Problems with Making the Ultimate MMOG

[darkone8752]

idea:
RTS style game. you have a massive world and build bases and armies to fight for you. it has an incredibly large number of possible units and upgrades you can get, so many that you'll have to pick and choose how to tech up. and some tech trees might be strong against your current enemy but a newer enemy, even a newer player, might choose a tech tree your weak against and wipe the floor with you. meaning that it all comes down to strategic choices and skill in combat

Arbitrary modifiers = AUTO PHAIL. Units should ONLY be weak to other units because of "real life" factors, like armor, weapons, terrain, ect ect.

[Raithah]

Age doesn't account for everything, but you can't deny the fact that China is still strong economy-wise. So it's possible for the newbies to pull ahead (as is in MMOGs), but less likely.

You could correct the time requirement with the 'pure skill' route as opposed to 'practice'. Let me explain : in the stereotypical RPG, you gain experience by doing activites, thus boosting your character's level and abilities - right ? Contrast that to an FPS, where the determining factor isn't how much your character earns experience, but the player himself.

I'm hard-pressed to find examples of this style, but Shattered Galaxy and Planetside come to mind. Both incorporated bonuses to long standing players; ie. more advanced units or in the case of Planetside, more vehicle/weapons priviliges, but a new player could potentialy destroy a veteran. There's your fix.

[darkone8752]

Age doesn't account for everything, but you can't deny the fact that China is still strong economy-wise. So it's possible for the newbies to pull ahead (as is in MMOGs), but less likely.

You could correct the time requirement with the 'pure skill' route as opposed to 'practice'. Let me explain : in the stereotypical RPG, you gain experience by doing activites, thus boosting your character's level and abilities - right ? Contrast that to an FPS, where the determining factor isn't how much your character earns experience, but the player himself.

I'm hard-pressed to find examples of this style, but Shattered Galaxy and Planetside come to mind. Both incorporated bonuses to long standing players; ie. more advanced units or in the case of Planetside, more vehicle/weapons priviliges, but a new player could potentialy destroy a veteran. There's your fix.

Or jsut do like isaid, and throw away arbitrary bonuses vs targets, and make it all about actual SKILL and not just planning out a character to get a certain overpowered unit combo like in SG

[ChaosTheory]

Experienced players should have access to vehicles/abilities that take more skill to use, but are useless wihtout skill, so a player gets rewards for good playing that encourage more playing to get better with the weapons and abilities, but a bad player with a good ship could still get creamed by a new player with a easy-to-use ship. So experience gets you more opprotunity, but skill is where it really counts when you want to upgrade.

[Normandy]

@Raithah:
That'd almost work. Almost. However, that leaves no room for the 'hardworking from the ground-up' people. Those people who have no skill and no experience, but are willing to work towards a goal. This comprises the majority of the 'casual gamer' population - the population that has long remained untapped. I want them to get a leg up since they're trying, but don't want to have this leg up to be exploited by those who are simply good at the game.

@darkone8752:
You see, that leads to a cycle doom, having things based solely on skill. See as follows:

A game has 80 players, 40 players on each team. One team consistently owns the other team. Soon enough, the 40 players on the other team leave since they feel as if they'll never win.

Then, the game is divided into 2 teams of 20. One team again consistently owns the other team. Soon enough the 20 players on the other team leave since they feel as if they'll never win.

The game now has 20 players from an original 80.

Of course that's exaggerating it, but it's naive to say that it doesn't happen. The cycle repeats over and over again. Most MMOGs you don't notice since there's a constant influx of new players. However, this means that you now have permanently less players that will play your game.

EDIT:

@ChaosTheory:
That'd be a good idea, but see my response to Raithah.

[darkone8752]

That only happens if team B is too fucking stupid to adapt to the enemies tactic, in which case they need to be cleansed as to remove their collective IQ of 10 from the genepool. Unless you though i was talking about an FPS, certain strategies can always be countered, even if only by shear luck that the one you chose before engaging happens to work in your favor.

[Raithah]

Normandy, wouldn't the winning team just send players over to the loosers ? From my experience, people want to have fun unless they're competing for something. In this case, they'd try to balance to bring up the opposing skill level.

And trying to make the playing field level for everyone makes no one happy. If you want a casual game, make a casual game. If you want a game that requires skill ... you make a game that requires skill. Alternatively, you could make the samples large enough to dilute any personal issues - Planetside to the rescue :D.

In Planetside, you were forced into three factions. Now, even though many people were not very good at the game, their sheer numbers allowed them to become competitive to the other team. Not to mention that support crews, such as pilots or energy gatherers, are always necessary and rather fun until you grasp the basics.

[ChaosTheory]

Yes, BUT if you have new player, and they have weapons that require little skill, once they master the skills they have access to, they can move on bigger and better things. For a really good new player, they will master those skills quickly and gain access to better things faster. Once they have those things, they wil be at the smae level as a the unskilled newbie becasue most people can't let opprotunities to get better and use stronger skills pass by. It's all about reward factor. The master player will use the best weapons that require the most skill because he can and it gives the best psycological reward. The player without a lot of skill will use weapons that are weaker but require less skill, and will get a little less reward factor, but he knows that gettign better at the game and gaining more weapons will give him more reward. So each level of player has a reason to keep playing.

Plus, you can't have a game where newbies are on eqal footign as masters. Somebody has to pwn the newbies, and many skilled players get satisfaction from laying down the ownage like a thick coat of paint. Newbies will expect to get pwned the first few times, then they can get better and start pwning the next guy. Maybe seperate players into skill catagories, like Newbie, Advanced, and Expert, so Experts don't get bored ownign newbies and newbies don't get bored being owned.

Everybody's happy. Let the ownage commence.

[Squishy]

KINGDOM OF LOATHING