Synopsis: Current games throw all players into a single arena and let the strong prevail. By ranking players, games ensure that they find more balanced competition.
Hrothmund prodded me about returning to my blog, and I'll use the opportunity to comment on a point of design that one of his recent articles suggested to me.
There are a variety of motivations for players who like to experience PvP systems. They vary from domination of other players to personal challenges to just being part of a good scrum. Being the Christian soul that I am, I'll focus on the latter two because I believe they are a sign of, and permit reinforcement of, maturity in players.
Consider PvP in an MMO. There are thousands of players interacting. But the best players are interacting with the worst players. The worst players are getting pounded on a regular basis. Is that helping the worst players to get better? For some, it's the perfect motivation to get serious about their PvP. For others, it's a perfect opportunity to quit the game and find something that they can enjoy. However, in the interest of entertainment, we want both players to stay. How can we do that?
We get those groups of players away from each other, in the spirit of design that I advocate in "When Flocks Collide". In this case, the flocks colliding are the players of differing skill levels. The solution is to create leagues.
Leagues are a time-honored way of organizing players of disparate skill levels so that they can always find a good game. After a fashion, traditional FPS games structure into ad hoc leagues. Visit one of the hundreds of servers out there and see if you can get a good game out of it. If the opposition is too weak or too strong, try another server. The general tendency is towards the formation of leagues according to player skill.
But clearly not always. They are only ad hoc leagues, and one or two skilled players who are more interested in selfish domination rather than taking on their skilled peers can destroy the skill balance in any given server's games. They simply enter a server that is frequented by less-skilled players and start lopping heads off.
Unreal Tournament Onslaught has been my poster child for PvP because I enjoyed it so much. I could usually find a good fight on particular servers. Yet we had the occasional marauding elite players who would come in and stomp everyone else, rendering the game pointless for the rest of us. The one thing that Unreal Tournament could have used was a player ranking system. Rank all players into leagues from 1 to 10, then designate each server as accepting players from a specific league.
So how can leagues be created in an MMO?
At one level it's straightforward. Rank players, thereby organizing them into leagues. Rankings are assigned according to a player's ability in the game, with rewards going to the more highly ranked players in ways that will motivate them to seek out high ranks. World of Warcraft does this with titles and special items that rank can bring. Those motivations exist partly to discourage players from trying to become ringers in lower level leagues.
Once leagues exist, have the teams in those leagues face off in the MMO environment. They can challenge each other, have little wars, races, build-offs, whatever the competition might be in the game.
At another level, however, it's rather more complicated. How can all these leagues coexist in a reasonable way within an MMO whose fiction is supposed to be maintained? Why doesn't the rank 10 league team known as "The Elite Troopers" never declare war on the rank 1 league team known as "Bob's Pickup Team"? What if a member of "Bob's Pickup Team" insults one of "The Elite Troopers"?
Instead of introducing game mechanics to permit the game to recognize insults, separate the players of different ranks. There could be whole servers devoted to supporting leagues. There would be the rank 1 league server. It is where all the rank 1 clans play. If you get promoted to rank 2 because of your successes, you'll have to move on to the rank 2 server. That continues until you reach the rank that matches your potential. That means that "The Elite Troopers" aren't in the same universe as "Bob's Pickup Team". If they want to insult each other, they'll have to do it on the web.
Some players could certainly play intensely for months and maintain a high rank, then back off on the game, lose some skills and find that they have to play a rank or two below their peak. It would mean no longer playing with the same group of people, but that's the nature of league play. After a fashion, the people who play at your level tend to be more or less like you with regards to the game.
What about that pernicious evil known as "alts"? Those skilled players who insist on being ringers for their friends can simply fire up an alternate character and reenter the MMO at rank 1 again so that he can ensure that his friends' team always wins. In brief, there's no way to address this until the game can successfully identify the player. Players will be ranked, not characters, so player anonymity rears its ugly head again.
Now I understand that this is a dramatic departure from the stock treatment of PvP in MMOs. It would require at least one server for each ranking, and as the player demonstrates more skill, they would move from server to server. That's a pretty dramatic departure. However, players should tend to stabilize at a certain rank. A given game may require only a few ranks, making movement between servers infrequent. In a game like Eve Online, it would mean dividing the player base into multiple instances. I would view that as a good thing, given that it would mean that the more casual players would be able to fight more casually while the elite players could lock horns as rough and tumble as they like without the casual players complaining about their behavior.
User Comments
JB : An interesting read as always.
The league system you describe is a bit akin to the WoW Arena system, in that players or teams are are matched up in their own 'bracket' in an attempt to create well-matched roundup. This could work, but would require a special type of game, maybe somewhat like Guildwars, where the persistent part of the game-world would act as a lobby(so you could still socialize with whomever you wish), and when entering the PvP areas you would be in your rank's 'bracket'.
It is hard for me to imagine a game that would demote and promote you to a different server where you could not interact with people on your previous friendlist.
Have you thought about how this could implemented in a persistent game world? I gave it a little thought. My idea is that ranks would be assigned to players, and these ranks would be part of a 'true honor system'. This would in essence be somewhat like the old WoW honor system, but here dishonorable and honorable kills would make a real difference. You could immediately see the rank of the opposing players by an icon over their head, so it would be obvious as to what the rank of your opponent was. I won't go into this further here, but I hope everyone gets what I mean.
I dont think leagues are the answer unless you're talking strictly about battleground and arena style PVP. For world PVP, there needs to be a solid risk and reward system.
There needs to be a very granular player rating system that rates your past skill, your gear, play time, etc and calculates after a fight some sort of rating to adjust. You should not prevent pvp or segregate the playing field, but a tier 1 player should lose some of his ranking or status when killing a marginal player.
Hrothmund: "It is hard for me to imagine a game that would demote and promote you to a different server where you could not interact with people on your previous friendlist."
The answer there lies in the way the rating system would work. I would probably start with a player-run rating system. If enough players vote to bump you up, then your character is moved up a tier. But you can always play above your tier because you are permitted to get stomped if you want (though the game would have to defend against dead wood in certain systems).
So friends can stay together if the less-skilled players are willing to hang out with their more-skilled friends or if the more-skilled players can keep enough rein on their effectiveness to avoid bump votes.
Hrothmund: "You could immediately see the rank of the opposing players by an icon over their head, so it would be obvious as to what the rank of your opponent was."
With leagues, the only people that you will see are people who are at your rank (in your bracket). So they're not going to be a cakewalk if you decide to just walk up to him and start pounding.
World of Warcraft's arena system is similar to this, except that the brackets are too wide. I have guildmates who go into 2v2 encounters solo and win repeatedly. The players getting stomped should be able to vote that solo character for a bump. So he either backs off and plays like normal people or he moves up until he's playing his peers. When that happens, there's not much point in massively twinking a character.
This also tackles the problem of overpowered classes. Druids have traditionally been a problem in arenas. So they would tend to get bumped repeatedly. A level 20 druid might end up having to play against level 23 characters just to ensure balance.
zergwatch: "For world PVP, there needs to be a solid risk and reward system."
Risk and reward are retained. If anything, the situation is improved because players can no longer stack the deck in their favor.
zergwatch: "You should not prevent pvp or segregate the playing field, but a tier 1 player should lose some of his ranking or status when killing a marginal player."
Clearly I disagree, given that segregation is at the core of the suggestion. Nothing is gained by having the two ranks of players in the same environment. The only outcome of interaction is the higher ranked player character killing the lower ranked player character. Even with sanctions, it is a design without purpose.
Ranking doesn't work. Think of wow and how they ranked people. Yeah yours is a better idea but hell people would bitch none the less.
- ez-gamers.com
dont forget most pvp fights in World pvp Rarly or never is an equal fight, its about ensuring you got the upphand. if you having a ranking system u gotta take that into consideration aswell.
EzGamers: "Ranking doesn't work. Think of wow and how they ranked people. Yeah yours is a better idea but hell people would bitch none the less."
Ranking has worked in gaming for a long time. Yes, people complain. Video game players are very good at that.
Please watch the language. And the advertising.
Alkozath: "dont forget most pvp fights in World pvp Rarly or never is an equal fight, its about ensuring you got the upphand. if you having a ranking system u gotta take that into consideration aswell."
I haven't forgotten. The ephemeral nature of the problem lead me to mention a ranking system that the players control. The game won't attempt to rank anyone. The players will. If enough players think that someone isn't right for the skill level required for a given tier server, then they can vote to bump that someone up or down. If they're too good, they get bumped up. If they're too bad, they get bumped down.
The players understand when someone is too effective.
Consider druids in World of Warcraft PvP. They have been considered overpowering. So if a level 20 druid pops into a level 20 arena, he is too successful. Players tend to vote to bump him up. They'll do that until the level 20 druid is facing level 23-24 warriors, level 22-26 shaman, level 20-21 mages,etc. I have no idea if those are reasonable ranges according to World of Warcraft PvP. The point is that the players know. Heavily twinked characters would also be bumped up. A twinked level 22 character might end up facing untwinked level 25 characters, generally speaking. So the value of choosing the uber class or twinking a character is generally lost. Even being extremely good doesn't buy you anything.
Ranking is devoted to one thing: balancing out the effectiveness of individual characters. If a game is structured to balance numbers as well, then the fights will be broadly balanced. If the game is unstructured, then it's up to the players to ensure that they have the better tactical situation or the greater numbers.
I think Levels sort of already encompass ranking. For instance, Warhammer Online will naturally have a ranking system. That's the benefit of 'gated content'- allows designers to guide players along
The assumption, when you hit high level in an MMORPG your 'character' is maxed out. He is 'experienced'
Sure maybe the player behind the character might not be expert but the 'character' in theory, is on equal terms
Thus the inclusion of a ranking system into a title with 'gated content' becomes questionable
FPS games are irrelevant in our case (for this topic) because those games rely on "player skill". FPS games like BF2142, UT, etc use those stats purely as a reflection of YOU. In mmorpg, you "are" the character you play. Get it? It's not about the pvper, its about their chaarcvter
Now if you are speaking of an MMO that has no gated content then your idea is more applicable of course
vajuras: "Thus the inclusion of a ranking system into a title with 'gated content' becomes questionable
FPS games are irrelevant in our case (for this topic) because those games rely on "player skill". FPS games like BF2142, UT, etc use those stats purely as a reflection of YOU."
I disagree. No matter the source of success of a player in a game, ranking that source has value whenever a discussion of PvP takes place. If the source of success is levels, equipment, spells, talents and other folderol of typical fantasy MMOs, then the rankings will be derived from that. If the source of success is entirely based on player skill with the game, then the rankings will be derived from that. In PvP, every player has a means of being effective, and that means is what is being ranked.
I presented the cases of twinks and overpowered classes to illustrate my point. Levels certainly have a major role in the ability of a player to be successful with a character, but other factors apply.
The reason for suggesting a ranking system that originates with player voting is so that all such factors are taken into account, where the voting players don't even need to know why a given character is having so much success. They just have to recognize that they're having too much success.
vajuras: " In mmorpg, you "are" the character you play. Get it? It's not about the pvper, its about their chaarcvter""
In an MMO, the character is a costume that someone wears. Get it? It's not about the costume, it's about the player.
grr why did I use the term "Get It?".
"I disagree. No matter the source of success of a player in a game, ranking that source has value whenever a discussion of PvP takes place. If the source of success is levels, equipment, spells, talents and other folderol of typical fantasy MMOs, then the rankings will be derived from that. If the source of success is entirely based on player skill with the game, then the rankings will be derived from that. In PvP, every player has a means of being effective, and that means is what is being ranked."
okay point taken.....
"The reason for suggesting a ranking system that originates with player voting is so that all such factors are taken into account, where the voting players don't even need to know why a given character is having so much success. They just have to recognize that they're having too much success."
I've thought along the lines of 'player voting' systems. The main exploit/weakness is that players can possibly use RMT to acquire votes? Imagine a Guild full of Farmers voting for everyone. They wont even have to lift a finger. This would cause the voting system to be less important or have less value
This is pretty much the same reason why devs dont allow players to "vote" for each other to earn XP faster, etc. What solutions would you have for this? Might not be a danger if loot isnt involved but if there is a concrete reward we really cant trust players ultimately
This is why World Of Warcraft system works. They dont trust players. Their progression is Time based. In exchange for time and effort, you are rewarded
vajuras: "I've thought along the lines of 'player voting' systems. The main exploit/weakness is that players can possibly use RMT to acquire votes?"
The system is definitely touchy (difficult to get right), but player-driven systems tend to be superior to metric-driven ones. There is a natural rebalancing that takes place every time someone plays the game. The players do the rebalancing. If a system is properly structured, the players will do a good job of it.
The worst exploits that I can think of are griefers working to get moved down in brackets so that they can commit grief on lower bracket players. It's difficult, but it can be done. The players in the lower bracket would immediately vote to bump him back up, but he could still prove an annoyance.
I would probably use rewards only to entice players to want to be in higher brackets. So if somebody wants to collect enough bogus votes to get bumped up a bracket, they can do that. But they still have to succeed in that new bracket in order to get the rewards.
I agree with you here it appears you worked this out pretty well. Interesting, I was thinking of using player voting (for a slightly different purpose like elections). I think if a player gets a Large number of votes we'll get closer to better accuracy
Good write up here
Sorry to resurrect this, but have been thinking about it lately as it applies to team PvP.
My experience in team PvP comes predominantly from Guild Wars. Guild Wars is a team PvP game, but gives individual player rankings based on wins. The problem being, you can often by being "dead weight" on a team and be carried somewhat by the better players, obtaining a high ranking when you're not actually that good.
I'm thinking that at the end of a fight, the opposite team might get to vote an "MVP" from your team. Or MVP's depending on how large the teams are. The MVP's would then progress faster to the higher ranks, to help differentiate them from "dead weight".
It would also help promote sportsmanship, kind of one step beyond saying "gg" at the end of a fight. It's like saying, you kicked my butt, I take my hat off to you sir :p It would also stop said person who kicked your butt from acting like a dick (dancing on your corpse etc) in the hopes that they would obtain your vote.
If you read through the comments, you'll find that we debate how a ranking system would work as driven by player voting. I'm definitely a big fan of such systems. Players are far better than software at figuring out who is effective and who is not.
Please watch the language in comments.
Login or Register to post a comment