Kreation’s Edge

Just read an interesting post at DFO forums (Darkfall Online):

One player (the original poster) claimed that World of Warcraft PvP takes skill to play. I agree with that from my experience. Anyway one poster in particular made this interesting argument:

“No, it doesn’t. It takes time invested and knowledge of the game, nothing more. Once you know which talent builds are overpowered in the most current patch, all you have to do is memorize the order in which you use your specific class’ spells/abilities.

That isn’t skill. Skill means not having prior knowledge of all your opponent’s possible moves and being able to adapt your strategy to any changes on-the-fly. World of Warcraft doesn’t have that. It has classes, so you know what each class can do before they do anything.

Skill means timing AND aiming real-time attacks as well as finding the right combination of time spent dodging/blocking and time spent standing still casting. World of Warcraft doesn’t have that. It has auto-attack and chance dodging/blocking based entirely off gear.

Skill means having the threat of death shoved in your face no matter who your opponent. World of Warcraft doesn’t have that. In WoW you are only afraid of people whose gear is on par with or better than yours.

Skill. World of Warcraft doesn’t require it.”

MMO, PVP Darkfall Online, PVP, skill, World of Warcraft

Free For All PVP (aka Deathmatch) is one of the most controversal subjects you can ever discuss. Depending upon the view of a gamer on this subject you can normally determine everything else about them. Many that like FFA PVP (at least in theory) also usually like the idea of a Sandbox game, no Levels, no Classes, and other extremes.

In order to determine it’s popularity amongst devoted PVP fans I’d suggest loading up Call of Duty 4 and checking out server activity. This is no where near fully accurate but it at least gives us some clue what many prefer. Team Deathmatch appears to be vastly more popular amongst PVP types (hence the popularity on Team Fortress 2, Counterstrike, and Battlefield series).

So then, at least amongst FPS gamers Team based PVP is in the lead. However, there is one flaw- most leading FPS games include friendly fire. Friendly Fire adds a nice dimension of realism- many times causing the death of an undisciplined force of players that lob around grenades and such. This concept is fairly foreign to MMORPGs which is a shame it’s a very nice anti-zerg feature. Would be very nice if we could at least get the concept of friendly fire into MMORPGs.

Next, I see a lot of posts whereas players label FFA PVP as ‘meaningless PVP’. Perhaps this may seem that way to them because they are accustomed to game developers leading them by the hand- giving them quests and rewards (whether they win or lose). No, FFA PVP is rather a sandbox element of sorts whereas players have the freedom to engage in PVP whereever/whenever they see fit. Here are a few reasons why FFA PVP can have meaning:

• Gives players the freedom to fight against enemy Guilds
• Gives players the freedom to help self regulate the server. Imagine if FFA PVP was in play and you see an Asian farmer harvesting/grinding. Well now you have the freedom to kill the farmer and if looting is in effect you can take his items. Self regulation.
• Gives players the power to discipline griefers, ninja looters, and exploiters. In World of Warcraft if someone steals your epix there is really nothing you can do about it. If FFA PVP was in play, you could take back what is yours.
• Gives players the freedom to fix Race vs Race imbalances. For instance, in City of Heroes- Hero vs Villain PVP is very imbalanced. It was desirable for the developers to provide FFA zones to allow players to fix game imbalances.

Of course, along with FFA PVP comes a bucket of potential problems like how to deal with griefing, etc. I’ve seen some really great blogs on integration of Justice systems and so forth. Now, there are other systems that can get us fairly close to FFA PVP such as a well done Factions system that allows players to run it (something akin to Guilds but on a more organized level). This could almost get us there and at the sametime- give players the freedom to self regulate.

One of the main problems with FFA PVP is that it is hostile to Casual audiences that do not want to group up. Additionally, it is obviously unkind to the less skilled. Lastly, there are a handful of gamers from Ultima Online that have a knee-jerk reaction at the very mention of the word even though there are FFA PVP systems out there (like EVE Online) that has provided such a great atmosphere the EVE community reacts very violently to the thought of a 100% PVE centric server. It’s simply unneeded. Right now one of the best FFA PVP games out there that I’ve seen is EVE Online.

Further Reading:

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Paragus1/072007/196_Rant-PvP-Servers 

FPS, MMO, PVP Free For All PVP

One of the things I think Warhammer Online/Mythic is being smart about is excluding Stealth Classes altogether. All throughout MMO history this Class has been one of the most imbalanced Classes. I believe an MMO Developer can get it right sure and I’ve seen it done. But its been so rare I’d much rather the average developer stick to the basics and avoid this sticky web they’ve been getting themselves stuck in for many years.

How did we get here?

The creators of Dungeons and Dragons should sue (or did it come from MUDs). Someone should sue. In every implementation of Rogues we have seen the same basic idea. We have a Class that can hide in plain sight, 100% invisible. To add insult to injury, this Class gets a huge crit bonus when they strike while hidden. To add further insult to injury, many implementations enable Rogues to escape dangerous situations like the little Ninjas they are. In City of Heroes I lie to you not my stalker was slaying entire teams of heroes. He was the ultimate Ninja.

Did anyone get Rogues right?

I know I keep praising CCP but I want to say they got it right in eVE Online. Cloaked units cant attack while stealthed. Plus, after they decloak, they cant attack for a limited time. Also, FPS games have gotten them right and other games such as Tenchu, Splinter Cell, Assassin’s Creed, and Elder Scrolls Oblivion. A good Stealth system should implement a Logical solution to this problem- no more ‘vanishing into thin air’ like little ninjas please…..

Game Design, MMO, PVP MMORPG, Stealth

Syncaine came up with a great discussion on Positive-Negative Sum PVP and compelling reasons for games to include Negative Sum in the context of an MMO.

Being an FPS gamer, I want to point out that in those titles they are Positive Sum. Positive Sum is that whether you win or lose, you get something.

Sandbox MMOs are a bit different because they focus on player dependency. There is suppose to be a dependency relationship between Crafter, Adventurer, and Pirate/Soldier. In real life, Soldiers depend on crafters to create their weapons, armor, and equipment. When this equipment becomes damaged, we depend on a crafter to repair or create us a new item.

When MMOs embrace Positive Sum PVP, we drop the “Poker” element and it quickly turns into a pointless PVP engagement in the absence of Victory Conditions. Now, in the case of World Of Warcraft, they do have Victory Conditions. However, these Victory Conditions are meaningless because they take place in “Instances”. So all of your accomplishments are wiped. Coincedently, Syncaine wrote up a blog on the lack of impact in MMOs of today too in his blog, You are not special.

I agree with all of his views however, I do think we can have satisfying PVP even if the game is all Positive Sum PVP but we must be able to make an Impact (which means No Instances in the literal sense). Correction- I believe in the context of an MMO we must have a bit of Negative Sum PVP as well so that we can make an actual impact whether it be on the individual, team, or faction level.

Is it no suprise that even though Syncaine is a Positive/Neg sum proponent, he also eagerly anticipates Warhammer Online? WAR will include “Impact” in the actual game world itself. So even though on the personal level in WAR it is all Positive Sum, on the global level there is a Pos/Negative Sum.

Off hand I would classify EVE Online as a Positive/Negative Sum PVP game surely and the PVP is definetly a lot more intense then what I’ve seen in many other MMOs. It feels like a true virtual world due to the risk of loss/gain. To an extent, I do believe we need Negative Sum if we are striving to make a Virtual World at least to get Crafters involved.

One thing I will point out- Positive/Negative Sum games that place risk/loss at the individual level excel at small skirmishes. Anywhere players deem worthy of fighting over we can have great gameplay. This more of a Sandbox element

Positive/Negative Sum PVP at the Group Level is more of a Developer controlled activity whereas the battles will happen at developer-defined locations. Small, random skimirshes take a hit here but big group battles is where the fun might be.

Game Design, MMO, PVP positive negative sum PVP, risk versus reward PVP

Just hit Level 4 in COD4 last night and unlocked the ability to “Create-A-Class” which was pretty cool. I like how in FPS games you can be Level 4 yet- be able to compete with someone Level 50+ and such. Levels are not such a bad thing when implemented like this I always believed.

Did a sort of informal survey while I was on xbox live last night. CoD4 servers reported that around 12,282 players were on Free For All (FFA) Deathmatch servers while over 71,000+ players were playing Team Deathmatch. This makes sense, especially in an FPS where you really need someone to help watch your back (radar on or not) but it was pretty interesting to see such a large disparity

It’s pretty obvious that most gamers prefer to work along with a team and complete objectives (hence popularity of Counterstrike). I would say this is something MMO space should especially take a cue from- placing strong emphasis on Team vs Team play. However, we also should keep in mind friendly fire is also on by default in which helps alleviate zerging (undisciplined players lobbying grenades accidently killing each other).

I want to give more details on “Create-A-Class”. The interesting thing here is that you merely unlock new features as you Level Up to make your character more diverse (not more vertically powerful).

Consoles, FPS, Game Design, PVP, Video Games call of duty 4

I thought about World Of Warcraft today and the things I have done to others. I have no regrets. The nameless nametags of the Alliance lowbies I slew are but a blur, a fragmented memory. I wish I had my old PVP films I would probably try to go find a smoke to puff one for their suffering.

Well here is the confessions of a part time griefer:

I approve of slaying lowbies although I take little joy in it. if any. I do it for role playing purposes, to keep them down. I do it to make them hate my Guild and to make my Guild known. I have killed many lowbies and laughed with glee when I saw my Chain Lightning crit

I have slayed helpless lowbies to start massive wars. I have denied them resources because they were my enemy

I have ganked because I had been ganked. In every MMO I lie to you not I am a pacifist. But all it takes is being ganked one time then everytime I see someone from opssosing faction all I see is the bastard that killed my helpless lowbie

I gank because they would gank me if they had the chance. It has happened, I have spared my enemies only to have them strike me down the next day for no reason while I was grindin’ a tough mob

Game Design, MMO, PVP griefing, World of Warcraft

Updated Jan 6, ‘08 

Over at Broken Toys there is an article How to Make a Game With PVP Done Right in which the author presents a few points he feels should be considered to make a successful PVP title.

It’s a really good read and I agree with it for the most point. I am still unclear how much  Tactical Transparency we need in PVP. Also, I think Lum’s big mistake here is that he directly states, “PVPers need Classes”. This is of course sort of flawed when we think about FPS games like Unreal Tournament/Quake. They have Tactical Transparency, but there is no Classes. PVPers can make contigency plans in FPS titles (like oh my goodness that guy has the BFG or Redeemer I better run!!!!). Tactical Transparency is relaying information to gamers about their current situation whether this be health bars, current equipment we see on their avatar, etc.

So then, technically, many popular PVP games do not really have “Classes” per se. Instead, what is important, is relaying tactical information via Sensory Cues (in games this is sound and visual).

So then what is desired by PVPers is Tactical Transparency to a degree. We want to know what a “Tank” is in BF2142. We want to know we are about to be bombed in Call of Duty 4 by a bomber. We want to know if there is a Sniper around in which we can verify by checking around our surroundings.

So then one must conclude why do so many bloggers confuse this with Classes? As you can see by Lum’s blog here, he seems a bit unsure and goes to the point that Mages in World of Warcraft need to convey whether they are Arcane, Fire, or Ice. The game does communicate this via Sensory Cues actually- we can see a special color/glow around the Mage’s hands when they are casting something.

Also, what must be noted, Tactical Transparency is also conveyed to other gamers through -experience- with another player. For instance, I will know Jimmy prefers to blast me with Ice bolts after engaging in battle with him a few times. This level of Tactical Transparency also exists in Sports- we can sort of guess at a Team’s strategy based on their past performance.

Therefore, PVP usually almost always have some level of Tactical Transparency. Even in a Classless MMO we have this- because we learn the patterns and preferences of other pvpers as we play the game.

If we were to look at EVE Online, Call of Duty 4,   and Battlefield 2142 we could make a conclusion. Great, popular PVP games usually have very strong Tactical Transparency in which effectively communicates to other PVPers information about their current situation. So even though in EVE Online we technically do not have “Classes” PVPers are aware of their current situation because they can visually identify the type of ship the other player pilots. EVE Online shares strong Tactical Transparency with FPS titles and this helps players form contingency plans.

So in conclusion, I think Lum wrote a brilliant article but I felt that clarification was needed. If you read his article closer and sort of zoom on one sentence its much clearer:

“Note that you don’t need a class to fit this need so much as a clearly visible role”

Yes, that is the simularity EVE Online shares with FPS games. There is a ‘clearly visible role’ in which players can identify with that way they can accurately analyze the current situation

Game Design, MMO, PVP PVP, Skill Based, Tactical Transparency

This is pretty old news but I want to post this link here:

What Darkfall Expects of You

This article is written about Darkfall Online. I think it was spot on how MMOs are designed to make everyone a hero if you put in the time to get there. There is no way for players to really “fail” to reach level cap, etc. If we had Permadeath, for example, that would make it more of a challenge to hit Level cap and it would be special. You would be special.

I think I would like to try DOFUS’s new Heroic server (PErmadeath ruleset). There are many positives that could come out of it. I think death penalties can add a real rush.

This is one thing I really loved bout Mass Effect / FFXI. Yeah it can suck if you have to redo old content. Really suck. But it was more challenging once you overcome the obstacle.

Anyway, permadeath might be a hard hit to morale and a total bad idea. But we need some challenge here in MMOs like we have in other genres. The treadmills are just something anyone can do

“Critics say that Darkfall won’t have a big enough niche to survive. That we’ll start playing and suddenly long for the coma-like gameplay that only grinding can bring us. Because of this, the industry has been unwilling to take a chance and put up a 5-Star restaurant in a McDonald’s neighborhood. The time has come for our community to prove them wrong. ”

Yes I have been annoyed by the endless ranting by the anti-PKs that such a server could never work. They claim lambs won’t show up, blah blah. They desperately cling to their hope that FPS/RTS is an anomaly. That the success that exists there cannot be reproduced in MMORPG due to the presistence factors.

But I think the community has already proved the Anti-PKs are wrong. Checkout EVE Online great success in which dwarfs the success of PVE centric MMOs. The player driven politics, immersion, and depth of the gameplay is just amazing and blows away many other MMOs if you look at subscription data.

Game Design, MMO, PVP Darkfall Online, DOFUS, Permadeath, Treadmills

Cryptic Studios (developers on City of Heroes) were reknown for sharing their research with their faithful players on the forums. I still remember it like yesterday. Shortly after they released City of Villians and made a decent effort to get more PVP integrated they did some interviews whereas they announced the majority of their gamers spent their time in PVE zones. A great amount. Okay, being a PVE Centric title this came as no shock but what was a bigger shock was this:

WHY are you READING these STATS Cryptic and treating it as LAW!

It should be common sense here guys. Take any MMO- pretty much any MMO. Show me an MMO where I cannot ‘progress’ my character via PVP (like gain XP, gear, items) and I show you a PVE centric MMO where players will spend the majority of their time engaging in PVE!

This is an interesting side effect of providing the best rewards via PVE. Yeah, I know you can’t trust players to just kill each other in a PVP game where we can ‘talk’ to each other directly to abide by the rules and not farm each other for XP.

Still, the lack of PVP features in this game was just tragic. Why can’t heroes stop Villains from robbing a Bank? Why cant Heroes stop a Villain from robbing an NPC? Why can’t a Hero stop a Villain from killing an ArchHero? You could have awarded XP for pvpers engaging in missions in PVP zones. Your game is like 85%+ Instanced content anyway why couldn’t you move all of your missions to PVP Zones but the difference being they are fully interactive?

No, you were so afraid of pissing off your PVE subscribers you screwed over your PVP populace. Now your MMO subscriber stats are rapidly plunging below 150k subscribers. You are being outdone by INDIE MMOs like EVE Online that started out with 5k subs and built to what 200k+?

Lastly, you rely on your ’stats’ to give you a clue about PVP and make statements that “oh we don’t want to reward PVP because that would encourage rampid killing!”

What is funny your PVE crowd is jumping from the sinking ship. You misread how many PVPers you had playing YOUR game because you lacked the good sense to conclude that your precious stats merely indicate players are sooo busy grinding mobs they have little time to PVP. You gave them no reason to do it, after all….

Game Design, MMO, PVP City of Heroes, Cryptic, PVP

Was reading a post the other day by a player complaining about Ganking in MMORPGs with Open PVP (World Of Warcraft, UO, etc). What I found interesting his complaints sounded eerily familiar whereas he asked why do PKers (player killers) tend to pray on the weak rather then each other in FFA PVP?

Maybe he had a great point perhaps there was a kinship between reds in UO. Perhaps they considered it red vs blue (evil vs good).  But then it sort of turned into the traditional type of argument whereas Ganking is wrong, blah blah. Let’s not even get into we are just playing a game and we are all roleplaying an alternate identitiy. So if I can’t be EVIL then how can you be GOOD? Sure, maybe the PVE mobs make you feel high and mighty but sorry to bust your bubble those encounters are designed for you to win sooner or later. See, a long time ago Developers found out players do not like losing PVE encounters and at each generation, death penalties have been reduced to the slap on the wrist we see now.

 But what about the interesting politics we have in a player run world? True Evil can exist in which causes a Hero to rise up to defend their fellow man. If there is a death penalty such as losing items- then you will even see ransom demands, bodyguards, escourts, pirates, and bandits.

There is an elegance and vast depth of gameplay that cannot be found in 100% PVE MMOs. They lack the depth and player driven politics we see in strong PVP based titles such as EVE Online.

Hey wise guys- let’s not even discuss how this minor death penalty has led to the pointless ganking we see now in the 1st place. Looks compare here guys:

Exhibit(s):

A) In World of Warcraft a PKer decides to harass all the pve’ers in Lakeshire. The high levels come to their rescue and kill the no good PKer. After a few minutes they notice he’s gone so they bounce. Well now the PKer is back to harass players again!

B) Now let’s take EVE Online. An evil player comes to 0.0 space and terriorizes the miners. A hero rises up and kills the PKer. Now he has lost his ship, precious resources, and it will take him a dangerous 1 hour+ trip back to your terriority to harass the miners again. Chances are, he probably won’t come back. If he does, your miners have a good chance to be done with their work but you see where I’m going with this

What happened? The lack of death penalty has taken away players ability to enforce justice. What would be nicer is to at least pursue something like Lineage 2 presents whereas ‘reds’ can drop items and ‘blues’ do not drop items. This gives players (blues) the ability to enforce justice and cause the reds much griefer for their behavior. But because the PVE’ers refuse to play an Open PVP game altogether they make silly claims and assumptions about how things will go which is always funny to read (but also a big waste of time I swear this time I will avoid there nonsense!)

What was funny was reading a thread from an Anti-FFA PVPer whereas he tried to condemn EVE  Online based on some really faulty data that indicated that the majority of players were in high security space. Only about 21% was in low security space. However, his evidence was seriously faulty.

Veteran EVE Players immediately realized that of course PVP can occur anywhere in EVE Online thus the stats were not indicative of how much PVP really occurs in the game. Also, other adept posters contended that often times PKers will log on to their alts to craft and grind ISK in high security space. Others contended during off times veterans will log onto the alts (or transfer their consciousness to a clone in high sec) and train up skills. Heck many others tried in vein to explain PVP Events are player run thus of course these usually dont occur 24/7 but rather Guilds actually plan the raids way ahead of time (yes, PKers organize just like PVE’ers get ready for their raids). Thus, it can be boring just sitting out there in 0.0 sometimes when you might want to grind Faction in high security space.

Well I’m going to light up a cigarette and puff one for all the desperate anti-PKers out there without a clue. This one is for you

Game Design, MMO, PVP Carebears, Ganking, PVP