However, can those “twitch” situations still not be effective without being fully reliant on a literal twitch factor? For instance, progression of power for the player can simply mean advanced customization and increasing ranges of options as well as a low progression of overall power level.

Things would get tricky, but it only comes down to long nights for the designers creating boss encounters that require the utilization of the sideways expansion of player power. I’m highly confident that it could be done without requiring people to set up intricate macros, always use voice chat, and become a crack MMO strike team.

Something as simple as:

A skill based (as opposed to level based) game with several separate magic schools available to the player. Obviously none of these are highly superior to the other, but player progression would possibly dictate naturally that eventually elder players completely skill up more and more of these magic schools.

End game boss encounters could be based in group size limited instances, and, for example, require a certain amount of Fire DPS that demands much of all of the group be well versed in the school of Fire magic.

The encounter then changes somehow, whether by the boss altering itself or new factors being added, and now requires that most or all of the players in the group are high in the Water Magic skill – or else the encounter will be near impossible to complete successfully.

Such a thing could be done with little or no reliance on a player’s actual level of competency toward twitch-based play. Slowly with lots of dialogue if you like. However, it does require a time investment in sideways progression. In this particular example, I’d probably add some gameplay elements that made it fun and, I dunno, “make sense” to people to keep adding new time-expensive skills to their repertoire. Both “lore”ish reasons for a vague background logical comfort, and probably “fun” reasons like getting new “shadowform-esque” forms to change into that allow casting of multiple schools of magic at once, giving various bonuses to schools of magic when cast, or just looking Very Bad Ass. Whatever.

But no matter what, where the main goal of “low power progression” games is achieved and yet you still want to be mindful of the fact that you’re attempting to not exclude everyone but 20-something males (and I would never be, as I’ve pulled that stunt before and regretted it), design direction may become seemingly muddied. But there’s always going to be a way to work around that. And the answer is generally always probably fairly simple.

But the catch-22 for mainstream MMOs is that if you make opponents too unpredictable, many of your players can’t react fast enough. In a realtime game like an MMO, you can’t create more than a few high-stress “twitch” situations, or else your audience of 40-year-old-plus players are going to have a very hard time keeping up. (And yes, the 35+ gamer crowd is plenty big enough to deserve attention, if you’re going for as big an audience as possible.)

Now, in an MMOFPS, which has an inherently narrower audience (of mostly young males with good reflexes), I’d encourage just that: less raw power difference between levels, and more breadth of options as you level up. Making the opponents require more and more reflex ability is a GOOD thing in an MMOFPS, rather than something to be avoided. So I think it all comes back to what your audience can handle and what your game goals are.

So am I. The problem is that combat is understood by most people and it’s a single system to create. Trying to create other systems takes a lot of time and effort, and you run the risk that people won’t understand it. Also, combat is one of the few things that players don’t seem to mind doing over and over again.

I did a Weekend Design Challenge on non-combat gameplay you might want to read: http://www.psychochild.org/?p=292

Steel wrote:
Again, human intelligence. No MMO requires this to my knowledge.

I heard a great quote once, “If thinking were easy, everyone would do it.”

Part of the problem is that the people who want to really think are few and far between. I run with a fun group of friends in WoW, and we enjoy trying to figure out new encounters. If we run with other people, they tend to get a bit impatient because we’re not doing things the “most efficient way”. Many other people want to look up the info on a site and duplicate what other people have done before. I think this is what Eric is talking about with scripted encounters. There are a few people that tackle the new content and figure out the system, then that gets shared with the majority of people who just try to duplicate that success. Of course, sometimes even my friends and I get impatient and just look up the answers, too, if we feel it’s taking too much time.

The core issue here is player control. The problem with the Drudges going and getting help wasn’t the fact that they got help, but rather the fact that the players could probably do very little to stop it. If my only option was to liquefy the Drudge before he got help, and if I have no realistic possibility of doing that, then the encounter is going to suck. However, if the players can make a choice to keep the upper hand, then the encounter is more fun. For example, a character without incredible damage potential could anticipate when the Drudge would run for help and then do something to keep him in place, it would be a more fun encounter. Giving the player and interesting choice (“Should I stun/root/hold/whatever it now, or try to do another round of damage?”) makes the encounter more interesting.

There’s reasons why this type of approach isn’t taken. Briefly, some developers will think that if a behavior can be countered, then why create the behavior in the first place? It’s the sin of unused content. I think there’s also the problem that in most cases, stun/root/hold/whatever mechanics tend to suck in most games and tend to viewed as overpowered if they are at all effective.

In the end, the true purpose of AI is to make the game more fun. But, while this is easy to say, it’s much harder to do in practice.

My thoughts.

Games aren’t smart enough these days. I blame stupid devs who can’t think outside the box. Eric brings up a good point, a 10% chance to run and grab Big Joe is much better than 50 more hp. This is because it’s something that can be overcome with more than just a level or a move, it can be overcome with human intelligence. The only hard games I’ve seen are only hard because of stat differences, NEVER because of tactical differences.

Again, human intelligence. No MMO requires this to my knowledge. Very few console games do now. Last I checked, games were supposed to be fun because they’re a challenge, not because you enjoy watching numbers go up and your suit of armor become increasingly gaudy, but they aren’t. If you have a hard time in an mmo, it’s because you’re not high enough level or don’t have the right gear.

What I’m really interested in, though, is concepts of how to advance without combat? Devs seem to want to craft more “realistic” or at least have more depth in their virtual worlds, and players such as myself crave exactly that, yet we’re still stuck in the neandertholic “it turns out that violence *is* in fact the best solution to all problems.”

In many cases, giving a monster a 10% chance to run for help (or whatever) is a lot more fun than giving the monster 50 more health points. But it has to be in moderation — a special event, basically — or the game’s overall difficulty will be too high and people will get discouraged by their constant deaths.

I rarely get the impression I’m fighting an intelligent foe when said foes just around with no purpose in the world other than waiting on players to attack it, then just standing there playing Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em Robots combat.