[MUD-Dev] Attractive Grouping (Was: Focus vs. Scope)

[John Buehler]

Cruise writes:
> John Buehler wrote:
>> Cruise writes:

>>> I like the concept - I'd be worried about the havoc griefers
>>> could cause, but certainly a very interesting idea.

>> Perhaps I'm blinded by enthusiasm for my own ideas, but the grief
>> potential isn't clear to me.  What griefing can players engage in?

> Depends how the system is implemented for specifics, but anything
> which requires players working together to acheive a goal will be
> sabotaged - most open raids have to put up with small groups trying
> to screw everyone else over.

That potential always exists.  My experiences in Dark Age of Camelot were
such that self-policing sufficed to keep the annoyances down.  I attribute
that to the design of Dark Age of Camelot, where the game design fostered a
sense of 'us' and 'them'.  Players are less interested in griefing supposed
allies when there are enemies that they can grief in the PvP segment of the
game (not to mention that it's good to have someone to help you in PvP).  I
don't go with PvP to provide this struture, but rather to actively present
the gamemasters as the enemy.  Ruining the plans of the gamemasters is the
goal.  The segment of players who are drawn towards grief-minded play may or
may not be sated by such things.  It may be that some other 'us' versus
'them' notion will be needed as well.

>>> The only difficulty is how to dish out rewards...it can't be
>>> based on damage done, because that screws over support
>>> classes. Measuring general utility or assistance provided is
>>> probably intractable, or at least going to be perceived as unfair
>>> more often than not.

>> I believe that rewards should be granted by group consent.  How
>> exactly to do this I don't know, but I do believe that something
>> in the spirit of voting for players during the course of or
>> immediately after a combat engagement is the way to go.  The
>> voting may automatically cause rewards to flow to those
>> individuals, or it may simply be that those individuals are voted
>> as trusted individuals who can then decide who gets what.  It may
>> be related to a 'friends' system with the assumption that I almost
>> always vote for my friends.

>> This is a slightly more dynamic version of what happens in large
>> group attacks in other games.  Normally, only trusted people are
>> permitted to join in on large group attacks, and the rules are
>> clearly set out.  Specific people will collect rewards, lotteries
>> will assign them to group members, etc.

>> There may be other issues to be addressed, such as who is actually
>> claiming to have been part of the battles.  If someone claims to
>> be part of the battle, an appropriate icon hovers over their head.
>> If players see someone with the icon and who is completely
>> inactive during the fight, they may vote to have them excluded
>> from the group rewards.  Players seem to be pretty good at
>> self-policing things like that.

> For every fight? I guess it depends what counts as one "fight" - but
> for the impromptu grouping suggested above, it may be for a single
> matter-of-minutes combat. Voting for rewards everytime would get a
> little wearisome...  And while it works for occasional, high-profile
> raids, where there's someone trusted in charge, I'm not convinced it
> can scale all the way down to front-line combat.

I begin with the idea that items aren't particularly interesting to
character abilities, and they aren't a vehicle to accessing new game
content.  They just permute the experience of the game.  Instead of beating
on things with a mace, the character is using a staff.  The movements are
different and there is a variation in effetiveness, but it's nothing major.
Just different.

With that notion, rewards of rarer items would only be available after
"occasional, high-profile raids".  The players may have been fighting for a
week to gain new ground, working towards a certain tower, ruins, barrow,
cavern, canyon or grove.  When that goal is achieved, they find that there
are some items present.

Alternately, there are boss NPCs that fight for the gamemasters.  Very tough
to kill, frequently rescued by rank-and-file NPCs, tend to run away, etc.
Killing on of them may mean that its possessions become loot.  Everyone has
been seeing that NPC for a week or two, and everyone knows that it's going
to have some interesting stuff on it.  Maybe a particularly ornate weapon.
Maybe a funny-looking helm.  They're just trophies, but most people wuold
like one or two.

In scenarios like that, I believe that distribution of items can be
performed in some orderly way.  The people who are fighting all know each
other.  They've been fighting together for a week, a month or a year.
Everyone knows who did what during the fights.  If that can be represented
in the game award structure, I think it's a winner.

>>> Maybe a more flexible version of EQ2's combat locking? The first
>>> player to a mob locks it, but other players can be invited to the
>>> fight at any point - it would end up similar to grouping but on
>>> more of a per-fight basis. Suddenly discover that your current
>>> fight is harder than you expected? Yell for help, and any nearby
>>> players can respond and join in for a share of the reward (and
>>> perhaps penalty if the original player dies? Just trying to
>>> balance the various abuse possibilities).

>> I think that you're right back to individual rewards being the
>> motivation to play, at which point groups are an annoyance.  Focus
>> the design on group goals with appropriate entertainment for
>> individuals and you're on the right path.

> Heh. Maybe I'm more cynical than you, but I just can't see a game
> with no personal rewards being popular. I'd love to be proved wrong,
> and I agree it's a much better usage of the multiplayer framework.

I'm suggesting that the obvious personal rewards be drastically reduced, but
in a game where each player has a character, personal rewards are
inevitable.  There is a personal experience for each player, and that
experience has to be designed to give enjoyment.  Current games rely on
personal achievement as the primary means of giving enjoyment.  "You are a
hero."  I believe that it's entirely possible for the focus to be moved from
such obvious personal rewards and off to group gains.

The personal rewards will be more ephemeral.  Bettering a previous best
performance.  Making a strategic move to foil an ambush by the gamemasters.
Just knowing that your character is anchoring the end of the shield wall
during a certain defensive moment.  These are the gains that anyone on a
team understands.  As our team wins, each of us wins.  If anything, I
suspect that games don't provide enough possibilities for teamwork.

>>> Either of these systems would make actual /communication/ and
>>> socialising an inherent part of playing the game, rather than
>>> something which is just done in downtime.

>> That would be an interesting hybrid.  It would still present some
>> difficulties.  Lowbies would have to travel with highbies, else
>> just getting to the highbie areas would be impossible.  The same
>> with getting out of the highbie area, depending on the impact of a
>> character death.  There would be issues with who gets what from
>> the rewards, given that items would surely be commensurate with
>> the higher level powers of the highbie characters.

> If you don't want power tied to success, then avoiding an overflow
> of stat-boosting equipment is probably a good idea. I still dream of
> an RPG where success depends on skill, not equipment.

I agree.  'Skill' frequently means 'manual dexterity', which is very much
not the skill that I want to draw out of players.  I want them to be using
their skills of planning, organization, tactics, and otherwise using their
brain to employ their character effectively.  I want all realtime character
actions to be controlled by player-influenced character AI, with players
spending their time thinking about their moves.  More chess.  Less speed
checkers.

>> In short, character power levels partition content.  Because
>> content is usually partitioned geographically to keep more
>> powerful opponents away from less powerful player characters, it
>> results in geographic partitioning of players.  Net result: player
>> partitioning according to character power levels.

> There seems little reason to force players apart like that...most
> MUD's I've played have really tough opponents (like the shopkeepers,
> town guards, etc.) mixed in with the starting town's newbie
> fodder. I've found this helps socialisation a lot, as there are
> often experienced players around with the newer players.

I've stuck to the big graphical games.  They tend to partition content
geographically, resulting in player partitioning.  That's necessary for
monsters that can be aggressive, attacking on their own 'initiative'.  If
guards attacked townspeople, the newbies would be chopped to pieces.

>> Make achievement roughly orthogonal to the basic activity of the
>> characters and the problem is avoided.  Instead of fighters
>> becoming better fighters, they are granted esteem by NPCs.  If
>> NPCs are sufficiently interesting vending machines, then that
>> esteem (usually referred to as 'faction') can translate into
>> interesting vending actions.  What I call 'favors'.  A faction
>> and favors system permits players to be rewarded for their
>> actions, but without power accrual, and in a variety of ways.

> <snip>

>> The idea is to move orthogonal to the single track of character
>> power accrual.  Let the game be more multidimensional, and let
>> the achievements impact the multidimensionality of the game
>> instead of the linear track that we're used to seeing.

> I think one of the big changes for MMG's will be the splitting up
> of "XP" into different types of experience and accomplishment. So
> combat, crafting, team-leadership etc. all get their own
> metrics. And as you say, faction opinions can be another measure
> of success.

Folks here do seem to like the idea of different types of experience
points.  Perhaps that's all I'm doing with 'faction and favors',
making it into a kind of social experience point system.  I don't
think so, but I'll have to wait and see how games tackle multiple
experience point sets.

JB
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