Something I haven't said much about is why, despite its negative side effects, I generally like EVE Online's offline skill training model.
The answer is pretty simple: because the negative side effects produced by the online XP collection model are worse.
Here are some of the problems that come to mind when considering an online-XP design:
1. It promotes mindless grinding behavior instead of exploring the gameworld and story behavior. It damages immersion to run into a bunch of people just cranking through some trivial action over and over and over again for XP... and that kind of design actually attracts such people, making the problem even worse. (No, not everyone considers this a problem, but some do, and they're paying to play the game, too.)
2. It allows players to level up quickly. Once they're at max level, unless they like raiding (assuming the game even has raiding) or want to start up a new character (and not everyone does), they're done with the game. They leave, and stop paying a subscription fee.
3. It's rare, but there have been some cases (esp. in South Korea, where it's estimated that something like 30% of the population plays online games) of people dying from neglecting their health to play for three or more days straight.
4. A design that lets people level up as long as they keep playing can't possibly be good for their hygiene....
Showing posts with label EVE Online. Show all posts
Showing posts with label EVE Online. Show all posts
Monday, August 20, 2007
Friday, July 6, 2007
Skill Training in EVE Online +
As I've said elsewhere, I happen to like the EVE Online system of skill training precisely because it utterly and completely eliminates the value of mindless grinding for XP as a means of character improvement. I object to grinding XP from an immersiveness POV -- it degrades my gameplay when I'm surrounded by bots (whether controlled by scripts or operated by actual human beings doing the same trivial thing over and over again). So EVE's approach came as a breath of fresh air to me.
Unfortunately, EVE's offline skill training mechanism has a price of its own. The problem is that separating skill increases from what a character actually does in the game winds up hurting roleplaying for those who like that kind of thing. Unlike how skills are improved in TES: Oblivion, for example, what a character does in EVE has no direct effect on that character's ability level. You-the-player may get better at something you do with your character, but your character's in-game actions don't directly improve his/her skills.
(There is an indirect effect in that doing stuff for ISK, such as mining or killing rats, allows you to purchase skills to train. But ISK gained by doing a particular action can be spent on any skill -- there's no direct linkage of a skill to the action performed.)
So I'm also thinking a compromise needs to be found. What characters do should determine their skill levels, but not to the point of encouraging players to write macros to automate XP collection.
So:
Keep the offline training, and keep the idea that being online speeds up the rate at which skills are learned (or the rate at which XP is collected if you're doing Yet Another "character level" game instead of a skill-based game). But instead of the curve sloping upward -- that is, giving faster XP accumulation the more you grind -- invert it so that the curve slopes downward. The more you do the same thing, the less of an XP bonus you get for doing it online.
This way, what the character does will improve a skill, so that unlike EVE there's a gameplay connection between character actions and character abilities. But by decreasing an action's XP reward until the online accumulation rate approaches the offline rate, you make mindless grinding for hours less valuable. People may still grind for other reasons (e.g., loot collection, faction farming); but at least there'd be less encouragement to behave like an automaton.
Another benefit of this approach would be to allow players to train in multiple skills simultaneously, which EVE doesn't permit. Once your online XP earning rate for Skill X has fallen to near the offline rate because you've been performing Action X for a while, you can take a break and do Action Y for a bit to increase the rate at which you improve in Skill Y.
Finally, rather than resetting the timer for increased XP learning rate to a player's logging out of the game, I'd suggest a strict real-time clock. Some amount of time should pass before you can maximize your in-game XP accumulation rate for a particular skill again. And I'd set it at something significant like 10 hours -- any less and this approach won't be as effective; players will just sit around inside the game (sucking up your bandwidth) until the clock resets and they can start farming enhanced XP again.
Unfortunately, EVE's offline skill training mechanism has a price of its own. The problem is that separating skill increases from what a character actually does in the game winds up hurting roleplaying for those who like that kind of thing. Unlike how skills are improved in TES: Oblivion, for example, what a character does in EVE has no direct effect on that character's ability level. You-the-player may get better at something you do with your character, but your character's in-game actions don't directly improve his/her skills.
(There is an indirect effect in that doing stuff for ISK, such as mining or killing rats, allows you to purchase skills to train. But ISK gained by doing a particular action can be spent on any skill -- there's no direct linkage of a skill to the action performed.)
So I'm also thinking a compromise needs to be found. What characters do should determine their skill levels, but not to the point of encouraging players to write macros to automate XP collection.
So:
Originally Posted by Or'ab Ibo:I like this idea... with a twist.
What if when you grind it would slowly increase the rate at which you learned the skill your currently training. thus allowing grinding to let you skill up faster or decrease the time it takes. once you stop though it slowly goes back down. But it'll still train at its normal rate while you're offline!
Keep the offline training, and keep the idea that being online speeds up the rate at which skills are learned (or the rate at which XP is collected if you're doing Yet Another "character level" game instead of a skill-based game). But instead of the curve sloping upward -- that is, giving faster XP accumulation the more you grind -- invert it so that the curve slopes downward. The more you do the same thing, the less of an XP bonus you get for doing it online.
This way, what the character does will improve a skill, so that unlike EVE there's a gameplay connection between character actions and character abilities. But by decreasing an action's XP reward until the online accumulation rate approaches the offline rate, you make mindless grinding for hours less valuable. People may still grind for other reasons (e.g., loot collection, faction farming); but at least there'd be less encouragement to behave like an automaton.
Another benefit of this approach would be to allow players to train in multiple skills simultaneously, which EVE doesn't permit. Once your online XP earning rate for Skill X has fallen to near the offline rate because you've been performing Action X for a while, you can take a break and do Action Y for a bit to increase the rate at which you improve in Skill Y.
Finally, rather than resetting the timer for increased XP learning rate to a player's logging out of the game, I'd suggest a strict real-time clock. Some amount of time should pass before you can maximize your in-game XP accumulation rate for a particular skill again. And I'd set it at something significant like 10 hours -- any less and this approach won't be as effective; players will just sit around inside the game (sucking up your bandwidth) until the clock resets and they can start farming enhanced XP again.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Skill Training in EVE Online
There's something worth observing about EVE Online's offline skill training design from a game development perspective: Since it's possible to train skills offline, that's what people actually do.
In other words, people will log on and play for a while to build up cash, either taking on pirate NPCs or (as I do) just mining for veldspar and scordite in 0.8 or safer space. It doesn't take long at all to make millions of ISK.
The rest of the time, players pay CCP $15/month to log in once every couple of days, select a new skill to train, and log out again. CCP gets the player's money, but the player uses virtually no bandwidth!
As a gameplay mechanic that fits a business model, that is utterly brilliant.
As gameplay... well. Not so much fun. And certainly not supportive of playing a character (as in an RPG).
But as a system for generating revenue, it is diabolically clever.
In other words, people will log on and play for a while to build up cash, either taking on pirate NPCs or (as I do) just mining for veldspar and scordite in 0.8 or safer space. It doesn't take long at all to make millions of ISK.
The rest of the time, players pay CCP $15/month to log in once every couple of days, select a new skill to train, and log out again. CCP gets the player's money, but the player uses virtually no bandwidth!
As a gameplay mechanic that fits a business model, that is utterly brilliant.
As gameplay... well. Not so much fun. And certainly not supportive of playing a character (as in an RPG).
But as a system for generating revenue, it is diabolically clever.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Hard Caps on Skills
One of the classic design features of MMORPGs is to allow characters to "grow" by gaining new abilities. This winds up becoming the core driver of all gameplay because designers "gate" advancement -- they don't let you have everything at once. You're forced to do a bunch of little things to collect resources that add up over time to allow you to purchase additional abilities, either directly as individual skills or indirectly as abilities derived from rising a level in a character class.
In such games, the question arises: Should there be hard caps on the number of abilities a character can learn?
Hard caps on the number of skills or skill levels a character can posses do a couple of useful things in MMORPGs. One is to simulate the difficulty people have in learning new skills. The other is to increase uniqueness among characters by limiting the skills that can be learned to a subset of all possible skills.
Are those benefits valuable enough to use a hard cap system? Are there other ways of getting these benefits (assuming you agree that they're benefits) than hard caps?
For example, take that first benefit of simulating the difficulty of increasing one's abilities. Instead of a hard cap, you could use an economic approach that makes later skills cost more than skills taken earlier in a character's life. Rather than being an arbitrary number, this would actually be a more accurate way to simulate limits to learning.
There are a couple of obvious ways to do this. One is to rank skills by power and make the more powerful skills cost more to obtain. (A lot of MMORPGs use some form of this approach.) Another would be to treat all skills (and all levels of skills if you have skill levels) as equally difficult, but calculate the learning cost of each new skill based on the number of skills you already have -- the more skills you have, the harder it is to learn a new skill.
As for limiting skills -- usually through a class system -- I believe that casual players are better off with an unlimited skills system than they are with a class-specific skills system.
As evidence, I offer the continuing success of EVE Online and its effectively unlimited skill system. I say "effectively" because while there are a limited number of skills, the amount of time required to learn all the highest levels of all the existing skills is so great that it would take years to do so, by which time the developers will have added new skills to learn. But EVE is still playable by casual players because skills are learned over time, rather than by collecting and cashing in skill points.
Consider the skill Connections (which improves your standing with NPC agents, opening up more quests that you can take). No matter who your character is or what other skills your character knows, no matter when you started playing EVE Online or how many hours a day you play, your character is going to require at least two real-time weeks to learn the fifth and highest level of the Connections skill. Your character learns at the same rate regardless of whether you the player are online in the game or offline, so every player enjoys an absolutely level playing field.
In short, there's no level grind in EVE Online, and thus over time no significant disparity between veteran and casual players. It's a thing of beauty. And there's no reason at all why other games can't figure out some equally creative alternative to mindless grinding.
Why impose hard caps on skills when there are other (and better) ways to regulate the growth of character power?
In such games, the question arises: Should there be hard caps on the number of abilities a character can learn?
Hard caps on the number of skills or skill levels a character can posses do a couple of useful things in MMORPGs. One is to simulate the difficulty people have in learning new skills. The other is to increase uniqueness among characters by limiting the skills that can be learned to a subset of all possible skills.
Are those benefits valuable enough to use a hard cap system? Are there other ways of getting these benefits (assuming you agree that they're benefits) than hard caps?
For example, take that first benefit of simulating the difficulty of increasing one's abilities. Instead of a hard cap, you could use an economic approach that makes later skills cost more than skills taken earlier in a character's life. Rather than being an arbitrary number, this would actually be a more accurate way to simulate limits to learning.
There are a couple of obvious ways to do this. One is to rank skills by power and make the more powerful skills cost more to obtain. (A lot of MMORPGs use some form of this approach.) Another would be to treat all skills (and all levels of skills if you have skill levels) as equally difficult, but calculate the learning cost of each new skill based on the number of skills you already have -- the more skills you have, the harder it is to learn a new skill.
As for limiting skills -- usually through a class system -- I believe that casual players are better off with an unlimited skills system than they are with a class-specific skills system.
As evidence, I offer the continuing success of EVE Online and its effectively unlimited skill system. I say "effectively" because while there are a limited number of skills, the amount of time required to learn all the highest levels of all the existing skills is so great that it would take years to do so, by which time the developers will have added new skills to learn. But EVE is still playable by casual players because skills are learned over time, rather than by collecting and cashing in skill points.
Consider the skill Connections (which improves your standing with NPC agents, opening up more quests that you can take). No matter who your character is or what other skills your character knows, no matter when you started playing EVE Online or how many hours a day you play, your character is going to require at least two real-time weeks to learn the fifth and highest level of the Connections skill. Your character learns at the same rate regardless of whether you the player are online in the game or offline, so every player enjoys an absolutely level playing field.
In short, there's no level grind in EVE Online, and thus over time no significant disparity between veteran and casual players. It's a thing of beauty. And there's no reason at all why other games can't figure out some equally creative alternative to mindless grinding.
Why impose hard caps on skills when there are other (and better) ways to regulate the growth of character power?
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Key Features of EVE Online
While there seem to be a lot of people finding out more about EVE Online, it's still generating a lot of questions about what it is and how it plays. Here's how it looks from my point of view.
STRENGTHS
STRENGTHS
- numerous ship types -- different by size, purpose, and allegiance
- many, many ship outfitting options
- moderately good tactical combat game (ship-to-ship combat)
- relatively deep asteroid mining/refining game
- superb skills system (skills are learned in real time -- no grinding!)
- varied factional NPC mission/quest system
- good support for factional player organizations ("corps")
- factory system allows generation of game objects
- research system allows creation of new game objects
- good cargo trading game tied in with factory production
- price tracking data for all locally available goods
- 5000+ solar systems (with multiple planets/moons) to explore
- ungoverned areas can be controlled with player-created outposts
- easy-to-understand mechanism for travelling from one place to another
- difficulty of NPCs is keyed to "security level" of solar systems
- quality of NPC loot drops is appropriate to NPC difficulty
- 24x7 PvP generally doesn't affect those who don't want it
- dialup-friendly -- light on network traffic, and fairly small patches
- space is pretty
- 24x7 PvP -- there are consequences, but if some player wants to kill your character, he can
- space-based only -- no 1st-person planetary activity whatsoever (although some station avatars may be implemented)
- mining and ship combat are really the only things that can be done full-time
- mining is boring (so to speak) -- just turn on the mining lasers and wait
- research system is so hard that only the truly hardcore can afford to play it
- some NPC-generated market items (economy is not fully player-based)
- factory production is not very detailed
- rich backstory doesn't have many gameplay effects
- highly social -- no advanced content for the soloer
- corp gameplay can be extremely competitive and very emotive (think "soap opera in space")
- there are few activities that allow your character to express a story (roleplaying)
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