Adding Uberness to MMOs

[chargerrich]

I was reading the Tabula Rasa thread where due to the ending of the game, they are letting everyone become massively uber early with epic weapons, armor and 2000% xp gains. While I did not play TR after the first 30 days, I did experience the same thing when AC2 closed down (ah the eggs, still have finger cramps from all the clicking).

But it made me wonder why devs/studios do not make a game where you can become very powerful like this early in the game (perhaps not quit that easy, but very easy nonetheless).

Do not get me wrong, I understand the logic behind the proverbial dangling of a carrot, the longer you take to level and achieve the longer you stay subscribed. And there is also the problem of characters out pacing the content, so devs fall back on artificial speed bumps and long grinds to keep people in check. But

I will not argue against this model, but I have to think that there is a market for a game to let you become a badass very early in favor of another mechanic. I would hazard a guess that a not insignificant number of people sub to a game, play for a few months, realize they cannot keep up with the poopsockers and quit. How about a game that evens this out a bit while still providing end game challenges? Let me explain.

Warhammer would have been a great example of this, let the player level to max EASILY and get above average near epic quality gear early. WAR was never really designed as a PVE game like WOW so let the character breeze through those levels and get attached to the character. Now once you reach max PVE level (40 in WAR) then add tons of PVP mechanics and content to keep people playing. This could potentially rival the sub retention of the current treadmill model by making you INVESTED in your now legendary/epic character.

I mean are you not less likely to quit if you have a killer epic'd character? Plus when you get bored and take a break (like we all do) it is easy to come back and level a new character quickly to try a new class, new abilities, et al.

WOW is starting to see this to a degree but I am not sure WOW would be the perfect game for this mechanic. A super hero game that also emphasized PVP would do well with this model.

I just think that all MMO developers tend to follow the path of proven success and for good reason. However that does not mean that are not better ways to make game more enjoyable for the consumer while still protecting your sub base.

[DraconianOne]

Like Guild Wars you mean?

[Draegan]

Out of your 56 posts how many of them have been used to start threads?

[chargerrich]

Out of your 56 posts how many of them have been used to start threads?

I have no idea, did I break some post/respond ratio unbeknownced to me? Please point me to that rule and I will do my best to maintain that ratio.

A better question would be, does answering this question in my own post count to lower said ratio? 

I am no expert, but I would think that posting a longer thoughtout question on a subject that interests me and I believe others, would be reacted upon more favorably than responding to said post with an off topic question that seems to be targeted at causing drama. 

But again I am no expert.

[Slayerik]

Out of your 56 posts how many of them have been used to start threads?

The perfect reply here.

Hats off to you.

[HaemishM]

Draegan is probably just pointing out that this is a discussion that's been hashed out many many times on many of these forums. It might also fit better under Game Design and Development.

But to answer your question of WHY... because most devs and the lead designer/producers who control them are unoriginal little shits still trying to recreate the perfect D&D game from when they were 12.

[kildorn]

So is your intent to be max level quickly/not deal with level based systems, or to feel powerful?

Because the two are entirely separate on a design level.

[Draegan]

If you're curious go search through the WAR threads, there was actually a serious discussion on it somewhere before MJ griefed us with his presence.

[Stormwaltz]

IIRC, people could reach the level cap of AC2 in a couple of weeks.

They got bored and quit.

[Signe]

Out of your 56 posts how many of them have been used to start threads?

For the sake of pedants everywhere: 8.

[Mrbloodworth]

Sliding Scale.

[chargerrich]

IIRC, people could reach the level cap of AC2 in a couple of weeks.

They got bored and quit.

Incorrect... I played AC and then AC2 and the grind was horrible. Took me the better part of 5 months to reach level 50 (cap). I remember it as a hellish grind, at least as compared to most of today's MMOs.

[Nerf]

When I used to play lineage 2 private (hacked, free) servers, there were quite a few that were very popular and had just this.  Uber weapons, 10000x xp/loot/etc drops.  It never really appealed to me, when I played l2 I would grind to the top, pvp for awhile, and then get bored and quit.

[Rasix]

IIRC, people could reach the level cap of AC2 in a couple of weeks.

They got bored and quit.

Incorrect... I played AC and then AC2 and the grind was horrible. Took me the better part of 5 months to reach level 50 (cap). I remember it as a hellish grind, at least as compared to most of today's MMOs.

You were doing it wrong. 

Perching + buggy monster pathing + quest exploitation ftw.

[Salamok]

Out of your 56 posts how many of them have been used to start threads?

For the sake of pedants everywhere: 8.

meaningless if you don't also count the posts where he is responding to a post that he created.

[Ratman_tf]

It could be fasta. Tabula Rasa is a good example. I didn't even know there were different versions of the chaingun, pistol, etc... weapons until they started dropping as uber loot.

[LC]

IIRC, people could reach the level cap of AC2 in a couple of weeks.

They got bored and quit.

I remember exploiting the shitty mob pathing, and hitting the cap in the first week or so after release. Those tyrants that got stuck on small bumps in the terrain were awesome.

[LC]

You were doing it wrong. 

Perching + buggy monster pathing + quest exploitation ftw.

Don't forget the people who afk leveled using turrets.

[Xuri]

Stuff

Didn't UO do all of what you describe years and years ago? It wasn't that hard maxing your skills, and you could easily buy player-crafted armor-sets that were of equal quality of what 80% (*pulls random number out of a hat*) of the other players were wearing. It wasn't even all that hard to get hold of the super-duper accurate weapons of supreme player vanquishing, though most people would just keep them in the bank and use GM-quality player-crafted weapons.

[UnSub]

I'm remembering UO as the game where everyone macroed to max skill level. Perhaps I was misled.

[Rake]

IIRC, people could reach the level cap of AC2 in a couple of weeks.

They got bored and quit.

I think those first few weeks were the best that the game ever had. It was when they nurfed the hell out of chars that many decided to quit. I was more or less done when they scrubbed runcasting.

Being too powerful would get old eventually. But in a lot of games that overpowered feeling is what everyone is striving to reach.
Maybe if there is more to the game than just reaching a certain level of power then retention could be kept just by enjoying the fun.

[Tale]

I think you're all looking at this the wrong way.

The games like AC2 where people reached max level and quit due to boredom, lacked engaging endgames.

The games like EQ1 and WoW which people have played forever, had endgames that hooked people. EQ1 had a single endgame (catass raiding), WoW has multiple endgames (catass raiding, small team raiding, battlegrounds, endless questing, or endless trading - OK EQ1 had some of those, but the implementation sucked so for most it was raid or quit).

I quit EQ1 because I hated putting time into long, boring levels and flags every time an expansion came out, to qualify for the fun stuff. I quit WoW because Burning Crusade required me to grind long, boring keys etc, to qualify for the fun teamwork (I know that has changed, but my life has moved on).

I also quit SWG at the Combat Upgrade (CU) when they added a levelling grind to qualify for the good stuff, because I had been playing crafting for PvP as an endgame, and I now needed to spend ages re-qualifying for a lesser version of what I had already mastered. I didn't play UO,  but I gather it had the same kind of endgames as SWG (i.e. everything except catass raiding).

OF COURSE people quit if there's nothing to do after a quick levelling grind. But if WoW or EQ1 had ultra-fast levelling and then offered people the same long, complex endgames we know them for, what difference would it make? I think 90% of the time people have spent on those games came AFTER max level.

If there are complex, engaging endgame paths to follow, slow levelling is a useless annoyance.

[Mrbloodworth]

lacked engaging endgames.

Endgames are a flaw in the body of a game.

[Nebu]

IIRC, people could reach the level cap of AC2 in a couple of weeks.

They got bored and quit.

They got bored and quit because the game had a) almost no end game content worth playing, b) what content it had was pretty lackluster, and c) the game had no replay value because so many of the class trees were borked.

[WindupAtheist]

Not that I ever played it, but from everything I heard Shadowbane would have been better off if there were no leveling at all. Same with WAR. If it's not a PVE game, why make them do PVE?

[Malakili]

lacked engaging endgames.

Endgames are a flaw in the body of a game.

If there is no end game in an MMO the maximum amount of content is simply: length of time to reach max level X number of classes, and thats assuming people want to play every class.

Does not seem like a way to keep people around for years unless you can somehow pump out content at a truly miraculous rate.

[Sky]

If there is no end game in an MMO the maximum amount of content is simply: length of time to reach max level X number of classes, and thats assuming people want to play every class.

Does not seem like a way to keep people around for years unless you can somehow pump out content at a truly miraculous rate.

Hey, look there's a forest. Stop looking at the trees.

Maybe the problem is mmo has become a level-driven system that most people want to jet through as soon as possible to get to the end-game content? I've been playing EQ2 since launch and never come close to the end-game, and there's tons of content. Aren't there enough games following the tired old formula of grind asap to the cap and raid?

Of course, I actually read the quests and like exploring things without a map.

I'd say the problem is half the system, half the players.

[Threash]

Theres a small flaw with that plan.

[IainC]

lacked engaging endgames.

Endgames are a flaw in the body of a game.

If there is no end game in an MMO the maximum amount of content is simply: length of time to reach max level X number of classes, and thats assuming people want to play every class.

Does not seem like a way to keep people around for years unless you can somehow pump out content at a truly miraculous rate.

Ideally the 'end game' would start as soon as you'd finished the tutorial.

[Mrbloodworth]

lacked engaging endgames.

Endgames are a flaw in the body of a game.

If there is no end game in an MMO the maximum amount of content is simply: length of time to reach max level X number of classes, and thats assuming people want to play every class.

Does not seem like a way to keep people around for years unless you can somehow pump out content at a truly miraculous rate.

Ideally the 'end game' would start as soon as you'd finished the tutorial.

Nice! *adds to list*

[Sheepherder]

It's a pretty fucking simple concept: people tend to level grind like mad until the endgame, scarcely paying attention to the content.  When they reach the endgame, there isn't much content and what exists is a wall of cockblock.  Decrease the amount of game devoted to level grinding because people aren't paying attention anyways, and increase the amount of quality content where people are more likely to pay attention, then you can ease off the cockblock at the endgame because there is more content to exhaust.

[Merusk]

It's a pretty fucking simple concept: people tend to level grind like mad until the endgame, scarcely paying attention to the content.  When they reach the endgame, there isn't much content and what exists is a wall of cockblock.  Decrease the amount of game devoted to level grinding because people aren't paying attention anyways, and increase the amount of quality content where people are more likely to pay attention, then you can ease off the cockblock at the endgame because there is more content to exhaust.

This would be lovely and make more sense in a lore-centric world, too.  Using WoW, you hear about the big threat of Darkmaster Gandling, but then wonder why the level 68 elite guards can't just go in and rape his ass.  He's only level 20.

  If all mobs were at the same power curve, then you have whole swaths of lore to explore and each threat is still able to be seen as a threat, instead of "oh fuck I'll just outlevel this and come back to it."

  I hope someone does it sometime, though I will miss my level grind.. something soothing about it. 

[WindupAtheist]

Theres a small flaw with that plan.

That's everyone a few months after the game comes out anyway.

[Morat20]

Ideally the 'end game' would start as soon as you'd finished the tutorial.

That seems to be the general thrust of most FATE-based games, as best I can tell. Spirit of the Century certainly works that way. You start at max level, with all your cool stuff.

What's the point otherwise?

Not sure that translates well into computer games, though. SotC is all about story and character.

[UnSub]

The question is: if you take away leveling, what replaces it as a progression / reward structure? Players love ding gratz for a reason.