The case for leveling/level-limited/hardcore/RNG content


Ueda

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Hey Ninja,

Back again with another dev log. This time I just want to talk about some reasons why sometimes I add content which are for a limited level range. Right now mainly two bosses that you can only fight within the level range 20-30 and 30-40.

To understand why such content is required, we have to talk about the design of the game, and the core of what is fun in an MMORPG. First of all, when I approach the design of Nin Online, I don't think about training from Levels 1-50 (or the new level cap when you're reading this!) as a requirement/procedure to get to the fun bit. One intention behind the design of leveling up from 1-50 is to provide players with a story to tell about their character, how they got to their power.

A story to tell
Think about the difference between playing Nin Online and playing an arena based game where you jump in on a level playing field, eg. Shinobi Striker. If you play Nin Online, you character starts off as an Academy Student, starts doing menial tasks for the village, eventually grows and discovers his first elemental chakra nature, or that he's gifted in Taijutsu or Medical Ninjutsu. He does a few missions that require him to team up with a group of 3 ninja and work under a Chunin/Jonin instructor. He makes friends along the way, and when he's killed a billion times in this leveling journey, he makes enemies too. Hopefully he's made more friends than enemies, that can help, and he's found some sort of purpose.

It feels good to overcome obstacles
Jumping into a game in an even playing field is fun when you want a purely competitive, fair experience. Nin Online doesn't strive to be that. It's tries to be a breathing world where if you've invested time into training in the game, you have a competitive age. Ie. It's an RPG. In any RPG, you start off feeling weak and it feels good to gain powers along the way. The feeling people get when they start off weak and eventually start being able to fend for themselves, and then further improve and can own people or hold their grounds against the best is a priceless feeling. But it takes time investment, and Nin Online aims to be a game for the people who have time to play the game, not sell out to the casuals who complain about not being able to get everything they want by pointing at it.

If things are rare, it's worth more
Simply put, if everything is obtainable by everyone all the time, then nothing is worth anything and those items are only worth whatever their stats are. There's items people don't need but have spent months in gaining because they want them. When they finally do gain it, it's worth a lot. Why did they want it? because it had value.

RNG makes life more exciting
If everything is set to for example, if you've killed 1000 wolves and it doesn't drop your sword, it will just give you your sword, then everyone knows the value of the item is only 1000 wolves, it feels cheapened, you didn't really hit a jackpot, the game took pity on you and gave you what you wanted.

There is still a place for content that you can surely get as long as you try. For example, items that are bought with Ryo, items that are crafted with fixed amounts of more common items that can be bought with ryo or hunted. Items that are attached to finishing hard missions. But RNG items will always have to exist in some form for those who are willing to invest the time to get that +1 item.

Spontaneous Experience
In hours of straight play, your time in Nin Online should not be doing a single thing. Here's how it could play out vs. how it should.
Log in -> Grind for 10 hours -> log out -> sleep -> login again tomorrow and repeat
vs.
Log in -> Take on a mission that requires you to enter an enemy village -> get interrupted by enemies and fail -> rest your Battle Injuries off while socializing in your village -> your village is spontaneously raided -> you escape narrowly and hide somewhere while stronger ninja battle it out -> you attempt your mission again and succeed -> you take your second daily mission which is to chill in the sauna -> you chill awhile and get rewarded while doing it -> you take your last mission and it's not very good so you choose to discard it (better luck tomorrow) -> since you're out of dailies, you go grind for awhile but you bump into people who ask you if you can accompany them on their mission -> you take a spontaneous journey to an enemy village -> you bump into enemy ninja with bounty -> you kill them and gain some bounty rewards -> you send off your new friend and you go get your bounty reward -> you reached a new level tier and you've unlocked fighting a boss -> you find a team of similar leveled ninja you've never met before and go try to finish that boss -> it's difficult but you do it after a few attempts -> you're lucky and it drops a rare RNG item -> you argue with your team about who gets it -> you log off with the item and feel great that you earned something rare today at the expense that your village ninja now know you're a bit of a jerk -> log out -> sleep -> you login again and get a different mission and now your village is on the verge of exiling you and nobody wants to team with you

Back to level-limited content
That's some of the things you have to understand about the core philosophy for the hardcore nature of Nin Online and why we don't have everything just at the end game.

1. Encouraging taking your time
If you can do everything at 50, then leveling is a process of unlocking things you can do. There's no reason to take your time because your goal instantly becomes to do whatever is easiest to get to 50 so that you can do all the "fun things". But then you realize that you've already missed half the 98% of the fun by grinding all the way as fast as you could.

2. We want people to experience different things at different points in their ninja journey
1-10 should feel different from 11-20, which should feel very different from 40-50. Even if just visually, you should feel like you've doing more impressive feats, and you should feel like you've gained power, and your jutsu should feel stronger. To reflect this, bosses should feel like they're getting even more challenging.

3. Challenge.
If bosses were available at any point pass the level requirement and not limited, people wouldn't do it at the level requirement if they found it a challenge. They would stick to grinding weak unchallenging mobs and procrastinate getting those bosses killed till when the bosses were no longer a challenge, and then it wouldn't have been fun doing it. But that's what the game encouraged them to do - they would've been stupid not to have done that. Currently, those bosses are designed to be a challenge at the level range it is set, once you're past it, it's going to be a face roll.

4. Similar point, but if the easy way is to just continue grinding or logging out and doing dailies everyday. Your experience is narrow, there's no variety.
Ideally, in Nin Online, things should happen spontaneously, things should vary in your hours of playing. You should unlock new things and be encouraged to go try those things immediately.

I hope this explains why things are how they are, it's really hard to explain when there's only two things that are this way. But eventually when there's more content in this manner, it will become more evident this creates a more well-rounded, varied experience over the course of your time playing.

 

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5 hours ago, Ueda said:

v52VMFA.png
Hey Ninja,

Back again with another dev log. This time I just want to talk about some reasons why sometimes I add content which are for a limited level range. Right now mainly two bosses that you can only fight within the level range 20-30 and 30-40.

To understand why such content is required, we have to talk about the design of the game, and the core of what is fun in an MMORPG. First of all, when I approach the design of Nin Online, I don't think about training from Levels 1-50 (or the new level cap when you're reading this!) as a requirement/procedure to get to the fun bit. One intention behind the design of leveling up from 1-50 is to provide players with a story to tell about their character, how they got to their power.

A story to tell
Think about the difference between playing Nin Online and playing an arena based game where you jump in on a level playing field, eg. Shinobi Striker. If you play Nin Online, you character starts off as an Academy Student, starts doing menial tasks for the village, eventually grows and discovers his first elemental chakra nature, or that he's gifted in Taijutsu or Medical Ninjutsu. He does a few missions that require him to team up with a group of 3 ninja and work under a Chunin/Jonin instructor. He makes friends along the way, and when he's killed a billion times in this leveling journey, he makes enemies too. Hopefully he's made more friends than enemies, that can help, and he's found some sort of purpose.

It feels good to overcome obstacles
Jumping into a game in an even playing field is fun when you want a purely competitive, fair experience. Nin Online doesn't strive to be that. It's tries to be a breathing world where if you've invested time into training in the game, you have a competitive age. Ie. It's an RPG. In any RPG, you start off feeling weak and it feels good to gain powers along the way. The feeling people get when they start off weak and eventually start being able to fend for themselves, and then further improve and can own people or hold their grounds against the best is a priceless feeling. But it takes time investment, and Nin Online aims to be a game for the people who have time to play the game, not sell out to the casuals who complain about not being able to get everything they want by pointing at it.

If things are rare, it's worth more
Simply put, if everything is obtainable by everyone all the time, then nothing is worth anything and those items are only worth whatever their stats are. There's items people don't need but have spent months in gaining because they want them. When they finally do gain it, it's worth a lot. Why did they want it? because it had value.

RNG makes life more exciting
If everything is set to for example, if you've killed 1000 wolves and it doesn't drop your sword, it will just give you your sword, then everyone knows the value of the item is only 1000 wolves, it feels cheapened, you didn't really hit a jackpot, the game took pity on you and gave you what you wanted.

There is still a place for content that you can surely get as long as you try. For example, items that are bought with Ryo, items that are crafted with fixed amounts of more common items that can be bought with ryo or hunted. Items that are attached to finishing hard missions. But RNG items will always have to exist in some form for those who are willing to invest the time to get that +1 item.

Spontaneous Experience
In hours of straight play, your time in Nin Online should not be doing a single thing. Here's how it could play out vs. how it should.
Log in -> Grind for 10 hours -> log out -> sleep -> login again tomorrow and repeat
vs.
Log in -> Take on a mission that requires you to enter an enemy village -> get interrupted by enemies and fail -> rest your Battle Injuries off while socializing in your village -> your village is spontaneously raided -> you escape narrowly and hide somewhere while stronger ninja battle it out -> you attempt your mission again and succeed -> you take your second daily mission which is to chill in the sauna -> you chill awhile and get rewarded while doing it -> you take your last mission and it's not very good so you choose to discard it (better luck tomorrow) -> since you're out of dailies, you go grind for awhile but you bump into people who ask you if you can accompany them on their mission -> you take a spontaneous journey to an enemy village -> you bump into enemy ninja with bounty -> you kill them and gain some bounty rewards -> you send off your new friend and you go get your bounty reward -> you reached a new level tier and you've unlocked fighting a boss -> you find a team of similar leveled ninja you've never met before and go try to finish that boss -> it's difficult but you do it after a few attempts -> you're lucky and it drops a rare RNG item -> you argue with your team about who gets it -> you log off with the item and feel great that you earned something rare today at the expense that your village ninja now know you're a bit of a jerk -> log out -> sleep -> you login again and get a different mission and now your village is on the verge of exiling you and nobody wants to team with you

Back to level-limited content
That's some of the things you have to understand about the core philosophy for the hardcore nature of Nin Online and why we don't have everything just at the end game.

1. Encouraging taking your time
If you can do everything at 50, then leveling is a process of unlocking things you can do. There's no reason to take your time because your goal instantly becomes to do whatever is easiest to get to 50 so that you can do all the "fun things". But then you realize that you've already missed half the 98% of the fun by grinding all the way as fast as you could.

2. We want people to experience different things at different points in their ninja journey
1-10 should feel different from 11-20, which should feel very different from 40-50. Even if just visually, you should feel like you've doing more impressive feats, and you should feel like you've gained power, and your jutsu should feel stronger. To reflect this, bosses should feel like they're getting even more challenging.

3. Challenge.
If bosses were available at any point pass the level requirement and not limited, people wouldn't do it at the level requirement if they found it a challenge. They would stick to grinding weak unchallenging mobs and procrastinate getting those bosses killed till when the bosses were no longer a challenge, and then it wouldn't have been fun doing it. But that's what the game encouraged them to do - they would've been stupid not to have done that. Currently, those bosses are designed to be a challenge at the level range it is set, once you're past it, it's going to be a face roll.

4. Similar point, but if the easy way is to just continue grinding or logging out and doing dailies everyday. Your experience is narrow, there's no variety.
Ideally, in Nin Online, things should happen spontaneously, things should vary in your hours of playing. You should unlock new things and be encouraged to go try those things immediately.

I hope this explains why things are how they are, it's really hard to explain when there's only two things that are this way. But eventually when there's more content in this manner, it will become more evident this creates a more well-rounded, varied experience over the course of your time playing.

 

You made the great decisions. NinO really puts a lot of emphasis in the creation of a unique history for each person. I really appreciate that perspective, that's what makes the game so different from others

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4 hours ago, SparkZZ said:

You made the great decisions. NinO really puts a lot of emphasis in the creation of a unique history for each person. I really appreciate that perspective, that's what makes the game so different from others

What unique history? Everyone does the same thing atm, lmao.

9 hours ago, Ueda said:


Spontaneous Experience
In hours of straight play, your time in Nin Online should not be doing a single thing. Here's how it could play out vs. how it should.
Log in -> Grind for 10 hours -> log out -> sleep -> login again tomorrow and repeat
vs.
Log in -> Take on a mission that requires you to enter an enemy village -> get interrupted by enemies and fail -> rest your Battle Injuries off while socializing in your village -> your village is spontaneously raided -> you escape narrowly and hide somewhere while stronger ninja battle it out -> you attempt your mission again and succeed -> you take your second daily mission which is to chill in the sauna -> you chill awhile and get rewarded while doing it -> you take your last mission and it's not very good so you choose to discard it (better luck tomorrow) -> since you're out of dailies, you go grind for awhile but you bump into people who ask you if you can accompany them on their mission -> you take a spontaneous journey to an enemy village -> you bump into enemy ninja with bounty -> you kill them and gain some bounty rewards -> you send off your new friend and you go get your bounty reward -> you reached a new level tier and you've unlocked fighting a boss -> you find a team of similar leveled ninja you've never met before and go try to finish that boss -> it's difficult but you do it after a few attempts -> you're lucky and it drops a rare RNG item -> you argue with your team about who gets it -> you log off with the item and feel great that you earned something rare today at the expense that your village ninja now know you're a bit of a jerk -> log out -> sleep -> you login again and get a different mission and now your village is on the verge of exiling you and nobody wants to team with you


 

Now this part... Yikes.

The first one, is not how it's done. It's Log in -> Dailies -> Grind for a few hours -> Get bored and PvP or sit in leaf square.
Your 2nd part is basically a full life of a Ninja and not a single day. Your theory is good, but it doesn't work. I think you should research a bit more on what people actually do, vs what you want them to do.

All in all, good post though.

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leveling here is grinding and only grinding :D Like level up to ~30 lvl it takes u ages :D All missions u get is like 2 -3 same shitty ones that is not worth doing cuz u will spend like 2x more time doing it than grinding xp or just such stupid mission that u will get some additional chromosomes while trying to do it, lets say find missing hawk :D I got it most of the times on my alt ( like almost everyday 2 times) Why should I spend like 2 hours searching for fcking bird to get like 3-8k xp ? :D When hawk is between leaf and sand village :DD  Or lets say bear killing missions for close range users, bear kills u in 3-4 hits and yeah Bi again.. 

Why don't you just make mission selection ? Everyone wants that thing and everyone would appreciate it.. Why the fkc should I do same fcking mission 3 times a day ? Just give 5 different missions a day while you still can select only 3, you complete 1 mission then its removed from the list of those 5 and there is only 4 missions available to choose and you can choose only 2 missions then. Simple idea and everyone would be happy and no one fcking repeat those posts again and I could really say that this would make this game more alive and more interesting. I know like 3-4 peoples that didn't liked this game cuz all you do is grind or do same missions everyday. Especially new players at their low levels ~10-20 gets mission that they are just too weak to do they decline it once and then they gets it again 2 times so you think anyone likes this shit ? I think there is simple solution for this problem and all you do is talk how should we do missions or play this game but even in your post I can see you named 3 different missions..
http://prntscr.com/nj2a7c
Better luck tomorrow you say ? What if tomorrow I get same missions ? And day after tomorrow? Should I grind up to lvl 50 withouth missions ? 

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I can tell you what the gameplay is like by design and how you're encouraged to play by the games design. I can't force every single player to play it the way it was designed. We can do just that, encourage and continue adding content based on the games design. You can make blank statements like everyone just grinds whatever. But you know that's not true. Nobody ever has a plain grinding experience all the time in Nin. People's missions are designed to place you in situations you will encounter enemies. Etc.

If you abandon all your missions and decide to grind all the time because all you want is the highest experience mission then it's something that can be balanced to an extent but not completely avoided. Some people just prefer the experience of mindlessly grinding for hours. But don't act like it's by design that you're encouraged to do that. Nothing in the game asks you to hurry up and grind to max level. That's on your own voilition.

Also, it doesn't need a lot of thinking to understand why daily missions are not selectable. It's partly explained in the OP, and the rest of it is just that players will always choose the path of least resistance which is the easiest mission with the highest rewards. But by randomizing it, it varies the challenge level and reward level which is something I believe is good. If players had the choice, Nin online would be Docs online.

Said a million times before too, but dailies are not a replacement for storyline missions. And when I do get time to work on content like story missions, I do them for the lower levels like the Toad Arc and all the < 10 content. Adding more dailies doesn't replace proper uniquely written story missions and is not intended to do that. Those you will have the choice to do if and when you want to.

 

Also, if you are playing in a time of day where there are less players and hence less enemies online to interrupt your dailies and make your daily experience more varied, then I recommend you try logging in during peak hours where you'll definitely not be able to finish your dailies without encountering other players.

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“If you get to level 50 in a day, you only have 24hours to potentially meet King @Dona “ - @Ueda

ENJOY YOUR JOURNEY THE MORE LONG IT TAKES THE MORE TIME YOU’LL HAVE TO MEET OUR KING. 

STOP ALL THE WHINING YOU SHOULD BE GRATEFUL TO MEET DONA ONE DAY.

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13 hours ago, Niro said:

What unique history? Everyone does the same thing atm, lmao.

What unique history you said?

I met a lot of amazing persons, had my own organization, learned to use my masteries at their fullest, had fun doing and winning a Chunin Exam or the summer PVP tournament with my squad (where I became one of the 4 original owners of the pink fan), in addition of having fun doing and winning the First Gold Ninja Brawl (best experience so far), doing lot of tournaments or raids, becoming a Sand ANBU, an Akatsuki, a feared ninja even in my own village.. and the list continues.

All those things that I couldn't have achieved if the game was made to make you last for no more than a month and make my SparkZZ who he is today.

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@Ueda So maybe then its possible to make that the player won't get same mission twice or even 3 times in 1 day ? That would make everything way better, you should understand how boring it is to do same thing repeatedly.. I would rather choose to get a bit less xp from few missions than repeat same mission 3 times in a row..

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To me leveling experience has always been just another Mobile-Game.
You log in, check for best missions and log out. 

Social aspect is the greatest design of this game that keeps old players around and brings in new players.

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I understand the design philosophy behind the game, and it is one you will not encounter in modern day MMO's because they prioritize membership over anything else. When everything is driven by membership, everything becomes about accessibility. I appreciate the mentality you have, but I think Nin suffers from a theory vs. practice issue. This isn't something that is easily solved either. 

In theory what you've described is how things should play out. There should be a more varied sense of things, but theory rarely calculates for how people will play the game out. Things like village population, off/peak hours, mission randomness, PvP in general, etc account largely for the pacing of the game for many. If you are leaf, invading another village for missions is probably easier. If your hours in-game vary, your entire set of interactions change. If you roll 2 out of 3 "bad" missions for 2-3 days straight you might feel less inclined to continue. If you die repeatedly to lvl 50's you might feel more inclined to rush to 50 because strength is simply tied to a higher level.

There is no easy answer to any of these questions because it's just the reality of things. Could RP be more present at earlier levels? Possibly. Could events be more RP related than strictly PvP? Maybe. I sadly fall into the category of not having a ton of time to dedicate to the game anymore, so it's hard to effectively provide solutions that even apply.

I appreciate the post and continued interaction.

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On 5/1/2019 at 11:39 PM, SparkZZ said:

What unique history you said?

I met a lot of amazing persons, had my own organization, learned to use my masteries at their fullest, had fun doing and winning a Chunin Exam or the summer PVP tournament with my squad (where I became one of the 4 original owners of the pink fan), in addition of having fun doing and winning the First Gold Ninja Brawl (best experience so far), doing lot of tournaments or raids, becoming a Sand ANBU, an Akatsuki, a feared ninja even in my own village.. and the list continues.

All those things that I couldn't have achieved if the game was made to make you last for no more than a month and make my SparkZZ who he is today.

Most of these things are also done by the older players. So basically, your history is;
Joining a bunch of events
Create organization/Join organization
Become Anbu and Akatsuki.

In theory, you did lots of stuff (I guess). But in reality, what you did was play till you got to 50(or 30 for some events back in the day) and then do all those things. More than half of the things people talk about, is what they did when they were lvl 50.

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Community shaped NiN Online with little they had in the beginning and it did not turn out as pretty as it could be.

The moderation of NiN Online has always been abysmal up to date. And it still remains a fiesta, one that Rory does not have time to deal with by himself, sadly. (No blame) And those who do sometimes moderate with their "ideas" turn good things to worse.

RP is more than likely about 5% of the game, rest 95% is PvP. Not a healthy numbers, I still give props to Hinode clan for trying their best. Now this part is a little bit on both sides, the developers who had not made a proper system that would support the RP and the community who have had shaped the game into the way it is.

Now is NiN Online repetive mirror experience for everyone? I doubt but there are ofcourse similarities as the choices are limited to an extent.

Is NiN Online dependant on players reaching maximum level as fast as possible? Yes and no. If you want to PvP, then yes for most masteries. If you enjoy from simply socializing with other people and have your fun journey, then no.

Is NiN Online toxic? Yes.

 

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9 hours ago, Niro said:

Most of these things are also done by the older players. So basically, your history is;
Joining a bunch of events
Create organization/Join organization
Become Anbu and Akatsuki.

In theory, you did lots of stuff (I guess). But in reality, what you did was play till you got to 50(or 30 for some events back in the day) and then do all those things. More than half of the things people talk about, is what they did when they were lvl 50.

You've ommited quite everything of the journey to lvl 50. And saying I've waited lvl 50 to "do all those things" is simply incorrect. Anyway, this discussion is futile. At this point, you've only tried to turn things at your advantage to validate your point (in a doubtful manner). I'm not interested by that.

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  • 3 weeks later...
18 hours ago, Pheitan Portor said:

The terrible thing about Nin Online's content experience is you experience the same agonizing missions and mobs for MONTHS trying to get a better experience from the game.

If you're playing to grind to max level hoping the game will get better - it won't. If you login the first time and you're having fun interacting and being a ninja, that's the kind of person that will enjoy the game. If you're hoping that grinding for MONTHS is going to make the game suddenly better than it is at the start, you're wasting your time. What kind of evil game developer would design a game where the fun is locked behind a grind wall?

It's the same for any game really, if you log in and play any game and you're not having fun, stop playing. It's not going to get better from there. Most games throw the best parts at you at the start to get you hooked.

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On 5/1/2019 at 11:59 AM, Ueda said:

Nothing in the game asks you to hurry up and grind to max level. That's on your own voilition.

If only that were true. Majority of enjoyable content is PvP. You can't participate in PvP effectively til later levels. 

>Be Level 20. Log in. Do your 3 dailies. Decide to grind for a bit.
>Get ganked every 5 minutes by level 50s

If you want levels to not matter so much, make them not matter so much. Cause currently it's improbable for a level 30 to win vs a level 50.

Maybe raise stat points gained per level then just make it so once you reach the typical 250 stat points earned leveling no longer grants them.

I.E. 10 per level til level 25. then 26-50 no longer give points.

1 hour ago, Ueda said:

If you're playing to grind to max level hoping the game will get better - it won't. If you login the first time and you're having fun interacting and being a ninja, that's the kind of person that will enjoy the game. If you're hoping that grinding for MONTHS is going to make the game suddenly better than it is at the start, you're wasting your time. What kind of evil game developer would design a game where the fun is locked behind a grind wall?
 

The game does get better at higher levels. More jutsu, better survivability, and second mastery. It's not that fun interacting and being a ninja the first time few times you log in who can't defend himself against other ninjas because you're level 15 and they're level 50. The level gap isn't possible to overcome. Yes, levels should matter but I feel like for your design philosophy they currently matter too much for the lower levels to be as enjoyable as it seems like you want them to be. 

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