[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point...

[Caliban Darklock]

On 8/17/07, cruise <cruise at casual-tempest.net> wrote:
>
> And getting to the highest level is itself a single task. So what? Just
> because you /can/ view ti that way doesn't mean it's helpful.

That's true. What makes it helpful is the massive flaw in your system
that rears its ugly head when you look at it this way.

Fundamentally, your system is still an experience point system. It
just adds a few new rules that are unfair and unhelpful. They make
life more difficult for the player, but they don't accomplish any
benefit. Take your standard XP system, and add these rules:

1. Your XP quota is 500 times your level.
2. If the XP in a given award are under your quota, you get nothing.
3. If the XP in a given award are over your quota, you get your quota.

And here is your XP chart:

1 - 0
2 - 500
3 - 2500
4 - 7000
5 - 15000
6 - 27500
7 - 45500
8 - 70000

You've changed nothing. It's the same system. All you've done is
reduce the number of XP earned for a given event. You've made the game
harder, but you haven't made it any better. Indeed, your only
contribution to the system is to artificially limit the speed of
advancement and completely bar some players from continuing.

Imagine that I'm level 7, but level 7 tasks are still too hard for me
to complete, In an XP system, I can spend a little more time on level
6 tasks and still make level 8. In your system, I'm screwed. What if
I've paid money to play your game? How do you suppose I feel when I
figure out that your game is designed to prevent me from ever
achieving level 8? What will you do when enough people complain? Why,
you'll make level 8 easier. What then? Make level 9 easier? Level 10?
Level 35? All you do by lowering the bar is let more people into the
next level who can't really handle it. Game balance goes down the
toilet.

Your system is flawed. That's not to say it can't be fixed, but it's flawed.

> Doing several higher level tasks can dramatically reduce the time taken
> to gain a level (from factorial to linear). That's not insignificant.

So, if I understand you correctly, doing a level 2 task at level 1 not
only raises me to level 2, but counts toward level 3?

That changes things drastically, because it allows people to
completely skip entire swaths of content that become completely
irrelevant. It's a whole new kind of power leveling. The kind that not
only allows you to bypass content you had to pay people to create, but
actively punishes you for trying to experience it anyway.

What will you tell your investors about all the level 40 content that
nobody experiences because they find it mildly easier to just do level
41 content? You have at least 40 level 40 tasks. How much time and
effort did your designers and artists and developers spend creating
it? How much did that cost? What do you tell your investor about that
money? "Oh, I'm sure eventually someone will be too stupid to know
level 41 stuff is easier"?

We cannot create enough content to keep the players happy NOW. Why do
you want to create a system that demands massively more content while
simultaneously encouraging players to skip over it and forbidding them
any benefit from revisiting it?

Notice that now you have a system where progressing linearly through
the levels, without power-leveling, has become much harder.
Essentially, your system actively encourages and rewards abuse.

> Yes, it's designed to not reward those "aiming low" - if you read the
> original post, the idea was to prevent the farming of easy monsters for
> quick rewards and to encourage players to aim high.

But you don't actually encourage them, you force them. They have to
aim high, because you've arbitrarily decided they can't aim below this
spot.

"Stop doing what you think is fun! Do what I told you comes next!"

Bad developer. No bonus. Reduction of consumer choice is always bad.

> It would remove one of the really drudgy parts of the grind. Sure, it
> doesn't fix all of them, but it was never intended to.

1. You have not fixed anything.
2. You have broken something.

The grind is a crutch; when it is too hard for the player to find a
high-level task which accomplishes his goals quickly, he can fall back
on low-level tasks and still accomplish his goals - but slowly. This
is his choice. That players make this choice so frequently is a
condemnation of how we design and place higher level tasks. That we
build the grind into the game (e.g. the Final Fantasy series), such
that it is no choice at all but a requirement, is Bad Design.

Regardless of what you think about the grind, it is a solution, not a
problem. Taking it away is not a matter of forcing the player to find
a different solution. It is a matter of finding a new solution to the
problem which the player finds preferable to the grind. You haven't
actually solved the grind; you've simply replaced it with a new one.
Now, instead of finding a place where monsters respawn quickly, the
player must map out a complex path through the game where he never
does any task more difficult than absolutely necessary. A list will be
made and sold on EBay. Eventually, it will leak to a public web site.
It will become common knowledge. The "power level" will no longer be
"earn many XP quickly" but "efficiently restrict task completion".

You are designing a system where the way to succeed is to avoid
consuming content, while the amount of content necessary increases
massively. This is not a winning strategy.

Consider also that the grind isn't just about levels, but money. When
you can't afford the weapon that kills the next monster, you have to
go back to the grind so you can earn it. You haven't removed that.
Instead, you've taken the other half of it - not only am I earning
money, I'm also slowly moving toward my next level - and thrown it
away. You have made the grind less productive, but no less necessary.
Even if you remove the need to grind for money, some people actually
enjoy the grind, and when you stop rewarding them for having fun they
are not going to like it.