Balance, Homogenisation and Encounter Design: The Problem.

[Dzian]

TL;DR: Homogenisation may seem the answer to balance problems, but instead it’s the indicator of a much bigger problem: the lack of variety and nuances in encounter and activity design.

Homogenization and over emphasis on simplicity and accessibility is the reason so many games franchises have died over the years, and also why so many newer games essentially flop or under perform. Players just don't want simplicity, they want depth and engagement.

Back in February or there abouts Yoshi even said the future of the Final Fantasy franchise needs to move away from trying to cater to mainstream audiences and go back to being made for the fans. Because virtually every game that tries to go mainstream ends up losing everything that made it popular in the first place. those engaging and interesting game play elements are lost in exchange for simplicity or accessibility.

Games like Tomb Raider where you have skill trees that are useless. Skills to conserve or recycle arrows from your bow that are ultimately useless because ease and simplicity means there quivers of arrows or boxes of bullets everywhere you look.

Or Dead Space where they simplified it by making every weapon use the exact same ammo and totally destroyed the sense of tension and fear for survival that made the first games so popular. Resident Evil again where the later games have moved away from survival horror can't waste a single bullet into run and gun kill everything that moves because ammo is practically infinite and that resulted in a massive decline in it's popularity. It's one of the reasons they went and did the remake of Resident Evil 2 to take the series back in that direction.

It's even more prevalent on the mobile side of things. Where Google and Apple wanted there platforms to be serious games contenders but most people just aren't putting the money into mobile games because they're virtually all so dull simple and shallow. Sure you can say 200 million people played angry birds or whatever. But for how long? It was a fun game for an hour or so but got boring incredibly quickly.

It's also why many of the so called underdogs take the industry by storm because they don't cater for mainstream audiences or over simplify. They stay true to what makes them great games and gamers love them for it. A recent example would be how God of War was so much more popular and amazing than anyone ever expected. Generally shunned as a fairly niche game by many media outlets and yet it blew everyone away with how successful it was.

But yeah so many games flop these days because people just don't want to spend there money on shallow and simple games that have no depth or are just not rewarding to play. There are more people playing games than there ever has been but on the flip side people are generally buying much less of them because it's all the same stuff and thus all those once deep and engaging franchises end up meeting a terrible demise because everything players loved about them gets taken out in favour of simplicity and accessibiltiy that no one actually wants.

Even 14 suffers from this. It can look nice and pull in players without too many problems. However it has always struggled to keep players engaged for any length of time as it really does get old and stale very quickly. This is because of over emphasis on simplicity and ease which comes at the cost of fun, depth and engagement.. There's no sense of fun, accomplishment or engagement in beating a fight that is borderline impossible to lose. That means players end up getting bored quickly or disengaged from the game.

It's also not gripping or engaging when the story tries to paint a picture of an incredibly dire situation where things seem all but hopeless only for you to faceroll through it and completely destroy the atmosphere and tension the story tried to create. has been a problem ever since ARR. the Garlean empire almighty and powerful yet an entire army cant even scratch a single player running around there castrum owning the place.. does not lend any merit to the story and instead often leaves players feeling disconnected from it and the game as a result.

But I think that's partly what Yoshi was referring to back in February when he said the franchise needs to go back to the fans.

[Edax]

Homogenization and over emphasis on simplicity and accessibility is the reason so many games franchises have died over the years, and also why so many newer games essentially flop or under perform. Players just don't want simplicity, they want depth and engagement.
.

And yet the Old School Runescape is still going strong and it's combat system is simplicity incarnate. Since I grew up with Runescape, I never saw the appeal over pushing dozens of buttons to do damage vs pushing one. When I played Halo PC, only 3 buttons did damage, shoot, grenade and melee and that game was a masterpiece. I don't see Homogenization as a big problem. Players do want simplicity and accessibility, but I also think players want more variety in the challenge levels. At the moment it's a bit binary on the difficulty, normal / extreme. Some players I think are willing to engage in more challenging content, without it being an extreme level fight.

[Nariel]

And yet the Old School Runescape is still going strong and it's combat system is simplicity incarnate. Since I grew up with Runescape, I never saw the appeal over pushing dozens of buttons to do damage vs pushing one. When I played Halo PC, only 3 buttons did damage, shoot, grenade and melee and that game was a masterpiece. I don't see Homogenization as a big problem. Players do want simplicity and accessibility, but I also think players want more variety in the challenge levels. At the moment it's a bit binary on the difficulty, normal / extreme. Some players I think are willing to engage in more challenging content, without it being an extreme level fight.

I think it isn't that binary at all. There is multiple layer of difficulty.

Dungeon are rollface easy, Primal are a bit toughter but still pretty easy, raid and raid 24 starting to be less forgivable but still safe, then you start on extreme who require to succeed at every mecanism to beat it, then you go savage where you really need to take your finger out of your ass and start git gud and then you get Ultimate where you get your ass handed to yourself evey single minute.

There is quite a spectrum of difficulty, there is not many of each maybe, but its not binary.

[Edax]

I think it isn't that binary at all. There is multiple layer of difficulty.

Dungeon are rollface easy, Primal are a bit toughter but still pretty easy, raid and raid 24 starting to be less forgivable but still safe, then you start on extreme who require to succeed at every mecanism to beat it, then you go savage where you really need to take your finger out of your ass and start git gud and then you get Ultimate where you get your ass handed to yourself evey single minute.

There is quite a spectrum of difficulty, there is not many of each maybe, but its not binary.

Well the Shadowbringer Raid is effectively a primal fight. Sure we'll probably get an Alliance raid eventually but that's not out yet for Shadowbringers, so it's normal Eden / Savage Eden at the moment.

[Stanelis]

You re bound to have homogeneization when the hardest encounters are designed to be played with merely 8 players and there are far more classes per group spot in any given role.

For the content to be completed with any class, then the jobs/encounters must be homogeneized.

That s why MMORPGs have been at a stalemate since blizzard invented the "bring the player not the class" of wow 3.0. It basically killed the depth of group play in MMORPGs.

TL;DR: Homogenisation may seem the answer to balance problems, but instead it’s the indicator of a much bigger problem: the lack of variety and nuances in encounter and activity design.

You are like 10 years too late for this debate because since then it is the standard of MMORPGs.

[CapricaLangley]

You are like 10 years too late for this debate because since then it is the standard of MMORPGs.

Maybe you are right. To me, it seemed the right time for this debate because in three days the MMO which arguably is the most popular of all time will relaunch its 1.12 version, a project run by a company that recently went full "shareholders revenue". An hypothetical success of the product could completely redesign the balances of the MMO market and influence future design choices.

[Nariel]

Maybe you are right. To me, it seemed the right time for this debate because in three days the MMO which arguably is the most popular of all time will relaunch its 1.12 version, a project run by a company that recently went full "shareholders revenue". An hypothetical success of the product could completely redesign the balances of the MMO market and influence future design choices.

Hahahahahahaha

Nope.

Nostalgia trip aren't new in the business, its been years remake/HD remix are a thing, do you really think new games are back 20 years in the past ? Because they are not. Blizzard is just jumping in the bandwagon to milk cash just like every game company those 5 last years. They aren't even the first to do it in a MMO.

The best you can expect is a legacy FFXI vanilla server and its if a miracle happen.

SE are even the most prolific with re-edition of older game. Even that vanilla wow experience got a little coat of fresh paint to not be too harsh.

[Stanelis]

Maybe you are right. To me, it seemed the right time for this debate because in three days the MMO which arguably is the most popular of all time will relaunch its 1.12 version, a project run by a company that recently went full "shareholders revenue". An hypothetical success of the product could completely redesign the balances of the MMO market and influence future design choices.

If vanilla wow is sucessful in the long run maybe some developper will look back at things and notice how the genre got trapped in the evolutionary dead end it is currently in, and then start to develop something new with the same principles. But don't expect this to happen before a few years.

[DPZ2]

If vanilla wow is sucessful in the long run maybe some developper will look back at things and notice how the genre got trapped in the evolutionary dead end it is currently in, and then start to develop something new with the same principles. But don't expect this to happen before a few years.

RIP Wildstar.

[SturmChurro]

If vanilla wow is sucessful in the long run maybe some developper will look back at things and notice how the genre got trapped in the evolutionary dead end it is currently in, and then start to develop something new with the same principles. But don't expect this to happen before a few years.

I'm not seeing it, classic WoW certainly has boosted WoW's subscribers a significant amount, but classic I think is a big gimmick. It will probably keep a fair few dedicated players, there is definitly a demand with so many people playing on those private servers, but I think the mass audience will fade fairly quickly. I'd say within a few weeks to a couple months at most. Even with the patches to come.

Personally I hate sandbox MMO's and prefer themepark mmorpgs. I prefer a game that has more structure and a set path, rather than "make your own fun". They need to find a perfect balance between class identity;unique play, and the true "balance" they are going for. While we will never get truly what you want in this game. It would require a complete overhaul of everything, and probably the introduction of support classes. I however do think they could probably do more with their encounter designs within the bounds they have chosen. Personally, I think the dungeon design is fine, however I think they should also add more varied content, or rather, more content in general. The structure is too simple, and more would be better. As it is, it's throwaway dungeon, trial, extreme, savage.

Making the classes more homogenized is a side-effect of them simply trying to lessen their workload, in my opinion.