Originally posted by GeezerGamer

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Sythion

Originally posted by Kyleran

I agree, labels are helpful, myself I feel that GW2 has either refined or redefined the MMO space [...] since they've more or less stripped out character progression/distinction to the point that everyone quite easily ends up more or less the same, much like a FPS.

 

Progression != Distinction.

Bejeweled = FPS...?

Actually, in a traditional MMORPG, Progression does in fact equal Distinction, always has, always will.

In almost every MMORPG I've ever played, there were players who had progressed in character power (be it in combat skills, crafting etc) to levels far beyond anything I'd ever hope to achieve.

Yet I had my own personal success stories, in DAOC I was in the top 6 Spellcrafters on my server for quite a while and one of the few that would take public work.  (and one of the very view who could craft certain items)

The only relationship I was making with GW2 to FPS is that in a FPS bascially all players are equal in terms of character power, and have access to the same set of gear and abilities.  The skill in them comes from actual player intelligence, understanding, and hand eye coordination, and GW2 seems to be much more akin to this system.

And no, Bejewled != FPS.

 

 

I was just discussing FPS's and how they don't belong with MMOs because FPSs have shorter lifespans. And it's largely due to this fact. All players are equal. So it becomes about playing out the content. I know I will be shot for saying this, But I think this is going to be one of the biggest issues ANet faces with GW2. But that's obviously a different topic and another time.

It makes me thing of something you said. Because it's ironic. In EVE, the ONLY factor that distinguishes you from anyone else is the amount of time you have an active account. All distinction is assigned over time.

What distinguishes you from anyone else in EVE, are the choices you made (as opposed to someone who started the same time you did) and also how you built your world.

It's not character power. It's what you build.

I think in the ideal game you could learn anything you wanted but there would be so many things to learn and do that you couldn't do more than 5% of all things. That would allow for oodles of unique combinations and decisions and lots of interdependence.

Originally posted by Cuathon

 

I think in the ideal game you could learn anything you wanted but there would be so many things to learn and do that you couldn't do more than 5% of all things. That would allow for oodles of unique combinations and decisions and lots of interdependence.

To me, "cookie cutter" is equal to a four letter word in MMOs. When I 1st went to Rift, It was the soul system that attracted me. I thought it was finally possible to construct a playstyle from scratch. That did not turn out to be the case, but the Idea still appeals to me.

Edit: Sorry, I think I am getting off topic again.

Originally posted by Cuathon

 

I think in the ideal game you could learn anything you wanted but there would be so many things to learn and do that you couldn't do more than 5% of all things. That would allow for oodles of unique combinations and decisions and lots of interdependence.

There are already that in many MMO class mechanics. The issue is that people like to min-max and there is always an optimal solution. Once discovered, no one wants anything else BUT the optimal solution.

Just take the current WOW talent system. There are MANY choices and many do interact. Why do people only use a few builds? Because anything else is not-optimal. So it is not like there are no choices. Just that there are few GOOD choices.

The only way to change that is to have unique MECHANICS for the choices .. and not even blizz has the man-power to make that a huge set. Look at their revamp of the talent system. it is exactly that .. usuing unique mechanics to disrupt the min-max-ing of the talents.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Cuathon

 

I think in the ideal game you could learn anything you wanted but there would be so many things to learn and do that you couldn't do more than 5% of all things. That would allow for oodles of unique combinations and decisions and lots of interdependence.

There are already that in many MMO class mechanics. The issue is that people like to min-max and there is always an optimal solution. Once discovered, no one wants anything else BUT the optimal solution.

Just take the current WOW talent system. There are MANY choices and many do interact. Why do people only use a few builds? Because anything else is not-optimal. So it is not like there are no choices. Just that there are few GOOD choices.

The only way to change that is to have unique MECHANICS for the choices .. and not even blizz has the man-power to make that a huge set. Look at their revamp of the talent system. it is exactly that .. usuing unique mechanics to disrupt the min-max-ing of the talents.

 

I do not think you understand what I mean. Obviously is there is an ideal set up for a class and for a given goal you can min max the shit out of things. I am famous in some lesser known browser games for min maxing and forcing devs to change large game mechanics.

The thing is that your favorite gameplay, balanced and limited, ala 15 man raids, is ideal for min maxing. Same for the whole trinity.

When you have a lot more freeform stuff going on and you never fight the same fight twice, like you do with static and constantly respawning the same mobs in the same area, you have a lot more power to fight min maxers.

The fact that you can min max most themeparks so easily is entirely a design failure and has nothing to do with the size of your dev team.

Making each zone or instance or dungeon or raid totally cut off from the world and allowing you to run it over and over with no change obviously allows for easy minmax.

When the entire world is one instance and you cannot cap to level 80 in a week and you face diverse challenges and surprises and all monsters are kill once then dead, there is so much more room.

Having longer exp curves may seem like tedium and unnecessary time wasting but its important. If I can learn any skill and it only takes a week to max a skill I am going to be a tank mage. But if I can never max a skill and I needed dozens of different skills avaliable to me or avaliable to my group and different combos do different things, I have to decide do I want to do total specialize, which makes me super good at one role, do I want lots of skills at medium levels, do I want fewer skills at higher but not specialized levels? Which skills do I want? What combinations?

You shouldn't have to be sub optimal to be different, and in fact knowing the perfect strategy should be effectively impossible.

Originally posted by Cuathon

Originally posted by GeezerGamer

Dust doesn't belong on this site. Yes, it has an overlap into EVE. But What's CCP going to do, a year after Dust launches and the FPSers are off to the next game? FPS games do not survive like MMOs do. I don't see this lasting. Dust will die very soon and CCP will have isolate it from EVE. Or maybe they won't isolate it but will have to minimize it's effect in the EVE universe. Within a year after release Dust will be insignificant.

 

It will hav ehte fact that the EVEers will have a place to go do FPS, but will that draw keep it going on its own?

That's an interesting theory. CCP would be in deep shit if that happened.

I hope not, CCP is one of the only companies who do cool stuff.

I think, CCP will be ok as long as it sticks with it's other project too. Maybe Dust will work, but if it doesn't they have something to fall back on and it's something they are GOOD at. So we'll see. I think as to the question at hand it's really difficult to find a true answer as to what is required to make something called this, or something called that. For me and my boredom/dislike of strictly themepark MMO's I don't like the fact that unless you are a complete idiot, it's nearly impossible to fail at the game. The ability to have some impact on the evolution of the world, to see it ever changing depending on player choices be they battles or other aspects is something that springs to mind for me, but again what word do you put on that? I don't know really.  I don't know how well I would do in a game with no structure or purpose but the tools to create anything. That might be just too much sand for me.

Originally posted by Cuathon 

I do not think you understand what I mean. Obviously is there is an ideal set up for a class and for a given goal you can min max the shit out of things. I am famous in some lesser known browser games for min maxing and forcing devs to change large game mechanics.

The thing is that your favorite gameplay, balanced and limited, ala 15 man raids, is ideal for min maxing. Same for the whole trinity.

When you have a lot more freeform stuff going on and you never fight the same fight twice, like you do with static and constantly respawning the same mobs in the same area, you have a lot more power to fight min maxers.

The fact that you can min max most themeparks so easily is entirely a design failure and has nothing to do with the size of your dev team.

Making each zone or instance or dungeon or raid totally cut off from the world and allowing you to run it over and over with no change obviously allows for easy minmax.

When the entire world is one instance and you cannot cap to level 80 in a week and you face diverse challenges and surprises and all monsters are kill once then dead, there is so much more room.

Having longer exp curves may seem like tedium and unnecessary time wasting but its important. If I can learn any skill and it only takes a week to max a skill I am going to be a tank mage. But if I can never max a skill and I needed dozens of different skills avaliable to me or avaliable to my group and different combos do different things, I have to decide do I want to do total specialize, which makes me super good at one role, do I want lots of skills at medium levels, do I want fewer skills at higher but not specialized levels? Which skills do I want? What combinations?

You shouldn't have to be sub optimal to be different, and in fact knowing the perfect strategy should be effectively impossible.

This is all true.

Another way to provide distinction is to provide limitation and alway a shorter exp curve, but provide lots of different situations and needs for players to fill along with a wide range of customization options from which to choose.

Of course if you have a game where combat is all that matters, and there are only three roles, then avoiding a min-max scenario is virtually impossible.

Originally posted by Cuathon

 

I do not think you understand what I mean. Obviously is there is an ideal set up for a class and for a given goal you can min max the shit out of things. I am famous in some lesser known browser games for min maxing and forcing devs to change large game mechanics.

The thing is that your favorite gameplay, balanced and limited, ala 15 man raids, is ideal for min maxing. Same for the whole trinity.

When you have a lot more freeform stuff going on and you never fight the same fight twice, like you do with static and constantly respawning the same mobs in the same area, you have a lot more power to fight min maxers.

The fact that you can min max most themeparks so easily is entirely a design failure and has nothing to do with the size of your dev team.

Making each zone or instance or dungeon or raid totally cut off from the world and allowing you to run it over and over with no change obviously allows for easy minmax.

When the entire world is one instance and you cannot cap to level 80 in a week and you face diverse challenges and surprises and all monsters are kill once then dead, there is so much more room.

Having longer exp curves may seem like tedium and unnecessary time wasting but its important. If I can learn any skill and it only takes a week to max a skill I am going to be a tank mage. But if I can never max a skill and I needed dozens of different skills avaliable to me or avaliable to my group and different combos do different things, I have to decide do I want to do total specialize, which makes me super good at one role, do I want lots of skills at medium levels, do I want fewer skills at higher but not specialized levels? Which skills do I want? What combinations?

You shouldn't have to be sub optimal to be different, and in fact knowing the perfect strategy should be effectively impossible.

I doubt your claim.

As long as you have combat, there is DPS. And DPS is a number that can be min-max.

DPS does NOT depend on whether you are in an instance, or in an open world. It does NOT depend on whether the boss is killed and dead, and you kill a new one, or you are kiling the same one again.

Sure, there are sub-cat like DPS when moving, AOE vs single target. But numbers are numbers. Unless you don't have damage in your game, DPS is a relevant stat. As long as you have a relevant stat, people can min-max it.

Originally posted by Sythion

Originally posted by Cuathon 

I do not think you understand what I mean. Obviously is there is an ideal set up for a class and for a given goal you can min max the shit out of things. I am famous in some lesser known browser games for min maxing and forcing devs to change large game mechanics.

The thing is that your favorite gameplay, balanced and limited, ala 15 man raids, is ideal for min maxing. Same for the whole trinity.

When you have a lot more freeform stuff going on and you never fight the same fight twice, like you do with static and constantly respawning the same mobs in the same area, you have a lot more power to fight min maxers.

The fact that you can min max most themeparks so easily is entirely a design failure and has nothing to do with the size of your dev team.

Making each zone or instance or dungeon or raid totally cut off from the world and allowing you to run it over and over with no change obviously allows for easy minmax.

When the entire world is one instance and you cannot cap to level 80 in a week and you face diverse challenges and surprises and all monsters are kill once then dead, there is so much more room.

Having longer exp curves may seem like tedium and unnecessary time wasting but its important. If I can learn any skill and it only takes a week to max a skill I am going to be a tank mage. But if I can never max a skill and I needed dozens of different skills avaliable to me or avaliable to my group and different combos do different things, I have to decide do I want to do total specialize, which makes me super good at one role, do I want lots of skills at medium levels, do I want fewer skills at higher but not specialized levels? Which skills do I want? What combinations?

You shouldn't have to be sub optimal to be different, and in fact knowing the perfect strategy should be effectively impossible.

This is all true.

Another way to provide distinction is to provide limitation and alway a shorter exp curve, but provide lots of different situations and needs for players to fill along with a wide range of customization options from which to choose.

Of course if you have a game where combat is all that matters, and there are only three roles, then avoiding a min-max scenario is virtually impossible.

*cough* WoW *cough*

On a more serious note, the thing about shorter exp curves and limits is that its still not that distinct. I mean, it depends on how your limits are and the shortness of the curve. But if you have limits, typically that means that you have an end to progression, which I am against. The purpose of MMOs is to progress.

Also there is more emergent success in larger systems. When I used to play TAO a sort of battle chess game, we could only have 10 units. We had 3 main setups. If we could have had even 12 units, the number of viable setups would have been much larger. It just allowed way more specializing. And it would have let some units that seemed really bad in a 10 unit limit become powerhouses.

There are many ways to solve the problem of homogeny though, and a really really well done short curve large field method could work. I think you have less lee way there though. And even with distinction eventually the system will be solved.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Cuathon

 

I do not think you understand what I mean. Obviously is there is an ideal set up for a class and for a given goal you can min max the shit out of things. I am famous in some lesser known browser games for min maxing and forcing devs to change large game mechanics.

The thing is that your favorite gameplay, balanced and limited, ala 15 man raids, is ideal for min maxing. Same for the whole trinity.

When you have a lot more freeform stuff going on and you never fight the same fight twice, like you do with static and constantly respawning the same mobs in the same area, you have a lot more power to fight min maxers.

The fact that you can min max most themeparks so easily is entirely a design failure and has nothing to do with the size of your dev team.

Making each zone or instance or dungeon or raid totally cut off from the world and allowing you to run it over and over with no change obviously allows for easy minmax.

When the entire world is one instance and you cannot cap to level 80 in a week and you face diverse challenges and surprises and all monsters are kill once then dead, there is so much more room.

Having longer exp curves may seem like tedium and unnecessary time wasting but its important. If I can learn any skill and it only takes a week to max a skill I am going to be a tank mage. But if I can never max a skill and I needed dozens of different skills avaliable to me or avaliable to my group and different combos do different things, I have to decide do I want to do total specialize, which makes me super good at one role, do I want lots of skills at medium levels, do I want fewer skills at higher but not specialized levels? Which skills do I want? What combinations?

You shouldn't have to be sub optimal to be different, and in fact knowing the perfect strategy should be effectively impossible.

I doubt your claim.

As long as you have combat, there is DPS. And DPS is a number that can be min-max.

DPS does NOT depend on whether you are in an instance, or in an open world. It does NOT depend on whether the boss is killed and dead, and you kill a new one, or you are kiling the same one again.

Sure, there are sub-cat like DPS when moving, AOE vs single target. But numbers are numbers. Unless you don't have damage in your game, DPS is a relevant stat. As long as you have a relevant stat, people can min-max it.

They can try to min max it. Large numbers of damage types and strengths and weaknesses can help with this. So can types, like projectile, touch, aoe and aoe projectile and so forth.

In an instance that never changes you have very specific goals, and you can set up your gear and skillset and group comp specifically to do this. And if you fail you can do it over.

If you don't have group limits and you are fighting more than a single boss and some adds, you can do all sorts of things. Strategy and tactics. You can have skills that work with the environment or have special uses.

Further minmaxing on a single boss isn't easy because once its gone you have to solve a new problem instead of killing the same boss over and over. Also if bosses change over time, even if you lose the next time you go back things will be different.

So you get way more complex systems without group size caps, with varying situations, with dynamics worlds and enemies, with a larger set of effects and behaviors, and so forth.

You can still min max it but you will not be as successful. Most bosses in WoW are effectively solved.

Originally posted by Cuathon

 

They can try to min max it. Large numbers of damage types and strengths and weaknesses can help with this. So can types, like projectile, touch, aoe and aoe projectile and so forth.

In an instance that never changes you have very specific goals, and you can set up your gear and skillset and group comp specifically to do this. And if you fail you can do it over.

If you don't have group limits and you are fighting more than a single boss and some adds, you can do all sorts of things. Strategy and tactics. You can have skills that work with the environment or have special uses.

Further minmaxing on a single boss isn't easy because once its gone you have to solve a new problem instead of killing the same boss over and over. Also if bosses change over time, even if you lose the next time you go back things will be different.

So you get way more complex systems without group size caps, with varying situations, with dynamics worlds and enemies, with a larger set of effects and behaviors, and so forth.

You can still min max it but you will not be as successful. Most bosses in WoW are effectively solved.

Let me digress ...

If you do not have group limits, then players will just over-whelm encounters with large numbers. In that case, raw DPS probably matter most. Mechanics usually matter less if you have the stat to overwhelm it.

On the flip size, if you make the encounter so big that players can never get enough bodies to help out, you make a "always losing game" and it won't be much fun.

Thus, having an encounter designed for a particular number of players is important so that it is not too easy, or too hard. It makes the difficulty tune-able.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Let me digress ...

If you do not have group limits, then players will just over-whelm encounters with large numbers. In that case, raw DPS probably matter most. Mechanics usually matter less if you have the stat to overwhelm it.

On the flip size, if you make the encounter so big that players can never get enough bodies to help out, you make a "always losing game" and it won't be much fun.

Thus, having an encounter designed for a particular number of players is important so that it is not too easy, or too hard. It makes the difficulty tune-able.

Or go the GW2 route and have difficulty scale by # of players.

But yes, "critical mass" is an issue that must be considered. One method is to have a flat damage reduction (not percentage based), another is to give bonuses based on the number of opponents.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Cuathon

 

They can try to min max it. Large numbers of damage types and strengths and weaknesses can help with this. So can types, like projectile, touch, aoe and aoe projectile and so forth.

In an instance that never changes you have very specific goals, and you can set up your gear and skillset and group comp specifically to do this. And if you fail you can do it over.

If you don't have group limits and you are fighting more than a single boss and some adds, you can do all sorts of things. Strategy and tactics. You can have skills that work with the environment or have special uses.

Further minmaxing on a single boss isn't easy because once its gone you have to solve a new problem instead of killing the same boss over and over. Also if bosses change over time, even if you lose the next time you go back things will be different.

So you get way more complex systems without group size caps, with varying situations, with dynamics worlds and enemies, with a larger set of effects and behaviors, and so forth.

You can still min max it but you will not be as successful. Most bosses in WoW are effectively solved.

Let me digress ...

If you do not have group limits, then players will just over-whelm encounters with large numbers. In that case, raw DPS probably matter most. Mechanics usually matter less if you have the stat to overwhelm it.

On the flip size, if you make the encounter so big that players can never get enough bodies to help out, you make a "always losing game" and it won't be much fun.

Thus, having an encounter designed for a particular number of players is important so that it is not too easy, or too hard. It makes the difficulty tune-able.

I disagree. In many cases you won't have access to enough players to zerg. In other cases you might just lose. Losing should be part of games. You might be able to beat a mission even with few people with cleverness also. In some cases having too many people who are clueless might be a problem, maybe they mess up and draw nearby monsters or one of the monsters is a lich and they die in droves and get ressed as zombies you have to fight.

No number limits provide options. In some cases you could zerg. In others it might be better not to. Or maybe you need 3 alchemists and 3 warriors and 3 mages but if you went with more mages you could do better. Further in a game simulating an RTS it might be better to not zerg even if you can and have excess players craft or do other fights or other things.

There are lots of factors involved.

Originally posted by Sythion

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Let me digress ...

If you do not have group limits, then players will just over-whelm encounters with large numbers. In that case, raw DPS probably matter most. Mechanics usually matter less if you have the stat to overwhelm it.

On the flip size, if you make the encounter so big that players can never get enough bodies to help out, you make a "always losing game" and it won't be much fun.

Thus, having an encounter designed for a particular number of players is important so that it is not too easy, or too hard. It makes the difficulty tune-able.

Or go the GW2 route and have difficulty scale by # of players.

But yes, "critical mass" is an issue that must be considered. One method is to have a flat damage reduction (not percentage based), another is to give bonuses based on the number of opponents.

I dislike all these methods. Maybe it makes "better" games, but if you want a virtual world having illogical scaling ruins immersion. If its a virtual world and the monsters have to come from somewhere how do you scale? Why do they suddenly get more powerful?

Not every fight has to be perfectly tailored for 5 players at level 17 or 10 at level 25. There are so many obfuscating factors that a lot of times no one notices the "perfect" balancing anyways.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

VWRPG is a good term. There is no need to find other names. It is pretty clear what it means.

I vote to use it.

Same.

Originally posted by Cuathon

 

I disagree. In many cases you won't have access to enough players to zerg. In other cases you might just lose. Losing should be part of games. You might be able to beat a mission even with few people with cleverness also. In some cases having too many people who are clueless might be a problem, maybe they mess up and draw nearby monsters or one of the monsters is a lich and they die in droves and get ressed as zombies you have to fight.

The point is that you have no control on the success rate.

What if 90% of the attempt are failure?

In almost ALL video games, success and failure rates are well tuned because that is one of most important aspects of game design.

In you system, you just have no control, no tuning over that.

If you have a 90% failure rate, players will just quit over time, and make it even harder for the remaining to be successful.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Cuathon

 

I disagree. In many cases you won't have access to enough players to zerg. In other cases you might just lose. Losing should be part of games. You might be able to beat a mission even with few people with cleverness also. In some cases having too many people who are clueless might be a problem, maybe they mess up and draw nearby monsters or one of the monsters is a lich and they die in droves and get ressed as zombies you have to fight.

The point is that you have no control on the success rate.

What if 90% of the attempt are failure?

In almost ALL video games, success and failure rates are well tuned because that is one of most important aspects of game design.

In you system, you just have no control, no tuning over that.

If you have a 90% failure rate, players will just quit over time, and make it even harder for the remaining to be successful.

 

Well the basic game is not SC2 korea tournament difficulty and the world architecture deals with players being too successful in some ways. And if you mess up it has some mitigation as has been explained in other threads.

This really isn't what this thread is about though. If you want to argue about TTS use of the of the TTS threads. Its one of the first page threads in the dev corner.

This is about terminology and sub genre delineation.

Originally posted by Cuathon

 

I dislike all these methods. Maybe it makes "better" games, but if you want a virtual world having illogical scaling ruins immersion. If its a virtual world and the monsters have to come from somewhere how do you scale? Why do they suddenly get more powerful?

This obsession with "immersion" is just going to result in bad game design.

There is no reason why a world created to entertain needs to have everything set in a logical manner. Immersion is only good up to a point. There is no reason to take it so far.

Are you going to simulate the impact of food, digestive system, and farming too?

Originally posted by Cuathon

This is about terminology and sub genre delineation.

Which has run its course.

How many time do we have to explain what VWRPG means?

Every thread has its digression.

Originally posted by Cuathon

I dislike all these methods. Maybe it makes "better" games, but if you want a virtual world having illogical scaling ruins immersion. If its a virtual world and the monsters have to come from somewhere how do you scale? Why do they suddenly get more powerful?

Not every fight has to be perfectly tailored for 5 players at level 17 or 10 at level 25. There are so many obfuscating factors that a lot of times no one notices the "perfect" balancing anyways.

How about an alternative approach: enemy forces (army, raiding party, whatever) attack in numbers algorithmically determined by the playerbase. For instance if you are attacking city X, which has 100 residents 20 of which are logged on and 30 "visitors," then Y amount of monsters attacks. Maybe the higher level units will appear based on the level of these players as well.

You're really going to have to have something I think. Narius is right that if you have absolutely no balance you are very rarely going to have a fight where anything but numbers matters, which may invalidate a lot of your design choices.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Cuathon

This is about terminology and sub genre delineation.

Which has run its course.

How many time do we have to explain what VWRPG means?

Every thread has its digression.

The thread isnt just about defining the term. It hasn't even been 24 hours. Little early for massive digression no?