Let's just stop here for a moment. Please explain why it's such a very bad thing to design a game such that there are different approaches available of varying appeal,

My point being why waste investing time implementing something you'd rather your players to not do. The time would probably be better spend improving what you do want them to do. If combat has extreme risk with no reward odds are I'm not going to bother with it unless it is extremely fun in itself but since the designer doesn't want combat to be the focus I doubt it'll be more interesting than in games where it is. So if I'm feeling like playing a game that focuses on tactical combat I certainly wouldn't play a game that cripples it at every chance. The problem with trying to implement as many different types of gameplay as possible is that they each individual type never is interesting compared to a game that focused on it.

as that's what's being discussed here and what you're attacking. We can boil RPGs down into two basic approaches: running around killing things (we'll call this approach A),

If it were that simple it wouldn't be fun. However many games do pull of making combat interesting, tactically challanging, and provide a slew of interesting character development options.

as compared to engaging in trade skills and never engaging in combat ever (approach B).

The only problem with trade skills is that they have yet to be done in an interesting way yet. Not that it isn't possible but that's probably the reason most people prefer combat. Rather than trying to make combat boring and not worth the risk it would be much better to try and make the other portions of the game equally if not more interesting than combat.

In any event, however, perfect game balance does not require that your player population takes all approaches in equal proportions, which is good because that's never going to happen; players always have favorites no matter how well-balanced the game is. So I really fail to see the problem in attempting to skew the player population, even if it's accomplished by deliberately screwing up the game's balance "on paper"--which isn't even necessarily the case here.

You're missing my point. I'm not saying to try to balance the two. Rather instead of spending time trying to make people not want to play the combat portion, throw out the combat portion and spend the extra effort making what you want them to do more fun and interesting.

Can you name any games where the players focus mainly on combat but there is an interesting set of non-combat gameplay too?
If I feel like doing some tactical combat and character development I'm not going to play a game that cripples it and makes it a pain to do, but play one of the many games which makes it interesting.

Heh, you seem to assume that most MMORPGs make combat fun. I whole heartedly disagree. As to your first question, UO and many MUDS seem to so that.

I think you are missing the point. If you are designing a game to be a combat game, that's fine. But I don't believe that's what an online "RPG" should be about. RPGs should be about choice and rewarding various behaviours (different "roles"), not just 1 set. It has nothing to do with wanting players to fight or not, but about giving them meaningful choices. Just because combat is risky doesn't mean it's not interesting; that's a false dichotomy. If all you want is tactics and fighting, though, you probably play and RTS, not an RPG. If you want character development you should play an RPG (ideally).

Problem is most commercial game designs seem fixated on a simple combat engine as the main challenge engine and then wonder why their "worlds" turn out unrealistic and inane.

Personally, I believe that games pretty are much about the combat.

The internet is a fine example of why it should be okay to use combat as a primary or sole focus in your MMO.
You see people being overally agressive in games such as Zeta, or Seika- people trying to get the kill in anyway they can, because they can, and they love the violence.
What's more interesting is that people will try and find a way to attack others even when there isn't a proper, direct way.
Login to your local Chatters or generic IRC and see: people being incredibly cruel and agressive, attacking eachother in anyway they can. In Chatters, they might be cruelly insulting, or trying to convince them to shut down dream seeker via button combinations.


The internet is a free-for-all. All the boundaries that would stop you getting justly beaten down normally are gone.
There are very few occasions where you can insult someone and get in trouble for it on the internet (actually, once a guy I insulted came and found my house, then tried to bust his way in and kick my ass- so don't think I'm just some kind of arm-chair critic, you freakin' n00b!), so people will use the oppertunity and be agressive all the time.

Permanent death is an idea to counteract this, but it's just not going to work. People will get annoyed and just go play another game where they can't lose nomatter how much they irritate someone.

This is because any negative effects in the game don't have any negative effects on your actual being in front of the computer screen, so you don't feel scared.

Combat is a perfectly natural thing in online games, it just needs to be interesting, need strategy, and thought.

Theodis wrote:

Combat tends to be popular as it generally has the only mechanics which are somewhat complex.

I disagree with that. Combat is usually the same as any of the other systems in terms of mechanics and complexity. The popularity would probably draw from three things;
-It's always familiar. Your goal is almost always the same in these games; kill things, get stronger, kill stronger things.
-It's against other players. You can't really have a farm-off with another player. Competition is fun for most people.
-The game is centered around it. You need to be strong to do pretty much anything. You need to go to the mountians and mine ore, you'll need to be able to kill level fifty mountian goats.

I'll admit combat systems have a little more depth in that they have a larger array of 'targets'. Most miners can only mine five different types of ore (from the same rock usually =P), while a fighter can kill a hundred types of enemies.

I'm not going to play a game that cripples it and makes it a pain to do

Where have you got the idea he wants to cripple combat? From the other posts he's made (I can't remember if they're part of the same thead, I'd assume so) he made it clear he wants a great, interesting and fun combat system, he just doesn't want it to be too rewarding in-game.
The combat engine will be the fun enough that if you want to do it you'll do it, if you don't there isn't a great reward that will draw/force you in to doing it anyway.
It's not like he's making it so that you have to kill a thousand green slimes before you get to level two. You can still kill a thousand green slimes if you enjoy it, but you're not going to be forced to and you're not going to get rich and run the player world by just fighting.


Anyway, if you want to play a combat based game play one. Personally I'd like to play a roleplaying game where combat exists, but it's not the main aspect of the game. I don't care if it's combat systems are 'crippled'. I don't plan on using the combat system very often, and I don't want to play a game where to-the-death combat is as common as eating.

Thorg wrote:

Swordplay?, That's a great game!

-Thorg

It would be great if it was worked into a proper RPG (although Garthor wouldn't).

It'd be a little clunky if it wasn't adapted slightly though.

To this Swordplay or whatever. Anything that makes combat more interesting then click Attack. You hit for 5 damage. The slime hits for 2 damage. interests me.

Theodis wrote:

You're missing my point. I'm not saying to try to balance the two. Rather instead of spending time trying to make people not want to play the combat portion, throw out the combat portion and spend the extra effort making what you want them to do more fun and interesting.

Yes! Exactly! I am missing your point! I see no way in which it really applies at all here. So please, by all means, feel free to start explaining it some time!

Jmurph wants to have a game with different aspects, and he wants to make it so that not every player has to engage in every aspect; players can engage in at least a certain few activities selectively without being any the worse off if they choose to skip them. That's all! So how come this approach is apparently flawed? If you can't explain that, kindly take your soapbox and go home.

Foomer wrote:
Or would you rather play SimCity with a really crappy war engine that lets you destroy other players' cities for no advantage whatsoever?

Actually I dream about being able to play that. I'd love to play that.

Foomer wrote:

Its kind of like this: If you've got a strategy game, but you want players to build stuff instead of blowing up everyone else's empire's - don't make a strategy game! Make SimCity! Or would you rather play SimCity with a really crappy war engine that lets you destroy other players' cities for no advantage whatsoever?

I understand that that's how Theodis sees it in his missionary zeal, but that's not really what it's like at all; hence why I want him to explain the reasoning by which he's assuming that it's like this. It's more like this: You've got a strategy game, and players can win either by building a certain amount of stuff or by blowing up everyone else's empire. There's no issue of what you "don't want players to do"; the point is that you want some players to use both win strategies, which means that you have to make sure that neither goal completely dominates the other one.

Suppose, for example, that blowing stuff up was so easy that no amount of skill in building stuff efficiently would let you beat a blow-stuff-up type player, even a pretty inept one. Then suppose this game gets popular and spawns a bajillion spin-offs. Someone--let's call him Haymurph--comes along and says, "Well gee, this is kind of silly. All these build-and-blow-up games are really just about blowing things up! Even in the ones that have good building systems and tons of cool stuff to build, you can't really get anywhere except by blowing stuff up. Somebody should make a game where blowing stuff up no longer supersedes building." Then somebody else--let's call him Yeodis--comes along and says, "No no no no no no! If you making blowing stuff up any less effective, that automatically makes the whole game all about building! The problem with building tactics isn't the fact that blowing-stuff-up tactics are almost always 100 million times more effective, it's that they're just boring! If you want to make a game where blowing stuff up is not the only viable way to play, the only way to do it is to make a game with no blowing stuff up whatsoever! Because it's pointless to have a game where you can blow stuff up but blowing stuff up is anything less than vastly more effective than building stuff!" Then someone else--named, oh, let's say Jeftley--descends from above like an angel of wisdom, and he sayeth unto the forum-goers, "That's uncommonly silly, Yeodis; there is no logical reason why these two strategies should have to be exclusively either/or. Thy argument against Haymurph is self-defeating, for in most cases there already exists the sort of pointless side feature against which thou so strenuously object, and Haymurph advocates not reducing the blowing stuff up to such an abject thing, but merely elevating building stuff from where it already sits in such a state to where it may be placed with equal esteem with blowing stuff up, and players may choose freely betwixt the two without fear of falling behind." Then everybody gasps in awe of Jeftley's intellect and gives him lots of money.

Too much information. I'm losing track of what either of you are talking about and its all turning into one big mesh of biased logic that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.