I think it is safe to say that MMO quests are designed to reward us with gear or coin as well as experience. This method promotes gaming behavior which discourages role playing and immersion. We take on tasks from NPCs to kill enemies, gather stuff and deliver things all in the name for coin and some gear. While this is a reasonable trade by itself, we repeat this behavior to improve our rewards which usually means better gear. We do this until the games content is consumed and you are at "max level". Then our characters usually "grind" in raids to hope to score on a rare item from a loot table off a rare boss.
Do we really enjoy grinding or rifling through quest dialouge to simply get the task and the reward until we get to the end?
What if:
A game design caters to the characters personality/principles? Hear me out!
When WAR offers players who purchases a pre order Collectors Edition unique quests that no other player can access, I thought to myself. Well, this means unique quests can be given to some players and not all upon starting the game.
Suppose in character creation we are given the standard D&D alignment systems: lawful good, lawful neutral, lawful evil, neutral good, true neutral, neutral evil, chaotic good, chaotic neutral and chaotic evil.
These can be put in flagged criteria for players avatars to have the game code to execute certain programs or dialouges..
That doesn't solve your gear problem however. The gear you earn is the gear you keep. Why have to toss it in a day or two after grinding to a higher level? I propose if you want a certain weapon, you choose its initial design. When you complete a mission you reward is a choice of stat enhancements, or abilities to that weapon or item. Similar to city of heroes/villians. You may also choose cosmetic features like item auras or ability particle effects. I even think we can get new abilities as a reward for doing the quest. Not when you reach level X.
Still want the challange of boss fights or rare spawns? Fair enough, make the rewards better. Offer a rare design model or an opportunity to wield that bosses weapon/ gear. Of course you get the initial benefits of that weapon at the start and as you grow in its experience you unlock abilities of that weapon or stat enhancements.
It is a method that may even remove the need for levels. Skill based gameplay has always been a favorite of these forums. However, players do want to be able to know what level of expertise their character is at any given time. So this may still need to be in place.
Player balancing is a matter of perspective. Instead of award a host of abilities when you "ding", your abiltiies are awarded as you complete a mission. Note the more difficult the mission, the better your abilities rewarded. If the game mission was simple or designed for short game time, your reward might be a slight stat enhancement. Maybe +1 to one stat (or as Age of Conan has it +.01% - WTF is that?).
Overcome a mighty challenge and you acquire a new skill or ability. Want that ability to improve? (in other words, rank 2, rank 3 etc.) do an appropriate mission that warrants that reward.
Here would be some general guidelines to such rewards:
1. Quests that take less than 15-20 minutes -> kill x, gather x, deliver x : single minimal stat enahncement reward or cosmetic item reward
2. Quests that should take 30 min - 1 hour solo - multiple stat / resist enhancement reward and/or cosmetic item modifier
3. End of solo quest chain - new ability award or improved ability ( rank 2, rank 3 , etc)
4. Group reward - stat enhancement and cosmetic reward of your choice
5. End of group quest chain - new ability or improved ability + stat enhancement and cosmetic modifier
6. Epic reward - unique ability, unique item offered which provides base stat enahncements and improved ability of one of your exisiting skills. For those player averse to raids, you can group or solo into a series of adventures to get this reward, but it will take signifantly longer to accomplish.
Thoughts?
The only time this should work, is when you are working towards a "unique" ability. In other words, in order to wield the power of "Ice" you have to travel to the "Icelands".
I think making a character progress in levels/abilities/skills simply by questing alone isn't a very good idea. Which is a better idea: Learning how to wield a longsword by delivering a basket to some farmer's wife (quest), or learning how to use one through someone who has used one before (training), or by just picking one up and swinging it around trial & error (skill leveling), eventually getting better at it.
Also, as if anyone reads quests now anyway...it would get to the point where people really wouldn't give a damn what the quest is about, they just want the reward. NPC X is no longer NPC X, he's NPC Martial Arms Skill Trainer.
You also said:
"However, players do want to be able to know what level of expertise their character is at any given time."
In a skill-based game, or a game where there are no "levels" per se, players eventually just learn what level of expertise they are at. Making game mechanic changes just so a player knows how "powerful" they are just isn't worth the time.
Good post, but I would personally stay with using trainers, or just allowing the player's character to gain abilities/skills as they increase in "level". Questing should be an option for the player, not forced upon them.
Mon Jun 16 2008 6:30PMWell, one could consider a delivery quest such as giving a basket to a farmers wife as a simple task. Normally easy in most instances. If you wished to make it a quick task, you don't offer a reward such as a sword skill upgrade. You offer some coin, and a small stat increase. If you wanted the game to provide suprises and make it more interesting, that basket may have something in it that might be more interesting...
Trainers are easy , no doubt. It is the staple of MMOs today.
As you said, something like this requires work. And that is why it is outside of the design box..
Mon Jun 16 2008 9:11PMActually, Im looking forward to see what Bioware will do in their upcoming game. They have had a lot of intresting quest chains that change the character in their earlier RPGs and ist not all that impossible that at least to some degree they will implement this in their upcomming game.
Anyways, questing needs some work, the old Wow quests where you just take the quest or not is boring, you should be able to demand more reward (or no reward) and influence the quest more. AoC tries this a bit when you get a dialog to take the quests but sadly so far what you say doesnt really change the quest or do anything.
A level free game is another thing but is quite interesting, I am personally a bit disapointed that WAR don't use the level free system of the original "Warhammer fantasy roleplaying game", it is actually really good and would work perfectly in a MMO with just a few minor adjustments.
Mon Jun 16 2008 11:38PMyou have some good points but i dont think any system that follows the all to familiar theme of quest>xp>levelup/gear isnt really out of the box. the bad design is rooted in an "action equals reward" system.
this "action equals reward" system leads to the typical leveling race where the story of the game is only secondary to xp and power up.
close to your suggestion i would counter propose:
using a longsword makes you better in using a longsword over time. maybe if you use the same longswords over time slaying ghouls and dragons with it this particular longsword gets even better and develops magical stats based on your legendary deeds.
fighting undead makes you better (maybe only in terms of tactics) in fighting undeads. you learn how to deal with certain dangers.
both these you can also unlearn. if you swiched from sword to axe for a few month your longsword skills will slowly degenerate.
Tue Jun 17 2008 1:50AMdoing quests in the world builds up reputation. a good design would allow for many fractions (thieves guild, the templars, the nobles, the evil mages) towards wich you could build up positive or negative reputation. if you had a certain ammount of positive reputation for example you would be allowed to train a secret skill at a master of that fraction...
MMORPG.com writes:
Login or Register to post a comment