I’ve been thinking about MMOs a fair bit after committing to support the Pathfinder Kickstarter and I’ve played a LOT of them (Anarchy Online, Dungeons & Dragons Online, Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2, Aeon, Eve Online, the ubiquitous World of Warcraft, and a lot more). I thought I’d share some of my ideas – while I’m sure the designers think about these things in depth, for some reason many MMOs have struggled to implementation of mechanisms to achieve a fun but also satisfying endgame. I welcome any comments and feel free to personal message me.
Endgame
In most MMOs there are two phases of play – levelling and endgame. In the levelling phase the aim is usually to teach the player about the scope and lore of the world and introduce skills in a progressive way. It also allows them to trial different builds and playstyles in a non-committal way. This play can usually be done solo, but made easier by grouping. This levelling phase be short (e.g. Guild Wars 2) mid-range (WOW), or painfully long (Aeon).
Then at endgame the focus usually changes to other activities such as PvP or Raiding. I can think of very few MMOs where they have a satisfying solo endgame after the level cap is reached. Pathfinder Online (PO) looks like it will have the following endgame activities:
• PvP (Guild vs Guild control for land)
• Group PvE (Guild/Settlement vs Monster incursions), perhaps Dungeons/Raiding
• Trading and acquiring gold
• Developing crafting expertise
• Resource collection
• Settlement building and expansion
• Acquiring high level gear
Looking at the list, usually only the first three are focussed on by most MMOs, which is where PO stands out. Crafting is usually of little use in MMOs as it requires more resources to level than money can be made, and the best endgame items come from raid drops. Resource collection ends up being incredibly grindy and dominated by bots. Settlement building is missing from many MMOs (but it is not a new concept) and is likely to be the focus of the game. Acquiring high level gear is a metric for many people to feel like they are progressing/winning, but it generally does and should flow naturally from being successful in PvP, PvE, Trading, or Crafting.
In PO I’m not sure there will be a levelling phase as most skill training seems to be permanent. Also if it really based on Pathfinder RPG (PF), your stats will likely funnel you into a single class or couple of classes. The game is also supposed to be Sandbox not Theme Park out of the box, so it is likely that the game will be ‘endgame’ from day 1 outside the starting zone/training grounds.
Mechanism design
There is a reverse game theory concept that mechanism selection can dictate in game behaviour. There is a lot of opportunity in PO for social choice functions to be built in, but they will require sufficient payoffs to incentivise. One problem with MMOs is that mechanisms are built with a single solvable payoff such that all players are encouraged to act the same. While this can limit anti-social behaviours, it can also make everyone have to play the game the same way.
Alignment and Mechanism Design
The designers have decided to suggest a system where Alignment matters and that your actions towards other players typically determine your alignment. They are looking at using this system to discourage griefing, yet in a sandbox game where the main source of conflict/challenge is supposed to be player driven this has to be handled with care.
If LG alignment is a Dominant strategy (i.e. always better than CE) then no one who is playing the game optimally will be CE. If LG is a Bayes-Nash equilibrium (it is better to be LG so long as everyone you are working with is LG but that there is still some payoff to CE), then you will be able to achieve a mix of good and evil players. Personally I think facilitating a real social choice will make for a better game, although finding specific strategies to stop griefing will be important.
The way I have heard the alignment system discussed has stated only the benefits for being LG. I have heard a few good ideas for CE rewards, the best being to allow more items (or gold) to be taken from a killed player. I will discuss death penalties later, but in short I like this mechanic.
One idea I like would be to tie alignment benefits to your current guild size and party size. You could get bonuses to your skills based on synergy between your alignment and those you are working with that scale up or down depending on the number of individuals and their alignment. Lawful individuals would gain bonuses from being part of a large guild. Good individuals would gain bonuses from being in a party. Chaotic individuals would gain bonuses for the smaller their guild is or being guild-less. Evil individuals would gain bonuses when not grouped in a party. In this model the discriminating social function would be chosen by preferred playstyle rather than a dominating strategy (i.e. being part of a large LG guild).
PC Power Scaling, Time-based Levelling & Implications
PO is unconventional in that player level (skills) will not influence their efficacy as much as in other MMOs. For most MMOs, starting characters and high level character have an insurmountable power difference, but the aim in PO will have every real player matter from the beginning. In an interview I heard that roughly 5 starting level 1 PCs will match a highly skilled level 20 PC. This frankly astonishes me as a concept.
If I was running a guild (and I am), my aim will be to attract as many real players as possible from day 1. When the beta ends and the game launches I would have officers camped at the starting zones trying to grab every new body that comes in (as will everyone else). Who cares if you have a tight guild of 50 experienced beta players if anyone can grab 1000 newbies and PvP their guild into the ground. Actually I suspect everyone will and new players will be guild spammed from the second they logon.
Personally I like the idea of new players feeling like they can have an impact, even against expert players, but a mere 5 to 1 ratio gives very little reward to actually play the game. It is also against the very theme of Pathfinder, where you go from being a level 1 goblin-killing nobody to a level 20 dragon-killing legend. MMOs are all about progression, and I’m not sure whether this progression curve is enough to be satisfying.
If the PO designers are committed to the raw 5 to 1 ratio based on skills, perhaps they intend for a similar ratio to be granted on top of this by having top level gear. Otherwise your players just sit in a town and wait for their skills to automatically go up and go crazy with guild recruitment.
No Grind…I’m confused!
The opening statement in PO says ‘no grinding’ – to describe that the time taken since starting is the governing feature of how powerful your character becomes in terms of skills rather than play time or repetitive in-game activities. Thus the reason why anyone who plays this game should be trying to get into the open beta as they will have a permanent skill advantage that no new player will ever be able to catch up to. Time based levelling also encourages multiple accounts and alts, which may be a planned revenue source for PO (see Pay to Win).
In terms of in game play, if you do not need to do anything to skill up (other than get ‘achievements’ that require no grind apparently), what are you supposed to be doing? I’m assuming the achievements will be relatively simple to get as part of normal play, or else the achievements will be basically the new grind.
Many MMOs adopted the grind (or treadmill) as it replaces player skill (reaction time, aiming, tactical ability) in determining superiority and allows unskilled players the potential to be the best based on time investment. From the Goblinworks interviews it seems like they don’t want reaction time and player skill to be a major determinant of who wins a combat encounter (no Guild Wars 2 style rolling and positioning I expect). So who wins a combat encounter if player skill and time actively playing the game do not contribute towards your power level? The group with the most players I guess.
In games like EVE Online, money and gear (i.e. your ship and how it is outfitted) is everything. There is not a 5 to 1 ratio of power between your starting ship and the big monster ships that top players own. And to get that gear you better bet there is some serious grinding. I suspect PO will also need to make gear make a massive difference as an intrinsic game mechanic.
The Crafting/Building Grind
It seems like the best gear is gotten in PO by crafting, and to craft you need to have access to crafters (who will need to get achievements by presumably crafting low level items from basic materials), recipes, and settlements of increasing size. Thus the intrinsic mechanism of the endgame is intended to drive a majority of players towards building increasingly large settlements, crafting buildings, and supporting players skilling up their crafting. With Destiny’s Twin, I suspect all beta players will have at least one alt who specializes in a craft.
Gaining resources and building structures cannot be passive and time based as skill acquisition already is. Otherwise you would just log in once a day to queue your next building order and skill and log off and let the game play itself.
The challenge will to be make the grind that comes with collecting and transporting resources as well as building new structures fun (and not easily done by a Chinese gold farmer).
Pay to Win
Let’s make this clear – like all real gamers I HATE pay to win and avoid all pay to win games. Pay to win breaks the Pareto efficiency curve and allows you to buy options that are intrinsically better and more powerful than those available to everyone else. I refuse to play any game with this mechanism.
Some of the Kickstarter add-ons concern me with their capacity to be Pareto efficiency disruptive (buying equipment packs) so hopefully their advantage will be transient and small. Actually, getting a 9 months head-start on a time-based skill system game is probably the most Pay to Win thing I’ve ever heard, hence the reason why they are trying to make skills not dramatically affect a character’s power level. The Kickstarter daily items seem completely Pay-to-Win. I think they were an incredibly poor decision to implement and the Shieldmate concept seems like a feeble attempt to mitigate this by sharing them around.
Ignoring the Kickstarter, I see major issues for PO as a Sandbox game and Pay to Win. One thing that puts me off about EVE online is that for $30 or so you can buy a BILLION ISK from a gold farmer. How is that not Pay-to-Win? The only real limitation is that the best ships require a combination of real world time and ISK to fly. The point is, whenever you have a transferable resource then people will trade it for real money. Games like WOW get around this by having the best equipment only be gotten by raids and gotten as actual drops (bind on pickup) and cannot be traded.
For a Sandbox game, one solution is to have a second resource other than money that cannot be traded or purchased that is dependent on play. I suggest something like “Karma Points” that are gotten by killing enemies (PvP or PvE), crafting, exploring, or harvesting resources. These could be required to Soulbind items to you before they can be used, and could scale with the power of the item. This makes so much sense I’d be surprised if some mechanic like this wasn’t built in.
That said, I encourage them not to allow Karma Points to be bought in store with Real World Money (RWM) as this makes the game Pay to Win again. Don’t allow RWM let you craft better, harvest faster, accumulate skill points faster over time or ANYTHING LIKE THAT. Look for revenue streams that give options that affect appearance and not efficacy (weapon and armor skins, clothing, haircuts, mini-pets). Otherwise you are just breaking your game.
Satisfying PvP
There are two types of PvP – balanced and unbalanced. In balanced PvP both sides are given approximately even resources and are set to battle it out. Battlegrounds in WOW have the same number of people on each side. In Warhammer tabletop, armies are made from the same number of points. Etcetera. The main determinant here is usually skill in terms of individual player ability, team composition, strategy/tactics, and co-ordination. In unbalanced PvP both sides are intrinsically unbalanced in terms of raw power or numbers. In Sandbox games (like EVE), PvP is usually unbalanced.
I’m interested how you will design PvP on a large scale in a Sandbox world to be satisfying. In an unbalanced PvP model just comes down usually to resources – who has the most troops wins (particularly if high level and low level characters do not have a large power difference). This is never satisfying.
Having battles over settlements is also a challenge. It can’t be easy to take over another settlement otherwise the first large guilds will dominate the world by predating on the smaller settlements or demanding tribute. Also most people aren’t on 24 hours a day so you need to find ways in a persistent world to prevent everyone logging on a 5am and blitzing a rival city when no one is around.
One solution is requiring siege weapons which take time to move and where settlements can buy NPC scouts that will give them some advance warning they will be laid siege to. This way guilds can muster their forces to all be on to defend. I’ll be interested to see how it will be handled.
Player ganking needs to be controlled once it crosses the line into griefing. But you want CE alignment to be a playable possibility, ganking has to be possible and in fact rewarded to some extent. How ‘safe zones’ are implemented will have a big influence on the game. Some players hate all PvP and being ganked, particularly if they are only interested in something like crafting. There needs to be mechanisms in place for non-combat focused builds to defend themselves. In an interview I heard it asked – can a shopkeeper hire an NPC to stand in the store and protect them? These concepts need to be carefully thought about. The effects of ganking will also be influenced by the Death Penalty.
Death Penalties
Early games had very harsh Death Penalties but most MMOs have adopted the idea that death is a trivial occurrence. Personally I dislike this mechanic and it is also counter to the Pathfinder roleplaying game where death is significant and sometimes final. That said, most MMOs can experimented with a range of penalties including”
• A loss of experience that can or cannot be recovered by returning to your corpse.
• A loss of gold or items that can or cannot be recovered by returning to your corpse.
• A period where the character acts at less than peak efficiency.
• A period where the character cannot play until they respawn.
• Respawning at a distant save point (inconvenienced in time to return).
• Permanent death.
From the Kickstarter, it sounds like people are ‘marked’ and will all come to life again as soon as they are killed and will also respawn at a soul bound point (an add-on seems to give you two possible points you can respawn). My preference would be for Permanent Death that can be avoided by use of purchasing of a scroll of resurrection (you respawn 24 hours later in a town you purchased the scroll in). Others can also pay for you to be resurrected in game. But I also enjoy Dark Souls.
Permanent death with no chance of revival is terrible for any online game (see Diablo 3 Hardcore Mode) as lag and connection issues can place the outcome beyond your control.
I would like to see death matter more in an MMO so loss of any gold or items you have on you when you die would be fantastic. For high level items this may be devastating, so one solution would be to have a one-shot enchantment (requiring crafting and materials) be castable on soulbound items allowing them to be returned upon your resurrection. This would incentivise PvP on a small scale and also encouraging a robust banking and crafting economy.
That said, the harsher the death penalties the less likely players will be bold and explore and the more casual gamers will likely rage quit. So I suspect death will be trivial. Mechanistically though, if you make experience, gold, items, and life completely protected and buildings not protected it actually incentivizes griefing by destroying player settlements as it is the only way you can really hurt someone.
Economy
I like the idea that PO will have a dynamic economy and that players can be traders or even auctioneers. This implies there may be no centralized auction house though. If there is an auction house, will it be single one (for all settlements) or be region will there be multiple settlement specific auction houses? Will they need to be built as structures? Will players be able to move things between settlements as ‘traders’ for profit? If so, is there a risk that they can be attacked and have goods stolen by NPCs or PCs? These are key gameplay issues that games like EVE online have had to grapple with.
Banking is another issue – will there be banking as a player or NPC service? Will settlements need to build them? This is extremely important if you can lose things when you die that you have on you.
Travel
I thought I’d end by questioning the travel mechanism for PO. Some games have a quick travel system (usually paid) and its accessibility dramatically changes the gameplay. WOW had the hearthstone system and portals, even if you had to spend 10 minutes flying between flight points. Guild Wars 2 has a rapid transit system that means you can pretty much instantly get anywhere you have been before.
I have mixed feelings about rapid transport. It is very much against the Pathfinder RPG, where high level magic is required. It also takes me out of the emersion of a world if I can blink anywhere. But running/flying back and forth for hours is also a form of grind (perhaps the worst grind imaginable) and can get very tedious very fast.
Alright, this has taken me an hour to write and probably too long for anyone to read.
That said I like thinking about how game design influence game play so I enjoyed thinking this stuff through.
