Why do MMORPGs focus only on fighting?

[Thrawn4]

Hi everyone.
So apparently there is going to be a Neverwinter MMORPG. I just saw a video about it - needless to say that the content features little more than the name. Unless 4E changed a lot even the classes are completely made up (trickster rogue -> teleporting assasin). And of course there are a lot of fancy fighting scenes.
Why do they even bother to call it RPG? It's basically just some fighting game and the only thing you can cusomize about your character is your appearance and a few details - the skillsystem resembles Diablo 3 a lot.
My question: Why does nobody bother to programm a game with non-fighting skills? Some crafting, pickpocketing, bribe and spot skills wouldn't be that difficult, would they?
Bonus question: The editor was very intruiging at first, but why should I bother to make my own map if it is just an arena anyway?

[Morrolan]

The presence of those non-combat skills will still not make these games worthy of the name rpg, unless they are actually used for roleplaying.
Roleplaying can ofcourse happen in singleplayer if you wish it, except in hack and slash games perhaps.
Real roleplaying MMOs can only currently exist if that game's community is willing to play the part. I have read somewhere that the in progress World of Darkness mmo is going to have roleplay moderators and such, and will be mostly a social mmo. If you like the macabre setting of World of Darkness (I think it is specifically Vampire: The Requiem based) then that might be something for you, but it won't be released for a while.

Aside from that, I'm kind of picturing a mmo with pickpocketing. Imagine the trolling...


About Neverwinter, combat is featured heavily in it, but that doesn't mean that you have to create combat-heavy adventures in the foundy. Instead you can have an all-social adventure, or something in between. Combat is not, as I understand it, a must. And, as I mentioned above, if the community is willing, there might even be roleplaying in the social areas.

Addition: Roleplaying is between the ears and not in the game stats.

[KillianHawkeye]

My question: Why does nobody bother to programm a game with non-fighting skills? Some crafting, pickpocketing, bribe and spot skills wouldn't be that difficult, would they?

Maybe you're just not playing the right games?

Seriously, all of these non-combat skills can be found in any Fallout or Elder Scrolls game in some form or another.

[Cespenar]

Aside from that, I'm kind of picturing a mmo with pickpocketing. Imagine the trolling...


Ultima Online had it. The catch was, auto-teleporting guards instakilled you if you committed any crimes within city borders and someone cared to type "guards".

Outside cities, though, yeah. Player-killing and stealing galore. Then again, it still was written on your karma, which, if pushed enough, flagged you as a criminal and thus had you banned from cities and all they offered.

Best MMORPG I ever played, coincidentally.

[GolemsVoice]

Well, fighting is a very easy thing to program: you make weapons, armor, enemies and things you get for killing said enemies, and you're done. All those are pretty straightforward. A weapon does X damage, and if you kill hard boss Y, you get a weapon that does X+5 damage. That's better.

How do you program roleplaying, though? You can't TELL a player to roleplay if he doesn't want to, at least not if you don't want to restrict him to dialogue choices he has to take if he wants to advance the game, like traditional RPGs do.

Real roleplaying in MMORPGs is done by player interaction, which is a thing you can surely encourage, but not force.

[Brother Oni]

If you like the macabre setting of World of Darkness (I think it is specifically Vampire: The Requiem based) then that might be something for you, but it won't be released for a while.

I'd heard from someone attending the convention where they announced further information about the WoD MMO, was that it was going to be oWoD based.

The only other comment that I'd add is that the developers', CCP Games, other game is EVE Online, a notoriously open ended and freeform game with a high death penalty and ruthless PVP.
From this past form, the WoD MMO may be similarly cut-throat.

[Caewil]

Eve online has practically everything made by player's crafting, mining and research skills.

The Secret world ha a lot of awesome investigation missions, but those don't have in game skill requirements, just that you're good at spotting clues and logic IRL.

[Anteros]

Hi everyone.
So apparently there is going to be a Neverwinter MMORPG. I just saw a video about it - needless to say that the content features little more than the name. Unless 4E changed a lot even the classes are completely made up (trickster rogue -> teleporting assasin). And of course there are a lot of fancy fighting scenes.
Why do they even bother to call it RPG? It's basically just some fighting game and the only thing you can cusomize about your character is your appearance and a few details - the skillsystem resembles Diablo 3 a lot.
My question: Why does nobody bother to programm a game with non-fighting skills? Some crafting, pickpocketing, bribe and spot skills wouldn't be that difficult, would they?
Bonus question: The editor was very intruiging at first, but why should I bother to make my own map if it is just an arena anyway?

Well, off the top of my head, I can think of a few MMOs with pickpocketing, and spot skills. Also, virtually all MMOs have a crafting system.

However the reason that character diversity is dumbed down is very simple. Balance. If they don't restrict the choices, some people will end up extremely more powerful than others and ruin the game. It's bad enough around a table where you have a DM to reign it in, but in an autonomous environment like a MMO it would spell the death of any game.

[Mando Knight]

Bonus question: The editor was very intruiging at first, but why should I bother to make my own map if it is just an arena anyway?

About Neverwinter, combat is featured heavily in it, but that doesn't mean that you have to create combat-heavy adventures in the foundy. Instead you can have an all-social adventure, or something in between. Combat is not, as I understand it, a must. And, as I mentioned above, if the community is willing, there might even be roleplaying in the social areas.

Addition: Roleplaying is between the ears and not in the game stats.
To get an idea of what Neverwinter will be like, I suggest playing through Star Trek Online... same engine, same company (though not the same development team). STO offers a lot of story-focused missions (though you actually RPing depends on you finding an RP chat channel... doing so in Zone is a fool's errand), and a heck of a lot more in the player-created Foundry missions (which is basically a beta release of the Neverwinter version but with Trek trappings rather than Forgotten Realms, from what I gather).

[Acanous]

I miss City of Heroes :/

So much good RP there. Bad RP too, but lots of good.

Most RPGs focus on combat, because combat mechanics is what sells the game. The consumer has been conditioned to equate MMO with Combat, and with gear that has enormous shoulders and grinding to get that gear plusses.

Untilthe current reigning champ is knocked down by something that plays differently, that's what it's gonna be.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Unless 4E changed a lot

*snerk* Have you ever seen more of a 4e book than the cover? The only thing it has in common with earlier D&D is the fundamental aspects of a class-based, HP-based system, with a d20 and some other funny-shaped dice. And yes, trickster rogue is a thing, although I don't think it gets teleports without a certain race or multiclassing.

---

As to your other point: what is an MMORPG? What is roleplaying in a game that doesn't have single-player and party co-op as the sole focus? World of Warcraft and EVE Online, two vastly different games, are both classified as MMORPG. Guild Wars 2, Elder Scrolls Online, The Secret World, all MMORPGs. Planetside 2 is an MMOFPS, and it actually gives better in-world explanations for stuff (quickly assembled vehicles, non-magical healing that acts like magical healing, respawns) than some MMORPGs.

When the focus isn't on a single character, such as in Bioware games, it becomes harder to be a true RPG. In games like Terraria and Minecraft, there's no story at all unless you decide to come up with one, just some caves, mobs, and bosses.

[Mando Knight]

*snerk* Have you ever seen more of a 4e book than the cover? The only thing it has in common with earlier D&D is the fundamental aspects of a class-based, HP-based system, with a d20 and some other funny-shaped dice. And yes, trickster rogue is a thing, although I don't think it gets teleports without a certain race or multiclassing.

I think the teleporting is mostly just a style choice... in 4e, a "shift" is a move that the opponent usually can't predict or prevent, so a near-instantaneous "teleport" is a fairly similar idea, and Rogues do a lot of shifting (and Artful Dodger Rogues in 4e are good at avoiding attacks while moving even when they're not shifting).

The classes, power names, and basic power effects seem to draw heavily from the source material, though adapted for the real-time MMORPG environment.

[Grinner]

When the focus isn't on a single character, such as in Bioware games, it becomes harder to be a true RPG. In games like Terraria and Minecraft, there's no story at all unless you decide to come up with one, just some caves, mobs, and bosses.

A story is essentially just a sequence of events. Games like Minecraft, while they lack a definite plot, create implicit stories as the player mines deeper and deeper. Frankly, I find them preferable to games of the "find the breadcrumb" school of thought.

Hell, if there were an MMO like that, I wouldn't even be posting here.

[Mattarias, King.]

I gotta second The Secret World. From what I've played so far, the focus on investigation and gathering clues and generally being good at noticing things is fantastic. And this is before getting into lore. Hoooo, so much lore. o_o;

Those bees man... Those bees... :smalleek:

[Psyren]

My question: Why does nobody bother to programm a game with non-fighting skills? Some crafting, pickpocketing, bribe and spot skills wouldn't be that difficult, would they?

Rather than write a long post responding to this question, I'll just point to a handy video. (http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/non-combat-gaming)

The summary is that noncombat gaming is around, but few designers put the effort into making the non-fighty bits as visually engaging as the fighty ones. This is largely because it takes more effort, since they're not conditioned to think that way, so for the most part they don't know how. ("How do I make an argument, or picking a lock, as visually exciting as kicking down a door and blasting all the enemies inside? Ah screw it.")

I would posit that excitement, or visual engagement, is what sells games moreso than combat. It's just that combat is the easiest way to get to that goal.

[Tebryn]

Ultima Online had it. The catch was, auto-teleporting guards instakilled you if you committed any crimes within city borders and someone cared to type "guards".

Outside cities, though, yeah. Player-killing and stealing galore. Then again, it still was written on your karma, which, if pushed enough, flagged you as a criminal and thus had you banned from cities and all they offered.

Best MMORPG I ever played, coincidentally.

It's something Asherons Call picked up. Both amazingly good games from back in the day. Newer MMO's have been distilled it seems, not requiring the hours and hours and hours of grinding that even non-raid worthy guilds needed to see end game content. Both good and bad in my opinion.

[OracleofWuffing]

Well, the first thing that comes to mind is Puzzle Pirates, where most of the "game" is about maintaining a ship. However, even with so little dedicated to combat, I still don't think I've seen any dedicated role playing.

Come to think of it, if you did manage to codify a game engine that rewarded "real" (for lack of a better term) role playing, and it had a massive audience, I would suspect that said audience would just metagame out the most beneficial role play strategies. Which, um... That's gonna make my head really dizzy really quickly if I keep thinking about it.

[mistformsquirrl]

Warning; this is going to be long >.< Squirrel has played many, many MMOs over the years so... yeah.

I think a lot of it comes down to this:

1) Every additional layer of work you add increases the amount of people that need to work on the game or the time needed for the game to be completed (or both, depending on just how big and integrated with the rest of the game the layer is).

2) Not everyone is going to use every layer except the basic combat layer. That means every bit of work you put into non-combat layers has a diminishing return compared to the same number of work hours put into the combat layer, since necessarily everyone will at some point participate in the combat layer.

3) You need players to keep your game going or it will die.* The more players you keep entertained over the long haul, the more players you'll retain. In theory** this means that investing most heavily in the combat layer makes the most sense, as that's what everyone will definitely do, and you'll not be wasting resources building things no one wants**.

Now as a bunch of high profile underperformances over the past several years have shown, this theory doesn't quite hold up under scrutiny. The problem is (as noted below) that to do something OTHER than the basic formula requires risk, and taking a risk with a multimillion dollar project is not something most folks are willing to do.

----

There's also another element I should mention:

Even basic roleplaying elements require substantially more time to develop the same amount of content. What I mean is - say you want to implement branching missions so that a player can, as they go through the story, choose different paths.

Everyone starts at Point A - you get to Point B and you make a choice between point C and Point D, you get to either of those and you may make another choice, which leads you to E, F, G, or H. Etc...

The problem being that even with just two entirely linear branches, you're making the same amount of content for double the work hours put in.

And that's a very basic level of roleplay that's still entirely focused on the combat layer - now try implementing something entirely non-combat that some folks won't even touch... it gets complicated quickly and ends up (in the eyes of a project lead) very quickly being a big drain on the project that doesn't actually bring with it any kind of guarantee of success.

-------

Finally - the multiplayer element complicates things drastically, which is why games often resort to instancing or phasing (both of which drive some people insane - I'm fine with either of them... but there's a substantial minority of people who'll scream "NOT A REAL MMO" if you instance things.)

If you DON'T instance them, then it's very easy to have objectives that everyone is fighting over to try to complete their quests; which ruins immersion fast. It's also tough to have a world BIG enough so that this is not in fact going to be the case.

-------

None of which is to say that more RP shouldn't be built into MMOs; but that's why it generally isn't done. It's work, and work that doesn't guarantee profit. I'm not saying that's *right* mind you; but that's the way it is.

-------

*Note that having players is not a guarantee against death sadly; no MMO is bulletproof I'm afraid; one reason I've largely quit playing them in spite of them being a favorite game type of mine - it sucks to find out the game you've invested years of time and energy into is now going away. (RIP COH)

**Note that this is of course from the perspective of a project manager with a limited budget and an executive breathing down his/her neck. Players may well want 'that thing nobody wants' - but that thing won't get made because it's a risk, and MMOs are expensive to make; which makes them very risk-averse ventures. Hence why so many games are absolutely cookie-cutter.

[The_Jackal]

Why do they even bother to call it RPG? It's basically just some fighting game and the only thing you can cusomize about your character is your appearance and a few details - the skillsystem resembles Diablo 3 a lot.

There's no roleplaying in any computer roleplaying game, let's not kid ourselves. The reason they're called RPGs is because they have quests, and ****ty combat. If they had GOOD combat, they'd be a FPS or action title, or even a brawler. Combat is the GAME portion of the computer game, the rest is just exposition and graphics. To create a REAL roleplaying experience, you'd need to have some serious next-level AI going on, so you could actually TYPE your dialogue in, instead of just picking from a conversation tree, and the story/NPCs would react to your statements and actions dynamically. But we're still at the point where you can figure out you're talking to a machine after three or four sentences, so I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.

I think a better question to ask is why are gaming companies still trying to make MMORPGs when all the best game successes of late are single-player or non-massive multiplayer? Arkham City, Skyrim, Borderlands, etc.

[RPGuru1331]

Mistform Squirrel hit on most of the points why people avoid roleplaying elements, but I think it bears repeating that another is "People who roleplay with any regularity are a hell of a lot less common, even amongst the video game markets, and even self-selecting for those who identify as nerds, than people who don't." Which, yes, still doesn't mean it's impossible, but I haven't really seen an MMO that advertises itself to roleplaying game folks exclusively.



The reason they're called RPGs is because they have quests, and ****ty combat. If they had GOOD combat, they'd be a FPS or action title, or even a brawler.
Giggles. Someone has a hate on for turns, it seems.


I think a better question to ask is why are gaming companies still trying to make MMORPGs when all the best game successes of late are single-player or non-massive multiplayer? Arkham City, Skyrim, Borderlands, etc.
I dunno, why did they make Skyrim when the margins are a lot better on Farmville? Why is Atlus still in business at all? And why did you forget about GW2? So long as something's got a good chance of being successful, as any genre does if you know your audience, there's a perfectly fine reason to make it, rather than saturating the market with clones of extant games (especially if they're outside your genre).


*snerk* Have you ever seen more of a 4e book than the cover? The only thing it has in common with earlier D&D is the fundamental aspects of a class-based, HP-based system, with a d20 and some other funny-shaped dice. And yes, trickster rogue is a thing, although I don't think it gets teleports without a certain race or multiclassing.
Not that this is a thread about Dungeons and Dragons (Satan's Game), but from the perspective of someone who didn't want to play a dungeon crawler with an even more massive combat focus while roleplaying, the primary difference between 4e and 3e is that 4e is honest about what it is.

[Psyren]

Come to think of it, if you did manage to codify a game engine that rewarded "real" (for lack of a better term) role playing, and it had a massive audience, I would suspect that said audience would just metagame out the most beneficial role play strategies. Which, um... That's gonna make my head really dizzy really quickly if I keep thinking about it.

Conditioning the players to roleplay effectively for in-game rewards? Sounds familiar (http://xkcd.com/810/) (language warning.)

[The_Jackal]

Giggles. Someone has a hate on for turns, it seems.

Eh, I'm really just being snarky, actually. I played EQ for years and WoW from beta to Cata, so the combat being kinda crummy didn't keep the game from being fun. (Not to mention quite a bit of City of Heroes and a fair smattering of SW:TOR.) But one thing that's stuck with me throughout the MMO experience is how the client-server networking has forced the designers into making terrible compromises with the gameplay.


I dunno, why did they make Skyrim when the margins are a lot better on Farmville? Why is Atlus still in business at all? And why did you forget about GW2? So long as something's got a good chance of being successful, as any genre does if you know your audience, there's a perfectly fine reason to make it, rather than saturating the market with clones of extant games (especially if they're outside your genre).

Because as many developers have discovered, copycatting is not a formula for market success. EA tried to crack the Modern Warfare nut with Battlefield III and failed, and countless developers have tried to reproduce the alchemy that created World of Warcraft, and have all wound up looking very silly, or dead, or more often, both. (http://www.hhgproject.org/entries/wowbagger.html)

PS: I never played Guild Wars 2, it looked like yet another fantasy MMO, and by that point I was well burnt out on WoW.

[Winthur]

Really great MMORPG titles like Tibia focus on other stuff too.

I'm the best fisherman in Tenebra.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Most MMOs feature combat exclusively because combat is easy, and it's simple to focus the game around it. Eve is probably the best example of a game that doesn't fixate on it.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Because as many developers have discovered, copycatting is not a formula for market success. EA tried to crack the Modern Warfare nut with Battlefield III and failed, and countless developers have tried to reproduce the alchemy that created World of Warcraft, and have all wound up looking very silly, or dead, or more often, both. (http://www.hhgproject.org/entries/wowbagger.html)

You know that Battlefield 3 is a top-seller with excellent multiplayer, right?

Anyway, the most recent fantasy MMO is Guild Wars 2, and the most talked-about upcoming fantasy MMO is Elder Scrolls Online. Neither of those are WoW clones. Although if you want to be insulting, you could call ESO a Guild Wars 2 clone. From Jesse Cox's thoughts on the Alpha version, which you can find on his YouTube channel OMFGcata, it has a gigantic single server, and the middle portion is a WvW-type thing between the three factions, which are alliances of races. It also has the "small skill bar" thing, with like, seven skills plus a consumables slot. Of course, it sounds like it'll have smarter AI, and if they manage to pull off the "massive single server" thing in a world without Warp Drive, then there's hope yet for Universe Projects (not much hope, judging by their reply to my e-mail making it clear they're adamant on a world roughly the size of earth and the availability of top-down 2D view as well as the isometric view, but hope).

[mangosta71]

Crafting is just a way to produce items that result in increased combat capability. Questing/dungeon running is just a way to progress your level and/or receive new items, the end result of which is an increase in your combat capability.

If you want unscripted roleplay, you have to be interacting with other people (if it's built into the game itself, it's not unscripted). Unless you intend to have GMs available at all times to run RP sessions, that means RP is player-generated. In other words, there's no need for the design team to get involved (once they've implemented a customizable emote system). You can RP in any MMO; you just have to find a community.

In addition, any MMO that has different classes has to maintain a semblance of balance, or players of one class find themselves marginalized in favor of another class that can do their job better. Every tweak has to be evaluated in order to find potential repercussions to every class in the game. For example, a tweak that increases warrior dps may result in rogues sitting on the sidelines, which results in a lot of angry customers.

Frankly, combat boils down to numbers, and numbers are the only things that can be programmed, so that's what the programmers work on.

[Starbuck_II]

To get back to Topic: there will be 5 classes apparently.
Then there class builds such as signature class builds such as Guardian Fighter, Trickster Rogue, and Control Wizard.

Guardian Fighter Role: Defender and Secondary Damage Dealer I'm guessing
Another class build Great Weapon Fighter.
Role: Damage Dealer and Secondary Defender
(1st encounter power is Leap Attack with different name)

D&D races like Human, Elf, Half-Elf, Drow, Dwarf and Tiefling. No dragonborn?

Set 100 years after the Spellplague.

Apparently: Healing surges did not port from the 4e tabletop edition, but the concept of standing by a "campfire" and "healing up" will also be used
Healing is done both by spells/powers from characters who have the "Leader" Role as well as drinking health potions.

[The_Jackal]

You know that Battlefield 3 is a top-seller with excellent multiplayer, right?

Sure, I'm not saying it's a bad game, I'm saying that copycatting isn't a formula for instant success. And BF3's sales look good for a computer game in general, but don't look that great considering that a CoD game ships EVERY YEAR and sells more units that BF3. Battlefield 2 shipped in 2005, Battlefield 3 shipped in 2011, who knows when Battlefield 4 will hit the shelves.


Anyway, the most recent fantasy MMO is Guild Wars 2, and the most talked-about upcoming fantasy MMO is Elder Scrolls Online. Neither of those are WoW clones.

Having played neither, I'm not in a position to debate this, but whether it's a clone of WoW is not my point. My point is that massive doesn't bring anything profoundly good for players to the table, only reward schedules and loot drama. What playing MMOs has shown me over the decade or so I've been doing it is that I'd rather play with a handful of friends than a mob of strangers. YMMV. What massive brings, if successful, is stuff that's profoundly good for the PUBLISHER, namely recurring revenue.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Having played neither, I'm not in a position to debate this, but whether it's a clone of WoW is not my point. My point is that massive doesn't bring anything profoundly good for players to the table, only reward schedules and loot drama. What playing MMOs has shown me over the decade or so I've been doing it is that I'd rather play with a handful of friends than a mob of strangers. YMMV. What massive brings, if successful, is stuff that's profoundly good for the PUBLISHER, namely recurring revenue.

Guild Wars 2 has separate loot for everybody in raids and dungeons. You can't pick up or see someone else's unless they want to trade.

[hobbitkniver]

Maybe you're just not playing the right games?

Seriously, all of these non-combat skills can be found in any Fallout or Elder Scrolls game in some form or another.

Really, these skills are all in Neverwinter Nights.

[Morrolan]

To get back to Topic: there will be 5 classes apparently.
Then there class builds such as signature class builds such as Guardian Fighter, Trickster Rogue, and Control Wizard.

Guardian Fighter Role: Defender and Secondary Damage Dealer I'm guessing
Another class build Great Weapon Fighter.
Role: Damage Dealer and Secondary Defender
(1st encounter power is Leap Attack with different name)

D&D races like Human, Elf, Half-Elf, Drow, Dwarf and Tiefling. No dragonborn?


There will be 5 classes to start with, yes. They have promised for more classes and races after release, though. Would be interesting if they'd include all 4th edition classes one by one.

[huttj509]

There will be 5 classes to start with, yes. They have promised for more classes and races after release, though. Would be interesting if they'd include all 4th edition classes one by one.

That would be nuts in terms of both ability design and balance (Why play X if Y can literally do everything it does, better, with the same mechanical feel?). Translating turn-based moves into a real time action setting is nontrivial. I'm really not sure how'd you do reaction-based classes, especially since with the probable AI it'd be really easy to make foes move.

Though now I'm thinking a Warden "oh hi, I'm turning myself into a zone of slowing damage" build would be fun to play.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

As another thought--if Fallen London (http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/) had strong multiplayer capabilities (at the moment, the only player interaction is asynchronous, and it'll probably stay that way, considering the game style), it would pretty much be an MMO that you're talking about--where multiple abilities (many of which are non-combat) are useful, coming in handy for various situations.

Any game which went straight to that model, though, would have to compete with a lot of preconceptions.