[MUD-Dev] CoH (was: MMORPG Cancellations: The sky is falling?)

[Sean Howard]

"Scott Macmillan" <scottm at stainlesssteelstudios.com> wrote:

> In an MMO, I'm always chasing equipment down so I can stay
> competitive.  Reward turns to hassle.

I'm not sure that is the fault of the equipment system at all, but
the inbalance that happens when you've got an active, competitive
market with a limited number of different items of ranging
qualities.

For instance, if you made it so that there were only 8 different
types of weapons, all available from the start, and your experience
dictated the moves you can use with them, the choice of weapons
would become more important than the quality of the weapon. If you
made the difference in quality more than damage/accuracy - ie a
bamboo sword doesn't set off metal detectors, a steel sword has
higher durability and won't break as easily or lose sharpness, an
aluminum rapier is quicker to recover after a parry - then the
choices aren't made based on the competitive number crunching, but
on strategy and problem solving.

> What choices do you feel were taken away with the enhancement
> system that rob it of the fun element?

It's not that they were taken away, but that they just were never
put there in the first place...

  - Limited usefulness. Even though an ability can use about a
  half-dozen enhancements, you are pretty much going to want to
  stick to maybe two or three. Damage, Accuracy, and Recharge. The
  rest you COULD use, but you would probably be better ignoring the
  knockback for an additional Damage/Accurage/Recharge enhancement.

  - Limited variety. All enhancements are exactly the same size and
  differ only in type and level - level being of importance only in
  that it is too high, too low, or within a three (?) level
  difference to your level. What would happen if you had a superior
  Damage enhancement, but it took up two side-by-side slots? It
  would suddenly matter where you put the enhancements you might
  want to drop later - put them side by side, just in case.

  - Limited logistics. It doesn't matter where you put the
  enhancements.  What if the enhancements are more effective the
  closer the are to the left side? What if putting two competing
  enhancements next to each other reduced the effectiveness of both?
  What if putting two accuracy enhancements next to each other
  boosted their respective power slightly?  Maybe a half damage/half
  accuracy enhancement which only works when surrounded by the same
  enhancement type?

  - Limited novelty. They are all sort of boring. They just
  enhance. What about a Berserk enhancement which gives you +5% to
  damage and +20% to recharge, but -25% to accuracy? Maybe an
  enhancement which increases accuracy at night, but lowers accuracy
  during the day? Or a wheel-of-fortune wheel which constantly
  turns, and has effects based on which side is up? Three slices
  could significantly boost the skill, but one slice can render the
  skill almost useless - meaning when you used the skill would make
  a difference. What about an enhancement which just changes the
  color of your attack to plaid?

  - Limited breadth. Can only be used to improve individual
  skills. Why not allow enhancements works on sets of skills?
  Improve the fire damage for all primary or secondary skills? Or
  have personal enhancements which don't affect the skills, but your
  character? For example, if your pre-ordered, you got some sprint
  skills which added bubbles when you ran. Well, why not do that
  without it being a skill? Who wouldn't want to create a character
  which dripped green slime when just standing still or randomly
  screamed out obsceneties? Just fun little cosmetic effects to your
  character could still be enhancements.

These things would make the enhancement system a more interesting
part of gameplay without significantly impacting the quick and fun
aspect of the game.

> I'm not sure why the shops would be considered useless.  Can you
> elaborate?

Because you only buy enhancements and inspirations, which are so
lifeless that they aren't interesting to buy, and so common, that
you will likely find all the enhancements you need between each
level marker. In all honesty, you could probably dump the shops from
the game and it would actually improve because there would be a
player market for enhancements.

> If I'm reading you correctly, you're talking game design as the
> specific challenges/choices afforded to the player.  I'm talking
> game design in terms of experience the creator wants to convey to
> the end user.

I'm talking about "gameplay" being the choices. Game design includes
gameplay and lot more.

> If the vision of the game is to give someone a top-notch superhero
> experience, then some of those extra choices you want may very
> well be extraneous.  You'd be dead on if the goal was to make a
> realistic virtual world.

I'm not one of those virtual world guys. :)

The process of design does dictate which decisions you can offer to
the player. But I am of the firm belief that even with a quick to
get into, highly rewarding, playing for only 15 minutes game, you
can still provide obscene depth of gameplay. I dare you to find a
deeper game than Tetris, Super Mario Bros 3, or Unreal Tournament.

Of course, there are plenty of dense games out there that are deep
too - Morrowind, Deus Ex, Thief, System Shock 2, Fallout, etc. They
are difficult to get into and reward players who get past the
learning curve.  But just being difficult to get into does not mean
it is deep, or vice versa.

> I guess that depends on whether the game is made good by its
> specific components, or by whether it services its overall vision.

Big fan of the overall vision here :) I'm in agreement with "the
quality without a name" and harmonic design and all sorts of fancy
ways of saying that the big picture is how the parts interact, and
not the individual parts themselves.

CoH has a lot of great parts, but the gameplay does not support
those parts as well as it should. When you see a billboard for Coke,
and no matter how nice the shot is, or how professionally done it
is, if the model is missing an eye, the entire billboard fails its
purpose.

> I'd say then that my reply is, why is a game bad because it has a
> more limited number of meaningful choices?

I didn't say it was bad. I like CoH a lot. I'm saying that the
gameplay is shallow and shouldn't be pointed to as a good example of
good gameplay. A limited number of meaningful choices is limited
gameplay, and that's all I really wanted to make clear. It's just
that with CoH, lots of people love it and attribute the mystical and
undefined "gameplay" when they mean everything but.

> I'm saying that there are more meaningful choices in CoH than
> you're giving credit for, with power selection, enhancements, and
> with tactical combat.  Given that basis, I'd say that CoH just has
> fewer meaningful choices than you want, or the wrong ones.  On the
> gameplay side, IMO there is a lot to be said for focusing down to
> a few crucial elements.  I don't think Tetris would have been a
> better game if it had a talking animal companion in it.

Tetris was what Tetris needed to be. CoH is not what CoH needs to
be. It's like the model with the eye socket. I'm extremely sensitive
to game design which is at odds with itself. There are parts of CoH
pulling one direction while other parts are pulling in others. The
MMORPG side says that there needs to be more meaningful player
interaction and ways to affect the world you play in. The online
monthly fee says that you should play the game forever, but the
simplistic gameplay side wants to be played for a few weeks,
dropped, and forgotten about.

> *laugh* Actually, Producer.  Which might be why I keep coming at
> this from a limited resources perspective... it's the one that
> trumps all game design goals, unfortunately.  I do tend to hang
> with these programming types too much for my own good though, I
> think.

I've found that each profession in game development has their own
little world that they live in, complete with unique vocabulary and
values. I'm kind of a writer/artist now, and I find that I don't
agree with the values I held when I was a programmer anymore. I view
it as looking back on a high school yearbook picture when you had a
mullet. :)

- Sean Howard
www.squidi.net
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