By: Joe “jwbarry” Barry

Instances… 2.0

Hey everybody. This is Joe “jwbarry” and in this, the first entry in a series of Dev Diaries, I’m going to be talking about our new Scaling Instances and explaining what that means, how it works, and giving you a bit of insight into why we made a lot of the decisions we did and some of the cool upgrades and changes coming with The Lord of the Rings Online™ Volume III, Book 2.

Quality vs. Quantity

One of the constant challenges of game development, particularly within the MMO space, is the balance of quality and quantity when it comes to content. You need to make sure you have enough to do, but you also want to make sure it’s fun, challenging, and rewarding. Debates of how much more time to put into polishing a space, versus starting development on a new one, are a constant. When is good enough, good enough? Where is the point of diminishing returns and have you hit it yet? Is that one last thing on your list really what’s going to make this content sparkle and shine and be unique or is it actually extraneous? We struggle with these questions on a daily basis. There are rarely easy answers. Yes, in one person’s view the answer may be very easy: a simple yes or no. But, we’re not a one-person design team. We’re not one person in charge of reviewing content and providing opinions on it. And we’re not one customer who’s ultimately paying for it.

These issues and debates crop up most frequently with instances. Instances are large, complex, expensive pieces of content to make. They are completely hand-crafted experiences and game play, requiring organized group testing, multiple passes for balance, challenge, and fun. It takes a very large amount of time to go through the full process of getting an instance into a shippable state. Despite all of that, each instance meets with varying degrees of success. Even when a space ends up successful with solid gameplay and fun, like Orion’s recent rebuild of Garth Agarwen, it suffers because it is set at a single level and only accessible to a small portion of the playerbase. This creates a lose/lose situation. We have great content that the majority of players aren’t in a level band for, and the players who want to play it are left with something not in their level range and an unrewarding experience as a result.

This was one of the challenges we set out to tackle with the Skirmish system. We were able to construct spaces that are available to as many players as possible and succeeded in knocking down many of the barriers that limit the impact, accessibility and audience for the content we produce. Now, we’ve looked at the Skirmish technology and started tinkering with applying it in other places to spread those benefits.

What instances did for Skirmishes, Skirmishes now return the favor…

Instances were the first place we looked. What tech did Skirmishes bring to the game that could be leveraged to improve the gameplay experience, lifetime, and audience of instances? Three goals became important very quickly.

First, we wanted to get as wide an audience and as much potential playtime into each instance as we possibly could. The more players an instance is available to, the better value we get for that content and the better play experience. Instances are also a critical part of LOTRO’s current end-game. The more instances that are available throughout a character’s career, both while they are leveling and once they hit cap, the better suited they are for that end-game and the richer and more diverse that end-game experience will be. Second, we didn’t want to dramatically change what an instance is or how it feels; the differences they have from other content is what makes them unique within LOTRO. Each instance is hand-crafted from start to finish, with purposefully balanced encounters, tuned pacing, and unique bosses with custom skills you’ll only see in that place. They’re tailored experiences for a group of people. Each space offers a unique experience and high quality gameplay, and we don’t want to change that.

Third, if we are going to be opening up these instances to perform some upgrades, we should look at the gameplay that’s currently in them, and where there are opportunities to do so, add some polish, tweak some encounters, and ensure the quality of the experience is at the level we expect. From the time of Shadows of Angmar through Mines of Moria and to Siege of Mirkwood, the quality standards and expectations of both the dev team and players have increased. At the same time, the skills of those involved with designing and constructing the spaces have increased. New tech has come online that has opened up new techniques and gameplay mechanics and tools that a lot of the original instances didn’t have access to. While we were back working in a dungeon, extra time was spent to ensure an instance that shipped with SoA would meet the new standards of what an instance is including the balance expected, the custom elements, the skills, and the challenge level of boss fights. There’s no sense in re-releasing an instance and making it as accessible as possible if we don’t also spend the time to make the gameplay as good as possible.

To meet these primary goals, we focused on applying 5 specific elements of the Skirmish system to instances to upgrade and enhance them and let them reach their true potential as experiences.