Systems that make the game interesting unique and enjoyable

ArchivedUser

I'll get straight to the point and talk about systems that I have seen in games that made them unique and even keep a player base after over 10 years even though they had p2w ruin them but still sustain a decent player base because these systems kept the fun and made you feel like you won't constantly grinding or doing the same thing P.S tell me if you would like these systems since I know they are possible since even games 10 years ago could implement them.

1.Interesting NPC's
Yep just interesting NPC's they make the game so much more interesting even if its only 10 characters that have a complete backstory and UNIQUE personality that roam the world give you quests are apart of the worlds lore or legends and maybe even help in certain situations

2. Treasure Chests
Yeah randomly located treasure chests which players find by luck in the world that contain rare artefacts or weapons with some needing keys and some not on a random basis and a thief skill might be able to open it

3.Pets/Summons/Mounts that can actual fight and aren't just an accessory
I am fed up at games constantly make pets and accessory item rather than something useful its fun getting rare and powerful monsters to fight for you one could even give them a rarity similarly like weapons like color grades and star ranks with the star rank influencing the Pets/Summons/Mounts potential to get stronger as it levels like this a Level 40 4 Star Rank might be slightly Stronger than a Level 40 3 Star Rank

4.Prison Break System
For example if a PKr is captured rather than the corruption system which it don't think should exist unless the PKr is attacking someone 5-10 levels lower depending on the scaling you get put into your node cities prison for a certain amount of time put on can break out and the higher the nodes level the higher the difficulty for the breaking out this can also become its own game element

5.Monsters Capture Player system
A system where NPC dungeon monsters can level the dungeon and capture and imprison a player or players maybe even an entire guild if they are about and they have to work together to leave the dungeon

6.Monster vs Player Wars or NPC's vs Player
what a mean with this is a real war between either monsters and players or NPC's and players rather than only wars between players this can make a game also be interesting even if players eventually leave the game

7.Real Danger and Strong Dungeons and Bosses
what really pisses me of is that most mmo's have gotten completely ride of the danger factor in a dungeon or boss fight I once played a game that was truly fun where death mattered you lost both huge amounts of xp as well as maybe dropped a random item but that made it challenging also all trap systems in recent game to no damage and making avoiding them pointless it would be fun if there where dungeons where monsters are truly elite and even are filled with sub bosses and over powered bosses that you have to use strategy for so you don't get eliminated I played a game where their where to extremely powerful bosses in the same area and one need to distract one inorder to fight the other so your raid doesn't get eliminated or where you need to find the real boss among 20 fakes which all had almost the same look and all had the strength of an actual boss. It would also be awesome to have traps that can actually instant kill players making the experience all the more real and maybe the raid fails a lot to start with until players figure out how make it through the dungeon maybe they need to collect some items or potions that will help or get certain buffs through methods

8.Promotion Challenges
Simple that there is some kind of special task that needs to be done in order to get your secondary class or improve your class further making levelling and getting stronger challenging rather than a grind

9.Risk and Reward Moments
What I mean by this is that you and your raid might find for example a ancient tomb which is filled with treasure and artefacts and many other things but the items are cursed and touching anything could lead to potential destruction when you get greedy there is always a cost you touch an artefacts that summons the great ghost army of a fallen emperor or king which you now need to defeat. I think you get the point

10.Roaming Random bosses
Simple every strong bosses that appear at random times and random locations that give UNIQUE times that only he gives and only rarely appears like this it encourages world travel as guild and will be searching for these bosses and try their best to keep information of their appearance a secret which may lead to a guild killing players to prevent them from coming near the boss and leaking intel and if multiple guilds find out about the boss they might even have a small scale war to obtain the boss while still trying to have enough strength remaining to actual kill it as it will also be dangerous. It may even just give you an item that acts as a certain amount of us key to a hidden dungeon

11.Hidden Classes or Sub classes
Rather than making everything unlocked in the game to start hide some classes that players can find that might come from a quest that is available under certain circumstances and certain nodes and players will fight for the nodes alone for the sake of being able to get that quest

ArchivedUser

The fourth idea about prisons is interesting. Especially if players could sign up for guard duty and only get paid if no one escapes. That way the prisoners would have to work together and strategize.

Would there be penalties if the prisoners fail? Would the town guards become hostile if they succeed?

ArchivedUser

I like the way you think that would be awesome it be an extra type of mini game within the game allowing players more types of things to do in their free time guards vs killers and thiefs

ArchivedUser

I like finding shinys in the world for collection quests.

ArchivedUser

Could you elaborate

ArchivedUser

1. Interesting NPCs make or break the game. I do not want to play in a game populated with zombies or mannequins.

2. Why are there random treasure chests left around? Why do they disappear when I loot them and reappear full ten minutes later?Please explain why the owner doesn't come find it. If there is an interesting fun back story behind it, or a mimic who wants to eat/parley with you, that's fine. Maybe the chest fell off the caravan wagon that just passed through this area. Maybe it's a reality TV Orb prank the mage's guild is playing on the public to see how many players will try to open it without an ounce of suspicion or caution.

3. I don't want a pet tagging along unless it's useful. They should not be immortal invulnerable creatures. If they are let them fight the boss for me. If they are squishy I will worry about their safety, food, and emotional bond requirements. When I'm off to adventure my first stop will be the pet boarding house.

4. If you PK your character should go to jail and get shanked. Thank you for playing. If you survive you earn a notorious reputation. No decent person aware of your reputation will buy or sell from you, no one will offer you lodging, no one will be your Pheonixbook friend, and your pet will run away. The only way out is to redeem yourself with many good deeds or move to a new server until the heat dies down which requires a node reset. That gives you an incentive to suggest a siege on the node to your fellow ex-convict guildies.

5. Why are monsters always so peaceful toward each other? If they are competing for resources, like adventurer chow, they should clear their territories of other monsters. If you walk into an area suddenly devoid of the haunting mating calls of the owlbears you should suspect you've crossed over into the territory of their archnemesis, the owlbear tailbiting squirrel. The squirrels have eyes everywhere in the woods. If they see you consider yourself captured. They only way out is to bring along a captured owlbear as a distraction.

6. Sentient monsters should want things. Humans, elves, dwarves, beastmen, the other races I'm forgetting, have those things. They won't trade with the monsters or invite them to parties. This makes the monsters angry. So angry they declare WAAAAAGH! Grand battle to decide ownership of the node ensues.

7. What I hate most are the elite boss humans with 6 million hitpoints while I'm stuck at max level with 5000 hitpoints. What vitamins did General Wannabeboss take in his childhood that he has millions of hitpoints? Why are his ambitions so low that he doesn't properly take advantage of his godlike damage soaker? He should wipe out all resistance to his evil desires across the galaxy with that sort of unfair advantage. Only lazy designers throw crazy numbers of hitpoints on something to make it "challenging." Maybe the challenge should be not killing him. Maybe the challenge should be convincing the survivors of the civilization he almost drove into extinction to forgive him. Maybe he's bored and just wants to GM a adventurer party through something he invented he calls a roleplaying game. Maybe the boss could be a horde of Orcs, or a herd of vorpal bunnies, instead of one ridiculous creature with unobtainable stats. Maybe the boss could be the village baker you need to steal a fresh pie off his cooling shelf. If he catches you expect an instant knockout from his rolling pin. Boss should mean challenging but there are many ways to design a challenge.
8. Story driven character improvements are exciting and satisfying. If they happen to be unique to your character because of your past accomplishments even better.

9. Something with risk does not require an immediate reward to be satisfying and worth pursuing. The reward could be intangible. It could affect your reputation with someone you haven't met. It could improve the area, lengthen the growing season, make monsters avoid the area for a while. Perhaps the reward was a ball of string which you use later to entice the rare Neon Unikitty to be your pet. You might think you risked everything to get nothing, which is noble unless you expected an immediate reward, only to find your reward was waiting for you at home and it was better because of the length of the wait.

10. Random roaming bosses don't always have to be the bad guy. Sometimes the challenge can be resisting the adventurer urge to murder everything they come across. Maybe the random wandering boss is an ambassador on its way to a diplomatic peace meeting with your king. You won't know of course until you discover the treaty clutched in its cold dead tentacle. Now the boss are the castle army searching for you as you try to escape the metropolis area of influence wondering all the while why you have anger management issues.

11. I would like to see a skill tree with hidden branches that can be opened after accomplishing certain deeds, joining particular guilds, or opened for you when you find rare wandering teachers. Even then they could be populated with skills that are randomized or unique to your character based on your accomplishments.

ArchivedUser

LordCore love your ideas Roaming bosses I just meant as a way to bring more fun into venturing around and bringing lore friendly interesting conflict to both player teams/guild and such bringing an additional PVP option but I love your idea as well. When it comes to the stronger and elite bosses I just want their to be a challenge that takes real afford and maybe some failure but current mom's other than dark souls which isn't really an mmo make bosses and normal mobs to weak and its us that is overpowered sometimes not all the times it best to have a challenge and a risk as it makes the reward all the more satisfying. As for the treasure chests I mean treasure chests in meaningful locations such as dungeons or monster army bases but that are never in same location and are often well hidden so that the adventures don't find it I really love the ideas you guys came up with since they would be amazing AKA thanks for the in-depth detail you actually looked at all the ideas and the unique few points you showed i find the really interesting and would be an awesome implementation.

ArchivedUser

As for the PK system after reading both LordCore and SirGazorpazorp few point and ideas this is what i think the system should work like
1.Killing A Player does not result in state debuffs unless the opponent killed is between 5-10 levels lower depending on strength scaling
2.The Opponent that was PK'd drops 1 random piece of equipment and a small amount of coins
3.When a player PK's he becomes a "RED" player their name shows up bold and red to be easily noticeable to other players
4.After Pking "RED" players can't enter the town because guards will attack while their name is red (Unless in stealth mode)
5.the red name lasts for a certain amount of time and increases on additional kills (New form of corruption)
6.If killed while name is tagged red the player loses multiple random items in their inventory and some coin and you get a reward for killing them from the bounty poster
7."RED" players can also be captured after initial defeat and be brought to the city or town and go prison and pay a finn and lose two pieces of equipment at random with 80% of the amount payed and 1 of the 2 pieces of equipment go to the Bounty Hunter how caught the criminal
8. Players in prison are stuck in prison for 1 day in real life but can escape the higher the node the higher the defences of the prison but they can work with other criminals to escape
9.In order to prevent prisoners from leaving players can sign up as guards and earn a profit by trying to prevent the criminals from leaving the prison and get paid 20% of the sum the criminal paid and 1 of the equipment pieces the criminal lost

ArchivedUser

'Hidden' content makes things interesting and keeps you engaged too.

Whilst yes, that would include hidden classes and professions, hopefully they don't stop there.

Hidden areas
Hidden merchants
Quest givers in hard to reach locations
Unusual pets to buy/tame
Titles you can gain in world if you do or kill certain things,

ie: there are three unusual rabbits in the world, if you interact with all three you get a quest via the mail which spawns a special rabbit, if you kill that you get the title "Slayer of the beast of Caerbannog".. or something else random like that. . . . And possibly a rather fetching stuffed rabbits head as a wall decoration. "with nasty big pointy teeth"

ArchivedUser

Shinys are little bright glowing lights that are found in random places (sometimes they have a tiny ? or !) that when you click on them give you an item. When you click on this item in your inventory it can be placed into a collection. When the collection is completed, you go to a specified NPC (sometimes called a Collector) who will give you something for this collection. If you already have the shiny item you can give or sell it. Collections can give you gear, house items, money, etc.

ArchivedUser

I absolutely love the idea for treasure chests. But only (as is the main idea of the game) if it contains meaningful treasure. Literally every single MMO I have played that has included random spawn treasure chests it was basically just a yawnfest. Oh cool a treasure chest... oh.. some bread and a few gold coins... thanks? If they are implemented I would prefer to have them be either super rare thus containing only rare things, or at least something worth finding.. even if it's just flavor text items that were held as treasure in regard. It would be a bit trickier as these items might likely be long forgotten and possibly in a language that doesn't exist anymore.

ArchivedUser

Remember treasure chests from UO? First find the map, the location, dig, up generates a bunch of badass creatures, kill them, then you get the reward. If you can kill them.....

ArchivedUser

Thats what I mean treasure chests with truly rare objects that why they can't be in the same spot always either or even same dungeon they have to change to a completely different location and not give something that you can just get from killing a mob or boss nearby 5 mins late it has to be rare and unique but still possible for people to find ever so or so many weeks also the idea with the killing monsters before obtaining the treasure which brings some action and risk is also an idea i listed up above in the Risk and Reward Moments section (9.). I also completely agree with you that their needs to be risk with the reward.