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EverQuest Column: It's Lonely At The Bottom
MMORPG.com player columnist Jamie Skelton writes this new article on the population vacuum that often exists in the lower levels of an MMO as more and more of a game's population settle at the end-game content. She also touches on what can be done to make going through those early levels a better experience or all involved.
By Jaime Skelton on October 23, 2009
Visit almost any MMORPG that's been around for a year or longer, and you're bound to find that the game is top-heavy. A heavy focus on end-game content, whether it's raiding, instances, or other max-level content, has led many community populations to become heavily concentrated with characters at maximum level; for example, almost a full 50% of active World of Warcraft characters on US servers are level 80 based on Warcraft census data. While lower-level characters do exist in the form of new players and alts, and these games usually have a reasonable amount of low-level group content created during their development and growth, that content often becomes abandoned and neglected by players on their rush to join the masses on top.
There are plenty of players who want to experience that content, of course, even if they have experienced it before. Unfortunately, the numbers of those players are often scattered widely between time zones and servers, making it difficult to find the prerequisite number of people to fill a group - much less a good group composition. For the lucky people who have managed to hit the right compromise of factors, low-level group content still gets its time in the spotlight. For those who aren't so lucky, other solutions have to be found.
The most typical solution, and coincidentally the most recommended solution, is to have a high-level friend run through the content. Simple, right? Just grab a buddy who's high enough to run through the content solo, and then tag along while they do the dirty work. Don't have a high level buddy? Pay off a random high level, mercenary style, to be your friend until the instance is done. Join a guild, and hope their members are kind enough to new or low level players to help you through - although some guilds are actually so inclined to host regular "lowbie" runs to help lower level characters through group content. Although players may not get to experience the content the way it was intended to be experienced, and may not learn anything about group dynamics, they will, at least, get to experience the content, and gain experience, loot, quest progression, and exposure to story and lore they couldn't see alone.
Some games, like EverQuest, have smartly picked up on the fact that friends want to help friends in a social game, and have introduced mentoring/apprenticeship systems. These systems allow higher level characters to "level down" temporarily to match that of their lower level friends. This saves the step of having a friend power you through content, or forcing them to reroll and play a new character at your side all the time. These systems are great for questing, or for players who have several friends that can put together a proper lower level group, but for players who only have one friend to play with, that still leaves a need for more lower level characters to join in.
What players want - and games need - are compelling reasons to re-run older content. Consider the skirmish system coming up for Lord of the Rings Online's Siege of Mirkwood expansion. The new skirmishes, which act as dynamic instances, are scalable based on difficulty, group size, and player level. Although not a lot of details are out about this system yet, we're left to assume that the level of rewards will be based on the level of the skirmish setting, and that the level setting assumes all three group members are of that level - meaning that a lower level character will not survive a high level skirmish, and a high level character will find no reward in a low level skirmish. What the skirmish system does provide, however, is a scaling instance system that invites players to revisit content. A few tweaks to average out the difficulty based on average player level could provide a balanced way to encourage high level players to play along lower level players.
;)
Older players can help
new players reach
for those bananas.
Or imagine that a game held a mentoring system, tailoring players down to the level-appropriate stats, but instead of just the feel good of helping someone through a run, players were actually rewarded with a special currency that allowed them to purchase unique items only obtainable by helping low-level players? To prevent abuse, these tailored groups could require that at least one player not be leveled down by the mentoring system for the instance - meaning that at least one character is always benefiting from the system. Sure, we as players should help others out of the kindness we naturally possess, but let's face it - most players need a reward carrot dangled in front of them to encourage them to do anything.
But what if the problem is visiting the content in the first place? Group content has become increasingly optional, as has the loot rewarded from it. Many games have tuned leveling so that a player can easily solo via grinding and questing, relying only on quest rewards and items purchased from other players, until they reach max level. The game suddenly turns to group play, and many players have had no experience yet in groups that they do miserably in them.
Games could gate characters through group-required areas such as dungeons or instances, and prevent higher level players coming through (unless under a mentoring system.) Considering a fictional scenario, in which players are presented with a story instance at level 20 - but instead of skipping past it to continue leveling, players must complete the instance in a level-appropriate group. Equipment dropped here could be worth a substantial number of levels - not only the best until you reach the next dungeon, but the best by a wide margin. Without completing the instance, characters will be held at a gated level, with no new quests to find, until the instance is complete. Of course, this doesn't work if the game is too top-heavy and the lower level areas are ghost towns.
I don't personally advocate forcing group content on players, but the content should be compelling enough to revisit - and players need to be willing to do so. Striking a balance between end game content and keeping lower level content interesting and populated is nowhere near as easy as any of the methods I've brought up. Ultimately, it's up to player communities to encourage participation in content; go beyond complaining that a group can't be found and be the leader to put together groups and community efforts to ensure that all players have a chance to experience content "as intended" - and not feel forced to rush to max level.
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Maybe they could just have randomly generated content, so it's always new. I don't think anyone has done that since Diablo 2.
Actually IMVPO the tightest spot is not the low levels, but those 10-20 levels before the top. There always are plenty who reroll and play the first 20 levels, but many quit after that and return to the max level chars. Or you have a guild which helps, since they did the low level stuff so long ago, they don't mind doing it again. But nothing was so difficult in EQ2 as to get people for the level 60-77 level stuff. When everyone in the guild was 80 by then, they just had done it and thus little will to see it just again. And as I experienced it those last 20 levels BEFORE the top were WAY harder to make. The XP is usually lowest and the ranks of fellows to group and thinnest.
Sidenote: I NEVER EVER understood why high levels take so much more XP to level up. Wouldn't it be logical to make them easier and the low levels slower? I mean, when you are new, like say, you learn Quantum Physics, the first steps are slow and take long, but once you are Einstein you rush through learning new things with leaps. Should the levelling curve not be entirely the other way around as it is present?? LONG at the beginning and fast at the end?
I really like the idea of the special currency earned for helping people. It provides an incentive without forcing anyone to do anything. I propose that how much you earn be based on level of the content being run through, and that the currency could be used for end game gear or its equivalent. As games get older it's harder and harder to attract new players - something like this would encourage end gamers to actively recruit new players. The only concern I'd have is exploiting - maybe do something like only one character per account per month counts as helpable?
Perhaps the answer is to get away from the concept of "end game" all together. I think the real answer is to get the lower levels involved in the meta-game from the very beginning.
Take a super-hero game, They are fighting off an invasion of some sort. The higher level mobs are taking out the bad guys, while the lower level guys are the ones who have to take the civilians to safety. The mobs that try to go after the civilians are in fact lower level, but if they are attacked by someone more than 5 levels above them, they let off some sort of massive one-hit attack (or they simply explode killing everything around them.
Bring the low levels into the game, and do not have the leveling treadmill be a requirement to get to the "Real Game"
City of Heroes/Villains has a very elegant solution to this issue. The Oroborous system combined with their sidekicking/exemplaring system allow for high level characters to revisit the lower level content. In fact, I'm very surprised the author didn't mention it here.
I like the way City of Heroes does the mentoring system. Any player of any level can team with any other player of any other level. There only needs to be one mentor on a team of 8 and they still get rewards, plus there are mentoring badges that can be achieved.
Games without levels allows content to always be viable, though advancement of somekind is achieved through hours played there are ways to build games so that content never becomes obsolete.
This story is only a very small tweak on a similar topic about content in general. My answer here is the same.
stats, armor, weapons, etc are all based on math. Simply tweak items/mobs and the resulting XP/drops based on the character. So, if I choose to revisit a "noob" zone as a level 60 or 80, the mobs are just as difficult as it was when I was a lvl 1.
The incentive to level, then, is to acquire new abilities. Questing can be about where the story takes you, rather than "arey ou high enough to survive here". Then a newbie could go in a dungeon with a veteran, and still be useful.
A level one healer as the 2 starting healing spells, but hasn't leanred the stam buff or the group heal or, etc etc.
IN WOW for example, skills learned by talent tree, and new skills introduced by reaching a certain level, would still be valuable.
There are several benefits to this.
1) Visit any zone, at any time and it is still beneficial.
How many zones did you skip because you obtained the levels needed without going there?
2) Revisit zones with new players.
Get a full group for a "low level" instance/dungeon without it being a "rushed" experience. The first time I played through Deadmines, it was a really neat combo of Disney's Pirate's of the Caribean and Goonies + WoW goodness. Rushing my wife through when she startd, it lost all of that mystery. As a 70 Tankadin, i could run through them all, and taken them all down at once. No help needed. In fact. I could kill them much faster than she could loot.
3) Keep your gear.
You found a lvl 20 sword that has an awesome flame effect. It looks awesome. But at lvl 40, the weapon just isn't useful anymore! You have to get rid of it. *cry* If weaopns/armor and mobs scaled, then you could keep armor and weapons that LOOK good.
Gotta run!
Ok I can speak to the EQ2 mentoring system. It does allow you to mentor down to help low level toons advance. The problem with this is the drops. Say you have a level 80 mentoring a group of level 30's in runeye. The loot that drops is for the level 30's nothing at that level to even satisfy a level 80 as they are well beyond that level.
So the level 80 is only doing this to help kin mates only advance there alts and toons up. Or in my case the wife. I don't know any level 80 that is going to mentor down to a bunch of low levels if he dont know them.
I can also speek about LOTRO, as I do play there some. There is no mentor system. Inf fact if you get a hight level to come in there and power level you, The low level toon actually gets a penalty on the combat xp due to the hight level helping them. OH and while lotro is saying were gettting more accounts all the time, I never hardly ever seen anybody around 20 in ost while doing the troll bounty all I ever see is level 60's. So really the only folks tooling around are folks working on their alts and maybe some new folks but really the content is not being run to much.
Honestly I have never seen any game that actually reward high levels for helping low levels other than the satisfaction of helping a friend.
The problem with grouping is that it isn't encouraged. Not forced, no. But there are no real incentives to group up.
I'll confess and say that I played Tabula Rasa, and I loved it! It was a hell of an awesome game. Though not without its faults, it did get the squad mechanic better than most MMO's out there. It gave you rewards for grouping. First, it was a group buff. The more people were part of your squad, the bigger XP multiplier every member had. The levels of every squad member played into that muliplier. If your friend was too high, you got no XP for his kills. Too low, and the reward was menial at best, and you'd be setting your friend back. Secondly, grouping scaled instances. The more in the squad, the more difficult the instance, and better the rewards. Later on, TR added in /LFS, or looking for squad. A tool that allowed you to post up squad invites or set yourself up for an invite. It came a bit late, and wasn't advertised enough to the players (some had no idea it existed). But it was all there to let players know, that they were meant to group. They were given incentive and reason to group, which is something, a number of games don't do. "Training" players from the start to group, that grouping is good, will make it more probable that they will do so later on. Not forced, but suggested and made aware.
The second problem for lack of grouping is the lack of communication. Though sometimes there are tools and channels to promote and help people group up, these aren't made known. Not in the tutorials, nor by other players. Later who will often suggest "level more".
The other "main" problem with lack of grouping is something that bothers me to no end these days, the level system. Get rid of that, and everyone is on a level playing field. Skills, gear and knowledge aside of course. Make the game a bit more difficult on top of that and you can bet your pants you'll be grouping.
Being a person thats never has liked to play or see power leveling, I do not believe in rewarding people for doing so. I beleive that a system that scales instances to the characters coming through the door would work better.
Having a Level scale for instances, something like this. This instances is for 1st to 5th level characters and character over 6th lvl can not enter it. If you are first level and by yourself the instances scales the number and level of the mobs. Also the drops are not as good or as strong as if you came in with a full group of first level charaters. All instances can handle any number of charaters from 1 to 40 in number because the only diffrents is the number of mobs in a groups that you could pull / agro at anyone time. A level and number sliding scale based off of the number and level of the characters entering the instances. IE... 3 10th level charcters enter an instance, scale rating = 30. So 10 3rd level chatacters could handle the same rating. This is not to say that the rating of 30 means that the mob would be a single 30th level creature to fight, but maybe 6 5th levels mobs.
This way you don't reward power leveling, but you do reward grouping. And you don't penelize people for not finding a group or doing a instance. But you do need to reward people for getting a group together so make the drops stronger for them.
Great read here and you had some grand ideas down at the bottom there, I do know that this is a problem faced by many mmo's and have experienced it a few times after trying long running games out for the first time. I'm usually the opposite though strangley once I level a character up I tend to move on and go through alot of the content with alts (I'm not much of a raider) obviously provided the game has enough replay value. I will get to experience the skirmish system in LOTRO luckily which is one of the features I'm most anticipating. I also think COH could use a mention here as they also had the sidekick system in there game as well which I found pretty useful when I played that. But again a great read with some good ideas I'd hope to see used in some more games inthe near future.
City of Heroes has solved this conundrum years ago in very elegant manner, and has even improved upon the concept once more this year.
Of course, unfortunately the chances of bigname games learning from them are slim.
What about giving up already that aritficial nonsense with character and mob levels and gear heavy dependency ? There is plenty of space left for character progression and diversifications without it. Just imagine a MMO game where you can enjoy all content of the game from the day one.
Most of modern MMOs give you ability to solo through most of its content. Multiple characters per account make you artificially independent from other players, destroying in this way another reason to interact with people. Lack of proper economy and low importance of crafting are the last nails to a coffin of such a MMO.
Make MMO games multiplayer experience back again - which they are suppose to be after all ! - that will definitly help with feeling of loneliness while playing a MMO game. MMOs need more group content so people have to cooperate, interact, trade, negotiate and compete with each other in order to achieve common goals or even survive. Group content builds community links and make it to thrives. That's the end game: the community.
yeah CoH and Champions Online really cover the problem nicly with a "global team mentor" the OP really should play another game beside LoTRO/WoWarcrack
Even Final Fantasy has Global Mentors
This is exactly what Dark Age of Camelot has had for years. There are 50 max levels and the instanced dungeons are grouped by tens. Its been so long since I did one I can't remember if a higher level toon can come in once a lower level toon has started one but it wouldn't matter because there is a level cap on how high the mobs will scale so even if a level 50 went in with a level 1 the mobs would be gray to him and neither person would get xp. One guy runs in and the mobs are blue or yellow. Two or more, up to a full group, go in and the mobs scale up in dificulty accordingly.
I really agree with all of the points that the OP brings up. They are in fact what I have been trying to do in eq2 with my now 1 person guild for close to a year now and I have yet to encounter a single player that feels the same. It seems from my experience that no one even wants to experience the journey anymore everyone wants to enter the game as a maxed out character and just raid or play with the same handful of people all the time.
I get very little sense of community in any mmo that I play these days. After the initial rush of players leveling at a game launch anyone who comes in late to the party and does not already have a support system is not going to be helped by anyone. Most guilds just become the same type of cliques that you would find in any junior high school and are not interested in helping anyone not already in there inner circle. If you don't believe me create a new character on any game more then a year old and see what you find with no main to support you financially or no friends list to rely on.
I think releasing expantions where the level cap is raised completely destroys mmos for me. I dont think I will ever play a mmo that raises the level cap. thats a sure way to destroy the world they created. its really depressing seeing the original world of a mmo totally abandoned and useless except to level alts.
Another thing is introducing new places in what I consider bad ways. Why cant they just add new content to the existing world instead of making us go all over the place to new continents and new worlds, etc? Spreading the population too thin is what that does, and I hate it.
Sidekick system like COH had and Guild Wars 2 will be having is the best solution.
In EQII you get a substantial boost to AA xp while mentoring someone.
An actual currency would be abusable by anyone with more than one account.
The LDoN expansion in EQ had a system very similiar to this, except it was all set to 6 man groups.
City of Heroes has instances that scale from 1-52 and scale for number of players as well.
.........or people could simply learn from their mistakes and stop churning out linear MMOs with levels. Make a game where everyone can participate in various activities regardless of how powerful they are. EVE seems to have managed this so why is it so difficult for other games to figure out?
Yes congratulations we've learned that if you make a game where you start at the level 1 area and end at the level 80 area then eventually everyone will be at the level 80 area. Gosh! Who could ever have forseen such an outcome? How many times do games companies have to keep relearning this lesson before they finally figure out that maybe.....just maybe.....this is a really really shit way to make an MMO. Rather than trying to find various quick fix solutions to this problem, wouldnt it make more sense to just simply not create the problem in the first place? Pay a high level friend to walk you through all the games content? ha ha ha! What a joke! Can game design possibly get any worse?
I know from when I used to play Everquest. It does have mentoring when in groups for the leadership xp. Also you can "shroud" down to lower levels to help lower level toons. You can even pick what class you shroud down to, as to help make a more balanced group. While shrouded, you get xp and items only used when you're shrouded, and allows you to unlock better and different shrouds. It is a unique system that I used a lot to get the special items and the different forms. More gmes should have stuff like that.
While on the topic of Everquest i want to point out another area that games have strayed from that could help this issue. In EQ the end content was HARD and i mean very hard. Take any of EQ's expansions, you could not take a max level character that had not raided or grouped heavily and have him be usefull in that current expansions content, he needed the end game gear from previous expansions to become productive. I think EQ balanced their gear upgrades nicely so that the non riad gear wasnt ever more powerfull then the last 2 or 3 expansions raid gear. WOW is very guilty of this and it kills any of its previous expansions content.
I remember in EQ joining a guild, and you had no trouble finding guilds working on content 2,3,4 expansions back to gear up, and running POP or Anguish and then Dethknell and then being able to hit some of the minor raid content on the new expansion. Even wiht what 13, 14 expansions out i bet if you surveyed most players many if not all would be familiar with a great amount of the games content.
So here is what i think we can take away and what should be implimented in future hard core games
Forced group content (regular trash mobs can be soloable but for "names" why not up the challenge)
Carefull scaling of content and items in expansions, make sure your expansion wont make the previous one just a passing through area on the way to the good stuff. The top tier stuff of 2 expansions back should still be viable for players to use effectively in regular play.
Bring back large scale challenging raids (I know many games including WOW have these but none have given me the thrill or challenge of many many EQ raids. lets see a few 40-50 men raids on some huge godlike BA mobs now that is an accomplisment not having 10 lvl 80 toons in a year.
Dont make caracter advancement to easy its something you should put alot of time and effort into it makes it rewarding
You know, this article made me think of something. Why focus on creating so much end-game content at all? Why not split 30/30/40 time creating new content for solo leveling/group leveling/end-game content respectively?
I rather like the idea of being able to level-down my max lvl toons in WoW to help out lowbies. Of course, the reward carrot dangling in front of my toon's face is always a bonus incentive. Gotta love those reward carrots! A decendent of the Carrot on a Stick mount speed boosting trinket from WoW?? LMAO
Why the hell is there no spell check for forum posts here??
You bring up some good points, certainly worth thinking about. Consider this though, wouldn't the game deter more people by making the game grindy in the beginning?
Some very good ideas. Also some that I am sure would not work as intended.
Atlantica offers a mentoring system which benefits the mentor and the mentee. That has been the first game I have seen this type of system. Mind you I am saying it is the first for me. I found it nice and players are always willing to help with advancing crafting and other players as they are rewarded for doing so. This is something I think many could work into their system if they chose to and maybe would help reduce the "I" "Me" factor a bit.
I know that I for one in WoW have alts. My main nor my alts have experienced much of the old world content. Why? Because there just isn't anyone willing to do them. Yea some of the instances and dungeons you can find groups for simply because of the badges. However, with all the changes in badges that is not as possible anymore. It would be nice to be able to go through the old content and get the Achievements for it but I find it harder and harder as the new content comes in.
With the next expansion and total change in the world I have to wonder if any of that old content will still be available to even get those achievements. All of us want to improve our toons and many of us want to obtain the Achievements. But like you have said it is hard when no one wants to take the time.
Yes you can pay a sum to get a high level to run you through, but there is much of the old content that still isn't possible without a group. If most of the group is highest level and there is just you maybe it will work. But the big problem is finding those high levels to take the time to do this. Many don't worry about it with their alts. I unfortunately was unable to see all that content with my main so leveling solo was what I did with a group here and there when I had to. In my situation my toons are the highest lvl so it is finding others to join. I am in a good guild but most could care less about the old world content. Many experienced as they leveled which I was not able to do.
I for one would love to see something put in that would help those new and old to the game be able to achieve what was intended for the game.
I am very much looking forward to the Skirmish system in Lotro.
You get to scale the contents difficulty.
Mobs are randomized (spawn location, number of spawns and lieutenants (the equivalent to bosses, there are a variety of them that can appear))
You get to scale the group requirement (something that the article didn't mention i don't think) from solo, 3 man, 6man and some can be made too 12man(more of these will be added latter)
The rewards will scale on level, and difficulty. (more details coming next week)
You get to customize your own personal NPC soldier.
They are going to integrate them into the epic book quests so that all can take part in them.
Here are the Dev diaries (if any are interested, the reward one coming next week):
Part 1: Overview: http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/484-developer-diary-som-skirmishes-overview
Part 2: Story Instances: http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/499-developer-diary-som-skirmishes-story-instances
Part 3: Randomization and Scaling: http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/505-developer-diary-som-skirmishes-randomization-and-scaling
Part 4: Skirmish Soldiers: http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/508-developer-diary-som-skirmishes-skirmish-soldiers
There is an even simpler solution, although it does require a radical break with the WoW end game model.
Kill the player.
It would solve a lot of problems,including the one mentioned in this article.
Now those who are very proud of their hard grinded raid gear, best move on, this post is just going to upset you.
The current problem
When I say, kill the player, I of course mean the players character. The idea is not new. D&D has done it for ages. As you character levels up, they run the real risk of dying a perma-death but that is not what I am talking about. What I mean is the almost forced retirement when you reach lvl20 (actual lvl might have changed over the years).
If you played say Baldur's Gate, then you will know why there are no endless levels, once you start becoming a demi-god, what is there left? When a mage can call down a metorite, what is next? The moon?
Oblivion, with its scaling level system ran into a similar problem, what sense does it make to have highway men trying to shake you down for a few copper when they wear armor costing several gold pieces?
You got two options, the WoW/EQ method where each level increase gives you simply a % increase to all stats (including the enemies) or you have a REAL end game. Where the warrior becomes knight, does a few knight like things, and the retires. The thief becomes head of the thiefs guild and no longer tries to pickpocket street urchins for a copper.
We USED to replay games with a real end all the time, in fact the best RPG's are like this. You start as a newbie, experience an adventure and then... the END. The story is over. Time for The Next Generation.
The MMO that did this
Star Wars Galaxies with its holo-grind, created a system, by accident, that ensured there was always an active mid-game. In order to unlock Jedi, people had to grind a number of other profffesions. Since you could change proffesions by giving up aquired skills and gaining XP in a different field you had a constant supply of people starting new on a proffesion and therefor needing mid-game content.
It made for a very dynamic game.
Why it needs to be done
1. Endless levels means you either spent an enormous amount of creative energie creating new skills and new enemies OR end up with shrews (very small mouse) killing a player who slew an undead dragon, a balrog and "Oh yeah", a few dozen shrews. (Lotro)
2. The dead of the mid game. With endgame raiding your players will revisit the endgame content over and over while your midgame content goes unused. Content costs money, unused content is wasted money. It is FAR easier to create challenging content for a mid-level character then an end lvl character. And with more content of use to the player, the grind is less apparent.
3. It is a change. WoW is a great game, but it has been done. There is an audience for a game that tries something different. Just as Lucasarts re-invented the adventure by NOT killing the player (Sierra killed you at the drop of a hat), an MMO company might make its own mark by killing the player.
How it would play
The game consist roughly of three areas. The starter/tutorial area is played through once, it teaches you the game. It is fairly short, as befits a tutorial and once you are out, you are in the mid game. The mid game is where you define your character, build your reputation, you become the person you are.
The end game is different, once your character reaches a certain treshhold it becomes time to start an epic quest, a great trial that either leads to you going down in history, one way or another. Wether you die or retire or ascend does not matter, wat matters is that you had an epic conclusion, you fought a fight that would make lesser lvl's piss their pants against impossible odds and then the credits roll.
And then? You start a new character, see a different part of the world, making different choices. A little inheritance comes your way, but effectivly, you are thrown back in the mid game.
Insanity!
Really? Knights of the Old Republic does this, you can skip the tutorial after you played it once, and your second character can take a new path through the game if you so desire.
In fact, single player games do this all the time. You finished the game, good job, now start it over again, from the start, as a newbie.
But what about my raid gear?
What are you doing here? Didn't I tell you to skip this post? Oh, oh well. You got no raid gear. Gear could NEVER be a major objective in this game. You wouldn't have it for long after all. The fun in this game should not be in collecting stats but rather the fun of gaming itself. Remember, in Kotor and other RPG's, you do loose that super weapon you got at the end.
This type of game would be more about story, wether that is a story told by the game or by the players is open, but the goal must first and foremost be fun. Not the e-penis raid gear often seems to be.
Could it work?
Yes, for a daring game. It has worked, does work, in single player games (play Dragon Age Journey's, they expect you to start over 3 times, to collect a special item). The trick would be daring to tell the WoW gamer that their end-game consisting of collecting gear is not going to be in your game. This is a problem, Age of Conan dared to change the loot system people expected and soon enough had to give in to the endless demands. Demands by players who soon gave up, leaving the game with a bad copy of a loot system.
Yes, I think it can work. Not for a game that wants to be a WoW-2, but if you are willing to change your mind-set that you spend endless time in a game grinding gear that will be obsolete when the next ten identical levels come along, then maybe this idea has some merit.
You are quick to criticize. I wonder if you have any doable alternative ideas. The only alternative I can think of is a game without progression. Because anytime there is character progression, there is also progressively harder content. So in the end, you still end up with a top heavy population killing the things that put up the most fight.
I think it could work, but the trick is making a fun game. Single player RPG's get away with it, because they spend all of their money making sure the game is fun to play from the beginning to the end. The most successful single player RPG's gives players multiple ways to play from the beginning to the end, thus giving the game replayability.
Most MMORPG's are not that fun to play from the beginning to the end, thus why the term "grind" was applied to these games. The "real" fun as many people say, comes when you begin doing epic things, such as taking down god-like creatures or fighting other players for real estate and resources.
Your idea would turn the genre upside down, and redefine it. Traditional MMORPG players define the genre as something akin to an alternate life, where they can live out their fantasies in a game world that just keeps going on and on. They won't take kindly to a game implementing single player elements, and taking away their virtual world. However, those with a more open mind, and an eye focused on fun rather tedium may find this idea novel.
I think it's a novel idea, and would work if all of the content was actually fun to play through and they offered a lot of replayability.
sfc1971, good post. I think it's a very good idea. A game like The Old Republic with a heavy focus on story would be a good candidate for this. Over on that game's forum, people have been asking "What happens when I reach the end of the story?" What is the character's motivation to keep killing stuff once his or her story has run its course? It seems like player characters in TOR are going to repeatedly be hanging out there in limbo waiting for expansion packs to carry the stories forward, with odd periods of story-less repetition filling the gaps.
Y'know, it's funny how we have this concept in MMORPGs called "endgame" that has nothing to do with ending the game. A game developer would look quite clever if he was asked what the endgame is like in his game, and he answered "well, the game ends, you see."
Exactly. And with SWTOR, how can you have an epic story line, if it doesn't end.
I think game devs are to afraid their game ain't fun. I have a LOT of fun in Lotro, in the mid level, everyone is friendly and there is nobody trying to lay claim to rare drops or whatever. Win a roll, you get a gratz, not a "NINJA!"
As nate says above, gaming should be fun. When you played Kotor what bit was the best? The star forge or all the content before?
I am curious to see what SWTOR will do. For that matter, what dragon age: origins might do. I get the feeling that last game (although solo) might show just how intresting it can be to replay a game from a different viewpoint. If anyone can revamp MMO's it is Bioware... of course, it also EA so it could also be the ultimate money squeeze.
They want people to keep on playing, to keep subscriptions going. They probably think their game is fun, but they're not confident enough that players will want to repeat the same content over again with a new character. That's understandable. The challenge would be in creating new experiences and character journeys so that it's different each time through, and expansion packs would have to be about adding new classes with new story paths, not just adding another 10 levels for the existing characters. It would be a challenge to make an MMO like this, but if it was done well it could be revolutionary.
Lack of population in the mid-levels is a direct result of a flawed leveling system as is the current MMO standard.
Content becoming obsolete is a result of the following flaw: tying content to a level, or to a level range.
Tying content to a level range of 10-20, 20-30 is somewhat better, but is still not fully breaking the cycle as we know it.
Design content that is based on difficulty levels, not a player's level. Rewards are immediate and do not require a specific character level to claim.
Design levels to be an independant concept of 'completeness of play' within the game. Seperate the 2 concepts. Therein is the solution.
Almost every mmo has a ridicoulously easy levels 1-10(or 20), as the player is intro'd to the game, skills are added, stats increased.....
Once you get past the mid game crisis and can see the end game content approaching there is a surge to get those last 10 or so levels done and get into the 'good stuff'.
From what I have experienced the downfall in the mid-game crisis can occur from a few different oversites, which usually leave the player to gain xp from senseless grinding.
I don't want to start a 'Questing IS Grinding' flame, but questing gives some form of purpose/structure to the time played - personally if I have some quests that involve killing a lot of mobs then I'll do the quests - or maybe just one of them if im trying to squeeze in a quick fix on my lunch break, but I really don't want to walk around randomly killing stuff for the sole purpose of xp.
Some games have a great mid game content - that involves mandatory group play. Not that there is anything wrong with this, but the down side comes from many angles. Older games struggle to find the players wanting to do this content at the same time as each other, and a lot of gamers (that I know) love to guild it up for raids, but levelling seems to be a more personal experience that you go through at your own pace.
I wondered if you could put level caps throughout a game where certain events need to be completed before continuing, but like what would happens is that the older gamers wouldn't go back through it except for close friends, and as the game ages and lower level population thins the chances of getting a group together in a reasonably short time is unlikely - leaving players to say "This game was good until I got past the starting phase of the game" which unfortunately is becoming far to common these days.
@ BlueSkunk
I think we agree on the why of the mid-level vacuum if I'm reading your post right.. regardless of the methods of leveling up, it results in a dry experience with lack of community. This ailment is accentuated as level caps are raised, and the playerbase shifts from being bottom heavy to top heavy in level values.
Having a game with great mid-game content, with mandatory grouping is nice in threory but never works. Why? There's still no purpose. If I want content and grouping, I'm going to, as an individual, naturally yearn for where I can find both: at level cap. So mandatory grouping isn't even a functioning fix.
You don't need to 'wonder if you could put level caps throughout a game that require certain criteria to be met to advance' ... you literally *can* put level caps throughout a game where certain events need to be completed in order to progress. If you're a designer, there's no wondering 'if', it's a question of 'how'. And your idea holds much weight: a level system is a concept that is popular, but shouldn't be simply 'reach 100xp to advance', but rather 'reach 100xp, then you unlock a test stage'. Pass the test, advance to the next level. To baby this thought along: the acquisition of those 100xp should hopefully be done in a way that prepares the gamer for the test. Always keeping the whole picture in mind, of course, is the cornerstone to solid game design.
Edit: Format
One way around this might be to have players generate "threat levels". Generally higher level players don't like running lower level quests because 1) they've run them before 2) they get nothing of value out of them. 3) there is no challenge.
But consider, what if the NPCs generated by quests were based on the "threat levels" of players involved in it. For instance, I have a quest where I have to enter an instance and fight my way to a boss to kill him. If I am level 10 and soloing, the quest generates an appropriate numbers of NPCs such that the quest will be challenging. At the end I receive a reward appropriate to my level. Now I'm level 60 and I want to run the quest again. This time when I run the quest, lvl 60 NPCs and rewards are generated. But here's where the fun begins, I can run the same quest with lower level players and the instance will generate a combination of both lower level and higher level NPCs. The mixture of NPCs is determined by AI based on the "threat" which is a function of each players level. All drops are scaled according to the mixture of levels running them. As an added incentive for higher level characters to include lower levels, special rewards and skills could be awarded to them.(To avoid insta-death of lower level players by high level NPCs, the NPCs would only attack players of certain levels. All xp and rewards would be tailored to the players levels.)
This system would also have the added advantage of drawing higher level players back into newbie areas to provide newbies with information as well as incentive to reach higher levels while giving the higher level player some special rewards. Just my take.
What I would like to see, in a level-based game like WoW, is an adjustment made for the lower level group content to make it soloable once new content comes out so that, as a population starts to thin out and groups become harder to find, the group content gets "solo-fied" either by being scaled down, de-elitized, or else NPC Heroes are added to help players experiance and complete the lower-level INSTANCED content.
Using WoW as an example, once WotLK was released, the Old World instances and those in Burning Crusade, imo, should have been made soloable, either through the use of NPC "henchmen" (as is done in Guild Wars) or by scaling.
Most MMOs are only actually multiplayer for the newest content, where the vast majority of players dwell. The rest, the early, low-level stuff (e.g., Old Azeroth and Burning Crusade) is basically a single-player game and should be treated as such.