MMORPGs and Roguelikes...
Perdurabo
other people's thoughts on this subject. Here are a few questions I've
asked myself.
1. What can Roguelike Developers learn from MMORPGs?
2. Are there any features in an MMORPG that should (or could) be
implemented in Roguelikes?
and of course:
3. Are there any features from Roguelikes that would work well in an
MMORPG?
Best,
P.
Darren Grey
> I've been thinking about this topic recently, and I'd like to gather
> other people's thoughts on this subject. Here are a few questions I've
> asked myself.
>
> 1. What can Roguelike Developers learn from MMORPGs?
Surprisingly little, I might think. The thing is at the heart of
gameplay philosophy the two genres have some huge inreconcilable
differences. A MMO is generally centred around one PC that you slowly
build up to a high level, normally through quite repetitive actions.
The idea of permadeath is completely antithesis to the game, as every
player wants to hold on to their cherished character that they've
invested a huge amount of time into. Roguelikes on the other hand
tend to kill off your characters quicker than you can log in to WoW.
A typical gaming session in an MMO might involve spending several
hours progressing your character a level or two, maybe finding one or
two items of interest and gaining enough gold to buy one piece of the
next armour set you want. A typical gaming session in a RL might
involve spending several hours ploughing through 20-30 new characters,
all different, and have all of them die mercilessly to a mix of player
mistakes and the fateful RNG. In that time you might have a few that
get to some promising levels and abilities, and if you're good you
might actually get halfway through the game with one of them. The
gaming experience is quite different in that sense.
There are similarities of course, in particular there are often common
game themes, and with both genres relying often on DnD inspired RPG
gameplay there's bound to be some overlap. But the implementation of
each is so radically different that I don't see roguelikes as being
any more akin to MMOs than they are to Final Fantasy or Baldur's Gate.
One thing that might be learned is that players like to grind.
Mindless scumming for xp, items, etc is the core gameplay in MMOs,
it's what people spend hours every day doing. I don't really know
why, but that's what they do. Whilst certainly gameplay works better
in roguelikes when this is reduced (see Crawl) it should perhaps be
remembered that a bit of scumming isn't necessarily a bad thing, as
long as you reward those that go without. It can even open your game
up to player challenges you wouldn't have otherwise dreamed of (see
Nethack and ADOM).
> 2. Are there any features in an MMORPG that should (or could) be
> implemented in Roguelikes?
I hope not ;) Perhaps individual race/class/ability ideas would work
well in roguelikes, but likely their implementation would have to be
altered to reflect roguelike gameplay more.
On the subject of multiplayer roguelikes I don't really think there's
much of a market. The only one I've seen, Twilight, has very few
users in spite of being a quite solid game. Somehow the whole social
element from MMOs doesn't quite transfer over to moving a '@' about
the screen... Maybe if we had sexy night elves things would be
different?
PvP is perhaps something that would be fun with a roguelike interface,
though I'd prefer it remained turn-based (or with long turns at least
- this is an important obstacle I suppose). I tried to get War of
Wizards working with someone from #rgrd once and it didn't work, but
it looked like a fun game. A server run game where you can quickly
log in, make a character, and dive into an arena of death for a few
minutes would doubtlessly be a fun game if enough people
participated. A more complete game where you can build up your
character in single-player and then test him out against others in
multiplayer PvP could also work well if balanced properly. The
important thing to learn before making such a thing would be
implementing an extremely quick and simple interface, something many
roguelikes lack.
> and of course:
>
> 3. Are there any features from Roguelikes that would work well in an
> MMORPG?
Damn right there are! I can never understand how people play those
games without procedurally generated worlds and quests. Granted the
game worlds tend to be very big and fun to explore, but sooner or
later you're gonna get bored of them. Random dungeons and monsters
would at least help the tedium of "grinding", and might help prevent
some of the worst scumming/farming. Random monster classes with
unpredictable abilities would make combat far more exciting.
GearHead2 has also shown what can be done with random quests.
Considering how dull MMO quests tend to be as is (kill x of monster y)
I'm surprised they don't make more effort to randomise them a bit. Of
course few game companies want to mess with the magic formula that
Blizzard have come up with which people just keep going back to...
--
Darren Grey
Altefcat
> MMORPG?
Monster colors depending on their level and the player's level. In my
(graphical) roguelike I plan to add a color disk under monsters,
colors being something like that:
- white if mlvl <= plvl-5 (no xp gain when killing them)
- green if mlvl <= plvl-3 (half xp gain)
- blue if plvl-2 <= mlvl <= plvl (normal xp gain)
- yellow if plvl+1 <= mlvl <= plvl+2 (xp x 1.5)
- red if plvl+3 <= mlvl <= plvl+4 (xp x 2)
- purple if mlvl > plvl + 4 (xp x (mlvl-plvl-2))
with mlvl = monster level ; plvl = player level
|whit|whit|gree|gree|blue|blue|blue |yell|yell|red |red |purp|purp|
| -6 | -5 | -4 | -3 | -2 | -1 |player| +1 | +2 | +3 | +4 | +5 | +6
| ...
| | | | | | |level | | | | | | |
| x0 | x0 |x0.5|x0.5| xp | xp | xp |x1.5|x1.5| x2 | x2 | x3 | x4 |
Of course in a text roguelike you would rather change the monster
color.
Gerry Quinn
ff327c...@r24g2000vbp.googlegroups.com>, perdu...@googlemail.com
says...
> I've been thinking about this topic recently, and I'd like to gather
> other people's thoughts on this subject. Here are a few questions I've
> asked myself.
>
> 1. What can Roguelike Developers learn from MMORPGs?
They can certainly get ideas related to combat mechanics or itemisation.
The combat mechanics of WoW (numerous abilities with cooldowns) are
quite suitable for a roguelike, IMO.
Items in MMORPGs are (for various reasons) a good deal less random than
would be desirable for a roguelike. But one could perhaps drop
artefacts from bosses in a slightly predictable fashion. Something like
this exists in roguelikes where you can go to a certain location or
enemy that you might otherwise avoid in order to get particular types of
item. But what if there were a particularly dangerous boss creature
that is known to have a good chance of dropping a mace with special
powers? A mace-specialist might give it a try, or a non-specialist
might see if it drops and switch to maces if it does.
The quest structure in many MMORPGs is quite suitable for incorporation
in a roguelike.
Roguelike developers can learn that procedural generation is not
everything, and that designed locations have advantages of their own,
even though it is undesirable to use them excessively.
> 2. Are there any features in an MMORPG that should (or could) be
> implemented in Roguelikes?
See item 1. There's nothing in particular that *should* be implemented,
but any good MMORPG will have potential ideas for the attentive
roguelike developer as to how elements common to both could be
implememted.
> 3. Are there any features from Roguelikes that would work well in an
> MMORPG?
More random items. Procedurally-generated dungeons.
- Gerry Quinn
--
Lair of the Demon Ape (a coffee-break roguelike)
<http://indigo.ie/~gerryq/lair/lair.htm>
Ray Dillinger
> 3. Are there any features from Roguelikes that would work well in an
> MMORPG?
I have always thought that MMORPG's place too much emphasis on a
player's single character. In roguelikes we allow or even encourage
"die and learn." But in MMORPGs it would go against the grain of
prevailing game design.
If I were designing an MMO, I would distinguish between an experienced
player and an experienced character, and let players have a "stable" of
characters at different power levels. When one dies, you'd get to
replace him/her by taking over an NPC of suitable power, level up
one of your lower level characters and replace the character at the
lower level, or whatever. You'd also get to "abandon" characters
(make them NPC's) if you decided they were no fun to play anymore
and you wanted to use that slot in your "stable" for a different
character. You wouldn't need the "universal teleport" that breaks
so much world consistency, because the same player could have
different characters in different areas of the game world. You could
play Doctor Challenger in game-London on Tuesdays and Thursdays while
Professor Havelock was on an 8-week boring ocean voyage from game-France
to game-Africa and Lady Warwick was having adventures on Mondays and
Wednesdays in far game-Cathay and Tzetsuil was adventuring in service
to his holy Emperor in game-Mesoamerica on Fridays and Saturdays.
On Sundays you could play an illiterate pickpocket in Game-India.
The distances between areas of the game world could actually be
meaningful (plot-device) barriers while not blocking play by
individual players.
But your characters would never meet (because you're only allowed to
play one of them at a time) and as game designer I would not allow
stuff that any one of them had ever owned to become the property of
any other, under any circumstances. Alternatively stuff might get a
significant nerfing every time it changed hands, ultimately becoming
simply mundane objects suitable to donate to museums along with
little white cards that explain the "legends" behind them.
So death of a character would be game over for the dead character,
and remove their equipment from play, but the player wouldn't lose
the ability to play a character at that level.
There'd be a limit on the rate at which any particular character could
advance in level, but the rate of player advancement could be quite
sedate compared to it. I'd also put both upper and lower limits on
player advancement relative to calendar time, in order to
a) limit the benefit of grinding for experience more than, say,
two or three hours a day, although grinding for stuff or
playing more just for fun would be allowed,
b) give people a reason to pay their monthly subscription fee
because it'll take them MONTHS to get back to this level if
they lose their current account, and
c) let people whether they grind or not feel that their monthly
subscription fee bought them something.
Also, you'd have options like having lower-level characters suited for
quests with lower-level groups, characters with different abilities
allowing you to take different roles and experience different aspects
of the game, characters in different areas of the game world, etc,
giving individual players the options of more flexible social
interaction and enjoying more of what the development team offers.
Finally, there are some character concepts that, IMO, work best as low
level characters, and I'd want to be able to play those characters
without having them level up beyond the point where they work - a
"stable of characters" approach would allow me to do that.
Bear
msa...@gmail.com
> 2. Are there any features in an MMORPG that should (or could) be
> implemented in Roguelikes?
There are a couple of items that I think would translate well into
roguelikes. The truth is, however, I know few, if any, of these items
are specific to MMOs, and many have been incorporated into roguelikes
(RLs). Still, here are my thoughts:
1. Crafting/Gathering - One thing MMOs have taught us is that some
people really like the process of collecting rare materials to create
powerful items. I've seen some very limited crafting systems in
roguelikes, but I think there is a lot more potential here. Similarly,
the addition of professions introduces the new mini-game of gathering,
which may be enjoyable. RLs with specific zones that spawn specific
monsters (and many do) could have a player revisiting a number of
locations to acquire materials to make a powerful item.
2. Casting Time - Many MMOs operate from the assumption that you begin
casting a spell, but that the effects don't resolve until later and
they caster is immobilized until they do. Opponents that see this can
then take actions to postpone, interrupt, or react to the spell before
it completes. Most RLs instead use a system where the spell effect
resolves immediately and the caster is immobilized for some time
afterwards, but I think the MMO approach could offer some new
strategies to games.
3. 'Over-time' Spells - While RLs traditionally use a number of over-
time effects like poison and regeneration, I think that MMOs have gone
a lot further with these sorts of effects and their tradeoffs.
Choosing between, say, a long cast time heal and an instant hast HoT
is an interesting tactical decision. MMOs make very heavy use of these
kinds of effects, and I think they have exposed a level of depth in
them that RLs could make use of.
I also agree with a number of other suggestions here: color coding
monster threat levels, monsters with predefined loot on predefined
levels (ADOM does this to great effect), and quests could bring a lot
to RL design.
Billy Bissette
ab92-4a2...@v39g2000pro.googlegroups.com:
You identified scumming/grinding as a main "feature" of MMORPGs,
yet think MMORPG players would appreciate random dungeons? Such
randomization would interfere with optimal performance. Many such
players want the max gain for minimal effort.
As well, it would interfere with the mindless repetition aspect of
the game. This too is one of the addictive features of MMORPGs,
repeating the same actions without thought.
Xecutor
> > 3. Are there any features from Roguelikes that would work well in an
> > MMORPG?
>
> Monster colors depending on their level and the player's level. In my
where you can kill -2 levels mob very easily,
and +2 mob is somewhat difficult and dangerous to approach.
Darren Grey
> Darren Grey <darrenjohng...@gmail.com> wrote in news:9a5521c9-a80f-401d-
> ab92-4a2599415...@v39g2000pro.googlegroups.com:
But it is also the feature that most MMO haters complain about. An
online RPG that reduced grind by introducing procedurally generated
content might find new ground in those who have previously shunned the
genre. Or maybe it'd flop horribly... Would be more interesting than
the numerous World of Warcraft clones at least.
--
Darren Grey
Billy Bissette
b7c9-8bd...@x16g2000prn.googlegroups.com:
Just because people complain about it doesn't mean they'd react
well to it being gone.
msa...@gmail.com
> Just because people complain about it doesn't mean they'd react
> well to it being gone.
Well, to be fair, I think a lot of players would like it, but they
would probably also quit playing earlier because they accomplished
everything. Less grind is bad business.
Still, many popular roguelikes have a lot of grind... It does seem to
keep people playing.
Gerry Quinn
@i24g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, konstanti...@gmail.com says...
In WoW, a lot of this balance comes because misses and critical hits are
partly based on level. For example, your hit chance on a monster of
your own level (assuming no gear that modifies it) is 96%, it is 95% on
a +1 level monster, and 94% on a +2 level monster. But after that it
goes to 83% for a +3, 72% for a +4, and so on. Even for the strongest
classes, +5 tends to be about the limit on normal outdoor monsters.
Similarly, monsters much below your level will miss you most of the
time.
- Gerry Quinn
David Ploog
> On Jan 19, 11:03 am, Perdurabo <perdurab...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>> What can Roguelike Developers learn from MMORPGs?
> One thing that might be learned is that players like to grind.
I really, really hope this is due to the infancy of the MMO genre and that
future games will avoid it.
I am fully aware that different players can derive fun from a game in
completely different manners, but the two serious MMO players I know
dislike the grinding aspect a lot. (You can't do statistics with a sample
of size 2, but that's all I have :) They took long breaks each and one
tried a number of different MMORPGs in search for better solutions. (ISTR
he stayed with City of Heroes for a long time.)
> Mindless scumming for xp, items, etc is the core gameplay in MMOs,
> it's what people spend hours every day doing. I don't really know
> why, but that's what they do.
One should think about the way these games commercially work: ultimately,
you want players to stick to a character for a very long time. This means
easy to pick up, quick successes at first, stress on social interaction
(relationships with other humans can probably hook us better than content
in the long run, not just for MMORPGs).
But also stressing time consuming actions. Especially if they're mindless:
everyone can derive gains from them (giving them a feeling of power, hence
fun) and the clock is ticking, the cash is counted.
Ultimately, I would hope that grinding has occured in the genre leader
(and thus in most clones, I'd guess) because it is a very simple mechanic
(both in design and how it works on the players) useful for keeping all
kinds of players in, including juvenile or incompetent ones. It should be
possible to have MMO games that do successfully without it. Are open
source games in the genre as prone to grinding as the commercial ones?
> Whilst certainly gameplay works better in roguelikes when this is
> reduced (see Crawl) it should perhaps be remembered that a bit of
> scumming isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as you reward those that
> go without.
I am heavily biased here (Crawl developer :) but in my opinion grind is
generally bad. Erik (another developer) pointed out that some players do
find this fun. That is why Crawl allows (and keeps allowing) for grinding
in specified manners (namely species Mummy and Abyss and Pan branches).
I'd like to point one thing: What is the difference between starting a
game with permadeath (could be a classical roguelike or most arcade games)
over and over again and grinding in the MMO genre?
As I see it, the difference is that the grind is eternal: You restart the
arcade/roguelike in order to become better at the place where you failed
last time. Doing it over again may or may not be interesting (depends a
lot on the game). Grinding is done for reaping smaller and smaller
benefits (compared to your level, or the time invested); as I understand
it, farming is never finished.
This is why I think that permadeath can produce fun but grinding won't do
(for me).
David
Billy Bissette
@news.indigo.ie:
Alternately, but more complicated to enact, would be to try to
rate the lethality of creatures versus the character directly. The
game knows all the details like damage ranges, defenses, and odds.
If you can boil it down to a basic value that is mostly accurate,
then you can use that to color-code monsters. Such a system,
accounting for things like character equipment, could be quite
useful even when it isn't always perfect.
Perdurabo
> Gerry Quinn <ger...@indigo.ie> wrote in news:MPG.23e168018e70a36d0
> @news.indigo.ie:
>
>
>
> > In article <e1191a9e-1fb0-45bc-8eed-50ce93047157
> >> O>
> Alternately, but more complicated to enact, would be to try to
> rate the lethality of creatures versus the character directly. The
> game knows all the details like damage ranges, defenses, and odds.
> If you can boil it down to a basic value that is mostly accurate,
> then you can use that to color-code monsters. Such a system,
> accounting for things like character equipment, could be quite
> useful even when it isn't always perfect.
Back in the old days when it was still afflicted by McQuaidism,
Everquest 2 used to do this for items as well - each item had
effectively a rating (indicated by a coloured border) and whenever you
outgrew the item and it turned "grey", you no longer achieved any
benefits from wearing the item.
I do think a conning-system could work in an mMO with a couple of
provisos:
1) The bands are quite wide, i.e. "you should be able to defeat this
creature with ease", "this creature should provide little challenge to
you", etc and
2) It doesn't come into play until you've fought and killed at least
one of them before.
Though 2) may be an unnecessarily tip of the hat to the spectre of
realism, I grant you.
Best,
P.
b0rsuk
Perdurabo wrote:
> I've been thinking about this topic recently, and I'd like to gather
> other people's thoughts on this subject. Here are a few questions I've
> asked myself.
Many MMORPGs show how things should NOT be done. That said, roguelikes
are too conservative in some ways: "I'm going to have a heart attack
if melee combat involves more than arrow keys!". Roguelikes should
explore more areas, such as movement based on action points (only in
Lost Labyrinth as far as I know) or even simultaneous turns (I know of
no roguelike, but Laser Squad Nemesis does it really well.)
Laser Squad Nemesis answers a long-standing question: "How to make
Shotgun different from an Assault Rifle in turn-based game ?" Jakub,
are you listening ?
MMORPGs need:
Random level generation. Random item generation. Persistent death.
Combat so interesting that people play a MMORPG to fight.
Gameplay based on something else than collecting items. In roguelikes
you usually have to make do with whatever you find. Most MMORPGs
encourage you to eventually get all the best items - you're working
(yes, working ! not playing !) on getting item X to complete a set, to
be able to craft something etc. MMORPGs sorely need interesting random
1-shot quests. Note that in many MMORPGs combat is not very
interesting, it's determined largely by who farmed more and made a
better character guild. It's quite similar to Magic: The Gathering in
this regard, the outcome is often decided before the game starts. To
M:TG veterans I say this: In truly competitive environment there's a
very small amount of decks which have a chance of winning and you
mostly see small variations on entrenched themes. All M:TG expansions
have many cards nobody uses. Cutthroat world of M:TG competitive scene
leaves very little room for creativity. Actually, I think matches
played with random decks are more enjoyable.
Diablo is neither MMORPG nor roguelike, but serves as a good example.
Diablo implemented many features of roguelikes, but also ignored some
fundamentals like permadeath. This has significant gameplay effect -
stealth and recon are of no value in Diablo. You're supposed to kill
anything on a level anyway, there's nothing you can't kill unless
you've really messed up your character development.
By the way, I agree with Diablo3 developers on removal of stat
allocation. Stat allocation in Diablo was broken because Vitality was
the only stat that really mattered. You only needed enough Str to wear
best armour.
b0rsuk
Gerry Quinn
@h5g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>, perdu...@googlemail.com says...
Well, the names of monsters in WoW are colour-coded thusly: red = +4
levels or more, orange = +3, yellow = +2 to -2, green = -3 to
[-something], grey = many levels below you.
Quests are generally colour-coded according to the highest level
monsters you are likely to encounter on them. In addition, certain
quests are marked as group quests with a recommended number of players -
these quests usually involve elite monsters that are much stronger than
their level indicates. An elite monster typically has 2-3 times as much
health as normal, hits harder than normal, and may have immunities to
snares etc. But these things can vary considerably; elite ogres are
generally nothing special, whereas elite giants are likely to be very
tough.
- Gerry Quinn
David Damerell
>>3. Are there any features from Roguelikes that would work well in an
>>MMORPG?
>Monster colors depending on their level and the player's level.
Present, in a sense, in NetHack's "warning" intrinsic.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?
Today is Saturday, January - a weekend.
David Damerell
>Damn right there are! I can never understand how people play those
>games without procedurally generated worlds and quests.
City of Heroes approaches this; most mission instances are random maps
(albeit spliced together from a few soon-familiar chunks) and "police"
missions are assigned random fluff text about what you're meant to be
doing. I can well see them going further down that road.