Topic: Player Advancement

[topher]

So its time I start contributing again.....

Player Advancement, how do we keep them coming back for more like a good drug?  I've played pretty much every MMORPG in the last 6 years so I can tell you exactly what I do and do not like.  Let's break this down into phases:

Character Creation - Users should be able to create a highly customizable character (facial features, attitude, etc) and not have to worry about messing up with bad stats.  Everquest had this problem, where if you picked to put all your points into Intelligence as a fighter you were boned for quite some time.  Abilities should not very too much other then by race.  No class choices at creation.

First Days - The first time that User logins in with their new character they should be greeted and offered a tutorial dependant on their race.  Characters should follow the tutoiral to get a basic understanding of the mission system, communicating, fighting, travel, ship systems, etc.  A little taste of everything.  This tutorial and initial system should be downloadable and free...hook the players here, get them wanting more.  It would be important to make them feel involved in the story and want to purchase the game.

First Week - Characters should start interacting with other people, NPCs and start deciding on skills, classes, etc..some kind of a goal for their character.  We should never lock them in to just one though.  With Eve Online I could switch with time to any other role I wanted (from fighter to trader to miner to industrial).  

First Month - Characters might have a list of friends that they've been in contact with and share similar ideals with.  A corporate, group,etc is formed, this bond is often the most important in an MMORPG.

First Year - Character is well established in the story line, player world, and so forth.  He has reach a lot of goals and also set new ones at the same time.  The user has become very attached to his character and would no cherish starting over.

[topher]

So now that a basic overview is done i have some ideas for how skills, feats, abilities, etc should work.

Advancement could be broken down into 3 sections:

1.) Traits
*  At certain skill point plateus a character is allowed to pick a trait.  This trait would give them a bonus to certain skills.  So every 100,00 skill points i could pick: Excellent Hacker, +5 to all hacking skills or Heavy Hand, +5 to intimidate skills.  Traits would allow characters to becomine extremely personalized and unique.

2.) Skills
* Characters can train skills even while offline.  Skills take x amount of minutes based on the difficult (how many prerequisite skills) and the characters traits.  So, my character who wants to be a money launderer trains Tax Evasion level I.  It takes 2 horus to complete and then I move onto Tax Evasion level II which takes 8 hours.  I then move onto Money Laundering level I which requires TE II and will take 6 hours.  
* The main benefit is for people like me who cant always play but want to improve their character.
* All devices, ships would have skill requirements before being able to sue

3.) Abilities
* Characters can purchase and learn special abilities from NPCs and other PCs.  These abilities would have durations and cooldown times associated.  In my money launderer example, I need an ability to avoid the popo if I get caught.  I find a smuggler/outlander to teach me Beginner Evasion, which allows me once per hour to completely avoid detenction for 10 minutes.

[Morgul]

Hmm... I'm going to have to give some thought to how this fits into everything I've been thinking of so far. I agree with a bunch of it, and I like how it's broken down into a time scale... and I agree that we need to have 'goals' that fit these time scales...

Basically, the only thing I'm not sure about is how to modify this to fit a whole, "Players focus more on the character itself, and not on levels/stats." scheme of things...


Ugg.... I really need to work on the roleplaying/character end of things..

--Morgul

[topher]

Basically, the only thing I'm not sure about is how to modify this to fit a whole, "Players focus more on the character itself, and not on levels/stats." scheme of things...

That's the beauty of the system I suggested above, there are no levels, no grinding out killing repatitive mobs, etc.  You learn with your character, you explore, you interact, hell you don't even have to be logged in 24/7 to advance.  However, if you want to be a number cruncher (every game has them) you'd be able to min/max, go right for the best bang for the time.  Powergamers and casual players a like will advance and feel that special bond to their character.  That was my biggest draw to the system in Eve online, I could go on vacation in real life for a couple of weeks to ireland, I came back and my character was better.

[Rosencrantz]

I think the time based skills idea is a good idea, especially if there is a queue for skills. Although I think you might want to keep the length of the queue small and possibly have a pause before a new skill is taken from the queue.

[Morgul]

Hmm. What's to prevent players from stacking up all these skills into thier character, and then not playing for a few weeks, and coming back, and having an uber character? (aka: What's to keep this from being abused?)

--Chris

[topher]

Who cares?  They'll be paying the same as a character who is actively playing.  No queue though, we'd force them to do it through the game or possible a website that way we can get news and other items out to them.

[contingencyplan]

If we're worried about the offline system being abused, we could also do something like what WoW does: When you're offline, you save up "rest points" or something similar. Then, as you gain experience through progression in the game, you get extra experience based on the amount of rest points you have. So, rest points are essentially extra EXP. I'm not sure that's exactly how that works, so y'all'll (that's "you all will" :-P) have to talk to someone who knows more about it than I do.  

/me elbows Panda ;-)

Now, I know we are shying away from experience, but doing something along this line for however the system works would allow us to have Players' characters progress while they are offline, but still require them to be online in order to take advantage of such advancement.

OR: We could do what has been described here, and do it kinda like the Matrix (first one) does it: You can buy programs that you can use offline to either train in a new skill or enhance a current one. Militaries may have those programs automatically set up for their soldiers, so they don't have to buy them. (The military will provide most of this kind of stuff for their soldiers - equipment, training, etc.; freelancers will have to get their own.)

And yes, Matrix Revolutions was on tonight, so I was watching that while studying. That's what gave me the idea just then.

Anyways, there ya go.
~Brian

[topher]

WoW and EQ2 both do that with you gain vitality or extra % when you log in and fight.  I am opposed to experience points on all levels because that forces you to grind out for that next cool thing.  Rather then whats above where I could take my sweet time, work in training a skill up while exploring, trading, etc.

I really like the idea of organizations handing out freebies too.  Not only the military but others too (Like Science Corps, etc) and even player corps that pay a fee to allow all members access to train a skill.

[Rosencrantz]

Hmm. What's to prevent players from stacking up all these skills into thier character, and then not playing for a few weeks, and coming back, and having an uber character? (aka: What's to keep this from being abused?)

--Chris

Thats why I was saying limit the size of the queue, and possibly put in a pause between when a skill finishes and when the next one is taken from the queue.

[Morgul]

The more I think about it, the more I like that idea. There *should* be a limit, as Rosencrantz said, on how many things you can queue, and I think also what can be queued. Putting a pause in between might also be a good idea... Thinking of it this way, who's to say your character was sitting idly that entire time? They should be moving, and doing something. Maybe they got busy, and didnt practice the things they planned on... Or maybe they're lazy, disobedient characters.

[fehknt]

sure!  People don't always do what they had planned to do...  Situations come up that change your plans.

I think that the whole offline thing will be just fine as long as a) there's just as much risk involved as online for any benefit, b) maybe it's slower because you aren't driving your character to do as much as you would when you're logged in, and c) god, that's really, really boring, just sitting offline waiting for my character to get better, slowly.  I want things to happen, I want to actually, um, play the game!  that's what i'm paying for!  if people want to just let the AI build them a mediocre character with moderate specialization (people tend to specialize thier characters much more than a real person would) then i say let them do nothing important and basically join as a paying NPC.