Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Engagement vs. Completionism vs. Diversity

    • 768 posts
    January 18, 2020 5:08 AM PST

    Something that pulls you into the game, when you log on, is the world taking the initiative to communicate with the player. This could be seen as options to engage with the game other than the players own initiative or motivations. Now it's a dangerous road and one must prevent from designing those daily or meta assignments as it will quickly become a chore instead of a challenge. Perhaps a simple message could be presented to the player when they log on. For example: A book opens and it states what the player's last activities were or which quests they were currently working on. If they weren't doing anything specific, the message might hint towards content related to their level, class or location.

    A good way to trigger completionists is to display what the end result will be. This can be done by simple stating it in a quest journal. It could also be done by displaying it ingame itself. This could be showcased during ingame events or more random and general in the world itself (in town or in the wild). 

    Humans are habitual creatures. This means whichever abilityset or gearset or spell set they prefer or more commonly use, they'll tend to stick to that or something very similar. (not going into prebuilds or saved builds) When I think about keeping diversity something for all players to experience. I see this primarily being a design encounter/content thing. By providing different types, the habituated players might need to break out of their habits to switch gears or spells to solve this new challenge. This could also mean, that when you compare old with new content it can have similar dangers but the interaction could be different. The array of options for the player might be the same, but how the players can or most likely will interact with this different content can differ and therein would lie the diversity of things. This beyond the skope of skilltrees options or sorts. This may sound very forced, but at the very least, it will create a situation where a player who's used to playing with abilities x y z, will need to rethink and switch out, if only just for this encounter or zone. (in a way this could be viewed as keeping things engaging by providing diversity and stimulating the all round experience for class abilities/players)