First off, I'd like to say that this isn't a typical proposal. It's an idea, and a plan with calculated risks, and rewards based on adherence to this plan. I can't also guarantee the final result, but it's the best thing I can come to.
First, we need to address some simple questions, but ones that often get over looked.
Like,
[1] What is the purpose of playing video games to begin with?
The answer to this questions varies greatly on specifics, but the general idea is simple pleasure. Video games often tempt our minds with fantastic ideas or concepts we don't see in everyday life. They're meant to engage and entertain us. Essentially, to give us pleasure and escape from normalcy.
[2] What about MMO games, why are they so popular?
Well, not a lot of people claim they know for a fact, but the best guess seems to be social interaction. It's a known fact that the common human enjoys social interaction to some extent or another. MMO's combine the pleasurable experiences of gaming, with social interactions.
So, let's pause right here.
Does ROSE provide both of the things above?
As far as pleasure, ROSE has that in droves. There's plenty of fantastic imagery and ideas at play in ROSE and it's definitely fun to interact with it all.
But what about socially? How social is ROSE really?
Well, let's look at the primary aspects of ROSE as a game in terms of social interactions.
Leveling: ROSE incorporates a party system with a limitation of 5 players. This in it self somewhat breaks the idea of playing a social game, if you're limited to only a hand few of people you can play with at a given moment.
Questing: ROSE sadly lacks a large quantity of quests. Reasons or not, this feature simply exists only as an idea that never truly made it. Along with that fact, very few quests are shared out of the already low amount available. In short, Questing on ROSE offers little to no social interaction.
Dungeons: While the Dungeon system in ROSE is quite good, is suffers from the same effects as Party's. Even at best, you can only play with a few select people at a time due to the limitation of Dungeon team size options. It can be a social experience, but it has much more capability not being used.
Person vs Person: Arguably the most social aspect of ROSE is the PvP. However it also has it's short comings not related to staff decisions. The option to not be able to talk in public chat in PvP maps is common-place in the MMO industry, and with good reason at that. It prevents antagonistic actions like name calling, trash talking, harassment or insults. These are all something that are a rampant problem in ROSE. The level of disrespect is only heightened due to the perceived nature that 'trash talking' is a part of the game, as if it were a feature. The reality is that it's just a lack of respect for fellow players and intervention by Moderators and Staff alike. So, even though there is a fair amount of social interaction, majority of it is not pleasurable at all, and many times down right displeasing or harmful.
So, how does ROSE stack up to Social Interaction support + quality? Well, not good. Unless you have specific friends to play with [like I do], your experiences in ROSE are mostly going to be down right displeasing and damaging. This is the last thing that should be happening.
So back to our questions;
[3] What elements are common for increasing longevity of a game, as well as enhancing the pleasure factor you get from the experience?
Several factors come into play here but I'll name the top 3.
Content, Progression, Reward.
Content is simply how much is there to do in the game. Is there enough to make someone wonder what's out there, or instill a sense of curiosity.
Progression is completing the available content, the rate that you complete it, and the over-all sense of completing it.
Reward is the 'prize' at the end of the Road[s]. Smaller rewards for easier tasks, and big rewards for heavy investment. Rewards are essential to the formula because if there isn't a feeling of reward for effort, players will start to doubt if the content is worth doing in the first place.
So, how does ROSE Stack up in content? Well, that's a vague question for a MMO to be fair.
Open World Content, ROSE isn't half bad at all, and boasts an idea that can offer much much more content in the time to come.
Dungeon content. While the quality of the DG's are good, the quantity is lacking. The other limitation is that players only play 2 Dungeons regularly. So even though the options exist, a single player looking for randoms is going to essentially be restricted to either group hunting for maybe 1 run, or just sticking to the two popular modes. Now this observation isn't questioning the efforts or intent of the DEV's in any capacity either, just simply stating the current state of our content. As it stand, Dungeon content is quite limited.
PvP Content: While one of the most popular game content features, it is also the most limited. While 3 modes of PvP exist, only 1 is ever played on a daily basis, and only runs during certain periods of the day cycle. This makes for a boring and grindy content experience and sometimes lacking entirely for players who aren't able to play during those high traffic time periods.
What about Progression?
Progression is such a wild swing, very hit and miss, spotty and takes in soo many factors that it's hard to get a consistent result.
Open World Progression is either very, very slow [Solo player or Questing] or so fast [Party + Power Leveling], that some individuals get to the end game not knowing what half of their class does, uses or should have.
Dungeon Content Progression seems relatively smooth. Each mode slowly building you up to the next stronger mode. This is well formulated.
PvP Content Progression is very one sided. On one side, you have harsh experiences, massively punishing combat for just starting out and such small rewards that it almost discourages players from continuing. On the other side [being well geared and invested into clan passives and IM passives] you utterly dominate low geared players without so much as batting an eye lash and receive rewards so fast that you literally have to burn off points or just deal with being at your maximum point capacity for potentially months on end.
And what about Reward?
Open World Reward seems ok in it's current state, but is very far from reliable. Some months or weeks one type of item will be highly valued [at the time of this writing medallions are hyper inflated into the billions for 1 medal and 10;s of billions for a set of them] while gems and gem crafting materials are a dime a dozen. Given the lack of regular periodic gear releases, the highest tier open world items have been farmed to such an extent, that they're literally worthless in their raw state. This is very bad in terms of getting a sense of reward.
Quest content fits into the open world category, but suffers worse than open world content. Quest items are lack luster in looks, and effects combined. Very few items are valued from quests, as for the rest, they're skipped over entirely.
Dungeon Reward are fairly good, most definitely not anything any MMO player would have a significant complaint about. The rewards are progressive, widely spread out and take a modest but not prolonged time investment. This means the reward figures and formula are good, but there is one problem. Content of this type is not frequently added or expanded upon. Making it so after a certain period of time, the rewards stack up in storage and degrade in value. As the demand has been filled, but the supply continues to grow. Over-all, when new content is released, it is a fair and rewarding system with a good balance, once content has been around for a prolonged period it quickly degrades. This means the rewards lack enticement, and don't feel worth the effort to obtain.
PvP Combat Rewards. The rewards make an obvious impact. Easily worth consideration and honestly felt in power gain when acquired. Over-all these are indeed powerful and worth while rewards.
So the conclusions are:
Content: is good in some regards, but needs attention in areas where unforeseen limitations have developed. Over-all, the effectiveness of Contents role in ROSE is medium or moderate in my observations.
Progression: needs a severe streamlining update. The massive variances in speed of progression between certain level gaps, zones and content modes is wildly out of control. This bad.
Reward: has a lot of potential but is being limited to other factors outside of the desired effects from the staff themselves. This is also medium or moderate.
Over-all, ROSE is performing at a medium or sub-moderate effectiveness in my observations based on the three core principles of what makes a game good or fun.
So, what;s the 'plan' to fix it?
Well, attention to the smaller things honestly.
Content Adjustments, Progression Adjustments, Reward Adjustments. Automatic = General or multiple benefit adjustments.
Here's exactly what I would do,
1: Slice all experience items, costumes and bonuses by 50-75%, and increase the base rate of experience points gained by an amount equal to 50% of the rate cut from bonuses on average.
This would drastically reduce the gap between a 'power player' and a standard player. It will retain the enticement of playing as a paid subscriber, by not pushing them away on first inspection of the game. The higher quality experience a game projects, the more likely people will be to invest money into it.
2: Cut monster spawn amount totals by 75%, but increase the experience the remaining mobs rewards by a proportional amount of the spawn rate cut, plus an additional 10-15%. Monster HP and Stats should be scaled up to promote co-operation of the stronger targets [commander +] This will help encourage social interactions but still enable solo players to effectively play on their own.
3: Develop a system of reward for quest writers to fill in low or non populated zones with quests. Asking the community for assistance in providing more content is perfectly acceptable in today's economy, many modern MMO franchises are using community development to their advantage, and this could work with very little risk for Questing on ROSE. The goal being Party quests, Repeatable quests [both for leveling purposes] and story chains for good at-level item rewards.
4: Mail Boxes. Something so fundamental yet entirely missing. And if this guide line or proposition is to work properly this feature will be needed.
5: Auction House. This is also integral to a change in dynamics and required for this idea to work properly. Implementation of an auction house however would not replace* player shop vending, but provide an alternate option for those seeking to use their alternate client for another purpose.
6: Crafting Professions. We already know that this feature is being worked towards, however it could not be left out, because step number 7 relies on it.
7: Daily's and Crafting Daily's. Daily's encourage repeated log ins, and repeated interaction with other players. Interaction is key to the success of online gaming and shouldn't be taken any less importantly than content itself.
8: Now it's time for a client limitation. How it is incorporated can vary widely, but the fundamental goal is 2 clients at maximum. Or 3 if 1 IP is logged into a premium account. This is arguably one of the most controversial steps but also the change with the most importance.
Multi-clienting without limitation leads to a vast feature exploitation and disconnection from interaction. Things like leveling without interacting with other people. Setting up multiple accounts on Rare/King spawn locations and exploiting the now void need to travel to those destinations. Setting up so many shops that you can essentially run a monopoly on the market. Ultimately, multi-clienting may be the single most damaging feature to the game right now. Not just in-game, but to funding as well for the company. It also provides massive instabilities in balance goals for classes. Features not intended to be pushed so far are now everyday occurrences, like buffers accounts leading to player build revolving entirely around single stat focus, and using those buffers to make up for the designed weaknesses of that class. Another result of multi-clienting is the lack of respect for game rules. Players of ill-intent and lack of respect for the rules know that if they're banned, they're only going to lose one character on the one account from potentially many they have. It may still be a loss, but it no longer carries the weight that was intended. A ban is the ultimate form of punishment for an online game, it's a threat to everything you've invested in, worked for and put in effort to achieve. Multiclienting subverts that threat and results in a lack of respect for the game, other players, the staff and rules.
9: End-game content expansion should now be the goal. The steps above have streamlined the leveling experience, while socially engaging the player, and developed a bond with their investments. They've now gotten some rewards and are looking for a the next challenge. Expanding the daily options for end-game tier players will significantly increase player retention and satisfaction. It is a reward in itself to many. Simple things like new rare weapons, event period daily's that reward seasonal items, and crafting event periods where daily's might reward additional bonuses not normally available.
10: Expansion. Once all of the steps above have been completed, and it successful, now a game in poised to make a true expansion. By true expansion I mean that the system is now taking care of itself. There's enough content and satisfaction that the development team should be able to focus entirely on new, higher level experiences. New dungeons, PvP Modes, Open World maps, new crafting recipes, new daily's and higher level items to acquire.
If all of these steps were performed, in order, and were successful; I personally feel ROSE would receive almost a new life entirely. There are obviously things that need to be addressed on a case or step by case/step basis. For example the multi-client limitation would probly come with a temporary unlock/unbound period to condense items to one or two accounts.Another option would be player migration for a period of time, where physical players and inventories are moved from one game ID to another to resolve players who have many accounts with 1 character on each.
There are many other risks and situations that ultimately would need to be resolved, but in the end, all of it would very likely culminate into a smooth, pleasurable and rewarding experience. One that players would be happy to talk about, share and promote.
This isn't a demand, or a request, or even a proposition to be honest. This is simply my opinion on the direction ROSE should go, at the very next chance it gets.
Edited by Feuer, 23 November 2015 - 10:52 AM.
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