Deliberately Designing a MMO to be a Hardcore Game

Cactus_LFRez

So, I have been messing around with WoW Classic hard-core mode and it is great, a breath of fresh air in the MMO space.

Although WoW hardcore is fun, the game was obviously not designed to be played this way and those limitations show when playing.

So I am throwing out the question to the community,

How would you design a MMO to be a hardcore style game from the ground up?

Some background for those that do not know,

Hard-core classic WoW is a self imposed ruleset, although Blizzard are making hardcore servers themselves,

The core rule is if you die you start over, there are other rules as well, like no trading, you can only do dungeons once, no teaming other than dungeons, you can't ask for a buff but can recieve them if the player gives you one, etc.
But death=restart is the big one.

If you hit level 60, you "win" and the game is technically over,

This essentially turns WoW into a roguelike game.

My thoughts on the potential benefits/challenges of a hardcore style MMO

• All the development time goes into adding more variety and options during the leveling process instead of constantly expanding the level cap, since hitting max level means you win and start over.

• This means no outdated content, new content adds to the game rather than outmodes older content.

• It makes the game easier to jump in and jump out and reduces the barrier between veteran and newbie.

• It offers a very different gameplay loop than other MMOs, you are not constantly amassing power and loot, the fun would be more about the challenge and the variety added over time.

• You could add unlocks and special skins and stuff for hitting max level with certain races and classes.

• It reduces metagaming, because in roguelike fashion, you can't really control what items you are going to find or come across and there is no running dungeons repeatedly for gear, so it is more about adaptation rather than planning for min maxing.

• The biggest challenge with a hardcore game will be retention, so there will have to be long term goals to achieve that do not compromise the core loop of the game, ie no permanent power gain.  Maybe this could take the form of things like housing and such?

• Player interaction would be different than other MMOs, since this is a hardcore challenge, player interactions would have to be more indirect since they can't help each other too much.
This leads to things like making camps to rest or portable vendors and other more passive forms or teamwork.

Scot

As I don't have much time just one observation, there are games which are closer to your vision than WoW, so a conversion would surely be easier for them? You mentioned the issue with teamwork, something like GW where there is less TW would be an easier fit. In fact when it comes to teamwork, just about any MMO made in the last ten years would have less teamwork.

Sovrath

My thought is that a "hardcore" game needs to not only be develop for a small audience but also needs to give as well as take when it comes to game play.

For example, I see people complaining "I don't want to lose my gold and purple gear!" or some such thing. 

For a hardcore game you wouldn't have hard to get items that could be taken on a whim. You'd have a more narrow quality of items "if" item loss was a thing. When I tried Darkfall and I had items taken I'd just run to the bank and bam, back in business.

I can imagine that if there is a permadeath feature then the character itself isn't the end all be all but is just one of your roster of characters. I would think that it would be a good idea to inherit from the previous character.

In Darkest Dungeon you'd lose a character but had a roster of characters AND a steady stream of new characters.

In Dark Souls you can die and lose your souls but you can always run back to get them again. Of course, don't die while doing it or you lose them forever. However, you constantly get them through game play so it's not as if you will fall behind forever.

cameltosis

I won't call such games "hardcore" as I don't feel that the description matches the reality. So, instead I will refer to them as permadeath games, as that fits the OP's description better.

Whilst there is a place for such games, I don't think the MMORPG genre is the right fit for permadeath.

There is really only one main issue here, and that is permadeath actively discourages players from engaging with the content. You are trained by the game to avoid risk, which means avoiding challenging content. So, you can either stick to easy content......which leads to boredom......or you can take on challenges and likely die, losing hours / days / weeks of progression. It's a lose-lose proposition for the majority of players.

The only real upside I can see is that permadeath would encourage grouping up as a way to minimize risk. This could be a really great asset to the game, but only if it is backed up with a ton of gameplay and social systems that can capitolise on that teamwork.

Sovrath

cameltosis said:

I won't call such games "hardcore" as I don't feel that the description matches the reality. So, instead I will refer to them as permadeath games, as that fits the OP's description better.

Whilst there is a place for such games, I don't think the MMORPG genre is the right fit for permadeath.

There is really only one main issue here, and that is permadeath actively discourages players from engaging with the content. You are trained by the game to avoid risk, which means avoiding challenging content. So, you can either stick to easy content......which leads to boredom......or you can take on challenges and likely die, losing hours / days / weeks of progression. It's a lose-lose proposition for the majority of players.

The only real upside I can see is that permadeath would encourage grouping up as a way to minimize risk. This could be a really great asset to the game, but only if it is backed up with a ton of gameplay and social systems that can capitolise on that teamwork.

I think that's more on a particular type of game.

You can have permadeath and still take on difficult content. Once again, let's use darkest dungeon as an example.

My first run through had me taking on the final dungeon without really knowing what it was about. I had 4 heroes who were able to do it but I wasn't really sure what to expect or what I would need. Still, I was doing well enough so decided to try.


I believe you can get decimated if you fail or flee. I ended up succeeding though in truth I believe it's designed to lose at least one character if memory serves. That may or may not be true.

Had I failed I would be able to bring some new heroes in to try again. Easy peezy.

If the nature of the game is to concentrate on "one" hero, win or lose, then yeah, no one is going to play.

But if the game isn't about that one hero but a lineage, or a roster of characters and there's a larger framework (in the case of darkest dungeon it's the hamlet) then I don't think it will be an issue with the player.

Cactus_LFRez

cameltosis said:

I won't call such games "hardcore" as I don't feel that the description matches the reality. So, instead I will refer to them as permadeath games, as that fits the OP's description better.

Whilst there is a place for such games, I don't think the MMORPG genre is the right fit for permadeath.

There is really only one main issue here, and that is permadeath actively discourages players from engaging with the content. You are trained by the game to avoid risk, which means avoiding challenging content. So, you can either stick to easy content......which leads to boredom......or you can take on challenges and likely die, losing hours / days / weeks of progression. It's a lose-lose proposition for the majority of players.

The only real upside I can see is that permadeath would encourage grouping up as a way to minimize risk. This could be a really great asset to the game, but only if it is backed up with a ton of gameplay and social systems that can capitolise on that teamwork.

I don't know about that,

There are enough people willingly doing the hard-core WoW ruleset Blizzard is adding officially supported realms.

https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/en-us/news/23973734/rules-of-engagement-classic-hardcore-is-coming-to-world-of-warcraft

It might become an interesting spin on MMOs or spawn a subgenre.

Cactus_LFRez

Sovrath said:

My thought is that a "hardcore" game needs to not only be develop for a small audience but also needs to give as well as take when it comes to game play.

For example, I see people complaining "I don't want to lose my gold and purple gear!" or some such thing. 

For a hardcore game you wouldn't have hard to get items that could be taken on a whim. You'd have a more narrow quality of items "if" item loss was a thing. When I tried Darkfall and I had items taken I'd just run to the bank and bam, back in business.

I can imagine that if there is a permadeath feature then the character itself isn't the end all be all but is just one of your roster of characters. I would think that it would be a good idea to inherit from the previous character.

In Darkest Dungeon you'd lose a character but had a roster of characters AND a steady stream of new characters.

In Dark Souls you can die and lose your souls but you can always run back to get them again. Of course, don't die while doing it or you lose them forever. However, you constantly get them through game play so it's not as if you will fall behind forever.

True,
Good roguelikes allows for quick in and quick out with a lot of variety in-between

I don't want to get into the roguelike vs roguelite argument, mostly because I think it is pointless,
But the topic of meta progression, or progression that carries over between runs is important for any roguelike mechanics.

You could build power from run to run, I am not a big fan because I feel it defeats the purpose of the roguelike.

There is also the model like Enter the Gungeon, death unlocks more guns that will spawn on your next run,
So in a weird sense you want to die to see new content.

cameltosis

Cactus_LFRez said:

cameltosis said:

I won't call such games "hardcore" as I don't feel that the description matches the reality. So, instead I will refer to them as permadeath games, as that fits the OP's description better.

Whilst there is a place for such games, I don't think the MMORPG genre is the right fit for permadeath.

There is really only one main issue here, and that is permadeath actively discourages players from engaging with the content. You are trained by the game to avoid risk, which means avoiding challenging content. So, you can either stick to easy content......which leads to boredom......or you can take on challenges and likely die, losing hours / days / weeks of progression. It's a lose-lose proposition for the majority of players.

The only real upside I can see is that permadeath would encourage grouping up as a way to minimize risk. This could be a really great asset to the game, but only if it is backed up with a ton of gameplay and social systems that can capitolise on that teamwork.

I don't know about that,

There are enough people willingly doing the hard-core WoW ruleset Blizzard is adding officially supported realms.

https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/en-us/news/23973734/rules-of-engagement-classic-hardcore-is-coming-to-world-of-warcraft

It might become an interesting spin on MMOs or spawn a subgenre.

Hardcore WoW is an interesting case study.

Is it popular because it stands on it's own?

Is it popular because WoW was so huge that its able to support a viable hardcore community?

Is it popular because certain WoW addicts can't get enough, no matter what flavour?

Additionally, I wonder if a hardcore permadeath server would be popular if the players didn't already know the game inside out? How many "new to WoW" players are there on the hardcore server?

Cactus_LFRez

cameltosis said:

Cactus_LFRez said:

cameltosis said:

I won't call such games "hardcore" as I don't feel that the description matches the reality. So, instead I will refer to them as permadeath games, as that fits the OP's description better.

Whilst there is a place for such games, I don't think the MMORPG genre is the right fit for permadeath.

There is really only one main issue here, and that is permadeath actively discourages players from engaging with the content. You are trained by the game to avoid risk, which means avoiding challenging content. So, you can either stick to easy content......which leads to boredom......or you can take on challenges and likely die, losing hours / days / weeks of progression. It's a lose-lose proposition for the majority of players.

The only real upside I can see is that permadeath would encourage grouping up as a way to minimize risk. This could be a really great asset to the game, but only if it is backed up with a ton of gameplay and social systems that can capitolise on that teamwork.

I don't know about that,

There are enough people willingly doing the hard-core WoW ruleset Blizzard is adding officially supported realms.

https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/en-us/news/23973734/rules-of-engagement-classic-hardcore-is-coming-to-world-of-warcraft

It might become an interesting spin on MMOs or spawn a subgenre.

Hardcore WoW is an interesting case study.

Is it popular because it stands on it's own?

Is it popular because WoW was so huge that its able to support a viable hardcore community?

Is it popular because certain WoW addicts can't get enough, no matter what flavour?

Additionally, I wonder if a hardcore permadeath server would be popular if the players didn't already know the game inside out? How many "new to WoW" players are there on the hardcore server?

That is a good point,

No doubt HC WoW benefits from being WoW and having a massive player base with fond memories of the old game.

From my experience, I haven't touched WoW since Cataclysm launched and have really never given it a second thought since then,
But the HC rules revitalized the fame for me though by turning tired and boring MMO tropes on their head

Now the game is only leveling, as there us no end game to race too,
Items and consumables I would have vendored without second thought can become valuable life saving items
I suddenly really care if I get stat bonuses from cooked food
Every gear upgrade could mean life or death rather than a predictable upgrade on that gear treadmill
I have to make due with what I find rather than optimize the fun out of the game.

Personally I hope someone takes the WoW HC rules and vibe and runs with it to make something new.
Maybe it might get more attention if we called it an online roguelike or something.

Kyleran

cameltosis said:

Cactus_LFRez said:

cameltosis said:

I won't call such games "hardcore" as I don't feel that the description matches the reality. So, instead I will refer to them as permadeath games, as that fits the OP's description better.

Whilst there is a place for such games, I don't think the MMORPG genre is the right fit for permadeath.

There is really only one main issue here, and that is permadeath actively discourages players from engaging with the content. You are trained by the game to avoid risk, which means avoiding challenging content. So, you can either stick to easy content......which leads to boredom......or you can take on challenges and likely die, losing hours / days / weeks of progression. It's a lose-lose proposition for the majority of players.

The only real upside I can see is that permadeath would encourage grouping up as a way to minimize risk. This could be a really great asset to the game, but only if it is backed up with a ton of gameplay and social systems that can capitolise on that teamwork.

I don't know about that,

There are enough people willingly doing the hard-core WoW ruleset Blizzard is adding officially supported realms.

https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/en-us/news/23973734/rules-of-engagement-classic-hardcore-is-coming-to-world-of-warcraft

It might become an interesting spin on MMOs or spawn a subgenre.

Hardcore WoW is an interesting case study.

Is it popular because it stands on it's own?

Is it popular because WoW was so huge that its able to support a viable hardcore community?

Is it popular because certain WoW addicts can't get enough, no matter what flavour?

Additionally, I wonder if a hardcore permadeath server would be popular if the players didn't already know the game inside out? How many "new to WoW" players are there on the hardcore server?

Finally, gaming content I might enjoy watching.. definitely bringing a big bucket of popcorn, with extra butter for sure.

Adamantine

Meh.

A game with permadeath isnt hard at all.

Quite on the contrary either the player either wont be invested in the character they play because they'll lose them soon anyway, or they will act very risk adverse, resulting in a very boring and unchallenging game.

Either way this wont be a hard game.

A HARD game is when you fight the dragon with your guild for three hours straight and in the end lose by a hair because one person made a single error.

A true hard game has to corner the difficulty at the sweet spot at which you just barely still manage to succeed. Which is why making a hard game - is very hard.

Trivialistic solutions like permadeath wont work.

Kyleran

Adamantine said:

Meh.

A game with permadeath isnt hard at all.

Quite on the contrary either the player either wont be invested in the character they play because they'll lose them soon anyway, or they will act very risk adverse, resulting in a very boring and unchallenging game.

Either way this wont be a hard game.

A HARD game is when you fight the dragon with your guild for three hours straight and in the end lose by a hair because one person made a single error.

A true hard game has to corner the difficulty at the sweet spot at which you just barely still manage to succeed. Which is why making a hard game - is very hard.

Trivialistic solutions like permadeath wont work.

You see this a lot in EVE, many (most?) players go to great lengths to avoid ever being put in a challenging situation, the risk (or fun) isn't worth the reward (or loss)

The only reason anyone ever loses a ship is someone miscalculated through imperfect Intel or just totally screwed up.

One of EVE's mantras is, "If you ever find yourself in a fair fight, someone made a very bad mistake."

Can't speak for others, but I am far less interested in challenging game play and will easily sacrifice it for activities (like mining) which guarantee a good long term reward, even if others perceive them as mundane or boring.

Using a sports analogy, if I were a coach, player or owner of a professional team I would be all too happy to win the championship game in a total blow-out of the opponent, heck 10-1 in football terms, 50 to 3 in the NFL.

Screw the challenge, I want to win, and win big.

olepi

I guess it depends on what you think is "hard". Is it just that the enemies have higher hitpoints and use more advanced attacks? Or that your attacks do less damage and have less effect?

Maybe putting a lot of hard puzzles in the game? Or creating boss fights that have to be fought in an exact sequence of skills?

Is it reducing the size of your inventory? Making crafting much more time-consuming? Decreasing the regen rate of your character? Allow only a few skills to be used at a time? Take away auto-targeting and reducing the size of the hit boxes?

Is permadeath enough to make it hard?

City of Heroes has a slider to make things harder; you can pick what kind of fights you want, with more minions, more bosses, higher level bosses, more of everything, etc. Is that enough?

Cactus_LFRez

Adamantine said:

Meh.

A game with permadeath isnt hard at all.

Quite on the contrary either the player either wont be invested in the character they play because they'll lose them soon anyway, or they will act very risk adverse, resulting in a very boring and unchallenging game.

Either way this wont be a hard game.

A HARD game is when you fight the dragon with your guild for three hours straight and in the end lose by a hair because one person made a single error.

A true hard game has to corner the difficulty at the sweet spot at which you just barely still manage to succeed. Which is why making a hard game - is very hard.

Trivialistic solutions like permadeath wont work.

Despite being called Hardcore WoW, the intent isn't about making the game harder as in challenging, I don't think,

Rather it refocuses the game on the leveling journey by making max level, or death, whichever comes first, the end point rather than the goal.

So it is a nice change of pace to play an MMO without feeling like you have to grind all these levels to catch up to people, get good gear, grind reputation etc.,
because everyone is in the same cycle of death and restart you are.
And it gets you to appreciate leveling for its own sake rather than just a means to an end.

Weirdly enough, death=delete frees you from the treadmill is a way.

cameltosis

olepi said:

Is permadeath enough to make it hard?

Permadeath is a punishment, not a challenge

Sovrath

Adamantine said:

Meh.

A game with permadeath isnt hard at all.

Quite on the contrary either the player either wont be invested in the character they play because they'll lose them soon anyway, or they will act very risk adverse, resulting in a very boring and unchallenging game.

Either way this wont be a hard game.

A HARD game is when you fight the dragon with your guild for three hours straight and in the end lose by a hair because one person made a single error.

A true hard game has to corner the difficulty at the sweet spot at which you just barely still manage to succeed. Which is why making a hard game - is very hard.

Trivialistic solutions like permadeath wont work.

Does hardcore have to mean "hard" as in difficulty? I'm thinking it just means an extreme in one way or another.

Cactus_LFRez

Sovrath 

Does hardcore have to mean "hard" as in difficulty? I'm thinking it just means an extreme in one way or another.

Yeah, the hard-core in this case is just a designation that the game is radically refocused on a different ruleset.

Calling it WoW roguelike mode, or Rogue WoW, would be more accurate.