In most PnP RPG's, characters have a chance to fail at most actions at some point or another, often by rolling the dreaded 1. So, it didn't matter if your master-sword-chuck-wielding fighter was amazing with his combat prowess, every once in a while they would slip, or he'd whack his tallywhacker.
Is it possible to translate this to an MMO? Would such a thing even be desirable?
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The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!
If action based combat my answer would probably be no
But since my favorite MMORPG's are tab targeting RPG's i would say yes.. making failures should be part of a character... However, since i like stat based games, having a stat that reduces the chance to make failures would also be a great part of the meta game... Doing hard things also should raise the chance of failure, doing simple things should lower the chance...
This to me would be an important part of bringing the RPG back to MMORPG's.. making games more strategical and tactical and less high speed action based
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
PnP games were niche in their time, and people who accepted those rules would be a tiny minority in today's vast crowd of gamers, most of whom probably don't even know what PnP stands for...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
According to the latest ESA report, the average American gamer is now 35 years old...
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
So you realize the Xbox came out in 2001 which would put the xbox generation exactly where you 2(about 35 now +-) erhmmm geniuses decide to overlook them ... and pass the buck .. aint that rich ..wtf
Yes, attempting something too hard should increase the chance to fail, but it shouldn't be the only time you fail.
I think folks sometimes forget that RPGs were about a fantasy environment where your character was not subject to all of the mental and physical shortcomings of the player. That was handled by character stats. When an "RPG" becomes entirely about the player's mental acuity or dexterity, it risks becoming more of a normal game than a role playing game - at least in the traditional sense.
PnP RPGs - usually - have a game master who interprets the dice roll. Critical if death exists; and even if there are options for bringing a party or characters back whether via clerics or clones or whatever death can mean the end of the gaming session.
In a computer game where failure means you reload back to the last save or you have unlimited attempts or instant rez ..... the question becomes why bother.
And the question also extends to PnP RPGs. D&D was pretty simplistic as far as systems went. If you wanted something more complex there were games like "Chivalry and Sorcery" or "Empireof the Petal Throne". Of course if you played C&S you might never get to the scene of the action ......
Theres a thought. Maybe people who played D&D were whiners who only had a few hours to play and couldn't afford the weeks needed for a "proper" C&S style campaign!
So - to answer the OPs question - it depends.
Games are entertainment. They are not real life. Sometimes entertainment means being challenged; sometimes it means blasting mobs as an outlet for the frustrations of the day; sometimes it will means partaking in an unfolding story and so on. And there is no one size fits all. So sometimes having a chance of failure will be appropriate - and part of the entertainment; sometimes it will be pointless.
Peter Dinklage asked what it was like acting with a dragon. Answer: they are not real you know. The point being we mustn't lose sight of what games are.
The old muds had first a concentration check and once that was passed it would go through a spell defense check. So if you cast the spell then it would go against the saves of defender and if they failed then the spell landed. However those spells were nasty like blind or sleep. Imagine if blind or sleep was in mmo's today.
Its kinda sad because I never got tired or bored of playing muds.
Those people aren't the problem with MMORPGs, it's the old folks (non gamers) who came into the genre with WOW, who thought everything took too much time, that have brought about this nonsense. Not core gamers who would have been around for the OG xbox. Nor younger folks who have oodles of free time.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
My favourite 1 is Leo's book-stabbing in Dorkness rising (hey, it's prone, and got a spine, so why not? )
https://youtu.be/iUNFhR3LaLI?t=2m53s
Jokes aside, I think it would cause too much additional load in an online game to do every time an extra check (even if it's just a yes/no, and not a full chart), and beyond combat it would be straigth annoying. Click mount - damn, the stupid fell off... click mount again. If not die from the fell, it's just a waste of time.
In combat it would have more relevance, but still, there are easier ways to add some fumble moments into combat than do a check at every skill activation... An incoming crit from a boss could be considered as a fumble with the parry roll for example. So in a sense it's already there.
Backfiring skills, now that's a funny thing, in a p'n'p we got wiped once because of a fumbled spell put a stone skin on the enemy Could be nice in games, but only with some control over it, because in an online game it could cause a lot of trouble, especially if it happens in a place with a cooldown of a couple days. Maybe it was fine back in the days, but not today.
CO has a mechanic where your nemesis' henchmans randomly jumps on you, you can see that as a fumble... It's a pain in the butt when happens in a tight situation.
TSW has a similar one with the bounty hunter, I got killed once in a Lair because on of the group members got the BH spawned and at first it's like a random new add, so it aggroed me, from behind, all I saw was the HP dropping way too fast for some reason... not wiped the whole group just two of us, but still - it's definitely not an additional thrill, just plain annoyance. Was to them as well, I heal
And the old school gamers were pretty happy ... It was after Wow and the X box generation started filtering into the MMO genre that the whining started ... Because they werent used to the old school MMo mechaincs in there console games .... ANd there numbers grew in the MMO genre .. And the New xbox generation was now the vocal majority , that forced the devs hands into the dumbing down ..
And yea i started in the 80s on a C64 like many .. but the reality is there are only 2 generations of pc gamers at this point ..
You say you were part of that Eq/SWG /UO DAOC .. Were you or your guild mates friends , any of them pissing and moaning for things to easier and faster ............... I dont recall any of mine doing so .. Thru all of those games ... and many others AC /AO etc ... players werent whining on forums for easy .. it was after Wow and the Xbox generation took over the genre...
And to add , i am hoping that BM and Pantheon team stick to there vision and not cave to the whiners , and deliver us an old school challenge ...
I still remember when Vanguard released and altho it had its technical prblems for many .. Excluding those it was a great experience ... Until the whining started ... We want instant travel wahh and ruined an entire spectrum of the game as SHip building and travel became obsolete , An then .. Wahhh we cant tell if that mob can beat us ... we want big colored dots over there heads so i can know if i will win .. wahhh lmfao .. so pathetic ...
Now subscriptions are no longer required to play the vast majority of games, devs don't need to drag out the dumb dumb like the older games did.
Orherwise it wasn't until I played vanilla WOW that I realized things could be more convenient. Vanilla WOW wasn't all that easy, npcs could aggro from long ranges if your level was much lower and they would kill you quick. Early dungeons weren't face rolls and I remember many a corpse run in WOWs earlier days.
In fact my first character, a Paladin took 16 days played across 3 or so months to get to max level.
When I started a fresh Warrior in returning for Cataclysm it was only 4 days played across 1 month, and I realized WOW had grown far too easy. (I had quit just before BC launch)
I certainly didn't ask for this design change but apparently "the market" did in order to get to "end game " more rapidly.
For me once the simplified, smaller group rinse and repeat gear grind started it really was the end game for me.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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That said I feel the OG XBOX was probably a good stepping stone for many folks guiding them to deeper more engrossing PC games (compared to other consoles at the time). After all it did have titles like Morrowind, KOTOR, Shenmue2 etc.. Compared to things that were on the playstation it was a different level of complexity in game-play options/systems.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson