hindering the grinding of professions?

A thought offered for debate...

Given the mostly negative impact that grinding/power-leveling professions in WoW have, what might be done to alleviate, hinder, or prevent that activity? (Not necessarily in WoW itself, but in some hypothetical game design).

Previously, I've proposed a textured skill tree system, one where you could fast track your the scope of your profession at the cost of expertise in crafting each individual item.

Another idea to throw on the table today: put a cap or diminishing returns on how many skill ups occur in a given time period. This could be explained in-game as “learning new skills is taxing on the mind and body, the harder you study the more you will need to rest”. Grinding 10 skill points will still be as easy as before, but grinding the next 10 might be difficult or impossible that same day .. or as easy as the first 10 if you wait until the next day.

If a diminishing returns model is used there will inevitably be that one crazy fool that will grind out 10,000 swords for that last skill point (where he could wait 24 hours, grind one sword, and 100% chance get that same point). Most min/maxers wouldn't do that because, by definition, they use a cost/benefits analysis approach in all that they do. Just in case someone does though the game could be designed to give some kind of debilitating debuff - plenty of real world examples to draw from here (headline: gamer dies of exhaustion after playing non-stop for 72 hours).

I'm led to understand that something like this was implemented on the Siege Perilous and Mugen shards of UO - anyone got experience with that?

variable quest rewards for variable performance?

I'm back, fresh from another bombing run through the dead scar. As a daily, I can just about do this one with my eyes shut ... as it is I end up killing off a few extra just for the heck of it. Which got me thinking - how come I don't get extra gold for overkills?

Now, this has got me thinking even further - I can't think of a single quest in WoW which doesn't have a variable reward depending on skill - no wonder players strive to optimise their effort rather than improve their skill. Actually, there are two that come to mind: the Dire Maul tribute run, and the Zul'Aman timed event .. both provide more rewards depending on how you go about them, and a highly skilled (or more likely a highly geared) team will reap more rewards for their efforts.

Seriously though .. can you imagine the deep psychological effect of a wholesale changing of quest rewards to a system depending on skill-based accomplishment?

going wide on horizontal expansions

Lots of chatter on horizontal expansion lately.

• Horizontal Skills or Vertical Levels
• Horizontal Expansions
• Horizontal Expansions to Vertical Games
• The Endgame Philosophy
• MMOG Expansions and Trading Card Games
• Expanding the expansions….

I've started a poll over at nerfbat forums...

design challenge: specialist guilds?

In most MMOGs, a guild is more a company of adventurers, a band of brothers, (usually) united in some purpose (usually raiding, often social, sometimes RP).

But rarely specialised by skill. Where's the Potters Guild, the Enchanters Guild, the Guild of Tailors, the Warriors Regiment, the Thieves Guild of Old Town, the Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union?

Set aside for the moment of whether this would be a good idea, game-wise, for an MMOG. What game mechanics would you design to encourage a proliferation of specialist guilds?

My first thoughts are three-fold:

1. A hierarchical tree of additional benefits unlocked by specialisation (eg. think WoW talents, but for guilds).
2. A rationing of resources used to unlock these additional benefits (ie. more benefits than what points can buy), with various feedback mechanisms to encourage focussed spending.
   
3. And support for inter-guild support/collaboration/alliances.

Points (1) and (2) work together of course. Feedback mechanisms could include compounding buffs, tiered talents/abilities, or unlocked content such as guild quests. Point (3) would be necessary because if you don't the pressure will be huge to go for a mediocre but self-reliant hybrid guild.

The principle of unlocked benefits could be applied in many ways: through specialised guild bank tabs, guild wise auras, specialist NPCs, and more.

Guild Bank tabs could be specialised for different purposes, with discounts for additional tabs of the same type. For example: instead of paying 500G for the first tab and 1000G for the second tab, the bank could be designed such that the guild could select their first tab to be specialised (eg. enchanting) and thus get a discount (pay only 400G), and the second enchanting tab would only be 750G .. vs some guild buying a generic bank tab for 500G, and then an enchanting specialised tab for 900G. Buying one of each kind should be expensive, buying all generics/multipurpose should be outrageously priced, and buying all of the same type should be really affordable.

Guild wide auras could be things like all members of a guild specialising in alchemy could have an increased chance of bonus procs on crafting, all members of a warriors guild have 20% off all repair costs and some kind of bonus in melee.

What game design elements can you think of to push a game world in this direction?

player driven pvp policies

The guards on the Isle of Quel'danas are severe in punishing pvp within their territory, but they could be more severe in policing: they could punish all the participants of the pvp action - both attacker and attacked. The only way to remain safe would be to not flag at all. (Incidentally, this will also get rid of the asshats that flag and stand on top of the NPCs.)

Such a determined design would be immediately decried by players: some would say it's too harsh (and should be softened), some would say it's too carebear (and made even harsher), and some would say it was fine before so why change it. There's no satisfying the mob.

Consider though if the devs put their effort into designing self-balancing systems, where players can, through their influence and reputation with the local government, determine what the security policies are for the area. Some servers might drift towards a harsh anything-goes climate, while others would reflect a prevailing carebear attitude.

If the world was big enough to support multiple towns/villages acting as alternatives to each other, rather than the token civilisation centers along a linear progression path (a la WoW), then you might well have different policies evolving on the same server. One town might drift towards a carebear crafting utopia, while another might be a lawless den of iniquity, home of the quick and the dead.

Will simply flagging bring down the the wrath of the constabulary, or even entering town with your pvp flag already on? Maybe the guards will take action if you've recently done pvp outside of the town. On the other hand, maybe the local warlord is a sadist and hands out candy and gold to everyone that does pvp .. if you can stay alive long enough to talk to the NPC, that is.

As to game mechanics, consider if PvP deaths result in two tokens dropping – one into the killer's inventory, one into the dead player's inventory – either of which could be handed in to various NPCs to influence the local policy (or just trashed if the player doesn't care). Different NPCs, and different options at the same NPC, would determine which local policy gets voted on.

If each town/village had it's own reputation faction then your vote could also be weighted by your current faction standing, which would make it difficult for an outsider guild to zerg the vote.

Would such a design make open free-for-all pvp viable, or at least tolerable?

just let them win

Reality is stranger than fiction it seems: A soccer team advanced in a cup match by deliberately scoring against itself.

some hunter tips

Here's a small skill I've been developing just recently: while casting Fear Beast I select my next target in preparation for my next action - I don't wait until the casting is complete to change targets. Especially if I don't want my next auto-shot to break that fear.

When in WSG and you're on defense duty, and you have a cat pet: pop down into the tunnel, about where it has that side branch to the roof, tell your pet to stay, be aggressive, and also to prowl. Then high tail it back up the tunnel and park yourself in that little room, and select your pet as your target. Now, when your pet jumps on the next sneaky rogue coming up that tunnel you'll see your pet's target under his faceplate, and you can easily target them too. Commence fire. Laugh maniacally. Sometimes they come in via the ramp, and then take the tunnel on the way out. Hit intimidation but leave your pet parked and prowled, it's quite the nasty surprise.

tying skill to gear

It's an ancient debate: gear vs skill.

My idea: make it such that better gear provides value, but only in the hands of a skilled player. One way to do this is by making gear which has situational uses, instead of a simple +bonus that applies at all times.

Some ideas: instead of a helmet giving +25 magic resistance, make it provide +50 resistance for 30 seconds on use, with a 30 second cooldown. Instead of simply boots of swift striding (slight speed increase, some resistance to slows), make them boots of muck walking (some resistance to slows, roots, and snares, and extra speed when walking in watery terrain). A shield of spell reflection that only works on spells that hit you from the front/left. A cutlass of shredding, with damage bonuses against cloth wearers but no bonus vs plate. A two-handed mace which puts a debuff on the mob which causes extra damage from pets (note: hunters can't use maces, warlocks can't use two-handers, so this is also a team-play skill opportunity).

This could be extended to longer time frame strategic use, such as with resist gear sets, however it would be better to have lots of tactical time frame usage options .. otherwise the main skill that gets developed is how to read a website to look up what's the best gear to equip for a given dungeon. And that's no fun.

wresting control of a zone from mobs

Imagine if Halaa was controlled by NPC mobs instead of the other faction. Imagine if that basic design was extended to an entire zone. Lethal mobs would spawn constantly .. but only while certain locations remain uncaptured. If the number which has spawned exceeds a base level, they would group up and move to attack other locations. Locations deep within hostile controlled territory would have more terrible beasts and demons being spawned. Once an location is captured by players, mobs would no longer spawn from that location. Mobs would still travel to that location from other locations, putting it under constant threat.

Control of the zone would ebb and flow throughout the day and week - 3am would see it overrun by hostile NPC mobs, while during peak player hours more of the zone would be under player control.

There could even be more than npc faction in play here. In Nagrand, there are two ogre factions, some occult worshippers, the demons, and two factions of space mummies. Probably even more factions. Each NPC faction would have their preferred territory, but specific locations could well be in contention between more than one NPC faction. Some of these might well form temporary alliances, some might viciously fight each other given the right provocation. Players could thus factor this into their broader strategy - instead of fighting tooth and nail for objective A, they could go attack objective B (weaker due to fewer reinforcements?) .. and then stand back as many of the occupants of objective A issue forth to capture objective B. Now would be the time to strike at objective A, which they might now willingly retreat from.

Locations could include quest centers, grave yards, repairs, mines or other resource gathering locations, vendor centres, etc. The entire zone would have one final objective, being a major instance - the entrance to the instance would be guarded by elites that spawn from nearby locations, and opening the gate may even require the assistance of an NPC from another location .. thus you won't be able to just rush in on your fancy flying mount.

Logging off in the zone wouldn't be a safe thing to do. More exactly, logging back on wouldn't be safe .. you might find yourself totally surrounded by elite hostiles, where you were previously surrounded by friendly NPC guards. It would thus be sensible to have the base camps for Horde/Alliance being located on the edge of the zone.

This zone would be interesting for casuals who could enter the fray at any time to do their small part, perhaps doing a daily quest or two. It could also be designed to reward group efforts, with deeper locations controlled by an elite boss with massive loot drops - a guild group could thus conduct an hour long (or longer) campaign and thus be in position to be the ones to capture a strategic location and claim the loot.

(The backend infrastructure of WoW doesn't really support this style of design at all - they have very minimal server side status/AI going on at all. The zone-wide progress measures at the Isle of Quel'Danas is peanuts compared to this. More the pity.)

Zul'Gurub adventures

I'm in ZG, solo, taking out the trash.

Some trash mobs are just damn impossible to solo - the Gurubashi Axe Throwers specifically. Once they enrage into their Axe Flurry will target a random player and hit for a moderate amount but also knock you down and stun you. By the time you get back up another Axe will be thrown at a random player .. which if you're soloing the place means you. Again. And Again. Knock down, 500 dmg, stunned, get back up, knock down, repeat for 15 seconds. The fact they usually come in pairs is just rubbing salt into the wound.

The packs of adders and serpents on the other hand can be soloed. A four pack is borderline lethal to the pet, but if it survives long enough then it's a game of chain trapping and double trapping and scare beast and intimidation and 120 seconds of frantic excitement.

The crocs are easier - trap, misdirect, double trap, one down, scare beast, wing clip, kite, kill, trap, kill, kill. If there are five or six in the group there's a challenge, but otherwise.

Easiest of all would be the tigers and panthers. Snore. They are total pussy cats playing patty cake.

Only two more bijous until I'm revered with Zandalar, then the long grind starts to exalted. I sure hope that Living Action Potion is worth it. At the least, this has been a good test of hunter prowess .. I must remember to bring all my hunter pals in for fun and games.

types of leveling systems at word of shadow

Crimson Starfire has many interesting posts at his Word of Shadow blog, well worth reading would be my recommendation. I just added the following comment there to his post on Best RPG leveling systems:

I'd like to see an alternative "leveling" mechanism, one which leverages the MMO aspect of the game: your character himself doesn't level up, but all his actions (and actions of other players) contribute to the success of his village/clan/kingdom .. and as your community becomes stronger then additional powers become available.

For example, your village has recently secured some achievement (which you might have had some small part in), and all members of that village now have a specific boon available. The boon might be a character buff (eg. a bonus on resistance to some kind of magic), or might be availability from vendors of more powerful gear (eg. steel swords, instead of bronze).

That buff or boon would be permanent .. unless a rival clan comes along and causes a reversal in fortune. Or you seriously betray that community and become an outcast.

The communities should be elect to join, not invite to join (like guilds), and there should be hundreds (not two factions or eight races as in WoW). It should also be possible to increase your reputation with these communities, with higher standings according greater access to boons or access to more powerful boons.

This means you could, if you so choose, decide to abandon a losing community and join a stronger community .. but you'd lose access to all your previous boons and you'd need to work hard to gain access to the boons of your new hearthland.

If you choose to go renegade, outcast from all civilisation, then you'd better have some mad pvp skillz because your character will be effectively at the starter level once again .. and not aligned to any communities.

more honor for the underdogs

Sometimes, it is not your day to be victorious on the battlefield - your opponents have 4 capped AB or EotS, they have 2 flags to your zero, you are rapidly running out of reinforcements in AV.

Your backs are against the wall, the enemy arrogantly advances, the smell of your blood and a swift victory on the wind ... Now is the time for great courage, to die gloriously on the field, to make them struggle for every drop of your blood. Let the nubs and farmers hide in dark corners and their spider holes, lamenting with the womenfolk - the brave fight on for there is honor to be gained, the song of battle does call.

Thus: increase honor per kill for those on the losing side to encourage getting in there and at least making a last stand.

warlocks, mana, and health

(This is just a passing thought)

How cool would it be if warlock spells cost not just mana, but the same amount of health? Thus Curse of Agony might cost 100 mana and 100 health, and similarly for all other spells. Toss in a couple of talents to adjust the ratio involved (eg. 40%/60% or 60%/40%), and rebalance all the base mana costs to suit, and you've got an interesting game mechanic which sets the lock apart from other spell casters.

is there a MMO design wiki?

Is there a MMO wiki someplace, one which profiles all MMOs and their various game mechanics, without necessarily delving deep into the MMO specific content? Someplace where the differences between positive and negative reinforcement schedules are explained in MMO terms, where time honored terms like “Diku” are explained (especially the MMO mechanics aspect, for which that wikipedia page is full of fail).

More than terrain in the territory

Fantasy lore often has reference to magical ley lines, shifting rivers of hidden energy. Knowing where these ley lines are, especially where they cross or join, is of strategic import.

Yet how many games include effects from ley lines in the actual game play? I don't mean simply in the lore itself, providing colour to NPC chatter or at most serving as an excuse for a quest or two. The closest I've seen in WoW is in Netherstorm, where you can stumble into patches of invisible free flowing mana which replenish you - it's a pity these don't exist in the Eye of the Storm battleground though, that could shake things up in interesting ways.

Imagine a game world where the ley lines start out as unknown, where building your guild fortress on a ley line provides benefits equivalent to building on tactically advantageous terrain, where different ley lines are associated with different forms of magic (shadow, nature, demonic, spirit, fire, etc) which buff or debuff your spell casting. To make it even more of a game these ley lines shouldn't be blindingly obvious to passerbys, not even in their effects (adjust the random numbers, don't apply a buff). Let players wonder why they seem to get more crits in one place than another, watch the stats junkies pile on saying it's just superstitious interpretation of blind luck.

Later on, introduce quests or capabilities to map these ley lines. The full extent of these ley lines would remain incomplete because they occasionally flow through inhospitable territory. The capability for the mapping of a ley line could be dependent on the type of ley line, and the capability limited to those classes that can use that type of magic. Holy ley lines would remain a mystery to warlocks, demonic leylines a mystery to crusaders.

Later still, let players discover for themselves that these ley lines move about - gradual shifts usually, sometimes sudden re-wiring jumps. Be prepared for the whining from the early adventurers that built their power base on a nexus which has shifted. Introduce some means, expensive grand projects like cathedrals, where the flow of these ley lines can be influenced. The flow could influence not just their path across the map, but also in their strength - let there be wars of strategic interference, damming the flows to cut off the enemy further down the flow, etc.

As much as maps are not the territory, neither is physical terrain the final story.

teaching situational adaptation

Syncaine describes a common quest chain pattern: (a) kill 10 boars, (b) find some boar relic, (c) kill the boar boss.

Consider instead if the first quest you got was to eliminate the threat of some monstrous ogre. You head off to do so, but discover that he's no dummy and has surrounded himself with dozens of guards and so on. Not only that, he's a full 5 levels higher and is an elite. The pig-headed adventurer would grimace, and plow right in. The smart adventurer would return to the quest giver and explain the situation .. at which point the quest giver would then offer some intermediary style quest - perhaps raid an outpost to draw off some reinforcements, maybe a quest to gather some special herb or stink bomb or other aid for the coming showdown. The quest to deal with the ogre boss would remain in your quest log the whole time.

The point being there could be a game mechanism in place to reward thoughtful situational adaptation by players, a design approach which transcends the “kill 10 x” and “kill x for y” grinding pattern of quests.

Note too that so far I haven't said the quest is to "kill the ogre boss" - instead I said "eliminate the threat". You could complete the objective by killing the ogre boss, but you could also uncover some additional quests which leads to you holding some object which causes the ogre boss to react differently, be friendly even. There could be an alternative quest line which results in you eliminating the threat by convincing the ogre to swap sides, to enter into a trade arrangement, or even eliminate the threat by convincing some other NPC group to lead the attack and kill the ogre boss or force him to flee.

partial cooldowns?

Here's a stupid thought to start the day - what if the cool-downs of various abilities were replaced with a chance of success mechanic. Thus, Bestial Wrath would be available with a 100% chance after 2 minutes, and a degraded chance before that time - it would have a 50% chance of working after 1 minute, and a 75% chance after 1:30. Failure would result in the cool down timer restarting, as well as the full resource cost.

How might this affect your game play?

I know I'd stop spamming my Feign Death button while stun locked, and weaving Arcane Shot into my shot rotation would be trickier. The lazy macro I use that attempts to cast Kill Command after every Steady Shot would need to be tossed out. That said, I'd definitely know there will be a few hail Mary moments where a partial chance of success is better than getting wiped - how cool would it be to get the kill shot on a boss as he's heading towards me, knowing I've only got a 10% chance of the shot even working?

social is desired, don't give it away

In most MMORPGs there are plenty of chat options available but I wonder if that isn't such a good idea.

Sure, people want the social, and adding chat channels makes that easier, but I'm haunted by the memory of PUGs where one or two members weren't quite "there" .. turns out they spent half the instance on auto-pilot while their attention was on guild chat or whispers. Additionally, I've forgotten the number of times a fellow guildie turns down an offer of help while they solo some area, yet they continue socialising in guild chat.

Whenever I visit an old-world city I see small crowds hanging about outside the bank/mailbox/AH, but they are usually silent. In truth, they may be deep in conversation in guild chat, party chat, trade, city, or general. Sometimes a couple are engaged in a conversation in the /say channel, and that's pretty cool as it makes the place come alive. That said, it's all the more incongruent when one talks in /say, and the other is in /p or /g and only one side of the conversation can be heard. It's borderline irritating, in the same way overhearing only one side of a phone conversation is irritating.

Naturally, if all those gathered around the mail box were chatting in /say instead then things would get very noisy. I wouldn't see that as a problem though, more of an opportunity for increasing immersion in the game: either hang out at the mailbox, suffering the din of the maddening crowd, or sneak off to some private hut for a quiet chat.

I'm also wondering if there are other opportunities possible if the game took away ubiquitous chat channels: they could be put back in via special abilities, spells, and items. Spirit messengers, Guild Commune, Trinkets of Telepathy. Characters don't have ubiquitous “teleport anywhere” capabilities, but some classes can learn limited versions of that: mages can make portals to enable travel to various destinations, while warlocks can open a portal to summon comrades in the opposite direction.

Would you embark on a long quest with your guild mates to secure an Orb of CzNN, a critical piece of gear which when equipped into your guild hall would enable whoever is in your guild hall to broadcast a message to all guild members? Would you gather the mats and commission an engineer to craft a Catwwezl Talking Bone, a marvelous device that enables one to one communication over long distances?

moderating miscreants

If your goal is to encourage behaviour over a sustained period, then intermittent positive reinforcement works better than periodic positive reinforcement ... but which works better for negative reinforcement? That is, if there is some specific behaviour you wish to punish.

I'm told that random negative reinforcement works best (if you're attempting to instill terror).

The problem with random negative reinforcement in social systems is that the absence of punishment on others is used to rationalise away guilt: "he didn't get punished for doing X, therefore I shouldn't have. I shouldn't have been punished, therefore action X was not a wrong thing to do".

What if, instead of meting out punishment 1:1 in response to crime, but instead the total punishment due is accumulated into a growing debt and eventually meted out, in whole, by random selection, to some unlucky miscreant? For example: abusive name calling in the forums is punishable with a banning of 1 hour, but there's only a 10% chance you'll get punished .. after some time there have been 7 infractions of this type, none punished (so far), and then some poor sod goes off the handle. Instead of copping just a 1 hour banning, he cops the 1 hour ban plus the accumulated punishment debt of 7 hours.

This might sometimes be known as the "daddy is getting angry" model.

For this system to work (ie. not appear entirely capricious) it would be necessary to provide ongoing feedback to the community as to the current level of punishment debt. Other forms of community status/feedback might include a list of currently unpunished miscreants, or (more positively) a leaderboard of well behaved frequent posters.

Variations to this basic model are possible: the punishment debt could aggregate from all crimes instead of separate totals for each type being kept, the chance of the punishment being applied might increase as the debt increases, the chance of punishment might increase if you've previously escaped punishment, there could be some modulation of the upper limit according to the severity of the crime, there could be a gradual decay of the debt over time, and so on.

What might the effects be? If the community has been particularly naughty lately, it would be wise not to do even the littlest thing wrong, lest daddy's wrath descend on you. An acceptable (i.e. non-perfect) level of misbehaviour might be arrived at through community consensus. Some characters might take on the role of lightning rod/martyr, intentionally invoking the wrath of punishment so as to release the built up potential.

teaching patience

Here and there I read the commentary of others on various quests, and I see various complaints about quests. Things like a quest to "go see this guy in Zangarmarsh" but doesn't say just where in the zone he is; or a quest involving killing a number of a type of mob but there are not enough spawns.

The first type of quest usually results in the player looking up the coords on wowhead or similar .. and the player then whining about travelling all the way over there just to talk to the guy, who then sends you all the way back again. The smarter approach is to just leave it in your quest log and go about your business, knowing with a sure certainty that there are lots of other quests throughout the zone and you'll eventually stumble across the guy.

The “kill 10 rats” style of quests .. many players I know approach these with a one track determination, and often I'm similarly tempted. I need to stop and look at what other quests are in the same place - sometimes I focus on completing the kill count, and then look at another quest I already have and realise I now need to fight (and kill) my way through the exact same type of mob to complete some “pickup a thing” quest.

I can understand the determined approach though: you're a hero, you've got a quest, of course you're going to get stuck in. Completing quests as a by product of going about your daily business just doesn't feel particularly heroic.

What game mechanisms might be brought to play to encourage less single-mindedness?

For example: what if there was some quest involving killing 40 vicious crocodiles .. but there are only 1 or 2 that spawn in an area which you need to travel many, many times in pursuit of other quests. The spawns would need to be randomly distributed across a wide area to make spawn camping futile. The quest hub shouldn't make this quest available until maybe a fedex quest has already been completed across that area - you certainly wouldn't want this quest giver being the first guy you meet as you approach the area.

Another: a twist on the daily quest mechanism in that you keep the one quest the whole time but only one kill per day counts. No one would seriously want to do 40 kills of this type, although 7 kills might be tolerable.

What else?