War December Newsletter + Looks like it's coming to a console

[Venkman]

It would be easier to have these discussion if he could unwrap the spurned-paparazzi feel to his posts.

What I think would be nice is if part of that RvR structure built in military units instead of group units.. Have a commmander spot (as eldaec mentioned) and then tiered spots down with a bottom rank and file. You earn the ability to be put into those slots from your contribution as a character in previous RvR, but you are elected, not auto assigned... Does that make sense

This makes sense and would be good. There is a core challenge though, one I think is the foundation of why current systems are as they are:

Everyone pays the same monthly fee. As such, they theoretically have the same opportunity at every bit of game content as anyone else. When players are allowed to make their own rules though, and have those support by the game system itself, it has the potential (not fact) of permanently closing portions of the game off to other players. This currently happens already of course, but that's more a result of players not having the lifestyles appropriate to accessing the whole game, and not something specifically defined by the company. They probably legally couldn't without offering a tiered pricing scheme.

So for a feature like you discuss to work, the game has to offer concrete ways for players to move in and out of tiered leadership roles. Voting isn't the best way in a military application like you discuss, but there are models that could be used. It would also be important to bracket such systems so that those who always dominant don't have a complete and arbitrary lock on the higher ranks. The company would almost need to develop a system whereby the current encounter scales to whoever has become the current Battle Leader. For example:

• Uber Battle: Two teams, 20 on 20. The matchmaking service puts together the groups for the encounter appropriately. 1 player from each is automagically elected leader, with ranks decending from there as appropriate. Battle commences, goes on, ends. It's all reset.
• Newb Battle: Same thing as Uber, except the Leaders are chosen from a set of newbs. This way, even casual/newbs can access the uber abilities. Ubers wouldn't likely have a problem with that because those abilities are only used in the encounter anyway.

This would minimize the carp that happens in WoW where one side is a pickup group and the other is a premade on voice IP :)

[Nebu]

Perhaps a better way to assign leadership would be randomly by default with the ability to override the random selection within a group.  Allow people to accrue leadership by having success while acting as the leader. Give leadership abilities for attaining points while in the leadership roles. 

It's very possible to award abilities without skewing outcomes too much.  Even in the older DAoC model it's very possible for a skilled low realm rank group to win against much higher realm rank opponents.  Leadership would just offer a specific skill tree for players to climb and offer a carrot in the form of ability diversity.   

[HRose]

You are not "designing" and will never "design" anything. Stop talking like that. You can't even design a coherent post.

Excuse me sir, people can write about game design?

There's a difference between good and bad game design, and I'm not saying mine is in either of the two categories.

But, oh, that doesn't make it any less than, well, game design.

I didn't know we can consider "game design" only mechanics already coded into a game.

[HRose]

Perhaps a better way to assign leadership would be randomly by default with the ability to override the random selection within a group.  Allow people to accrue leadership by having success while acting as the leader. Give leadership abilities for attaining points while in the leadership roles.

Why is that a problem? Even in DAoC leadership has never been a problem even if the game gives zero support to a "leader". There are people that naturally love those roles and already play it without any support. Adding legitimation would just make things better.

In my idea you unblock PvP ranks by playing. Obviously leaders are veteran players who unblocked that rank, so it's not distant from your idea.

It's very possible to award abilities without skewing outcomes too much.  Even in the older DAoC model it's very possible for a skilled low realm rank group to win against much higher realm rank opponents.  Leadership would just offer a specific skill tree for players to climb and offer a carrot in the form of ability diversity.   

Oh, come on. If the gap is tiny, then yes you may win. But 4-5 ranks of difference in DAoC give an advantage that isn't negligible.

Reduce them, and the achievement would feel bland and pointless, make it stronger and PvP would feel unbalanced. More than trying to find a magical formula I was just trying to find alternative solutions.

[squirrel]

You are not "designing" and will never "design" anything. Stop talking like that. You can't even design a coherent post.

Excuse me sir, people can write about game design?

There's a difference between good and bad game design, and I'm not saying mine is in either of the two categories.

But, oh, that doesn't make it any less than, well, game design.

I didn't know we can consider "game design" only mechanics already coded into a game.

The point being that 'design' without implementation is irrelevant. I could 'design' a flying car but if the theoretical is never tested in the practical sense then it's absolutely worthless. So no, you haven't really designed anything because your ideas exist outside of any practical context. Design is about the elegant achievement of a goal within environmental constraints. Your abstracts don't do this ergo they are not designs at all, they're theories at best.

[HRose]

The point being that 'design' without implementation is irrelevant. I could 'design' a flying car but if the theoretical is never tested in the practical sense then it's absolutely worthless. So no, you haven't really designed anything because your ideas exist outside of any practical context. Design is about the elegant achievement of a goal within environmental constraints. Your abstracts don't do this ergo they are not designs at all, they're theories at best.

Okay, from now on I'll use "design theory" in place of "design". Does it make you happy?

I like how everyone is much more interested to comment the drama, or trolling me, when I'm supposed to be the only one who is here for that purpose.

[squirrel]

The point being that 'design' without implementation is irrelevant. I could 'design' a flying car but if the theoretical is never tested in the practical sense then it's absolutely worthless. So no, you haven't really designed anything because your ideas exist outside of any practical context. Design is about the elegant achievement of a goal within environmental constraints. Your abstracts don't do this ergo they are not designs at all, they're theories at best.

Okay, from now on I'll use "design theory" in place of "design". Does it make you happy?

I like how everyone is much more interested to comment the drama, or trolling me, when I'm supposed to be the only one who is here for that purpose.

You lead a dull life if you call this drama. You can call your ideas whatever you like, the point is you have NO access to a game engine or code and therefore NO ability to understand the constraints that a true designer faces. Your ideas are just that - ideas. Much like my ideas on flying cars they are completely unfounded in reality.

Further, the reason you get this kind of feedback is that you position yourself as if you were an established designer who knows what it takes to ship a AAA title. You don't. You're not.

[Righ]

I like how everyone is much more interested to comment the drama, or trolling me, when I'm supposed to be the only one who is here for that purpose.

You wear the victim dress well, regina. Hyu could probably where to find some kick-ass shoes to go with it.

[HRose]

Further, the reason you get this kind of feedback is that you position yourself as if you were an established designer who knows what it takes to ship a AAA title.

That's in your brain.

I position myself as everyone else on this forum. If I ever worked on a game or not is irrelevant as what matters is that we are equals talking about games.

Who I am is irrelevant, what I write is relevant. I'm interested in what is being said, I don't judge from the color of the name.

[damijin]

I like HRose.

I rarely read his posts, but I'm pretty sure his GWAM is like a world record or something. Have you seen the average length of the posts on cesspit? Someone needs to just hire him to transcribe things into text. He could probably write a few e-books per day.

[Fargull]

Everyone pays the same monthly fee. As such, they theoretically have the same opportunity at every bit of game content as anyone else. When players are allowed to make their own rules though, and have those support by the game system itself, it has the potential (not fact) of permanently closing portions of the game off to other players. This currently happens already of course, but that's more a result of players not having the lifestyles appropriate to accessing the whole game, and not something specifically defined by the company. They probably legally couldn't without offering a tiered pricing scheme.

So for a feature like you discuss to work, the game has to offer concrete ways for players to move in and out of tiered leadership roles. Voting isn't the best way in a military application like you discuss, but there are models that could be used. It would also be important to bracket such systems so that those who always dominant don't have a complete and arbitrary lock on the higher ranks. The company would almost need to develop a system whereby the current encounter scales to whoever has become the current Battle Leader. For example:

• Uber Battle: Two teams, 20 on 20. The matchmaking service puts together the groups for the encounter appropriately. 1 player from each is automagically elected leader, with ranks decending from there as appropriate. Battle commences, goes on, ends. It's all reset.
• Newb Battle: Same thing as Uber, except the Leaders are chosen from a set of newbs. This way, even casual/newbs can access the uber abilities. Ubers wouldn't likely have a problem with that because those abilities are only used in the encounter anyway.

This would minimize the carp that happens in WoW where one side is a pickup group and the other is a premade on voice IP :)

The everyone pays the same plays the same is the rub, but I know I would not pay to play a game that someone else could pay more to be given options above me (though one could easily point to the "Gold / Platinum / Special Eidtion content as being part of that...).

I like where the discussion is going.  If the commander roll was more of a sit on a hill top and run the strat it might be a better notion instead of them just rolling across chat and such.  Perhaps have a tent or post for both sides (which of course could be infiltrated or sacked) that the commander character would use charts and other topical devices to control various aspects at the strat level.  I really wish this conversation could be outside of the soap box arena the thread has devolved into though...

[Nebu]

Is there a reason that game developers don't have a server or two that limits online time for a reduced fee?  This seems like the ideal solution for more casual play.  If players pay a smaller fee for a fixed amount of online time per month, then advancement will be limited and equal for all. 

Maybe this is a naive assumption on my part, but it seems like a simple way to cater to a more casual playerbase.

[damijin]

In Korea there are "casual" Lineage and L2 servers where you are limited by how much you can play, and I think those may be the same servers with harsher pvp restrictions. Not sure though.

Of course in China and now in Vietnam (according to Raph's blog), they have hard caps imposed by the government on how much a person can play. But I'm going to go ahead and assume you'd rather not live under communism to feel like your MMORPG experience is "fair".

Also, I don't know if those L1/L2 servers are cheaper than the normal ones. I doubt it since over there most people play through cafe's and I think (but don't know) that cafe's charge flat fees to use the computer, and don't care what game or what server you play on. I'd need someone who's visited South Korea to let me know on that one though~

[Righ]

While the idea is meritous, and its fairly trivial to implement, are there enough people who would want to play on a server which allowed you to play a pre-set number of hours. For one person, ten hours a week might be considered casual, for another person, that might be a lot of time. I know if there were such an experiment in a game I was playing and it was a couple of hours a week, I'd make a character there as well as on my regular server. I'd then proceed to use knowledge from playing on my regular server to be as efficient as I could in the 'casual' server... which would upset the apple cart for the true casual players. :)

[HRose]

1 player from each is automagically elected leader, with ranks decending from there as appropriate.

Why do you believe that randomly picking leaders is better than letting players decide their leaders?

This happens today all the time. In guild there are guild and raid leaders, in PvP there are raid leaders. I've never seen people creating much trouble when deciding who leads.

I actually thinks that picking random leaders would create even more problems and drama. There are MANY players who don't even aspire being leaders, so why force them?

[tazelbain]

Let the players self-select commanders.  Let any player declare them self to be a commander and let other players join if they feel that person is good and leave if they don't like them.  As more people join their army and the longer the army exists, the more powers the commander gets. If people leave the commanders powers decay.  Maybe give commanders in the underdog team access to more/better npcs to counter balance the zerg.

[Nebu]

Why do you believe that randomly picking leaders is better than letting players decide their leaders?

Because often ego > ability.  Random overrides this.  If the players wish to change the leader, a mechanism may exist to do that.  This is why random seems the best default, at least to me.

[HRose]

While the idea is meritous, and its fairly trivial to implement, are there enough people who would want to play on a server which allowed you to play a pre-set number of hours. For one person, ten hours a week might be considered casual, for another person, that might be a lot of time. I know if there were such an experiment in a game I was playing and it was a couple of hours a week, I'd make a character there as well as on my regular server. I'd then proceed to use knowledge from playing on my regular server to be as efficient as I could in the 'casual' server... which would upset the apple cart for the true casual players. :)

Yeah, it would rig the progress just toward certain playing styles without really solving much. For one, it would encourage EVEN MORE min/maxing and powerplaying.

This was an idea in DAoC for a very long time. They finally made a poll and only very few players were interested, so it was never done. The better idea wasn't to cap "time", but "progress". So that you could take all the time you need without racing to the max, at the same time playing as much as you want without seeing the screen going black because you are "out of time".

But, even that, doesn't really solve anything if not the initial race as a server opens. What about new players that aren't there the minute the server opens? What if I buy the game one year later?

Let the players self-select commanders.  Let any player declare them self to be a commander and let other players join if they feel that person is good and leave if they don't like them.  As more people join their army and the longer the army exists, the more powers the commander gets. If people leave the commanders powers decay.  Maybe give commanders in the underdog team access to more/better npcs to counter balance the zerg.

Yeah, that's how things happen already, without any problem. The difference of the system should be that leaders also gain special powers, as well the other players through other ranks/roles.

[squirrel]

Is there a reason that game developers don't have a server or two that limits online time for a reduced fee?  This seems like the ideal solution for more casual play.  If players pay a smaller fee for a fixed amount of online time per month, then advancement will be limited and equal for all. 

Maybe this is a naive assumption on my part, but it seems like a simple way to cater to a more casual playerbase.

I think there's a couple issues with this idea.

Essentially you'd be changing the model from a subscription to a per/hour charge - with restricted access to hours. So instead of $14.99 a month for unlimited access you'd be charging $10.00 a month for 20 hours. Or $0.50 an hour. The issue i see on the publishers side is that there is really no incentive to do this. People who are only going to play 20 hours a month anyway are better sources of revenue at $14.99 a month than people who are going to play 160 hours - they cost less to service for the same amount of revenue.

On the consumer side there's a problem with self identification. I might be a casual player (say 8 hours a week) for several months. At some point however that may change, I may have more free time or fewer commitments and want to start playing 20 hours a week, but I'd be unable to do that under this model.

Still the idea of moving to a per/hour service as opposed to a monthly sub is interesting. If WoW cost $0.25 for every hour played (probably with a minimum monthly payment of $2.99 or something) that might be an interesting situation. I could see that achieving what your suggesting but I can't see any incentive in it for Blizzard really, although you'd have to analyze actual sub rates vs. usage to make any sensible decision.

EDIT: Actually it wouldn't help the casual playerbase in terms of equalizing the field in terms of achievement - only a progress 'cap' could do that. What it would do though is limit the conflict of hardcore vs. casual content. Casual players would no longer feel like they were paying for content that only a small minority got access to.

[HRose]

Because often ego > ability.  Random overrides this.  If the players wish to change the leader, a mechanism may exist to do that.  This is why random seems the best default, at least to me.

As tazelbain said, you can disband, make your own group, go solo, whatever.

I never liked Soldor as the leader of Merlin/Albion but it was better than no leaders at all. A random leader would have been even more a disaster, at least experience counts for something and if you really do suck as a leader then noone follows you.

Letting the players decide seems the most reasonable thing. It's their game, their PvP. They decide their own destiny. Everyone could be a leader if he can convince people to follow him (and in my idea only after he achieved enough points to unblock the leader rank).

[Nebu]

Letting the players decide seems the most reasonable thing. It's their game, their PvP. They decide their own destiny. Everyone could be a leader if he can convince people to follow him (and in my idea only after he achieved enough points to unblock the leader rank).

How will players decide in a) random pugs or b) when the game is released?  There will exist times when they will have no data to base their decision on beyond someone "wanting" the job.  I merely suggest a way to avoid that situation.  Random first means that it is easy to override and that you will always have a leader in cases where a clear choice isn't obvious.

[eldaec]

Thing is, the 'leader' is the person everyone listens to.

Game mechanics cannot define the leader for us, because they will not change who the players are willing to listen to.

If the game defines someone as 'leader' either...

a) The game will settle on the person who was already leader by happy coincidence.

b) The mechanic-defined leader will simply be ignored.

c) The mechanic-defined leader will just act as a sort of NCO, passing on commands and using leadership abilities as directed through the in game tools (a role you probably want for group leaders anyhow).

d) The mechanic-defined leader will just use the leadership tools to run his own gank group.

This is espeicially true if the leader role is really just about communication tools (waypoints etc)


I can see a place for the game conferring special roles at random in PvE raids and so on, but in RvR you have to allow the realm political landscape to function (or not to function, giving the other realm an advantage), it's a big part of what being a realm is about.


One final downside of random role selection in RvR, you add in another reason to exclude new players or plauyers simply outside the elite circle.

Let the players self-select commanders.  Let any player declare them self to be a commander and let other players join if they feel that person is good and leave if they don't like them.  As more people join their army and the longer the army exists, the more powers the commander gets. If people leave the commanders powers decay.  Maybe give commanders in the underdog team access to more/better npcs to counter balance the zerg.

What he said.

[damijin]

I don't know how DAoC worked, but I do know that random is BAD in cases like that.

One of the problems with some of the games today is the over-systemification of things like PvP.

Leadership is a human trait. Following is a human trait. If you put a bunch of people and tell them to fight, the leader with the loudest and most rational voice will gain the most followers. If no one can decide who to follow, your side will get it's ass kicked until it gets it's act together.

Theres no reason to randomly assign leadership roles, it's something that happens naturally, and random is basically anti-nature.'

EDIT: Eldaec nailed it!

[HRose]

Essentially you'd be changing the model from a subscription to a per/hour charge - with restricted access to hours. So instead of $14.99 a month for unlimited access you'd be charging $10.00 a month for 20 hours. Or $0.50 an hour. The issue i see on the publishers side is that there is really no incentive to do this. People who are only going to play 20 hours a month anyway are better sources of revenue at $14.99 a month than people who are going to play 160 hours - they cost less to service for the same amount of revenue.

Flat fees Vs paying for hours has fueled discussions for a LONG time.

The point is that if you pay by the hour then you are more aware of what you are doing. Take Guild Wars, their bet is that with no fee players would more likely return to check what's new.

If the point is the community and have fun, then you want people to relax and don't be worried that time is ticking. This kind of fee would be a disincentive to get involved.

Even in singleplayer games people hate countdown timers.

[Venkman]

Why do you believe that randomly picking leaders is better than letting players decide their leaders?

...

I actually thinks that picking random leaders would create even more problems and drama. There are MANY players who don't even aspire being leaders, so why force them?

Not random. Choice is based on stats achieved through play experience. That's what I meant by "automagically". The automagic/automatic part is the AI running some calculations based on whatever relevant stats are there to determine who should be the leader. I'm not sure how WoW does it after 2.0, but it likely is based on the old system that seemed to use Realm Rank, and a randomizer to determine ties. Since they left ranks in, and left honor point rewards per kill based on those ranks in, they may have left the formula for determining leader in. But in WoW, that simply means you talk in a different color.

Tazelbain's idea could work, and is already testable in WoW: players request premade BG groups all the time in general/lfg channels.

The everyone pays the same plays the same is the rub, but I know I would not pay to play a game that someone else could pay more to be given options above me (though one could easily point to the "Gold / Platinum / Special Eidtion content as being part of that...).

I like where the discussion is going. If the commander roll was more of a sit on a hill top and run the strat it might be a better notion instead of them just rolling across chat and such. Perhaps have a tent or post for both sides (which of course could be infiltrated or sacked) that the commander character would use charts and other topical devices to control various aspects at the strat level. I really wish this conversation could be outside of the soap box arena the thread has devolved into though...

This is possible in current games, but it does require a player remove themself from the action sometimes. And that's an issue.

Using WoW Battlegrounds as example: The player who pulls themself from the action to focus on command and strategy gets none of the incremental rewards of combat. No XP, no honor points, no drops (in Alterac Valley, used to turn in for NPC upgrades), no reputation rewards. Meanwhile, the Honor System (both old and new) are specifically about both overall rewards and incremental ones. The best battles give both. But if one is lacking, players will choose the incremental ones any day. This is because that can be grinded quite effectively. It's why I see so many people dropping from losing AB fights for whatever instance they also queued up for. It allows them to continue the grind when they don't expect to get the round-winning bonus. It's also the reason I don't think many care that there's no immersion to BGs in WoW. They want PvP as sport.

The way to counter this is to reduce the incremental bonus and increase the round-ending bonus, ala the Quest/Grind XP shift they made from EQ of old. But I think that would alienate casual players even more unless they created a matchmaking service like I outlined above (where more goes into determining the participants in a match than simply who's in a temporal queue).

If the gap is tiny, then yes you may win. But 4-5 ranks of difference in DAoC give an advantage that isn't negligible.

Reduce them, and the achievement would feel bland and pointless, make it stronger and PvP would feel unbalanced. More than trying to find a magical formula I was just trying to find alternative solutions.

I'll ask again: How do you keep those who have achieved these from locking out everyone else who'd like a shot? Are you proposing a competitive Rank system ala old WoW Honor except where Realm Rank also comes with unlocked abilities? I could buy that. I would never seen those top-tier unlocked abilities, but at least the game isn't designed to let players forever keep me from them.

I position myself as everyone else on this forum

No. You purposely throw out personal attacks from the people who deliver these time sinks to us. That's a fundamental difference. When you only discuss game theory and design theory, or rant about the inequities of a game, then you are being the normal armchair designer. It's easier to take you seriously when you don't drip 25% of your writing with slanderous attacks.

[HRose]

I don't know how DAoC worked, but I do know that random is BAD in cases like that.

If you put a bunch of people and tell them to fight, the leader with the loudest and most rational voice will gain the most followers. If no one can decide who to follow, your side will get it's ass kicked until it gets it's act together.

That's *exactly* how DAoC worked ;)

I also believe that "choosing leader" is an integral part of PvP. In fact I like a more freeform of PvP where the map is a bunch of regions that the players can go out and conquer. I like the idea of "empowering" the players and let them choose strategies, objectives and all the rest.

More than the recent "capture the flag" and similar things. PvP should be driven by players.

[Daeven]

  As to the differentiation between PvE and PvP and how it is idiotic, I agree somewhat.  In a perfect world/game they would indeed be the same things.  However, I see no way of doing that and at the same time, ensure that new players would have an enjoyable newbie experience.  Subscription-based MMORPGs have to be fun for the newbies or they won't becoming subscribers and if they don't become subscribers, well, then bye-bye game.  And since newbies can be total newbies to even an MMIORPG, requiring them to do PvP will be, for many of them, a reason not to subscribe.  However, if the quest calls for 10 "Enemy Ears" and you can get the enemy ears from the PvE Greenskins or the PC Greenskins, that's how a simple, perfect PvP/PvE quest should be created.

Hmmm. Three complimentary ideas come to mind:
1. Broad vs. deep advancement. AD&D introduced the concept of vastly scaling the power differential between newbies and veterans. Don't fall into that trap. Advancement should be about specialization, unlocking new nifties, and allowing for advanced features (unit command, magic, whatever) as opposed to now you nave N^N hit points more than when you started!

One of the biggest problems with PvP is the vast power differential between players. if you are a level 25, there is no reason to stay when the level 50's come out. None. And that is reflected in the fear of ravening hoards of veterans ganking newbies. Which leads to..

2. Make the true newbie part of the advancement curve not part of PvP with a flag or whatnot.

3. Make the 'start areas' exponentially harder for opposition races to get to in the first place. Call out the militia when the Orc appears over the hill. THe Praetorian Guard. The Steam Tanks. Whatever is appropriate.


on other bits. Making a world artificially big by slowing travel is irritating. Don't do it. Instead, make the world actually big - with vast open spaces of wandering herds of whatever with the nearest settlement 1000 miles away. Give me fairly instant travel to places I know about, but I have to get there first.

And as to 'raiding', and the 'End game' I don't even understand these concepts from the standpoint of a Dynamic Virtual world so I'll let them lie.

[eldaec]

If the gap is tiny, then yes you may win. But 4-5 ranks of difference in DAoC give an advantage that isn't negligible.

Reduce them, and the achievement would feel bland and pointless, make it stronger and PvP would feel unbalanced. More than trying to find a magical formula I was just trying to find alternative solutions.

I'll ask again: How do you keep those who have achieved these from locking out everyone else who'd like a shot? Are you proposing a competitive Rank system ala old WoW Honor except where Realm Rank also comes with unlocked abilities? I could buy that. I would never seen those top-tier unlocked abilities, but at least the game isn't designed to let players forever keep me from them.

I dunno...

Badges, fluff abilities, bonus xp for alts, guild xp, access to additional leadership abilities whenv you are in the bg leader role or when you are a group leader, titles, housing trophies, fancy horse skins.

Daoc's realm rank effect wasn't *that* big after the realm rank rework anyway. The big problem with the initial design of realm abilities is that high power abilities were often balanced by very long reuse timers; later the devs realised that once a timer was long enough to limit it to one use per battle, lengthening the timer any further becomes meaningless; because it's still just as powerful as a once per battle ability from the point of view of the person it is being used on.

I rather thought the updated realm abilities lacked style, because they were pretty much the same from realm to realm, but at the same time, there were no longer any real balance issues; and after the rework   Organisation >> Realm rank.

[HRose]

I'll ask again: How do you keep those who have achieved these from locking out everyone else who'd like a shot? Are you proposing a competitive Rank system ala old WoW Honor except where Realm Rank also comes with unlocked abilities? I could buy that. I would never seen those top-tier unlocked abilities, but at least the game isn't designed to let players forever keep me from them.

The idea is to have many different roles, all designed to be interesting and fun, so that not everyone wants to be at the top. If you want a particular role, you can ask.

I don't see what's wrong in letting the players organize as they want. Naturally who is better will perpetuate a particular role. At the end it's like the basic classes, everyone makes his choice. Even in that case you cannot make a party with just warriors, you need healers, casters and you balance classes so that the players choose as evenly as possible.

If there are a variety of PvP classes/roles then maybe players will also like to experiment and change. Some mobility between ranks. One players moves to a position and leaves his spot open for someone else. If you have to unblock new roles then only a subset of players will be ready for those roles, so they'll likely get chosen. Then people leave the group, log out, whatever. And you replace them and change your role as different positions are made available.

You can easily make 20-30 different PvP classes granting special powers and skills to give everyone cool tricks. But it would mean from 1 to 5 different powers that shouldn't go to replace the purpose and gameplay of your basic class.

[HRose]

Daoc's realm rank effect wasn't *that* big after the realm rank rework anyway. The big problem with the initial design of realm abilities is that high power abilities were often balanced by very long reuse timers; later the devs realised that once a timer was long enough to limit it to one use per battle, lengthening the timer any further becomes meaningless; because it's still just as powerful as a once per battle ability from the point of view of the person it is being used on.

The problem in DAoC is that they were power-ups. The difference between a rank 1 and a rank 2 was that the rank 2 had a bonus. It's a treadmill.

Instead the model I used inspired by Planetside is that ranks/roles aren't directly one the upgrade of the other. It's not as if as a soldier you have +5 in strength and as a raid leader +25. You just have access to different powers, different effects. But not built as a scheme where you go from the least to the most powerful rank.

[Trouble]

Just to throw some ideas into the mix, Battlefield 2142 has an interesting model for leadership in basically PuGs. There's squad members, squad leaders, then a single commander. As you play the game and gain points, you gain ranks. At the beginning of a round, you can put yourself up for commander. If no one else wants to be commander you are automatically put up as commander. If someone higher rank than you tries during the election period, they get to be commander.

As commander you have access to tools to help you lead the battle. You can call for air strikes, supply drops, and you have a few tools to help identify enemy locations. You can also send commands to squad leaders to attack or defend certain points. If a squad leader accepts a command, it will add "waypoint" to the minimap as well as the HUD and relay the command to his squad members who will also be able to see the location on the map. As a commander, you get points whenever someone in the squad gets a kill in the vicinity of the command. As a squad leader, you also get points whenever someone in your squad gets a kill in the area. As a squad member, you get extra points for getting kills near the designated target. Extra points all around for setting and following orders.

As a squad leader you can choose to accept or deny commander orders with no penalty either way. In open servers a lot of squad leaders won't accept your orders, or if they do they won't follow them. Sometimes squad leaders set their own orders and have their own agenda and will simply deny any orders you throw at them. One of the problems here is that, from what I can tell, you don't really get any points as a squad leader for listening to the commander.

As a squad member, you can do whatever you want as always. You get more points for listening to your squad leader. Whether he is relaying commands from your commander, you don't know and you don't really care. You get the same bonus points either way. As a squad member there are many reasons to ignore orders from your squad leader. Most of the time you have to fight your way to the designated attack area, and it is very easy to die in the game. Sometimes you just can't get there. Sometimes you're a noob and you have no idea what the commands mean. Sometimes you have your own agenda and know a much better way to get points and don't feel like defending a silo in the middle of nowhere.

At the end of the day everyone is there to have fun, and more importantly to get points. It's similar to an MMO because you have a persistent rank which is shown on every server you go on and increases based on the points you score. Sometimes the command structure is beneficial to getting points, especially when you're in an organized group where everyone is experienced and knows how to use the command system. Sometimes you just don't give a damn and want to do your own thing.

Some overall observations
1.) There needs to be rewards for using the system. In an organized group (pre-made) the reward is that your team will be more effective overall and win more. Random groupings need a more inherent, tangible reward because people won't listen and will just do their own thing unless they get a definite benefit from following orders. The amount of rewards you should give depends on how rigidly you want people following the command structure. BF2142 only gives a relatively small bonus and therefore people don't follow or give orders to the extent they would.
2.) The order system needs to be intuitive or people will have trouble understanding for following the orders. BF2142 suffers from a not entirely intuitive order system. As a result, in a given public match, many orders will go unheeded simply out of ignorance.
3.) There needs to be a way to separate noobs from experienced players. The most frustrating thing in forced PvP grouping, in my opinion, stems from noobs and experienced players being thrown together. As a noob, you end up getting killed so quickly that you aren't given the chance to learn as quickly as you could otherwise. As an experienced player, you feel dragged down by the new people on your team who either won't listen to you, don't know how to listen to you, or are simply taking up a valuable slot on your team
4.) Command positions need to have experience/rank requirements. You can't effectively lead without actual ground experience.
5.) There needs to be a way to democratically override command positions in case someone decides to go AFK or is simply not doing their job.

Overall I think the system that BF2142 and how it operates in practical use is a very good case study if you're trying to design your own battle system with some sort of built in command structure.

[HRose]

Just to throw some ideas into the mix, Battlefield 2142 has an interesting model for leadership in basically PuGs. There's squad members, squad leaders, then a single commander. As you play the game and gain points, you gain ranks. At the beginning of a round, you can put yourself up for commander. If no one else wants to be commander you are automatically put up as commander. If someone higher rank than you tries during the election period, they get to be commander.

That's exactly how I described my idea a while back

At the end of the day everyone is there to have fun, and more importantly to get points. It's similar to an MMO because you have a persistent rank which is shown on every server you go on and increases based on the points you score. Sometimes the command structure is beneficial to getting points, especially when you're in an organized group where everyone is experienced and knows how to use the command system. Sometimes you just don't give a damn and want to do your own thing.

And that too :) The overall rank/points and display of stats that makes DAoC popular. Players love to dig statistics.

The permanent rank is the overall number of points you have, then you have the single PvP roles that you unblocked (you pick the role you want and slowly earn experience/points toward it).

1.) There needs to be rewards for using the system. In an organized group (pre-made) the reward is that your team will be more effective overall and win more. Random groupings need a more inherent, tangible reward because people won't listen and will just do their own thing unless they get a definite benefit from following orders. The amount of rewards you should give depends on how rigidly you want people following the command structure. BF2142 only gives a relatively small bonus and therefore people don't follow or give orders to the extent they would.
2.) The order system needs to be intuitive or people will have trouble understanding for following the orders. BF2142 suffers from a not entirely intuitive order system. As a result, in a given public match, many orders will go unheeded simply out of ignorance.

In my idea things are better organized through the use of powers. For example players gaining bonuses only if they stay close to the leader, so that you don't have a bunch of players joining a raid and then going around on their own as in WoW.

The point is: skills that work in the context of the group/team. So that they have a tactical role and naturally encourage players for teamwork. If PvP becomes a pointless zerg it's because gameplay game design isn't well done.

4.) Command positions need to have experience/rank requirements. You can't effectively lead without actual ground experience.

In my idea you gain PvP points while you play and you slowly unblock new PvP classes/roles. So to unlock the leader position it will take a while.

5.) There needs to be a way to democratically override command positions in case someone decides to go AFK or is simply not doing their job.

Not in a mmorpg. You can always disband and make a new group. But it could be useful to use a voting system to kick out players at the top to not have to reorganize the whole raid just because one player messes up.

Recently I was stuck in a WoW instance because the healer was also the group leader and he went afk. We couldn't replace him, nor disband because we would get tossed out of the instance. We were just fucked up.

[Venkman]

The idea is to have many different roles, all designed to be interesting and fun, so that not everyone wants to be at the top. If you want a particular role, you can ask.

Sounds similar to the original concept (I think) behind Alterac Valley. There's a number of sub-objectives within AV including assaulting/taking mines, towers, returning Armor Scraps/etc to NPCs in base, etc. Most of these seem ignored nowadays in favor of the mad rush, because there seems to be a universal belief that if a rush fails then a turtle (perpetual defense) occurs. AV's been balanced quite a bit as I understand it though, but the theory of the side-objectives seems similar to what you're outlining, except more open.

I'm not sure I'd want to see more formal meta-classes in a PvP environment. But I do like the BF2142 rank options and abilities to get into them. And as mentioned earlier, I do agree that you can't really do things democratically mid-battle. So you need to fill a role and accept it for the duration of that battle. Choose better next time. Easier to ensure this doesn't overly aggravate if the battles don't last forever. This is why I like Arathi Basin over Alterac Valley in most cases. Sure it's a pure grind, and in my BattleGroup it seems Alliance just assumes they'll lose. But it also is a system with a built-in variable timer that never stops counting until it ends.

I also agree on Planetside, but more because of the "classes" there than anything else. I prefer a system where growth is lateral rather than linear. This is one of intrinsically greater freedom both in design and in playability. You're not locked forever into a bad decision you made on day one.

[HRose]

Sounds similar to the original concept (I think) behind Alterac Valley. There's a number of sub-objectives within AV including assaulting/taking mines, towers, returning Armor Scraps/etc to NPCs in base, etc. Most of these seem ignored nowadays in favor of the mad rush, because there seems to be a universal belief that if a rush fails then a turtle (perpetual defense) occurs. AV's been balanced quite a bit as I understand it though, but the theory of the side-objectives seems similar to what you're outlining, except more open.

Nope, what I propose is a system where those roles are strictly connected to PvP classes. So skills of the players, not completely different objectives on the battlefield.

Think to a fantasy RTS, where some troops have weakness and strengths depending on certain factors. I would like that kind of structure brought and adapted to a mmorpg.

But there's also the opening for different purposes, like strike teams that go cut supply lines and similar things.

In WoW the side-objectives are mostly grinds to trigger certain scripted effects. I really don't like the way they are implemented.

I'm not sure I'd want to see more formal meta-classes in a PvP environment. But I do like the BF2142 rank options and abilities to get into them. And as mentioned earlier, I do agree that you can't really do things democratically mid-battle.

If PvP is persistent then you have plenty of time to plan strategy and organize. And of course all these ideas only work if the aim is a deeper PvP system. Closer to DAoC or Eve-Online than WoW's deathmatches.

Territories, conquest, strong guild involvement (in WoW the game isn't "aware" that a guild exist on a mechanic level). Things like that. Warfare.

I also agree on Planetside, but more because of the "classes" there than anything else. I prefer a system where growth is lateral rather than linear. This is one of intrinsically greater freedom both in design and in playability. You're not locked forever into a bad decision you made on day one.

And yes, I use that as a general principle that is valid on many different fronts: "permeable barriers".

For example earlier in this tread I proposed a system to "recruit" high level characters so that they could "delevel" and go play in lower tiers zones if they want. That's an example of "permeable barriers". Server travel another one. More freedom, mobility and choice to the players, less one-way choices/traps.

I fancily described the theory as a line drawn on the ground. It helps to define and organize a space (like a class/skill-based system that lets you experiment, surrender skills, train new ones etc..), but it isn't a wall that traps you.

[Typhon]

you can't really do things democratically mid-battle

I agree, but you can do things democratically pre-battle (while waiting for port to combat a la DAOC or in the instance count-down, like WoW battlegrounds).  Player voting for a commander should be based off of information about prospective raid-leaders given to the players prior to the battle (not that you are saying that this isn't possible, I'm just following up on your thought).  Information should be based upon win/lose ratio in the role of squad/raid leader.  I think the rank structure should remain relatively shallow, so you only need acouple dozen wins as a squad leader to have the same rank as someone who was grinding day after day.

I like the sound of the BF1942 (with waypoints and battle/squad leaders), that is exactly what I was thinking in my post above.

I think DAOC's realm points succeeded when allowing a person to become a siege-meister (where a player would choose to learn to make siege weapons, and take realm abilities that would allow him to carry a full ram).  This concept could be extended to concepts like battle-master (the aforementioned leader role), spotter (an ability to mark an enemy so that he appears on the minimap for the raid group), etc.  This is in contrast to the abilities that directly enhanced a characters ability to deal/take damage (which I think were more harmful to new players being able to be effective in a battle).

Where the democracy should come in is when there is a tie and the rest of the battlegroup needs to choose a commander (pre-battle).  Win/loss stats should be shown for all those of the highest rank that have chosen to lead for that engagement.

As mentioned previously, tracking a person's success at folllowing orders seems very complicated to code (if the entire battle is a win, but no one follow the raid leaders commands/waypoints, what does that mean?  ... most likely that the raid leader was a nob, but possibly that no one bothered to accept an order).  Seems easier to simply reward the player for completing an accepted objective - which bakes in an assumption that a player/squad leader will only accept objectives that he thinks make sense and are achievable.

That last part is important.  This isn't a war simulation, it's a game.  Players aren't going to perform tasks (for long) that provide no benefit to themselves (especially if other players are being given tasks that do provide benefit).  One of the most potent/important roles in DAOC was the spotting/intelligence gathering role that the stealth classes played... with decreasing regularity as time passed.  Game design should make effort to reward battlefield roles that do not involve dealing/healing damage (completion of objectives via enemy position spotting is given as an example, regardless of whether a stealth class is to be included in the game or not).