmoe may not be able to get on more than once a week or so, but he can still be a significant player in the world of Eve.
Got more time and want stuff to show for it? You can build a name for yourself, you can gain status, build a corporation, actively pirate- Or just mine all day for cash.
But in a fleet battle, even the weakest pilot, in a little frigate, can make a huge difference by warp scrambling or target-jamming an enemy battleship. A pilot who's only been playing for a few weeks still has a chance to get that new, rare tech II blueprint from an agent and make billions for new ships and modules.
It's all relative, and it works very well- Though weak-minded people tend not to like it because A> They can't understand it, B> It doesn't start at the beginning, go through the middle and end at the end, and C> It's not the MMORPG they're used to.
As to the comments earlier that you had to 'grind' away at mining, that's bunk.
In case it wasn't clear, I'm totally addicted to EVE.
I refer anyone curious about eve to the following URLs:
Eve Online
NSN recruiting video (player produced)
NSN video #2 (player produced)
(Save the videos to disk, then enjoy, preferably with good sound)
CCP created the world, we inhabit it, decide where it goes, and bring it to life. Our actions are written into the storyline, and we can choose to play however we like. It's a truly fantastic game.
-Kysh
--=:: Wings and tail and snout and scales of blackest night
The inane decisions game makers make when it comes to MMORPGs blow me away. The goal is to sell as many copies of your game as possible. The target audience is people with money. This goes double for MMORPGs that require a constant revenue stream through monthly billing. The target they pick for this audience... teenagers with no jobs. Great idea dumbass. Notice how just a few MMORPGs take the lions share of the money? It isn't because all of those other games are not great. It is there simply are not enough people who have both unlimited amounts of time and money.
Make a game for people who have jobs. First, you need to kill level advancement. I am a long time gamer. I am apart of what should be the new target audience. Once a dumb teenager with too much time on his hands who rocks at video games - now an adult with not enough time on his hands but too much money. You don't need to coddle me into a game. I know how to play it already. Drop me into UT2004 for the first time in my life and within an hour of playing I will be kicking ass with the best of them. Build a game around the ideal gamer, one with a pay check.
Assume the gamer knows his head from his ass hole, but that he just doesn't have a pile of time to spend killing rats in a field. Further, assume that he has little desire to compete with teenaged kids or the unemployed who have unlimited time to spend killing rats in a field. They have their game, it is called Everquest. Now make a game for the neglected ones with pockets bulging with money. How would such a game look? First, time would not equal power. Skill would equal power. If you walk into the game with skill, you start out powerful. It is as simple as that. No 'paying your time' in any manner other then that how long you have to pay to understand the controls. Your average UT2004 or CS freak should be able to jump in and murder with the best of them after a quick learning curve.
Now, before anyone says PlanetSide, realize that this is not enough. A twitch based MMORPG is great, but it needs more. Why would I pick an MMORPG over UT2004 if the only thing the MMORPG can offer is dated graphics and more people on the same server? I won't of course. The next element is to incorporate role playing aspects to the game. In other words, you need socialization, a story, politics, maybe a few quests, and alternative types of game play. You need to be able to take your warrior who frags with the best of them on the killing fields and take him fishing on your friend's boat (occasionally stopping to slay serpents and raid merchant ships). You need to be able to take your wizard and get involved in politics if that suits your fancy. You need to be able to become a rich ass merchant who can buy and make all that latest outfits. You need to do all of this without ever once having skills or experience.
Now, outside the obvious twitch based game play, you could also easily have strategic game play (like chess) and puzzle based game play (like puzzle pirates) that would be used when crafting and doing other such activities. Even in combat you could add a new layer by creating tactical and strategic game play.
Will this lead to people who play all the time and rock because they have developed excellent player skills? Sure, but that isn't going to stop me from kicking their asses with my 10+ years of players skill in other twitch games when I log on for an hour on the weekends.
Simply put, make games for people with money. The kiddies have their games, now make a fucking game for the people who have wallets bulging with cash and will never complain about spending 10 dollars a month because they already make $50,000 to $100,000 a year. Make a game with every type of game play EXCEPT time = power game play. In MMORPGs, time might equal power. However, in the real world time equals money. Waste my time, see none of my money.
Simply put, make games for people with money. The kiddies have their games, now make a fucking game for the people who have wallets bulging with cash and will never complain about spending 10 dollars a month because they already make $50,000 to $100,000 a year. Make a game with every type of game play EXCEPT time = power game play. In MMORPGs, time might equal power. However, in the real world time equals money. Waste my time, see none of my money.
Man, I hope I see this day. I drop $150/mo on coffee. If there was some really nice MMORPG that was fun, always different, and could put me in a story and let me feel like I was creating interactive entertainment... I'd pay >$100/mo. Maybe way over, depending on the quality. It's a no-brainer for me. My wife has us on $95/mo cable TV services. I don't watch TV. (Well, I Tivo 2 network shows in the main season and I occasionally tivo some world poker tour) But I play games. A lot. A couple hours a day at least on average. It's my favorite entertainment. Imagine an MMO with highly personalized service. I get on, I'm invited by an NPC to join some quest. I, and 5-10 friends in game, go off and save the world or whatever. It's got a DM/GM assigned. We're all spending >$3/hr, so that's $15-30/hr you could take in. I'm sure you can get decent DMs for $10/hr. Hell, I'd probably sign up to DM for 'store credit', if that were possible.
You have immediately eliminated griefers and lamers of all types. Why? Because people spending $200/mo on their game don't bother griefing people, because they can do that on a lesser mmo for $10/mo. You have eliminated idiots, because they can't afford it. You have eliminated kids with crappy grammar who can't RP to save their lives, because they can't afford it.
Ah, MMO heaven.
Some MMO developer IS going to figure this out. Because it doesn't take a whole new game. It just takes the 'special server' with a lot more staff and some special tools to personalize the experience. I wonder how EQ did with their higher-priced server? I never played EQ, but I'm sure I'd have happily signed up for the $45/mo version if I was into the game. Maybe CoH will come out with something like that while I'm still playing it.
Too bad NWN had the non-exploitation clause... that game would have been really useful for a pay-to-play environment where small communities of a few hundreds players could spring up around a talented DM staff.
To me, if a character can be considered to be "active" while the player is offline, its just a form of authorized macro play. I would be fine with that, except such a system would probably isolate the automated character from the live characters, and that screws with the already shaky economies of most online games. If you can be offline and somehow get better at with a sword, why would you bother wasting time and risking loss by fighting rats/orcs/dragons to get better?
I would much rather see some MMORPG come out and say computer controlled players are OK. That keeps you in the game and part of the economy instead of creating skill out of thin air. It also creates a secondary market of virtual services to go along with virtual goods. Tired of kill rats all day? Spend $10 on Bob's kill-o-rat script, which does in 20/hour, or get Bill's version for $20 that takes out 50/hour!
Theres no way out of the 'level grind' system. It is the system entire genres are built upon and a gameplay convention thats fromulaic and financially successful. There is no other proven gameplay mechanic which has sold *single player games* as well as multiplayer games that has proven successful other then FPS.
That is *the whole game*. Things that you can only 'consume once' like quests or games in which experience content too fast lose subscribes after the first few months without any content updates. Take a look at the types of games today. In each and every genre they boil down the player doing one of two things:
1) Action/twitch interactivity (skill based) requiring your constant/immediate attention and practice to get better.
2) Passive interaction with you turning on automatically controlled features of your character with little control over your avatar.
3) Skill allocation and item finding/hunting.
4) Goals and challenges that are fun and interesting *for a long time*. The for a long time part is the hard part. Everything suffers from the law familiarity and of diminishing returns even for 'fun' things.
There is just no way to make a game fun for any length of time without some sort of goal or level system. Diablo II is probably the BEST example of a game where people are burnt the hell out but still play anyway. Why? Despite the fact that its free, item finding and making different builds with characters are pretty much the *only* reason you'd continue to play diablo II four or so years after release. The "phat loot" and gamling for better items are essentially the whole game now-adays. That is the only thing that draws people back is finding better stuff otherwise people would have stopped playing it ages ago after the first few weeks or months online.
As a former FFXI player I vouch for the fact that MMO's pacing is too slow and too much of a timesink for most adult people who have jobs.
... for your average joe. I know when I signed up for the 7 day trial (I think it was 7). It was difficult for me to figure out and 'start off' having fun straight away. I tried it out for the first few days doing the first couple quests was not easy as the interface was not intuitive, I couldn't figure out where to put the item or items I was carring for my missions and target the right planet and whatnot. I think I ended up figuring it out eventually but only after a long time grapplign with the complex interface issues. I might give eve another go round but I'd need my hand held and someone to get me up to speed because my trial was a frustrating and boring experience.
Eve is a 'hardcore' game and hte pacing is pretty monotonous and boring for more action oriented gamers or console gamers who expect to be things within short distances to interact with.
In MMO's Travelling is too time consuming and boring... This is the thing I hated the most about Zelda windwaker for example. The stupid sailing on the sea where you're running around for 5-15 minutes at a time not engaging or *doing* anything fun, interesting or interacting with the environment. The key thing that made video games famous was *action* and *interaction* not the passivity thats starting to crop up more and more in modern games.
They just need to make a MOG like Caddyshack. That would solve all of this. You have skill (be the ball...), level progression (want to caddy all your life?), crafting (pranks and making clubs etc...), and a little T&A (need I say more?); same as all the other MOGs (especially the T&A...).
Maybe I'm a bit OT, but too many of these games are sticking to the fantasy/sci-fi duo. CoH was a breath of fresh air, That one car racing game went away so fast I can't remember the name, and Sims online was/is...umm...there, but let's expand the genre a little? please? Who wants to make money anyway, comrade?
If you are reading this, then you are one of those people whom I just can't take seriously.
The thing it seems to me so many miss, is u dont have to follow the perfect party formula. Look at whose available and choose your mobs accrodingly. You need a healer, someone with voke and u can kill. Heck i did 3 levels last night with 1 whm, 3 drg, 1 rng and a monk. See no tank, and yes we were doing chain 5s. Granted i have not experienced HL parties yet. Yohater Jungle is as far as i have progressed before starting on advanced jobs. (Level 31) And i have waited hours to get into a party, but that hasnt happened to often. Especially now that i have a Linkshell pearl. Making friends in the game, gives you a pool of players to party with. And makes it even better as you learn excellent teamwork playing with the same players often. And yes there are other places and other mobs to fight. But to do that u often need to make party before u go, as everyone seems follows the trodden path for leveling. When going to alternative areas, you will be highly unlikely to find a party on your own. FFXI is very much about how you play, not just your race and job abilities.