Multiplayer Interactive-Fiction Game-Design Blog

Experience points

6 April 2005

by Mike Rozak

I mentioned role-playing points in Virtual world equation, and neglected their identical twin, experience points...

Traditional MMORPGs and MUDs reward experience points (XP) to PCs whenever they kill monsters or complete quests. The origin of this goes back to pen-and-paper Dungeons & Dragons.

The fictional justification is that the more monsters your PC kills, the more skilled your PC becomes at killing them. In other words, practice makes perfect. This makes sense.

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  Content regulation - Some regions of the world are filled with more dangerous monsters, and PCs can't safely enter those regions until they have "done their time" and gotten a high enough level. The fewer XP awarded, the longer it will take players to complete the game. Authors use XP award rates to control how long the game takes to play. Without levels, PCs would quickly traipse all over the world and consume content ten times as quickly.
  
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  New physics - As PCs increase their level, they get new abilities, such as new magic spells or the ability to wield two weapons at once. These new abilities make the game interesting again, for a few hours at least. Consequently, most CRPGs and MMORPGs pace XP awards and levelling such that a new ability is added every few hours of play.
  
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  Resource allocation - If players can direct points towards different skills, then XP points are resources that can be allocated. Many players enjoy resource allocation.
  
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  Goals - As is continually quoted in the literature, players like to have near-term goals that they can strive for. Levels provide such a goal.
  
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  Power over other players - Players with higher level PCs have more power over other players than lower level PCs. Even in a non-PvP world, higher level players find it easier to acquire more money and better items, given them power.
  
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  Bragging rights - "I'm level 60, and you're only level 5! Ha ha!"... Teenagers (and some adults) love the stuff.
  

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  As any animal trainer knows, don't bother awarding actions that animals (or people) do naturally. If killing monsters is fun, players will do it whether or not they get rewarded. (Not to mention the "loot" reward that comes with most monsters.) If killing monsters isn't fun then don't have it in your game, or at least not as the central focus of the game.
  
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  Reward animals (or people) for behaviours you want to promote. Given the choice of giving a player XP to kill yet another monster, or XP to make another player happy, I chose the later. You should reward players when they help fulfil other players' desires, but only if they wouldn't fulfil those desires naturally.
  
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  Because granting XP to a player inevitably gives them more power over other players, granting XP to players for killing monsters is like promoting people to management based on how well they can whistle. Ideally, managers should be made managers because they're good at managing, and players should be granted powers over other players because they're good at using those powers wisely.
  

XP should be handed out when players do their part in making the world are more-enjoyable place for other players. This can be done by:

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  "Role-playing" XP points can be awarded by other players, as well as "jerk" points. The points don't have to be tied to role playing, just enjoyable behaviour. The ability to award such points are magnets for abuse though.

  Role playing points are only awarded for conscious desires. Many desires are sub-conscious and won't be rewarded by role playing points. For example: The stereotypical elderly married couple is a husband and wife that constantly whinge about one another's foibles (conscious desire), but if they were actually separated, both would be unhappy (sub-conscious desire). The same could be said about griefers; they make the world more exciting, in moderation, but no one will consciously give them a role playing point.

  
  
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  If the staff has enough time, get the staff to award points. GURPs pen-and-paper RPG doesn't hand out experience points for killing monsters. Instead, the GM hands them out for good role playing... or in other words, XP are given for behaviour that makes the game more fun for the other players.
  
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  Award XP for new experiences, to encourage players to try new things that they wouldn't normally try. They might just like the new experience, and if they don't, at least they walk away with a few XP.
  
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  Provide quests that encourage players to interact with one another in fun ways, often to "break the ice" and help them meet one another. These quests could provide XP and/or monetary rewards. For example: A quest given to player A could have him deliver a message to player B. (The message might initiate a different quest for player B.) Warning: Players will mini-max the quests, choosing the quests that get them role-playing points the quickest; this must be watched for and prevented. Griefers will use such quests to grief.
  
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  As "the research" states, the reward scheme should be frequent and unpredictable. (By the way, has anyone ever seen "the research"?) Role-playing points should be a secret ballot. In the case of player-awarded roleplaying/jerk points, the reward might be delayed 3-10 real days so that player A is never sure if player B provided the role-playing award as promised, or if player B gave player A a jerk point instead.
  
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  If you take the "Player pyramid" view, then XP points should be regularly awarded to paying customers just for showing up. Non-paying ones get to earn them.
  
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  The privileges of XP points need to decay over time, mainly in areas where players use their XP-won gains to affect other players. If getting a character to level 50 entitles them to a fiefdom, players might suck up to other players for role playing points until they get to level 50, and then suddenly show their true identities and lord over all their subjects. While they can legitimately enjoy the fruits of their labor and be a jerk for awhile, sooner or later the awards need to decay and remove the fiefdom from their despotic clutches. If the player ends up being a benevolent lord and continues to earn role-playing points from his subjects, there's no reason he can't hold their position of power.
  
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  If more than one player is vying for the same position, such as ruler of the fiefdome, then perhaps they could "bid" for the position with roleplaying points.
  

I like to boil down a problem to "first principles". Sometimes the "first principles" my thought experiments produce agree with current practices. Sometimes they disagree.

In this case, my thought experiment has produced first principles that vehemently disagree with MMORPG's contemporary use of experience points.

Is my thought experiment correct? Could 99% of all MMORGs, with millions of happy users, really be wrong?

Awarding experience points for killing monsters seems to lead to "the grind", which is prevelent in 99% of all MMORPGs. Awarding experience points for behaviour is common in roleplaying MUDs, so I suspect it leads to more roleplaying, and to an experience in which "players are part of the artwork". Most players will probably resent this; role playing text-MUDs, after all, are a very small market.