Green Monster Games (Curt Schilling)

[FoghornDeadhorn]

If you had a player base of 1mm players, does it make sense that more players are going to play and enjoy content made for 2,3, 4 players as opposed to 5-6 or 10 person groups?

If you want to make group content that is for 3-4 just be aware that class balance issues are going to be magnified immensely. The more accessible something is, the more people will complain when they are not wanted for it. No matter how easy it is, if it is much easier with class X in the party instead of class Y, the smaller your groups get the more likely it is that class Y is going to be quite unhappy.

[Erumaron]

Originally Posted by FoghornDeadhorn

If you want to make group content that is for 3-4 just be aware that class balance issues are going to be magnified immensely. The more accessible something is, the more people will complain when they are not wanted for it. No matter how easy it is, if it is much easier with class X in the party instead of class Y, the smaller your groups get the more likely it is that class Y is going to be quite unhappy.

Sure at max level maybe. What Zehn proposed is fine though, design the early content so that it can essentially be roflstomped with fewer people and then slide it up from there. I don't think anybody is talking about the max level content being 3-4 players.

[Gnome Eater]

Zehn, I agree with you completely when it comes to levelling content, my beef is that I doubt you can create enough content at the level cap if you keep making soloable content.

If WoW had a nearly infinite progression of levelling zones without a cap, it would be a lot more fun than raiding - but the amount of time that would require would be incredible.

[FoghornDeadhorn]

Originally Posted by Erumaron

Sure at max level maybe. What Zehn proposed is fine though, design the early content so that it can essentially be roflstomped with fewer people and then slide it up from there. I don't think anybody is talking about the max level content being 3-4 players.

Actually I think that may be exactly what Curt is talking about. At its core, it's a good and bad idea. If you were a smart guy and made the decision that you don't need to restrict heal spells to less than half the classes you could take any given dungeon and make it soloable, three-manable, six-manable and six-manable-but-harder. If your LFG system is strong (let's say approximately 3x as good as WoW's) and it is easy to get groups together, bringing the full group size back to six would not be a big deal and would actually make certain classes fit more easily.

But I digress.

[Caliane]

Originally Posted by FoghornDeadhorn

If you want to make group content that is for 3-4 just be aware that class balance issues are going to be magnified immensely. The more accessible something is, the more people will complain when they are not wanted for it. No matter how easy it is, if it is much easier with class X in the party instead of class Y, the smaller your groups get the more likely it is that class Y is going to be quite unhappy.

A VERY large part of this is the stupid tank/dps/healer design of nearly all current mmos. Because the archetypes of certain classes are so required, the individual power of each person becomes that much more important.

Break that, and it becomes less important. Who cares if the "warrior" isnt as good as the "mage" if the neither class is required due to some design aspect.

D2 isn't exactly an MMO, but it IS a online multi-player game with many classes and class builds. And yet, no ONE class is required. some are better then others, but all are welcome.

Current mmo's requiring a certain party size also kind of sucks. Again, one of the awesome things about D2 parties, is it can be 2 man, 3 man, 8 man, whatever. If someone leaves, or shows up, your "raid" doesn't stop or need to wait for anyone. You "raid" doesn't stop dead because your "tank" or "healer" left.

[splok]

Originally Posted by Ngruk

If you had a player base of 1mm players, does it make sense that more players are going to play and enjoy content made for 2,3, 4 players as opposed to 5-6 or 10 person groups?

Isn't the logical conclusion of that line of thinking, "We should only make single player games!"? Sure, if everything is incredibly accessible and soloable, the potential market is much bigger. The potential market is also much bigger if your product is web based and freeish. Maximizing the potential market is maybe a good idea financially, but that doesn't necessarily make it a game that a community like this would want to play.

Additionally, I think limiting too much content to solo/small group has the potential to hurt retention. The less players are compelled to make friends and form communities, the worse retention will be imo. It's really easy to get frustrated with a single player game and never touch it again. I'm sure we've all been there, but if you have friends/connections to the game, then it's not so easy to discard it. Sticking to very small groups also can hurt retention because when one member of that duo or trio quits, its much more of a blow to the group cohesion than in bigger groups. Duos and trios are much more likely to be the exact same people all the time, which can be great and certainly has a lot of advantages, but if that's as far as your content goes, there's little reason to build ties outside of your little group, making it much more likely that people will quit in 3's instead of in 1's (and maybe less likely to recruit new players into the game as well).

Another concern, at least for myself and I would think anyone reading this, is that even if you don't have the time, motivation, skill, whatever to tackle the more difficult content in a game, it's inspiring to know that it's there. It's that ultimate carrot dangling in front of you. Maybe that has little effect on many players, but it certainly works on me.

Edit: After re-reading, I didn't intend to sound like I was against small groups, far from it. I just don't think that the content should be capped that low. Ideally, I think that there should be content appropriate and useful for groups of as many possible sizes as possible, with at least solo, 2-3, 5-6, 10-12 covered for pretty much the entire leveling curve. It doesn't necessarily have to be different content either. As you increase in power (whether by increasing level, gear, skill, whatever), I think it's viable to consider this level's 10 man content next level's 5 man content. That already happens of course, but the key is itemizing it properly to keep it useful. Sure, MC is probably 3-4 man content right now, but it's not like anyone is going to wear the gear they get from it.

[Grave]

Originally Posted by Caliane

A VERY large part of this is the stupid tank/dps/healer design of nearly all current mmos. Because the archetypes of certain classes are so required, the individual power of each person becomes that much more important.

I was looking at this from a design standpoint as well awhile back, and rather than break and remove those roles, I decided a possible solution was to make every class a hybrid.

Tank/Healer/CC/DPS would be the main roles in this case, so you'd have to make CC matter in dungeons. Classes designated as part CC would also have the best buffs, making them more desirable.

So take a class that was never overly needed, let's say the Necromancer, and instead of just a DPS class you make it a DPS/Healer hybrid. Keep all the cool Necro stuff but then pull from VG's Blood Mage and WoW's Shadow Priest and give them group healing based on the damage they deal. Make it good enough that they could heal most group encounters.

Combine this with specs that could amplify the possible roles (like a spec based on healing for the necro) along with easy talent-swapping and it would create a large amount of viable group setups and make it easier overall for people to find groups.

[Twobit Whore]

Originally Posted by splok

Isn't the logical conclusion of that line of thinking, "We should only make single player games!"?

No, because single player RPGs rarely afford you the option of meeting other people, undertaking optional challenges with other people, or just experiencing a game with other people. Just because someone wants to solo doesn't mean they want to play offline. This line of logic holds no water.

[splok]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

No, because single player RPGs rarely afford you the option of meeting other people, undertaking optional challenges with other people, or just experiencing a game with other people. Just because someone wants to solo doesn't mean they want to play offline. This line of logic holds no water.

The statement that I was responding to was basically saying "fewer people required = larger potential audience" by means of excluding the fewest number of people. I realize that this statement wasn't made in a vacuum, but if you only consider this, it leads to pure solo content. And sorry, but if you have pure solo content, you essentially have a single player game, maybe a single player game with a glorified lobby and chat room, but a single player game nonetheless. At that point, you might as well be playing a single player game with some nifty xbox live features.

[Caliane]

Originally Posted by Grave

I was looking at this from a design standpoint as well awhile back, and rather than break and remove those roles, I decided a possible solution was to make every class a hybrid.

Tank/Healer/CC/DPS would be the main roles in this case, so you'd have to make CC matter in dungeons. Classes designated as part CC would also have the best buffs, making them more desirable.

So take a class that was never overly needed, let's say the Necromancer, and instead of just a DPS class you make it a DPS/Healer hybrid. Keep all the cool Necro stuff but then pull from VG's Blood Mage and WoW's Shadow Priest and give them group healing based on the damage they deal. Make it good enough that they could heal most group encounters.

Combine this with specs that could amplify the possible roles (like a spec based on healing for the necro) along with easy talent-swapping and it would create a large amount of viable group setups and make it easier overall for people to find groups.

The potential is there, but as long as the content itself is designed for the triad, classes will be forced to meet the mold regardless of their design intent.

Take wow for instance. Nearly all the classes in wow ARE hybrids really. Warriors can be dps or tanks, etc. Yet warriors are almost always forced into a tanking position in a any group content, becuase no other class is remotely as good at it. druids are clearly hybrids, yet again, forced into the healer spot unless a priest is around. Because even in a world of hybrids, one will inherently be better at a certain role then another.
If the content itself requires a pure tank, pure healer, etc, the classes will be forced to accommodate. It's less a question of changing how the classes are made, and more how the dungeons,etc are.

[FoghornDeadhorn]

Or you could not make a game at all and instead make a TV show and then you'd have an even BIGGER audience!

What is the point of your post?

[Caliane]

Originally Posted by splok

The statement that I was responding to was basically saying "fewer people required = larger potential audience" by means of excluding the fewest number of people. I realize that this statement wasn't made in a vacuum, but if you only consider this, it leads to pure solo content. And sorry, but if you have pure solo content, you essentially have a single player game, maybe a single player game with a glorified lobby and chat room, but a single player game nonetheless. At that point, you might as well be playing a single player game with some nifty xbox live features.

Like Diablo 2? one of the most loved, and most successful games of all time?

[splok]

Originally Posted by Caliane

Like Diablo 2? one of the most loved, and most successful games of all time?

Originally Posted by splok

...is maybe a good idea financially, but that doesn't necessarily make it a game that a community like this would want to play.

Exactly!

Only I don't consider Diablo 2 a quality MMO experience, and I doubt you do either.

[Caliane]

Originally Posted by splok

Exactly!

Only I don't consider Diablo 2 a quality MMO experience, and I doubt you do either.

Actually I consider D2 potentially a huge inspiration and source for a mmo experience.

The only thing lacking is the persistent world.


One of the largest crafting and trading communities in a game. Larger then most MMOs actually.

Great party interaction, and character leveling.
Long term character growth.
re-playability.

"Trash npc and itemization design"- aka fast, easy to kill, tons of loot, can be skipped.

Pvp could be improved greatly.
Bosses could be made more interactive/challenging of course. Without resorting to random 1 hit-kills.

[Flight]

Originally Posted by Gnome Eater

The flipside Ngruk is that developing a shitload of content that is for 1 person only is incredibly expensive and time consuming unless you make an insanely harsh levelling curve.

I remember talking to a few ex-everquest developers who were working on vanguard right when wow came out and they were astonished at how quickly wow content got 'used up'. As in, a beatiful zone like lakeridge might only last ~5 hours for a player who does all the quests, and might take months to develop.

Take even WOTLK - if you do all the quest lines/see everything/check out all the lore, dragonblight sans naxx might take 10 hours or so, but the amount of time that developers put into creating it is probably in the several thousands of man hour.

Good post with points that need considering. But there are answers to this, some of which Zehn and others have discussed.

Another is the Anarchy Online system, which I am a MASSIVE fan of. I've never pushed it hard because I'm not sure how much of it is my personal taste and how much it really is a superb system. In my opinion, it is as innovative and has as much and more lasting benefit than FFXIs job system (without sub jobs).


For those unfamiliar with it, the game has 'Mission terminals' in the cities and hubs (you can get an idea of it from the picture in the bottom of the first post in this thread). You set a series of sliders with a range of mission parameters and it generates a list of instanced missions with an objective from a pool (eg assassinate a named NPC, retrieve an item) and a specified item reward, which can be a piece of armour, a weapon or a skill.

The missions scale according to the number of people in the party and their levels, so its good for anything from 1-6 party members. This system has been easily catered for in expansion after expansion, with increasing level caps, in AO.


If you combined this with the ability to raise all classes on your main character, the longevity and replayability of the two systems would increase exponentially. I can't stress just how much I love this mission system. It perfectly combines the pure MMO experience, with the D2 experience, that Caliane is discussing above.