MMP Game Design Challenges and Their Solutions

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MMP Game Design Challenges and Their Solutions

• Matthew Ford, Auran Games
• Australian GDC, Dec 2004

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Purpose

• Describe classic MMP design challenges
• Signs
• Effects
• Present solutions
• Used by released MMPs
• Mistaken solutions
• Some speculation, not much though
• Discuss

3
Me

• Not from around here
• Amateur game making
• Programming, card games, board games
• Atari in California 1993-1995
• Lead game designer, producer?multiplayer arcade
• Accolade in California 1995-1998
• Lead game designer, producer?multiplayer PC
• Microsoft Games Studios in Redmond 1998-2004
• Lead Program Manager for Asherons Call MMORPGs
• Advising on Xbox online games and other PC MMPs
• Lead action-game designer for Citizen Zero at
  Micro Forte, Sydney
• Short stint as game designer for Mythica
• Auran Games in Brisbane now
• Producer?PC MMORPG

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MMP Game Design Challenges

• Bias towards MMORPGs
• A good MMP game design is not just about solving
  problems
• Nor slamming successful games
• However similar challenges come up in most MMPs
• Like any craft, we learn (aka steal) from each
  others effort and advance the craft
• Dont have too much pride to use others ideas
  we are working collectively
• Game logic trumps reality or story consistency
• Lets get on with it

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Note for readers

• Click following Area hyperlinks in slide show
  mode to see particular areas and solutions
• To go back to previously viewed slide (like
  browser Back navigation)
• Right click slide?pick Last Viewed
• Or use mouse button mapped to Back for web
  browser (often the mouses most prominent side
  button)
• Finish with Area hyperlink Conclusion

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Areas

• Social
• Advancement
• Player Opinion
• Economy
• Game Balance/Tuning
• Crafting
• Usability / New Players
• PvP
• Conclusion

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Social

• Level gap
• Queuing
• Over/undercrowding
• Grouping vs. solo
• PvP consent
• Newbie Welcome Wagon

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Advancement

• Level gap
• Choice regret
• Macroing
• The Grind

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Player Opinion

• Over/undercrowding
• Queuing
• Nerfing
• Choice regret
• Grouping vs. solo
• Macroing
• The Grind

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Economy

• Cash inflation
• Balance loot vs. quest items
• Balance crafting vs. loot
• Craft yourself out of a job

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Game Balance/Tuning

• Cash inflation
• Balance loot vs. quest items
• Balance crafting vs. loot
• Nerfing
• Tuning inflation
• Runaway exploits

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Crafting

• Balance crafting vs. loot
• Craft yourself out of a job

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Usability / New players

• Feature breadth vs. approachability
• Tutorial
• Newbie Welcome Wagon

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PvP

• PvP rating abuse
• PvP consent

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Level gap

• Symptoms
• Friends who dont play same amount drift apart
  and cant play together any more
• Acquaintances drift apart before friendships
  formed
• Effects
• Limits audience to those with regular schedules
  or who play max amount of time
• Increases class imbalance sensitivity
• Advancement obsession can get too strong

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Level gap solution chart
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Level gap solutions

• Sidekicking (CoH)
• Allow lowbies to team up with highbies and get a
  temporary power boost
• Horizontal not vertical growth
• Grow in versatility not power (PS)
• Persistent XP sharing
• Like a hunting group but permanent
• Twink-Aid
• Allow highbies to sacrifice group XP to lowbies
• Fun to be highbie reward extremely efficient
  play (FFXI)
• Highbie trophy incentive

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Over/undercrowding

• Symptoms
• At launch, newbie areas too crowded
• After first rush, newbie areas too dead
• Popular high-level hunt spots mobbed
• Effect
• Overcrowding?frustration, rudeness, childishness
• Undercrowding?game not sticky

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Over/undercrowding solutions

• Instances
• Area in game world replicates multiple copies to
  match crowd
• Spawn rate sensitivity
• Work to get to prime spot, force exit
• Timed quest effect teleports you
• Forced back to town for selling, healing
• Accept newbie overcrowding
• Spawn rate sensitivity essential here
• High-level, encourage grouping through dynamics
  not proximity

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Queuing

• Symptoms
• Players waiting in place for a spawn
• Effects
• Immersion breaker heroes in line
• Rude behavior?service calls
• Boredom

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Queuing solutions

• Rapid spawns
• Beware incentive for non-questers to keep
  killing have only reward be quest
• One party one kill
• Whole party needs to kill it just once
• Unpredictable placement
• Must wander and get lucky
• Earn your way in
• Must get rare drop to enter destination area

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Cash inflation

• Symptom
• Average cash holding per character rises
• Effect
• Inflationary prices?tuning out of whack
• New world tuning vs. old world tuning
• Haves, have nots

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Cash inflation solutions

• Cash sinks
• Items
• Beware upward cycle of items which increase
  earning power
• Status items avoid this cycle
• Convenience items good but timemoney
• Taxation
• About as popular as real world equivalent
• Transfer friction
• Limit inventory and charge transaction costs to
  store more
• Cash not the be-all and and-all
• Trophy economy All about rare-drop items, cash
  incidental
• Items have advancement requirements so cash
  ceiling hit
• Speculation self adjustment
• Holy grail that AFAIK has not been successfully
  attained in a big game

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Balance loot and quest items

• Symptoms
• Quest stuff is so good that you wont find its
  match while hunting
• Effects
• Quests become must do
• Hunting boredom, item incentive gone
• Advancement jumps qualify for quest?jump in
  power from quest item

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Quest/loot balance solutions

• Quest items good in a way different from loot
  items
• Quest items better in specialized situations,
  loot better in general
• Can encourage questing chains
• Quest items add status and boost to loot item
• Ex. Purple fire, black dye (AC)
• Quest rewards not in items but unlock other
  content

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Balance crafting and loot

• Symptoms
• Crafted stuff is so good, why bother hunting for
  loot, or
• Hunted loot is go good, why bother getting
  crafted
• Effects
• Crafting becomes required, or crafting ignored

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Craft/loot balance solutions

• Hunt for raw materials for crafting
• Loot drops of materials are like items in
  waiting
• Crafted items good in a way different from loot
  items
• Crafted items better in specialized situations,
  loot better in general
• Planned obsolescence
• Crafted items wear out fast, loot items as
  fallback
• Also keeps crafters in business

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Craft yourself out of a job

• Symptoms
• Crafted items fill the market after which demand
  for them decreases
• Effects
• Players unhappy that craft skills needed less

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Craft-out solutions

• Wear-out
• Crafted items wear out fast
• Rising tide
• Constant stream of better recipes
• Beware tuning inflation

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Nerfing

• Symptoms
• Game out of tune?decrease power of items or
  skills?unhappy players
• Effects
• Player frustration
• Pops the bubble of constant advancement
• Tuning hypersensitivity
• Constant tuning flux

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Nerfing solutions

• Bold beta tuning
• Nerfing in beta is painful but saves many times
  the pain later
• Friendly facts
• Expose players to clear hard stats proving what
  was overpowered
• Raise not nerf
• Make low-powered things better, not high-powered
  things worse
• But beware tuning inflation
• Obsess less
• Demand for perfect tuning often a symptom of a
  game thats not very fun to play and level gap
  problems
• Designers can develop unhealthy obsession be
  imperfect
• Allow respec
• Let those obsessed with the perfect class change
  their class
• Beware reduction of replay

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Tuning inflation

• Symptoms
• As items and abilities become generally more
  powerful, challenge goes down
• Mobs that were perfect for given level become too
  easy
• Effects
• Tuning work creates more tuning work?burns time
• Game loses fun quietly

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Tuning inflation solutions

• Balance nerfing and powering up
• Beware nerfing effects
• Logging and mining
• Plan for good data logging and mining
• Monitor it regularly
• Plan ahead of time the action for any discovery
  you make

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Choice regret

• Symptoms
• Players wail and gnash teeth when they realize
  they made a dumb, permanent, irreversible choice
• Effects
• Increased demand to fix what they chose
• Player despair at being gimped
• Distrust of future choices
• Gimping can increase level gap
• Pariah class

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Choice regret solutions

• Let them eat rerolls
• Some say let players reroll?more replay
• Can have small reroll incentives to fast-forward
  over newbie content
• Respec
• Let players reverse decisions (AC2, DAoC)
• Can cost advancement or rare item/quest
• Delay the choice until informed
• For example, no character stats or develop them
  later
• Delay choice of spec class (DAoC)
• Try before you buy
• Allow players to test out a choice before locking
  it in (PS, ?)

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Feature breadth vs. approachability

• More choices and data more fun for gearheads
  more daunting for casuals
• Symptoms
• Design battles and tradeoffs
• Require tutorial, then fight over pace
• Effects
• Gearheads think game too simple, or
• Casuals think game too daunting

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Feature breadth solutions

• Pick an audience and deal
• Elegance emergent breadth
• Unlocking complexity
• Basic GUI simple, can unlock complex version
  (WoW chat, mods)
• Layer by layer complexity
• As you advance, add new features (Ragnarok)
• Tutorial (if done right)

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Tutorial

• Symptoms
• Players bored by tutorial
• Players show ignorance later of things taught
• Quit during tutorial (log this)
• Effects
• Bad first impression
• Ignorance?failed appreciation for your genius

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Tutorial solutions

• Allow skipping?
• People misestimate their need for a tutorial
• Can allow skips after previous success
• Call to action and story invisible tutorial
• Grab player by giving them important goals (Halo,
  CoH, EQ2)
• Praise achievement
• Must demonstrate knowledge to advance
• Allows fast progress by those who know (if not
  much tedium)
• Must restate how to succeed if they are stuck
• Use multiple channels
• Some key off of audio, some visuals, some
  patterns, some text use them all

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Grouping vs. Solo

• Symptoms
• Players complain they cant solo
• Players leave because they have few friends
• Effects
• Retention
• Tuning uncertainty

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Grouping/Solo solutions

• Decide on your mix
• Explicitly discuss your goals for solo vs. group
  play
• Decide how it changes during advancement
• Game dynamics
• Some classes solo oriented
• XP bonus in group
• Make grouping painless
• Looking-for-group and friend features, default
• Easy teleport to group leader
• Items that fill in missing role
• Can cost about as much as a share of the loot
  that missing group member would get

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PvP rating abuse

• Symptoms
• Players consensually kill each other to gain
  rewards
• Players defect from fight from fear of rating
  loss
• Effects
• Real fighters resent wannabes who cheat their way
  up

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PvP rating abuse solutions

• Zero-sum system
• One party gains as much as other loses
• Where do points come from?
• New players, who must advance a certain amount to
  get a pool of losable points
• What about newbie ganking?
• Chess-like rating system accounts for level
• Lower rewards for rekills (PS)
• Prevent defection
• Vulnerability before teleport/logout
• Debuff runners
• Punish defectors
• Defectors treated as losers, no matter what the
  excuse

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PvP consent

• Symptoms
• Too consensual jerks have no fear, lose sense of
  paranoia
• Not consensual enough preying upon the weak just
  for fun
• Effects
• Lowbies scared off
• Highbies pursue boring play

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PvP consent solutions

• Two layers consensual and non-consensual
• Non-consensual costs the aggressor dearly but it
  can still feel worthwhile (Lineage)
• Allows some paranoia and jerk punishment but
  checks rampant ganking
• In lowbie areas prohibit highbie first strike

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Macroing

• Symptoms
• Players use macros to gain while not at keyboard
• Effects
• Rapid advancement from 24-hour play
• Robots are antisocial?game more antisocial
• Players feel their advancement cheapened
• Players resent lack of action by developer

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Macroing solutions

• In some cases, see as design request
• People may be macroing what is too boring or
  click-tastic
• No advancement for things which are that easy?
  But
• Some players are less skilled than good bots
• Gimpy players get stuck
• Bot skillz can amaze you
• War on Drugs strategy forbid it and push it
  underground
• Macroers must go where less likely to be seen and
  reported
• Does not solve it but makes respectable players
  less agitated
• Speculation Macros welcome server?

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The Grind

• Symptoms
• Players complain about time it takes to advance
  (but they always will to some degree)
• You cant stand to play your own game
• Effects
• Audience limited
• Players may leave
• You cant relate to your players

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Grind solutions

• Accept it
• Some day its the lifeblood of a good game, and
  its like the weather
• Multiple advancement axes
• Trade one grind for another sometimes
• Careful enticements
• Slot-machine / pokies strategies of rewards of
  various rarities
• Tons of content
• If the reason for the grind is to prevent rapid
  content burn, spend millions on heaps of content
• Expansion pack earnings can justify spending even
  more on content

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Newbie welcome wagon

• Symptoms
• New players feel lost and unconnected with only
  other newbies to comfort them
• And many of those may be busy rerolls
• Effects
• Conversion rate suffers
• Early content rushed through

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Newbie welcome solutions

• Highbies want what newbies got
• One person one vote systems such as allegiances
  (AC) give highbies a reason to help newbies
• Quests with multiple layers
• Highbies need newbies to do their part in a quest
  stage with upper level limit
• Mentoring requirements
• Require mentoring to advance (SWG)

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Runaway exploits

• Symptoms
• Players use exploit and advance rapidly
• Gold rush as exploit news spreads
• Effects
• Players top out of content faster?retention loss
• Players who missed out resent it, and get hit
  with level gap
• Often cant reverse material exploits because it
  has propagated

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Runaway exploit solutions

• Advancement cap
• Any one gain only certain of your level (DAoC)
• Build at low level
• Speculation You can only gain so much in a given
  time window
• War on Drugs strategy forbid it and push it
  underground
• Exploiters want to pipe down and do it quietly
• Does not solve it but makes respectable players
  less agitated
• Public punishment for exploiters, reward for
  reporters
• Paper towels tune game to match advancement
• Have-nots hurt along with haves
• Different servers may have different spreads of
  exploit

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Conclusion

• Design is not just solving problems
• Whats fun, not whats clever
• Shared craft borrow solutions freely
• Filter signal from noise
• Sympathize with player