MMO Progression

I love progression of power and to me this can only come from vertical progression. Horizontal progression done in games like GW2 does not do it for me. I like to see my character grow in power and that is the fantasy after all.

On the other hand for an MMO to be healthy, you need new players or even returning players. If power is not reset in a MMO after *some* time the gap between a veteran and new player is so huge that it pointless for new player since they will not catch up to the veteran. So I think games need reset and I am don't know how this can be achieved without reset…

So how can you achieve sense of power progression without gear reset?

Nohow.

It works like with betting. More pairs you put on the ticket, more chances you'll lose the bet.
Play singles!

If we focus exclusively on gear, there are several ways to handle this.

One way to handle it is to retain the value of every high-end item in the game. Let's just call them Legendary items for the purposes of this discussion.

Let's create a quick example:

Lost's Sword of Significant Pain

Item Level: 100
Damage: 30
Speed: Medium

Proc: Every once in a while, this sword brings the pain (30% more damage).

That's a really, really boring Legendary - I know - but it's exclusively for the purposes of demonstration.

Anyway, the player acquires this sword after a long exhausting raid in the "vanilla" version of this hypothetical MMO.

Then… an expansion is released. It brings a new raid.

This new raid brings another Legendary item:

Lost's Mace of Terror

Item Level: 110
Damage: 40
Speed: Medium

Proc: Every once in a while, this mace makes enemies flee in terror.

Now, the trick here is that these Legendary powers (Terror and Significant Pain) are parts of the weapons that can be separated from them and applied to other weapons.

So, if Lost decides he wants to use the Mace of Terror with the Significant Pain power - he would potentially be able to break down the sword - and apply the power to the mace.

This means his progression and achievement from the vanilla raid is retained - and it remains useful. It also ensures that the new item (mace) is desirable because it also has a unique power - and it has higher damage.

This is just one very simple and basic example of how it could be done.

There is a game coming out where you grow old and die and can leave your items to your children. Can't remember name of it. Also, a game coming out where there is a central world and you go out to outer shards and it is like a 6 month campaign. Both games are a bit off so I don't pay too much attention until release day is closer. Sorry I can't remember names.

Originally Posted by Hastar
There is a game coming out where you grow old and die and can leave your items to your children. Can't remember name of it.

Sims 1-4 on PC.
Sims Mobile on phones.
These are not MMOs though.

Originally Posted by NewDArt
If we focus exclusively on gear, there are several ways to handle this.

One way to handle it is to retain the value of every high-end item in the game. Let's just call them Legendary items for the purposes of this discussion.

Let's create a quick example:

Lost's Sword of Significant Pain

Item Level: 100
Damage: 30
Speed: Medium

Proc: Every once in a while, this sword brings the pain (30% more damage).

That's a really, really boring Legendary - I know - but it's exclusively for the purposes of demonstration.

Anyway, the player acquires this sword after a long exhausting raid in the "vanilla" version of this hypothetical MMO.

Then… an expansion is released. It brings a new raid.

This new raid brings another Legendary item:

Lost's Mace of Terror

Item Level: 110
Damage: 40
Speed: Medium

Proc: Every once in a while, this mace makes enemies flee in terror.

Now, the trick here is that these Legendary powers (Terror and Significant Pain) are parts of the weapons that can be separated from them and applied to other weapons.

So, if Lost decides he wants to use the Mace of Terror with the Significant Pain power - he would potentially be able to break down the sword - and apply the power to the mace.

This means his progression and achievement from the vanilla raid is retained - and it remains useful. It also ensures that the new item (mace) is desirable because it also has a unique power - and it has higher damage.

This is just one very simple and basic example of how it could be done.

This is a good idea and it allows for retention of previous progression. I think WoW even did this to a limited extent in the last expansion where you can upgrade the legendary from the previous expansion.

The problem with the above and why WoW and other MMO does huge gear reset every expansion is to reduce the power gap between new or returning player and veterans. How will you solve this issue?

Originally Posted by lostforever
This is a good idea and it allows for retention of previous progression. I think WoW even did this to a limited extent in the last expansion where you can upgrade the legendary from the previous expansion.

The problem with the above and why WoW and other MMO does huge gear reset every expansion is to reduce the power gap between new or returning player and veterans. How will you solve this issue?

What power gap? New players would gain access to the new and powerful weapons - just like the veterans. The only power gap would be a larger selection of legendary powers to choose from (for veterans) - but the key is to make them all useful, so there's no single "more powerful" one than any other.

Even if some are better, that might as well be the new powers - so new players have access to those just as veterans do.

Essentially, the powers should be useful within a variety of scenarios - so it wouldn't (just) be about doing more damage, for instance.

Keep in mind that this is all based on a WoW-type MMO with level progression and item levels. Not at all what I would do with an MMO - but it's definitely a solution.

Originally Posted by Hastar
There is a game coming out where you grow old and die and can leave your items to your children. Can't remember name of it. Also, a game coming out where there is a central world and you go out to outer shards and it is like a 6 month campaign. Both games are a bit off so I don't pay too much attention until release day is closer. Sorry I can't remember names.

Chronicles of Elyria is where you grow old and die and leave stuff to children.

Crowfall is the MMO where you do 6 month campaign and then start new one. Your new character can retains some of the "stuff" from previous character.

Both of these games are really doing "gear reset" to reduce the gap between new and old players, I think.

Originally Posted by NewDArt
What power gap? New players would gain access to the new and powerful weapons - just like the veterans. The only power gap would be a larger selection of legendary powers to choose from (for veterans) - but the key is to make them all useful, so there's no single "more powerful" one than any other.

Even if some are better, that might as well be the new powers - so new players have access to those just as veterans do.

Essentially, the powers should be useful within a variety of scenarios - so it wouldn't (just) be about doing more damage, for instance.

Keep in mind that this is all based on a WoW-type MMO with level progression and item levels. Not at all what I would do with an MMO - but it's definitely a solution.

So the veteran can only have one proc in the weapon?
If he can have two at the same time he is hugely powerful right? After 10 expansions he is god compared to new player.

If he can only have 1 at a time, then his power has not gone up but he sure does have more options. Is that the so called horizontal progression?

Originally Posted by lostforever
So the veteran can only have one proc in the weapon?
If he can have two at the same time he is hugely powerful right? After 10 expansions he is god compared to new player.

If he can only have 1 at a time, then his power has not gone up but he sure does have more options. Is that the so called horizontal progression?

Both veteran and new players can have whatever amount you decide as a designer - but there will be no difference between them. The only difference will be the "arsenal" of powers available to players who have more Legendary items - which means Veterans will tend to have a wider arsenal. Meaning, if you decide that Legendary items can have 2 procs - then both new and veteran players will have 2 procs on their items. But where the new players will have only a few to pick from (they need to find a few first) - the veteran players will have several to pick from. But the end result would be two items of (roughly) equal power.

Power goes up through the regular Item Level damage scaling (damage 40 instead of 30).

So, the vertical progression is retained through regular scaling (like in WoW) - and progression retains its integrity through the accumulation of unique Legendary powers that remain useful for the entire lifetime of the game.

Originally Posted by joxer
Sims 1-4 on PC.
Sims Mobile on phones.
These are not MMOs though.

No man I think it is a Kickstarter hehe. Is a fantasy game. lostforever named both of them

I don't see the problem with there being a gap. Having 'grown up' (in MMO terms) with Everquest, to me reaching max level should take a long time, 6 months at least. So a max level character is much more powerful than a newbie? that's how it should be! if a new character wants to play with a friend that's high level, the friend can make an alt. Some games have a system called mentoring where a high level can group with a low level and his/her stats are reduced to the low level range.

The problem with 'game resets' (and I'm not opposed to them, but I'm in a minority) is that many players see time played as an investment, so they don't want the game taking away their investments.

It's also a double-edged sword for the company. Many players keep playing the game after it's not fun anymore just because they feel they've invested so much time in their characters, and quitting the game would be such a waste of their investment. With a cycle reset, these players would find it much easier to quit at any time.

I suppose as long as the game is built from the start as a 'cycle reset' system, it's ok. Players know that their time is not an investment but just time to have fun. As long as they don't introduce it after the fact, players should accept it and even eagerly await the end of each cycle. Of course now you have the problem of people entering the game near the end of a cycle… why do anything if things are going to be erased in a week or two and they have to start over?

GW2 doesn't have horizontal progression. It's a vertical progression game with a level cap like most MMOs. Once you reach level 80, you got access to all of the class features (including expac features if you own it) and the best gear (if you have the time to grind/craft for it or the currency to buy it).

And going by the time investment some people put in one character in the game, they aren't going to be favorable to a "reset". If they want to feel "power progression" again, they just make a new character (it's a very alt-friendly game).

Originally Posted by NewDArt
Both veteran and new players can have whatever amount you decide as a designer - but there will be no difference between them. The only difference will be the "arsenal" of powers available to players who have more Legendary items - which means Veterans will tend to have a wider arsenal. Meaning, if you decide that Legendary items can have 2 procs - then both new and veteran players will have 2 procs on their items. But where the new players will have only a few to pick from (they need to find a few first) - the veteran players will have several to pick from. But the end result would be two items of (roughly) equal power.

Power goes up through the regular Item Level damage scaling (damage 40 instead of 30).

So, the vertical progression is retained through regular scaling (like in WoW) - and progression retains its integrity through the accumulation of unique Legendary powers that remain useful for the entire lifetime of the game.

Assume the case where the MMO in question is 10 years old like WoW. Assume that the weapon can have 10 slots for proc. As we said the weapon is legendary so the chances are its very hard to get. Chances are they will need to do "hard" mode raids to get it.

Now a new player join this MMO and join a raid guild. Raids are 24 players . Because this raid is "hard" mode, its tuned for players with 10 procs. Is the raid leader goign to pick new player for this raid or is he going to pick the veteran with 10 procs?

How is this new player even going to get the first proc to begin with? The answer according to WoW devs is that the new player isn't going to get the chance to get this legendary at all, let alone 10 procs. This is why the reset gear. I don't like gear resets but I can see why they do this and your suggestion isn't going to solve this problem.

Originally Posted by wolfing
I don't see the problem with there being a gap. Having 'grown up' (in MMO terms) with Everquest, to me reaching max level should take a long time, 6 months at least. So a max level character is much more powerful than a newbie? that's how it should be! if a new character wants to play with a friend that's high level, the friend can make an alt. Some games have a system called mentoring where a high level can group with a low level and his/her stats are reduced to the low level range.

The problem with 'game resets' (and I'm not opposed to them, but I'm in a minority) is that many players see time played as an investment, so they don't want the game taking away their investments.

It's also a double-edged sword for the company. Many players keep playing the game after it's not fun anymore just because they feel they've invested so much time in their characters, and quitting the game would be such a waste of their investment. With a cycle reset, these players would find it much easier to quit at any time.

I suppose as long as the game is built from the start as a 'cycle reset' system, it's ok. Players know that their time is not an investment but just time to have fun. As long as they don't introduce it after the fact, players should accept it and even eagerly await the end of each cycle. Of course now you have the problem of people entering the game near the end of a cycle… why do anything if things are going to be erased in a week or two and they have to start over?

I agree that the older player who spent lot of time should be powerful than a new player.

However the flip side is that, people leave MMO and in order to have active community you NEED new players. Not all new players will have friends who are willing to help them power level 10 years of content to reach the same level as they are. Even with mentoring systems this does not happen. If you are new player with no friends at all, then you have no chance in hell of seeing the "best" content in games like WoW. So games like WoW will never attract new player without gear reset.

I am against gear resets but I want new players to come to an established MMO and get going with "reasonable" amount of time. My issues is how do you do both of these? I think the answer is we need to get rid of levels but then without levels I can't think of way for power progression.

Originally Posted by azarhal
GW2 doesn't have horizontal progression. It's a vertical progression game with a level cap like most MMOs. Once you reach level 80, you got access to all of the class features (including expac features if you own it) and the best gear (if you have the time to grind/craft for it or the currency to buy it).

And going by the time investment some people put in one character in the game, they aren't going to be favorable to a "reset". If they want to feel "power progression" again, they just make a new character (it's a very alt-friendly game).

Yes and no. Its vertical up till 80 then its only horizontal right or no progression right. I mean you get multiple gear types for example, some gear has more of one stat than the other etc. Once you get all of these then there is no real progression other than Ascended and legendary.

Originally Posted by lostforever
Assume the case where the MMO in question is 10 years old like WoW. Assume that the weapon can have 10 slots for proc. As we said the weapon is legendary so the chances are its very hard to get. Chances are they will need to do "hard" mode raids to get it.

No, I would not assume that. I would design the game properly

Once again - and please listen - I would not have a difference between new players and veteran players in this way. Meaning, no "hard" mode raid. All raids would be extremely hard - and only the best players would be able to do them, but it wouldn't be about a gear ceiling - it would be a skill ceiling.

New players would have access to raids as soon as they reached the right level and spent a few hours getting some decent gear, in this case.

I would never make legendary items a requisite for any kind of content - it would be a luxury and they wouldn't necessarily be more powerful - just have more exotic procs and powers. You wouldn't see hundreds of people on the server with one - you would see 2 or 3.

But new players would have the same perspective as veteran players in terms of gaining access to them, by being good - not by having great gear.

Now a new player join this MMO and join a raid guild. Raids are 24 players . Because this raid is "hard" mode, its tuned for players with 10 procs. Is the raid leader goign to pick new player for this raid or is he going to pick the veteran with 10 procs?

You're locked down into this "WoW-mode" of thinking - as if there was no other way to design games.

The raid leader would pick the best player - and, once again, all players would have the same amount of procs on their weapons.

If you allow for 10 procs (which I wouldn't as that's overkill and a complete nightmare to balance) - then you must also allow new players a reasonable chance of getting them, either by generating the item with 10 procs built-in - or providing alternative ways to get procs.

I would likely just have 1 or 2 procs - and I would have "normal" magical items have procs as well, just less exotic.

Meaning, any normal magical item at max level that the new player would have - would deal EXACTLY the same base damage as a legendary item of the same type. The only difference is that the proc(s) would be different and less exotic or interesting on the normal item. Much like most Diablo clones work.

How is this new player even going to get the first proc to begin with? The answer according to WoW devs is that the new player isn't going to get the chance to get this legendary at all, let alone 10 procs. This is why the reset gear. I don't like gear resets but I can see why they do this and your suggestion isn't going to solve this problem.

In my design - they won't be able to reset your procs. You keep them. Meaning all the hard work you've poured into getting items will NOT GO TO WASTE - because the only important part of them will be procs. Everything else will be shared among all items. Conclusively, procs become the most desirable power in the game - but they don't make them MORE powerful when they reset the rest of the gear. They'll just add more - and the vertical progression will be about non-proc gear levels.

But you wouldn't even need to increase gear levels - because the procs would still be the most desirable. It would be like Guild Wars 1 - where you kept expanding your card collection, but you could still only ever have 8 cards active at a time.

So, yes, my suggestion solves that problem with gear resets (even though gear resets wouldn't need to happen) - you're just not listening. You assume that having a legendary item in the first place is necessary to do raids.

That's your first mistake.

You also assume that legendary item procs would be extremely powerful, that's your second mistake.

They would simply be useful - like all procs should be useful.

Have you ever played Magic the Gathering? Think of Uncommon cards as normal item procs and Legendary item procs as Rare cards. Rare cards aren't necesarily more powerful or useful than Uncommon cards - they're usually more specialised and fits a specific purpose. Some of them you can only have 1 of in your deck - and my design is similar.

It doesn't matter if a veteran player is decked out in legendary items and a new player is not. They would be at the same ilvl - and deal the same amount of damage at the core level. It's just that the veteran player would have more toys and ways to customize his gear - meaning he would probably be better in certain very specific situations, but no raid would ever be about having the best items - it would be about playing your role well.

Again, it's like you want the design to be bad - like it is in WoW.

I'm explaining to you how it would work - and you keep going back to WoW - as if I was redesigning WoW

That's not what I'm suggesting.

Originally Posted by lostforever
Yes and no. Its vertical up till 80 then its only horizontal right or no progression right. I mean you get multiple gear types for example, some gear has more of one stat than the other etc. Once you get all of these then there is no real progression other than Ascended and legendary.

Horizontal progression means you expand your class horizontally like ESO for example. GW2 doesn't have that. It's vertical until level 80 and then it stop. With the cost of Exotic today and how easy it is to make money, you just buy what you need for your build and you are done. Ascended are drops, crafted, achievement rewards or bought with special currency (some stuff is pretty easy to get). Both Ascended and Legendary have ways to switch their stat combos and are account bound.

The time it takes for a new player to reach the "veterans" in term of character power in GW2 is short and you can't play the game with a "power progression" goal in mind (there is a lots of other things to progress though).

When it comes to Raids (yeah GW2 has raids), you just need exotic gear, but GW2 is full of elitism so if you aren't following the most popular meta you aren't getting into them…unless you are a super expert and have at least 4 like minded friends (the Raids are 10-men, but the pros 5-men them).

Originally Posted by NewDArt
No, I would not assume that. I would design the game properly

Once again - and please listen - I would not have a difference between new players and veteran players in this way. Meaning, no "hard" mode raid. All raids would be extremely hard - and only the best players would be able to do them, but it wouldn't be about a gear ceiling - it would be a skill ceiling.

New players would have access to raids as soon as they reached the right level and spent a few hours getting some decent gear, in this case.

I would never make legendary items a requisite for any kind of content - it would be a luxury and they wouldn't necessarily be more powerful - just have more exotic procs and powers. You wouldn't see hundreds of people on the server with one - you would see 2 or 3.

But new players would have the same perspective as veteran players in terms of gaining access to them, by being good - not by having great gear.



You're locked down into this "WoW-mode" of thinking - as if there was no other way to design games.

The raid leader would pick the best player - and, once again, all players would have the same amount of procs on their weapons.

If you allow for 10 procs (which I wouldn't as that's overkill and a complete nightmare to balance) - then you must also allow new players a reasonable chance of getting them, either by generating the item with 10 procs built-in - or providing alternative ways to get procs.

I would likely just have 1 or 2 procs - and I would have "normal" magical items have procs as well, just less exotic.

Meaning, any normal magical item at max level that the new player would have - would deal EXACTLY the same base damage as a legendary item of the same type. The only difference is that the proc(s) would be different and less exotic or interesting on the normal item. Much like most Diablo clones work.



In my design - they won't be able to reset your procs. You keep them. Meaning all the hard work you've poured into getting items will NOT GO TO WASTE - because the only important part of them will be procs. Everything else will be shared among all items. Conclusively, procs become the most desirable power in the game - but they don't make them MORE powerful when they reset the rest of the gear. They'll just add more - and the vertical progression will be about non-proc gear levels.

But you wouldn't even need to increase gear levels - because the procs would still be the most desirable. It would be like Guild Wars 1 - where you kept expanding your card collection, but you could still only ever have 8 cards active at a time.

So, yes, my suggestion solves that problem with gear resets (even though gear resets wouldn't need to happen) - you're just not listening. You assume that having a legendary item in the first place is necessary to do raids.

That's your first mistake.

You also assume that legendary item procs would be extremely powerful, that's your second mistake.

They would simply be useful - like all procs should be useful.

Have you ever played Magic the Gathering? Think of Uncommon cards as normal item procs and Legendary item procs as Rare cards. Rare cards aren't necesarily more powerful or useful than Uncommon cards - they're usually more specialised and fits a specific purpose. Some of them you can only have 1 of in your deck - and my design is similar.

It doesn't matter if a veteran player is decked out in legendary items and a new player is not. They would be at the same ilvl - and deal the same amount of damage at the core level. It's just that the veteran player would have more toys and ways to customize his gear - meaning he would probably be better in certain very specific situations, but no raid would ever be about having the best items - it would be about playing your role well.

Again, it's like you want the design to be bad - like it is in WoW.

I'm explaining to you how it would work - and you keep going back to WoW - as if I was redesigning WoW

That's not what I'm suggesting.

I am with you now. We were talking about gear reset within the context of WoW so I assumed you are suggesting how to do WoW better but you are saying completely new game and that make sense!

Moving away from that, it sounds to me that in your design of MMO is very similar to GW1 as you suggest. You are in favour of player skill over gear right? Also in your system veteran has more options than new player but a "skilled" new player can quickly catch up and can performance better than veteran since their skill is better? Also does having more "options" than new player seems like "progression" to you? What you are suggesting is the so called "Horizontal " progression or do you not see it that way?

Originally Posted by lostforever
I am with you now. We were talking about gear reset within the context of WoW so I assumed you are suggesting how to do WoW better but you are saying completely new game and that make sense!

Yes, I don't like the WoW design at all. It's incredibly unimaginative in terms of progression.

My suggestion does assume a "WoW" type of game, as in a themepark with a similar structure - and it's NOT the kind of game I would make.

I just wanted to present a quick and easy solution to demonstrate how easy it would be to change WoW for the better, with a pretty minimal effort.

Moving away from that, it sounds to me that in your design of MMO is very similar to GW1 as you suggest. You are in favour of player skill over gear right? Also in your system veteran has more options than new player but a "skilled" new player can quickly catch up and can performance better than veteran since their skill is better? Also does having more "options" than new player seems like "progression" to you? What you are suggesting is the so called "Horizontal " progression or do you not see it that way?

I believe I already explained what I think about "vertical" and "horizontal" progression

There's only progression. Meaning, if you gain any kind of tangible advantage - then you've progressed. It's that simple.

Let me explain:

All games are essentially based on math, right? Especially combat - combat is ALL math when you really come down to it.

No matter what, in the end, it's about how effective you are in combat - and in most games that will ultimately boil down to the amount of damage you deal in a specific amount of time. Also known as DPS

Yes, there are other ways to increase power - this is just for argument's sake - so I can explain

Player A (Veteran) has access to 20 procs.

This is what you would call more "horizontal progression".

Player B (New player) has access to 2 procs.

This is what you would call less "horizontal progression".

Now, I call it more (Player A) and less (Player B) "progression".

Why?

Because Player A will be able to (more finely) customize his gear to fit a specific purpose - meaning MORE DPS in that specific situation (say, fighting a demon that takes reduced damage from physical damage - and Player A then applies a non-physical damage proc to his weapon). Player B might not have access to this specific proc, so he would be less effective than Player A - and therefore deal less DPS. But ONLY in that specific situation - which will be rare.

The key is to balance the game so that everything is doable without "the ideal configuration" - and have each and every proc be suited for a specific skill-combo or situational challenge.

So, Player B might not be super effective against demons in this situation - but his procs WILL be effective against something else - in that same way. He has only 2 procs - so, simplified, he would only be able to go "above and beyond" in a few situations. But in all other "non-specific" activities - he would deal the exact same damage as Player A - because that won't be proc-based.

Obviously, it will not ENTIRELY close the gap between new players and veteran players - but it will go a very, very long way to ensure a level playing field.

That said, I'm not a fan of just giving everything away to new players. Same goes for veteran players.

In my game design, it would be all about skill. Meaning, it doesn't matter if you've played the game for 100 hours or 10000 hours. It matters if you're good - and only the best players will be able to get Legendary items.

But the items themselves won't exponentially increase player power - because that's not necessary at all. Just make the reward "interesting" and "useful" - that's all it takes.

A player THAT good won't need more powerful items. He'll kick ass even in basic gear - in my design.

However, unlike the mistake a LOT of sandbox games make - the best items WILL be desirable and they WILL be powerful - but the power will be more about utility and customization - and not a "straight-up" DPS increase, because that's unfair, stupid and boring.