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[Traveller]

So...this is for a MUD, but I don't see why it wouldn't apply to an MMO or whatever.

I'm working on a heavily cooperative player-versus-environment concept.  All players are on the same general team, so there is no PvP balance issue.  My main concern is...  How do I let low-level and high-level players play with each other, without stepping on each others' toes or making the high level players be disappointed at low power levels?

I want areas where a high-level party has some important mission to accomplish, but a low-level party can also help them out--like, take out some enemy archers or support troops.  My big problem is:  "If it's important enough to get a low-level party involved, how do you keep one high-level player from steamrolling through those weak enemies?"

Some places just lock high-level people out of low-level areas but that seems really cheap.  Ideally, I'd like an overpowered-level player to have no real advantage over an appropriate-level player in any given area.  I'm just not sure how to pull that off.  Maybe if every fight takes a decent amount of time, even if you totally overpower your enemy?  I don't know, would that even be fun?  I really don't want to boost newbies or downgrade highbies outside of their appropriate areas...  I've seen the 'boost newbies' thing in Warhammer Online, and while it was fun, it seemed like it was just a crutch to allow PvP to be playable at all; it made advancement a little less important than it could have been, but most importantly it just didn't make much sense.

Other concerns...  If a level 5 and a level 30 player want to play together, how do you let them have some amount of fun?  If they're different classes (healer and fighter, respectively) it works...because any healer is better than no healer.  And if one player has useful powers (ie, you need a psychopomp to take your party to the land of the dead and get around there), that works too.  But if it's two fighters, then it starts to feel a little weird--and in many systems like this, the low level player gets huge piles of experience, while contributing very little.

I'm toying with the idea of levels mostly giving you new abilities and customizations, instead of new powers...so it's more Metroid than Final Fantasy.  But that has a couple of problems.  First off, won't the high-level people be upset if they're only twice as strong as a raw newbie?  Secondly, will newbies be upset if they have very few abilities and customization?

So...what are design opinions on this?  Would serious players be disappointed at a very shallow levelling curve, would that make people more or less apt to grind?  How do you slow down a high-level player in a place where he's overpowered?  What mechanics do you find useful for letting wildly-disparate level players play together?

[Kegluneq]

Huh that is a good question.
The first thing that came to mind is to have the game check for the players level once he engages in combat, and scale the monster's power appropriately, but that also seems like somewhat of a crutch, and in that case its better to go how you said with more customization or skills than levels.

Sometimes people like how certain enemies are too powerful to fight at the moment, and it provides the chance for leveling up by tanking. If everything is balanced for all levels, then it makes it tough to level quickly even with help.

All in all, I'd go with the metroid idea with more customization as you progress through the game, as long as its fun even without too much extra stuff you should be fine.

[Traveller]

Hmm, good point.  It's important to have monsters that are 'totally out of reach, but I'll kill them someday', and it's important to have monsters that 'if we work together and try really hard, we can kill it'.  You need challenges that are too hard for you right now.  Otherwise, there's nothing to look forwards to.

I believe that the hard monsters shouldn't just be a 'being high level' thing.  Boss-type critters should be a challenge regardless.  I actually want to borrow from action games (Metroid style platformers, in fact) when I build my combat engine...very specifically, boss monsters should have a concept of state, there should be ideal times to blast them and times to defend, where having a good strategy and a cohesive team is important regardless of level.  If you can do triple damage by attacking at the right time, but the enemy can also make you vulnerable and force you to focus on defense, it gets more interesting.  I do believe that low-level people should be able to take bosses a fair distance above their level, if they play well and strategize a lot and are patient.

You have to define the player power curve by deciding how fast the player should feel like she can take on new challenges.  Otherwise it gets boring.  But now we're back to, "How do you slow down the high level people from blasting through the low level areas".

Here's one possibility...Let's say that enemies' armor and dodging ability can let them block, say, 25-50% of the damage from a same-level opponent.  If being higher level only lets you bypass that armor, instead of necessarily doing more damage...then a high level player still needs to take quite a few swings; they are limited to doing damage only a certain percent faster than an appropriate-level player.  With that system, as player levels go up, the damage you do to your enemies ramps up and then plateaus, while the damage enemies do to you probably starts out at a plateau and then ramps down.  Does that sound fun, or would you say that's pretty lame?  A level 10 character versus level 10 monster takes twenty rounds / sword swings to kill it, while a level 20, 30, 40, 50 character are all likely to take ten rounds (maybe as few as five at the highest levels)?

I really want to know if that sounds lame or if there are problems there, because I'm starting to like that idea.  Criticism good; even destructive criticism (because that's what potential players are likely to be slinging...)

[george]

There was a pretty good summary of a way to deal with this on another forum, in a discussion about armor. I'm just going to quote it here:

In general, I would avoid putting too much emphasis on the numerical properties of armor.  That leads to the arms race/rat wheel that almost every single RPG, MUD, and MMO suffers from.  If armor is just a stack of numbers, then players constantly need to upgrade, and once upgraded all of the "lower level" content becomes boring and unimportant.  Especially in a fantasy game you can make armor less about "how good it is" and more about "how widely applicable it is."  For example, the starting player class of armor might just be useful as a little bit of protection against common attacks.  The end-game armor might not be significantly better against regular attacks, but it might also protect against fire, lightning, magic, be quiet, have high endurance, be associated with a high-end guild or court, etc.  The end-game players are then still threatened by early-game encounters, but new players still have to work their way up to end-game encounters.  (The same approach can be applied to your skill system: instead of giving the player a ton of bonuses to combat, give him abilities that affect certain kinds of combat.  e.g., instead of getting +10 to hit, give him a skill that gives him +10 vs giants.  Getting that skill means that the player can now stand up against giants, but it offers him no advantage against an orc.  That means that earning the skill opens up new content without invalidating old content.)

That is pretty much where you're going with talking about customization. It's definitely more work than just adding to a character's hitroll and damroll with every level, but I think it's more interesting and more fun.

By the way Traveller, I saw your post at TMC...come over to Mudbytes, it's better there.


eta: I noticed I didn't specifically address your question about how two characters of widely different levels could group together if they wanted to -- I think it comes down to how you design your content. Maybe the low-level character can't take on the giant, but they can take on the wolf pack the giant runs with, while the high-level character deals with the giant. The wolves are still a threat to the high-level character, so the low-level character makes a real contribution.

[Lynx]

City of Heroes solved this through 'sidekicking' and 'reverse sidekicking'.  A higher level player could adopt a lower level character as a sidekick (henchman in a fantasy milieu) and that would temporarily boost the lower level character's stats to comparable levels.  Or the lower level character could 'exemplar' the higher level player for play in lower level areas.  Higher level players would only receive cash for doing this, not worthwhile (high level) treasure.

I don't think the correct approach is to make all encounters have low and high level opposition just to make sure there will always be something for low and high level characters to do.  This leads to everything feeling generic.  Instead, you should deal with this in the way that the characters interact with each other.

For instance, add special 'setup' moves the mentor can do which temporarily immobilizes the enemy and makes them vulnerable to low level attack.  The low level character does 'high level' (same as the mentor) damage against the enemy, and gains experience for taking advantage of the setup.  Setup moves can also boost a matching player's attack by a couple levels, a bonus for working with another player instead of playing solo.

[SephiRok]

For Guild Wars 2 they also plan to implement a side-kicking system similar to City of Heroes.

[Traveller]

There was a pretty good summary of a way to deal with this on another forum, in a discussion about armor. I'm just going to quote it here:

In general, I would avoid putting too much emphasis on the numerical properties of armor.  That leads to the arms race/rat wheel that almost every single RPG, MUD, and MMO suffers from.  If armor is just a stack of numbers, then players constantly need to upgrade, and once upgraded all of the "lower level" content becomes boring and unimportant.  Especially in a fantasy game you can make armor less about "how good it is" and more about "how widely applicable it is."  For example, the starting player class of armor might just be useful as a little bit of protection against common attacks.  The end-game armor might not be significantly better against regular attacks, but it might also protect against fire, lightning, magic, be quiet, have high endurance, be associated with a high-end guild or court, etc.  The end-game players are then still threatened by early-game encounters, but new players still have to work their way up to end-game encounters.  (The same approach can be applied to your skill system: instead of giving the player a ton of bonuses to combat, give him abilities that affect certain kinds of combat.  e.g., instead of getting +10 to hit, give him a skill that gives him +10 vs giants.  Getting that skill means that the player can now stand up against giants, but it offers him no advantage against an orc.  That means that earning the skill opens up new content without invalidating old content.)

That is pretty much where you're going with talking about customization. It's definitely more work than just adding to a character's hitroll and damroll with every level, but I think it's more interesting and more fun.

By the way Traveller, I saw your post at TMC...come over to Mudbytes, it's better there.


eta: I noticed I didn't specifically address your question about how two characters of widely different levels could group together if they wanted to -- I think it comes down to how you design your content. Maybe the low-level character can't take on the giant, but they can take on the wolf pack the giant runs with, while the high-level character deals with the giant. The wolves are still a threat to the high-level character, so the low-level character makes a real contribution.

Well, I've got a full rebuild of combat on my plate already, so why not...  

I find those ideas interesting.  Going to have to think about that.  I'm a little worried about anything that's too boolean like that...  If you can go directly from "dies to giants" to "kills giants fairly easily", then there's a very clear optimal path of going after the giants early while they give a pile of experience, then finding the next big group of baddies to squish.  It also seems like there's a danger of making player classes TOO distinct...like, oh, we need to take out some giants, let's just put together a party of four giant-killers.

Making your lower-level buddy take care of the wolves while you face off against the giant is almost exactly the gameplay I'm after, though.

I'm starting to think I'm on the right track with my idea of "a higher level guy can kill weak things twice as fast, but not any faster no matter how high level" idea.  Make weak enemies stop being a threat slowly, such that "more manpower" is a viable solution to the problem, and suddenly newbies are everyone's friends.  Just as long as the rewards for weak enemies drop off a tiny bit faster than their threat level...

Okay, so higher level fights require exotic damage types and techniques that low level characters can't stand up to, but low level fights are still threatening.  I like this a lot.  And I'll take a look at mudbytes, I just think TMC was the place I grew up with a decade and a half ago or so.    It's very slow there.

City of Heroes solved this through 'sidekicking' and 'reverse sidekicking'.  A higher level player could adopt a lower level character as a sidekick (henchman in a fantasy milieu) and that would temporarily boost the lower level character's stats to comparable levels.  Or the lower level character could 'exemplar' the higher level player for play in lower level areas.  Higher level players would only receive cash for doing this, not worthwhile (high level) treasure.

I don't think the correct approach is to make all encounters have low and high level opposition just to make sure there will always be something for low and high level characters to do.  This leads to everything feeling generic.  Instead, you should deal with this in the way that the characters interact with each other.

For instance, add special 'setup' moves the mentor can do which temporarily immobilizes the enemy and makes them vulnerable to low level attack.  The low level character does 'high level' (same as the mentor) damage against the enemy, and gains experience for taking advantage of the setup.  Setup moves can also boost a matching player's attack by a couple levels, a bonus for working with another player instead of playing solo.

Ah, I have played CoV and liked that system--I'm not quite sure it fits here, but it's good to be reminded that it's been used in PvE before and not just PvP like Warhammer Online etc.  I could certainly see some kind of skill or spell that lets you bring a lower level character up to speed in that way...  And the whole idea of "Your stats are higher, but you don't have all the shiny special abilities you could have" is still a driving force to advance.

The 'setup' you mention is already a plan...but it's a very good point to keep track of what level ranges it makes the critter vulnerable to!  Ideally, I want people to save their nastiest special abilities and spells for when the monster is vulnerable; if the critter is only vulnerable to higher level attacks, then you know it's just not a fight low level characters can help out with very much.

I'll think about the 'mentor' thing.  I'm leaning towards 3-4 person parties instead of 2 person ones when possible, so there's less 1-on-1 interaction, but I'll see if that still makes sens in a larger group environment.

Thanks for the ideas!

[Lynx]

No reason you can't extend a mentoring system to let one person teach several people, perhaps at a greater penalty to his 'effective level'.  People might be more inclined to spread the teaching workload to avoid reducing their combat power too much.

[sandjack]

A few random ideas of varying levels of feasibility. None of these have been playtested:

1) As in real life, as players level up they become specialists. Lowbies are generalists -- they fight equally well against golems, wolves, giants, and dragons. They might have powers that let them switch easily from damaging beasts to damaging giants. etc. By contrast, high level players end up being specialists -- high level gear might be focused on defending and attacking specifically dragons, or specifically beasts.

High level zones / encounters tend to have huge monsters that are of known type - like the mountain caves always have Evil Glowing Golems of Hate, but also spawn mid-level -- which is to say high hit points and medium - low damage -- enemies of random types that have to be adapted to randomly.

Thus, lowbies coming along can deal with the constant threats and highbies, geared for the appropriate situation, can kill the big threats.

2) This is similar to your armor scaling idea. High level areas have enemies with both "hard" and "soft" armor. Hard armor blocks a certain amount of damage from every hit, meaning that only those with high damage values can even think of damaging them. Hard armor targets also tend to have area affect attacks, abilities that reflect damage back at attackers, and in general can deal damage to all attackers at once, encouraging a smaller number of attackers / enemy.

In these areas are also enemies with soft armor -- which is to say armor that blocks little to no damage, but a correspondingly high number of hit-points. These enemies tend to go after one target at a time.

The hard armored foes are most effectively taken down by a a few high level players with strong attacks. The soft armored foes are most effectively taken down by hordes of players of any skill level.

If you really want to play this up - when you enter the area, instead of just one guy messing around, low level players can represent a squad of units -- the lower the level, the more soldiers they represent - while the high level players can be lone heroes, cutting through the mayhem. Thus, low level players deal out a lot of low damage hits when they attack.

3) High level monsters tend to have a "frenzy state" that they pop into periodically. Every time they go into frenzy they deal out high damage that can kill anyone in 1-2 hits. The duration of the frenzy state is decreased if they are attacked by anyone, regardless of level. Thus, a horde of lowbies can keep the enemies distracted while the high level character/characters pummel him.

[Mikademus]

My impromptu idea is that enemies swarm with one or several leaders, and leader foes seek out the higher-level players. So the lower-level player gets his own bunch and is of necessary use to keep the low-level swarms off the higher-level player who is busy with the enemy boss. Similar game play, different roles, symbiotic relationship.

[godsavant]

A somewhat plausible way of dealing with unbalanced damage (from playing Breath of Fire II) is to have certain enemy attacks that take out "[n]%" of each character's health, so the damage dealt will be progressive but still have the same strategic impact on each player.

[gunswordfist]

A somewhat plausible way of dealing with unbalanced damage (from playing Breath of Fire II) is to have certain enemy attacks that take out "[n]%" of each character's health, so the damage dealt will be progressive but still have the same strategic impact on each player.

I don't remember that and I just played the game a year ago. lol

[godsavant]

A somewhat plausible way of dealing with unbalanced damage (from playing Breath of Fire II) is to have certain enemy attacks that take out "[n]%" of each character's health, so the damage dealt will be progressive but still have the same strategic impact on each player.

I don't remember that and I just played the game a year ago. lol

I refer to the attack called Boombada, which reduced an enemy's health by 50%. Of course, this mechanic is present in Chrono Trigger as well, and for some strange reason, both games had animations involving giant wrecking balls squashing the victims for these attacks...

[gunswordfist]

A somewhat plausible way of dealing with unbalanced damage (from playing Breath of Fire II) is to have certain enemy attacks that take out "[n]%" of each character's health, so the damage dealt will be progressive but still have the same strategic impact on each player.

I don't remember that and I just played the game a year ago. lol

I refer to the attack called Boombada, which reduced an enemy's health by 50%. Of course, this mechanic is present in Chrono Trigger as well, and for some strange reason, both games had animations involving giant wrecking balls squashing the victims for these attacks...

Ahhh...Boombada. I ripped my hair out trying to do that music minigame to get it. Especially since I thought doing that advanced the story and not just gives me a spell...

[godsavant]

You're tellin' me, I had to play with the sound off.

[gunswordfist]

You're tellin' me, I had to play with the sound off.

*jaw scraps ground*

[nihilocrat]

My kneejerk reaction is "get rid of levels", I think they really ruin MMOs or any form of multiplayer RPG.

Mikademus' idea of making high and low level players be in a symbotic relationship sounds pretty decent, but you'd also need to make all-low-level or all-high-level groups viable. Mentoring systems, according to some friends that play City of Heroes, seem to work out pretty well. Basically, a higher-level player can temporarily raise a lower-level player's level and/or abilities so long as they are grouping together (or maybe just while in a dungeon, I dunno exactly). You could try tweaking this system until it works out as intended.

[Traveller]

The one thing levels are really good for, though, is giving an accurate idea of how powerful a character is.  Sure there's some variation based on skill, equipment, build choices etc, but in a well designed game it's fairly accurate.  If you do away with levels, you still need SOME way of determining in general how powerful someone is.  So many game mechanics require SOME estimate, however rough.  If you don't have any guess, it's hard to balance things, hard to manage rewards, etc.

I mean heck, that's the whole point of this topic.  Given two players of disparate powers, how do you let them cooperate while still maintaining that power disparity, not making the weak player entirely useless, not making the more-powerful character lose that sense of power?  Sometimes you do need artificial controls to make that sort of thing work out.  And those benefit from the kind of information that 'I'm level twenty-five' provides.

If you just look at skill %s, and try to figure out some estimate based on those...well, it's a lot harder to get that accurate.  And if you're talking about removing levels kind of like how Metroid does it, well, you're probably not playing a cooperative RPG.