Yeah, right..."buy this crappy low budget and incomplete release, because it's different." "And don't forget our cash shop, to buy your extra backpack space and loads of heal potions so you can keep up with the Jones's."
BDO has a cash shop like you describe, different from the WoW mold, very successful. E:D has only cosmetics, different from the WoW mold, quite successful.
EVE/Albion have $$->gold shops, successful. Most of the small ones I mentioned have less aggressive monetization, some do not even have cash shops or have a sub.
As another poster once said, complaining about cash shops is just a way of saying "I want to tell you how you should run your business".
BDO is well known for PtW. It might be very successful, but most of that is from the Asian markets where they don't care about PtW like Westerners do.
Eve didn't add their CS until well after they established themselves and a dedicated Player base.
And generally speaking, what with the Asian markets being much more accepting of CSs and PtW, you can make all kinds of claims of success on the world markets and be right. But that doesn't do much for the Western markets.
Yes, I want to tell game companies in the Western markets how to run their business. I've been doing so. I've been claiming the slow, spiraling downfall of MMORPGs here in the West for some years. And it's been proven right, it seems to me. And to the game producers, evidently, as new MMORPG production has slowed down drastically while games are losing numbers.
Or are you going to claim this unhappy stagnation isn't a thing?
To be honest, I don't like the concept of zone rewards for all. I played some DAoC, and I didn't like being affected by what other Players did or didn't do. However, on a grander scale like you're talking about, with lots of things being affected by holding a victory, it might be much more acceptable.
I liked in Gw1 that the elite PVE zones were only open when your server was holding the elite PvP zone.
As a PvE player, it made you rooting for your server. As a PvP player, it made you so proud to help all the PvE players.
In For Honor (not a MMORPG), when I logged back after years of inactivity, I received a lot of rewards in the name of people that fought in my faction. I did not deserve it. Nonetheless it did not make me unhappy
I like this kind of design.
I never played DAOC nor New World. I wonder how it worked when a faction was becoming really too strong for the two others and what prevented players to join the most powerful to enjoy all the benefits (3 accounts anyone?).
To be honest, I don't like the concept of zone rewards for all. I played some DAoC, and I didn't like being affected by what other Players did or didn't do. However, on a grander scale like you're talking about, with lots of things being affected by holding a victory, it might be much more acceptable.
I liked in Gw1 that the elite PVE zones were only open when your server was holding the elite PvP zone.
As a PvE player, it made you rooting for your server. As a PvP player, it made you so proud to help all the PvE players.
In For Honor (not a MMORPG), when I logged back after years of inactivity, I received a lot of rewards in the name of people that fought in my faction. I did not deserve it. Nonetheless it did not make me unhappy
I like this kind of design.
I never played DAOC nor New World. I wonder how it worked when a faction was becoming really too strong for the two others and what prevented players to join the most powerful to enjoy all the benefits (3 accounts anyone?).
That is what happened in DAoC, at least the beginnings of it. If that (un)balance ever changed, I don't know. I only followed through posts on here, that's the last I saw about it.
That "rooting for your server" only works when you're getting wins. If that stops because one server is dominating it, then that's the end of that.
BDO is well known for PtW. It might be very successful, but most of that is from the Asian markets where they don't care about PtW like Westerners do.
Eve didn't add their CS until well after they established themselves and a dedicated Player base.
And generally speaking, what with the Asian markets being much more accepting of CSs and PtW, you can make all kinds of claims of success on the world markets and be right. But that doesn't do much for the Western markets.
Yes, I want to tell game companies in the Western markets how to run their business. I've been doing so. I've been claiming the slow, spiraling downfall of MMORPGs here in the West for some years. And it's been proven right, it seems to me. And to the game producers, evidently, as new MMORPG production has slowed down drastically while games are losing numbers.
Or are you going to claim this unhappy stagnation isn't a thing?
BDO is successful in the west as well. I know many players whine about P2W all the time, but the point is, these games are businesses that provide value and people vote with their wallets and buy that value in the end - that's why they are successful and continue their development.
Also, more importantly: What does this have to do with any of the discussions at hand? Other than you pouring out random issues you have with current games?
MMORPG's have matured and diversified, it's not a downward spiral. You did not have survival games, coops, online ARPGS, MOBAs, BRs, looter-shooters etc in the past, so all types of players and playstyles had to come to MMORPGs for that online fix. Not anymore.
You've been "prophesizing" the downward spiral while rejecting the designs that boosted them to their peak numbers in the first place and apotheosizing designs that were pulling in much smaller numbers than today's.
And as I said, you all want better games but they aren't going to change because of you.
And yeah, RMT makes many games successful, even lousy games. Even the "same old same old."
You want to know why this fits into the topic? I'm going to tell you. Put this in a Level Grind Game and all it is, is another quest to grind. And nothing changes. Put it in a Sandbox, and it's an interesting part of the game world.
I suspect that YOU won't get that difference. Maybe none of you here get that. Wouldn't surprise me at all. (There are a very few exceptions.) But don't pull that on me. This forum, like all forums, often leads to other points from any topic.
It most certainly is in a downward spiral. All the stuff you mentioned has been added to it, but none of it has lifted the MMORPG genre up beyond a temporary phase of newness. They can play with numbers all they want, and obscure the truth, but anyone being honest has to see that it's slowing down. The only thing that's growing is RMT.
Everyone's anxious for that new game that breaths life back into MMORPGs. Where is it? No one has the answer, only because none of them will change away from this perceived grand desire of Level Grinds. Ignore it all you want to, but that is the crux of the issue.
And Scaling isn't the answer. Scaling does indeed show the big problem of divided players, and they recognized that, and added and adjusted Scaling the best they can. From what I understand, ESO has made the best of it. But Scaling brings another problem. The "Snickers Effect." Where you don't know who you are. And that devastates any sense of Identity, which is why people like Advancement.
In short, Scaling makes a mockery of Advancement. Just as much as Level Grind Games make a mockery of "massively multiplayer worlds."
NOTHING will change, nothing will advance, unless Gamers start to realize that the huge power gaps and BIG NUMBERS are bad for MMORPGs and demand better worlds to play in.
Im not a fan of levels but advancement or progression is a basic requirement of any game in the form of skills, alternate advancement and equipment.
i would use the following formula instead of levels
Basic skills
1) all skills can be collected in the form of skill books. This can come as a whole book or pages that can be assembled. Some you can purchase, others need to be found. Each skill may have a number of similar variants.
2) You put these books in your library at your house and you can potentially access the skill on any of your characters.
3) once you have a skill you can get the most out of it by creating some form of training/augmentation device in your house such as an archery range, target dummy, grimoire stand, magic pool etc. You could upgrade these a couple of times and some devices need to be powered, while others don't.
4) once you have a skill powered up you can then make a special crafting apparatus in your home that can modify skills based on a number of points for some cost of rarer resources.
so you can basically build your character in your house. Everyone house will be like a lab/workshop/wizards tower.
alternate advancement
you get alternate advancement from collecting achievements. Achievements are classified under a umber of categories and each category offers small interesting bonuses that are reasonable for that type of category. For instance getting crafting achievements gives the crafting bonuses and so on. This also ties in with the npc guilds which would be the source of most of these extra bonuses should you qualify for them and choose them. Not all bonuses come from the guilds but participating in the guilds will give you the best access to the bonuses.
to make this work you don't get experience anymore from enemies but rather just the resources (and achievements, if applicable) they drop and every enemy drops a useful resource of some kind.
armor/weapon system
there are three types of items: Crafted, dropped magic items and dropped cursed items
each item type has its advantages and disadvantages for instance crafted is the most durable of the three, least toxic but also least powerful dropped magic is middle of the road cursed is the most powerful of the three is the most toxic and has significant downsides.
this system is balanced by a magic toxicity system where equipping too much magic is harmful to you so the most efficient build is that where you balance your cursed items with dropped magic items and crafted items. You can choose how you want to play though but the toxicity has significant negative effects on your character. Whether you want to be conservative, balanced or reckless is up to you but it matters how you equip your character and just adding more and more phat loot wont necessarily make your character stronger.
i figure between the three that's plenty of advancement.
And Scaling isn't the answer. Scaling does indeed show the big problem of divided players, and they recognized that, and added and adjusted Scaling the best they can. From what I understand, ESO has made the best of it. But Scaling brings another problem. The "Snickers Effect." Where you don't know who you are. And that devastates any sense of Identity, which is why people like Advancement.
In short, Scaling makes a mockery of Advancement. Just as much as Level Grind Games make a mockery of "massively multiplayer worlds."
NOTHING will change, nothing will advance, unless Gamers start to realize that the huge power gaps and BIG NUMBERS are bad for MMORPGs and demand better worlds to play in.
I know exactly what all my ESO characters are as I am the one that defines the identity of each through how I combine the numerous options available. I am the one that chooses the manner my character advances through each of those options.
My choices advance my character from a handful of abilities that can't fill a single bar to one with so many that two bars can't concurrently accommodate all the active skills I have available, a plethora of supporting passives from various skill lines, further customization from the Character Point system, whatever of the ever increasing pool of equipment set abilities I want to augment my character with, and on and on.
ESO characters do not suffer from a lack of advancement opportunities, nor do they lack a sense of identity. You would know that if you played the game long enough to develop a character from what it starts as to what it can become.
Eso has the best character development and equipment system to date from the games ive played. Had they stripped out the levels 1-50 and shunted the champion points into the achievement system , it would of been a great improvement. Traditional levels are basically vestigial in that game.
its a shame they never properly addressed the combat system and improved the dungeons. IMO it would of been a lot more popular.
Many of my ideas were to improve that game but I guess they weren't interested. lol.
You want to know why this fits into the topic? I'm going to tell you. Put this in a Level Grind Game and all it is, is another quest to grind. And nothing changes. Put it in a Sandbox, and it's an interesting part of the game world.
I suspect that YOU won't get that difference. Maybe none of you here get that. Wouldn't surprise me at all. (There are a very few exceptions.) But don't pull that on me. This forum, like all forums, often leads to other points from any topic.
1) I was asking how your gripe about P2W fits in the topic, not levels. I understand that Rungar made levels indirectly a part of the topic by mentioning endgame. There is such thing as going in tangents, and such thing as throwing randomly all my complaints to see what sticks or can win me an argument.
2) I like how you capitalized YOU. Some of the MMOs I played are EVE, Albion, Foxhole, E:D and One Hour One Life. All sandboxes. EVE/Albion is skill-based, Foxhole/One Hour One Life have no skills, levels and character power difference at all, E:D's progression is only based on what ship you fly, again no skills or levels. So I can appreciate and enjoy the merits of all sorts of different designs. Even the examples I give in this thread are from E:D, a sandbox.
"Maybe none of you here get that." heh, arrogance.
I still think "endgame" is irrelevant and can be decoupled from the context of this thread, as I said in one of my previous posts. Rungar is only making it relevant due to the details of his suggested implementation. Make a new player a grunt that feels they can affect the world right from the get go, even in a minor way, and you give them a sense of agency and belonging and get an extra chance to hook them up.
i mean the ideal endgame starts at the beginning . I use that term because most can identify with it. It has nothing to do with levels per say. There is no reason why you couldn't start participating from day 1 if you wanted to. Its specifically designed to let you do that as accessibility is a core feature. Something that is often lacking in other forms of "endgame" content.
at the same time doing the same thing over and over for twenty years doesn't yield the best results either.
i think you overestimate them.
I disagree, I have seen lots of different designs, some better, some worse, especially in smaller games. The fact that the same themepark WoW variants are the only ones hitting mainstream is mostly because that's what the majority of players want. Respect your opinion though.
And you know that's what the players want because that's what they buy, the only thing available.
I've banged myself over the head many, many times.
The general public wants easy to play simple games. Do you want evidence?
Just look at the games available for purchase today.
i use the rule of three. Keep giving people three choices and it works out pretty good!
Cars are pretty simple to drive but that's only because a shit tonne of engineering has made it that way. Games need to be the same way. Simple on the surface but a very complex machine underneath driving it.
And Scaling isn't the answer. Scaling does indeed show the big problem of divided players, and they recognized that, and added and adjusted Scaling the best they can. From what I understand, ESO has made the best of it. But Scaling brings another problem. The "Snickers Effect." Where you don't know who you are. And that devastates any sense of Identity, which is why people like Advancement.
In short, Scaling makes a mockery of Advancement. Just as much as Level Grind Games make a mockery of "massively multiplayer worlds."
NOTHING will change, nothing will advance, unless Gamers start to realize that the huge power gaps and BIG NUMBERS are bad for MMORPGs and demand better worlds to play in.
I know exactly what all my ESO characters are as I am the one that defines the identity of each through how I combine the numerous options available. I am the one that chooses the manner my character advances through each of those options.
My choices advance my character from a handful of abilities that can't fill a single bar to one with so many that two bars can't concurrently accommodate all the active skills I have available, a plethora of supporting passives from various skill lines, further customization from the Character Point system, whatever of the ever increasing pool of equipment set abilities I want to augment my character with, and on and on.
ESO characters do not suffer from a lack of advancement opportunities, nor do they lack a sense of identity. You would know that if you played the game long enough to develop a character from what it starts as to what it can become.
Oh really? How does your level determine who your character is, in the scope of advancement? It doesn't. The game changes your character's identity. That's my point. Not whether or not you can accurately describe the changes made.
at the same time doing the same thing over and over for twenty years doesn't yield the best results either.
i think you overestimate them.
I disagree, I have seen lots of different designs, some better, some worse, especially in smaller games. The fact that the same themepark WoW variants are the only ones hitting mainstream is mostly because that's what the majority of players want. Respect your opinion though.
And you know that's what the players want because that's what they buy, the only thing available.
I've banged myself over the head many, many times.
The general public wants easy to play simple games. Do you want evidence?
Just look at the games available for purchase today.
I don't believe that. You know the old saying "you can't please everybody all of the time"? I believe there are huge numbers out there that want something that's not easy to "win." Just as there are huge numbers that want easy.
But all they do is make games that are "made to win." So naturally, if you want to play the game, you got to play what's available.
You want to know why this fits into the topic? I'm going to tell you. Put this in a Level Grind Game and all it is, is another quest to grind. And nothing changes. Put it in a Sandbox, and it's an interesting part of the game world.
I suspect that YOU won't get that difference. Maybe none of you here get that. Wouldn't surprise me at all. (There are a very few exceptions.) But don't pull that on me. This forum, like all forums, often leads to other points from any topic.
1) I was asking how your gripe about P2W fits in the topic, not levels. I understand that Rungar made levels indirectly a part of the topic by mentioning endgame. There is such thing as going in tangents, and such thing as throwing randomly all my complaints to see what sticks or can win me an argument.
2) I like how you capitalized YOU. Some of the MMOs I played are EVE, Albion, Foxhole, E:D and One Hour One Life. All sandboxes. EVE/Albion is skill-based, Foxhole/One Hour One Life have no skills, levels and character power difference at all, E:D's progression is only based on what ship you fly, again no skills or levels. So I can appreciate and enjoy the merits of all sorts of different designs. Even the examples I give in this thread are from E:D, a sandbox.
"Maybe none of you here get that." heh, arrogance.
I still think "endgame" is irrelevant and can be decoupled from the context of this thread, as I said in one of my previous posts. Rungar is only making it relevant due to the details of his suggested implementation. Make a new player a grunt that feels they can affect the world right from the get go, even in a minor way, and you give them a sense of agency and belonging and get an extra chance to hook them up.
1)
"But officer tzervo, why can't I talk about PtW?"
"Hey kid, if you want your milkshake in a glass, it's going to cost you $145 for one of mine." "For an extra $20, I'll even clean it for you."
2) I emphasized YOU because YOU are always steadfastly supporting the crap that things like PtW brings to "gaming". Which only harms good game play and design.
""Maybe none of you here get that." heh, arrogance."
That's not arrogance. Very few posters talk about character identity around here anymore. And that's over quite a few years now. But if you want to talk about arrogance, how about how you assumed you were right and I was wrong?
Yes, I agree that "End Game" is not relevant to this idea. That has nothing to do with my comments. What does is how everyone has taken the Level Grind game design into their considerations. And at the time when I first commented, and put your undies in a bunch, even Rungar seemed to. But I see now, after his follow-up post, that he was only replying to all the others that were looking at it through Themepark (to be more accurate, "level grind") eyes. Which goes to my point that almost all of you are stuck in Level Grind mode. And that, as long as gamers refuse to consider the many benefits of Sandbox, you'll get no changes to make MMORPGs better for playing.
Note that I said "for playing." I'm sure we haven't seen the last of the ways to make them better for making RMT money. Or PtW.
I dunno i think that theres no need for a mmo to be sandbox or themepark when it can easily be both at the same time.
im not sure about this whole "identity" thing either. You get a unique name. What more could you want? I mean games can only give you so many options. apart from your name there will be many many clones of you in the game, especially if you got your "identity" from a website that told you what to do with your character.
i prefer a simple archetype system Fighter/Mage/Rogue . Think of it as a pie split in three. Then within the three pieces its split again by offence/defense/utility. Then we split it one more time so each of those three (offense/defense/utility) is split in three sub slivers. So something like offence has three little slivers of pie.
The edges say between fighter and mage are a little blurry so fighter can choose some things in the closest sliver ( or maybe two slivers) of Mage pie and vice versa. As we go around the pie then mages can choose from fighter and rogue in the edge slivers and same for the rogue and fighter.
in the center of each piece of pie is defense and other archetypes cannot access these but if you choose to access the mage sliver and your a fighter, it costs you points from your defense sliver only.
this makes how you defend yourself (situational mitigation) critical to your "identity". You will always be a fighter/mage/rogue but as you become more skilled and less reliant on defense you can pick up a few tricks from the other guys to make your character unique.
Of course even within the "fighter" slice you could make a somewhat unique character without ever leaving the pie, but the option is there for those that want it.
Point finding and allocation would be very simple. Every time you get a new skill in your archetype you get a point to spend according to the type of skill book found. Eventually you'll collect enough skills of one archetype that you'll stop getting these even though you might still keep finding skills. The only points you can spend outside the intended sliver ( offense/defense/utility) are defensive points which can use used in the edge slivers of the other archetypes.
each point in the defensive sliver used elsewhere will negatively affect your overall defensive potential so these are very important points. In all other slivers the points only allow skills to be equipped or provide passives.
at the same time doing the same thing over and over for twenty years doesn't yield the best results either.
i think you overestimate them.
I disagree, I have seen lots of different designs, some better, some worse, especially in smaller games. The fact that the same themepark WoW variants are the only ones hitting mainstream is mostly because that's what the majority of players want. Respect your opinion though.
And you know that's what the players want because that's what they buy, the only thing available.
I've banged myself over the head many, many times.
The general public wants easy to play simple games. Do you want evidence?
Just look at the games available for purchase today.
I don't believe that. You know the old saying "you can't please everybody all of the time"? I believe there are huge numbers out there that want something that's not easy to "win." Just as there are huge numbers that want easy.
But all they do is make games that are "made to win." So naturally, if you want to play the game, you got to play what's available.
I so want to believe that. I'm getting pretty cynical in my old age.
at the same time doing the same thing over and over for twenty years doesn't yield the best results either.
i think you overestimate them.
I disagree, I have seen lots of different designs, some better, some worse, especially in smaller games. The fact that the same themepark WoW variants are the only ones hitting mainstream is mostly because that's what the majority of players want. Respect your opinion though.
And you know that's what the players want because that's what they buy, the only thing available.
I've banged myself over the head many, many times.
The general public wants easy to play simple games. Do you want evidence?
Just look at the games available for purchase today.
I don't believe that. You know the old saying "you can't please everybody all of the time"? I believe there are huge numbers out there that want something that's not easy to "win." Just as there are huge numbers that want easy.
But all they do is make games that are "made to win." So naturally, if you want to play the game, you got to play what's available.
I so want to believe that. I'm getting pretty cynical in my old age.
All this is, is the masses being treated like one kind, the lowest common denominator. You ask any of them, and they'll tell you (whether it's true or not) that they are not one of those "lowest common denominators." The truth is that people are as diverse as snowflakes. And I don't mean that negatively. And no amount of perceived marketing control really changes that, even if it appears that way sometimes. I've been in sales and related to marketing most of my working life. (I'm retired and old now.) And this is what I've witnessed, from all the dealings with so many, many people. Really, marketing doesn't change minds, it merely informs. People take it from there. When Coka Cola advertised Santa Clause in red instead of green, people loved it. They weren't persuaded, they were informed of an option that just fit better. When RJ Reynolds advertised cigarettes for women, no one's minds were changed. People were already accepting of the idea of equal rights, and at the time it was informing women of an option. None of them started smoking just because someone said they should. They did it because they decided they wanted to.
We've seen the change in MMORPGs, with CSs and PtW and all of that. Just because many gamers want it, and still more gamers do it because "that's the way of the world", doesn't mean that's what all gamers really want in their MMORPGs.
I dunno i think that theres no need for a mmo to be sandbox or themepark when it can easily be both at the same time.
im not sure about this whole "identity" thing either. You get a unique name. What more could you want? I mean games can only give you so many options. apart from your name there will be many many clones of you in the game, especially if you got your "identity" from a website that told you what to do with your character.
i prefer a simple archetype system Fighter/Mage/Rogue . Think of it as a pie split in three. Then within the three pieces its split again by offence/defense/utility. Then we split it one more time so each of those three (offense/defense/utility) is split in three sub slivers. So something like offence has three little slivers of pie.
The edges say between fighter and mage are a little blurry so fighter can choose some things in the closest sliver ( or maybe two slivers) of Mage pie and vice versa. As we go around the pie then mages can choose from fighter and rogue in the edge slivers and same for the rogue and fighter.
in the center of each piece of pie is defense and other archetypes cannot access these but if you choose to access the mage sliver and your a fighter, it costs you points from your defense sliver only.
this makes how you defend yourself (situational mitigation) critical to your "identity". You will always be a fighter/mage/rogue but as you become more skilled and less reliant on defense you can pick up a few tricks from the other guys to make your character unique.
Of course even within the "fighter" slice you could make a somewhat unique character without ever leaving the pie, but the option is there for those that want it.
Point finding and allocation would be very simple. Every time you get a new skill in your archetype you get a point to spend according to the type of skill book found. Eventually you'll collect enough skills of one archetype that you'll stop getting these even though you might still keep finding skills. The only points you can spend outside the intended sliver ( offense/defense/utility) are defensive points which can use used in the edge slivers of the other archetypes.
each point in the defensive sliver used elsewhere will negatively affect your overall defensive potential so these are very important points. In all other slivers the points only allow skills to be equipped or provide passives.
Think about it, on the difference between Sandbox and Themepark. I think you'll start to see that your idea has unlimited potential in Sandbox, while it becomes just another grind in Themepark. (I'd change it from simply granting bonuses, to gaining artifacts. Artifacts that could be used in any way you choose, no limits to what they can be for.)
For identity, gamers seem to really like the concept of Classes. That's an identity for your characters. When gamers talk, they say "my fighter" or "my mage". It's ingrained in our minds. We say "my football team" and "my fly reel" (accompanied by name). Identity. Hell, I heard of a guy whose girlfriend named his thang "Kroll, the Mighty Warrior King." Identity. And just to say, I don't think that games where a Character can be anything, and all things, is what Gamers really want. They want their warrior, or their mage, or whatever. And they want multiple character slots. This is generally speaking.
i agree with multiple character slots which is why i like the home library/training device concept. You home becomes the collection of your characters. One guy doesn't need to/cant do it all.
this also lets you collect every skill in the game regardless of character and use them accordingly at your leisure.
so no need to grind up new characters. Achievements would also be global so you wouldnt have to grind those multiple times either.
i dont like hard classes but prefer soft archetype based classes. This lets you make your own subclass off a specific theme. So some mages might have pets, others not but fighters could also have pets, and so could rogues.
the idea is the same but each archetype would have a unique implementation. A rogue might have tigers etc, wolves for fighters and some kind of magical creature for mages.
i agree with multiple character slots which is why i like the home library/training device concept. You home becomes the collection of your characters. One guy doesn't need to/cant do it all.
this also lets you collect every skill in the game regardless of character and use them accordingly at your leisure.
so no need to grind up new characters. Achievements would also be global so you wouldnt have to grind those multiple times either.
i dont like hard classes but prefer soft archetype based classes. This lets you make your own subclass off a specific theme. So some mages might have pets, others not but fighters could also have pets, and so could rogues.
the idea is the same but each archetype would have a unique implementation. A rogue might have tigers etc, wolves for fighters and some kind of magical creature for mages.
hard classes would be way more limiting imo.
My favorite idea is a Skill based system, with Classes as an option to join through NPC Guilds, and even Player run Guilds that are dedicated to a Class. Characters get some bonus stuff, to make up for losing the Jack-Of-All-Trades scope of abilities. I'd actually design it as a Jack of SOME trades, not all.
With this, a Player can adjust it also, to be more "Fighter" and less "Mage", or whatever their choices are.
So, as an example, a Thief Character can also have good Fighting skills, or good Mage skills. But a Thief who joins the Guild gets extra things they can do, like climbing walls, that also helps in climbing mountains or trees faster. And disappearing powder. But at a reduction to other Skills. They might only be a "decent" Fighter or Mage.
You can do the same thing with multi-classing. But there's more freedom this way, and more variety.
i feel its a critical control point to ensure that archetypes are linked to defensive potential. If you want to be more well rounded you can but there has to be a hard cost for doing so.
not a fan of skill "use" its just another form of levelling and i dont like multiclasses either. I see a character as a loadout. It should be a fun process to try out many combinations to see what works for you. It should also be fun to develop multiple characters.
the real problem with hard classes is that it creates a whining dynamic so the game literally revolves around balancing these classes against each other and this is a waste of development resources imo. I prefer the archetype system as it minimizes this process somewhat as they cant be balanced against each other, only against specific enemies.
better to change the enemies than continually change the players.
at the same time doing the same thing over and over for twenty years doesn't yield the best results either.
i think you overestimate them.
I disagree, I have seen lots of different designs, some better, some worse, especially in smaller games. The fact that the same themepark WoW variants are the only ones hitting mainstream is mostly because that's what the majority of players want. Respect your opinion though.
And you know that's what the players want because that's what they buy, the only thing available.
I've banged myself over the head many, many times.
The general public wants easy to play simple games. Do you want evidence?
Just look at the games available for purchase today.
I don't believe that. You know the old saying "you can't please everybody all of the time"? I believe there are huge numbers out there that want something that's not easy to "win." Just as there are huge numbers that want easy.
But all they do is make games that are "made to win." So naturally, if you want to play the game, you got to play what's available.
I so want to believe that. I'm getting pretty cynical in my old age.
All this is, is the masses being treated like one kind, the lowest common denominator. You ask any of them, and they'll tell you (whether it's true or not) that they are not one of those "lowest common denominators." The truth is that people are as diverse as snowflakes. And I don't mean that negatively. And no amount of perceived marketing control really changes that, even if it appears that way sometimes. I've been in sales and related to marketing most of my working life. (I'm retired and old now.) And this is what I've witnessed, from all the dealings with so many, many people. Really, marketing doesn't change minds, it merely informs. People take it from there. When Coka Cola advertised Santa Clause in red instead of green, people loved it. They weren't persuaded, they were informed of an option that just fit better. When RJ Reynolds advertised cigarettes for women, no one's minds were changed. People were already accepting of the idea of equal rights, and at the time it was informing women of an option. None of them started smoking just because someone said they should. They did it because they decided they wanted to.
We've seen the change in MMORPGs, with CSs and PtW and all of that. Just because many gamers want it, and still more gamers do it because "that's the way of the world", doesn't mean that's what all gamers really want in their MMORPGs.
And the same holds true with easy mode.
I see things more like the Roman Mob these days.
I got a lot of great advice from salesmen back when I was young. Advice from some guys who had been around a while back then, advice that was given towards me being a manufacturer and not a salesman.
One piece of advice that really stuck with me, was that I was told that $5 was a number that most people will blow without thinking twice. $10 was something that actually had to be useful. $20 and over, the product had to be something really good.
I'm not sure what we would come up with taking inflation into account but it's really hard to come up with something really good
at the same time doing the same thing over and over for twenty years doesn't yield the best results either.
i think you overestimate them.
I disagree, I have seen lots of different designs, some better, some worse, especially in smaller games. The fact that the same themepark WoW variants are the only ones hitting mainstream is mostly because that's what the majority of players want. Respect your opinion though.
And you know that's what the players want because that's what they buy, the only thing available.
I've banged myself over the head many, many times.
The general public wants easy to play simple games. Do you want evidence?
Just look at the games available for purchase today.
I don't believe that. You know the old saying "you can't please everybody all of the time"? I believe there are huge numbers out there that want something that's not easy to "win." Just as there are huge numbers that want easy.
But all they do is make games that are "made to win." So naturally, if you want to play the game, you got to play what's available.
I so want to believe that. I'm getting pretty cynical in my old age.
All this is, is the masses being treated like one kind, the lowest common denominator. You ask any of them, and they'll tell you (whether it's true or not) that they are not one of those "lowest common denominators." The truth is that people are as diverse as snowflakes. And I don't mean that negatively. And no amount of perceived marketing control really changes that, even if it appears that way sometimes. I've been in sales and related to marketing most of my working life. (I'm retired and old now.) And this is what I've witnessed, from all the dealings with so many, many people. Really, marketing doesn't change minds, it merely informs. People take it from there. When Coka Cola advertised Santa Clause in red instead of green, people loved it. They weren't persuaded, they were informed of an option that just fit better. When RJ Reynolds advertised cigarettes for women, no one's minds were changed. People were already accepting of the idea of equal rights, and at the time it was informing women of an option. None of them started smoking just because someone said they should. They did it because they decided they wanted to.
We've seen the change in MMORPGs, with CSs and PtW and all of that. Just because many gamers want it, and still more gamers do it because "that's the way of the world", doesn't mean that's what all gamers really want in their MMORPGs.
And the same holds true with easy mode.
I see things more like the Roman Mob these days.
I got a lot of great advice from salesmen back when I was young. Advice from some guys who had been around a while back then, advice that was given towards me being a manufacturer and not a salesman.
One piece of advice that really stuck with me, was that I was told that $5 was a number that most people will blow without thinking twice. $10 was something that actually had to be useful. $20 and over, the product had to be something really good.
I'm not sure what we would come up with taking inflation into account but it's really hard to come up with something really good
Yeah, I was young once, too. And I had good advice from the older folks, like you did. A lot of them lived through the Great Depression and WWII, and had some insight that I really couldn't ignore. (Includes my parents.)
Those folks were special, after all they went through. They were survivors, and knew it, and appreciated it and the world that was saved. Great humor and loads of class, for the most part. Fun people to learn from.
I think the most important lesson I got was "People are the same all over the world." That was from a guy that spent quite some time in Japan, after the war was over. I'd heard that many times, but this guy knew for a fact. He was my sales supervisor, and I learned quite a bit from him.
I even met an old German soldier that was on the Russian Front. (Other people from that town told me, not him.) I didn't learn anything from him, though, except that war can make some people batshjt crazy. But he was full of humor, regardless. Not good humor, mind you, his always bordered on the edge of crazy. He did seem to sincerely enjoy talking to people.
at the same time doing the same thing over and over for twenty years doesn't yield the best results either.
i think you overestimate them.
I disagree, I have seen lots of different designs, some better, some worse, especially in smaller games. The fact that the same themepark WoW variants are the only ones hitting mainstream is mostly because that's what the majority of players want. Respect your opinion though.
And you know that's what the players want because that's what they buy, the only thing available.
I've banged myself over the head many, many times.
The general public wants easy to play simple games. Do you want evidence?
Just look at the games available for purchase today.
I don't believe that. You know the old saying "you can't please everybody all of the time"? I believe there are huge numbers out there that want something that's not easy to "win." Just as there are huge numbers that want easy.
But all they do is make games that are "made to win." So naturally, if you want to play the game, you got to play what's available.
I so want to believe that. I'm getting pretty cynical in my old age.
All this is, is the masses being treated like one kind, the lowest common denominator. You ask any of them, and they'll tell you (whether it's true or not) that they are not one of those "lowest common denominators." The truth is that people are as diverse as snowflakes. And I don't mean that negatively. And no amount of perceived marketing control really changes that, even if it appears that way sometimes. I've been in sales and related to marketing most of my working life. (I'm retired and old now.) And this is what I've witnessed, from all the dealings with so many, many people. Really, marketing doesn't change minds, it merely informs. People take it from there. When Coka Cola advertised Santa Clause in red instead of green, people loved it. They weren't persuaded, they were informed of an option that just fit better. When RJ Reynolds advertised cigarettes for women, no one's minds were changed. People were already accepting of the idea of equal rights, and at the time it was informing women of an option. None of them started smoking just because someone said they should. They did it because they decided they wanted to.
We've seen the change in MMORPGs, with CSs and PtW and all of that. Just because many gamers want it, and still more gamers do it because "that's the way of the world", doesn't mean that's what all gamers really want in their MMORPGs.
And the same holds true with easy mode.
I see things more like the Roman Mob these days.
I got a lot of great advice from salesmen back when I was young. Advice from some guys who had been around a while back then, advice that was given towards me being a manufacturer and not a salesman.
One piece of advice that really stuck with me, was that I was told that $5 was a number that most people will blow without thinking twice. $10 was something that actually had to be useful. $20 and over, the product had to be something really good.
I'm not sure what we would come up with taking inflation into account but it's really hard to come up with something really good
Second reply to this post.
I had to look up your "Roman mob" comment. I knew that, but never heard that term. That's pretty much standard, isn't it? Mobs form, the mentality of them anyways, and they break up, based on stimuli of the time.
I think you're right about that in this game market. But I think that it would only take a new game, something different, that hits it big, to change that current status quo (the Roman mob situation). And after that, it would probably sink back to it again. Rinse and repeat, over the years. The same as with movies over the years. "The vast wasteland" was what they called movies and television for a time. If I remember right, the first Star Wars movie helped to break things out of a "wasteland" image, at the time.
i feel its a critical control point to ensure that archetypes are linked to defensive potential. If you want to be more well rounded you can but there has to be a hard cost for doing so.
not a fan of skill "use" its just another form of levelling and i dont like multiclasses either. I see a character as a loadout. It should be a fun process to try out many combinations to see what works for you. It should also be fun to develop multiple characters.
the real problem with hard classes is that it creates a whining dynamic so the game literally revolves around balancing these classes against each other and this is a waste of development resources imo. I prefer the archetype system as it minimizes this process somewhat as they cant be balanced against each other, only against specific enemies.
better to change the enemies than continually change the players.
Is your "archetype system" something like the multiclass that I mentioned? Other than the way the class stuff comes from. I'm asking more about how it works after training, during adventures.
I do like a Skill Based system best, but I can see a Class based system working fine. My major issue is with the power gaps, not the Class system itself. Changing it from the strict class code would be a benefit. Lots of various versions have been made. Yours sounds different, obviously.
the main difference in mine is that its mainly strict defensively since it uses a situational mitigation role model so mages can defend against magic, fighters against physical and rogues are better at evading but lack the innate resistance to either.
It is designed to shift most balance issue over to the monsters and you really have to pick your battles.
Each archetype uses specific armors Fighters metal ( plate, chain, banded), rogues beast (leather, hide, scale), mages cloth ( hemp, silk, twill).
so you wont see a mage in plate armor but each archetype has multiple themed options with various positives and negatives. Its a fair bit looser for weapons as anyone can use any weapon.
i prefer players decide what subclass they will be more freely chosen and that includes a little dabbling into the other archetypes but more focused. For instance mages can dabble in rogue utility and fighters offense. Rogues can dabble in fighters utility and mages offense, and fighters can dabble in mages utility and rogues offense.
its not multiclassing, its more akin to "picking up a few tricks".
the idea behind it is to get the most bang for the buck. All the advantages of class based structure with reasonable freedom of choice. Since each archetype has a severe defensive penalty to things they arent suited to its not as easy for players to compare themselves to one another.
mages will be the best when dealing with magic, fighters with physical and rogues situational and most balancing adjustments will come in the bestiary instead. There is no healing role. Archetypes have real weaknesses. What some archetypes find easy others may find very challenging and vice versa.
trying to avoid the nerfcycle as much as possible. Is it a nerf to change/improve enemies instead? Even this has a system as it would be designed for enemies to adapt a little (or alot) over time as needed and to keep things fresh.
unlike players enemies offense and defense can be more variable. you can have a monster that does physical damage but has a magic defense and any other combination. A detailed bestiary would be required to account all this as you play the game. It also kind of nudges you to group a little as some things you will just not be suited for.
Comments
Eve didn't add their CS until well after they established themselves and a dedicated Player base.
And generally speaking, what with the Asian markets being much more accepting of CSs and PtW, you can make all kinds of claims of success on the world markets and be right. But that doesn't do much for the Western markets.
Yes, I want to tell game companies in the Western markets how to run their business.
I've been doing so.
I've been claiming the slow, spiraling downfall of MMORPGs here in the West for some years.
And it's been proven right, it seems to me.
And to the game producers, evidently, as new MMORPG production has slowed down drastically while games are losing numbers.
Or are you going to claim this unhappy stagnation isn't a thing?
Once upon a time....
That "rooting for your server" only works when you're getting wins.
If that stops because one server is dominating it, then that's the end of that.
Once upon a time....
And yeah, RMT makes many games successful, even lousy games. Even the "same old same old."
You want to know why this fits into the topic?
I'm going to tell you.
Put this in a Level Grind Game and all it is, is another quest to grind. And nothing changes.
Put it in a Sandbox, and it's an interesting part of the game world.
I suspect that YOU won't get that difference. Maybe none of you here get that.
Wouldn't surprise me at all. (There are a very few exceptions.)
But don't pull that on me. This forum, like all forums, often leads to other points from any topic.
It most certainly is in a downward spiral. All the stuff you mentioned has been added to it, but none of it has lifted the MMORPG genre up beyond a temporary phase of newness.
They can play with numbers all they want, and obscure the truth, but anyone being honest has to see that it's slowing down.
The only thing that's growing is RMT.
Everyone's anxious for that new game that breaths life back into MMORPGs.
Where is it?
No one has the answer, only because none of them will change away from this perceived grand desire of Level Grinds.
Ignore it all you want to, but that is the crux of the issue.
And Scaling isn't the answer.
Scaling does indeed show the big problem of divided players, and they recognized that, and added and adjusted Scaling the best they can.
From what I understand, ESO has made the best of it.
But Scaling brings another problem.
The "Snickers Effect." Where you don't know who you are. And that devastates any sense of Identity, which is why people like Advancement.
In short, Scaling makes a mockery of Advancement.
Just as much as Level Grind Games make a mockery of "massively multiplayer worlds."
NOTHING will change, nothing will advance, unless Gamers start to realize that the huge power gaps and BIG NUMBERS are bad for MMORPGs and demand better worlds to play in.
Once upon a time....
i would use the following formula instead of levels
Basic skills
1) all skills can be collected in the form of skill books. This can come as a whole book or pages that can be assembled. Some you can purchase, others need to be found. Each skill may have a number of similar variants.
2) You put these books in your library at your house and you can potentially access the skill on any of your characters.
3) once you have a skill you can get the most out of it by creating some form of training/augmentation device in your house such as an archery range, target dummy, grimoire stand, magic pool etc. You could upgrade these a couple of times and some devices need to be powered, while others don't.
4) once you have a skill powered up you can then make a special crafting apparatus in your home that can modify skills based on a number of points for some cost of rarer resources.
so you can basically build your character in your house. Everyone house will be like a lab/workshop/wizards tower.
alternate advancement
you get alternate advancement from collecting achievements. Achievements are classified under a umber of categories and each category offers small interesting bonuses that are reasonable for that type of category. For instance getting crafting achievements gives the crafting bonuses and so on. This also ties in with the npc guilds which would be the source of most of these extra bonuses should you qualify for them and choose them. Not all bonuses come from the guilds but participating in the guilds will give you the best access to the bonuses.
to make this work you don't get experience anymore from enemies but rather just the resources (and achievements, if applicable) they drop and every enemy drops a useful resource of some kind.
armor/weapon system
there are three types of items: Crafted, dropped magic items and dropped cursed items
each item type has its advantages and disadvantages for instance
crafted is the most durable of the three, least toxic but also least powerful
dropped magic is middle of the road
cursed is the most powerful of the three is the most toxic and has significant downsides.
this system is balanced by a magic toxicity system where equipping too much magic is harmful to you so the most efficient build is that where you balance your cursed items with dropped magic items and crafted items. You can choose how you want to play though but the toxicity has significant negative effects on your character. Whether you want to be conservative, balanced or reckless is up to you but it matters how you equip your character and just adding more and more phat loot wont necessarily make your character stronger.
i figure between the three that's plenty of advancement.
I know exactly what all my ESO characters are as I am the one that defines the identity of each through how I combine the numerous options available. I am the one that chooses the manner my character advances through each of those options.
My choices advance my character from a handful of abilities that can't fill a single bar to one with so many that two bars can't concurrently accommodate all the active skills I have available, a plethora of supporting passives from various skill lines, further customization from the Character Point system, whatever of the ever increasing pool of equipment set abilities I want to augment my character with, and on and on.
ESO characters do not suffer from a lack of advancement opportunities, nor do they lack a sense of identity. You would know that if you played the game long enough to develop a character from what it starts as to what it can become.
its a shame they never properly addressed the combat system and improved the dungeons. IMO it would of been a lot more popular.
Many of my ideas were to improve that game but I guess they weren't interested. lol.
The general public wants easy to play simple games. Do you want evidence?
Just look at the games available for purchase today.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Cars are pretty simple to drive but that's only because a shit tonne of engineering has made it that way. Games need to be the same way. Simple on the surface but a very complex machine underneath driving it.
How does your level determine who your character is, in the scope of advancement?
It doesn't. The game changes your character's identity.
That's my point. Not whether or not you can accurately describe the changes made.
Change means lack of identity.
Once upon a time....
You know the old saying "you can't please everybody all of the time"?
I believe there are huge numbers out there that want something that's not easy to "win."
Just as there are huge numbers that want easy.
But all they do is make games that are "made to win." So naturally, if you want to play the game, you got to play what's available.
Once upon a time....
"But officer tzervo, why can't I talk about PtW?"
"Hey kid, if you want your milkshake in a glass, it's going to cost you $145 for one of mine."
"For an extra $20, I'll even clean it for you."
2) I emphasized YOU because YOU are always steadfastly supporting the crap that things like PtW brings to "gaming". Which only harms good game play and design.
""Maybe none of you here get that." heh, arrogance."
That's not arrogance. Very few posters talk about character identity around here anymore. And that's over quite a few years now.
But if you want to talk about arrogance, how about how you assumed you were right and I was wrong?
Yes, I agree that "End Game" is not relevant to this idea.
That has nothing to do with my comments.
What does is how everyone has taken the Level Grind game design into their considerations.
And at the time when I first commented, and put your undies in a bunch, even Rungar seemed to.
But I see now, after his follow-up post, that he was only replying to all the others that were looking at it through Themepark (to be more accurate, "level grind") eyes.
Which goes to my point that almost all of you are stuck in Level Grind mode.
And that, as long as gamers refuse to consider the many benefits of Sandbox, you'll get no changes to make MMORPGs better for playing.
Note that I said "for playing."
I'm sure we haven't seen the last of the ways to make them better for making RMT money. Or PtW.
Once upon a time....
im not sure about this whole "identity" thing either. You get a unique name. What more could you want? I mean games can only give you so many options. apart from your name there will be many many clones of you in the game, especially if you got your "identity" from a website that told you what to do with your character.
i prefer a simple archetype system Fighter/Mage/Rogue . Think of it as a pie split in three. Then within the three pieces its split again by offence/defense/utility. Then we split it one more time so each of those three (offense/defense/utility) is split in three sub slivers. So something like offence has three little slivers of pie.
The edges say between fighter and mage are a little blurry so fighter can choose some things in the closest sliver ( or maybe two slivers) of Mage pie and vice versa. As we go around the pie then mages can choose from fighter and rogue in the edge slivers and same for the rogue and fighter.
in the center of each piece of pie is defense and other archetypes cannot access these but if you choose to access the mage sliver and your a fighter, it costs you points from your defense sliver only.
this makes how you defend yourself (situational mitigation) critical to your "identity". You will always be a fighter/mage/rogue but as you become more skilled and less reliant on defense you can pick up a few tricks from the other guys to make your character unique.
Of course even within the "fighter" slice you could make a somewhat unique character without ever leaving the pie, but the option is there for those that want it.
Point finding and allocation would be very simple. Every time you get a new skill in your archetype you get a point to spend according to the type of skill book found. Eventually you'll collect enough skills of one archetype that you'll stop getting these even though you might still keep finding skills. The only points you can spend outside the intended sliver ( offense/defense/utility) are defensive points which can use used in the edge slivers of the other archetypes.
each point in the defensive sliver used elsewhere will negatively affect your overall defensive potential so these are very important points. In all other slivers the points only allow skills to be equipped or provide passives.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
You ask any of them, and they'll tell you (whether it's true or not) that they are not one of those "lowest common denominators."
The truth is that people are as diverse as snowflakes. And I don't mean that negatively.
And no amount of perceived marketing control really changes that, even if it appears that way sometimes.
I've been in sales and related to marketing most of my working life. (I'm retired and old now.)
And this is what I've witnessed, from all the dealings with so many, many people.
Really, marketing doesn't change minds, it merely informs. People take it from there.
When Coka Cola advertised Santa Clause in red instead of green, people loved it. They weren't persuaded, they were informed of an option that just fit better.
When RJ Reynolds advertised cigarettes for women, no one's minds were changed. People were already accepting of the idea of equal rights, and at the time it was informing women of an option. None of them started smoking just because someone said they should. They did it because they decided they wanted to.
We've seen the change in MMORPGs, with CSs and PtW and all of that.
Just because many gamers want it, and still more gamers do it because "that's the way of the world", doesn't mean that's what all gamers really want in their MMORPGs.
And the same holds true with easy mode.
Once upon a time....
I think you'll start to see that your idea has unlimited potential in Sandbox, while it becomes just another grind in Themepark.
(I'd change it from simply granting bonuses, to gaining artifacts. Artifacts that could be used in any way you choose, no limits to what they can be for.)
For identity, gamers seem to really like the concept of Classes. That's an identity for your characters. When gamers talk, they say "my fighter" or "my mage".
It's ingrained in our minds. We say "my football team" and "my fly reel" (accompanied by name). Identity.
Hell, I heard of a guy whose girlfriend named his thang "Kroll, the Mighty Warrior King."
Identity.
And just to say, I don't think that games where a Character can be anything, and all things, is what Gamers really want. They want their warrior, or their mage, or whatever.
And they want multiple character slots. This is generally speaking.
Once upon a time....
this also lets you collect every skill in the game regardless of character and use them accordingly at your leisure.
so no need to grind up new characters. Achievements would also be global so you wouldnt have to grind those multiple times either.
i dont like hard classes but prefer soft archetype based classes. This lets you make your own subclass off a specific theme. So some mages might have pets, others not but fighters could also have pets, and so could rogues.
the idea is the same but each archetype would have a unique implementation. A rogue might have tigers etc, wolves for fighters and some kind of magical creature for mages.
hard classes would be way more limiting imo.
Characters get some bonus stuff, to make up for losing the Jack-Of-All-Trades scope of abilities. I'd actually design it as a Jack of SOME trades, not all.
With this, a Player can adjust it also, to be more "Fighter" and less "Mage", or whatever their choices are.
So, as an example, a Thief Character can also have good Fighting skills, or good Mage skills. But a Thief who joins the Guild gets extra things they can do, like climbing walls, that also helps in climbing mountains or trees faster. And disappearing powder. But at a reduction to other Skills. They might only be a "decent" Fighter or Mage.
You can do the same thing with multi-classing. But there's more freedom this way, and more variety.
Once upon a time....
not a fan of skill "use" its just another form of levelling and i dont like multiclasses either. I see a character as a loadout. It should be a fun process to try out many combinations to see what works for you. It should also be fun to develop multiple characters.
the real problem with hard classes is that it creates a whining dynamic so the game literally revolves around balancing these classes against each other and this is a waste of development resources imo. I prefer the archetype system as it minimizes this process somewhat as they cant be balanced against each other, only against specific enemies.
better to change the enemies than continually change the players.
I got a lot of great advice from salesmen back when I was young. Advice from some guys who had been around a while back then, advice that was given towards me being a manufacturer and not a salesman.
One piece of advice that really stuck with me, was that I was told that $5 was a number that most people will blow without thinking twice. $10 was something that actually had to be useful. $20 and over, the product had to be something really good.
I'm not sure what we would come up with taking inflation into account but it's really hard to come up with something really good
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
A lot of them lived through the Great Depression and WWII, and had some insight that I really couldn't ignore. (Includes my parents.)
Those folks were special, after all they went through. They were survivors, and knew it, and appreciated it and the world that was saved. Great humor and loads of class, for the most part. Fun people to learn from.
I think the most important lesson I got was "People are the same all over the world."
That was from a guy that spent quite some time in Japan, after the war was over. I'd heard that many times, but this guy knew for a fact.
He was my sales supervisor, and I learned quite a bit from him.
I even met an old German soldier that was on the Russian Front. (Other people from that town told me, not him.) I didn't learn anything from him, though, except that war can make some people batshjt crazy. But he was full of humor, regardless. Not good humor, mind you, his always bordered on the edge of crazy. He did seem to sincerely enjoy talking to people.
Once upon a time....
I had to look up your "Roman mob" comment. I knew that, but never heard that term.
That's pretty much standard, isn't it? Mobs form, the mentality of them anyways, and they break up, based on stimuli of the time.
I think you're right about that in this game market. But I think that it would only take a new game, something different, that hits it big, to change that current status quo (the Roman mob situation).
And after that, it would probably sink back to it again. Rinse and repeat, over the years.
The same as with movies over the years. "The vast wasteland" was what they called movies and television for a time. If I remember right, the first Star Wars movie helped to break things out of a "wasteland" image, at the time.
Once upon a time....
Other than the way the class stuff comes from. I'm asking more about how it works after training, during adventures.
I do like a Skill Based system best, but I can see a Class based system working fine.
My major issue is with the power gaps, not the Class system itself.
Changing it from the strict class code would be a benefit. Lots of various versions have been made.
Yours sounds different, obviously.
Once upon a time....
It is designed to shift most balance issue over to the monsters and you really have to pick your battles.
Each archetype uses specific armors Fighters metal ( plate, chain, banded), rogues beast (leather, hide, scale), mages cloth ( hemp, silk, twill).
so you wont see a mage in plate armor but each archetype has multiple themed options with various positives and negatives. Its a fair bit looser for weapons as anyone can use any weapon.
i prefer players decide what subclass they will be more freely chosen and that includes a little dabbling into the other archetypes but more focused. For instance mages can dabble in rogue utility and fighters offense. Rogues can dabble in fighters utility and mages offense, and fighters can dabble in mages utility and rogues offense.
its not multiclassing, its more akin to "picking up a few tricks".
the idea behind it is to get the most bang for the buck. All the advantages of class based structure with reasonable freedom of choice. Since each archetype has a severe defensive penalty to things they arent suited to its not as easy for players to compare themselves to one another.
mages will be the best when dealing with magic, fighters with physical and rogues situational and most balancing adjustments will come in the bestiary instead. There is no healing role. Archetypes have real weaknesses. What some archetypes find easy others may find very challenging and vice versa.
trying to avoid the nerfcycle as much as possible. Is it a nerf to change/improve enemies instead? Even this has a system as it would be designed for enemies to adapt a little (or alot) over time as needed and to keep things fresh.
unlike players enemies offense and defense can be more variable. you can have a monster that does physical damage but has a magic defense and any other combination. A detailed bestiary would be required to account all this as you play the game. It also kind of nudges you to group a little as some things you will just not be suited for.