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[Suggestion] Real Fear...
Lycancoffee
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
The blast of green mist from Wuoshi when exiting the EQ1 Druid portal in Wakening Land...
The thunderous footsteps of the Devilsaur King Krush from WoW when visiting Shalozar Basin for the first time...
The firey explosion as the Dragon from Darkfall soared overhead...
The haunting howl of the Fel Reaver's horn as it caught you slipping while doing your first WoW Hellfire Pen quests...
These were the kind of monsters that players feared. These were the monsters that players ran from. They wandered their patrols wide and randomly*, adding danger to the rewards that could be found within their hunting grounds. Whether it was valuable harvesting nodes, lucrative mob farms, or just a hard to resist short-cut, these monsters added something so special to these games. Huge, unforgiving, and deadly, they added a sense of fear. That feeling of looking over your shoulder, that feeling of running for your life if they detected you.
Please devs, please bring us this feeling of fear and caution, this desire to dare our fate, in Ashes of Creation.
These are the monsters that make players jump, the ones that make them whisper "look out for..." the ones that make them curse when things go awry.
I realize that some posters here will probably say "oh ya, but the game already has risk v reward through pvp and its caravan systems". Ok, true, but there is just something about a giant, terrifying npc beastie who's prime purpose isn't just to get farmed. A terror who instead is designed to make almost everyone run from it.... or die. Also, I'd like to point out that "more cool stuff" in a game is better than less cool stuff, even if the game already has "other cool stuff".
I also realize that in all the above games these monsters eventually became easily farmable, and not very threatening, and I don't disagree with beasts like this being "killable" by large, coordinated groups, although I do think that the games would have been better if they would have been updated to remain frightening as players grew strong.
I'm new to these forums (this is my first post), but I just recently gathered enough scratch to buy in on a Voyager pack. After so many years of mmo gaming, I wanted to contribute my impression of what I thought was one of the most exciting Npc/world features which many other games have overlooked.
The thunderous footsteps of the Devilsaur King Krush from WoW when visiting Shalozar Basin for the first time...
The firey explosion as the Dragon from Darkfall soared overhead...
The haunting howl of the Fel Reaver's horn as it caught you slipping while doing your first WoW Hellfire Pen quests...
These were the kind of monsters that players feared. These were the monsters that players ran from. They wandered their patrols wide and randomly*, adding danger to the rewards that could be found within their hunting grounds. Whether it was valuable harvesting nodes, lucrative mob farms, or just a hard to resist short-cut, these monsters added something so special to these games. Huge, unforgiving, and deadly, they added a sense of fear. That feeling of looking over your shoulder, that feeling of running for your life if they detected you.
Please devs, please bring us this feeling of fear and caution, this desire to dare our fate, in Ashes of Creation.
These are the monsters that make players jump, the ones that make them whisper "look out for..." the ones that make them curse when things go awry.
I realize that some posters here will probably say "oh ya, but the game already has risk v reward through pvp and its caravan systems". Ok, true, but there is just something about a giant, terrifying npc beastie who's prime purpose isn't just to get farmed. A terror who instead is designed to make almost everyone run from it.... or die. Also, I'd like to point out that "more cool stuff" in a game is better than less cool stuff, even if the game already has "other cool stuff".
I also realize that in all the above games these monsters eventually became easily farmable, and not very threatening, and I don't disagree with beasts like this being "killable" by large, coordinated groups, although I do think that the games would have been better if they would have been updated to remain frightening as players grew strong.
I'm new to these forums (this is my first post), but I just recently gathered enough scratch to buy in on a Voyager pack. After so many years of mmo gaming, I wanted to contribute my impression of what I thought was one of the most exciting Npc/world features which many other games have overlooked.
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Comments
Some players think the only fear/risk/challenge a game can offer is in the form of PvP.
Those players (which include Steven, sadly) have simply not played a game with good PvE.
Good PvE can scare the absolute shit out of you in a way that no number of other players ever can.
Bad PvE though, that just isn't worth even talking about
There are so many ways that PvE mobs can put fear into players if used properly and cleverly. Just have to hope the risk verses reward mantra is applied in some devious ways to PvE mobs.
So yeah, same basic principle.
Yes it was supposed to be the successor to EQ2 but a lack of funds resulting in the early launch and the expected buggy mess it became killed it for most who never looked at it again. After the bugs were sorted out it turned into a fantastic game IMO.
There are a number of devs at Intrepid who did work on Vanguard.
The dread comes from the real punishment of death, and knowing you normally don't have a chance on your own against anything. In some cases you might be able to run to the next map to lose aggro, but normally you are dead in 10 to 15 feet.
The result is that you end up moving about the game with the up most caution and respect for the environment. My attitude in any other game is to just run through packs of mobs with the "They will forget" mentality. Even elites in most games did not inspire any fear into me.
I don't expect AOC to be as brutal as FFXI, but I would like to have respect for some of the mobs in some of the areas. I would like for the elites to at least be as powerful as regular on level mobs in FFXI.
Having some "out of this world" named bosses that will chase you to the end of the earth is also not a bad idea.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
The game had areas where you were able to solo reasonably effectively - but those areas were often patroled by mobs that would take a full group, or in some cases, mobs that would take a fairly large raid. As was said earlier in this thread, some of those raid level mobs also roamed near portal/zone in locations, so you could sometimes be dead before you had finished even loading in to a zone (was scary, but that part was also just bad game design).
One thing EQ2 did very well, imo, was that almost literally every time you saw a collection of a type of mob, there would be a heroic (elite equivlent) mob that was able to be spawned there. Sometimes they were timed spawns, sometimes they were percentage change of spawning, sometimes they were a ring event (which is a specific term to the EQ franchise and it's offshoots, as far as I can tell). While leveling, the one thing you knew about them is that you would need at least 3 friends with you to take on an equal level heroic mob, should one spawn.
This meant that if you didn't know the area well, you would need to keep a close eye. You may spend an hour soloing those owlbears quite happily, but at any point in time a heroic version of that mob type could spawn and kill you in two or three hits. Killing griffons? there is a raid mob that roams the entire area that could spawn at any time, so keep an eye out for that.
Especially early in the game, this kind of thing could happen basically anywhere. I kept an eye on what was going on around me early on in EQ2 more than I ever did in Archeage (even while farming archeum trees in Auroria as the only pirate on the server).
Sound is what gets the hair standing on the back of your neck. When you thought you heard someone so you stop what you are doing to listen closely or when you are in an area where someone or something is suppose to be and THAT music starts to play. It is cliché but like the Jaws music and how it plays with you. If AoC can get this done it will definitely make playing much better.
Randomness comes from not knowing what could happen. Static spawns of npcs, linear routes to complete a quest or dungeon or raid completely kill this and ruin replayability. Think about it in games where you could make a different choice such as Fable or KOTOR, you can play the same game over different ways and have a different experience every time. When you can predict what is going to happen it becomes dull and you miss out on a lot of what could be. You can't possibly have fear in a game where spawns are the same, have one way to complete a raid or a dungeon or a quest. It has to be a fresh experience and I hope AoC gets this down more than anything. This particularly makes grinding more characters a chore versus a new experience in MMO's when the leveling path is the same and so forth.
Or just keep it lovecraftian, and make it an immortal terror, to keep players on their toes.
The only thing to fear in a game is getting in to a situation in which the developers didn't specifically intend players to get in to. Being killed and losing everything in a survival game is literally the games design, and as such is not something to be feared.
If you think you fear that, then you have not played a game that gives you reason to fear.
Things like being killed on zoning in to an area in EQ are not intended, and can result in a situation where you automatically revive, and are instantly killed by that same mob again - several dozen times in a row.
The game had a harsh death penalty, but players weren't supposed to die dozens of times an hour.
This is something to be feared.
Being killed in a game where the intent is you get killed is not something to fear.
I mostly play three genres of games. Survival building games (Ark, Conan, Atlas), MMOs, and Shmups. I would say that on average the survival games make me the most paranoid about death. In a MMO and a Shmup you just reset the encounter/game, and try again. So I agree with you about no real loss. Survival can really bring the fear, especially when you are trying to get established and are not quite yet able to defend yourself well.
I don't know that the sound design will have an effect on me personally as I mostly turn game sound effects way down so I can here my music, and discord. Random uncontrollable situations are a step in the right directions. I think a good death penalty is the best a MMO can do to instill fear. It is also good for the economy if you loose some valuables on death.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Player_death
That is not going to make me afraid, but depending on repair costs. It could.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
After rereading this a couple of times I couldn't quite get the direction of your intent, I will assume its genuine. However, we are on two totally different pages and your response is 100% not the point of OP's post. What you described as fearful is a bug or glitch and is something to be upset about or irritated about. Not sure if I would use fearful.
It's kind of like Elder Scrolls games (not ESO), where players find ways of doing things the developers never intended, sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way.
Unintended is not always a bug.