Best Of
Re: Loot System Changes
I added my feedback exactly BECAUSE I read all the comments.Did you not read any of the comments? Everyone who posted input are veteran MMO players.
I've played Lineage 2 for 12 years. In that time I've been everything, from a random solo player buying craft mat by craft mat in order to make a single piece of armor for myself, all the way up to a GL of a 200-member guild that used this exact looting system to fairly distribute the loot.The only possible reason you could like that thoughtless system is if you have a history of being a guild leader or an officer.
And in my 12 years of playing the game I've barely ever seen guilds that would fuck over people as much as all yall are scared shitless of. You know why? Because L2 is a party game, where your party is pretty much your family, so you have the same people playing with you day in day out.
And then those parties join each other in guild families, where everyone holds each other responsible for good culture and fairness. And if someone was such a dick that they fucked people over on loot - they'd be known across the entire server and barely anyone would even agree to guild up with them.
Yall seem to come from places where "pugs" was a normal thing and where everyone only thought about their own loot and success, so not getting a piece of drop EVEN ONCE meant that you got "fucked over".
This is why I called yall modern gamers. And if you're all supposedly "vets" and you still want an "everyone gets something" system - well, as the classic phrase goes... this game is not for you
Ludullu
3
Re: Loot System Changes
While I’m fine with some of the less-friendly system like Need/Greed or Bids when it comes to the (should-be) uncommon full gear drops, it’s just a plain old bad idea to not reward every contributor to the raid in some way through loot, and I cannot emphasize enough that those participation rewards should NOT be something other players can affect.
Literally who thought it was a good idea to let people kick group mates out of looting rights after a clear??? That’s such a horrible idea.
I don’t think there’s actually a way to compute how negative an experience it is to spend hours upon hours of your time in a raid, succeed, and then get nothing. It doesn’t encourage grouping or being social; it encourages your players to never join in with strangers to help them. It actively makes players more reluctant to engage cooperatively with each other when the tools that exist make it so unbelievably easy for the group lead to screw people over.
At the absolute least every player should get crafting materials based on their ranks in the respective gathering lines, and they should never lose looting rights from getting ninja-kicked after the clears.
I agree that players who are part of a fight deserve to be on the loot table with options to roll. It should be determined by being in the group when the fight is engaged. This is also very easy to implement and will probably be a thing.
However, I absolutely despise the "trophy for all" the world is coming to. You do not deserve to be showered with anything just because you were there clicking buttons. Flood the market with junk and the market values are nothing. Then it also becomes a auto attack issue because no matter what, players get rewarded.
Rolling for loot in a pug or organizing loot for guild members in a full guild raid simply makes sense, promotes community, builds trust/friendships and is exactly what an MMORPG is supposed to be. Games that play themselves, rewards everyone with everything, dumbs down the extra layers of what this loot system provides don't have a place in a game that is trying to bring back the best parts of mmorpgs.
"However, I absolutely despise the "trophy for all" the world is coming to. You do not deserve to be showered with anything just because you were there clicking buttons." - By that logic, anything you do in game is just "clicking buttons", so there should be no rewards?
I'd argue that spending your time to take a boss down is you spending your time and effort, that could've been spent on something else that WOULD give you rewards.
Again, you could simply give players something, while good rewards are still locked behind this loot system.
It could be anything, from raw gold, recipes, low tier materials - you could also simply make it into a quest, which completes once you kill the boss, and you go and collect the reward from NPC.
All the good rewards, like rare weapons, rare materials, etc. are behind the current loot system.
"If every time you killed a boss you got a bunch of loot, you would quit the game because it would be too easy or too boring. If you killed 10 bosses and never saw anything, you would be bored and leave. There is a balance to be made with how loot drops."
Nobody's arguing you should get a bunch of loot though. How easy it is is dependent on the fight, not just what you receive at the end of it.
Imagine if it's a hard boss fight, that always has PvP competition. After a couple of hours, you manage to kill the boss, and in turn....you get nothing at all...
The second part is exactly what people have a problem with, you could go on and kill 10 bosses, without receiving anything, because of this system. And trust me, in organized groups, it will be set to Lootmaster, so the raid leader will decide who gets the loot, and unless you are one of the top people/officers in the guild, you won't get anything - that is until all of them get what they need.
iccer
1
Re: Proposal for Class mini Dev series on 8 points.
Re: World Boss AI and PvP
For example: Imagine a goblin shaman as being the boss. A group engages, another group comes in to contest the boss. As soon as the other PvP starts, the goblin shaman retreats onto a totem pole and then BUFFS THE PLAYERS to increase their damage done and taken. If a player dies, he will use the soul/juju/mojo/ghost to summon a spectral beast add. Basically the boss tries to exploit the infight amongst his enemies to his own advantage.
I absolutely love this idea.
I could see fights that thrive on the concept of PvP, maybe by increasing the rewards at the end based on how many players died from PvP during the fight (would need some sort of anti abuse mechanic).
Nugs
1
Re: Contest for Parent Node
Oh, I definitely would still love a revolution mechanic, but it's obvious that quite a few people consider that to be too extreme, so I thought that this would be a good middle ground.I personally prefer the revolution suggestion from the original post. I know I argued against the more extreme implementations, but I like the idea of introducing an option for uprising against the parent node, as long as it requires sufficient diplomacy or effort.
But what I'm suggesting is just a continuation on this exact design. It just creates a lever for those active players to use. And it would not just be active players, but proactive ones that are interested in the lives of the nodes, rather than "a shitton of casuals just happened to be leveling here". Though even then, those casuals could be attracted to another node, if the proactive players manage to convince the casuals to move there for the time of the challenge.My suspicion is that the system is meant to be balanced around this "just had more (actively contributing) players in it" metric, and if we lower the significance of that balancing cornerstone, we'll be left with an even less refined system.
But it's already under their control. They'll be the ones playing and contributing the most in their chosen nodes. What I'm suggesting is a way for other guilds/proactive players to try and counteract that in a more meaningful and directed way, while in the current system no one would be the wiser about how close/far the node, under the control of those strong guilds, is.Your suggestion gives far too much control over world developments directly into the hands of powerful players instead of letting individuals vote with their actions. Node development should be complex and difficult to predict, not be binary; it's the world evolving, it should feel natural and uncontrolled.
By your own logic in the previous post of guilds controlling everything, I'd even argue you're actually just making the node development more predetermined.
That's kinda the point though. The first 2 stages don't have any of that attraction because they barely even have the npcs and quests related to their specialty. But those 2 lvls will already start the avalanche of lvl lockouts.Your suggestion is a bandaid solution to a fundamental problem with node levelling. That's never a good idea, and it's only going to distract from putting in the necessary work to improve the system causing the symptom. Each node type and each node location should be equipped to attract players, and enable players to be active enough there with activities that level that node.
And considering the time scale of those first few lvls, it's not like my suggestion would definitely prevent those nodes from growing. I'd imagine that the nodes around starting locations will still be the ones to grow the fastest simply because all the casual players will spill out onto those nodes and just play the game - which means that those nodes will get a shitton of xp.
All this stuff could be the player action suggestion that I mentioned. And if players in the "losing" node can't take those actions during the challenge period - they'll properly lose the parent status. It'll be something that resulted from action of both sides, rather than actions of just one group of people overfarming another.You would ensure that by adjusting node type experience gain for crafting, trading, PvP etc. Things that aren't just XP-farming.
Here we just disagree on what that chance is. Currently I don't believe it'll be decent.Then, if all nodes types are inherently viable, it won't be as big of a deal if a sought-after dungeon or monster always appears in the same map location; there will still be a decent chance of a surrounding node type locking out that area because players care more about crafting/warring in the neighbouring node than farming those mobs/dungeons in the node containing that PvE objective. The general area might still be sought-after across most server realms, but the levels of each node will be very fluid anyway.
I'm not sure what you're saying here.This will also ensure that sieging can create lasting change, because a thriving PvE metropolis that's successfully destroyed won't just be back at the top of the node XP scoreboard again two months later, if the metropolis that replaced it is destroyed. (Because other nodes will be able to match its XP rebuilding speed and stay ahead.)
Right now successful sieges bring down the node to lvl0, so that ex-metro won't do shit, cause its past vassal system will have just grown up a bit and would've grabbed a buffer node into itself.
In other words, that ex-metro won't even have the challenge to go up against someone of similar lvl.
Ludullu
2
Re: [NA] Epherium | PvP | Hardcore | Competitive PvPvX | Gaming Community | 400+ in Alpha 2
Thanks for the response, both humorous and serious is a great combination. Just got my Kickstarter issues with Intrepid sorted out (customer support was on target) I'm eligible for Alpha 2 so I will drop into your comms soon, and we can see if there is any synergy for shared goals, and if I'm a suitable fit for your organisation.
Zaltys
1
Re: Why did you stop to play an MMO you once loved?
My online rpg gaming started with MUDs, I left those when I found EverQuest. EverQuest was my first graphical MMOrpg and the early years of EQ are still the standard I look to when deciding to keep playing a new MMOrpg or not. I started playing EQ in 1999, I finally stopped playing in 2008. Truth be told, I lost most interest in it after the expansion Planes of Power was released in 2002, by the release of Prophecy of Ro in 2006 I was pretty much completely over it, but I stuck around for the friends I had made and continued to make within the guilds.
Planes of Power was when Sony really started to put the training wheels on the game, and it only got progressively worse with each additional expansion after that. I stopped playing EQ because Sony kept insisting on adding more and more training wheels to the game.
I never got into WoW or EQ2 because from my limited trial experience those are basically training wheels with pretty pictures taped on. I did try quite a few others over the years, could never really stick with any of them though. Truth be told I’ve never really found any game that held my interest like EQ did, if I had to pick one game that did or at least came close I would say it would have been Ark Survival Evolved pre Scorched Earth expansion.
Why did I leave other MMO’s after EQ?
Because they could not compare to early EQ. Basically, they all have training wheels on to some various degree. Most players now a days have come to expect to have access to those training wheels. Some players will say it’s progress or that it helps streamline the game to make it more fun. All I can say to that is, don’t bother trying to convince me with your excuses. I have personally experienced how great and fun it was before those things. Nothing you can or will say will ever convince me that training wheels make games better. I know I'm in the minority on thinking this, get over me not agreeing with you. I know I’ll most likely never be able to get away from most if not all of the training wheels again, but I have hopes that Ashes will still be fun.
For those too young to remember the old days, and what I mean by training wheels here are some of the more common examples.
Easy access to fast travel – Fast travel in general outside of a class specific perk or spell, that does not mean give every class a fast travel button. The world is large, the world is beautiful. Experience it, explore it, don’t skip it with fast travel.
Instanced dungeons or zones – I have never seen these done in any sort of way that could be considered competent. I do however like what I’m seeing so far about the plans for these in Ashes.
Instant player trade over any distance – this includes in game mail if it’s a thing if you can send items AND it does not require to go to a mailbox or some such specific location to collect and send.
Mini Maps – Personally I feel any map is a training wheel, but some games have of done a decent job with world only maps. I do agree that Ashes will need a good world map with updated information displayed on it.
Anything Finders – outside of a class specific skill or ability like a ranger track ability. If it’s a class ability it’s a perk of the class otherwise if something is leading you by the nose to whatever you are looking for it’s a training wheel.
In game guides – as in telling you your level X go hunt here or go gather over there
Hired Minions – class specific pets like necromancers have are fine as they are perks of the class, cosmetic pets that do nothing are fine, the training wheels are on when that hired minion starts healing you or killing for you.
Planes of Power was when Sony really started to put the training wheels on the game, and it only got progressively worse with each additional expansion after that. I stopped playing EQ because Sony kept insisting on adding more and more training wheels to the game.
I never got into WoW or EQ2 because from my limited trial experience those are basically training wheels with pretty pictures taped on. I did try quite a few others over the years, could never really stick with any of them though. Truth be told I’ve never really found any game that held my interest like EQ did, if I had to pick one game that did or at least came close I would say it would have been Ark Survival Evolved pre Scorched Earth expansion.
Why did I leave other MMO’s after EQ?
Because they could not compare to early EQ. Basically, they all have training wheels on to some various degree. Most players now a days have come to expect to have access to those training wheels. Some players will say it’s progress or that it helps streamline the game to make it more fun. All I can say to that is, don’t bother trying to convince me with your excuses. I have personally experienced how great and fun it was before those things. Nothing you can or will say will ever convince me that training wheels make games better. I know I'm in the minority on thinking this, get over me not agreeing with you. I know I’ll most likely never be able to get away from most if not all of the training wheels again, but I have hopes that Ashes will still be fun.
For those too young to remember the old days, and what I mean by training wheels here are some of the more common examples.
Easy access to fast travel – Fast travel in general outside of a class specific perk or spell, that does not mean give every class a fast travel button. The world is large, the world is beautiful. Experience it, explore it, don’t skip it with fast travel.
Instanced dungeons or zones – I have never seen these done in any sort of way that could be considered competent. I do however like what I’m seeing so far about the plans for these in Ashes.
Instant player trade over any distance – this includes in game mail if it’s a thing if you can send items AND it does not require to go to a mailbox or some such specific location to collect and send.
Mini Maps – Personally I feel any map is a training wheel, but some games have of done a decent job with world only maps. I do agree that Ashes will need a good world map with updated information displayed on it.
Anything Finders – outside of a class specific skill or ability like a ranger track ability. If it’s a class ability it’s a perk of the class otherwise if something is leading you by the nose to whatever you are looking for it’s a training wheel.
In game guides – as in telling you your level X go hunt here or go gather over there
Hired Minions – class specific pets like necromancers have are fine as they are perks of the class, cosmetic pets that do nothing are fine, the training wheels are on when that hired minion starts healing you or killing for you.
Re: Why did you stop to play an MMO you once loved?
World of Warcraft. I quit playing because it became a job. Daily quests are a blight upon the industry, I want to log in and decide what I want to do, not log in and do my dailies every day before I can decide what I want to do. My playtime is not infinite, and it just sucks up time that I don't want to spend on it...but if I don't, I fall behind in either in-game financial, rep, or gear ways. I want to play a game, not play a job.
Re: Why did you stop to play an MMO you once loved?
"Quit" playing ArcheAge .... cuz they shut the whole damn game down!
From Beta to Close!
Ride or die!
From Beta to Close!
Ride or die!
tinukeda
2
Contest for Parent Node
This post got inspired by this comment.
What would yall think if, when a node was about to level up and lock out its neighbors from leveling up, it would instead open a contest for that lock out. Send out a challenge to any potential rival nodes surrounding it.
The time period of this challenge would depend on the stage of the node that's about to level up, so, say, the challenge for lvl1 upgrade would last just 1-2h, lvl2 could be smth like 10h and lvl3 could be a day or two (and anything higher obviously longer).
Players in the contesting node (if there is one at the time of the challenge) would get a notification of "neighboring node is about to lock this one out. Do this and this if you wanna try and prevent that". And it'd be up to players in those node to decide on the spot if they wanna help the potentially locked out node.
At lvls < 3 it could just be about direct node XP, so the suggested actions would include smth like "do quests" (cause they maybe give the most node xp), while after lvl3 the contest could depend on the type of nodes that are fighting for the lvl up and player actions would require them to do something related to the type of their node.
Imo this would be a much better system than just "well, this node simply had more people in it, so your node got fucked over".
Especially because I believe that mobs will be spawning in the same locations on every server. And those mobs will have the same loot across all servers. This then means that groups (namely guilds, especially hardcore ones) that are trying to play optimally would grind those mobs/bosses (gatherable mats) in the same spots on all servers, which then means that the nodes that house those mobs/gatherables would be the ones getting the most xp, which would lead to them being the ones that lvl up the fastest. And this could inevitably lead to samey-looking servers, which kinda goes against the plan of "each server will look diferently cause different nodes will grow at different paces on different servers".
And yes, I know, the classic "let's test this before suggesting changes" always applies, but I doubt we'll see the true picture of how nodes will grow during A2. We miiiight see that in betas, but those are years out and putting untested changes into the NODE system seems like a bad idea that close to release.
All the while, testing my suggestion would be fairly simple. Intrepid delevel a bunch of nodes in a location > tp people there (during a predetermined test time) > say "choose a node you want and play like you'd play normally" > and then see how well the challenge thing does, if at all well.
So, what do yall think?
What would yall think if, when a node was about to level up and lock out its neighbors from leveling up, it would instead open a contest for that lock out. Send out a challenge to any potential rival nodes surrounding it.
The time period of this challenge would depend on the stage of the node that's about to level up, so, say, the challenge for lvl1 upgrade would last just 1-2h, lvl2 could be smth like 10h and lvl3 could be a day or two (and anything higher obviously longer).
Players in the contesting node (if there is one at the time of the challenge) would get a notification of "neighboring node is about to lock this one out. Do this and this if you wanna try and prevent that". And it'd be up to players in those node to decide on the spot if they wanna help the potentially locked out node.
At lvls < 3 it could just be about direct node XP, so the suggested actions would include smth like "do quests" (cause they maybe give the most node xp), while after lvl3 the contest could depend on the type of nodes that are fighting for the lvl up and player actions would require them to do something related to the type of their node.
Imo this would be a much better system than just "well, this node simply had more people in it, so your node got fucked over".
Especially because I believe that mobs will be spawning in the same locations on every server. And those mobs will have the same loot across all servers. This then means that groups (namely guilds, especially hardcore ones) that are trying to play optimally would grind those mobs/bosses (gatherable mats) in the same spots on all servers, which then means that the nodes that house those mobs/gatherables would be the ones getting the most xp, which would lead to them being the ones that lvl up the fastest. And this could inevitably lead to samey-looking servers, which kinda goes against the plan of "each server will look diferently cause different nodes will grow at different paces on different servers".
And yes, I know, the classic "let's test this before suggesting changes" always applies, but I doubt we'll see the true picture of how nodes will grow during A2. We miiiight see that in betas, but those are years out and putting untested changes into the NODE system seems like a bad idea that close to release.
All the while, testing my suggestion would be fairly simple. Intrepid delevel a bunch of nodes in a location > tp people there (during a predetermined test time) > say "choose a node you want and play like you'd play normally" > and then see how well the challenge thing does, if at all well.
So, what do yall think?
Ludullu
4