In the spirit of "Lessons Learned" week for Blaugust 2024 I want to talk about a blogging lesson I've learned: ideas for serial posts are easier than writing the actual posts. A prime example is the "MyMMORPG" series I started and, checks notes, wrote one post for. The idea was to translate my experience playing games into pontificating about the MMORPG I would develop should I ever get the chance. This should have been easy and I should have hundreds of posts already! Yet I didn't post about it. Let's give that single post a buddy using the lessons I've learned from playing MMORPGs for close to 30 years now.
I've developed a rule in my head when playing games which I call "the rule of 10." The rule states: as a player, I can manage 10 available actions at any given time. Any more, and I get overwhelmed; any less, and I lose the feeling that I have meaningful choices or control over my outcome. This balance is crucial because it keeps the gameplay engaging without being stressful. When I have too many options, analysis paralysis sets in, making the experience feel chaotic rather than fun. On the flip side, if I have too few choices, the game starts to feel monotonous or overly simplistic, as if I'm just going through the motions without really influencing the world within the game.
This balance is crucial because it keeps the gameplay engaging without being stressful.
Stress is a major factor for my enjoyment of gaming. I can't do hardcore PvP or "dragon kill point" raid content anymore because the stress outweighs the possible fun. Stress is also a compounding factor on players and every player's stress tolerance is different. An area we can take stress away from a player is by keeping them feeling like they are in control. Limiting actions to 10 or less caps keeps the player in control.
When I have too many options, analysis paralysis sets in, making the experience feel chaotic rather than fun.
Analysis paralysis is a real problem in games and life in general. The paralysis quickly leads players to feel like they are losing control. Even if the "good" options to choose are
minimal the fact that there are many more choices to pick from defeats the minimal choice.
We also have to consider the game world itself and in the case of
MMORPGs, other players, also are providing input to the player that
drive additional choices. All of these contribute to the paralysis. Limiting actions to 10 or less limits analysis.
On the flip side, if I have too few choices, the game starts to feel monotonous or overly simplistic, as if I'm just going through the motions without really influencing the world within the game.
Going with too few options makes the game boring. I can only left/right click so many times or press that same button so many times. At some point as a player I need to feel like I am in control and just like too many options can cause me to feel like I'm losing control so can too few options. Players end up feeling "helpless" without the choices to control what is going on around them.
You may assume that this entire post is just about combat but that couldn't be further from the truth. The rule of 10 applies to everything. Crafting, exploration, navigation, traveling, gathering, any action you can think of taking in an MMORPG. Any of them should have a goal of meeting the rule to strike the balance.
A complex crafting recipe with 20 materials and scroll bars to see everything is going to overwhelm players. Breaking that crafting process into more manageable steps allows us to have more control of each step and reduces stress on the player increasing the chance they don't just give up.
I also break the rule down further as not all 10 actions need equal weight at any given time. This helps to further strike that balance we are striving for. That breakdown is as follows:
- 5 immediate actions
- These are the bread and butter actions you take all the time. In combat in most MMORPGs this would be your "rotation". In crafting this is adding materials and setting variables.
- 4 intermediate actions
- These are situational actions that are used when the conditions are right. Too many of these skills and it increases stress and analysis paralysis chance. Four is a good number and gives enough variability to cover multiple situations.
- 1 limited use "fun" action
- Often called "ultimate" abilities. These generally charge up over time and have some neat effect. It always saddens me that this idea is often limited to combat, but it could be useful any other time. For example; you are gathering away out in the wilderness and build up an ultimate gathering ability that lets you chop a giant tree down in one full swing. The goal should be to answer YES to the question "is this fun to use?".
Two game examples where I feel like they get it right:
New World (combat)
5 immediate actions: Left click attack, right click block, 3 weapon abilities
4 intermediate actions: Four consumable slots (potions, etc)
1 fun action: heartrune ability
Guild Wars 2 (combat)
5 immediate actions: 5 weapon abilities
4 intermediate actions: heal ability + three selected support abilities
1 fun action: the last ability on the hotbar (forget what its called)
The ultimate goal of the "role of 10" is to make the game approachable for players and ensure that interacting with the game doesn't become a barrier to entry. Not every game follows this path. Some games, like Path of Exile, use complexity to target a specific type of player. That is fine. However, for MyMMORPG we're sticking with the "rule of 10".
