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Dr.MedicTM1 year ago

I do enjoy the premise of this Cozy MMO. Upon first hearing about it it reminded me of a combination of Pokemon and Wizard 101's Pet system strangely enough.

I did question the depths of breeding and economics in this game if it was meant to be for casual players. Some of the ideas of currency standardization and conversion rates also seem a little complex compared to the premise the game offered. I also wondered why only male pets were eligible to be listed in the "Breeder's Shop" and how "Mythic" pets couldn't pass down their rarity to other pets through breeding.

Overall it was a thorough GDD, but it obfuscates or introduces systems or items within those systems that deviates from the premise in my opinion.

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Nine0Wands1 year ago(+1)

Firstly, thank you so much for feedback! There's a lot there, so I do actually want to respond and share my thinking and maybe I can learn a little bit on refining my own process.

Secondly, I wouldn't really consider this a game meant for "casual" players. I wouldn't conflate cozy with casual to be more specific. I think there's absolutely a market of people who play MMORPG's daily, but are less interested in heavy combat mechanics and would be more interested in the social, collecting, and other systems on offer.

Thirdly, to address the complexity of systems, I would agree simpler is better! The complexity of the currency system is a little deceptive; the complexity is given as a method for developer side to combat the inevitable problems of inflation that simply exist in MMO's. It is a little complex, but it's not mostly player facing so my hope would be that the complexity of the solution is only as high as the complexity of the issue it seeks to address.

As for the breeder's shop, the male pet thing is an arbitrary decision on my part. For some reason, it made sense to me because I was considering how people in agriculture tend to address breeding related transactions, but this isn't really necessary in a game, so that is  a really excellent point.

I would consider "Fabled" to be a disposition that would make other parts of the game irrelevant if it could be 100% passed down, so my first instinct is to err on the side of caution, and make it nontransmissible. These are the types of animals that could be earned as a reward and could be something players want to invest a lot into, but I want it to feel magical and rare. I would say the bigger issue is that having a "Fabled" pet would make someone significantly more likely to win competitions more of the time, and...I haven't considered yet how to combat that, but that's a glaring design error.

If breeding and the marketplace are the systems you feel obfuscate the premise of the game, I would like to hear more about that. What do you feel, looking at this GDD, is the experience you would be hoping to have, and how do these systems keep you from having that experience specifically?

Again, thank you for the feedback, I would really enjoy a chance to hear more of the specific issues you have with these systems as a player. These insights are worth more than Gold (pun intended).

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Dr.MedicTM1 year ago(+1)

Fair responses.

To preface my perspective going into the GDD I visualized it as more of an Animal Crossing/Nintendogs/Neopets than a World of Warcraft so to speak. The game more heavily themes around the acquisition, breeding and training of pets rather than other larger MMO aspects like major story, combat, or grinding  (As far as I saw. I'm aware mitigating grinding was a point in your document but that seems ironic with the systems in place to optimize your pets).

Soren Johnson once said, “Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game”. Through breeding or holding on to high-value pets like the Fabled rating ones they may just win outright unless there are other considerable factors that prevent those things. Granted, your pets have personalities or dispositions that prevent them from learning certain skills more quickly, but what happens when any pet reaches the "ceiling" of its skill potential? Are the maximum numbers of points/stats for each creature the same? Do they vary by rarity or type?

On the subject of the in-game economics and greater scope of the game, addressing the economics first, your implementation of fee systems for different parts of the game could work, but some players may start running a "ranch" to sell optimized pets. And if fees scale too high cumulatively for a casual player to afford they may be permanently stuck at a point in the game because of always backtracking due to fees, will be dissuaded to play because it requires so much in game time and (ironically) grinding to keep up paying them, or the optimizers of your player base will see them as little more than minor inconveniences. It's not easy balancing Economics which is why some games have them scaled out of control (EVE Online and Team Fortress 2 for instance).

As for the MMO topic, your chats and gameplay loops consider this title a MMO but little information is presented about a greater story in the game. It doesn't need one perse if it's not meant to be a full MMO and more of a pet-based Stardew Valley but the implication of what an MMO is may shape your player's perceptions and find them disappointed that it wasn't the experience advertised. It could be re-branded to a Social Adventure game and take gameplay from inspirations like Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet. The story isn't mandatory but by interacting with the world and leading your entourage of pets you can create your own adventure somehow.

Those are all the thoughts I have at the time. I hope this helps you in your future development of the GDD and the project going forward!

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Nine0Wands1 year ago(+1)

That was great feedback!

My hope was MMORPG adventure meets special interest in pet collection, and I realized that there was a very Nintendogs situation in that, so I was sort of happy to lean into it (if there was a remastered Nintendogs, I would absolutely play it).

Obviously, there's very little options to completely remove grinding in MMO's without time gating, which becomes really annoying for a lot of players. My thought is that this is a game that can be enjoyed without grinding, but you're right in saying that there are people who would be creating these sorts of breeding "ranches" and economically I would prefer not to get on EVE Online's level so my hope would be that the other intersecting options of how to spend currency in game would mitigate the need for even more complex systems.

As I said, one of my greatest's weaknesses was not considering how to offset competitive edge created by these "Fabled" pets. I do recognize, however, that performance in each competition does introduce an amount of randomness, but creating max values for pet stats is currently a weak point, which needs further development, testing, and balancing to work as intended.

Lastly, the reason the narrative got cut from my document is that I didn't have time to write out story that I felt good about. I'm sure it would be the most fun part of the doc for me, however, I felt that I needed to put a lot of time in considering systems that I was less certain about. 100% not having a great story would keep this game out of development. If I were to continue this GDD and fully flesh it out, my goals would be creating a world and story that supported the gameplay experience I want to provide (a social, cozy MMORPG with a special focus in pet collecting) as well as refining these systems as we've discussed. The main reason I chose MMO over the suggestions you've made is that I personally would want a strong interpersonal interaction component in this game, and I also really liked the idea of trying to figure out how I could change something specific about MMO's to make it new, and this was my fun weekend excursion to do so. I haven't played Stardew Valley co-op, but having played Pokémon Violet co-op, I think having such a lower focus on story isn't really what I'm going for...it just came down to time.

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