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PvP Sandbox MMOs: Too similar to "traditional" MMOs?
Scarf_Ace
Member Posts: 12
With traditional, I mean the MMOs that follow the current "generic" model, the Everquest/WoW formula. Though I can't say I have much experience with sandbox games, I keep getting the feeling that many sandbox devs try to make their game, then add a hefty amount of traditional elements to it. Quests, levelling, the whole thing. And I'm thinking it's a waste of time, money and effort and it only hurts the flow of the game.
Now I'm of course sure this post won't affect anything at all, but I thought I'd just bring out these ideas.
So, here goes nothing.
1. Character stats and classes.
Now, this is one thing that has just turned me off MMOs these days. They all have those 2 things in one form or an other. Be it strongly defined classes or indivicual skills you level up to create a sort of class of your own, it's always in an MMO. Why not get rid of both? Why not have every player be equally skilled with each weapon and each ability from the get go?
I think player "equality" could be a huge game changer. It's a known fact that you don't need the whole grinding business to keep people hooked on a multiplayer game. There's countless examples; from Counter Strike to combat flight sims like IL-2. These games still have a sort of individual progression to themselves: Your skill as a player. Unlike the combat systems of many MMOs, you can't just land those headshots from day 1, and many can't even keep a spitfire on course! From complex to simple, a good skill-based fighting system can keep people playing for years. A solid melee system (for example the one used in the mount and blade series) can really make a game worthwhile. Also, when every player is of a similar value in combat, it could result in massive, insane PvP battles. Or at least massive, insane amouts of server downtime. It also means that ganking is harder. No matter what he's wearing or carrying, the actual skill of a player would be extremely unpredictable. This in turn means you could maybe even get rid of things like PK flagging, which would add new ways to play your character's role in the world. Real bandits didn't have a floating tag saying "bandit" after all.
2. Setting
Now I'm sure you've seen the problem: This would be totally impossible with the standard fantasy settings we see in today's MMOs. You can't be a powerful wizard when EVERYONE can cast the same spells equally well, right? Well, ditch the fantasy setting! You could go with some sort of ancient or medieval setting instead - It's much less problematic when a weapon does the same amount of damage, no matter who's using it.
But of course, there's only so much you can do with a combat system, and the point of sandbox MMOs isn't to just mindlessly bash each other's heads in. I think the big difference between sandboxes and traditional ("themepark") MMOs is (or should be) that while the themepark is about change and progression based around your character, sandboxes are about the game's world and the players as a collective, and how everything is ever-changing. Politics, trade, warfare, the construction and destruction of settlements. I'm sure that if there would be no dungeons, no massive pallet of mobs and no quests in a traditional sense, it would be possible to create a game world that works that way and is extremely interesting to observe.
Imagine an MMO world that is nearly a totally blank slate. With exception of some sort of starting area (used as a safe haven and to learn the basics), everything could be absolutely uninhabited by humans in the beginning. Players design the settlements. Players create the factions. Players create the story.
There would need to be loads of effort put into creating this world. To make sure that the game has its politics and stuff, you'd need to make sure the many things such as resources are spread across the map intelligently, you'd need to create a very good construction system and somehow make sure there's a well functioning economy, without the mobs that basically create money pretty much out of thin air. I have ideas about how this could be done, but I don't think I need to explain it, at least not yet.
3. Equipment and death.
Falling back on the issue of chapter 1, there's a big, obvious problem: If everyone can use everything equally well, what exactly prevents you from being a heavily armoured crossbow-wielding-halberdier-swordsman-lancer?
I believe this is what the biggest challenge would be to design. The first and obvious thing would be to limit the amount of weapons you can carry. So as long as you don't have constant access to a full armoury, you can't just switch weapons constantly, and you'd have to make constant decisions about what enemies you may fight, and how to fight them. You'll probalby not take a pike to protect your trade caravan, but you'll want one in battle to hold off a cavalry charge.
Then there's the financial part. This is the tricky bit. Surely with a game like this, everything but the most basic equipment would come out of a player run workshop of some sort. Not necessarily created by an actual player, but maybe automatically made by NPCs? So with limited resources, and limited money, you'd have to decide on what equipment to purchase. The problem is the developers probably would have loads of trouble predicting how common and expensive such equipment would be, and balancing the whole thing out would be a huge challenge.
Then there's killing and dying. I don't think permadeath is an option. It adds too many complications that just aren't worth it. I do believe however that full loot is vital. You need to watch out what you wear wherever you go, because if someone kills you, you'll probably lose it. It also means that old gear will move from player to player, which could be interesting. As for the actual death system, I'd do it like this: First off, when your health goes to 0, you just get knocked out. You're down, but not out, and a friend can save you. This means that if you fall in combat, but win the fight, you haven't lost anything. You can also die, by either taking a finishing hit when you're down, or if you get knocked out a second time not long after you were helped up. If you die, you just appear at an inn that you can designate as your respawn point whenever you go there. With the risk of losing your equipment, and prices forcing you to choose wisely, there could emerge many play and fighting styles, as well as lots of visual customization.
I hope I've covered enough to create something worth discussing. Would people play a game like this? How many thousands of flaws in such a system can you point out? I'm sure there are many.
Comments
ok deleted so I could reply and show the actual issue I have. The games you mentioned do not, I believe, require a monthly subscription. Your average Gamer, as opposed to those who causually play, would not pay for a game where everone is equal. What is the point? So you can PvP? PvP isn't what sells games - do not get me wrong, people do like it but LOTRO has little PvP and is doing well. People like to advance their character, follow a storyline.. even if, as in EVE for example, it is a player made storyline. The constant struggle between corps in EVE is a storyline and is player made.
To start off equal would be so boring I, for one, would not even try it on a trial, just the idea is boring. Face it, the MMO's of today follow a formula - they are games that the developers believe will make money. I highly doubt they would risk their money developing a game where only a few would play. Also, essentially, you already have that with those f2p cashshop games that allow you to purchase high end stats and equipment on day 1. My opinion is that you lost my interest with your first point and I did not read further.
Currently bored with MMO's.
IL-2 has had so many expansions (and now a whole new game) over the years that you could almost call it a subscription
It's not that there would be no progression, it's that the progression would be in a different form, mostly unrelated to the combat system. In the case of combat, you'd have many variables. You'd have your skill as a fighter, the weapons you're wielding, the armour you're wearing, maybe even the horse you're riding. You still can "work" your way into more power.
Such a game simply would not be about the things traditional MMOs are about. I suppose you could call it a slightly less "selfish" kind of thing. Rather than just trying to make your character stronger, it's about changing the game world. Making an impact. Your own little dent. That, or you try to rise to power, make decisions, and control things. From a bandit disrupting trade to a warlord sending in his army to battle, to being a soldier in that army, you're going to have a pretty unique and worthwile experience, each changing the way things are. I think the biggest problems with MMOs today is that they've decided to all conform to this formula; what must happen now is to find possible ways to make good MMOs that don't follow it. Also, it just might attract a different crowd than the current ones. We just don't know if there is a market for such a game.
All I know is that I'd probably pay for it, and I'd probably stick with it. I don't see myself as a strange person, so I'm sure there are many who also would pay to play such a thing. As for riskiness, imagine if developers didn't take risks. I'm sure EVE wouldn't exist, same goes for stuff like World War 2 Online.
1 reply? That's a bit of a shame.
OP raises a good point. I don't think a good sandbox MMO needs any type class or skill progression to be engaging. Perhaps you could put in a few limitations like some type of hardcoded stat system of which all of the points are distributed at character creation (for a bit of customization) but one thing that's always really bugged me in MMOs is learning to use something and the difference between the game telling you you've learned something.
A good example would be like a hacking apparatus in a sci-fi setting. Why do you need to certify in it's use and then all hacking is just a push button action based on your stats and RNG?
Why not make it into a real minigame where the time and complexitiy of the hack is based on the player's actual skill?
MMOs really need to get away from the RNG simulation and instead move towards minigame concepts. Bioware did a great job with this in the Mass Effect series.
But I hear ya, OP. I too would like to see the RNG simulation mechanics replaced with real activities that engage the player.
I'd like to see more MMOs move away from the stat/skill system and more towards an item-based system. Sort of like an Eve-online but without needing any skill progression. At the end of the day they're both progression systems, but an item-based one just seems more natural to me after having tried out almost all of the recent sleu of "sandbox" MMOs. They really need to get away from having the grind be the content and also move away from the ladder progression that they have. They almost all seem to be lacking in terms of speciliaztion.
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"Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"
The most awesomest after school special T-shirt:
Front: UNO Chemistry Club
Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions
Why not have permadeath?
If you die, you have an "heir," who gets all your possessions except what is looted off your body and whatever is looted from your buildings/caravans before you go to them and claim them. Your heir is a new character you create, but you are allowed to make the appearance similar (not identical) to your earlier toon. Your last name stays the same, but you pick a new first name.
You can pick another player in game to help spawn your heir, and if you do so, your heir gets appearance from both parents. If there are any stats (strength, dex, etc.) they are random to start, but you can improve a stat by finding a wife or husband who has that stat to pop your next heir.
Permadeath sounds like a recipe for frustration if you've got a string of bad luck, and it can be extremely inconsistent, even compared to magically waking up in an inn. For example, why would Bob the unsuccessful bandit have so many relatitives that are eager to follow in his footsteps?
I also kinda like the idea of a fixed choice of stats during character creation, but what if you dislike your build? In pvp oriented sandboxes, you can abuse having multiple characters per account (spying, etc), so that could get in the way if you can't reset skills.
However, if pulled off correctly, it certainly could add a lot of depth.
An item-based system wouldn't need character stats as all the information could be on the individual pieces of equipment. This way you can custom build your character, there would be some balance issues, but no more than what would be introduced by min-maxing stats.
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"Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"
The most awesomest after school special T-shirt:
Front: UNO Chemistry Club
Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions
This is alot like afew ideas I had for an MMO.
Addressing your points: I somewhat agree on the player based skill meshed with equipment based skill; I too am tired of pigeonhole class systems. But, I think character skill traits are important to preserve a sense of progression. Melee battles sound awesome, but since this is an MMORPG (at least what I'm talking about) I feel we shouldn't tread into MMOFPS with a giant world territory (that's another possibility though).
I support your 2nd point in total. I'd love to see a Civilization/Sims-like MMORPG where you start in an underdeveloped town that is up to you and your friends/towns folk to build further.
For point 3 (and somewhat 1) I'd like to try a system that lets characters die. Ideally it would use your death system, but when that knock out window closes the character comes back as a weaker child form. I'd like to think of this as a "soul" system.
I had just this idea to allow permadeath. My only problem is with the full on restart. I feel that the player should be sort of reborn: instead of losing all your hard earned stats, you come back as a kid. This kid character (using the heir setup you mentioned) would have the same stats as the previous character but a cap would be in place so you can't reach full strength until you get back to the "age" you had previously died at.
See, I was thinking that characters could age throughout there playtime (and while offline). This would create a mystique to characters and, I believe, improve the role-playing aspect. The thing is, to sometimes make dying strategic; being old would cause character skills to become increasingly hard to develop whereas a child grows quickly.
These are just ideas though. I figured all this would be incredibly tough for a group of programmers to build and I'm just not sure the demand is there.
There is or was a game that did the heir,( it was emu of U.O. I believe). The idea was fresh and very cool a few years back.
I think if you did not have any stats or xp to yearn for, players would bug out and disappear quickly. Every mmo has a goal, players need to be herded like sheep or they will say the game sux and move on. No offence to the fresh new crop of WOW mmo ers that it spawned but they are used to cookie cutter copy n paste mmos.
If players do not have any advantage they will not play. In real life any one can shoot gun, watch a movie they portray every kid in the hood as owning one.....what the movies do not get right not many people can shoot out a car window and be on the mark (I am not talking about an automatic drive by, odds are always greater with more bullets, rapid fire and more targets). Shooting from a moving target is hard to do as an untrained shooter. If i picked up a 2 handed sword and fought a trained swordsmen irl i would be swiss cheese, is there a chance of me cutting him/her or even killing them?? Yea for sure, but odds are they will will make quick work of me and I am on the floor bleeding out like a deer in the woods. Look to any lore, fairy tales or video games....casting a spell takes time and lots of practice (ok do not refer to the Sorcerors Apprentice with Nick Cage) it would not be right if a noob in starter gear could toast my 2 year vet with a spell when I was looking!!!
I think people should earn their stats by playing the game....I am not supporting trees, if there where trees sure let people be a sword expert weilding a fireball if they played their game that way. If you slash 1000x you should know how to handle that sword, with the training of master you should be able to become an expert with that sword!
Heirs can work i have seen it in underground games, I have also seen it exploited as well, but it works. With pks, and permadeath, in my experiance games with pking and permadeath do not bring in the masses nor keep them (there is always to many a$$clowns running around "rping" a homicidal maniac, and chases noobies away.
Check out that new game in development Arch Age it is finally on MMRPG, it looks to be a really promising sandbox, I really want to try (I am a huge star wars fan boi and am chomping at the bit to play tor....but this game may one day take me away from my favorite thing star wars)
I am a long time gaming vet (old head) and have tested many big games and subbed to many as well (even beta tested xbox live before it went gold)
Thats my 2 cents
I like fantasy setting, and I think that if a "sandbox" game is going to do well it should stick with the fantasy setting. It can always innovate the enviroment in strange ways (think Avatar world without the sci-fi elements) but they would have to keep it fantasy in order to bring in the players.
And a good ammount of players is what a sandbox game needs, without players then there will be a crappy economy etc.
Death penalty - maybe we don't die in this game, there is no such thing as death, its another world at the end of the day. We simply fall into an unconcious state and have to find our body again (WoW style) I don't agree with player looting (unless maybe in PvP areas where you can only steal honor points maybe?) Or change it even more. When you die you are teleported into a ghostly maze like world, you have to find your way out and kill whatever confronts you to get back to your body?
Levels, classes and "item progression" should be removed. Instead you should have to do quests for abilities/spells, so the more you play the more abilities you unlock, because lets be honest there needs to be something other than housing/economy/ships that players can improve on with playing more than others.
Every piece of gear looted in the game should be cosmetic only, with two or three stat slots. It's up to the player to chose what stat goes into that gear (armour/health/mana/spell power/healing power/strength etc) Maybe mail/plate gear would be able to hold a greater armour stat but thats all. You chose what your character wears, wether you want to show it or not (not just cloaks/helms) etc. So everyone is always on par with gear, a new player can stat his items as well as a player who has been playing for a year, but the player who played longer would have better looking gear.
There should be more than 2/3 main factions, say 5? You can change between them whenever you like through doing quests etc for them, it will take longe if you are currently alligned with their opposing faction etc. There should also be many more smaller factions which give rewards (housing/ship items, additional stat slots for gear, abilities/spells etc)
Eliminate vendors and the auction house. Players make their own shops in instanced areas of the biggest cities known as "trade districts" here they build a shop and stick what they want to sell within. They don't need to be there to sell, they can hire an NPC to sell for them. Everything looted/farmed in the world can be sold and used for some other purpose.
Change proffesions. I've never understood why first aid, cooking and fishing are considered secondary proffesions? In real life they are pretty much needed a lot more than mining/herbalism. Gahtering proffessions (skinning, herb, mining) should be secondary proffesions.
Also, with most MMOs your able to have every available spell out on your 20 action bars at the same time, change this, more like guild wars, you can only have a certain amount of abilities/spells out at once, say 10. So that way its up to the player to make the game more tactical and interesting. This would also help if everyone was able to have the same spells/abilities, as no one would be the same with different spells loaded out.
But then you could have a heavy armoured player using powerful spells, or a massive dual weilding healer. So there would have to be things in place to stop making unkillable players. Maybe magic steals your strenght, so the more powerful spells you have loaded out the less armour you can wear, or even you just walk much slower with heavy armour on, due to the magic weakening you. If you have many healing spells in order for them to work effectively you need to be as holy as possible, and holy peope don't like to inflict damage, so damage is weakened.
The above could be seen as bad, because character customization is reduced a little, so instead you even your spells out evenly, so you could be doing decent damage and healing if you don't have too many heals or damage loaded out. I want to play a tactical game, were I can't say "oh ffs this class is so op" and I can't say that with a game like this because if I feel that a cetain player was OP against me I simply change to either become more defensive to that type of player or try playing exactly what they player was doing, without the need of restarting the game again.
I want houses, boats, naval and ariel combat (think air ships and flying mounts) mount combat, a better pet system, atleast a hundred group dungeons/raids full of lore and quests, more than 10 battlegrounds and many different types, loads of races or even the ability to create my own!
I would even settle for any other genre! As long as they could promise me these things!
In other words I want a game that will never be released, so instead I will settle with ArcheAge/Guild Wars/Star Wars the Old Replublic, because combined these include many of the things I want, but on their own they fail.
I'm just not liking where MMO's are going nowadays, everything being a clone or everything else, the occasional innovative game goes under the redar and dies (The Chronicles of Spellborn, I know it wasn't the most innovative game, but it was different just enough to be good!) Instead we have games like Guild Wars/Star Wars/ArcheAge which everyone raves on about being "revelutionary, amazing etc" don't get me wrong, they look good, I WILL play them, but none of them look much different to what I've seen before.
I know I've made a lot of spelling mistakes, but its very late, and I'm tired and rushed this a little.
I don't mean to sound big headed... But I know Voldemort.
1. Clearly we're not talking about an MMORPG if you're suggesting the removal of progression. Which is fine as long as you're not suggesting a game that will devolve into bland zerg PVP (in other words a crafting-centric game like ATITD or a quality PVP game like Planetside, or one of many other possibilities.)
2. Setting is indeed rather important, but I'm not sure "how can you be a powerful wizard?" is really what makes a fantasy setting fail to work. If all spells work vaguely the same, that's no different than characters doing the same damage with weapons (and even with modern weaponry, skill remains important.)
Mentioning "blank slate" is really at the core of why so many sandbox games fall flat: they feel empty. Whatever the sandbox game ends up being, it needs to be a game first and a world second. The worse a game's moment-to-moment gameplay activities, the worse the game does (because it fails to entertain.)
3. If there's no progression, why is permadeath a problem? Nothing is lost.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Replies in green.
Class and Skill systems would definitely be improved if they did so.
So no character progression/leveling, everyone can use the same weapons and armor because there are no classes and a generic medieval theme. I'd have to see it in action but this sounds more like sims medieval than an mmorpg to me.
Most people go through life pretending to be a boss. I go through life pretending I'm not.
The words in RPG don't imply stat progression -- but the entire history of videogame RPGs does. Name a videogame RPG without character progression. You can't. It doesn't exist (except way back in Ultima 3 where some bug caused leveling up to not improve my characters.)
As for powerful spells, weapons aren't really that much different. Stats like strength (melee/bows) or weapon skill (modern ranged weapons) always play a role.
Why is player skill frowned upon? Well there are pure-skill games and there are games where skill is diluted by non-skill elements. RPGs are the latter, so if a player has trended towards RPGs they've shown a subconscious preference of games where player skill is less important (relative to other game elements.) This isn't exactly "frowning" upon skill, but is vaguely similar I suppose.
Well if by "well thought-out world" you mean the activity set of any given locale is more than just "here, AFK in front of this tree or asteroid," then yes I absolutely agree that's how the major existing sandbox titles fall flat. But the game design behind those activities is actually more important than the world simulation.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
It's sad to realize that what declare an RPG is "progression" when the best Role Playing games that I've played in the last 3 years weren't marketed as RPGs. Red Dead Redemption is an example; it's one quite of a Role Playing experience but not considered a RPG just because it doesn't have leveling.
I'm not against leveling but the way it is used now adays is getting out of hand and is never exciting.
I believe a successful MMORPG is a game that adds Sandbox Elements, Theme Park elements and Social Elements. That's what World of Darkness from CCP is going to be.
Duno, most games suck. Hell. I am still waiting for the next ac 1 lol
1. It's not "my idea" of an RPG. It's what RPGs have been through the entire history of videogame RPGs.
If we want to take a looser "game where you play a role" definition, then suddenly the word loses any real meaning and becomes useless (because you play a role in 99% of all videogames.) Since it's useless and nobody uses it that way, let's not.
2. What you'd "rather" have (stats or skill) in a combat system is sort of separate from the fact that if we're talking RPGs we're discussing the genre which has a long history of appealing to players because skill is partially offloaded onto stats. If players didn't want RPGs (stat-based games) they'd play non-RPGs. Fact is, there are players playing both (and overlap in the middle.)
3. Nobody said that's the way RPGs should be. It's simply the way they are. RPGs will always be made this way.
And yes, RPGs don't make great PVP. Players who only want casual PVP are completely fine with it. Players like myself who want PVP to be "pure" and undiluted by non-skill factors don't seek PVP from RPGs. Pretty simple.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The OP basically described Mortal Online, which I currently play. Except that there are certain races that you choose that are better at certain skills that you can obtain.
Uhm.. Which PvP Sandboxes are you talking about, anyway? Imo there are barely any games that would deserve that title...
Hype train -> Reality
(on a side note, I think somewhat forcing political instability is vital for a medieval PvP MMO. Conflict is fun, as long as you don't take it too seriously)