Tag Archives: Game Design

Ideas need complexity, commitment and some attention

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Here below my ideas were questioned again, and I expected that. As I commented, the purpose of that article was to present my ideas, summarize some of the basic points and underline what there is different in them that is not directly present in the mmorpgs on the market. From my perspective each single point written comes from months and years of thoughts, discussions and further developments. Each one is an important point with a long “back story” behind and solid reasons why I believe it is important.

The fact is that the pattern is always the same, and I know it well. If I summarize one of my ideas in one line everyone tells me that it’s trivial. Everyone is able to write that a game must be “fun”, or have this and that, but the point is to figure out how. Find a way that actually works. So I agree and after the critics I write down various pages full of text where I finally explain how I plan to achieve that precise goal. To show that I didn’t simply put together a list of goals without delving but that, instead, each point was already planned carefully, in all the minimal aspects, anticipating all the problems and figuring out in detail how to fix them.

But the point is that everyone visiting a blog just offers it a very little span of his attention. If the blog is able then to tickle an interest the reader could even decide to dedicate to it some more time. Now… NOONE is interested in raving ideas that will never reach an actual implementation. If I put together a small list of goals, *maybe*, there will be something reading them and “nodding”. Sharing them. Maybe a discussion over those points will be encouraged, because as I said many times, ALL my ideas come from crucial points of the design that are common to ALL the mmorpg out there. So they are all actual. Fresh. So they can be considered interesting and this is why, in this case, I decided to put that post on the site instead of leaving it to the PM to Jon.

Now the fact is that I *hate* when someone agrees on my ideas and then doubts about them. Doubts that they are solid, they I thought about them for some time, working and delving in them. I hate this because I decide to spend some time to explain in detail those points that were vague or weak and then noone reads them. Or they are dodged in a similar way. The argument is dismissed. So it’s not that I’m not interested in a less superficial discussion, to write and analyze these core points in detail (because they are important not just for a “dream” mmorpg, but for each, *real* one out there). It’s simply that it’s not a possibility, that it’s often a dialogue between me and myself and because everyone else may be interested more in a short article listing a few, shareable goals, that can tickle the imagination and suggest what the genre may miss, than an endless design document hard to follow and understand.

I know that behind every single point I listed there are pages and pages of reasons, consequences and more goals. I know because all that already passed through my mind, all passed through a careful study. I know that a “realistic inventory system” has strong purposes in the gameplay. It is the result of a design at a low level where the mechanics are all tied one to another. Planning caravans, planning the transport of the limited resources, planning the different types of terrains, planning the micro-management, considering how the players find always fun to manage things beside their character, managing complex and realistic inventory, managing their tools on the environment (think to the managment of harvesters in SWG), take care of pets, organize and prepare expeditions for a real “journey” and so on. Behind a little goal there is a whole world of intentions, of solid purposes that will require pages and pages to go in detail. Pages and pages that are somewhat requested (because people obviously doubt of my ideas) but then ignored (because noone is really interested if not to argue on a superficial level).

Quoting myself:

Because it’s about breaking a model. This is gameplay that has been completely cut away but it doesn’t mean that it cannot be fun.

In Guild Wars you have to select only eight skills even if your character has 20 available. This to develop a strategy. This idea is here applied to something different. It’s obvious that you cannot take WoW and remove all its bags and expect to have something more fun. Because there’s no gameplay aside “being able to carry stuff or not”.

The limited inventory is there to develop the “world”. On the wargame level you’ll have to move around resources. This is why caravans will have to travel between places and will need protection. If you raid a town you cannot simply pick up all you find in your way. You’ll have to organize an appropriate convoy (and have it exposed to further attacks/counterattacks) or leave the stuff where it is.

In general I want the equipment to have an use. No use = no equipment. In the current games this model doesn’t exist. You need space to accumulate junk to sell to vendors. This isn’t *equipment*. The junk has no value for the gameplay level if not being goods to transform into money (that you need).

The economy is probably the part of the game where my ideas are less defined in detail. It’s the part that I never wrapped up completely so these points about the “inventory” are strictly about the inventory and use of items themselves. No need of equipment slots to carry junk because I do not even plan to have junk in the game. At the same time I don’t want the players to loot stuff they do not need. It’s not like you’ll find a sword by killing a turtle. A realistic equipement system also means realistic loot tables.

So my idea should be seen from this point of view. You cannot carry around six swords because that limit is supposed to give a depth to the system. A choice that is required like in Guild Wars. No cookie cutter equipment. Instead choices and specializations (plus the “affinity” system will prevent you to be effective if you keep switching stuff at will). Carry an heavy armor and you’ll be slower in the combat. Use a light armor and you’ll be able to hold more bags. Drop the bags on the ground (and risk that other players steal them) and you’ll move even faster.

It’s obvious that “less inventory” alone isn’t fun. But if there’s gameplay depending on it, the situation changes.

I love to fiddle around with the equipment, move stuff between bags, organize them. It’s fun. It’s not something I wouldn’t try to cut from the game.

The same about the classes. There are years of “work” and discussions to at least acknowledge most of the problems in the current systems and try to move on a positive direction. There is so much that I wouldn’t be even able to put together all the reasons and goals that brought to my idea without leaving out a good part. Exactly because everything was being though on an arc of time, built progressively through my “experience” and different discussions. I know for example that a CORE problem that I have to face EVERY single time I log in EVERY mmorpg is the “healer problem” (“lack of” and “requirement of”). A problem that if it is so frequent must also deserve some consideration. Or not? So I gave it. To explain the whole process that brought to my idea I’d have again to write pages and pages, from the analysis of how the multi-purpose classes in WoW are way more fun than the strictly specialized versions in DAoC, how in the first game is way easier to build efficent groups (and ease the LFG problem) and so on (more != better). The solution I propose is to create dynamic roles. The class system is rather complex but the essence is to allow the players to fill temporary roles in the case they are missed (and required). Maybe you aren’t an healer, but you can temporarily fill that role in the case you cannot find a player already specialized doing that. And this without considering the ideas I have to not make the actual gameplay boring and dull for the healers, which is another *core* problem and not just a detail.

About the “conquest system”. It is complex. It has many different layers all interconnected. It is the main structure of the game, the main purpose, the “endgame”. Every other system is supposed to converge there because I always wanted a game with many different layers of complexity (and interactions) but without making all independent and unrelated. This is why it’s a “world”. All the elements have a purpose and are not there to be just “fluff”. Whatever you do in the game will finally arrive at that point.

I already vaguely explained some concepts about how I plan to keep the conquest possible without one side “winning” the game. The conquest is open to the whole world but the system isn’t based just on combat but on an “emergent” resource system built to add an RTS layer. So gathering and managing resources, moving them, defending them or steal them, building nodes, improve the power of the guards and structure defence and so on. The game is again not just combat, the combat is an aspect, the most direct, always available. But there are choices to deal with the rest, at least to manage the situation.

Conquering (adiacent) zones depends not only on the military power but also strongly on the resources. These zones (or better, the villages, outposts, castles and so on) need an upkeep. A maintenance cost. Some of the resources that a faction needs (three factions in the game hardcoded – Order, Chaos, Balance, plus player-made factions) can only be produced by the other faction and then transfered through commerce (mostly through the “balance” faction that works as a tie between the other two). The more one side expands its domain, the more the upkeep costs go up. If the other faction isn’t able to product anything the warehouse of resources in the prevailing faction will decrease, till the faction won’t be able to hold that type of expansion anymore. This is a first aspect that makes hard to maintain a control of the whole world.

The second aspect is that one type of the resources needed (mostly about the power of the defences, the possibilities of upgrades, guard costs and so on) is fixed. A fixed pool that cannot be changed in any way. Hardcoded. These resources can be spread around in order to support a high number of zones, or consolidated in a few in order to keep the defence at a very high level. So the more you expand your domain and the more you offer weaknesses, like the possibility for the other faction to attack you from the flank, in an undefended zone, where even a small strike-team can quickly conquer an outpost and force all the resources on that point. This would create a powerful node that the losing faction can use to disturb and progressively weaken the expansion process of the prevailing faction. So gameplay dynamics and tactics.

Finally, there’s a third system in place. There are three main hubs-cities (one for each faction) that cannot be conquered (and so managed and transformed as a property like it happens in the other cases). In this case you can think to the dynamics in WoW. The Alliance never held Orgrimmar for hours, not the Horde was able to do the something similar with Ironforge. These three hubs are strongly defended and while the mechanics won’t be based too much on continue respawns, it will be still extremely hard to maintain a presence in these places. The best you can do here is a permanent siege.

Now there’s a system applied even here. Think to the RvR dungeon in DAoC interconnecting the three realms. I carried over a similar concept. In the case the main hub of a faction is under constant siege, the players can still organize to use a system of tunnels to sneak behind the enemy lines and coordinate attacks to the supply lines of the opposite faction. As I wrote above they’ll need to move resources constantly in order to maintain the upkeep, so the players can organize attacks to these caravans in order to disrupt the supply lines and weaken progressively the defences of the other faction.

This guarantees that noone “wins”, that there’s still a huge role for the persistence and that there’s a space to develop tactics and interesting dynamics, involving even politics and diplomacy. That depth that I claim back and that is missing currently in other mmorpgs. The essential (philosophical) design is that the three factions are dependent on each other. One can decide to wipe the other but ultimately it will fail in the measure it needs the other in order to exist. So a balance (also impersonated by the appropriate faction) always exists as an inner need of the system. There will be strong shifts in the overall situation, but never definitive, never permanent. The ultimate risk here isn’t the possibility to “win” everything. It’s the opposite, the fact that through diplomacy and politics a realm could settle down and reach a perfect balance (which is definitely a new concept for a mmorpg and something I want to test to see if it can be interesting).

I don’t fight this possibility directly. The game is supposed to be fun and compelling *beside* the combat. This is my goal. A paceful realm is a possibility that I contemplate. Why not? There’s always space for politics. You can try to get what you need with your strength, so you can conquer a zone in order to reach a resource node that you absolutely need. Or settle down an agreement through the diplomacy and the commerce in order to “buy” or “exchange” those resources without fighting for them. For sure there will be “baits” in the game. Both at the personal and communal level. So there will be needs to satisfy that will require to get precious resources (RARE, but not as grindy-rare, just as gameplay-rare) that are deep in the land owned by the rival realm. And you’ll definitely need a way to get there.

There are all of these elements. Reasons for the conflict, alternate paths thorugh diplomacy and politics and interconnected systems to give the whole structure a depth. The real goal is again to “give back the world to the players”. The goal to finally develop a complex world where the players, together, have an impact, where they “care” about what happens and get entangled into an enriching system not “sterilized” in a pointless grind to transform the player in a robot hitting endlessly the same key. Where the actions have consequences and where the lore and the backstory exist at a radical level and not as useless, detached words on a website.

I want to give back importance to all those elements that are now being systematically removed from this genre. To not forget that it’s there the strength. And that we are losing all this to chase arid models.

“Dream Mmorpg”

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This is a PM I wrote to Jon Carver where I tried to summarize the key points of my “dream mmorpg” project. It definitely needs a lot more iterations in order to become more complete (it misses most of the features like the factional system, the mechanics of PvP, the role of the artifacts, the geomancy nodes, the progression trees of magic items etc..) and more concise and precise.

I need to do a lot of work on the presentation and effectivity of what I write. At least this time it isn’t too long.

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I need to do a lot of organization in order to build up some sort of clear and schematic plan as you did. For now there’s nearly an infinite list of features coming from direct needs, problems and discussions but all so bundled together that I often forget why I decided about something. Basically I’m really trying to address ALL the problems I see around in other projects since it’s a “dream mmorpg”.

A few points I gathered are (far away from covering everything):

– Problem of catering hardcore and casual players
– Problem of load balancing the server, cross-server travel, factional balance
– Problem of PvP and PvE clashing together (repositioning)
– Smaller, manageable communities – “There were a lot less of us back then, so it was easier to get to know most of the folks around you. Since there were so few players reletive to current community sizes, you become friends of friends of folks and a lot sooner you really end up knowing virtually everyone whos playing, or at least are familiar with guilds.”

The rest is about going back to a skill system that has also lot of depths for “achievers”. Realistic inventory system calculating precisely slots and weights (and the need to use horses, carts etc..). No strict classes nor min/maxed templates. All classes are respecced “on the fly” so that a player can cover a specific role dynamically (and adapt irtself to the need of a group) instead of being caged in a fixed model/spec/class.

Plus the separation of elements of PvE (In instanced “planes”, arenas and odd combinations of events) from PvP.

The main world is completely based on PvP and in the hands of the players. Everything works like in wargames so you can conquer the land, expanding to adiacent zones (and manage your resources). All the world is in the hands of the players, there is nothing with the pretense of being “static”, fixed, given.

The players cannot really build towns but can conquer everything that is already in the world (and update/upgrade it to an extent). From single houses to the biggest cities and castles.

The NPCs will then also be controled by the players. The players spawn them and “program” them with simple schedules. So they are used both for the crafting system and to pruduce resources that will then be used (and moved between towns through a commerce system) at the RTS level.

Ultimately the focus (of these PvP lands) will move from the combat to embrace new types of activites. All the interactions of a medieval world are supposed to be simulated to an extent. So we’ll have farms, mines, sawmills and so on. Similarly to a “Settler” game and with the goal of simulating a deeper environment that is supposed to involve more the players in its fabric and mechanics. Less obsessive about combat and infinite treadmills only affecting the single character. Providing communal goals and shared mechanics that should finally put back the focus in the community as the real “endgame” (and where the fun of a multiplayer environment is supposed to be).

That’s the shape. The implementation idea is to go back at the old 2D style of the early Ultimas (but with an advanced UI) in order to cut out directly the production values (graphic, content etc..) and focus exclusively on the accessibility and mechanics. No infinite text to read, just direct gameplay and feedback. To experiment dynamically with the pure design level and discover what is fun and what is not.

Basically the opposite of a MUD.

Parsing comments

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Two well-written and precise comments about DAoC and some other general issues.

The comments spawned from a discussion about Mythic and the acquisition of the Warhammer licence on F13.

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Johny Cee:
The dominating factor in DAoC rvr/pvp was not items. It was class makeup and group min/maxing, with a bottleneck on having the right class abilities (speed, resist buffs, cc) and good players at the right classes (mezzer, healers primarily; these classes are essential, and not exciting to play. Damage dealers could almost be played by monkeys who can tap an /assist key). Liberally supplemented by out of game aids like radar and TS/Ventrilo.

This is Mythics big chance to redesign the core failures in their pvp system. There are any number of ideas that suck in implementation in DAoC now, that Mythic can’t get rid of since the cure is worse than the disease. Primarily:

1. Crowd controls overwhelming importance. Fights are often decided by who gets off the first mezz. CC went from a defensive measure to an offensive and game deciding measure.

2. Role of stealthers. Stealthers have bounced between solo gods and completely useless, depending on latest changes.

3. Buff(bot) problems. Bots are too prevalent to crack down on now, and too large a source of revenue

4. Interrupt code. Casters are hamstrung by the shitty way interrupts work, and have no option for self-defense besides crowd control (see problem 1.)

5. Damage. DAoC has largely been about frontloading/damage maximaztion. They tried to back off the 35% increase to damage in pvp/rvr in the first 6 months, and it never got off Test because of player outcry.

6. Uselessness of some mechanics. Bolts. Can’t “fix” them, because then everyone would be getting one/two shot. Abandoning bolts just completely fucks over classes that use them to a new and probably not much better mechanic

7. Combat system itself. As has been pointed out in other threads, DAoC’s combat system was cadged together when their attempt to license a developed system fell through.

8. The benefits of group min/maxing. At any one time, there are a section of DAoC classes that have no place in pvp. You NEED to min/max to have a shot. At different times, casters and tanks have been relegated to perpetually lfg. Hybrids generally have always been. I’d like to see a break from the mold of 4 damage dealers (of min/max class a), 1 mezzer, 2 healers, 1 speed class or buffer.

etc…

The problem you won’t see is grind. The grind in DAoC is worlds better than at release. And most of the new combat mechanics and classes that have been floated are more than proficient soloers/expers. I have a vamp at level 48 with a few days played, all casual. With a couple lengthy stops in the battlegrounds for pvp.

Yes, the grind was shit-tacular for the first year and a half…. I’m just saying Mythic has figured out that mistake already.

The prevailing trend is away from grind. And Mythic always goes with the prevailing trend.

Twitch vs. numbers vs. other systems — I don’t understand the great desire to have twitch mechanics. It isn’t a test of skill, it’s a test of reflexes and learned typing patterns. Hell, why would a company want to develop an MMO going into twitch mechanics? You have lots of competition in other FPSs with no monthly fees, with a high turnover of dominant games.

Honestly, alot of people who play mmos now would have nothing to do with a twitch system. I know I wouldn’t touch it, after working all day writing or banging on a keypad at mach 9. The fingers just wouldn’t cooperate.

I’d love to see a mechanic that takes advantage of real stategy or tactics, and the importance of decision making. That rewards innovatative play and adaption.

Right now, closet thing you get is Magic Online. You get elements of strategy (deck choice and sideboard choice), implentation and decision making (choice of how to use resources, when to use spells/abilities), and luck. Even in an unfavorable matchup, clever use of your cards can give you a win. Or good metagaming can give you the right choice of cards to use against prevalent decks.

Margalis:
Twitch vs. non-twitch is a red-herring. Skill is what matters. Whether the skill is twitch skill or strategy or whatever is not really relevant. Most MMORPG playing is simply learning a pattern and repeating it 10,000 times.

I think people get hung up on twitch because nearly all twitch games do require some skill at some level, so they equate the two. My problem with MMORPGs isn’t that they lack twitch, it’s that they lack any appreciable skill or real decision making.

PvP – Give back the world to the players

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Another raving from Grimwell.

Sadly, the truth is that “It’s going to be great, glorious fun”. Those with the resources to actually realize some of these ideas are heading elsewhere and are not interested to search for some potential. And we are left to write down fancy, useless ideas in blogs and forums.

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Darniaq:
This is at odds with the concepts of PvP. PvP is about the fun fight. Why call out Player vs Player otherwise?

Yes, but you are leaving out the context here.

A discussion about the PvP has to consider the context because the context is the part that defines the genre itself. I mean the genre in its original principle (simulating a world) against the new paradigm (combat simulations).

The point isn’t just that another player “fights better”. The point is that in a complex environment you can have a deeper interaction. Have a different, more complete experience. Something that is able to involve you more deeply and directly instead of watching yet another more or less fast “shooter”.

Without a context the PvP is just another combat simulation derivative (ported) of other genres already consolidated. That’s why we have the CTF in WoW. It’s a quick way to avoid to plan something new and risky or more complex and go, instead, with a predictable model that you already know will be somewhat successful.

It’s a way to detach the genre from its premises to bring it back on a safer territory. Easier to control.

My point of view is different from yours because I’m one of those believing that the innovation doesn’t come from absurd ideas that appear all at the sudden in the mind of a genius. Instead all I do when imagining something new is to observe what’s already around and try to discover and learn what is wrong, what can be improved, possible new directions to develop and so on. So I base everything just on the observation along with with my own desires about what I’d like to see.

About the PvP my ideas develop from a simple point: give back the world to the players.

I don’t want to see PvP caged in protected zones, cities made of NPCs that you cannot affect in any way. We are supposed to simulate worlds but the players have absolutely zero power on what happens and on the place where they live. The RP is faked because the whole lore is a “pretension” or an excuse to fake and repeat an artificial model. So the basic idea is to give back the world to the players in the real sense.

Allow them to conquer those towns, to manage and give orders to the NPCs, declare war to other guilds, conquer the zones and so on. Allow the players to become the real center and subject of what is happening instead of forcing them to follow orders from improbable NPCs sending you all over the world to save it from a pretentious menace. Shadowbane already moved in this direction but with a model that is still flawed in many points and again just as a combat simulator. That was a first step of a long journey.

What I’d like to see is a world where the combat exists but just as ONE of the parts. And where the world itself comes to life as a whole. Where the players live and experience different types of interaction and not just one limited aspect.

The point is to make the world really persistent. If you fight in PvP, it won’t be to collect points to grab new loot and skills, but to FIGHT FOR A PURPOSE. Fight to take back your house from a band of orcs, fight with your guild to save a town from a pillage, fight to defend a caravan with precious resources.

All these situations are possible ONLY if the game provides a context and only if these games become something else than a simplified, fantasy combat simulator.

The key is on what Tobold writes. But REVERSED:

Tobold:
The very idea of a persistent world requires character development in which an old character is better than a new one.

It’s the opposite. It’s not the character development that should be the real focus. But the development of the context. Of the world where you live.

It’s the possibility of interaction with what you have around yourself instead than your own endless treadmill of power.

Players like to “win”. Yeah. But they like even more if a victory has a context, a purpose. If they have a role within a world. If their presence has a meaning.

A victory within a context is way more rewarding than just a generic, extemporary feeling.

It’s like if you open your eyes after years playing in the dark. Finally what’s around you gains a shape. It has a purpose and a depth and you aren’t anymore focused on just yourself.

A legal form of griefing

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Here’s a long attack to WoW’s Honor System that I consider completely broken on all the core elements. In particular some of the rules designed to prevent griefing and exploits are obtaining the exact opposite result and are encouraging the players to exploit the system and grief other players.

Only “Senior Lead Designers” can consider this as positive for the game.

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With the diminishing returns Alterac is simply pointless.

The CTF BG allows you to heap the cumulative reward for each victory AND get a constant recycle of enemies. So the CTF already nullifies the diminished returns because you’ll jump to a session to another, meeting different players constantly.

In Alterac the gameplay becomes pointless from the reward perspective. The cumulative goal can be achieved (maybe) in an arc of hours and it’s just a TINY percent of what you can get in CTF. PLUS after 20 minutes you get no points from direct kills due to the diminished returns.

At best the players are ENCOURAGED to jump from session to session in order to refresh their kill counts and keep earn points.

Not only. If you play during the off-peaks you’ll most likely meet always the same opponents because there aren’t many players logged in. The diminished returns completely BREAK the game in this case. Whoever is able to play for long periods of times and during the peaks is severely advantaged thanks to a constant resupply of enemies.

A player shouldn’t be PUNISHED just because he is playing in a smaller server or at odd hours. This castigates again the casual players and just begs again to pack the players all in one server instead of spreading uniformly.

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And let me add:

The diminished returns DO NOT solve the exploits, they ENCOURAGE AND MAXIMIZE them.

The fact that two guilds can meet and farm each other is way easier if they know exactly the “cap” of their points. In a matter of a few minutes they are able to MAXIMIZE their points and then continue to play the game and heap more points on top of those they farmed on each other.

This means that with a cap you are TRULY able to control and MAXIMIZE your honor performance. Since the diminished returns are reset *daily*, these guids can just arrange daily matches and maximize their full value in a short time span.

This means that they have a 100% safe MAXIMUM VALUE. You cannot surpass them because they capped the mathematical limit of the system.

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WHENEVER you set a cap, you are setting as well a precise pattern that the exploiters can find out and maximize.

Without these diminished returns the exploiters would be forced to repeat over and over what they do since there’s no fixed cap. This means that they would be easier to spot for a GM.

Now, let’s say that:

– The first time a GM catches you arranging encountrers you get your honor points and rank reset to zero.
– The second time you are banned for a week.
– The third time your account is permanently suspended.

How many players you think will continue to arrange encounters?

This is NOT a problem of the ruleset. This is a problem of GMs and the tools they have available to monitor the situation. The “diminishing returns” are just a terribly unfun bandaid for a problem that is not even remotely addressed in this way.

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Let’s see some basic math. So maybe you get the point.

Let’s say that every character is worth the same amount of points for a kill. Let’s say it’s 200.

Now, we have a group of casual players joining the Alterac BG. So 40 vs 40. And we have another group of two guilds that are going to arrange an encounter to maximize their points. And it’s again a 40 vs 40 situation.

What is the amount of points you can aspire in the two situations?

In the first example I can safely assume that, on average, every player is going to die at least four times in an arc of 30 minutes. So after this period it’s absolutely sure that noone will gain anymore points from the direct kills. To calculate the total of CP for each player we have to multiply the 200CP for each kill for 4 (the number of kills worth points) and apply at the same time the diminished returns.

100% of 200 = 200CP (first kill)
75% of 200 = 150CP (second kill)
50% of 200 = 100CP (third kill)
25% of 200 = 50CP (fouth kill)

Now we sum them. 200 + 150 + 100 + 50 = 500 CP
Then we take this total and have to divide it to the number of players in the raid. 40 in this case. 500 / 40 = 12.5 CP

12.5 is the MAXIMUM amount of honor points you’ll get from another player, for that day, in a BG scenario. If we multiply 12.5 for the total number of opponents you have (40 in this case) we obtain: 12.5 * 40 = 500 CP

500 CP is the MAXIMUM amount of points you can earn in a BG in about 20-30 minutes. After this period you’ll get zero points from direct kills. And in the case you’ll meet again one of those 40 players somewhere lese in the game or in another BG, you’ll still get zero points for the rest of the day.

Now let’s consider the other situation where two guilds can organize an exploit.

In this case it’s obvious that they won’t group in a raid in order to maximize the gain. So each character becomes a potential of 500 CP. If we multiply these 500 CP for the whole group of 40 we get a total of 20.000 CP

Now let’s compare, in half an hour, how many points the exploiters and the “fair” players can achieve.

Exploiter = 20.000 CP in 30 minutes
Fair player = 500 CP in 30 minutes

This isn’t everything. Not only there’s a HUGE gap of efficency, but the exploiters, in order to reach 20.000 CP in 30 minutes, “used up” just 40 other chatacters. A “fair player”, in order to reach the same result, would need a total of ONETHOUSANDSIXHUNDRED other players. DAILY.

Then explain me how the diminished returns are helping the situation.

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So your 38 guildies organize an exploit in a BG… what happens when 2 people come in and want a real BG, not a lame tagging fest? what happens to those 38 people when those 2 report them?

Obviously a guild with the intention to exploit the system will farm the CPs OUTSIDE the BGs. That’s OBVIOUS.

You missed the point.

Lets look at it from the existing system of diminishing returns (100/75/50/25). I join a raid group (the sensible, teamwork thing to do) and I am on the front lines with 29 other people killing Private Jenkins – I will only have a POTENTIAL of 13 CP to gain from Jenkins for the entire day!!!!!

Why would I EVER want to join a raid group if this was the case?? Don’t get me wrong, I am part of a large PVP guild that wants to dominate our battlegrounds…..my point is, I WANT teamwork and coordination to be rewarded. Right now it is punished. The CP yields from Alterac do not equal the amount of effort that is put into them.

No, YOU are missing the point. That would still encourage exploits since you are able to maximize your performance. So it solves nothing at all and it encourages again to leave the BG as you maximized your points. The only effect that your idea will have is to make the mechanics of the game even more obfuscated to the players.

Again the only solution is to remove this idiotic mechanic altogether. Like I wrote on the previous page.

Here’s the complete list of changed to unfuck this broken PvP system:

– REMOVE the "diminished returns” on Contribution points inside the BGs.
– Boost up the goal-based rewards to a level that farming consensually CPs points outside won’t offer a benefit.
– Save the persistence of a BG, preventing it to reset even if there are no players inside.
– Add dynamic structures to slowly realign/reset the BG (like temporarily boosting the defenses of the losing faction till they are able to recapture their headquarter).
– REMOVE the points for direct kills outside the BGs.
– ADD goal-based PvP systems to the world outside the BGs like conquerable graveyards, towers, escort/assault missions.

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The systel will already be exploited as it is, by guilds who have both horde players and alliance players.

They’ll create a BG with only your guild and let one side win.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
…

That’s why this game has GMs. Having one of them checking the BGs from time to time will definitely help to identify these groups and take actions against them.

The point is that to exploit the system you HAVE to repeat the exploit over and over and over.

THIS IS GOOD.

If an exploiter is required to repeat the exploit constantly, the GMs will have greater possibilities to identify them and take actions.

Since the Honor System is based on a continued experience along the weeks and months, the exploiters would be required to exploit constantly. And if they do this inside a BG it will be EXTREMELY EASY to spot them and cut the problem at the root.

Even though you already stated, and tried to defend the ways to avoid two groups of people farming honor. How? Changing the BG? Whats happens when they DO get into the same? 10 n00bs to Warlords in a day? I can’t think of any effective way they can keep two parties from farming each other.

By requiring them to exploit CONSTANTLY in order to be effective.

Right now a group of exploiters can heap a huge amount of points in a very short amount of time. This means that they are HARD to spot because you have to be there in that exact moment.

If, instead, you force them to join a BG of 40vs40.

– Firstly, you are forcing them to have EIGHTY players agreeing to exploit the system (which is extremely risky).
– Secondly, you are forcing them to exploit the system in a way that will be BLATANLY OBVIOUS, so easy to discover and report.

Totally agree. But incentives to kill one another (honor points) should remain because otherwise it just becomes a PVE love fest. Why would I want to stop you from accomplishing an objective? Maybe just because I feel like it and because it’s part of the game we play, but I feel a whole lot more incentive to go stop someone from attacking something if I am going to get rewarded for it. Selfish and overly pragmatic? Yes, but also realistic. I remember when there was no honor, hardly anyone would respond to World Defense messages because they couldn’t be bothered.

Your reasoning is flawed.

I want the game to stop rewarding for the free ganking outside the BGs. This because it transforms everyone in a “bag of points” and makes the action absolutely predictable.

My idea is to reward for GOALS instead of meaningless ganking players at a disadvantage. Because right now an PvP fights happen only against players without many possibilities to win, like a level 60 Vs a level 52 or three lvl 60 Vs one lvl 60.

That’s a broken PvP system. Terribly unfun because ALL the fights are between two sides where one is at an advantage and the other always at disadvantage. And the system is REWARDING this behaviour.

How’s this good? How’s this fun? How it promotes a meaningful PvP with a purpose?

This is why I want them to remove the CPs for the free ganking (outside the BGs) and start to reward for GOALS.

Rewarding for goals would mean, for example, that you can conquer a graveyard in a zone and get CPs for doing that. As you can see this ENCOURAGES to fight for a purpose. It ENCOURAGES to check the world defense because you are fighting over something with a purpose and not to kill repeatedly easy targets.

The fact is that a battle is fun when you are fighting FOR SOMETHING. Not when you transform the zone into a First Person Shooter Deathmatch.

Why would I want to stop you from accomplishing an objective?

Because you’ll be REWARDED for doing so. Not from points coming from the free ganking, but because you’ll engage into competitive missions.

Let’s do an example. There will be a PvP mission where you’ll have to escort a caravan of NPCs from point A to point B. You take the mission and your duty is to keep them safe till they reach their destination.

On the other side, the other faction will be able to join the exact same mission with a difference. Instead of defending that caravan, they need to destroy it.

You’ll gain a conspicuous amount of CPs in the case you are able to defend the caravan and make it reach the destination. Instead, if the mission fails, it will be the other faction to get those points.

THIS is how you reward for meaningful PvP. You fight OVER SOMETHING and not by ganking peoples at disadvantage.

Right now this Honor System is just A LEGAL FORM OF GRIEFING. Encouraging you to pick all the fights where you are at an advantage, engage lower level players or forming ganking groups to attack solo players doing quests. And nothing else.

Jeff Freeman’s idea: taken

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I just noticed this while reading an interview with Matt Firor about Imperator.

Just a few days ago Jeff proposed an idea about a centralized way to deliver quests and loot in order to make them more accessible and without recurring to 3rd party spoiler sites (WoW is a step forward but sites like thottbot.com demonstrate that the path isn’t complete):

When you want a magic sword, you go to a website and find out where there’s a sword for you to get. We could eliminate that sort of thing by putting it in game: A seer or soothsayer sort of NPC that you tell what you want, and they gaze into a crystal ball and tell you who you gotta kill.

I kind of like the idea of eliminating “Just do quests ’til you finally get something you want” and “Just look it up on a website” and even “Just do it over and over ’til you win.”

He also explained in a comment from where the idea is coming (which is the most interesting aspect to consider, imho):

It’s basically from the same school of thought: that design sprang from the idea of looking at how some people play the game (in spite of the way the game was “intended” to be played), and coming up with a game was intended to be played that way.

This is particularly important because too often the games are designed on a model that often the players do not respect or follow and without appropriately considering the context. The result is a “gap” between the original purpose and perception of the devs and the game that often is not even acknowledged.

It seems that Imperator will, at least, take advantage of these observations:

Matt Firor – We are making Imperator’s content mission-based, where players are actively engaged in some sort of short-term goal throughout gameplay. Missions can be obtained virtually at any time by simply bringing up a comm-link interface and getting a list of all missions – level appropriate, of course – in their geographic area. This is just one example of one of our key points: easy access to the game’s content.

A pity that the rest of the design appears rather weak.

Mmorpg design with an ecological sensibility

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From a comment on Chris blog. His posts always stimulate me.

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I’m against the “mudflated” development simply because it kills the game world.

The development is always planned to replace a part that is ALREADY in the game. New content is usually added at the “margins” of a game. As a new “limb”. What I’d like to see (and it’s extended to the whole game, not just the content) is a development that uniformly considers the game to improve it.

Right now “new content” and explansion packs are added to the margin of the game even when the “core” is still broken, not functional, unfun or unused. The fact is that this new content keeps derailing the development on something irrelevant. My idea is that you can add and expand the world by keeping a cohesive approach. To consider the game world as a “whole” instead of an amass of stuff you pile up randomly and that keeps growing without a sense.

Instead of creating new zones with new mobs and new quests, you can also re-consider what’s already in the game, add more paths and quests, add interactivity, adjust something that isn’t working properly and so on. With this approach you do not need a brand new zone with brand new monsters and quests in order to keep the game up to date and the interest of the players alive. The development can reuse, adjust and expand what is already available and add more “space” only when it is truly required.

Mudflated games finish to become just patchworks of more or less successful development. In 90% of the cases something broken or terribly unfun isn’t properly addressed and refactored. It just lies there as a “museum” while the developers work on something completely new in order to replace that part.

This is an approach that is strongly deep-rooted in a CULTURE. We produce JUNK. Nothing is reused because we throw everything away and buy something brand new. It’s the consumer society.

I do not like this because as in the real world this approach is killing the place where we live. It’s viable only as a temporary solution. We live on a countdown. We destroy the world because we have the illusion that everything can be replaced. There’s always space, always an exit. If something is broken or has problem, we do not fix it: we throw it away. We do not face the problems, we simply dodge them.

We bury them like we do with junk. We hide.

I believe that a game world should be respected as we should respect our real world. Like we do with a “body”. Instead of producing junk and hide it from the view to not feel guilty, we should address the real problem. We should face the situation and plan the actions to go back at the root. To not keep killing and destroying what we have.

I don’t imagine a mmorpg like a cemetery of old and obsolete content. I imagine it as a continue development that keeps adjusting its content. That keeps fixing and improving what doesn’t work. That listens to feedback and that doesn’t ignore or hide the problems.

A world that won’t ask the players to move on a sequel in order to clear the junk that was laid around. A world without a Damocle’s sword hanging over its head.

I agree with Raph. A lot of the real world teaches us how to build better games, a lot of what we find in games can teach us about how the real world works. That’s why they are so fun.

WoW’s BattleGrounds – The fundamental problem

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The short version is here.

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I’m reluctant to open a new thread but I also want to underline the basic point once for all to not have to return on it over and over.

The BGs, right now, have many bugs and inconsistencies, like the possibility to break the CTF by logging with the flag, the durability hit on the equipment, the use of overpowering skills (speed, invulnerability shields etc..), the lag, the narrow “bubble” around the character that makes the guard spawn/despawn right on you and so on between minor and major problems.

All this could get solved in the next weeks since the BGs won’t be moved to the live servers before June. So, even if I find odd that all these problems slipped through 6+ months of focus testing, I’m confident that sooner or later Blizzard will address them.

Instead I’m not confident that they’ll fix the BASIC problem. Actually I believe they do not even see it.

The rule that they completely inverted is the following:
– It’s OUT of the BG that you CAN reward for goals and CANNOT reward for direct kills. (persistent environment)
– It’s IN the BG that you CANNOT reward for goals but CAN reward for direct kills. (instanced environment)

To explain the reasons behind that rule it’s enough to examine how the BGs work right now. There are two possible ways to interact and get a reward. The first is through the direct kills, so by fighting enemies and killing them over and over. The second is by “winning” the BG mission, so winning the CTF game or defeating the opposing faction in Alterac by conquering its base.

Now the evidence of the truth of the rule I wrote above comes directly from the fact that BOTH those ways to interact are broken.

Let’s take the first. You kill an opponent and you gain points. This is the very basic form of PvP we have on many different games. Here we are in a battleground, peoples come here to fight. It should be okay to reward for a kill, shouldn’t it? Not for Blizzard.

If this part is broken why only a small part of the players are complaining? Because the evidence of the problem is hidden:

Players may now see an “estimated contribution point value” in the combat log for an honorable kill. Note that this value does not take diminishing returns against the same player into account, and is therefore “estimated”.

The fact is that the BGs are the WORST way to heap Honor Points gained from direct kills. This because of the actual implementation of those “diminishing returns”:

Repeated killing: you only get full CP for killing the same player once per day. The second kill on the same player on the same day gives 75% of the CP, the third 50% and the fourth 25%. Subsequent kills give no CP at all.

Add to this the fact that these reductions aren’t relative JUST TO YOU, but to the whole raid group.

Now, a battle in the Alterac Battleground can last even a few hours and the instance works as a 40vs40 arena. Let’s take the average player, how many times he will die in an arc of 15 minutes? Less than four? I do not think so.

After putting together all these points you’ll find out that in 20-40 minutes you’ll be able to squeeze all the possible points from a BG. From that moment you are there for the fun because, while your UI will tell you that you are still gaining points, in the reality you are getting NONE. If you add the fact that a BG in Alterac lasts a few hours and not 20 minutes like the CTF version, you’ll find out that this first path (getting points for direct kills) is definitely not viable since these “diminished returns” prevent you from gaining points after a short, initial period.

Now let’s take a step backwards. Why these diminished returns were added to the game in the first place? They were added in order to prevent the corpse camping and to put an initial limit to possible exploits.

BOTH these motivations have ZERO reasons to exist in a Battleground. Corpse camping doesn’t exist because you directly respawn at the graveyard and the whole purpose of the gameplay should be to search the battle since the players have joined the instance exactly for that purpose.

The first conclusion is that this path (getting Honor points for fighting the opposite faction) is broken on two points. The first, because you get no points at all after an initial time span that will encourage the players to leave and “farm” each instance, jumping from one to the other (breaking the purpose of the BG, I’ll return on this). The second because the evidence of this mechanic is “hidden” by a broken UI delivering wrong feedback (since you do not see the diminished returns and the UI will keep telling you that you are heaping points).

What about the other path? The other path to gain Honor points is is by accomplishing missions. For example in Alterac you’ll be able to get a cumulative reward if you are able to take over the headquarter of the opposite faction. Which is.. impossible.

Since these BGs are instanced, the persistence of a goal like conquering an headquarter simply doesn’t work. Once a losing faction is starting to see an unavoidable defeat, they’ll simply log out, forcing the whole instance to reset and kicking the “winning” faction out of the BG without getting the well deserved reward.

So both these paths are completely broken, but not due to bugs as the glitches I listed at the beginning, but simply because they reverted a model that works on precise rules that cannot be moved at will. Rules that must be considered instead of ignored.

And these rules are summed up in the two points I wrote above:

-INSIDE a Battleground you are supposed to fight and kill. Because you go there exactly for that purpose, exactly because you are SEARCHING a fight. So the system is supposed to encourage the fight itself, it is supposed to provide reasons and goals (in the form of the reward). This is the reason why the “diminished returns” make no sense in this environment. You don’t want to inhibit the gameplay, you want to encourage it and reward for it.

The purpose of a BG is exactly to search a fight. Right now the fight is the least relevant mechanic because the greatest reward will come by accomplishing the goal (in the CTF BG). The goal itself makes the direct kills completely irrelevant considering the total of the points you’ll receive.

– At the same time, again INSIDE the Battleground, the goals make no sense. A goal, intended as a meaningful interaction with the environment, is supposed to be a persistent element, like the conquest of the oposite headquarter. But it’s exactly for this reason that a “goal based system” is more appropriate for the world outside, that is already persistent. And not appropriate for the BG, which is instanced.

The evidence of this is in the current behaviour of the players. Right now it is impossible to “win” the Alterac BG because the players “exploit” the false persistent element by logging out and forcing the instance to reset. This happens exactly because Blizzard founded the persistence in something that isn’t persistent. Guess what? It doesn’t work.

– OUTSIDE the Battlegrounds the situation is reverted. Here you CANNOT reward for the direct kills because the players go after different goals. They may be questing, they may be travelling and so on. Rewarding for ganking is inappropriate because it wipes off the game that variety that existed before. The fact that each player is a ” walking bag of improvement” makes everyone a target. Erasing the possibility of CHOICE. INSIDE the BG it’s okay to give out points for the direct kills because all the players are there exactly for that precise purpose. Outside the BG the gameplay is less focused and it’s inappropriate to force the players into a strictly codified behaviour coming form a direct reward given by the system.

The fact that outside the BG the behaviour of the players was less codified and less predictable brought to the game a type of depth that now is completely gone.

– Still OUTSIDE the Battlegrounds the idea of adding GOALS to the PvP is a GOOD idea. Fighting for the control of towers, graveyards and some escort/defence mission could help a lot to add depth to the game world and encourage the players to participate actively and have fun. Since the reward would be GOAL-based the players won’t be FORCED to partake in the action. They could just ignore it and continue doing something else if their current focus is elsewhere.

A goal-based PvP outside the Battleground would mean that the goals become the center of the action. The players will have the choice if to fight the opposite fight in a war with an actual purpose instead of a scenario where the whole depth of PvP is just a pointless genocide excused just by the reward for the direct kill.

Shortlist without explaniations:

– REMOVE the “diminished returns” on Contribution points inside the BGs.
– Save the persistence of a BG, preventing it to reset even if there are no players inside.
– Add dynamic structures to slowly realign/reset the BG (like temporarily boosting the defenses of the losing faction till they are able to recapture their headquarter).
– REMOVE the points for direct kills outside the BGs.
– ADD goal-based PvP systems to the world outside the BGs like conquerable graveyards, towers, escort/assault missions.

The communicative pact – How SWG went to hell (and will continue to)

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These two comments have the same purpose of explaining my point of view on Star Wars Galaxies and the latest changes. The first part was written after the second in order to pin down better my reasons.

The rest is in the filth.

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It’s not about the bad timing of the publish, the bugs, the rollbacks. While these are the most evident manifestation of the problems (and the first focus and concern of SOE right now, I have no doubts), I cannot care less about them. They are completely irrelevant from my point of view because I’m looking at something else. I’m criticizing a part that was never put under discussion by SOE, nor it is now. And, still, it’s the real, but less evident, source of all this mess.

I’m not criticizing the execution here, I’m criticizing the approach. If the approach is wrong the execution can even be perfect but the result will be awful no matter what. No matter how much time they’ll dedicate to fix all the problems. Because the mistake happened on a different, previous level. What I’m pointing out isn’t about those problems that SOE already acknowledged, I’m pointing out problems that they completely negate. That aren’t questioned. There’s a direct difference of opinions here that I’m trying to underline. I’m not jumping in the bandwagon of the players criticizing the CU. I’m on a different position, a position that is nowhere popular or widely shared. A position that didn’t change in the last year and largely anticipated the problems of the game because, no matter of the dedication and restless work of the dev team, the direction was wrong.

The origin of all the rants I wrote and I write now is still the same. It’s the same crusade I carried on against Raph, against the independence of the “formal systems” from their context. This last CU isn’t probably credited to Raph, but it carries over and exaggerates his original mistake: the negation of the existence of the cultural patterns existing before you start to shape a “symbolic shared system” (like the Star Wars universe) into a specific form (like a game, in this case). The problem of the “Star Wars proper feeling” doesn’t depend on whether something was in the movies or not. It’s not a limit of references but a limit of patterns and expectations. If Lucas plans a new episode and throws in stormtroopers healing each other and casting fireballs I’m going “WTF?!” even if that’s actually “official”. There are cultural, implicit rules everywhere, they exist even if they aren’t manifest. These still represent patterns that must be respected because they are the true nature of the myth. They are its essence. Everyone knows if something fits or not depending on the coherence (self-consistence) with its own symbolic level.

There’s a technical term that, for sure, I didn’t invent: “the communicative pact”. It describes exactly these same points:

Through their cinematographic possibilities, the audiovisual language they use, both fiction films as well as documentaries can create different kinds of reality effects (realism, authenticity, actuality, believe). Since we are talking about an â