But as for me and my house...

[starchildren3317]

If there is one thing that I believe much of the MMO Community can agree upon is that it is difficult to develop game that can please everyone. The risk of trying to do so can result in a game that feels uncommitted; one that tries to offer a balance of too many play styles and thus never truly excels at any one thing.

The one item that really sticks out to me and that shows up on most all MMO Community forums pre-launch is the ever exhausted debate between casual and hardcore players/content. I’ve been playing MMOs since the spring of 2000, perhaps not as long as some, but I have certainly been around the block long enough to see many of these trends in the industry. Likewise, I have played my fair share of MMOs – too many to probably remember every title that I have given a go.

Recently, I was playing the Diablo 3 beta and saw some game designs that I thought if implemented into an MMO could perhaps come closer to bridging the gap. One thing that I noticed from playing this, ‘soon to be released’, game is that encounters dynamically scale in difficulty depending on group size. So for example, I can log in and start playing the game right away, I don’t have to wait for anyone else to enjoy the game I am paying for; and if I wish, I can play the game completely solo. If friends of mine log in, I can invite them to my group, and instantly the encounters scale in challenge. The more people who join my group, the more challenging the encounter. So if my play style is group oriented, the game would support this as well.

To go along with this philosophy, the more challenging the encounter (the more people I have in my group), then the better chance at greater rewards. I worded it this way because I know that at first glance, those who prefer soloing might be put off by the fact that they would still have to group to get the best rewards. I don’t think this has to be the case, there could be a smaller chance for greater rewards while soloing. But certainly, the chance of greater rewards would go to those who take more risk. I think this design could fit well into the design philosophy in what we have read in Ryan’s latest blog, under Security, Risk and Reward.

[Nihimon]

starchildren3317 wrote:

The more people who join my group, the more challenging the encounter.

This works great for Theme Park content encounters, but I believe those are going to be a small minority. Is there a way that this kind of scaling can be applied to non-Theme Park encounters?

[KitNyx]

Nihimon wrote:

starchildren3317 wrote:

The more people who join my group, the more challenging the encounter.

This works great for Theme Park content encounters, but I believe those are going to be a small minority. Is there a way that this kind of scaling can be applied to non-Theme Park encounters?

To illustrate, many conflicts are going to be between groups of players, how would scaling work?

[Nihimon]

One possible area where this kind of scaling might make sense in non-Theme Park content would be in harvesting resources, or in crafting large structures and such. But in both of those cases, it seems like the scaling would only increase the effect, by allowing more to be harvested, or for the harvesting or crafting to occur more quickly.

I don't think there's anything that could be done to scale PvP encounters to try to make them "fair" that wouldn't also drive the players mad because they could never gain the upper hand in any encounter.

As for Theme Park content, I think it's an absolutely fantastic idea to have encounters that not only scale based on group size, but also based on the aggregate group level. I can see this being used to design a template for encounters, and then apply that template with random enemies and variable power levels to achieve a balanced encounter. I would also like to be able to have player preference modify this scaling somewhat, so that those who preferred could choose Easy Mode, and others could choose Hard Mode.

[starchildren3317]

When I think theme park, I think content-on-rails. A game design that takes you on a linear journey through the game world. Generally, players share the same experience from the beginning of their character's existence until 'end game'.

In traditional sandbox, the same experience isnt necessarily shared. Adventure is defined more by what kinds of content the player wants to consume rather than what is dictated within the confines of what is available at a given level.

In either case; however, PvE content could be scaled in risk vs reward, based on such parameters as party size. I hadn't explored the thought of taking this concept and applying it to harvesting/crafting but I could see gaining benefits from doing such in a group setting. As it applies to more traditional combat encounters, it wouldn't matter much if you were consuming this content in a theme-park or a sandbox.

[Nihimon]

I probably confused the matter by calling it Theme Park content. What I really meant was "developer-created content". I think there's going to be some of that, but not much, and almost certainly not enough to really keep you busy.

[KitNyx]

At a themepark you can decide to go ride the roller coaster...or the ferris wheel, or the water slide...in whatever order you like as many times as you want...but the rides they offer is all you will ever have access to.

I think it is important to not confuse themepark with linear...and contrary to wikipedia, sandbox does not mean free range (wikipedia states this, but you have to search for it...it is a bit misleading upon initial review).

A sandbox as defined by Ryan as persistent, I understood this to mean any change made to the world should be both visible as permanently alter the world for all players. While I agree with Ryan, for me, persistence is a by product of giving the players the freedom to change the world and this latter is what is important in defining a sandbox. The more freedom players have to alter the world, the more of a sandbox it is. In my opinion, changes that do not effect everyone are not really changes, so persistence is actually redundant.

If players are able to change the world, they are able to be the content for other players...this is a sandbox, player driven content versus the theme park which is all developer driven content.

But...this is only my opinion based on my understanding (and I am fairly old, so I might have some outdated opinions).

[Zidash]

My two cents? No scaling - ever.

Maybe you want a challenge and take on some PvE dragon with half as many people because you're stupid or confident - oh wait... nope.

Maybe we know the enemy faction is planning an attack but it's fine cause we've pulled on the stops to get everyone online to defend at once. They won't take us - oh wait... nope it's still 50/50 thanks to scaling.

[DarkLightHitomi]

I think the scaling is a good idea however it should include the ability to set your own "lvl" for the purpose of scaling the encounters. You can do this in city of heros, make things easier or harder by scaling to your difficulty selection.

The hard thing to balance is when you can kill anything with ease if you get first strike but always lose if not. When testing scale off and def seperatly to help make them fit better.