[MUD-Dev] Removing the almighty experience point...

[brian at thyer.net]

Vincent Archer <archer at frmug.org> wrote ..
> According to brian at thyer.net:

>> Instead of fields or dungeons filled with respawning mobs you
>> have a mission or a quest that you go on, following step by step
>> the quest until you finish.  At the end you're rewarded with a
>> new level or something to that degree, right?

> Initially, there wasn't any form of quest involved. What the game
> is about is mastering tactical problems.

> Let's take an example. You're the crowd controller, the guy with
> the mesmerize/sleep/polymorph sheep ability. You're with a group
> of friends in the middle of a dungeon, when you get caught by a
> patrol of mobs. Three guys jump you out of nowhere. Ok, you fire
> them mez spells, mez one... mez two... the third is engaged
> properly.  Killed, the group moves on the second guy. Gets
> killed. Takes the final guy.

> And suddendly, the little text appear "You have gained an
> achievement of level 16". Because you've solved a tactical
> problem: keeping two ennemies out of the way during an entire
> combat (and surviving the combat without any loss). Depending on
> the spell stats and CC effects, it might or might not be an
> enormous feat. With very short mezes, it could well be a level 25
> achievement. But it shows you master at least that kind of thing.

> The assumption behind this, being, of course, that, after level 16
> (or 25), you will routinely have to face sets of 3 ennemies like
> that, and it would be good for your playmates to know if you can
> do this.

Don't you run the risk of relative intelligence and problem solving
skills here?  Certainly you see it in other games as well, games
such as CoH where you can choose your powerset but everyone's
powerset is the same, or Everquest where every Warrior is the same
except for which skills he uses more often and which equipment he
wields.  People who aren't as good won't do as well, and therefor
won't enjoy the game.  Only I think you'll see it at more of an
extremity because there's no standard of uniformity.  Every problem
is different....and with every character different as well you'll
see people who aren't as equiped to deal who get frustrated.  Or
maybe I'm not seeing some detail here?

> I'm surprised so many people are trying to fit this into an
> xp-point mold.

Well I guess it's what most of us know.  Or at least are familiar
with on a day to day basis.  I mean..if I'm walking down the street
and I see an animal that reminds me of a cow...I'm likley to think
of it as a cow, and compare it to a cow.  Maybe it looks like
one..maybe someone's milking it..or it's grazing in a penned area.
Maybe it's just in a big field surrounded by cows?  Anyway just
association here.  For me at least.

> The main feature of the system is non-repeatability. You never
> ever gain anything anymore by repeating (with the same character)
> the exact same things you did earlier. Once you have proved you
> can do X, you don't need to prove it again and again and again.

> Games aren't supposed to be an endless repeat of the same
> situation.

> Because the grind goes counter to my initial design goal. Which is
> that the level measure your knowledge and game skill. Not the time
> elapsed playing the game.

> "The largest problem with that system is, of course, coming up
> with achievements."

"Non-repeatability" That makes me think more of a "Myst" type game
than an MMO.  Sure games shouldn't be an endless repeat of the same
situation.  But how can they really differ in a role playing game?
I mean isn't the idea of "role playing" to..well..play a role?  Take
on a specific role of someone who can do a specific thing?  In what
you're describing it feels like MMOPuzzle Solving.  Every character
does the same thing, that is solving puzzles.  Let's say you split
them up into classes and you have, as you said, a crowd controller
with the mesmerize/sleep/molymorph sheep ability.  Even if every
encounter and puzzle is the same, aren't you eventually going to be
doing the same thing again and again?  You have certain
skills...there's only so many ways you can implement them that
they're most efficient.

Of course this gets to something else you mentioned, that the
largest problem is coming up with achievemants.  How do you know
this isn't mearly a large problem, but an impassible one?  How can
you turn the idea into a game of varying characters with varaying
solutions and skills allowing varying ways of solving varying
puzzles so that you never have reptition?

I don't mean to sound like I'm against your idea, I'm all for new
and different.  Just trying to play devil's advocate..work out the
issues and expand the idea.

- Brian
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