Environmental Developement

I do a lot of posts on Player Development. Probably need to say why. When WoW Population was about 5 million was reading forums and one of the many fun facts of WoW came out. Blizzard put out that less than 10 percent of population raided.

Now there are reasons for this like instant que especially Looking for More raid system. Plus some people do not have the time or other people just like to go fishing. But the percentage of people is so huge 4.5 million. That is pretty safe to say that lots of people that want to raid but do not. Raiding in WoW is medium difficulty. Not talking about guilds going after guild ranks just. talking about finishing raid with lets say 3 or 4 wipes. So there is a ton of people that want to raid but do not but could easily could if they just knew how.

Mcstackerson made a really good point about giving mobs similar abilities that you would find in raids. Now this may sound kind of over kill. But in PvP games like League of Legends raid mechanics are actually in a lot of player abilities.
I play Sion and that guy has and Area Effect charge abilities that has to be avoided. So if you stand in the fire 20 times most likely get killed 20 times. So Would learn to stay out fire really quickly. Some abilities area effect rays that shoot out doing damage to everything in front of them. So player has to line targets to maximize effect. Be cool if we had one or two abilities like that not appropriate for every class.

Thing is in Raids and in difficult dungeouns that causes wipes so might get removed before you learn raid or dungeoun mechanics. But if you increase the number of times a toon deals with simple raid mechanics they would most likely to be ready for it. When they finally get to a raid. So giving Mobs raid like abilities is a great idea.

As far as dungeouns are concerned simple non lethal raid mechinics could be added. Things like slime puddles that slow you. Vents that pour out venemous gas but do not kill you. Could even have little power ups like mushrooms that heal a little bit. Even something as simple as a rock that you cannot walk over but small enough to jump over. Just little things that you put in the environment to make people pay attention. The opposite of this is going through the entire dungeoun with nothing of interest but the mobs and the bosses.

Another thing I was thinking is having sounds of danger. Like steel grating, and door closing inside a dungeouns
Could also be applied to the open world just different sounds. But think key element here is that it might mean something. If certain sound always means certain mob is around then sound becomes nothing more than an alert. But if it sometimes means that there is a monster around the corner then it keeps the element of surprise. Plus keeps toon a little bit more engaged in the game.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Noaani

leonerdo wrote: »

If you think MMOs need to provide more help to get more people to try raiding, then this is the only area they could improve on: connecting players with other like-minded players, and teaching them how to communicate.

I totally agree that this is the only area that developers could improve on, but I also kind of have the opinion that this is best served by other players performing this role, rather than the developers trying to do it.

This is why it is where I spend a lot of my in game time outside of guild raids and events. I often join pick up groups on alts looking for players that may be interested in raiding, and I often run pick up raids if there is content that is suitable to do that on.

Sometimes these people end up being a good fit for the guild I am in, and we recruit them and then build them up and teach them the skills needed for raiding at the level we are at. Other times, the people I see that want to raid are a better fit for another guild, in which case I point them to the guild I think they would be a good fit in, and put in a good word with any of the leadership of that guild that I have contact with.

The thing is, raiders know that if you bring in a player that is new to raiding, you have to put some work in to them. Due to the nature of raiding, this means that you have to divert an entire raid nights worth of effort at a lower challenge (and thus reward) of content, in order to teach these new raiders some skills that those encounters teach. This is why some guilds outright refuse to take on players without existing raid experience - and I don't personally begrudge those players.

---

Perhaps one way to make it work could be a guild recruitment system similar to Archeage. Guilds that are looking for members for raiding can advertise that fact, and can also state whether they want experience or are happy training the right people up.

consultant

Think I have to spell things out for you guys. Hand holding mentoring goes something like intos that have pop up messages that tell you what to do. Very similar to the intro level difficulty in League of Legends. Or if you had a sceneria with vioce overs telling you what to do.

Some of my other ideas could be construed as hand holding like the one about the target dummy doling out raid mechanics or the one about the pet dog barking at the toon that is standing in the fire. See how that could be called hand holding but not something that is integrated inot the game itself.

As far as tracking progess it is not any different than tracking your progress at the gym or. Company having meetings and setting goals. So it is already effective in real live. obviously it is not going to work for every one but should work for lots of people. Keeping track of progress is already working in sports, in businesses in personal lives but you guys say it will not work in video games.

Noaani

consultant wrote: »

Think I have to spell things out for you guys.

@consultant

I think you have to learn to use the quote function.

It makes it easier to understand who you are talking to, and makes it much, much easier to try and backtrack a conversation to understand what you are referring to from previous posts.

Even if you delete all of the text from a quote other than the one part you are replying to, the rest of us can still click on that link to jump right back to that post, making it easier (arguably; making it possible) to follow conversations with you.

At this point, I have no idea what you are talking about, and backtracking through this thread where you have not quoted anyone is simply too much effort.

Please quote your own post where you detail this mentor system you think isn't hand holding (note; the idea of mentoring is to hold peoples hand while they get through a thing, so I don't think this will go well regardless).

Wandering Mist

@leonerdo

All of this is basically standard in themepark, PvE-focused MMOs. I hope y'all aren't actually trying to debate on those points. By the way, LFR is exactly what you're asking for @consultant. It's easy-mode raids, designed to get more people into raiding and show them the basic mechanics (and story) with minimal other commitments or difficulty. FFXIV also has this in the form of Normal trials/raids and Alliance (24-man) raids, which are semi-hard, but extremely forgiving (newbies might die, but deaths usually don't cause a wipe).

You know, WoW actually has a very smooth difficulty of progression set up:

LFR -> Normal -> Heroic -> Mythic.

Their dungeons have a similar progression system available.

The problem is it is ruined by the gearing system. The gear you can get from open world daily quests and crafting is usually far better than any gear dropped in LFR or Normal raids. This means if a player wants to actually see some character progression they have to go straight into Heroic raids, and for someone who has never raided before this can be a death sentence. This also contributes to the issue that players are so used to be overgeared for content that when they go into a heroic raid where they are undergeared, they can't handle it.

Players will typically do content that offers them rewards, even if it means doing content that they aren't ready for. Just because your character is strong enough to do the raid doesn't mean you, the player, are strong enough.

The only thing players might need that does not already exist in MMOs is a way to bridge the gap between zero-communication dungeons and raids that require teamwork/co-operation. Typically that bridge is provided by community-made guides, which teach everyone the best strategies ahead of time. So players just have to learn their role/job and find other people who have read the same guide and are on the same page. In effect, the guide acts as a leader and tells everyone what to do, so that players don't have to coordinate and develop teamwork.

I personally would leave this with the community. In every game I've ever played it is always the players (not the devs) who decide what language to use. The short-hand, the abbreviations, the standard communication lingo, these are all devised by the players. It's also common for individual raid teams to come up with their own phrases and short-hand for communicating that is specific to them. I remember watching one of Preach's videos where he mentioned in a raid that he was "going to China", which meant he was moving far away from the raid group during the fight. I had never heard that phrase before but that is what his raid team says in those situations.

Child Item