Rewarding exploration

Percimes

I think the greatest reward achievable through exploration should be doing so much in a remote area on your own that you get the node to village stage, and you name to place.

Nagash

Why do I feel im going to get a ton of grave robbers and tomb raiders at my door

Dygz

Nodes have several names that Mayors can choose.

BrianDaddy

Unique and very different areas of the world. The biomes will be a important part of making it interesting to explore and lose yourself in Vera. The ever changing nature I think will help drive it as well. I think the Art style book Ramirez linked earlier is very cool some may think its still a checkbox thing but I believe many would enjoy that artbook. Since there is so much drive on moving from place to place I think exploration will become many players natural enjoyment.

Rinta

Wandering Mist wrote: »

In order to truly reward exploration there needs to be interesting things to find, things that aren't found anywhere else, like a hidden waterfall in the middle of a jungle, or a unique creature that only lives in a specific part of the world, or a sunken ship that contains a little piece of lore.

Wandering Mist wrote: »

Exploration is indeed it's own reward, IF there are varied and interesting things to find. I never bothered to go exploring much in Elite Dangerous because 99% of the game looked exactly the same. Occasionally you'd find a different nebula visual, and it was cool going to the Sol system and seeing Earth from outer space, but that was about it.

I agree with you on this - it would be great if exploration, or at least some part of it, was not reward-driven.
A hidden beautiful view drastically loses its charm when everyone and their grandma went to this same spot because you have to collect all the "vistas" to get the "map bonus".
And it would definitely be great if despite that - there were still deliberately crafted places worth exploring.

Unfortunately some of the comments in this thread seem to be missing the point.
"A hidden Dungeon/Achievement/NPC with rare recipe"? This is not a single player game, it's not "hidden" - it's going to be listed in the Wiki because if this Dungeon or Recipe is useful at all - everyone will want it, and if it is an Achievement - well, most people probably know this nagging feeling of dread when you don't really care, but you need to unlock all the little squares on the achievement page...
A hidden place worth to be explored, really explored and not autopathed to or found with a guide from wiki, must have no gameplay value apart from maybe text-based lore.

I already mentioned in some earlier thread - my favourite example of this kind of exploration is Skyrim (it is also singleplayer unfortunately, I have no good multiplayer examples). One of the best exploration bits in Skyrim were random skeletons, each of which would "tell" a story. A skull with two skeletal hands above it - haha, funny deer. A skeleton at a mountainside with a dozen of swords piercing its chest - well, someone must have hated this one. Many were way off the roads and definitely not something everyone was expected to find, and many would give me a good chuckle. No quests, no lore, just some funny skeletons.

Gubiak

To my experience a beautiful area with absolutely nothing in it ultimately will leave area forgotten by average mmorpg player since there was no point of interest there that would either reward them for finding the place or even compensated for the time spent on navigating there. While areas like that might be appreciated by hardcore Role Playing audience most will label this as a nice place with nothing in it. I would say that having anything there would sometimes suffice. Scenario I envision would be abandoned ruins of a coliseum with an open roof that lets moonlight shine down on a half-broken, unreadable grave with a fresh flower at it's base. If a player would collect the flower another would appear another day/week. It could create a source of speculations and telltales that could have some following in NPC dialogue... or not, and have lore youtube channels freak over a nameless grave and a reappearing flower trying to figure it out like it's a pendant from Dark Souls, it might just not yield anything but with very little effort a place that was empty and bound to be forgotten could be made interesting making it a sufficient non-material reward for people willing to explore without having a: monster, loot, collectable node, NPC (which is not to say it's bad to have those kinds of rewards in my opinion but I am assuming we are trying to avoid that in this thread).

neuroguy

I think different players will require different carrots for exploring. Some will want explicit rewards (like loot) while others will be happy with a cool scenery. I think have explicit things in the game that rewards exploration where exploration heavy players (those of us who enjoyed elder scrolls style games a lot) can invest in and make their natural tendency to explore anyways, rewarding. In my opinion that would be the gathering artisan tree and some treasure hunting mechanic (finding a map or riddle where you hunt down some undisclosed reward that requires you to have that treasure map to yield loot). This way, you are not over-rewarding exploration to force people who are not that into it to be interested. Similarly, those who have a natural tendency to explore will feel their efforts rewarded on top of finding cool sceneries and all the other inherent/implicit rewards AoC provides.

Voidwalkers

Nagash wrote: »

Why do I feel im going to get a ton of grave robbers and tomb raiders at my door

I suspect your freehold will become a famous tourist spot/trap.

There'll be a whole bunch of selfie-screenshots on the internet titled something like "Me at Citadel of Nagash, dwelling of the world-famous necromancer"

What they do after taking a selfie is ... a different story.

Jamation

So, I’m not sure if this is exactly what you mean or how this would necessarily work in an MMO, but I love seeing the NPC’s doing what they’ll say they’ll do. I also love seeing if a random comment or line of text holds weight in the game world.

For the first point, in one game there is a side quest that takes place at the beginning of the game, almost as part of a tutorial to teach you about dungeons. It’s just a single quest given by this new party and they’re never really mentioned again. However, if you talk to the members of this party, they’ll mention going to X location or doing X. After progressing through the story, you can find them doing exactly what they said they would. They aren’t doing anything to draw your attention and if you’re blindly running through the game, you’d never notice them. But if you sit down and talk with them at these various locations, you’ll learn about their personal struggles with becoming adventurers and the loss they’ve experienced along the way. It's just a small storyline with no tangible reward or benefit other than to the player's own experience.

On the second, there are times when an NPC will have flavor text about how they’ve dropped something or seen something crazy in a certain location. Just a line of floating text over their head to make them seem alive and give them a bit of movement. Most of the time it’s nothing more than that, just some text that pops over their head over and over as the player gets close to them. But when it turns out you can go to the field and see the picnic this person dropped, even if you can’t do anything with it, it’s always neat.

So, in short, I love finding bits of lore that won’t impact a normal player but will enhance the experience of those looking for it. As well as characters having even the slightest shred of depth even if nothing but the journey comes from it.

Blackhearted

Havent they already stated that there will be rare resources to look for and gather? Wouldnt this already be enough to reward exploration?

McMackMuck

I'd like to find a plug at the bottom of the ocean.
Then remember the mantra "actions have consequence".

daveywavey

McMackMuck wrote: »

I'd like to find a plug at the bottom of the ocean.
Then remember the mantra "actions have consequence".

And, next to the plug, a big red button that says "DO NOT PRESS"...

maouw

Genshin Impact - for all its faults, did exploration REALLY WELL.
I was glued to that game for a while because I wanted to climb/glide over each hill/cliff to see what was on the other side.

3 things I think that helped with this:

• Hidden - The world of Genshin Impact has HUGE verticality in cliffs and hills, inspired by Breath of the Wild. @Cathartidae made a really good post somewhere about how hills/mountains help to hide the world, and make it a grown-up game of peekaboo. Similarly opposite, this is why flying mounts break immersion and birds-eye-view is boring. This tickles my explorer's curiosity, because I want to see what I cannot see.
• Natural points of interest - Why do dogs pee on certain things but not on others? I honestly don't know. But I do know that as humans we're curious about things like: what's at the very top of this hill/mountain? what's at the very bottom of this cavern? Is there something along the edge of this cliff? I swear there's something behind this wall. What is this curious thing doing here? There's a highway that I'm supposed to follow, but where does this small path go? Why is this tree a different colour? Can I go behind this waterfall? what's at the top of this waterfall? Where does this river start? etc. In genshin impact, they placed collectibles at these locations, and that alone was satisfying to the curious. They could have taken it a step further with rare mobs/gatherables, or a quest NPC, black market vendor, etc.
• Secretive - there were no quests or arrows sending you in the direction of these places. No guide or explainer of what is there. No list of locations to visit. You could play the whole game without noticing they exist. But that's what made these places special.

Rinta

Gubiak wrote: »

To my experience a beautiful area with absolutely nothing in it ultimately will leave area forgotten by average mmorpg player...

I started reading your comment, and my first reaction was "well, that's the point - it's not for average players, it's for exploration nerds". But then your following idea was actually rather neat

Hemlocked

Hidden little messages or poems, found in a bottle washed up on a distant shore or left behind in a ruined village by an inhabitant before they were exiled. Things that only a few percent of players will ever find. Then again, with the internet, once somebody's found it, everyone's seen it.

Wedlen

To me one of the most important things is having a HUGE alive open world to explore. I am turned off by mmo's with small worlds or small zones. Knowing that I get to explore HUGE Vast lands with different biomes and possible rare rewards in each is exciting. Areas that are very difficult to get to or are rare to find that have 'rare, once in a game' rewards. Ive always loved ultra rare spawns. I love randomly running into a monster that most people havent seen before because of its rarity. That kind of exploration reward excites me. I dont care for the 100% exploration bonuses.

Dygz

Well...the great thing about Ashes, for Explorers, is that we can return to places we've already visited and discover a considerable amount of change as regions are affected by node progression and destruction.

zapper

I think games are about doing, not just going to various areas and seeing.

This means, to me, that meaningful exploration is meaningfully rewarding to my character, in things to do, useful items, materials, recipes, super powerful weapons (yes) or strengthens my character in some way.

Just filling in a map is boring as are exploration achievements.

Dygz

Ha!
My Bartle Score is: Explorer 87%; Socializer 73% ; Achiever 47%; Killer 0%
I love to fill in the map even without rewards. Though I like it when exploration gives xp and there are times when it would be nice to at least see some NPCs or mobs wandering around. Learning some lore about the location would be enough of a reward for me.

Sounds to me like you're more of an Achiever than you are an Explorer.

codewarlock

Of all the MMOs I've played in the past 20 years, I think RIFT had the best exploration experience. They did mention certain things (vaguely) in achievements like "Complete the Puzzle in [Zone A]" but more or less it was still up for you to find the area. This led to me scouring zones for hidden puzzles, jumping spots, or vantage points.

Many came with their own little rewards such as titles, or tabards, but it was just really cool actually finding some of these hidden gems tucked away in the fringes and borders of the zones.

Fairtale

For the rewards to be good, they have to be unexpected.

Examples:
- Enemies that only spawn in areas where players haven't been going much, and that after being defeated respawn in different locations;
- Increased resources in areas where players haven't been going much. When a player explores an otherwise 'useless' location, he is rewarded with extra ore and/or rare monsters;
- Mobs giving bonus XP the longer they have been left alive;

Advantages:
1. Real exploration would be rewarded (instead of reading some guide "this is where you find ore");
2. It would become much harder to create an online guide for the game, making it more unpredictable and having players spend time playing the game instead of browsing online guides;
3. The game would stop punishing players that "go out to explore with their friends" (looking at you, WoW);
4. Players would stop spam-grinding the same locations for XP. No guide would be able to say "this is the best way of lvling up" since on each server the XP locations would be different and change from one day to the next.

I think there is nothing worse for an MMO to have a webpage or youtube video with a "list of BiS items and best areas for farming", basically making the rest of the loot and content completely useless and "forcing" players into playing in just a very small part of the game.

IMO resources (and maybe even gear?) have to be something that happens by accident, and not something players read online about.

Does that make sense for others here?

Ravel

A collectors bag, and things to put into the bag.

Dygz

Unexpected mementos that are placed on a collector's page... hmmmn.
I mean, there a places I've gone while swimming around continents where I've wished I could have had something to show for my troubles. Doesn't necessarily have to be "rare" or sellable.

CROW3

I’d prefer rewards that will help my next exploration expeditions:
- a better kayak
- an improved sextant
- a more accurate compass
- a telescope
- a flag to plant on a peak
- some bonus to map making
- identifiable stars that are brighter to me than to other players
- Etc