[MUD-Dev] Playing catch-up with levels

[John Buehler]

Sean Howard writes:
> "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com> writes:

>> I want to present them with different ways of solving the in-game
>> challenges based on a configuration of skills that they choose.

> And you wouldn't be the first one either. Warren Spector, for
> example.  However, in a multiplayer game, that just won't be
> possible. Even in the most detailed simulation, there will always
> be dominant ways of solving a problem, and when competing with
> other players (even if just for status), you have no choice.

If the players are attempting to optimize their experience towards a
goal, then you're correct.  If they are in the game for the variety
of experience possible (variety being the spice of life), then they
won't attempt to optimize.  They'll attempt to explore.

>> That is what a game offers across multiple classes.  Eliminate
>> the class boundaries and the skills can be mixed and matched to
>> produce many different permutations of interaction.

> Can you pick all the skills? Then every player would eventually be
> exactly the same and uber powerful? Or can they only select a few?
> Then they will use their limited resources to become exceptional
> in just one area of expertise - the choice will essentially be
> made for them.

I may have mentioned before that any skill system has an element of
class-ness to it if every character cannot have every skill.  The
purpose of the skill system is only to permit players to configure
their characters in a number of different ways over time.  Going off
to fight a troll with only the most advanced swordsman attack
techniques without a single defensive ability might be something
that players would do just for kicks.  Or it may work out as the
perfect balance for playing with his buddy who is a shield-partner.

>> The one or two most effective skill combinations would quickly
>> become the only character formulation that anyone would bother
>> with.

> Yes! Exactly! No matter how many options you have, no matter how
> many ways you can go through a level, the player will ALWAYS
> choose the path that is the quickest, easiest, and has the highest
> rewards. They will min-max EVERYTHING in the game and there is no
> balancing that can help that. The most obvious solution to make
> that min-maxing part of gameplay.

Something that you left out of the quote is what I said just before
the part you quoted:

  "...power accrual can no longer be the primary source of
  entertainment because it leaves a single goal for everyone to
  optimize on."

What I was saying was that in order to encourage players into
experimentation with the permutations of skills, the game cannot
predicate its entertainment on power accrual (leveling, damage
dealing, etc.)  So the quote that you included is a statement of the
problem with current games as a result of their focus on power
accrual.

It would apply to any obvious goal in a game.  If the goal is to get
to the end of the road, players will optimize on reaching the end of
the road.  Faster run speeds, better track shoes, higher energy
food, whatever.  Eliminate the race and players will run just for
the experience of running.

Major caveat: If the experience of running has no entertainment
value, nobody will run.  Today, games are dominated by the thinking
that winning the race is the only entertainment that will sell.
I've been claiming for a while now that the raw experience of simply
doing something in a game (dunno about running) can be made to be
entertaining.

>> You're assuming that the goal is to kill stuff to accumulate cash
>> and prizes.  Warriors kill stuff, true enough.  But that's the
>> reward for being a warrior: killing stuff.  The actual process of
>> killing things must be entertaining.  A stealthy character's
>> entertainment comes from successfully sneaking around.

> You are assuming that players choose which character they want to
> play out of desire for that play style. Sure, some do, but very
> few. The roleplayers, perhaps. There is almost always a greater
> goal in a MMORPG than just the immediate thrill of stealth or
> combat - and whichever path facilitates it best is the one most
> players will prefer.

So long as the game is structured to focus the player's attention on
a goal, you're absolutely right.  But if you and your friends fight
to the bottom of the dungeon and win - nothing - what would motivate
you into going through that experience?  How about just having
something fun to do with friends?

That very experience was one of the most enjoyable ones I ever had
in EverQuest.  Friends and I did a 'dungeon crawl'.  We were only
exploring, killing things that we found.  It was fun because we were
exploring together.  We didn't care about the loot or the
experience.  We did it because it was fun and new.  I submit to you
that players will enjoy experiences like that in a game because they
enjoy them in the real world.

I suggested earlier that if current games were to make all monsters
and player characters level 50 and let the players play whatever
part of the game that they wanted to, that player interest would
last a few weeks.  That's because the activity of monster bashing
isn't particularly entertaining in and of itself.

Make the game have everything at one power/efficacy level, make
combat and other activities inherently entertaining (i.e. presenting
creative challenges) and you'll keep the players around.  They'll
experiment and explore.  They'll solve problems in the game world
just because it's fun to solve them.

> Almost nobody buys a game because they can be a thief or a
> warrior.That's old news. They buy it because they can own a shop
> or ride a Chocobo or defend a town or fly a starship. More MMORPGs
> are bought on the basis of player ownership and licensed concepts
> than immediate gameplay.

Exactly.  Playing a warrior is boring.  So is playing a thief for
that matter.  There's nothing to it.  Playing a warrior is like
breaking rocks in a quarry.  Thieves just add the element of
sneaking up on the rock first.  Suppose every fight was a test of
your skill as a player, and you actually had a sense of victory for
having used the Slashing Uppercut as the third move in the fight
instead of dodging?

When warriors are constantly recounting the blow-by-blow fight with
a monster or with another player - and others are entertained by it
- that's when playing a warrior will be its own entertainment.

>> Suppose you couldn't ever predict what an NPC was going to do?
>> That you could only guess at trends and possibilities?

> Rock Scissors Paper, without any external knowledge of who you are
> playing against, is little better than random guessing. Random
> guessing is not a game because games are about decision
> making. When all decisions are equal or when one decision is
> dominant, the game is not fun. It is not a game.

Random is not what I'm talking about.  I'm talking about interesting
AI.  When the AI is more involved than you can decipher with a
glance, it starts to make interactions with it more and more
interesting.  Entertaining, even.

>> Right.  And that means that instead of carrying 7,000 pounds of
>> equipment, they have 7,000 pounds of equipment in the bank and
>> they swap back and forth between those sets of equipment as
>> needed.

> You make it sound like a chore - and it would be if there were no
> important decisions to be made. Choosing between six swords that
> are all roughly the same is not nearly as fun as choosing a sword,
> axe, bow, spear, or magic staff.

For me, fudging with multiple sets of equipment is a chore.  The
decision-making process is quickly replaced by the reams of
information available on the web to explain exactly why I would be
wise to wear the +5% fire resist gear instead of the +6% cold damage
gear.

People don't publish strategies for these games.  They publish
instructions - "do this, do that".  If these games were as involved
as Gin Rummy (or Chess or Go), somebody would be putting out a
strategy guide to help people get progressively better at the game.

>> It also clashes with a personal ethic where I like to think that
>> it's the man, not the tools, that make him what he is.

> I don't see how that is the problem. The man chooses his tools and
> how to use them. James Bond has a PP7 and Q's gadgets with him
> when he starts each mission. He's still quick witted, but those
> gadgets do tend to come in handy.

An excellent analogy.  The more specific a tool is to a purpose, the
less innovation its user can apply to its use.  For example, LEGO
bricks are very generic and many things can be created from them.
They require innovation.  But the new LEGO sets have lots of very
custom-designed pieces that are for a very specific purpose.
Innovation has been taken out of the user's hands.

This is exactly what is going on with modern games.  The designers
compose the tools in a specific way so that they will be used in a
specific way.  In a game where min-maxing is the rule, it's
necessary for the designers to know every permutation of their use
and to ensure that there are no surprise fast tracks to the
end-goals of the game.

When players have no specific goal presented to them, generic tools
offer more entertainment value.  They permit his own innovation to
have a greater role in his success.  To me, that holds greater
appeal than pressing a button to achieve the same result that
everyone else gets by pushing that button. My innovation is limited
to picking the timing of the button push.

>>> And people will always find a way to maximize the grind.

>> Because it's such an annoyance.

> That's not what I meant. They will do it because they can. If
> games are about making decisions, there will always be people who
> seek to make the best decisions, and they will publish the results
> to those who merely just don't want to make bad ones. It's going
> to happen. It will ALWAYS happen.  It doesn't matter if it ruins
> the game or not.

That seems awfully myopic to me.  Surely you have played games
(other than computer games) where you weren't even interested in
winning.  You were just playing in order to have fun.

The reason that you did that was because winning wasn't important.
You gained nothing by winning.  And so it can be in a computer game.
The journey will be fun, instead of making the destination the only
place of value.

JB
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