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View Full Version : Player Motivation - Carrots on a Stick



Oxlazr
10-11-2017, 03:11 AM
I'm curious - what keeps a player playing? It seems to vary from person to person.

Initially, for the majority of players, it's likely the level grind - but once you're max level, then what? Level new skills and repeat the process?

Or perhaps you're waiting for a new race so you don't have to repeat your progress after sampling the game?

For me, at least, after messing about at the level cap of 50 for quite sometime - whenever the level cap increases, the process feels rather trivial, almost as if I'm repeating what I've already done at level 50 but with different monsters. Eventually, I might acquire a full yellow set, trivialise the content and wait for the next bump in the road to come along - yet, after repeating this process once or twice, I tend to just dispose of my gear and move on as best I can.

It eventually becomes apparent that this isn't the end game, and we're putting in a lot of time/effort into getting the best lv70 (currently) gear which will soon be replaced - a pretty common trend in MMOs, but the feeling of progression feels vague at best.

Likewise, as soon as that next wave of content is released, the level cap increases - two things happen - firstly, some skills outright get left behind (regarding level caps), but more importantly - a lot of the older content becomes.. irrelevant, almost - beyond the occasional trip for a specific purpose (such as the wolf quest for Dark Chapel).

Anyway, to each their own; if they want to min-max at each level bracket, that's okay. It helps find "broken" builds and should, in theory, help the long-term balance of the game - but that's not what I want to address here.

Somewhere along the way, the sense of wonder, intrigue and amazement is lost. In the past, I've attempted to rally players for fresh-character challenges, though I've come to realise this won't likely ever work due to how much of a time investment a player's main character can have behind it.

So I think we need to look at a new approach - I mention this now because of Halloween. Last year, Halloween largely yielded an entire yellow equipment set. I hung around, farmed some bosses, got the set, then eventually ditched it. It had very little lasting significance, but I enjoyed getting the set regardless.

More importantly, limited-time goodies - such as the fireworks guide, or the spooky punch, felt like vastly superior rewards than the short-lived equipment. This is largely because of where the game is right now - going from beta to launch, most of this equipment will be lost. Each time the level cap increases, the gear you may have spent months acquiring and tweaking - will quickly become irrelevant.

I think, then, at this stage in Project Gorgon's life cycle, we need to see more.. well, fun stuff - for lack of better words.

For example, the Purple Fire Wall, the various Druid forms, and even unexpected shapeshifts - like the Giant Bat & Bunny - are interesting additions to the game. They seem to get - well, me at least - excited and engaged once more. That initial motivation I'd have as a new player was immediately rekindled.

So what would I like to see to keep players engaged, especially at the end of the road?

Well, I'm not sure - but I can think of some examples.

Example One: Factions

Each week, a faction will ask you to kill a certain number of bosses; you earn currency for doing so.

Example Two: Diminishing Returns Tokens

Each day, some sort of token drops randomly from all monsters within a certain level range of your currently equipped skills. The amount starts off high - but decays as you acquire those items. Unique boss kills have a higher drop rate, and bosses/monsters in higher tier dungeons have more token drops.

Example Three: Treasure Cartography

Instead of finding maps and leveling treasure cartography through what is essentially surveying, you'll instead find map fragments via foraging or fighting, which you can combine to craft a map - which leads to unique treasure, often within dungeons.

These are just some quick ideas, the actual methodology itself is irrelevant, more-so I'm interested in the sort of rewards we can get.
Importantly, RNG should be used, however, you should also receive a currency or "fail stack" which makes getting rare goodies more likely over time.

At any-rate, the rewards shouldn't be something you can reliably get quickly, but should be varied and interesting - see the above Purple Firewall, but this could include things like cosmetic hats, costumes, alternative animal skins - anything that has a lasting usefulness beyond equipment.

I apologise for the rambling mess of words, but hopefully that's made some sort of sense - I'd really like that motivation to get out and do stuff to come back - and more importantly, for other players to get on board with things like dungeons and such; right now, everything end-game related feels fairly tedious and repetitive knowing that it'll largely be for naught.

Consequently, I find the early-game much more engaging & exciting as you struggle through the world.

Erthiel
10-11-2017, 04:02 AM
My motivation is exploration. In the beginning when I started, every time I reached a new map, I used to run all over the place. Searching every place, looking for NPCs and interesting locations. All of the hidded stuff. Searching for and discovering new skills, hidden locations and machanics was fun. Talking to random new NPC and reading their stories and their background. All of the little things which make the game seem like a tiny new world. There has not been new addition of this type of content in a while. Adding some new skills helps, but that does not necessarily mean I will start raising them once I get them.

I am happy with my main 2 combat skills. One thing I am concerned about is that. Once you have all the base abilities for your combat skill. You basicly have to stick with them until lvl 100+. (that is unless you start different combat skill) The only thing which changes about them is the dmg and mods. It would be fun to get some extra new abilities only for the higher tiers of that skills. E.g. at lvl 70 you get new knife ability "shadow slash" which is not available before then and it improves after few lvls as usual. At lvl 80 or 90 sth new as well. But it is some new change to the skill. Paying every few lvls to have a stronger version of the same ability from beginning to end is boring. Your suggestiong of visual effect change might help :P

After visiting most places, I am now mainly focusing on slow development of my crafting skills and 3rd combat skill just not to waste the exp opportunity while getting stuff. I don't have much time to play, but when I can, I just work on one or two skills to get to the next lvl. I have been raising Leatherworking, cooking and others for months and it's exting nearing the point when I'll be able to craft myself a full set of amazing winter armour for my lvl :D All I am missing is funds for the recipes and resources to atually craft sth now :P I am nowhere near the level of people who grind and raise every single skill to max. I don't have much resources nor councils. But I enjoy moving from skill to skill and every day working for a few minutes on sth new.
Repetitive stuff is not really my thing, killing the same monsters, or repeating the same quests, or killing monsters just for resources or money is not fun for me. If there were quests like kill 100 of sth I would probably never do them.

I like your idea of treasure cartography.

Cowinator
10-11-2017, 05:10 AM
Honestly, I haven't thought about gear upgrades in a year or two. When the cap was 50, I had a great set, but since i know it keeps getting raised, I don't really bother with the gear. Knowing that it will be replaced will have me in that mindset until there is a max level cap gearset and then I'll work toward that end set.

I'll come around to explore and experience the new additions that the updates bring, see and talk to old friends and moo around town.

I also really enjoy the themed and festivity event items. That is especially fun to me, too.

Oxlazr
10-11-2017, 05:32 AM
Honestly, I haven't thought about gear upgrades in a year or two. When the cap was 50, I had a great set, but since i know it keeps getting raised, I don't really bother with the gear. Knowing that it will be replaced will have me in that mindset until there is a max level cap gearset and then I'll work toward that end set.

I'll come around to explore and experience the new additions that the updates bring, see and talk to old friends and moo around town.

I also really enjoy the themed and festivity event items. That is especially fun to me, too.

As far as working towards things, especially event items, I'd rather get things like the cauldron recipes instead of equipment.

Hopefully we'll see more novelty stuff - for example, gender changing potions, character randomisers, race changing potions, other weird little gimmicky items.

Leodane
10-11-2017, 05:47 AM
There will always be a relative lack of content for invested, 4-hour-a-day players. That's just how games like this work - it's impossible for devs to dev fast enough, that's just the nature of computer games. It takes far longer to make a dungeon than to play a dungeon.

I'm coming from a background of having DMed on a neverwinter nights 2 persistent world server for several years. We got around this by giving players the tools to make their own content. PG is a fantastic sandbox for this, as none of the zones are gated behind locked sequential content. We just need to put a few more items/tools into the game that allow for customization (blank writeable notes and books, worthless renamable inventory kitsch that we can turn into McGuffins for player-driven quests, more reasons to do things like the Poetry readings.) If players can be empowered and incentivized to create content, the game will never grow stale.

The work-order system taps into this a little bit, but it's impersonal (not a bad thing, just not something people are going to tell stories about.) I played EQ for years, and the most memorable experience I had was a player-run quest designed by a guild for which we were rewarded some platinum and some fine steel weapons. We got interesting clues and we traveled all over Faydark collecting things, fighting monsters, and solving riddles. We were level 15 (out of 50 at the time,) maybe. It was ridiculously fun. I think PG is ripe for this, we just need some high-level (read: wealthy) players to take the initiative.

tl:dr; automated content isn't enough for a small, non-PvP indy game. Players need tools to make the game interesting for each other. PG has some mechanical systems in place, but players should take the creative initiative.

Zeiss
10-11-2017, 09:26 AM
Going along with your examples one and two, guild questing can and is another activity that yields some rewards and encourages groups/teamwork. If you're not part of a guild that is doing guild quest, I would recommend to anyone that wants to find more group content/rewards to find a guild or start one. A guild can complete 3 quest a week and there are 25 person and 50 quests.

Can't really comment on the rest as I'm still finding new things to learn/explore/craft/re-craft, accidentally destroy, craft/re-craft again.

*Can't wait for the Galuk guild quests...

Wemedge
10-11-2017, 06:33 PM
I'm pretty much a self starter when it comes to finding reasons for logging in. Goals like amassing a crazy amount of gold or maxing every skill keep me from getting bored. Not to say I wouldn't mind seeing some other things added to break up the routine. One thing I remember loving from EQ2 was the collectible system. Spent way more time than I'd like to admit finishing various collections in that game. And I guess at some point housing will give us something extra to play with as well. Even having random world or event bosses pop up from time to time would be a nice diversion. But no complaints so far.

Hood
10-13-2017, 06:43 AM
Vzi, I couldn't have said it better. When I started my last break from the game, more skills were being added, and I was in the middle of a long list of things to do. combat skills to level, new builds to make, loads of resources to farm, and an empty wallet.

I just got overwelmed, and I honestly haven't had the drive to log back in. I'm coming back for the Halloween and the new GUI but honestly, I'd need more interesting combat to stay.

Khaylara
10-13-2017, 04:12 PM
I rarely log these days and not because I finished the content. There are some new skills that I barely touched or not at all (I didn't find them exciting enough to level and I don't have the stamina to grind for cash endless hours just so I can buy these new skills and test them). As Hood put it there's monotony involved, after about level 50 the game becomes less exploration, more tedium. Small example-when Gazluk was added idk about others but I wasn't able to go check it out. I had to go back to lower dungeons, farm cash, lvl leatherworking some more, buy amazing winter coat recipes, gather materials, craft lvl appropriate winter set...it took me a couple of weeks to be able to pay that zone a proper visit.
Tbh I haven't even checked Serbule Hills properly, there's just more NPCs to gain favor with and more cash to unlock skills.

I feel that at some point playing revolves around just making money, doing a crapload or WOs so one can afford skills or favor items. I'd like to see way less of the making money part and way more exploration-skills that you can learn from scrolls hidden in dungeons, a random piece of epic gear from a treasure map (and yes, treasure cartography could use some work, I agree with Vzi there). At the moment I'm not really compelled to level anything simply because I'm sick of work orders, instead of snooping around orc camps in Gazluk and checking their tents I'm standing in Kur inn crafting 10 of this and 10 of that. Oh, and the endless decomposing to level augments. I would really like P:G to put less accent on grinding cash and more on the initial sense on wonder:)
I'd like to see more dungeons like Borghild (minus the bugs), with traps, maybe some puzzles to solve and maybe some lockpicks, mobs that guard treasure chests etc

In general terms I think lately the game became less challenging in some ways (see poetry, you can max now in 2 weeks, it took me over 2 years to do that) and more catering to a completionist, grinding happy type of player. There are such players but can't tell how many, I just know I'm not one of them:)

Oxlazr
10-13-2017, 05:32 PM
Zeiss

It's probably worth mentioning, and this is by no means intentional, that you can earn guild tokens without actually having to participate in the guild events just by logging in and idling in town while a mission was in progression. I've well over 600 tokens (as I recall) without having ever actually participated in a guild mission.

The system is deeply flawed.
Wemedge

There's different types of players, and I'd imagine Project Gorgon is a great game for people who want to do everything.

In my opinion, though, this isn't a good thing - at least in a MMO setting - and pushes the game towards a single-player experience - especially when skills synergise and offer additional stat bonuses, it just makes a huge amount of sense to "do everything yourself" and make your character extremely powerful so you can solo most of the group content. It's just practical - but it isn't healthy.

I'd default back to WoW here for comparison - I need X enchantment - Y character is an enchanter, so I'll go to them for help. I can craft leather goods, so they'll come to me when they need leather equipment. You look at other players as useful and unique; Project Gorgon doesn't have that - everyone can do everything and it quickly feels like an obligation rather than a choice. I think this ties into why animal forms feel so clunky right now - the game seems to expect you (even if not intentionally) to decurse eventually to level up various inaccessible crafting professions.

It's not something that's easily solved. You can't cater to both types of players easily.

I fear that inevitably the type of players who want to enjoy the journey will become overwhelmed by the amount of tedious secondary professions & constant obligation to level them all. Things like Holistic Wellness, and other min/max skills, will invariably kill off any motivation players will ever have to play alternative characters.

This seems unhealthy for the game, especially with new races coming out soon; why play at all now if your work is for naught when your desired race becomes playable? Likewise, why should you have to level to 30 to play a dwarf/fae if that progress is going to be worthless because you're likely never going to revisit your old character?

I've tried to make challenges for alts to give them some relevance, but the most common complaint I hear is people don't want to repeat what they've done on their main again.

Sorry, gone on a bit of a tangent here, and I could probably ramble on for awhile but I think that'll do for now. As it stands, for the average player Project Gorgon has 2-3 months worth of content due to the above unless you're a completionist.
Hood

I think a lot of the issues with combat is.. well, a lot of skillsets feel very "samey" for lack of a better word. For example, Mentalism/Psychology are basically the same thing; Necromancy feels like Animal Handling, Hammer & Cow share a lot of similarities.

There's some variation there, and I don't think combat itself is necessarily the problem; it's "good enough" for me, personally, but because most skillsets have a similar play-style, inevitably the majority of players are going to drift towards whichever skillset is perceived to be "the best" at the time, and whenever it's nerfed they'll move on to the next thing.

Again, due to the lack of value alts have, leveling a new combat skill usually entails either cheesing your way to max level, or having an overpowered character slowly kill monsters. Either way, it's not fun.

What would be interesting is if, for example, your alts could tutor your main in some capacity. I.e., Character A has 2x level 70 skills, you want to level a new combat skill - but doing so wouldn't be challenging nor fun because your character already has all these stat bonuses - gourmand, alchemy power increases, bonuses from endurance, holistic wellness - even as a level 1 knife fighter, all that's required of you to level it is a tedious grind.

If, however, your main character has Knife Fighting unlocked, you could instead "tutor" it to your alt, so they start with 1 knife fighting skill. Once they reach level 50, your main character would automatically have their knife fighting raised to 50 as well; they'd also gain a small amount of special currency for leveling it on a new character.

This is just a rough idea, but hopefully it expresses how it could work.

As it stands, if I wanted to level a new skill on my main, I'd be obliged to use animal handling and just power level it. Even if I were to switch to level 1 gear and level it as if I were a fresh character, my existing character already has far too many bonuses for it to ever be an actual challenge.
Khaylara

I'd really like the cash-economy focus to be shifted out a bit. I don't know why the game tended to that direction, as there's already enough capitalism simulators out there. I really hope we can use a personal currency for skills eventually, instead of gold.

Still somewhat salty that even as an animal I need to have a bunch of gold for some reason, as if a cow needs gold to spend.. could we not trade in grass? :(

But yeah, I'm really looking for reasons to play Project Gorgon, it was, and still is, my favourite MMO but I'm struggling to find motivation to keep playing. It sucks because I really want to play, but there's just.. the carrot isn't there at the moment.