So I just wanted to do these series of posts related to Multiplayer Online Game (MOG) design where I kinda just throw out my thoughts on a subject to get an interesting discussion flowing about the related topic. I hope this doesn't turn out to be a tragedy.
This first MOG Thought, I wanted to talk about the progression rates between casual and hardcore players in your game.
Most games I see on the website are very linear in their progression, meaning you only get XP or levels by beating monsters and being active.
This is nice and all, but heavily favours those who power play and have all the time in the world to spend grinding on levels.
Of course the players who have the time to hardcore grind your game should be rewarded for their efforts, but not everyone is as privileged. Some of us have jobs and families and semi-attractive coworkers to sex up. We don't have time to be constantly glued to your game, unfortunately.
I'd just like to throw more emphasis on rewarding players for taking a break from your game every now and again. A way that ensures that you're power players don't feel like their effort is wasted while simultaneously not letting your casual player base think that they have to be on 24/7 to get anywhere.
The easiest example of this that comes to mind is Rested XP in World of Warcraft. Basically, as long as you're inside of a major city, idle or logged off, you accumulate rested XP, which doubles the rate you gain XP up to a threshold.
This is a fantastic way of allowing your casual players to still make good progress, even for the short time they can only play, but doesn't hinder your hardcore players from grinding as much XP as their pudgy, neckbearded fingers can handle!
What do you guys think about rewarding players for taking a break?
ID:1676370
 Sep 9 2014, 3:33 am
|
|
Its been a really long time since I've played, but I seem to remember Dragon Realms having a system that helped with this. As you practiced a skill, you would basically gain 'potential skill' rather than actual skill. You could only gain so much before you became 'full' of as much potential skill as your brain could hold, and wouldn't gain any more until you took some time off and allowed the potential skill to process into actual skill. You could do other things, and gain potential in other skills, but you wouldn't gain any more potential in that skill until you emptied your head a little.
Power gamers still had an advantage, but generally the advantage was in having a more well rounded character, while casual gamers could have nearly as high level skills, but they would have to specialize more. It has been 15+ years since I've played, so I may not be remembering that exactly right, but it was something along that line. | |
I really like that. I admit that I was kind of a fan of EVE Online's skill system that was time-based where you queued the skill and it would increase over time, whether you were logged on or off.
| |
I've always hated the feeling of falling behind other MMO players. Cuz it's like, you are playing an MMO so you obviously suck at real life...but then your MMO friends level up way faster and leave you behind, meaning you suck EVEN MORE
| |
Are the XP and levelling mechanics really necessary for a game?
Personally, I find a system that resolves the outcome of conflict based much more heavily on the situation the players find themselves in to be much more rewarding than one which is heavily biased to the inherent strengths of the individuals involved. Reward tactical cooperation and engineering favourable circumstances over grinding. | |
HarpyEagle wrote:
Reward tactical cooperation and engineering favourable circumstances over grinding. so basically, league of legends. but no, i agree. i'd like to see an MMORPG where you can progress through the game and get new abilities, but you don't necessarily get stronger. so in other words, you will have to beat each dungeon based on cooperation, reaction time, etc. rather than just amassing the best gear of the game and being able to solo your way through. as fun as soloing can be, i think it defeats the purpose of having an RPG online. so if your entire game can be easily breezed through by one player and nothing else, you could've just saved yourself the effort and made a single player game. i actually had a concept floating around in my head based on this idea, and was borrowing a few concepts from the evangelion series. basically the idea was, 3 players team up and, using customized mech suits called "scales", work together to destroy various giant aliens attacking the planet. there was no grinding or getting stronger, but rather, each alien boss would require more communication, reaction time, awareness, etc. to defeat, so you didn't progress through the game by "leveling up" or getting stronger gear, you progressed through the game based on how well you cooperate with 2 other people to form a strategy and execute it to successfully defeat the alien. think trine ( minus the sidescroll ) meets pacific rim. | |
An easy solution for this is to allow players to request aide from other players somehow and then grow in progression(power/skill/ect) Kinda reflects real life, and how when you're behind you ask for help to catch up. #Requesting help from players other entities (e.g. npcs)
| |
Artificial problem is artificial.
In most MOGs levels and what not are content gates and filler. You grind the level 1s so you can make level 2 so you can grind level 3, etc. More time = more advancement because it is designed as a time sink. A designer who sees this as a problem does need to tinker with it; they need a different system. One really easy way is to get away from static, absolute improvements. For example, maybe characters never really improve that much. Maybe they can train here or there, but have a finite limit that isn't too far above where they start. Maybe injury/death/failure can lower abilities, but no too far and it can be recovered by the aforementioned training, etc. And perhaps equipment follows a similar scheme where it improves some abilities but at the cost of others. Armor may improve resilience at the cost of fatigue/speed/etc. A sword may increase offensive output, but decreases accuracy/speed/etc. So the game becomes more about strategizing where to sacrifice and gain- speed for power, offense for defense, etc. | |
Maybe when creating your characters you select if you're a casual player or hardcore player; in a way similar to selecting a difficulty on a single-player game.
Like it's been said above, just working out how it benefits the different players by separating them or giving different perks is up to the developers. | |
Why do 'casual gamers' need more help? In most games they can get all the same things that hardcore players can. It just takes them longer.
I think we're actually talking about games that give benefits for playing longer per day or per week like Blacklight where you're expected to play a certain amount of time or lose your items. My key point, not all games actually have this problem and those that do are actually designed specifically for hardcore players and that is their domain. | |
Hes my game making slave, go find your own
| |
I think Rift did a good job of helping out casuals though. What they did was, they made a shop where you can just buy sets of gear instead of having to grind for them. And it doesn't break balance because the gear is decent but the gear you get from dungeons and raiding is still better. So it's perfect if you're casual but if you're TRYING TO BECOME A GOD you're still going to need to become hardcore eventually.