MMOG Crowd Control

[Shamus Young]

MMOG Crowd Control

Anyone designing an MMOG needs to be designing a framework for two different audiences: The one they'll have at launch, and the one they'll have three years after that.

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[vivadelkitty]

Turbine has actually rennovated the entire level 1-50 line of Epic Quests. There's now a scaling buff that will allow players with the group quests to get increases to damage and health, and reduce incoming damage, effectively making them 'elite' players for the duration of the quests. It will also apply to some non-instanced quests, but there's more of a restriction there.

More information about the new system can be found here: http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/628-developer-diary-volume-1-revised-edition

Edit: This rennovation occured with the latest content update that launched this week.

 

[matrix3509]

Man, Shamus stop spying in on my thoughts already! I just finished up my LOTRO trial account about a week ago and I certainly remember how empty the low level areas are. Every time I came across one of those forced grouping areas, I thought, "Why are they making me group when there is nobody around?"

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

In LOTRO, many quest chains end in a group quest. So, you'll do five missions solo and suddenly an NPC will tell you to sod off and find some friends. (And I do hope you read the quest text, or you might charge in alone without realizing you're committing a very humorous form of suicide.) You've just spent the last forty five minutes trying to find and save poor Gerebert, and now you realize all your work was for naught. You can't do it alone and good luck finding help.

**Confused**.. My Elven Hunter is level 30 now, has done most of the deeds/achievements/quests and hasn't ever had to run a group quest. Or if she has, she's aced it with relative ease.

Are we playing the same game?

 

[Anacortian]

I would have controled experience gain. WoW occasionally lessens the amount need to more quickly rocket characters to the cap, but I think a more active and thoughtful approach, independent to each particular server, is required.

I would propose that each server could have it's experience rewards altered by a percentage. 150% would rapidly spread the population; 50% would allow it to thicken. I would, of course, be hesitant to use such a wide range; 75% to 125% should be plenty.

The same can be done to inflate or deflate the economy as needed by changing the cost of vendor items and repairs by affecting each server with a percentage of the base price. Too much coin in the system? The vendors now sell at 150% the normal price. Too little? The vendors will take half the cash. In the case of money, each server would then act more like a real economy. If Bill Gates were to start throwing cash around your town, even the NPCs would raise their prices.

 

[Wolfram23]

This article is right on the money. I found the world of Warcraft so awesome at first as every area had plenty of people and doing group quests wasn't too tough. But fast forward a couple years and trying to level an alt is a pain in the butt when the only thing left to enjoy is the story and you keep getting shut down at the end. Sometimes if the group quest is only a couple lvls below it can be worth soloing (if possible) but generally it's just a big MEH. I'm inclined to not play MMOs anymore for this and well, many other reasons. I like my solo RPGs with good stories.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

DDO recently introduced a cool mechanic.

True reincarnation allows a max level character to restart at level 1 with a couple of extra build points and a past life feat. This makes them slightly superior stat-wise to a complete noob character but not so much that the game balance doesn't work. Reincs get an significant experience penalty so they have to do more of the quests to gain levels than first run characters.

This pulls some of the hardcore people out of the endgame because they want that 100% optimized build that they can't do without reincarnating and gives them an alternative to alts.

Unfortunately WoW leveling is WAY too grindy to get away with that but it works really well for DDO.

 

[Centrophy]

The force grouping quests are why I quit WoW and Aion even though I liked the idea of the latter( the massive grind for everything didn't help either.) I like the idea of a floating/changing mid area. It would probably be a bit more work to code but can essentially be tied to sliders for different areas with one slider for the whole game world for the early and late days of the MMOG.

Turbine has actually rennovated the entire level 1-50 line of Epic Quests. There's now a scaling buff that will allow players with the group quests to get increases to damage and health, and reduce incoming damage, effectively making them 'elite' players for the duration of the quests. It will also apply to some non-instanced quests, but there's more of a restriction there.

More information about the new system can be found here: http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/628-developer-diary-volume-1-revised-edition

Edit: This rennovation occured with the latest content update that launched this week.

I kind of like this idea. Maybe make it so that the player can't enter combat with another player while elite buffed, alter the experience rewards so that it becomes more like a normal non-elite quest, maybe add the choice to go elite and reduce the experience rewards or go find a group with the option to come back and pick up the buff if that player can't find a group.

Come on, devs! Get cracking!

 

[Crunchy English]

Yes, the real answer is to just let MMOs stagnate, and with any luck, die. I've sounded off on this before, so you guys I know have nothing against the players in MMOs. You guys have your reasons, and that's fine. But the fact is that the entire business model of MMOs is reprehensible and from a game design standpoint it is completely intractable. WoW, as you might've heard in the last 5 years, is great at making MMOs less of a chore.

WOW is right. LESS of a chore. WoW. A game that a lot of gamer would never touch.

Think about that for a second. Think about that guy you know, who plays ten times as much as you do, gets angry at you if you miss a raid and pours over FAQs and loot tables. Every gamer knows someone like that. That MMO-addict who is pissing his life away on what constitutes a very mean trap designed to catch anyone with any number of a dozen different weaknesses, from gambling, to poor social skills, to "pull lever" reaction to completely empty accomplishment that nearly every person on earth is addicted to.

And if you don't know that guy I'm describing, guess what?

... I shouldn't have to finish that sentence, but this is the internet and emphasis is hard to recreate. YOU are that person.

So don't "fix" MMOs. Kill'em off. Honestly, these days I long for the afternoons I whiled away with 12 other guys on my N64, playing Perfect Dark or Diddy Kong Racing all in the same room

 

[geldonyetich]

My solution to MMORPG load balancing can be summed up in two words:

Dynamic Content.

Of course, dynamic content is yet another holy grail that MMORPG developers have yet to really leverage well.

 

[Virgil]

I suspect that the solution will end up being more how WoW and DDO are starting to adapt their dungeons, by adding in selectable difficulty levels. If these sorts of things were designed from the beginning to have both solo and group options (with bonuses for completing them as groups, of course), then the problem would work itself out.

People that want to do it for the loot and whatnot will spend the time to run them as groups, and people who just want to experience the content will forgo the rewards and do it on a solo difficulty level.

 

[vivadelkitty]

The force grouping quests are why I quit WoW and Aion even though I liked the idea of the latter( the massive grind for everything didn't help either.) I like the idea of a floating/changing mid area. It would probably be a bit more work to code but can essentially be tied to sliders for different areas with one slider for the whole game world for the early and late days of the MMOG.

Turbine has actually rennovated the entire level 1-50 line of Epic Quests. There's now a scaling buff that will allow players with the group quests to get increases to damage and health, and reduce incoming damage, effectively making them 'elite' players for the duration of the quests. It will also apply to some non-instanced quests, but there's more of a restriction there.

More information about the new system can be found here: http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/628-developer-diary-volume-1-revised-edition

Edit: This rennovation occured with the latest content update that launched this week.

I kind of like this idea. Maybe make it so that the player can't enter combat with another player while elite buffed, alter the experience rewards so that it becomes more like a normal non-elite quest, maybe add the choice to go elite and reduce the experience rewards or go find a group with the option to come back and pick up the buff if that player can't find a group.

Come on, devs! Get cracking!

The Turbine system actually detects how many players are in your group when you enter the quest instance or zone where the quest target is, and alters the buff accordingly. I know you can use Reflecting Pools to replay story instances in LotRO, not sure if you can redo them with a distinction between elite/non-elite though.

 

[Tarkand]

Heh, you're making a mountain out of an ant hill really.

Here's the problem with designing things for the newbie/lowbie: Eventually they won't be lowbie/newbie anymore. A strong end game and a strong 'newbie zone' (to grab people in) are infinitly more important than a strong mid-game.

Most people who plays MMORPG by now understand that the good stuff is at the end, so it's not like the mmo crowd is really expecting demanding for a change either.

I mean, WoW has millions of subscribers and love it or hate it, it's a financially successful juggernaut of staggering power and influence... and it has a TERRIBLE mid-game. Yes, they're trying to fix that with the new expansion, but ultimately, what people will end up doing is still raiding and arena.

I mean back when I played WoW and one of my guild mates would complain about being bored in Tanaris or Felwood, I'd tell him to keep leveling in a few week he'd be in Northrend anyway... and it was true, so... what's the big deal?

 

[John Funk]

Yes, the real answer is to just let MMOs stagnate, and with any luck, die. I've sounded off on this before, so you guys I know have nothing against the players in MMOs. You guys have your reasons, and that's fine. But the fact is that the entire business model of MMOs is reprehensible and from a game design standpoint it is completely intractable. WoW, as you might've heard in the last 5 years, is great at making MMOs less of a chore.

WOW is right. LESS of a chore. WoW. A game that a lot of gamer would never touch.

Think about that for a second. Think about that guy you know, who plays ten times as much as you do, gets angry at you if you miss a raid and pours over FAQs and loot tables. Every gamer knows someone like that. That MMO-addict who is pissing his life away on what constitutes a very mean trap designed to catch anyone with any number of a dozen different weaknesses, from gambling, to poor social skills, to "pull lever" reaction to completely empty accomplishment that nearly every person on earth is addicted to.

And if you don't know that guy I'm describing, guess what?

... I shouldn't have to finish that sentence, but this is the internet and emphasis is hard to recreate. YOU are that person.

So don't "fix" MMOs. Kill'em off. Honestly, these days I long for the afternoons I whiled away with 12 other guys on my N64, playing Perfect Dark or Diddy Kong Racing all in the same room

No.

Just because some jackhole can't moderate his own gaming habits - whether he's playing WoW, CoD4, the Sims, or obsessively cornering the market on eBay - doesn't mean that the millions of people who enjoy games like these in moderation aren't having a good time.

 

[Arkmagius]

I remember that MUDs (precursors to MMOs) often had a system of reincarnation. Once you reach a certain point, you can choose to start over. Doing so gives you various perks, and you leveled up faster. I think a few MMOs have added something like this, not sure (I've only played DDO, which has something close).

How it would work: get to 80 in WoW, choose to reincarnate, get a few minor permanent buffs and gain experience x times faster (x being current number of reincarnations) until you hit your previous level again. It allows a die-hard story fan to see the content they missed as well as the new stuff, while still providing incentive with the stat buffs for the raid guilds to do it. Each time they add a new expansion, as well as raising the level cap they also allow one more incarnation and add the associated buffs.

I think the best system I saw was in a MUD I can't remember the name of (that's long since gone) where every time you reincarnated you got to keep a very toned down version of some of your old character's abilities as 'memories of a past life'. They were not overpowered, but they were a huge boost in the beginning of a new life. Not to mention, a pure warrior with the ability to detect magic or traps is awesome. The original Mass Effect had a similar system, for a more modern example.

The alternative is level scaling, which is not ideal in most situations. If you scale the level 80 players down so they can fight with the level 30's, how do you handle their equipment? Their powers? If, say, paralyze isn't available at level 30, do you just drop it off their power bar? Do you change it to stun? Give monsters a higher save? What if the entire character is built around paralyzing, and the buffs/perks they chose don't transfer to stun? And with items, do you drop the accuracy? Armor class? Damage? The abilities? With the sheer amount of potential character builds, it'd be impossible to do it automatically.

DDO has an advantage, there. D&D is calculable, as long as they followed the rulebooks closely enough. You know that, say, a DC25 save should be a DC15, or this +5 Sword of Ominousness would be a +2 Sword of Minor Apprehension right now, or a Greater Rod of Copious Explosions should really be a Lesser Rod of Gently Expanding Hot Air.

 

[lluewhyn]

Ah, this is the article I've been waiting for for awhile, as I've been bitching about this issue nearly since I started playing LOTRO in Beta. They tried an alternate solution to the problem- give players rewards to helping other people complete their quests. However, I think the manner in which they implemented it was horrendous(it only applied to specific quests, you had to select the quest option BEFORE you helped someone complete the quest, etc.).

Once I saw the problem caused with Mines of Moria drawing the veteran players away from helping people complete quests in Volume One, I knew the problem was just going to get exponentially worse. I hope this new system really improves things to allow you to complete quests with smaller than recommended groups.

 

[Shujen]

Simple solution:

Get rid of leveling.

The idea that the wolves in THIS forest are ten times as deadly as the wolves in THAT forest is ridiculous. The idea that Villager #4 in Town #2 can beat up everybody in Town #1 one-handed, including the huge bully you needed a group to tackle, is insane. A top-level player can kill everybody else endlessly without breaking a sweat.

Forgetting what it means for group quests, it means also that 99% of all content in an MMO, no matter how huge the MMO is, is totally pointless to visit by a top-level player - especially if his equipment never gets lost, loses durability or is otherwise impermanent.

All zones should have something worthwhile for a top-level player, be it resources to exploit (trees that only grow in one area) or politics and commerce to exploit (logs that fetch a good price in one area).

There should be a plateau that is easy to get to, and that plateau should be extremely difficult to transcend, except by politics (clan/guild effort), and the rewards of such should be communal, not individual (a support network, not better gear).

I'm thinking UO, EVE and the upcoming MO. We need more sandbox MMOs.

 

[Crunchy English]

Yes, the real answer is to just let MMOs stagnate, and with any luck, die. I've sounded off on this before, so you guys I know have nothing against the players in MMOs. You guys have your reasons, and that's fine. But the fact is that the entire business model of MMOs is reprehensible and from a game design standpoint it is completely intractable. WoW, as you might've heard in the last 5 years, is great at making MMOs less of a chore.

WOW is right. LESS of a chore. WoW. A game that a lot of gamer would never touch.

Think about that for a second. Think about that guy you know, who plays ten times as much as you do, gets angry at you if you miss a raid and pours over FAQs and loot tables. Every gamer knows someone like that. That MMO-addict who is pissing his life away on what constitutes a very mean trap designed to catch anyone with any number of a dozen different weaknesses, from gambling, to poor social skills, to "pull lever" reaction to completely empty accomplishment that nearly every person on earth is addicted to.

And if you don't know that guy I'm describing, guess what?

... I shouldn't have to finish that sentence, but this is the internet and emphasis is hard to recreate. YOU are that person.

So don't "fix" MMOs. Kill'em off. Honestly, these days I long for the afternoons I whiled away with 12 other guys on my N64, playing Perfect Dark or Diddy Kong Racing all in the same room

No.

Just because some jackhole can't moderate his own gaming habits - whether he's playing WoW, CoD4, the Sims, or obsessively cornering the market on eBay - doesn't mean that the millions of people who enjoy games like these in moderation aren't having a good time.

I guess, approximately as much fun as you could have running a chat program and minesweeper at the same time. But my personal bias against MMOs aside, it isn't just some "jackhole", its a great many people. And when a significant number of people beginning ruining their lives, whether because of sinister marketing or some seriously lacking self-control, its time to either regulate or restrict. Gambling, is an excellent example.