MMO Diversity, Part 3: Hybridization...

Note: This article is mainly about Massively Multiplayer Online RPG's but can be stretched to incorporate any skill-tree based game.

Recap:

Western MMO's suffer from a lack of choices. You can't decide on what skills you want to be better than others. You can't really decide how your class will evolve. A warrior is a warrior is a warrior.

Eastern MMO's suffer from too many potential possibilities. Too many classes waters down the pool of classes. With so many possibilites, one is unsure whether his class can fulfill a specific role, or what his class is even meant to be doing in the first place.

How Modern MMO's can address these current problems...
...with examples of some that already have.

Hybridization: Giving each character class a clear goal and keeping in mind that no matter what the player does, there are clear roles he can fulfill is the main fix to the problem of too much Hybridization:

1) Have a clear set of roles that each character class can play and how effective he is at those. Have less roles that a character can fulfill but make him more effective in those roles.

2) If one character class can fulfill multiple roles then we make sure that he can fulfill those multiple roles without interfering with himself. Address potential problems with those multiple roles and how one can alleviate it.

3) If the character is too much of a hybrid, make his customization choices something that would naturally make sense as a combined whole.

Bad Example:

Assassin, Ragnarok Online

Roles: Primary Damage Dealer, Secondary Physical Defense Character, Secondary "Money" Character, Secondary Stealth Character, Poisons Enemies.

Do these roles interfere with each other?

Somewhat. His main powerful ability (Sonic Blow) requires a lot of magical energy to accomplish. However, it cannot be used in stealth. If he, instead, wishes to steal items from a monster, that takes up the energy he could have used to sonic blow to kill the monster. If the Assassin stealths, then he no longer fulfills his potential to be the party member who can dodge 95% of enemy attacks. Additionally, many of his powerful damage abilities cannot be used in stealth mode...

Except for the fact that many of his damage abilities can only be used in stealth mode. His only Area of Effect attack can only be used in stealth, and takes up a lot of magical energy, so he can't both handle Area of Effects and play defense (Which would be an ideal role, a defensive character who could also damage everyone that's attacking him.) The Assassin can play many roles, however, they are at cross-purposes with each other.

Do the roles make sense when taken together?

Partly. If you choose to whittle away the Assassin's, steal, stealth, envenom, area of effect abilities, then what is left with is a very strong defensive character that deals a high amount of damage. However, add any of the Assassin's other skills to the mix and you water that down to something that never utilizes the Assassin's full abilities and somewhat unclear about what the assassin's true role is.

Which is a shame, because if those abilities were not at cross-purposes with each other, they would make rather good combinations. Stealth and Massive Damage would lead to a very powerful 'Alpha Strike', except for the fact that the Assassin cannot attack in stealth except with a weak area of effect.

He cannot use his area of effect while he is playing the role of defense, because he needs to be stealthed to use his area of effect skill. This would make a great deal of sense if possible as a warrior who could keep the focus of multiple enemies at once.

He cannot both stealth and steal from monsters, which would create a very interesting money character that focuses on bypassing monsters entirely. Poisoning a monster is much less effective than simply doing his most powerful attack move. Furthermore, the Assassin's most powerful Poison Bomb skill is on a timer and has the condition that the enemy not be killed while the poison is in effective to deal the most damage... which totally defeats the purpose of the Assassin being a damage dealer. (In order to poison most effectively, the assassin must not attack the thing he poisoned.)

Good Examples:

Paladin, World of Warcraft
Clear Roles: Defensive Warrior, Secondary Healer, Tertiary Party Enhancer

Do the two roles interfere with each other?
If he is healing, is that hindered by the fact that he is a defensive warrior? Possibly, if his healing is interrupted because he is in the front line getting hit by stuff. Therefore, we give the paladin the option to have faster heal times, ignore spell casting interruption.

If he is playing defense, does that hinder his healing ability? Possibly, if his defense abilities take up all the magical energy he needs to heal other people. Therefore, we can make his defensive abilities relatively light on magical energy or give him the ability to recover magical energy while he is being hurt or doing damage (As a defensive warrior.)

When his abilities are put together, do they make sense as a combined whole?

A defensive warrior and a backup healer. Clearly the Paladin's role is to make it hard for his party to die. He both absorbs damage from rampaging monsters and heals the party in case some of that damage passes by. Additionally, he might have some powerful resurrection abilities or group buffs that make it even harder for the group to perish.

Pure Wizard, Dungeons and Dragons Online
Clear Roles: Massive Area of Effect Damage Dealer, Powerful Crowd Control, Secondary Group Enhancer, Places Enemies under Negative Enchantments.

Do the roles interfere with each other?

Yes, the roles do interfere with each other. Using magical energy on both Crowd Control and Area of Effect Damage Dealing are redundant tasks. If on the other hand, he is around to provide useful enchantments for the party his role as Damage Dealer and Crowd Control will be hampered by the need to constantly maintain and use up his magical energies on keeping the group buffed.

We can address this issue by giving the wizard only a few spell slots to choose from. His highest level spells will be limited in number to one or two that he can swap out at specifically designated rest points. This way, the wizards most powerful spell will only be from one or two of these categories and the player's focus will be on only one of these roles and not all three of them at once.

We can also prevent the wizard character from fulfilling all of these roles by giving him a very limited energy point to work from, thus ensuring that he will be called to fulfill only a few roles at a time before he is exhausted. To balance this, we can make him very powerful while his magical energies are well supplied.

Do the roles make sense when taken together as a whole?

Yes. These roles, when combined together, make the wizard a universal problem solver or a "panic button". No matter what the situation at hand, whether it be overwhelmed by enemies, having to have a powerful enchantment or simply destroying something very quickly, the wizard can be called to get rid of a problem. Balanced with a low energy pool, the well prepared wizard becomes a valuable role as he can be called on to unleash his full power at those critical moments.