Some views on MMORPG designFollow

One of the many things I like to do, and I sure most of you have done it at some time or another, is think about how I would handle a certain genre of games or what kind of game I would make.

However this is a not a thread where I am going to state what classes or races I would like to see in an MMORPG and then ask what you and others believe should be inputed, but rather I am more interested in more general policies and mechanics. I don't care what the classes are called, but the way they work together and balance with each other is something I find intriguing. So I've compiled a list based on my experiences in mainly FFXI and WoW about the direction I think MMORPGs should be taking, and the direction I think many people want them to go in as well (evidenced by changes in WoW's style and leading to its popularity). I'd be very interested in both criticisms and in people's own thoughts and ideas on MMORPG design.


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1. Players want more options in leveling. Many earlier MMORPGs present players with only 1 or 2 viable methods of leveling up character. WoW went on to set up 3 viable ways to level up a character (questing, solo grinding, instancing). I am certain that many people would agree that having these additional options in WoW has made it a better game and made their leveling experience more enjoyable. I did however miss the group grinding that is found FFXI, although many of you have said good riddance to FFXI's method of leveling I would propose that it was only disagreeable because you were pigeon-holed, forced, to level that way, and that their were other class problems expanding your distaste.

I believe that players should have 4-5 viable (and by viable I mean that for the time spent you gain a relatively equal amount of exp with each method) ways to level: group grinding, solo grinding, questing, something similar to instances, and pvp. In doing this you not only accommodate a variety of tastes, but also allow for players to switch methods easily should they become bored.

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2. The time gap for leveling should be narrowed for casual players. By this I mean that player who play infrequently should have an easier time leveling than thus who are more ardent. I've been at both ends of the spectrum, as a hardcore group grinder in FFXI sometimes pulling 10 hour grind sessions, and in WoW where I might log on to an alt for just an hour to mess around. FFXI made it very difficult to level if you did prepare a large single time spot for leveling and I find this only frustrates and makes the game less entertaining for casual players while not improving it in the least for hardcore players (nothing gained, only lost). WoW took a step in the right direction with rested exp. With rested exp infrequent players get a slight boost and it helps them reach the cap in a reasonable amount of real world time for them.

To do this I would suggest a combination of WoW's current rested exp system and something of my own invention which is basically the equivalent of a FFXI BCNM fight. You get a few friends together and go do a special fight that is somewhat short (no more than 30 minutes long) and the reward is a lot of exp and some gold and items. This "bcnm" would be limited to a certain number per day (so maybe only 2 fights per day) for exp. With this players with a short amount of time would be able to log in and do this "bcnm" for a good amount of exp, while hardcore players would be able to do this and then grind/quest or whatever afterwards for more exp. It is basically a diminishing returns system (though more like a "boost for short play time" than a negative.

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3. Casters need to be reworked so that spell damage is based on a stat just like melee damage is. Again WoW has taken a step in what I believe to be th right direction with +spell damage and +healing. But this is a complicated system that could be revised more easily (in case of class balances that need to be patched). Just like melee classes have a base weapon damage and then a stat (in the case of warriors, str) that modifies that damage, so too would casters have a base spell and a stat (wisdom, intelligence, whatever you want to call it) that modifies that spell damage by a percent. This eliminates the hassle you see with different cast times for spells receiving different amounts of +spell damage and lets them scale naturally.

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4. Their should be opportunities for players to level cap themselves in order to play with lower level friends or to re-experience mid game content. Many games have tried to allowed higher level players to play alongside lower level characters, to my knowledge City of Heroes thus far has the best system with the sidekick option, but it is not a perfect solution. In FFXI many of the special fights had level caps so that higher level players could help lower level players complete them without babysitting them as ultra-powerful characters. I also regularly participated in Ballistas (the pvp of FFXI) of all level caps, and I'm sure many of you have alts playing BGs of varying level caps.

So allow players an option to go talk to an npc in a city to cap their level at any time they choose so they may always play with a friend or re-experience old content. The game shouldn't always be about endgame.

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5. Crafting professions need to be able to make more worthwhile gear. Different MMOs have varied in the usefulness of crafting, but many times it is relegated to making a few quality gear components, and the rest of its usefulness is mainly in consumables. In WoW terms I think crafters should be able to produce blue quality gear. The kinds of things you could pick up from instances. Past level 15 I rarely used my profession to make any gear for myself in WoW, and on my second character I dropped it for gathering altogether.

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6. Multiple classes need to be able to fill the same role though still in different and unique ways. This assures that there is never a shortage for a particular spot in a party. In FFXI there were two main tanking classes and a few others that were viable tanks (sometimes in unique situations), though few healers and buffers, and too many damage dealers. In WoW there are plenty of healers, and they've improved druid tanking ability, but Warrior was the only real tank for a long time (and to some extent still is).

I have to ask why this is. If Paladins really had been given the ability to tank well in pve (give them more hate abilities) would they be overpowered? I do not believe so. It annoys everyone to have an almost complete party and yet be short one key role/spot.

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7. Additionally one class should be able to fill multiple roles. This allows for flexibility and more fun. In FFXI most every class had only one role it could viably fulfill in a party, this create problems in having an overabundance of certain classes (DD in FFXI who can do nothing else). WoW improved on this heavily, allowing a class like warrior to DD or tank, druid to do many things, priests van do more than heal, and etc.

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8. The game needs to not be so completely oriented around end game gear. This I feel is something with which a lot of MMOs have a problem. The main for of end game content is collecting more powerful gear, and this creates many many problems (such as the gear gap between newly level 60 characters and older 60s). It also usually end up requiring a vast amount of time to stay competitive.

To me reaching a level cap in an MMORPG should be about opening up new options, not limiting you to gear fetching. I see several solutions to this "problem," such as making more mid game content with level caps, making many side activities (fun pvp, WoW Tonks, quests for entertaining items rather than necessarily gear improving ones). Gear improvement should always be an option, it is something most everyone enjoys, but think it is too heavily focused on in most MMOs.

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9. End game gear progression should mostly be about lateral progression, not vertical, and most vertical progression should be somewhat of a "diminishing returns," system. By lateral progression I mean opening up new options to players. Enhancing specific abilities of their class in different ways, almost like an extension of WoW's talent tree. For example one gear set could WoW's warrior class more kiting abilities or focus more on crit (for those fury builds) while not necessarily increasing the character's stats significantly. Let people play with their gear more and create interesting abilities for their characters rather than simply having a flat out better piece of equipment that makes wearing anything you have previously obtained pointless.

By the "diminishing returns" I state earlier I hope to close the gap again between casual players and the more hardcore by making each "tier" of gear less of a gain than the previous, though still an improvement. Basically what I want is for hardcore players to still be rewarded, yet casuals to still be competitive.
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So those are my ideas. As I said earlier I welcome criticisms and would like to hear any ideas posters here may have thought while playing MMOs. The direction I'm trying to go is "lateral growth, not vertical," and "casual friendly." I think players want more options in everything they do and want more things to simply be fun rather than necessary. I think players also don't want an MMORPG to demand their time, but be something they can log on and log out from freely.




Edited for spelling. I'll see if I can break up the bullets into smaller paragraphs for easier reading.

Edited, Jan 6th 2007 3:18am by Allegory

Edited, Jan 6th 2007 3:19am by Allegory

I'm not trying to argue that paladins do not tank well, rather I'm trying to use them as an example as to why there aren't balance issues with allowing classes to play multiple roles.

Perhaps I have errored in my choice of examples, but I hope I still got across what I was trying to say.

It would probably have to be an NPC that you talk to ratehr than a trinket for abuse purposes, but I'm glad you like the idea.

Allegory, ive leveled my priest alt mainly/mostly in instances, and the exp per hour is really good. Better then solo grinding, certainly for priest, and i was specced shadow. I did almost all instance quests and that nets very good faction reputation too.
Some instances require multiple visits to complete quest lines and the first run, if you do all available quests, is always good for 1-1.5 levels or so.

Then each run if the mobs are still yellow, is good for quarter to half a level. Really its good leveling in instances. Considering the average instance run is 1 hr. And you make good money and excellent gear at the same time, allowing you to level faster outside of instances, or in the next instance.

But, you may stand around for a while LFM if you dont have instance nut buddys also leveling. But there's always people around with instance quests sitting in their log that are willing to go but just to lazy to make a party themselves.

Or ask some guildies who are also planning on alts to level them together in instances only. (They were also ex-FFX ers.) I didnt even notice leveling that char, very fun. And you know youre char inside out by the time you hit 60.
You can group grind in instances np, we even did it old FFXI stylee, making camp, hunter pulls very long range, only move camp 4 times an instance or something :P

BTW i dont like the forced cap idea, like in FFXI, at all, i always hated that i had to have 3 alts just for holding a TON of gear. Gearsets for each job for lvl 20, 30, etc. Sitting around gathering dust maybe used 2-3 in a year. But you still need to keep it bc you never know...
If a RL friend starts the game, Id level an alt instead.

Edited, Jan 6th 2007 6:35am by Sjans

Ah yes, but this is where you can make 'scalable' gear. This would be in line with Allegory's scaling system, which is a very sound approach.

As for scaling, I'd love to see MORE of it in WoW. It would seem, to me anyway, to be a more 'safe' way to balance things.

1- I think just getting more exp with a group would be a good fix.

2- I think the WOW balance is good. Casual gamers will never get exp as fast as hardcore gamers. And they should never get it either. Hardcore gamers should get something for thier time. Hence more exp for more time played. Better gear for more time played. I used to be a hardcore now I am casual.

3- Could always just make int = mana pool and wis = str of spell. But honestly I do not see a problem with the current system. Why fix what really is not broken in the first place?

4- EQII has a system for this, it is called mentoring. It actually is pretty cool.

5- In order for crafters to make worthwhile gear you have to make it harder to achieve.
Why would you want to inttroduce an item in game that could be crafted that is superior to a dungeon found item of same level? What would be the purpose of the dungeon? And even if the items were really nice, everyone would want to make them, then they would be trivilized?(sp) Crafting in WOW is a time/gold sink. It is a nice side thing to do and some decent usable items come from it.

6- I disagree. If you can not find a warrior to tank. Then you should not go forward. There are main roles and assist roles. Tank/Healer/DPS/Support and crowd control. Every game I have played has had this system and it works. It just sucks when you have to cancel an event because you are short.

Why would you want to play a class thats duties could be done by someone else.

7- They are, they are called support roles. Mages,druids,warlocks,paladins. They are jack of all trades but masters at none. Kind of the same as 6 your 7 shoudl be called a 6A . :)

8- Goals. Tons of driven people play these games and like to have goals at the end. The far outweigh the casual i want to have fun crowd. Better gear = better compleation of endgame instances,faster with etc etc.

9 - EQII has a system called AA points I believe.
And again you seem like you want there to be not such a huge Gap between casual and hardcore gamers.

In real life if i work 12 hours a day ( which i do sometimes) and I have a nice house and a few sweet cars etc etc. Do you think Someone who flips burgers for a living should have something close to what I have? No.

Rewardss for hardcore should be more than just a little better than casual gamers. Always should be that way. In game and real life. I do not believe in turning the game into a socialism experiment. :)



Conclusion. - . WOW is very rewarding for the casual gamer if you look at what you have for your time. Do not look at what others have. I play WOW casually and am quite happeywith what I am able to do solo and in pugs. Ability to farm 100 gold per day and have two 300 crafters.

You honestly should try out or do some research on EQII, some of the endgame stuff they have is pretty cool. But it is not a casual friendly game.

Much of what you've said, Allegory, I believe to be common sense among anyone whose seriously thought about making an MMO.


1. (leveling options) Should solo grinding and group grinding really be classified differently? The problem with having both, in terms of original concept, is that some classes inherently solo better than others, and in games where group grinding was the focus (FFXI, EQ), it brought the plane of soloability of creatures to such a heightened level that only a couple classes *could* solo.

WoW has actually answered this through instances. Instances ARE group grinding. You don't sit in a camp waiting for a named to spawn. But it provides a way to players to slaughter a whole bunch of targets in a group. In that regard, the only thing I think WoW is really missing that I had in Everquest were dungeon crawls. I'll grant you, instances are similar. But there was something neat about going into Chardok or Sebilis with another group, with the intention of hitting two different camps deep in the dungeon, or simply knowing that there were other people around and you weren't the only ones there. Given a choice between having just that or just instances though, I'll take the instanced dungeons.


2. (leveling eased for casuals) I'm going to argue a little with you on the later points of leveling the playing field. However, on this one I agree. Personally, I think rest experience should have a more pronounced effect for the extremely casual player. That's hard to implement without having more serious players start 10 characters and rotate through them to get maximum benefit, since they do that already.

Not having played FFXI, though, I don't really know what a BCNM is. (NM is 'notorious monster' in FF lingo, but what's the BC?) I don't know if I'm thrilled with the idea of this tactic, though, for the same reason players in the original beta complained about the rested system until it was flattened to only two levels -- it feels like diminished returns on anything past the bonus, rather than hitting the normal level once you use up your bonus. This will actually discourage people from leveling through any other techniques.


3. (caster stats) Casters have to be handled carefully. Their nature is very different than someone who uses their autoattack ability. However, I agree, rather than obscene numbers on +spell damage, they should have a central stat so that spell damage is more of the sorts of numbers +AP is. It's important to consider that although magic and non-magic will always be different, they should use comparable numbers.

Without getting into a very long theoretical discussion on the balance between casters and melee, that's all I'll say on that topic.


4. (capping yourself) I'm not sure if I agree or not. If you level cap yourself, what limitations are there on that? What happens to your gear? The abilities you would have had previous to that level? Do you need to keep a ton of independent gear sets and other UI set-ups for other level ranges? Again, I don't know how FFXI handles this.

I think one of the biggest issues in these games, however, is the amount of difference in survivability for a low-level character. In reality, a very tough experienced soldier whose been through a lot in his 10 years in the army might be able to take a bullet a little better than I can, but in the end one bullet can still kill him. Why do we have level 1 characters start with X hit points, and then level 2 characters have 2X, level 3 characters have 3X, level 60 characters have 60X? Although it struck me as odd the first time I played Final Fantasy 7, it makes a lot of sense to start a player on what is functionally level 10. If characters don't become 60 times more powerful in every regard by leveling to 60, but rather only 5 or 6, it not only makes leveling less of an inhibition and also allows you to take your lower-level friends to more places safely.


5. I've always believed that very few true pieces of equipment should be found from opponents, and it should be rather busted most of the time. Instead, I think players should be working toward a very rigorous crafting system where the adventurer gets certain items and brings it back to an armorsmith to create. Not only would this give great flexibility in exactly which items exist -- and yes, there would be some specific items out there -- but it would also enhance the use for tradeskillers. However, players would not be the only crafters out there; there would also be NPC crafters who would perform a task for a fixed fee. This keeps crafters from getting filthy stinking rich, while potentially giving them an edge if they can, with a certain skill level, out-perform the NPCs.


6. (one role, multiple classes) This is a no-brainer. I played a cleric in Everquest, and I enjoyed every minute of it because EQ was a group-grind game and I was literally the only class that people would rely on for healing. Even the secondary healing class, druid, was well behind in terms of being able to keep a group alive, and it was an extremely vital role.

I think one thing that could help this is getting away from the tank-and-spank model for every single fight in the game. I'll grant you, it's hard to create a viable alternative and still keep it an MMORPG rather than an action-adventure, but it's extremely frustrating to know that you NEED a dedicated healer to keep other people alive, you NEED a dedicated tank that can actually take the blows softly enough the healer can keep up, and often you NEED particular support roles.

The biggest issue with this subject is that players will always boil the game down to its lowest common denominator, and the game has to be balanced around that. Early WoW dungeons are doable without a severe hardcore mentality in this regard, but its hard convincing level 60 players to try Dire Maul or Stratholme, or better yet, Upper BRS without a warrior tank. A druid might be able to tank it, hell maybe even a hunter pet, but you're never going to see people let them try. So the game isn't limited to the actual game design itself here, but also the psychological dynamics of the player body.


7. (one class, multiple roles) This is also a no-brainer. No class should be pigeonholed. If I were to create a game, the classes would be one of two ways. Either it would be a very free-form system (and maybe I'll tell you about that later,) or it would be a system where you chose two or three areas to focus in. Let's say you get six "points" to create your character with, and those points can go into offensive melee, defensive melee, offensive magic, defensive magic, etc. It's hard to not grossly oversimplify the system while explaining. But you can put any number of your points in any of those areas. The catch is, while you will get some benefit out of dumping all your points into one category, you won't get as much return as someone who went 4-2, 3-3 or 2-2-2, and the archetypes would each be designed to be useful at (what would in this case be) the two-point level, be advantageous to go three or four, and then have very little benefit for over-specialization. You can argue this would make everyone a hybrid...and you would be correct! There's nothing wrong with that.

Even if you don't like having the players set that up, since it's very hard to do and rather intangible, at least when designing classes yourself, you can keep this philosophy in mind. I think originally Blizzard did, but they got too far astray on the "defensive melee" and warriors swung wildly from being the only tank class to being an overpowered unkillable nightmare with the potential for tons of damage.

My other system's more interesting, but much too complicated to explain in a two-sentence blurb. I don't want to dillute my post any further. (I'm also tempted to say I don't want to post it publicly!)


8. (end-game gear focus) When you ultimately cap a player in their potential to expand their character from experience and simply going out and doing stuff, they need to find specific stuff that still enhances them. It's a necessary side-effect of MMORPGs that there can never be a true best character that you will ever reach. Approach, perhaps, but not achieve. Not that I need to tell you that.

But if you're going to limit a player's potential to grow through gear, there need to be other options. WoW, right now, has no other options. Your character is a sum of his level, his talents (level-based), and his gear. Until you invent a system where you can keep gaining talents points at a very slow rate or something similar to AA points, there has to be the incentive from gear. And if the curve is too low, it would be enough of an incentive to hold your player base.

What DOES need to happen from gear is that it needs to not have a radical jump in going to raid gear. The biggest mistake Blizzard made in all of World of Warcraft, imho, was making tier 1 sets too good. I still wear parts of mine in Naxxramas and, on the beta server, Outland. They got the point budget system right, although perhaps not the exact implementation of it, but itemization is often crude and the sources of it limited. Outland is having a lot of very good reputation items and PvP rewards you can buy as an alternative to instancing.


9. (endgame gear progression) Endgame gear needs to progress. I've already established that. And I think that moving from one area to another that is supposed to be progressively "better" than the previous one, there needs to be a certain percentage level of increase in overall power. I'm aware of the issues of geometric progression, but it's already present in the game -- my level 1 had ~50 HP. My level 60 has well beyond 3000. So, curiously, while you suggest a flattening, I'm suggesting a steepening. The key difference to present-day WoW is that I don't want to limit the number of sources so that it's simply MC < BWL < AQ < Naxx. When there was good comparable gear out of Stratholme, LBRS and Scholomance, everyone was happy. Even as people got into UBRS. It's Molten Core that screwed things up because that wasn't the same level of progression. It was massive. If you *subtract* that difference from all of the purples in the game, suddenly it doesn't seem like there's such a disparity.

The key is a good itemization system -- one that won't produce pronounced jumps in levels of power.


I could probably add my own points, but I'm tired at this point. Maybe I'll come back and add more.

WoW already has those. Oh, they removed the XP for PvP recently, but they had tokens for experience (although a lot of people purposely did not turn in tokens so they could remain the same level). Maybe something akin to sliding brackets would remove the hiccups in PvP levels.



Rested experience is a great game mechanic. They should have implemented it for more than XP. It should also apply to reputation and honor gains.



WoW was designed to discourage low-level/high-level player cooperation (aka babysitting). I do like the idea that a player should be able to not accept XP, although I would also disable quest turn-ins hand-in-hand with the option to turn of XP gains. I don't think being able to drop levels is a workable solution, though. We could do that in NWN, but it got messy.



I like simple profession systems, but I agree that more thought and creativity could be employed to make them more useful and interesting. They could be used as another leveling mechanism (some XP for profession-related quests or for crafting your first X).



Perhaps with different equipment mixes. Of course, this leads to a class-less game structure - which isn't necessarily a bad thing.



There is that. But there should also be several different routes to character development that are somehow "balanced." Witness the current balance shift from raiding to PvP. Not saying it's good or bad, but it is a shift.



This could tie in with several classes being able to fulfill the basic party roles.

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Another thing to consider is breaking the role paradigm. If mobs were less predictable. If they exhibited more intelligence. Then the tank/heal/damage roles would break down.

What if certain instances had you face mobs that would attack from behind? Or who would lump on whomever appeared weakest? Or who was hurt the worst? Or who would run off when much healthier (or somewhat randomly)? Less scripting and more...independence.

Those are just a few examples that would foster having players think on their feet rather than fall into a routine.

I agree with pretty much everything you said.

1. I leveled in a Trio on my first character, it felt like we were making insane exp since we had just come off FFXI. Then we started solo alts for when all 3 of us weren't on, we caught up to our "mains" pretty quick.
I'd love to see enough Group/Elite(2-3 people) quests to reach 60 and 70 as quick as the average solo class. I love grouping for exp but no one else does since it's pretty gimp.

2. I think the rested exp and high exp quest turn ins are good enough. With the BCNM idea the more hardcore players would abuse it to get to the top even quicker, we might even see Hunters hit 60 in 2 days. :p

3. I think casters are fine. But I'm probably a bit biased since I hate getting destroyed by a couple instant casts every time I see a mage or warlock. :p

4. I wouldn't mind being able to cap my level to go help a friend without powering him through whatever he needs help with.

5. Definitely, I've been wishing for this since I started WoW. As a Blacksmithing Warrior I was expecting to create my gear as I leveled. Nope, never happened. I can create a single low level set and no weapons worth equipping with a 280ish skill(After I hit the 12 Thorium Bars per synth I got bored) Most of the items I can create are total garbage.
I would love to see them implement "HQs" and "Breaks."
Example: If I try to craft Thorium Bracers I could either fail(possibly losing some materials), create Thorium Bracers with their craptastic stats or create a Higher Quality Blue bracer on par with something from the level 60 dungeons.
I do not think crafting should become the best route to great gear but it should be A route to great gear.

6. I agree, no class should have just a single role. I don't see how it's overpowered for a class to be able to fill multiple PvE roles.

7. Agreed.

8. 100% agree. In my opinion WoW is a mess right now, with the level cap increasing. Level 60 gear has inflated so bad that in order to make 61-70 gear worthwhile it has to be massively overpowered. When I quit FFXI the level cap had been 75 for about 2.5-3 years, if the cap were bumped up to 80 it wouldn't have any gear issues like that.
Another problem they made was decreasing the value of Stamina on new gear. IMO it should've been a retroactive value change. Instead we see every item has 20-30 stamina, my Warrior has a green with 61 stamina and in the short time he's been used in beta his health jumped 2-3k.
Sadly Blizzard screwed up... Attempting to remove the one-two shotting that's going on by exponentially increasing Stamina only works if weapon and spell damage doesn't exponentially increase with it...

9. FFXI had a great idea with the merit points thing. Earning points to augment specific abilities, stats, spells or spell schools would do wonders for WoW, IMO.
New level 75s weren't that far behind old level 75s, you could still tell the difference between a new 75 and one that's been there for awhile but the new players were still quite capable at taking on the new encounters with old gear.
On my server most raiding guilds will only accept you if you have most Tier 2, I don't really blame them, I wouldn't want to go back to MC or BWL after gearing up most everyone in the guild enough to go to AQ40 or Naxx.

You've made excellent points.

One thing I would like too see is PvP and PvE integration. A possible solution the way I see it would be a series of continents that are in a peaceful state of order. Conversely, somewhere on the planet is a landmass where Anarchy is present and you can pick a "Faction". This faction would work similarly to WoW's Horde vs. Alliance, only not bound by race.

I don't like the idea of being ganked for no reason, but that isn't to say, a time and place for it would be nice. Look at Halo, an incredibly popular game. Those players basically see the same battlegrounds time and time again yet they keep on coming back. I think PvP-able areas need only comprise a small part of the entire world, and people will be satisfied.

And more jobs. I'd like to see a game with over 25 jobs. I think it would be very interesting.

Note: It appears I reached the limit on quote tags so later quotes have been bolded for easier reading.






There are solutions to the gear problem. As Sanvyn suggested stats could be lowred by a percentage so that you make use of your current gear, or you could be given decent quality "rental gear" upon level capping yourself to use.

If gathering many sets of gear were not an issue would you still like the idea of being able to level cap yourself and participate in lower level BGs and instancing with a friend (without babyusitting him as a 60) when you pleased? Or do you still find leveling an alt for the purpose more agreeable (perhaps you like to try new classes more often or like creating new characters)?

You are very much correct.

Ultimately I think games should seek to reward hardcore players for their efforts while still keeping casuals compeitive. I think the way to do this is through lateral rewards and gains. Give hardcore players cool toys, mounts, stuff to play around with, and keyly gear that allows them to specialise in different areas without just being a huge improvement on stats.

For example instead of tier 2 hunter gear giving hunters more ap, agi, and crit making it superior to tier one give them instead a set that increase raptor strike, mongoose bite, and wing cling so they can be more melee capable if they should choose (essentially like an extension of survival spec). And another set further increase beast mastery abilties. So that in the end a hunter could end up with several compeltely different playstyles to choose from.

I'm not sure if players would be fully satsfied with the above suggestion, but I would liek to find a way around the gap.

I haven't quite yet thought of a solution, but I do think end game should involve less chance and more guaranteed rewards. People have set up DKP systems because they know they need to guarantee their guild members rewards because the system does not.
RMT is a concern, but I believe that if suitable gear is obtainable from many sources (crafting, questing, instancing, special fights, pvp rewards) that RMT will not be able to have a strong grasp on the game.

I disagree with you on BoP and a restrition on how many of an item a crafter can ever produce. BoP seems to have worked well for WoW and kept the game from turning towards an FFXI "buy your gear at the ah" kind of system. I think BoP also would ensure demand for crafters because people would not be able to resell their crafted gear after they were done with it and so crafters would have to continually pump it out.

However I also think that you know more about crafting in MMORPGs in general than I do (I am not much of a crafter) so I would very much liek to learn more about your opinions on the subject.

OMG you have a long user name.^^ But yes balance is always a problem. I think MMORPGs should be designed to be easily patchable to accommodate this. If people find pvp experience to be not worthwhile then the designer should have an easy way to increase exp per pvp kill to be able to quickly an easily patch the game. "100 exp per kill not good enough? Well how about 150."

This is soemthing I think WoW fails at (easy patchability). Blizzard does release good patches and they fic and tweak things well, but they don't do it efficiently in the slgihtest. The pvp hono change that occured awhile ago (so that you now spend points ratehr than having to reach a certain rank) was an excellent change, but they had to completely alter a system in the game. I'mk guessing this consumed a significant amount of their resources then (tiem and money). Game systems should be designed so that programmers can easily change the variables in teh system to patch rather than create a new system.

If paladin's aren't getting enough damage from str from their plate gear while warriors are gettign too much damage from str from plate then don't go out and create a whole new armor type for paladins only with more str and reduce palte's current str. Rather just alter how much ap paldins and warriors get from str.

There is easy patching and hard patching. Companies should choose easy.

You still have a really long username.^^ But yes I too was concerned about players potentially running out of people to do the "bcnm" with.

What I suggest is that players are allowed to reenter it beyond the normal restriction if invited to a group with someone who hasn't yet reached their alotment, but that they would receive no huge exp, but rather only gold and gear rewards. Hopefully that will serve as an incentive for players to continue helping others who have yet to complete it.

Such a long name.^^ I dont' think there is a problem.

Let's say that you have an instant cast spell that does 100 damage, and a 3.5 second cast spell that does 200 damage. In Wow's current system if you have +20 spell damage the instant cast will gain 8 damage (approximately 40%) and teh 3.5 second will gain 20 damage (full). So you now have 108 and 220.

The system I suggest increases spell's power by a percentage of the base. Let's say you have 10 int which gives you 10% more spell dmaage. you instant cast spell would do 110 now and the 3.5 second cast spell would do 220. They stay proportionate to each other (twice as much damage on the cast time spell) and maintain balance. The +spell damage system WoW has tries to do the same thing, but then you wind up with that whole situation we had with peopel using lower ranked spells for better efficiency and then Blzizard consequently nerfing that.

Now Blizzard has an overly complicated system that is hard to adjust shoudl they need to.

I think that is a fantastic idea. You are going exactly the direction I am trying to go with this idea. Give players a new spell or ability that while is useful and fun, does not make them a statistical improvement of characters who have not been raiding for as long.

Perhaps ground grinding is something that can be cut out entirely. Perhaps it was only FFXI nostalgia that made me suggest it.

I won't argue with you about group instancing generally being more fun than group grinding. I spent most of my time in WoW leveling via instances.

But I don't think that there would be anythign wrong with allowign for group grinding in addition to all the other forms of leveling. In fact I see it as sort of an option for the more hardcore players and those who come form games with group grinds like FFXI and EQ. If someone wants to be insanely hardcore and go on a 10 hour grind seession with friends I want a game to cater to that, but I don't think it shoudl force players who would rather quest or isntance to do the same. Thus give lots of leveling options.

An FFXI BCNM is similar to a instance boss fight in WoW, usually with soem unique or interesting strategy. Think of the Gnomeregan boss fight where you had to push all those buttons to stop the bomb while taking him on, or in Maraudon where you have to keep your distance from princess and her ummm.... faltulence. The fight should be short, fun, and challenging.

You bring up a valid concern about more hardcore players feeling liek the game is bieng harder on them. I want it to be very much an "easier for casuals" ratehr than a "tougher on hardcore.," which can be hard to do. The exp may need to be toned downs in order to not make grinding seem like a waste of time.

I do want a way for a casual player to log on each day for like an hour, do something fun, and say "well that's it for today, gained a level and got some good lewt."

By all means, if you would, please get on a low theorectical discussion abotu the differences between casters and melee.

I am of the thought that casters should be made more like physical damage classes. With WoW making the physical classes have many abilities and using them often the gap between what used to be the "autoattack, gear people" and "button pressing people" has diminished.

I see spells as another type of damage, as you might see piercing and slashing damage to be different. And that spell resistance is the "armor" of this magic damage.

But I'm glad we agree casters need a central stat to scale up their spells.

I suggested the option of level caps for two reasons.

The first so that you can play with friends at any time, without having the situation where you are babysitting them (level 60 palying with a 30). I'm not saying that you have to level cap yourself everytime you want to play with a lwoer level friend, but rather that you have the option to do so. If you want to take your friend through RFK as a level 60 and do the instance for him I'm not telling you that you can't. But if you however would rather level cap yourself to 30 and play through the instance WITH him without having to start a new character and spend all that time, then I want to let you do so.

Teh second reason is for pvp purposes. Most people I know make pvp alts to play in lwoer level brackets. I do it to. In FFXI you could do a ballista of any level bracket you had reached, and I played all of them. If a player wants to play in the level 30-39 bracket in WSG I think they should take their 60, cap him to 39, and be able to do so without having to level an entirely new character to 39.


I have some thoughts on limitations tha tI think make the idea feasible an unexploitable, but this can be change should there prove to be a problem.

A. You cap yourself by talking to an npc in town. This prevents players in a pvp enviroment from attracting seemingly equal leveled opponents and then surprising them and turning into a super powerful high character and various other possible exploits.

B. You are restricted to the abilities and gear of a character of that level. When you cap yourself to level 30, you ARE a level 30 character in all respects. I am not fond of the idea of stat scaling because if you are an end game character with tier 3 liek equip then you can exploit this fact.

C. Decent rental gear will be provided to level cap characters. This ensures that you needn't take any special preparations before capping yourself and can go off and play with your friend or in a pvp game immediately. The gear is of course unsellable and you return it upon uncapping yourself.

Something I had never thought of and I find very interesting.

As I was reaidn through I immediately had the concern of crafters becoming too controlling, but then you go on to address this.

I think this system works very well. Crafters would be willign to beat npc crafter prices for the reward of skill points, and npcs ensure crafters never can monopolise a market. This guarantees the importance and necessity of crafters. Great idea.


[quote=Azuarc]6. I think one thing that could help this is getting away from the tank-and-spank model for every single fight in the game. I'll grant you, it's hard to create a viable alternative and still keep it an MMORPG rather than an action-adventure, but it's extremely frustrating to know that you NEED a dedicated healer to keep other people alive, you NEED a dedicated tank that can actually take the blows softly enough the healer can keep up, and often you NEED particular support roles.

The biggest issue with this subject is that players will always boil the game down to its lowest common denominator, and the game has to be balanced around that. Early WoW dungeons are doable without a severe hardcore mentality in this regard, but its hard convincing level 60 players to try Dire Maul or Stratholme, or better yet, Upper BRS without a warrior tank. A druid might be able to tank it, hell maybe even a hunter pet, but you're never going to see people let them try. So the game isn't limited to the actual game design itself here, but also the psychological dynamics of the player body.[/quote]


I can't believe this. I have been thinking the very same thing, but avoid mentioning it because it seems far too improbable to convince players that their is any way to do things but tank&healer style.

In FFXI at aroudn level 60 I started doign something called a "manaburn party." Unfortunately this was soemthing limited to a specific set of classes and no one else had an option similar to this, but it was a fun alternative to the traditional style party. The optimal setup involved 1 bard (moi) and 5 black mages. I would pull a very high level monster, we would sleep it, and then the 5 black mages would charge up their 19 second cast kamehame spell and nuke it to oblivion. It would be quite dead yet and we'd use a stun rotation to keep it at bay while short small nukes finished it off. It was great fun and I enjoyed the break from Tank, healer, 3 DD, 1 buffer party.

Another way to handle partying is with kiting, soemthing I did in RF online (terrible game btw) with the ranger class in groups.


I want the same thing you want here, but I am not sure it is possible to get players to think outside the box.


[quote=Azuarc]7. (one class, multiple roles) This is also a no-brainer. No class should be pigeonholed. If I were to create a game, the classes would be one of two ways. Either it would be a very free-form system (and maybe I'll tell you about that later,) or it would be a system where you chose two or three areas to focus in. Let's say you get six "points" to create your character with, and those points can go into offensive melee, defensive melee, offensive magic, defensive magic, etc. It's hard to not grossly oversimplify the system while explaining. But you can put any number of your points in any of those areas. The catch is, while you will get some benefit out of dumping all your points into one category, you won't get as much return as someone who went 4-2, 3-3 or 2-2-2, and the archetypes would each be designed to be useful at (what would in this case be) the two-point level, be advantageous to go three or four, and then have very little benefit for over-specialization. You can argue this would make everyone a hybrid...and you would be correct! There's nothing wrong with that.

Even if you don't like having the players set that up, since it's very hard to do and rather intangible, at least when designing classes yourself, you can keep this philosophy in mind. I think originally Blizzard did, but they got too far astray on the "defensive melee" and warriors swung wildly from being the only tank class to being an overpowered unkillable nightmare with the potential for tons of damage.

My other system's more interesting, but much too complicated to explain in a two-sentence blurb. I don't want to dillute my post any further. (I'm also tempted to say I don't want to post it publicly!)[/quote]


Hybrid classes are geat. Every class should be a hybrid class. I agree with everything you've said.

I am intrigued by your freeform system and would like to hea rbaout it some time or another. I do have to say I mostly find freeform character growth in RPGs disagreeable (just a personal opinion). I like having defined roles and classes for characters, I think it helps people identify with their cahracter more. And even though I storngly support players having many options I do not like the directionless feel I usually get in a freeform system because of lack of limitations. I find jumping and lfipping more fun in games than flying because of the limitations, flight is just TOO free for me. I still think you would have very many good ideas and I am interested in them if you would ever care to divulge.


[quote=Azuarc]8. (end-game gear focus) When you ultimately cap a player in their potential to expand their character from experience and simply going out and doing stuff, they need to find specific stuff that still enhances them. It's a necessary side-effect of MMORPGs that there can never be a true best character that you will ever reach. Approach, perhaps, but not achieve. Not that I need to tell you that.

But if you're going to limit a player's potential to grow through gear, there need to be other options. WoW, right now, has no other options. Your character is a sum of his level, his talents (level-based), and his gear. Until you invent a system where you can keep gaining talents points at a very slow rate or something similar to AA points, there has to be the incentive from gear. And if the curve is too low, it would be enough of an incentive to hold your player base.[/quote]


The two solutions I see to end game are as you have suggested multiple ways to obtain high end gear. That is a fine solution, but the one I would really liek to see happen is lateral growth.

I don't want to see stat whores. I think gear should be able to become an extension of teh talent tree allowing you to further specialise your character. I think ultimately if you make oen piece of high end gear flat out better than another, even if they are both obtainable through multiple means, you're encouraging people to grow, and in fact creating a "False character grwoth" because although you get stronger, so does everyone else, and the balance never really changes. I think getting stronger in MMORPGs is a complete illusion, because your position relative to othe rhigh end players doesn't change.


I udnerstand players want stat growth, and I think they should have it, but not make it so huge a factor. Give them better gear, but don't make it enormously better.


[quote=Azuarc]The key is a good itemization system -- one that won't produce pronounced jumps in levels of power[/quote]


Yes. I just want less focus on it. I think if end game focus was split between vertical and lateral growth then one would end up with a spectacular games.








Well this is probably going to be a long post. Sorry.^^

Edited, Jan 6th 2007 3:07pm by Allegory

You will never close the gap of rewards between casual and hardcore gamers.

Hardcore should have better gear and rewards for efforts put into the game. I say this is a person who used to be hardcore and now am casual at most. ;)

This thread topic has crossed my mind a few times. A fellow gamer and I were discussing some of the best aspects of certain games we've played. If they could somehow be combined, it would make a great foundation for a game. Here is a short list of what I came up with:

-Experience, a combination of rested experience from WoW, and Experience Debt from death. CoH has a system of debt, which is a challenge for leveling, but being able to sleep it off would allow you to catch up. But skilled players that don't die as often would level quicker. I think there should be penalties for death, but nothing extreme.

-Crafting, one of the best examples of a great crafting and online economy is SWG. It has its problems though. But the quality of crafted items can vary based on the statistics of the materials used. I would use a more simple system, but still allow for varying quality. I think about half of the materials for crafting should be looted, the other half collected.

-Armor/Weapons (gear)- Some games like wow have items that can "break" but be fixed, while SWG had items that would deteriorate with use, until they had to be replaced. I like the idea behind items that wore out, it keeps the economy alive, but I would allow for some BoP items to be indestructible. As for different class gear, it is a tough call. In WoW each class has their sets, and that is a good goal to collect, but end game lots of people are running around in the same stuff. I think I would avoid class gear, and instead have a variety of sets anyone can wear, depending on what you like. And then be able to customize the look.

-Classes, There are so many ways to go about this. You can have custom made characters, you can have normal or hybrid classes. I am not sure what the best method is. Having normal classes is probably the easiest thing to make from a game designers view. Hybrid classes (like Guild Wars) allows for some variety while still choosing two classes. And I love to customize my characters, it is a important aspect for me. But I have not seen one game that has "The Best Way" to handle classes.

-End-Game, Regardless of how much fun a game is or was, you need a reason to keep playing once you have reached max level. Like the OP mentioned, it should be more than hunting for loot. I think there should be group, guild, and solo content that should be available to the end-game player. You should not feel like you are grinding, but getting the opportunity to do these quests.

I have had other thoughts on "My Perfect Game" but that was all of the game mechanics I could recall ATM.

This was a great post rate up.
but i would just like to say i think EQ was the best mmo its just after so long it got boring after 5 years and 222222 million expasions so they had to make EQ2 Which wasnt done quite as well. so now i play wow.