If Matt Miller makes another MMO wishlist

Some thoughts on some crazy ideas I'd like to see MM (or any MMO designer) take on:


1. Self balancing abilities. Rather than have the designers dictate balance, let the players tell you what's working and what isn't. In other words - the more an ability gets used, the less powerful it gets. And the less an ability gets used, the more powerful it gets. There should be caps on either end to prevent things from getting too out of whack, but if something hits the cap, that's a good indication that the designers need to take a better look at it.

You can do the same thing with mobs too. If everyone is beating on snarks instead of boojums, the snarks gradually become harder, worth less xp, have less loot. Etc...

While this could be vulnerable to metagaming, I think that over the scale of a large MMO, it wouldn't be possible to make a coordinated effort to muck with things.


2. Getting away from the 'trinity'. People say this a lot, but it's harder than it sounds. The problem is that MMO combat revolves around reducing mob numeric counter A before player numeric counter B. So there are basic roles based around: reducing A faster, keeping B from being reduced, raising B, etc... I think that fundamentally, getting away from the trinity will require a whole new concept of what 'winning' looks like in an MMO. What about an MMO where using the environment to defeat mobs (knocking them off ledges, into pits, into water, dropping walls on them, etc...) was as valid a means of defeating them as combat. Some of that exists in current MMOs, but it's really a sideshow, a trick that you use occasionally, but not a core mechanic.


3. PvP that's a game, not a war or a sport. One of the problems with PvP is that people have different expectations of what PvP is. The most common implementation is PvP as war. There's no expectations of fairness other than what the designer considers 'balanced'. You get higher level, you get stronger; you get better gear, you get stronger - and most of the time you can get both of those through PvP. This creates what, to me, is a silly situation where after a while there's a barrier to entry. New PvPers are told they have to pay their dues and suffer through getting whomped in order to catch up. Who wants to suffer in a game.

PvP as sport has seen some implementations as well, where the playing ground is level, and the main (only?) determinant is player skill. This is less common in MMOs, and more common in stand alone games, FPS' etc...

PvP as game pretty much only happens outside of computer games. In many games, there's a formal or informal handicapping system so that the less skilled player still has a decent chance of winning. In Go you get extra stones. In chess, your opponent may take a piece or two off the board. In Monopoly, you might start with extra cash. The point is to create an environment where two players can each have a challenge even in the face of disparate ability levels. To my knowledge, no one has ever done this in an MMO. I'm sure PvP players would consider it suicidal for a game designer to try it. I think someone should give it a go, though.

/ponders an MMO inspired by the art of Frank Cho


//also still mildly annoyed monkeys and apes were not beastly enough for CoH

I'd make backstory and background matter. Spider-man is more then just spider-man. You have aunt may, MJ, uncle Ben.. all effected him in different ways. How he came into his superpowers also mattered as it was continually brought up in storylines, would it be passed onto his kid, what if he kept mutating over time. You also need those reoccurring villains like Venom, Carnage, The Vulture, Doc Oct.. not just the nameless thugs and bosses.

You can add complexity within a simple menu.
Both Parents living (y/n)
(y) Names of parents.
(n) Both dead (y/n) Parent living (mother/father).
Does your character have kids? name the kids..
Power origin.. Science.. Experiement, exposure. Accidental, purposeful..
ect... Each would make the character being able to fit into the world more, perhaps certain missions only trigger if you had were accidentally exposed to some thing that gave you your powers. The people kidnapped could be one of the people listed.. failure to save them could lead to the death of that family member or cause a rift between you as some other hero saved them when you couldn't.

Make the story matter more and be more personally linked to your character. You can also build this stuff up over time, contacts that you make being added to your background, foes that you continually counter showing up more often with new schemes.

I like the idea of working for and against factions rather then being a pure hero or villain.. actions that you take matter, and can have consequences.

A villain gallery would be nice, it could be one you created yourself or your friend(s) create.. it could pull them randomly from the playerbase from opposing factions. Your character appears as an NPC in their story and their character appears as an NPC in your story.. if you are both on the same team then you wouldn't appear in each others story naturally as you are already there.

That is the sort of thing I would love to see.

Speaking of origins, I'd like a make well on the promise that each origin would have a unique (but equal) leveling path.

Mutants and naturals would have to train specific skills to unlock them GW2 style

techies would earn money or parts to build better tech to increase their power

magics would earn exp to unlock new spell books......unless they didnt cast spells. would really make sense if they just used magic artifacts....


wait this idea is kind of ****** when you parse it out. I can see why they dropped it.

Haha, the great origins debate!
Yeah, I always just ignored what enhancements and which contacts and all that... and usually just chose my origin by what was right or sometimes just by what inherent power it gave (not for maximum benefit, but just for which power felt right... like one guy was supposed to be a Mutant, but I wanted to be able to throw knives, so I took Natural).

Then there's the mixed origins characters - My biggest one was Amazing Ape. He is a mountain gorilla that just happened to be a rare mutant of his own species. Part of his mutation was extremely advanced intelligence and he made his own advanced tech devices which he used to enhance his abilities and do other cool shtuff...
I chose Tech Origin because the Taster just seemed right (but I bounced back and forth and debated a long while before deciding!).

Fairies, demons and such... yeah, Natural is correct, but I understand the Magic concept as well... A great discussion is what the traditional vampire would be. You can make a case for every single one of the origins other than Tech.


That being said... I do like it having some bearing on your interactions (only to a very small degree).
I liked that they had the different starting contacts based on origin and I would have liked later contacts for each of the origins (maybe even allowing them to be run by all origins)... I just liked the system for the most part.

However, I would have preferred that we had a lesser power pool system where we could pick up fringe/somewhat-insignificant powers like the origin powers, regardless of origins.
The Temp Powers came close to accomplishing this, but I'd love to see a system that made a bit more out of that and allowed for better acquirement and tailoring per character.
That, of course, is an entirely different subject (for a thread I might start...).

Natural was probably the origin I took least, and usually went with what fit the character concept best. The Martial Arts/Super Reflexes scrapper was natural, but the strangest Natural I made was a Gravity/Storm controller simply because I wanted the knife throwing temp power for him; since he wasn't from another planet or dimension I've no idea how that could be "natural" but I never worried about it and just enjoyed the character.

I always chose natural since it's the most flexible one with retcons and such.

You can argue anything to be natural if you're good at explaining it.

For instance, If you were born with a mutation to throw fire at people, In a way that is natural for you as an individual.