http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/12...-the-new-year/
http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/in...mber-2012.677/
Design Update - December 2012
Discussion in 'Developer Roundtable' started by Moorgard, Yesterday at 5:34 PM.
.
Hello Telonians,
It's been almost three months since I joined the Vanguard team, and I've really enjoyed my time here. As I mentioned when I came on board, I had been an occasional players since the days of beta, but this is the first time I've delved so deeply into the game. There is a lot of depth in Vanguard, and it's easy to see why so many of you have stayed so passionate about it for the nearly six years of its existence.
As we prepare to celebrate the holidays, I'd like to go over some of the initiatives we have planned that we think will improve the game as we go forward. Change doesn't happen overnight, but our team loves Vanguard and is committed to making it more stable, polished, and fun.
Performance
It's no secret that one of the big issues that has plagued the game since its launch is performance. While today's PCs allow Vanguard to run pretty well on modern hardware, server performance--especially in raid situations--remains a problem.
Hobart has made many fixes and optimizations that have improved performance in the last few months, but it became clear that more drastic steps were required. As he mentioned in his own thread, Hobart has begun ripping out the old network layers of the game and is incorporating modern tech that is used in other SOE titles. This should bring a lot more stability, and will give us better tools and information to isolate problem areas. It's a huge undertaking, but it's worth the investment. You should see the fruits of these efforts arrive early next year.
Polish
I'd be willing to bet that Vanguard had more content at its launch than any other major MMO had at its release. Even today, after a number of smaller content updates but no major expansions, Vanguard still has more places to go and things to do than many other games.
Unfortunately, it's not quantity alone that holds an audience over the long term, but quality of content. And quality is one of the places that Vanguard has always been most lacking. Bugs, poor implementation, and overcomplicated design have hindered wider acceptance of the game.
We can't change the past. What we can do is make our best effort to improve things going forward.
The main point I've tried to emphasize since joining the team is improving the quality of content in Vanguard. We've squashed a ton of longstanding bugs, and made tweaks both major and minor to the game that have improved the overall experience. We're certainly not perfect; we have a team that works really hard, but we make our share of mistakes. An additional factor is that our tools and tech often pose challenges when it comes to reliably and predictably getting content into the game. I know you've heard that a lot, and it may seem like we're making excuses, but please believe me when I say that we're as frustrated as you are when things unexpectedly go wrong. This team is able to achieve more with stone knives and bearskins than many other teams with much more robust and reliable tools. We'll keep doing our best and hopefully we will get better and better as we go forward.
We will continue to fix and polish existing content in an effort to make it as smooth as possible for new players to come into the game.
New Content
Even after the recent launch of City of Brass, our veteran players need more new content. The next zone we will roll out for high-end players is Pankor Zhi, which begins a storyline that will carry forward into future content. The team is really enthused about revisiting this under-utilized area and adding a compelling new experience to the game.
Pankor Zhi will feature content for soloers, groups, and raids. Obviously this is an ambitious undertaking, but we feel we have a realistic scope that can be achieved with our team.
?Solo - We want to add a new path for post-50 players working toward the level cap. Solo content won't be the focus of this zone, but we have space to add enough of it to help players along who have found their options limited. The intent is to make this content rich and rewarding, centered around the story of what's going on in this zone.
?Group - Group content will make up the bulk of this release, since the interior of Pankor Zhi is well suited for this style of play. Our goal is to offer group encounters that help gear up players who haven't completed Pantheon content, while also providing a new path for those who have. (I'll go into this more in a bit.)
?Raid - For those who master the group content, Pankor Zhi will offer multiple raid encounters. We really want to push the level of challenge here, giving guilds fun fights that reward perseverance.
Obviously this is a lot of content. Rather than hold it back until every bit is complete and tested, we'll be rolling it out in phases. The solo and some group content will come first, which will set the stage for what's going on in the storyline. Later we'll roll out more group content and introduce raid targets.
But as much as we love our veteran players, we need content geared toward lower-level players as well. We've been working on a revamp to the Lomshir area, polishing existing content and adding new stuff to do starting at level 10. This progression will take players through Lomshir Plain and Hag's Coastline, freshening up some classic content. We plan to makeover other former starting areas, perhaps targeting other level ranges that could use a burst of new content. Look for the Lomshir revamp to hit Test server in January.
Character Progression
Those of you who have been at the level cap for some time, or who will be reaching it shortly, obviously want new goals to achieve.
Unfortunately, character progression in Vanguard has been haphazardly designed and inconsistently implemented. Players reached stat caps far too quickly, and rather than address the core issues, new systems were piled atop old ones. What this amounts to is that, in the current implementation, we have very little headroom to offer improved item rewards that make sense, and the only option some players have to improve their characters is to ignore core stats and chase off-stats for marginal improvements.
While a complete overhaul of stats and gear would be wonderful, we don't have the bandwidth to do that. So we're targeting some achievable changes that should open up the game going forward.
First off, we will be changing or removing certain stat caps and combat formulas so that we can open up item progression that makes sense. We want you to once again benefit from improving the key stats of your class, and we want to be able to get a tighter rein on how certain parts of combat work--giving us all some much-needed breathing space. I won't rule out reducing the potency of a few overpowered elements of the game, but we'll do our best to keep such impact minimal. We're not out to nerf the game or take away anyone's fun, but some sacrifices may need to be made for the overall health of the game.
Secondly, we will offer new strata of gear for players to acquire. Solo, small group, and group players who have not obtained Pantheon gear and other desirable items will have paths toward equipment that, while not at the potency of Pantheon rewards in all respects, will prepare them for the more challenging content that well-geared players are already suited for. Then those players will, in turn, have new goals to achieve with gear obtained through grouping that will prepare them for new raid content.
The intent is that all players, even the most decked-out of our veterans, will need to acquire new gear to be successful at the top end of Pankor Zhi. We'll roll out details on how we plan to do that as we get further into development, but I can say that it will not be through increasing the level cap.
The Pantheon line will remain desirable, especially as the way to achieve your epic weapon enhancement. We just don't want PotA to be the only path to awesome gear.
(continued below)
Crafting and Diplomacy
Diplomacy and crafting are two spheres of advancement that make Vanguard unique, and I don't want anyone to think we've turned our back on these very important facets of the game. Unfortunately these are very complex systems with a myriad of intertwined elements, and we don't have as much experience on the team making these types of content as we do in creating new adventuring content.
Nevertheless, we remain committed to these styles of gameplay. An important step is improving the introduction to both these spheres. On the Isle of Dawn and in our other starting areas, the first exposure to both crafting and diplomacy is overwhelming and a bit confusing. We want to streamline the introduction to these spheres and hopefully get more players to stick with them.
Long term, we'd like to continue the saga quests for both crafters and diplomats so that there is compelling content for them all the way to max level. This would be an ambitious undertaking, and we don't have the resources for it right now. But hopefully if we can polish the core systems and get more players interested in them, we'll be able to make an investment worthy of these unique aspects of the game.
Crafting content for City of Brass will be in testing soon. Realistically with the staff we have, this method of rolling out crafting and diplomacy into new or revised zones after we work on the adventuring content is the path we'll take for the foreseeable future.
Free to Play
Coinciding with Vanguard's sixth anniversary at the end of January, you'll be seeing some pretty substantial improvements to our free-to-play model. Our marketing folks don't want me to go into specifics just yet so that we can maximize the amount of exposure we get around the time of the anniversary, so you'll just have to take my word for it that these changes are very exciting.
Our goal is simple: Make the full depth and breadth of Vanguard as open as possible to our free players, while rewarding members with compelling incentives that make membership a great value. Instead of looking at the game and saying "What should we take away from free players?" we ask "How can we make the game truly free yet even more fun and awesome for our members?" I think this is a much healthier approach for Vanguard's future.
Philosophy
I realize this treatise is getting a bit wordy (okay, so it passed "wordy" about a thousand words ago), but I'd like to close by talking about the philosophy behind the current team's work on Vanguard.
I specify "the current team" because I can only speak for us. There have been a number of creative teams working on the game throughout its development and after its launch, and each of those groups had differing approaches to solving problems. Most of the time those philosophies weren't documented well, if at all, and I want to do that here so you can understand the decisions we make in Vanguard's development.
When approaching game design, it's useful to boil down your philosophies into a few key elements that are easily digested by new people coming onto the team. A mission statement, for example, is a useful way to distill the core ideas of what the design is trying to achieve.
Another such tool is a group of design razors, concepts that are foundational to the spirit of the project. When you need to make a decision about the game, you use these razors to cut to the heart of the problem and guide yourself down the path you feel most stays true to the essence of the game.
After joining the Vanguard team, I spent a lot of time studying and reading about the game--both the reality of what it is as well as the original goal of what it was intended to be. I distilled all this down into four razors:
? Fun - This one is pretty self-explanatory. First and foremost, the game needs to be fun to play. People tend to invest time and money in games that are fun.
? Quality - I touched on this earlier. We need to hold Vanguard's content to a higher standard of quality. This doesn't mean it's perfect, but it has to meet a certain bar.
? Challenge - One of the things that sets Vanguard apart from other MMOs is the level of challenge required to play it. We shouldn't be afraid of making content that demands more of our players than other games of this type--and we should emphasize challenge which requires cooperation.
? Accessibility - The content we make should not be gated by bugs, poor interface design, and other inscrutable barriers. The path to enjoying fun, quality, and challenging content should be clear of needless roadblocks.
If you consider these razors, you see they don't always align. Fun and quality get along well, but challenge and accessibility soon get into conflict. This is the intent. Game design isn't about having a clear and obvious answer; it's about considering your goals and making the best judgment you can about how to proceed.
Challenge and accessibility often compete. Even the terms themselves--all four terms, really--are subjective and thus open to interpretation. This is what makes game design an art rather than a science.
One particular player's definition of challenge will likely be different from another's, and will often be different from my own. Take, for example, recent changes we've made to certain high-end faction gains and item costs. When we reduced them, some players argued that we were taking away challenge from Vanguard.
My belief is that grinds which serve only as barriers to core content are not a viable substitute for fun or challenging gameplay. They represented a certain investment of time, to be sure, and that investment has been perceived by some players as a rite of passage to separate the dedicated from the less so. If everyone got through that content the same way, I'd be more likely to sympathize; however, the number who sat AFK while someone else kited, or who exploited dupes and other unintended shortcuts, is not insignificant. Another factor in our decision was the age of the content; I think it's simply time to let newer players progress through older content at a faster rate so that we have a larger population of players at the high end who are geared up to experience the game's most challenging content--including that which is to come.
(One other point I want to clarify: I am not against optional grinds for non-essential rewards. Someone willing to grind faction to achieve a rare set of clothing, or to become friendly with a certain NPC population--those are fun optional paths that are interesting to have in the game. I'm mostly targeting grinds that block off the game's core content progression.)
My point is that each design decision requires a different application of the razors. Sometimes challenge wins out; other times accessibility. That may seem inconsistent to some, but it's about considering the options. Your razors only help you reach a conclusion, they don't make the conclusion for you.
I've mentioned before that I was charged with maintaining the "old school RPG feel" of Vanguard. Some of you have asked how I define that. Well, the concept wasn't defined for me, either--something else open to interpretation. I won't bother trying to write out an iron-clad definition, because I think that it--like the design razors--has different weight depending on the circumstances.
To me, that old-school feel is about challenge, first and foremost. Content that pushes you, that doesn't have all the conveniences of newer MMOs. And it's okay if time is part of that equation, so long as that time is spent trying to overcome a challenge that's really, really hard (as opposed to mindlessly killing the same mobs over and over and over and over trying to reach some ghastly quota or find some stingy quest drop).
That old-school feel is about experiencing butt-kicking content that's fun to play, delivered in a polished fashion, and free from needless complexity that gets in the way of enjoyment. That's the kind of game I want to make, and hopefully the type of game you want to play.
And Speaking of Conclusions.
Okay, that's it--I promise! Thanks for reading. (Can you believe I made it all the way through without referencing "The Vision" even once?)
I hope you have a safe and prosperous conclusion to 2012, and may we all enjoy a healthy and happy 2013.
Moorgard
http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/in...mber-2012.677/
Design Update - December 2012
Discussion in 'Developer Roundtable' started by Moorgard, Yesterday at 5:34 PM.
.
Hello Telonians,
It's been almost three months since I joined the Vanguard team, and I've really enjoyed my time here. As I mentioned when I came on board, I had been an occasional players since the days of beta, but this is the first time I've delved so deeply into the game. There is a lot of depth in Vanguard, and it's easy to see why so many of you have stayed so passionate about it for the nearly six years of its existence.
As we prepare to celebrate the holidays, I'd like to go over some of the initiatives we have planned that we think will improve the game as we go forward. Change doesn't happen overnight, but our team loves Vanguard and is committed to making it more stable, polished, and fun.
Performance
It's no secret that one of the big issues that has plagued the game since its launch is performance. While today's PCs allow Vanguard to run pretty well on modern hardware, server performance--especially in raid situations--remains a problem.
Hobart has made many fixes and optimizations that have improved performance in the last few months, but it became clear that more drastic steps were required. As he mentioned in his own thread, Hobart has begun ripping out the old network layers of the game and is incorporating modern tech that is used in other SOE titles. This should bring a lot more stability, and will give us better tools and information to isolate problem areas. It's a huge undertaking, but it's worth the investment. You should see the fruits of these efforts arrive early next year.
Polish
I'd be willing to bet that Vanguard had more content at its launch than any other major MMO had at its release. Even today, after a number of smaller content updates but no major expansions, Vanguard still has more places to go and things to do than many other games.
Unfortunately, it's not quantity alone that holds an audience over the long term, but quality of content. And quality is one of the places that Vanguard has always been most lacking. Bugs, poor implementation, and overcomplicated design have hindered wider acceptance of the game.
We can't change the past. What we can do is make our best effort to improve things going forward.
The main point I've tried to emphasize since joining the team is improving the quality of content in Vanguard. We've squashed a ton of longstanding bugs, and made tweaks both major and minor to the game that have improved the overall experience. We're certainly not perfect; we have a team that works really hard, but we make our share of mistakes. An additional factor is that our tools and tech often pose challenges when it comes to reliably and predictably getting content into the game. I know you've heard that a lot, and it may seem like we're making excuses, but please believe me when I say that we're as frustrated as you are when things unexpectedly go wrong. This team is able to achieve more with stone knives and bearskins than many other teams with much more robust and reliable tools. We'll keep doing our best and hopefully we will get better and better as we go forward.
We will continue to fix and polish existing content in an effort to make it as smooth as possible for new players to come into the game.
New Content
Even after the recent launch of City of Brass, our veteran players need more new content. The next zone we will roll out for high-end players is Pankor Zhi, which begins a storyline that will carry forward into future content. The team is really enthused about revisiting this under-utilized area and adding a compelling new experience to the game.
Pankor Zhi will feature content for soloers, groups, and raids. Obviously this is an ambitious undertaking, but we feel we have a realistic scope that can be achieved with our team.
?Solo - We want to add a new path for post-50 players working toward the level cap. Solo content won't be the focus of this zone, but we have space to add enough of it to help players along who have found their options limited. The intent is to make this content rich and rewarding, centered around the story of what's going on in this zone.
?Group - Group content will make up the bulk of this release, since the interior of Pankor Zhi is well suited for this style of play. Our goal is to offer group encounters that help gear up players who haven't completed Pantheon content, while also providing a new path for those who have. (I'll go into this more in a bit.)
?Raid - For those who master the group content, Pankor Zhi will offer multiple raid encounters. We really want to push the level of challenge here, giving guilds fun fights that reward perseverance.
Obviously this is a lot of content. Rather than hold it back until every bit is complete and tested, we'll be rolling it out in phases. The solo and some group content will come first, which will set the stage for what's going on in the storyline. Later we'll roll out more group content and introduce raid targets.
But as much as we love our veteran players, we need content geared toward lower-level players as well. We've been working on a revamp to the Lomshir area, polishing existing content and adding new stuff to do starting at level 10. This progression will take players through Lomshir Plain and Hag's Coastline, freshening up some classic content. We plan to makeover other former starting areas, perhaps targeting other level ranges that could use a burst of new content. Look for the Lomshir revamp to hit Test server in January.
Character Progression
Those of you who have been at the level cap for some time, or who will be reaching it shortly, obviously want new goals to achieve.
Unfortunately, character progression in Vanguard has been haphazardly designed and inconsistently implemented. Players reached stat caps far too quickly, and rather than address the core issues, new systems were piled atop old ones. What this amounts to is that, in the current implementation, we have very little headroom to offer improved item rewards that make sense, and the only option some players have to improve their characters is to ignore core stats and chase off-stats for marginal improvements.
While a complete overhaul of stats and gear would be wonderful, we don't have the bandwidth to do that. So we're targeting some achievable changes that should open up the game going forward.
First off, we will be changing or removing certain stat caps and combat formulas so that we can open up item progression that makes sense. We want you to once again benefit from improving the key stats of your class, and we want to be able to get a tighter rein on how certain parts of combat work--giving us all some much-needed breathing space. I won't rule out reducing the potency of a few overpowered elements of the game, but we'll do our best to keep such impact minimal. We're not out to nerf the game or take away anyone's fun, but some sacrifices may need to be made for the overall health of the game.
Secondly, we will offer new strata of gear for players to acquire. Solo, small group, and group players who have not obtained Pantheon gear and other desirable items will have paths toward equipment that, while not at the potency of Pantheon rewards in all respects, will prepare them for the more challenging content that well-geared players are already suited for. Then those players will, in turn, have new goals to achieve with gear obtained through grouping that will prepare them for new raid content.
The intent is that all players, even the most decked-out of our veterans, will need to acquire new gear to be successful at the top end of Pankor Zhi. We'll roll out details on how we plan to do that as we get further into development, but I can say that it will not be through increasing the level cap.
The Pantheon line will remain desirable, especially as the way to achieve your epic weapon enhancement. We just don't want PotA to be the only path to awesome gear.
(continued below)
Crafting and Diplomacy
Diplomacy and crafting are two spheres of advancement that make Vanguard unique, and I don't want anyone to think we've turned our back on these very important facets of the game. Unfortunately these are very complex systems with a myriad of intertwined elements, and we don't have as much experience on the team making these types of content as we do in creating new adventuring content.
Nevertheless, we remain committed to these styles of gameplay. An important step is improving the introduction to both these spheres. On the Isle of Dawn and in our other starting areas, the first exposure to both crafting and diplomacy is overwhelming and a bit confusing. We want to streamline the introduction to these spheres and hopefully get more players to stick with them.
Long term, we'd like to continue the saga quests for both crafters and diplomats so that there is compelling content for them all the way to max level. This would be an ambitious undertaking, and we don't have the resources for it right now. But hopefully if we can polish the core systems and get more players interested in them, we'll be able to make an investment worthy of these unique aspects of the game.
Crafting content for City of Brass will be in testing soon. Realistically with the staff we have, this method of rolling out crafting and diplomacy into new or revised zones after we work on the adventuring content is the path we'll take for the foreseeable future.
Free to Play
Coinciding with Vanguard's sixth anniversary at the end of January, you'll be seeing some pretty substantial improvements to our free-to-play model. Our marketing folks don't want me to go into specifics just yet so that we can maximize the amount of exposure we get around the time of the anniversary, so you'll just have to take my word for it that these changes are very exciting.
Our goal is simple: Make the full depth and breadth of Vanguard as open as possible to our free players, while rewarding members with compelling incentives that make membership a great value. Instead of looking at the game and saying "What should we take away from free players?" we ask "How can we make the game truly free yet even more fun and awesome for our members?" I think this is a much healthier approach for Vanguard's future.
Philosophy
I realize this treatise is getting a bit wordy (okay, so it passed "wordy" about a thousand words ago), but I'd like to close by talking about the philosophy behind the current team's work on Vanguard.
I specify "the current team" because I can only speak for us. There have been a number of creative teams working on the game throughout its development and after its launch, and each of those groups had differing approaches to solving problems. Most of the time those philosophies weren't documented well, if at all, and I want to do that here so you can understand the decisions we make in Vanguard's development.
When approaching game design, it's useful to boil down your philosophies into a few key elements that are easily digested by new people coming onto the team. A mission statement, for example, is a useful way to distill the core ideas of what the design is trying to achieve.
Another such tool is a group of design razors, concepts that are foundational to the spirit of the project. When you need to make a decision about the game, you use these razors to cut to the heart of the problem and guide yourself down the path you feel most stays true to the essence of the game.
After joining the Vanguard team, I spent a lot of time studying and reading about the game--both the reality of what it is as well as the original goal of what it was intended to be. I distilled all this down into four razors:
? Fun - This one is pretty self-explanatory. First and foremost, the game needs to be fun to play. People tend to invest time and money in games that are fun.
? Quality - I touched on this earlier. We need to hold Vanguard's content to a higher standard of quality. This doesn't mean it's perfect, but it has to meet a certain bar.
? Challenge - One of the things that sets Vanguard apart from other MMOs is the level of challenge required to play it. We shouldn't be afraid of making content that demands more of our players than other games of this type--and we should emphasize challenge which requires cooperation.
? Accessibility - The content we make should not be gated by bugs, poor interface design, and other inscrutable barriers. The path to enjoying fun, quality, and challenging content should be clear of needless roadblocks.
If you consider these razors, you see they don't always align. Fun and quality get along well, but challenge and accessibility soon get into conflict. This is the intent. Game design isn't about having a clear and obvious answer; it's about considering your goals and making the best judgment you can about how to proceed.
Challenge and accessibility often compete. Even the terms themselves--all four terms, really--are subjective and thus open to interpretation. This is what makes game design an art rather than a science.
One particular player's definition of challenge will likely be different from another's, and will often be different from my own. Take, for example, recent changes we've made to certain high-end faction gains and item costs. When we reduced them, some players argued that we were taking away challenge from Vanguard.
My belief is that grinds which serve only as barriers to core content are not a viable substitute for fun or challenging gameplay. They represented a certain investment of time, to be sure, and that investment has been perceived by some players as a rite of passage to separate the dedicated from the less so. If everyone got through that content the same way, I'd be more likely to sympathize; however, the number who sat AFK while someone else kited, or who exploited dupes and other unintended shortcuts, is not insignificant. Another factor in our decision was the age of the content; I think it's simply time to let newer players progress through older content at a faster rate so that we have a larger population of players at the high end who are geared up to experience the game's most challenging content--including that which is to come.
(One other point I want to clarify: I am not against optional grinds for non-essential rewards. Someone willing to grind faction to achieve a rare set of clothing, or to become friendly with a certain NPC population--those are fun optional paths that are interesting to have in the game. I'm mostly targeting grinds that block off the game's core content progression.)
My point is that each design decision requires a different application of the razors. Sometimes challenge wins out; other times accessibility. That may seem inconsistent to some, but it's about considering the options. Your razors only help you reach a conclusion, they don't make the conclusion for you.
I've mentioned before that I was charged with maintaining the "old school RPG feel" of Vanguard. Some of you have asked how I define that. Well, the concept wasn't defined for me, either--something else open to interpretation. I won't bother trying to write out an iron-clad definition, because I think that it--like the design razors--has different weight depending on the circumstances.
To me, that old-school feel is about challenge, first and foremost. Content that pushes you, that doesn't have all the conveniences of newer MMOs. And it's okay if time is part of that equation, so long as that time is spent trying to overcome a challenge that's really, really hard (as opposed to mindlessly killing the same mobs over and over and over and over trying to reach some ghastly quota or find some stingy quest drop).
That old-school feel is about experiencing butt-kicking content that's fun to play, delivered in a polished fashion, and free from needless complexity that gets in the way of enjoyment. That's the kind of game I want to make, and hopefully the type of game you want to play.
And Speaking of Conclusions.
Okay, that's it--I promise! Thanks for reading. (Can you believe I made it all the way through without referencing "The Vision" even once?)
I hope you have a safe and prosperous conclusion to 2012, and may we all enjoy a healthy and happy 2013.
Moorgard
