Building The Perfect MMOG For Casuals And Soloers

Thoughts about the MMOG genre perspective from a casual, mostly-soloing, older player that began online gaming back when ASCII graphics were the shizzle.

Author: Meleagar

It's not their fault, really, it's just the nature of current MMOG bang-the-keyboard-to-advance design.

I was reading at Massively how in both EQII's new content release and in just-launched SWTOR, players had already avdanced new characters to the level limit - in SWTOR, before even the official release of the game.  You can't blame players for simply playing the way they want and taking what is available.  They want to be first, and will burn the candle at both ends doing nothing but advancing their characters to get to end content long before anyone else. In the case of SWTOR, that means before the general public even got their hands on the game. They entered the game at general release with other players already having been there, done that.

Hardcore players might say "Why do you care? Just play your game and leave us alone," but that's the thing - if community matters, then it matters that within a few days a handful of players and uberguilds have already basically done everything that can be done in the game, have "first" bragging rights, and are pressuring the new content developers for more linear content they can consume (in a few days after release). 

Don't act like it doesn't matter, or even shouldn't matter; if it didn't matter in some way they wouldn't do it, and then wouldn't expect others in the game to recognize their leet gear and achievements. That's part of the community - friendly competition and comparison, looking to see who has what, who has accomplished what.  It provides a sense of structure and evaluation.

There's something that is robbed from everyone else when they enter a new game, or a new shard, or fire up new content and someone else has already done everything and even have guides up to show others how to do it and are strutting along gathering places in all the available end-content gear.  What is robbed is the sense that you, as an average community member,  have the potential to discover something first, to explore something first, to acquire something first, or to craft or do something first.

The sense of this personal potential in the community of discovery and exploration of possibly being the first to do anything is stolen by hardcore players who have essentially discovered and done everything before the average player even gets their bearings in the game.  I can't imagine buying SWTOR off the shelf, firing it up and getting in-game and finding out that there were already guilds with maxed-out characters who had already been acquiring end-game content. That utterly destroys a whole enjoyable aspect of the game. It seems to me that the longer the community takes to explore, discover, acquire and craft content, and the broader the base of players that are involved in the discovery of the potentials of the game, the better.

Again, don't act like it doesn't - or even shouldn't - matter. Of course it matters, and of course it should matter.  It also completely skews how future content is organized, as if developers have an obligation to provide more linear content to those who consume it in one big gulp.  While the bulk of players are still wading through the mid-section of original content, who does it please to add deeper end-game content?  Thus, the average player gets the sense that the developers don't care about them, that their concern is all about the hardcore players.

Which is why some form of controlled, universal advancement system needs to be utilized - not in every game, but in some games, like EVE, and not for all content, but for a good portion of it, to simply prevent those with apparently endless time available from burning through all potential game content before average or casual players even have a chance to discover, get, or explore content first. Why? In order to preserve the sense of potential discovery, competition and exploration for the average masses, the casual players.

Imagine firing up a new game and, because of the way the advancement system is organized, you know that nobody can really advance any faster than you, regardless of how much you play online at the keyboard via a 24/7 advancement system that lets you set your character to perform tasks, or study, or practics while you are offline. While characters cannot advance faster than others, they can advance in wildly variant directions, in many, many lateral lines of character development. With sufficient breadth of advancment choices, the game keeps alive the hope to be the first and the sense of discovery and game exploration for all players.

Players coming in later, who are given an increased advancement speed to help them catch up, can have this hope and sense of discovery. At the very least they know they have a chance to find some avenue of development few have invested any advancment time in.  But, consider this: with a controlled advancement rate, content developers no longer need feel pressured by hardcore players to come up with new, deeper linear conent; they can develop lateral content - entirely new areas of character development & progression with many diverse, branching talent and skill trees that will afford even casual newcomers the capacity for "firsts".  If developers can control the rate of advancement, they can code in goals that they know even the most casual group of players can be "first" in attaining given they pursue that goal over the weeks or months necessary to acquire it. They know the boss mobs in certain dungeons will not be defeated for at least 6 months, or even a year, no matter how many hours an uberguild invests online, giving all guilds and groups or even individuals the opportunity to advance in particular ways to meet that particular challenge, or explore that particular content, or craft that particular item first.

Casual players generally have time to invest in one character in one game. We don't really have the time to learn all of the mechanics and subtleties of one class/race/talent system, much less operate a stable of variant characters and learn different interfaces and systems in different games.  It is a big investment of available time for a casual player to learn to play a single kind of player in one game.

Also, the casual player isn't going to be able to participate in so-called end-game raids or be a significant part of any Uber-guild - that's just the nature of the the casual beast. In games where end-game character advancement is defined by the employment of hardcore grouping/raiding to acquire advanced gear, the casual player's character advancement generally just ends upon reaching the level cap.  From there on, it's usually just a matter of buying stuff from other players to improve your character, because you cannot even journey to the areas necessary for any high-level content.

Thus, the casual player is faced with a rather bleak choice (at least as far as current games are concerned); start a new character or just do the same things over and over to earn game money with your current one without any prospect for significant character advancement. 

The question is - why do developers do this? Why force level caps and talent/skill tree limitations on characters when there could as easily be limitless andvancement based on diminishing returns and a real-time curve that would prevent people from burning through advancement to become overpowered in terms of end-game content?  Developers could build in time constraints that would provide them with the time to generate suitable higher-end content if any significant number of players seriously push the power envelope. Besides, if after 10 years of character development one has a super-powerful character, so what? Isn't that a good reward for 10 years of player commitment?

For example, let's say that I decide to advance my character in fire spell potency. Why not make it so I can increase the damage of all my fire spells endlessly, if I choose to sacrifice all other areas of advancement?  If there is a system of diminishing returns and increased time investments, it could work and also provide incentive for long-term investment in the game regardless of how hardcore one is.  By slowly decreasing the increased potency (+5 damage per 1 hour invested, +5 per 5 hours invested, +5 per 10 hours, +4/12, +4/15, +3/15, +3/24, +2/24, +2/48, etc.) over time invested, one could eventually settle on a minimum of, say, +1 damage increase per 5 days training that a player can invest in at the expense of all other advancement ad infinitum.

This means that they could, even as casual players, carry on the advancement and customization of their character forever. Players could endlessly customize/advance their character.  They could focus on one or several traits/talents and increase them as they see fit over time.  Highly potent combinations could be penalty adjusted via a cross-training system that might increase the time-investment necessary (to, say, cross train in both fire spell potency and dual sword wielding, or Health (hit points) and Agility, or to decrease the rate of gain; other combinations might lend themselves to natural increases in trait or skill gain speed.

Although such training combinations can be adjusted for speed in advancement, there would still be no limit to what you can do. It would just take longer to increase some combinations than others.

Going down set, constrained paths with structured caps is just so ... 15 minutes ago, man.

When the free-to-play model first started hitting the market, it caused an outcry of angry resistance from old-school MMOG "purists" that thought it signalled the death of the genre. Now, it is the monthly-fee model that is considered an oddity, with revenue models centering around real-money shops that sell various commodities that are not essential to play and advance in games.  With various AA and AAA games going F2P with cash shops and services, we can see that this is the new standard model.

The question is, why is this the new standard model? Is it just because it is cheaper? Why will people play FTP  models even if they intend on buying things from the cash shop - even if they spend more at cash shops than they would if they paid a subscription game where they have access to all in-game items and commodities? 

It seems to me the reason is that in a FTP model, they only pay for what they actually want and can use, and they do not pay for content they don't want, or will never see anyway. IOW, in F2PCS (free to play cash shop) games, you don't pay for any content you never see or use.

In traditional monthly-fee MMOGs, you pay X amount of money every month regardless of how much time you actually spend in the game. For casual players and solers, that money pays for a huge amount of content they will never see, and pays for a lot of time they will never spend in-game.  It's a no-brainer for such players to migrate to F2PCS games where they're not spending money for unused, unexperienced content, and when they do spend money, they get exactly what they pay for.

What's going to happen when (not if, but when) more MMOGs start offering offline advancement? For people that cannot devote large amounts of online time to advancing their character, but still want to be able to play and be part of an MMOG community with what time they do have available, it's again going to be a no-brainer to move to offline advancement models. It's inevitable that more games are going to offer it to time-starved MMOG enthusiasts, and it's inevitable that many players are going to migrate to a new system where the advancement of their character is not going to be limited to how much time they have to sit in front of their computers bashing keys repetitively.

Just as players want to get the best MMOG value for their dollar, and so move to FTPCS games, they also want to get the best MMOG value for their time.  They don't want to log in and be forced to do things they don't really want to do just to advance their character, just as they don't want to be forced to spend money subsidizing content they will never experience.  They also don't want to play MMOGs where their character advances only to level 15 in the course of a year while their friends and guildmates have already hit level 80.

The offline advancement model is as inevitable as the FTP model, especially with the original MMOG base advancing in years and finding themselves with less and less time to devote to MMOGs.  With less time to spend online and less money in such an economy, the F2P Offline-Advancement model is coming. It's just a matter of what game properties realize it first. 

In 3-4 years, we'll be talking about online advancement only models the same way we now talk about monthly-fee models. You can rant and rave all you want, just as you did when the FTPCS models appeared, but it won't change the tide that is surely coming.

There's just no way around it.: in order to balance classes, races, talents, gear and content, there must be a standard formula that governs how every one of these aspecst interact, and so every single meaningful part of the game must be reducible to a variable that can be inserted into the formula, and each variable must be limited to specified range. Balance means limitations.  It doesn't matter what you call the damage, the healing, the crowd control, the defense, the health, the dodge - it all fits within the variables.  Every new talent, piece of gear, skill, or level  bonus is - eventually - just a number for a variable that fits in the balance formula that must be capped at some point.

What would happen, I wonder, if there was no consideration whatsoever given to balance issues? I mean, besides a certain segment of the population screaming bloody murder because they got pwned by some guy with outrageous firepower, what if you could train your character on any path indefinitely?  Mix any combinations  of traits and skills .. indefinitely?

One might say that certain builds would be way overpowered .. but, so what? Way overpowered for what? Can't devs just keep adding insanely powerful challenges?  You can only advance a character so fast (especially in a 24/7 advancement system like EVE has), so you'll never be able to advance everything to crazy proportions (especially in a truly deep and broad game).  Every choice to advance one thing means not advancing others .. but why put limits on the things you advance with an arbitrary character leveling system?

It seems to me to be a much more inviting and long-term-friendly game if you know you can advance in any area as much as you want with zero cap limits. If you increase your blacksmithing skills to insane levels, you can make insanely good gear, and sell in the game for an insanely high price.  If you advance your fire magic skills at the cost of everything else, then you'll be incredibly powerful in that specific area. Overpowered with flame, sure, but not much use against magma men or against someone that stabs you from behind.

Instead of telling us the limitations and arrangements of stats and talents and skills in relationship to each other that we are allowed, let us build it on our own as we see fit and let us do so indefinitely.  Yes, that makes it less of a game and more of an unlimited character in a virtual world experience, but I imagine there's enough true sandbox types out there that would support such a gaming experience.

The answer to your unspoken question is: what difference does it make if I want to solo in an MMORPG? If I and enough other  people want to do it, it's a game model that can succeed.  Telling me I should go play a non-online game is beside the point, and the point is "sell people what they want, whether it makes any sense to you or not". It doesn't have to make sense that lots of people want to solo in an MMO environment, it only has to be a profitable model.

Instead of solo content being the red-headed stepchild of MMO content, providing rewards that gouping and raiding enthusiasts will tolerate in their game without rage-quitting, why doesn't some enterprising development team turn the tables? Make solo content superior (or at least equal) to group and raiding  content.  After all, it's not like it takes a lot of skill to sit there in a 40-man raid and do what someone else tells you to do for a couple of hours. It's not like it takes more skill in a group where other, better players can make up for your deficiencies.

Here's the question that invariably comes up in this argument: given that you can gain equal or better rewards via solo play, what motivation will there be to group?  Note the assumption hidden in the question: that solo content will necessarily be easier than group or raid content.  AS IF  there aren't as many or more players that would be utterly incapable of getting their character trough properly tuned, difficult solo content, and would require group and raid managers to help get them through comparable group or raid content. How many people are carried through group or raid content by others who are just better players and/or managers, or just know stuff about the content that others have no clue about? 

In solo content you're on your own, and success or failure is all yours. Nobody to bail you out, nobody to tell you what to do, and falling asleep at the helm won't go unnoticed as you are still awarded your items if it is your turn to get them.  For the few that organize and direct such raids, it is an achievement; for the other 35 or so people, it's just doing what you're told passably well.  Big deal. 

Now, I'm not saying ALL MMOG's should offer superior (or at least equal) rewards for solo content, but I am saying that this group and raid-centric model doesn't need to persist in every stinking MMOG that comes out.  The idea that group content is "harder" and should offer better rewards is a self-fulfilling prophecy based on a myth. It's my contention that a large percentage of raids and groups are populated by players that couldn't handle well-tuned, difficult content on their own, and require better players, more informed players and managers to overcome their deficiencies and get them through such content.

I mean, what makes more sense - admiring gear and achievements worn or displayed by those that perhaps fell asleep during a 40-man raid, or were gained perhaps by 4 other players making up for his or her poor skill and ignorance of content mechanics, or worn by someone who you know had to get through certain content by themselves, with all necessary knowledge and skill?

Sometimes it seems to me that modern MMOG developers all evolved from the same universal common ancestor of developers, because they can't think outside of their MMOGenetic heritage.  If we can have virtually unlimited control over our character's in-game appearance, why not let us customize our animations?  Our voices?  Our spoken phrases?

Even if we start with an old-school EQ-style multiple-choice option of voices, phrases, and animations, why not give us that? Even better, let us customize them with sliders controls and option switches.  Let us connect battle actions with phrases or specific effects of our choosing.  When we gain a new skill, give us some personalized, creative input into how the skill is visualized and integrated into our behavioral repertoire. 

Let me decide what phrases trigger which animations.  Let me have control over my walking and running animation.  When I sit, let me pick from a set of styles. When I laugh, let me have some options so that I can flesh out my character.

Sometimes it seems that every new patch to every existing game is about (1) new bosses, (2) new dungeons, (3) new areas, (4) new races, (5) new gear. I don't know that I've ever seen a patch - ever, in any game - that was dedicated to expanding the personality/characterization choices of our avatars. It' s like, after the game comes out, the only thing the development team cares about is satisfying the ravenous end-game or replay (new character) appetite of more hardcore gamers.

One of the most fun experiences I had was with the Champions online character creation interface; it was mind-boggling in its depth. I'd like to see that kind of character creation system, but exponentially increased to include all aspects of my avatar.

What led me to eventually leave the MMOG's I've played is one simple thing: not enough diverse stuff to do.

As a casual player, I really only have time to invest in a single character in one game.  That means that I really only can fight one kind of battle using a very narrow set of battle skills/talents, and I can only pursue a certain range of crafting avenues. Since the socializing and lore-reading of a casual player is very limited, there just isn't much diversity available in terms of actually impacting my character and enjoyment of the game long-term. All I really have to look forward to is doing the same small set of things over and over for the long-term. I can only imagine how boring such games must be to hardcore players.

Which brings me to the question: why isn't there more breadth in these games?  Why are there so few alternative areas of advancement? It seems to me that MMOGs could offer nearly infinite lines of potential character advancement, not only in battle and crafting, but in all sorts of areas, like politics, an actual lore-based advancement system, professions where one can open up a shop and teach other players that don't want to invest advancement time in the profession (such as, new animations, new pet designs, new gear designs, house and furnishing designs, etc.), exploration advancement that opens up areas of the game, language advancements that opens up all sorts of new avenues, personal storyline advancements, city quest advancments that moves you up in rank and/or fame in particular cities or even particluar areas of the city - or even, just personal relationships with NPCs, where you don't know how "whom you know" and have helped out might help you in turn in the future.

One of the things I really liked about EVE was that there seemed to be an endless assortment of areas one could study in, that each branched off into many other sub-specialties. It left me wondering about the sheer lack of breadth of advancement systems in MMOGs (and, truthfully, even in EVE, since basically all advancement was in a fundamentally narrow meta-system).

IMO, adding new lands, bosses or gear is not having "new" stuff to do; it's the same stuff you've been doing, only wearing a different set of clothes.  This may be adding depth to the current systems, but it is not adding new and different systems. The potential is limitless, and IMO largely untapped.

Many paid professions or jobs require us to do the same menial tasks over and over.  I remember I once had a job as manual check sorter for a bank (before it was all automated). I stayed on that job, as I remember, one hour. It was either quit or find a cheap clinic that could perform a while-you-wait lobotomy.

I'm not saying all grinding is a bad thing.  Some people like  repititious key-pounding and doing the same thing over and over with different clothes or make-up on. Liberace comes to mind.  I'm just talking about getting rid of the bad grinding. I don't mind doing the same thing repititiously, but doing it from a sense of having to, or of not being able to advance unless I spend long hours doing so, makes such activity become un-fun very quickly.  Given the nature of the MMOG format, what can be done to remove the need for grinding - but still allow those who want to grind or for whatever perverse reason enjoy it, grind for additional benefit?

If a game implemented a 24/7 advancement feature where one's character was advancing all the time regardless of how much time one spent doing anything else, or was even offline ( like Eve's advancement tree), then the necessary grind is removed from the game and replaced with the "I wanna" grind. If you made it so that grinding added advancement on top of the 24/7 amount everyone got all the time, then there would be added reward/benefit for grinding, but such play would not be necessary in terms of advancing your character.

Plus, you get all the other benefits of 24/7 character advancement - a sense of involvement in the game even when you aren't playing; a sense of relief from feeling like you have to play; the freedom to do what you wanted in the game instead of what you feel you have to do, etc.

Of course, nobody has a gun to anyone's head when it comes to playing an MMOG.  However, there are two entirely different modes of playing particular content in any MMOG: the content you have to play, and the content you want to play.  Sometimes it's the same, but a lot of times it is not.  Many players have the sense that they have to grind the repetitive kills, quests, battlefields or raids to keep level with their friends, or for their guild, or just to compete overall.  With others it's just a sense of having to do what they can to level their character or acquire the next ability or advancement; at some point, it can become a burden between you and what you'd rather be doing in-game.

A lot of players would really rather log in and focus on socializing, exploring. role-playing or other activities, but many find themselves torn between what they want to do in the game, and what they feel they have to do in order to advance their character, because IMO one of the greatest pleasures in an MMOG is that sense of managing the advancement avenues of your character.

Now, I'm certainly not trying to cast any playstyle in a bad light; we all have our preferences.  Also, there's a lot of people who truly enjoy the at-the-keyboard, online-time-invested competition of character advancement; but there's plenty of games for that particular enjoyment.  There's a lot of us who really don't want to spend our online time "grinding" in any sense for character advancement; honestly, why not let the character do that on their own? 

How about a game that lets the characters do all the boring, repetitive, grinding stuff on their own while I'm offline, so that when I come online, I can do whatever I want to do, and nothing that I feel like I have to do.  Let me set my character to grind for gold, or collect ingredients, or train to advance levels in whatever category I wish while I'm offline.  That way, when I come online, I don't have to choose between things I want to do, whether it's raid, or group, or role-play, or socialize, or explore, or go do various quests (once, for god's sake, just once).

Eve has a good interface for offline advancement, but IMO it just doesn't go far enough. Why not open everything possible up to offline advancement?  That way the only reason we're online and "in the world" is to do what we want to do. It seems to me this would cut down immensely on burnout and frustration that inevitably comes with every MMOG currently available.

Furthermore, just think of what offline progression would mean for casual players who want to experience more of the game from different class and race perspectives.  As it stands now, casual players have to limit their experience of the game to one, or perhaps two, characters because they just don't have the time to meaningfully advance more than one or two characters significantly.  Every time they log in, it's a choice between advancing one character or another, or socializing,or role-playing; with offline progression, they could be advancing an entire stable of characters 24/7!!!

If a lot of the fun in an MMOG is character advancement - being able to choose traits and skill pathways, making decisions about talent and specialty trees, just think of the fun of being able to manage the 24/7 advancement of a whole stable of characters, without having to grind any of them at all! 

All it would take is an MMOG developer that moved the focus of the player's involvement from character advancement grinder to character advancement manager, and let the player decide what aspects of the game he or she wants to play, instead of "forcing" them to spend online time doing things they'd rather not.

As I said, I've been playing League of Legends while I wait for Guild Wars 2 to come out.  If you've never played an MOBA before, I suggest you try it out. You don't even have to engage in PvP if you prefer to just team up with others and fight a team of bots.

Which brings me to my point: here is another case of game developer myopia.  I understand that MOBA's originated as a pvp system, but it doesn't have to end there. Why not a more fully-developed PvB (player vs bots) system?

In League of Legends, you can play as much as you want against bots.  They offer a single 5-man scenario; 5 players vs 5 bots.  It's a load of fun. Frankly, I'm just not professional enough (read: I'm too casual) to burden a small PvP team with my inadequate twitch skills; the best I can do is contribute to PvB team wins. If I'm one-third or one-fifth of squad fighting for rank, it's just a bit too much responsibility. 

If that makes me pitiful, then so be it, but I doubt I'm the only League of Legends player that stays on the bot course.  I've already experienced some rage from fellow players in the bot section, I can only imagine the dust-ups that would occur if I tanked some otherwise capable group from a win that counted in the official rankings. 

That said, how about some more PvB diveristy and options?

I'm not hating on PvPers - I enjoyed the battlegrounds when I was playing WoW, and am looking forward to WvWvW in GW2 - I'm just lamenting what is once again the lack of vision in the minds of game developers,  How about an MOBA that's not even constructed to be "fair" to both sides  (mirrored battleground layouts), but can be any design with any NPC adversaries? These battlegrounds can have quests, boss mobs, all sorts of things. You could potentially log into 3-man, 5-man, 10-man, 50-man, or 100-man battles, ranging from 30 minutes to several hours.  All of which, over time, raises the level of your hero and gives you attribtue and skill points.

It seems to me that there's an awful lot of online gaming potential that just isn't being explored whatsoever.