Interested? We are currently recruiting for our 3 design teams!Production Team - FULL
Core system planning and execution from top to bottom.
Art Team (NEW) - RECRUITING / Creative Lead OPEN
Creative design, spriting, BGM, or Aseprite / Piskel / ACC experience. Works closely with Production.
Balance Team (NEW) - RECRUITING
Class + skill balancing, tempo, and number crunching. Works closely with Production.
If you would like to apply to a team, please comment below with the following format:
- IGN:
- Non-Private RealmEye Link:
- Position: (Production / Art / Balance)
- Relevant Skills:
- Discord (Y/N):
- Can I attend Friday meetings at 7 PM PST? (Y/N):
Discord: Coming Soon!
Google Doc: Coming Soon!
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Why MRS?
- Fame Utilization
- Treasure & Tarot Utilization
- Mythic Skill Nodes
- Mythic Character Stats
- Mythic Raids
- Party Play
- Mythic-Tier (MT) Loot
- Leaderboards
- Monetization Models
- Power Creep Measures
- Retroactive Balancing Measures
- Deprecated Asset Management
- Artwork
- BGM
- Formulas
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
So what exactly is end-game?
"In most MMORPGs, this occurs when the players hit the maximum level or skill and look for new ways to keep themselves busy now that they’re off the levelling treadmill. In EverQuest and Dark Age of Camelot for instance, the part of the end-game consists of hours of raiding extremely challenging locations in an attempt to earn prestige, alternate advancement points, and “phat lewt”. Meridian 59, Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Shadowbane, and World of Warcraft all attempt to provide an end-game consisting of PvP activities: you have nothing to lose, no real risk, and can gain prestige by killing other challenging players.
Historically, a game company without a solid plan for an end-game risks alienating its player base. The end-game should grow and change over time, to keep things interesting for the players who still enjoy participating after “winning the game.”
EminenceHQ (YouTube) also take a good look at what makes a successful MMO end-game in terms of raiding:
With a raiding platform having been proven as a very strong end-game possibility, we must now take into account what adding such a platform to a game like ROTMG would need to capture.
This means going back to the CORE / OLD aspects of the game. Let’s take a trip to Lost Garden. Here we can re-cap some of the core features of ROTMG.
These include:
- Fantasy MMORPG
- Bullet Hell Shooter (so many bullets!)
- Co-op only
- Real-time combat (with 80+ players on screen)
- Permadeath
and
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Experience is shared. All you need to do in order to earn experience is to be close by when an enemy is killed. There is a simple yet effective benefit from playing with others. More players means enemies die more quickly, so players working together level and earn our time-based currency (fame) more quickly.
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Teleporting is cheap. Players can quickly and easily teleport to other players. In early builds, most players would wander for hours without seeing another human being. A smaller percentage of players liked this, but most simply assumed the game was single player and then left. We also wanted to avoid requiring a complex guild and grouping system, especially for new players. As it stands now, it is difficult to play for long without another player jumping to your position and playing alongside you.
and
Rival goods are a form of PvP. An early decision made for the first prototype haunted the game for far too long. Loot in Realm is a rival good; to paraphrase Raph Koster, “If I grab it, you can’t.” While the rest of the game is all about mutual benefit, loot as a rival good brought out the bloodlust in our players on a number of levels.
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Initial looting : A team of players will cooperate beautiful to bring down a large boss. They’ll coordinate, send happy messages and joke with one another. Yet as soon as someone snags loot that another person desired, the conversation turns acrimonious. Inevitably one player grabs far more loot than others and the predominate emotions of the game decay into greed, distrust and a deeply felt lack of fairness.
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Death : When someone dies, a percentage of their items stay on the body. This yields a huge incentive to steal from your fellow players. I’d love to run some experiments where all items on a body go away or are soulbound and see how that changes the mood of the community.
With all this in mind, we have to also consider the CURRENT aspects of the game …
- Pets - a stroke of Kabam genius, the monetized amulet.
- SB Loot - a fail-safe measure that has become nigh-permanent due to relentless item duping.
- Fame - points that players can collect or farm for no real purpose.
- Treausures / Tarots - deprecated assets with no real purpose. Decent FP though!
2. Why MRS?
The Mythic Raid System [MRS] is a potential solution that can address the aforementioned host of overlapping features. For those who have not played traditional MMORPGs, raids are as follows:
“The combat encounters comprising a raid usually require players to coordinate with one another while performing specific roles as members of a team. The roles of Tank, Healer, and Damage Dealer are known as the “Holy Trinity” of MMORPG group composition.[4] Other common roles include Buffing, Crowd control, and Pulling (selectively choosing targets with which to initiate combat).[5] A raid leader is often needed to direct the group efficiently, due to the complexities of keeping many players working well together.”
So how would a raid system work in ROTMG?
- The fact that ROTMG is a bullet-hell + permadeath game means that raid boss battles can be so much more than just a tank n’ spank DPS fiesta as the previous video showcases. This is the edge Realm has over any other MMORPG out on the market right now. It is the ability to create a real adrenaline rush for the same high-level rewards that classical raids offer.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The real strength of an MRS implemented for ROTMG would be its outstanding ability to integrate a critically neglected feature of the game … fame!
- Fame right now is in a bad place. It’s pretty much a growing mutual fund that can’t be cashed out. Players who die alot, players who have died on long-term high fame characters, fame trainer deaths … it doesn’t matter - it’s all the same. Dead character fame is an unused and overlooked fuel source with the removal of amulets.
This begs the question - why not then use dead character fame as a gateway currency to an end-game MRS and content? While the details of this progression system will be fleshed out in section 4 (Progression), the basics are as follows:
- Acquire Dead Fame - fame points earned via character death.
- Collect Mythic Skill Nodes - nodes unlock 1 of 3 unique class-specific skills.
- Upgrade Mythic Stats - powerful new character stats at the price of progressive fame costs.
- Undertake Mythic Raids - end-game dungeons & content gated by Mythic Skills and Stats.
Dead Fame would finally have the sink to its source. Considering that Mythic Skills and characters beefed out with Mythic Stats are a MUST to effectively run MRS raids, dead fame wouldn’t be a meaningless ego booster anymore. Dead Fame utilization via MRS would play a critical role in character improvement, access to content, and achievement.
Summary: Exchange all 12 dungeon treasures to obtain 1x Mythic Loot Key. If you are lucky, you will randomly receive 1-3 more. Mythic Loot Keys are tradeable with UIIDs.
Tinkerer Interaction: How curious. There was one just like you who sought this very key. What became of him - I do not know. Take this. There are legends about the unfathomable riches it is said to unlock.
Summary: Exchange all 9 tarot cards to obtain 1x Mythic Raid Key. If you are lucky, you will receive 1-3 more. Mythic Loot Keys are untradeable.
Tinkerer Interaction: Do you truly understand what dimensions you seek to enter? I do not condone this journey … but if you seek greater power, I will grant you this token of passage.
5. Mythic Skill Nodes
Class Skill Nodes Teaser
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Tier 1 - Warlock Ascendancy
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Tier 2 - Arcane Flux
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Tier 3 - Cataclysm
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Tier 1 - Hallowed Ground
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Tier 2 - Sacroscant Bond
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Tier 3 - Grace
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Tier 1 - Bottomless Quiver
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Tier 2 - Piercing Gaze
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Tier 3 - Buster Shot
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Tier 1 - Backstab
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Tier 2 - Midas Touch
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Tier 3 - Dread Disciple
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Tier 1 - Berserker’s Fury
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Tier 2 - Ravenous Blade
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Tier 3 - Onslaught
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Tier 1 - Concussive Force
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Tier 2 - Stone Skin
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Tier 3 - Indomitable
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Tier 1 - Battle Hymn
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Tier 2 - Jubilant Canticle
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Tier 3 - Together We Stand
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Tier 1 - Venom
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Tier 2 - Debilitating Flask
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Tier 3 - Culling Blow
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Tier 1 - Devouring Skull
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Tier 2 - Panic
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Tier 3 - Gor’shak the Defiler
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Tier 1 - Hurricane
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Tier 2 - Pathfinder
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Tier 3 - Big Game Gambit
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Tier 1 - Potent Mysticism
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Tier 2 - Synergy
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Tier 3 - Essence Linkage
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Tier 1 - Dimensional Warp
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Tier 2 - Theft
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Tier 3 - Sacrificial Lamb
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Tier 1 - Reflection
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Tier 2 - Equilibrium
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Tier 3 - Sorcerer’s Supreme’s Strike
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Tier 1 - Espionage (スパイ)
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Tier 2 - Shuriken (手裏剣)
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Tier 3 - Susanoo-no-Mikoto (スサノオ)
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Tier 1 - Honor (名誉)
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Tier 2 - Counter (カウンタ)
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Tier 3 - Ōdachi (大太刀)
- Mythic Character Stats
- Mythic Raids
- Party System
- Mythic-Tier (MT) Loot
- Monetization Models
- Power Creep Measures
- Retroactive Balancing Measures
- Deprecated Asset Management
- Artwork
I am no musical genius.
However, I do have some ideas in mind what certain raid instances should sound like. Many players say that the BGM of a game is really its soul. I can see where they are coming from … because it’s usually the nostalgia of the Henesys theme that draws me back to bangers like MapleStory.
In this section, I’ll post raid instances and the accompanying piece I feel is appropriate. Cheers.
- Formulas
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgements