[MUD-Dev] Level Grind - alternative

[Brendan O'Brien]

cruise wrote:

> If I may ask, how long does it take to get to a competitive level
> in this racing game?

Even though your horse is very inferior at the start, you can race
competitively from very early on.  I'd say it took me two or three
races to get the knack of how to race him properly (whip use is the
main thing you have control over), and I would consistently be in
the top 3-5 finishers.  It was a bit longer before I felt he could
really have a shot at winning one (maybe 9 or 10 races?), but
fighting for third or fourth place was actually a lot of fun.  When
I did finally win the race, it was a bit of a surprise, as there
were several horses in the race who were still much better than mine
on paper.  Of course, I believe that should be possible in any game,
as skill and luck should be more important than simple stats on
paper.  I'd rather not know the exact outcome of every challenge
before it even starts.  ;)

>>   1) Characters are developed in a family-based system.  ...

>>   2) As your family evolves, children will grow older, get
>>   married, have their own children, and eventually die.  ...

> While these certainly could be fun gameplay elements, I don't
> think they're fundemental to the removal of the level grind - it's
> more of an "alternative character creation" system, that can be
> attached to any kind of levelling system.

I tend to agree with you here, but I would not want to be faced with
the prospect of continuously facing the grind again every time my
character got older.  I certainly didn't mean to say that this is
the only solution for replacing the grind.  It's more a case where I
feel this type of character creation leads itself very naturally to
creating a nice alternative to your traditional treadmills.  It also
appeals much more directly to players (such as my wife) who really
don't want to be bothered by the hack n' slash mentality of most
games today.

>>   3) Advancement: The initial advancement occurs during the
>>   childhood of new characters.  ...

>   = offline training. I think this has been tried/suggested
>   before. Certainly an excellent way of dealing with the time
>   requirements - though maybe with a diminishing return on time to
>   avoid abuse, easily explained by needing to balance theory with
>   practice. Certainly would help alleviate the time requirements
>   somewhat.

Well, it's offline training in a sense, but also a bit different.
It's more of a case where characters develop naturally as they get
older; you just give them a push in a certain direction.  Ideally I
would have it so that new characters are born with certain hidden
statistics which would help define how their abilities will grow
over time.  Some may be geniousses, others could be atheletes, some
would be average all around, and others could be fat lazy and
stupid.  The parents will affect the likelihood of having a certain
type of child, but blind luck would help keep things more
interesting.  While two olympic-style athletic parents would be much
more likely to have athletic children, there's always that chance
the barmaid and the rogue could produce an even more talented
offspring.

Once born, the training and schooling you send the child off toward
would help them fulfill their existing potential, and to reach their
potential a bit earlier.  The skills they learn would help define
their "career" at adulthood, with the overall statistics
supplementing their skills.  This probably isn't coming across as
clear as I would like it to without going over all of the minor
details on combat and the skill systems, but hopefully the general
gist of it makes sense.  Basically, once the child reaches
adulthood, he should be pretty much ready for whatever you wanted
him to do.  Most of the training will be done while he is too young
to really use (don't expect to see many 8 year olds out hunting
orcs), with the adult "refresher" training sessions serving more as
minor tweaks to an already skilled warrior.  When the son reaches
his prime, the father would be likely reaching the first stages of
declining ability, although cousins and siblings will allow for more
diverse character opportunities at any given time.  In other words,
you could raise a mage, cleric, fighter. and a rogue for different
playstyles if you feel so inclined.  Or, you could focus your
abilities on creating a type of "breeding ground" to produce the
greatest warriors in the land.  Whatever you choose, nothing is
permanent since you will continue to raise new children over time.

>>   4) Advancement part 2: While characters become combat-ready
>>   very early, there are other types of advancement besides skills
>>   and hit points.  ...

> Whole-heartedly agree, and something akin to the system I'm
> developing for my testbed MUD. Advancement is through fame rather
> than actual skill - getting to an "average" level of skill is easy
> and quick allowing most quests and gameplay to be accomplishable
> within relatively short time-periods.

Ahh, short time periods.  Wouldn't it be great if more games would
let you actually log in and have fun with only a half hour or so to
play the game?  I'm beginning to think I may need to try out CoH,
even though superheroes really aren't my thing.  ;)

>>   5) Power gamer vs. casual gamer: The common complaint is
>>   today's games is how to balance the level grind between players
>>   who spend 8-10 hours a day playing the game, and the casual
>>   gamer who has nowhere near as much time on his hands.  ...

> Interesting concept, though I can imagine the power-gamers hating
> it :P This probably would require the lineage system mentioned
> above, as otherwise hte powergamers would quickly run out of
> people to play as.  Actually, it's just occurred to me that the
> power-gamers would suddenly have a whole new marker and reason for
> bragging - in crude terms, studding :P If you can marry other
> player's characters, and abilities can be inherited to some
> degree, I can see the powergamer's family being highly sought
> after. That has a /lot/ of pontential...

Yeah, that's very much how I would envision it to go.  I would allow
the characters to court npc's as spouses as well, but I expect most
would be more likely to mix families with other players in order to
find the qualities they are looking for.  I expect many would enjoy
playing the game as a socializer building up their family, without
even bothering with the combat / adventuring side of things.  I
never played the Sims myself, but I'd have to think this type of
system could appeal much more to that type of audience.  My original
goal was to try to find a game that I (as a former power-gamer, now
casual gamer) could enjoy just as much as my wife (less competitive
socializer).

Head to head, a casual gamer's character should have just as much
chance to win as a power gamer's, but the power gamer's family will
still gain fame and wealth at a much faster rate.  I think both
sides could live with that.  :)

>>   6) Power gamer part 2: Your typical power-gamer is generally
>>   very competitive by nature.  ...

> Agreed, improving combat (or indeed, any other skill or actvity in
> the game) to make it more involving would go a long way to
> improving the treadmill feeling. Instead of 100 trivial battles,
> two or three "epic" feeling ones would remove a lot of the
> repetitiveness.

I would love to spend hours discussiong ways to improve the way
combat is handled in these games, but this post is long enough
already.  At least I'm not the only one who wants more epic and
fewer trivial fights.  :)

> It seems the underlying principles here are: drastically speed up
> initial ability gain, provide advancement for skill-based
> accomplishment and not time-sinks, and de-couple character
> abilities from time spent online.

Yeah, I think you have the general ideas down pretty well.  I
appreciate the commentary.  :)

- Brendan
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