Add an element of DANGER!! to the Ashes world!

Most may have noticed that over the years RPG/MMORPG environments have become incredibly beautiful and breathtaking. Awesome job design teams! Now. What I've also noticed is that these same environments, beautiful and hellish alike, have become so passive. Mobs are where they are and players just stay on the path to get to point A to point B without much of anything happening. I ask you.. Where is the sense of DANGER!!? I recall back in my EQ1 days when it was still pretty dangerous to travel on foot... Even if you stayed on the path there was no guarantee of safe travel (although better chance than cutting through wilderness). You could also tie this in with risk vs reward as well.. Taking shortcuts will grant you faster travel time but at the risk of dying. We need to have that anxiety vs the world to keep us alert and engaged at all times. These feelings are what I believe help people feel more immersed into a game and make you feel alive!
Add DANGER!!

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maouw

Interesting observation.
I agree that there's currently little challenge in MMO's when it comes to travelling between places - hence players get really bored.

I love the idea of dangerous shortcuts, and safer detours

Lailesh1

I now what you mean, i renember on a other game it was everytime dangerous to walk around, and was happy to get my first mount, that i can faster walk around the world, and the enemys are to slow to catch me.

But can you look for a better Thread Name?
Danger is not really meaningful and it would be a real shame that less would read your opinion because of it, maybe they would also go into your topic more.

Greetings

Nepoke

This is the truest take about environmental design! In brief, danger contributes to two important aspects of the world that are usually forgotten:

Engagement
Contrast

Engagement

While there are many examples, a good one to begin with would be Subnautica. Here is a streamer entering one of the end game areas for the first time (if you have thalassophobia this might be 2spooky). Notice how after the big fish has made it's appearance, the environment changes meaning for the player. The area is pretty barren, and without any danger it would be fairly unimpressive and boring. But with the monster in play, the craggy walls and rock spires become meaningful cover. Subnautica keeps the player on their toes with AI, and thus forces them to pay attention and engage with the environment.

Another example of a different kind would be Asheron's Call. Here is a video of luminance farming going on near Hoshino fortress. The little town areas near the fortress are full of very rapid death if a player wanders in. The monsters are high level, fast, and aggro from a long range. Notice how the players don't dare to wander in, but rather just stay at the edge and pull small groups instead of taking on the whole town. Danger here is contained, but it's dangerous enough that the towns are a constant fixture in the minds of the players. The player has to respect the world instead of running where ever they please, thus again making them more engaged.

The difference between the examples is the degree of the danger. Subnautica employs a softer, spookier danger that lets the player explore the area, but makes them watch out. Asheron's Call employs a harder danger, that prevents a (solo) player from entering the area. In my opinion an mmo should have dangerous environments of both kind, sometimes mixed together. For example, there could be a wide forest area with a big blind bird monster wandering around it, while there could be smaller but deadly spider nests dotted around the forest. The big monster would present the soft danger, forcing players to pay attention, while the spider nests would serve as interesting terrain to navigate around.

Contrast

When there are no dangerous areas, then there can't be any peaceful areas either. If a player can just ride in a straight line through the world without ever being in danger, there is no difference between civilization and wilderness. Getting from one place to another just becomes a matter of auto running, and the illusion of a living world breaks. This is why danger needs to be present in some form to give meaning to roads and encampments, where players know they can travel without being attacked by monsters or having to navigate around a stream of lava. If danger marks an area as memorable, then by proxy it can also mark the surrounding areas memorable as being the "safe zone".

The contrast is also useful for enhancing the beauty of landscape. Do you want to make a pretty vista more memorable? Make it a safe zone surrounded by dangerous areas, and the relief a player feels will be combined with the visuals, creating a feeling of serenity.

Conclusion
I hope I demonstrated that danger is pretty good and stuff. Since Ashes has pretty harsh death penalties, dangerous areas should probably be visually apparent and have some graduality to the danger. An okay example of a modern MMO having some danger was launch GW2 Orr, where I had to actually watch my steps for the first time in the game, but wasn't instantly killed for taking a step. Additionally, the player driven events of reclaiming the area felt more meaningful because they actually made life easier for me as a player. Later on with better gear the place became more hospitable, but still maintained it's charm as the hostile land of the dead thanks to the memories of struggle.

In summary, please do danger! Also Dark Souls should be mentioned somewhere in this thread. Thanks @loveliss for bringing up the topic.

bigepeen

Most of the danger comes from the threat of other players who can kill you at any time. The best way to accentuate this danger is to have a lot of large environmental assets which obscure the player's vision, making it easier for other players to ambush said player. Even if you're traveling down a road that you know has no mobs, you can still be attacked by players waiting to ambush you as you pass. This is probably more dangerous than any mob, as you are very likely to be killed if you're outnumbered and don't spot them in time to turn around and run.

CROW3

bigepeen wrote: »

Most of the danger comes from the threat of other players who can kill you at any time.

Yep, that's the exact point I was going to make. Keep in mind, environmental danger, mob / NPC threats, and player attacks are not mutually exclusive. In fact, if I were a keen highwayman, I would set up shop at a location near the dangerous roads to catch you when you're either preoccupied with other dangers, actively fighting something else, or injured.

All's fair in love and robbery.

Nepoke

bigepeen wrote: »

Most of the danger comes from the threat of other players who can kill you at any time. The best way to accentuate this danger is to have a lot of large environmental assets which obscure the player's vision, making it easier for other players to ambush said player. Even if you're traveling down a road that you know has no mobs, you can still be attacked by players waiting to ambush you as you pass. This is probably more dangerous than any mob, as you are very likely to be killed if you're outnumbered and don't spot them in time to turn around and run.

Danger caused by player is indeed a big positive factor to engagement with the terrain! In fact, on Darktide, (the Asheron's Call's full pvp server) Hoshino fortress could very quickly erupt into pvp, and that further shaped the area in what were the good spots to be at to avoid being ganked.

BUT as @CROW3 points out these are not mutually exclusive, and I think PVE danger is very important too. Player danger increases with the popularity of the spot, and rarely correlates with how "evil" an area should be lorewise. Player danger and PVE danger together form interesting gameplay dilemmas, where avoiding the road as a caravan might evade gankers, but taking a detour through the forest might get you eaten by a troll.

EDIT: Also PVP around and in truly dangerous PVE areas in my experience is way more fun because you need to navigate the mobs and you can use them to your advantage.

Atama

I can say that playing Alpha, at least at the lower levels, my heart was in my throat. You lose a lot on death and there are lots of things that can eat you. There's little-to-no fast travel either. And I'm not even going to bring up PvP. I believe one of the design goals is to make it so that travel is never something routine.

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