I feel like you're touching a bit on gamer ennui. Stuff might've seemed "new" or the "total package" back then, but the communities have basically broken down into finding the most efficient paths with people just parroting them whether they're actually capable or not. If you want people to care about trash mobs, they need their own value. Maybe it's high EXP. Maybe they drop upgrade components. Pick your poison, really. And while I started MMOing with FFXI, it had it's EQ roots. One could feasibly call HNMs the boss of a dungeon area, of which most people just stealthed past the fodder while fighting for the claim when they did pop. When MPK was possible, people even went to the length to try and wipe rival alliances. If PvP is possible, it's kind of a given what would happen there. Yet, without those things, you risk the game just becoming camping, claiming, and killing with someone or group of someones potentially being left out.
I'm generally against Open World PvP due to griefing, either like the above, highbies ganking lowbies, twinks outmatching the general population, class imbalances, and so on. So, I'd rather not see such as a "solution" and certainly why games like ArchAge aren't getting a second look from me despite their bold promise of a sandbox environment. I hate ******** other players. I hate being screwed by other players. And while some subscribe to the notion that competition fosters community, I can't agree it does within progression games when all things aren't equal.
If you're trying to say the environments themselves should have mechanics, I can't entirely disagree with the notion, but would express concern over how things like lag may play into it. If there's a part of some dungeon where you need to sneak past a guard, otherwise he'd trigger an endless wave of patrols, that period of sneaking would most likely need to be lag free, otherwise you give it a large margin for error that people would just complain is too easy anyway. Things like "You must have this class/ability to pass!" should also be avoided, too. Otherwise, I'd really like to know how you'd fight the ennui because if a location has no worth, not many are going to stop and smell the roses. That's just the nature of people not wanting to waste time, especially if their own is limited.
·Theme
- Forums
- Cross Site
- General Video Game Discussion
- MMO Preferences
MMO PreferencesFollow
Violence good. Sexy bad. Yay America.
Seriha wrote:
I feel like you're touching a bit on gamer ennui. Stuff might've seemed "new" or the "total package" back then, but the communities have basically broken down into finding the most efficient paths with people just parroting them whether they're actually capable or not. If you want people to care about trash mobs, they need their own value. Maybe it's high EXP. Maybe they drop upgrade components. Pick your poison, really. And while I started MMOing with FFXI, it had it's EQ roots. One could feasibly call HNMs the boss of a dungeon area, of which most people just stealthed past the fodder while fighting for the claim when they did pop. When MPK was possible, people even went to the length to try and wipe rival alliances. If PvP is possible, it's kind of a given what would happen there. Yet, without those things, you risk the game just becoming camping, claiming, and killing with someone or group of someones potentially being left out.
I feel like you're seriously missing the point we're making. I think you need to step back from the argument and re-evaluate what people are actually saying.
Yes, the boss is always going to have more value than the normal enemies in a dungeon. That's fine. The point is that the boss doesn't need to be the sole item of value in a dungeon. And that running a dungeon shouldn't offer rewards so fundamentally different from normal play that it's something people are doing just for that reason.
Let me put it this way - in most modern MMOs right now, mobs are literally reducable in value to the exp they can offer. Fighting them isn't interesting, because it's something you largely auto-pilot through. Their drops aren't interesting, because crafting and other materials have been almost entirely de-coupled from mob-slaying. Even weapon/item drops they still have aren't really interesting, because it's probably just "vendor trash" and items you wouldn't bother using even if they had your stats.
Say all the mobs in a dungeon had higher drop rates,and offered slightly more experience. Suppose chests had a higher chance to randomly spawn in dungeon zones. Suppose dungeons had patrols with meaningful routes, so you couldn't just charge through it. Suppose you got more conquest points for killing them, and they had a higher chance to drop seals.
Well then, there seems like there's a lot of reason to head to a dungeon now.
And the game doesn't need to be broken up into solo content and dungeons - there are other forms of content you can create. And dungeons don't even need to be similar to each other. The list of reasons you'd enter one dungeon might be totally different from the reasons you'd enter another. Maybe you enter one because you're treasure hunting. Maybe you enter another, because it's the stronghold of the species attacking your city and you need to work on culling local populations (because they keep attacking you and taking you off your mount). Etc.
Edited, Jul 5th 2013 1:00pm by idiggory
IDrownFish wrote:
Anyways, you all are horrible, @#%^ed up people
lolgaxe wrote:
Never underestimate the healing power of a massive dong.
Jophiel wrote:
There's people with the time to spend looking for groups, etc. It's the same class of people who had time before -- single, childless, college aged, etc who could stay up late and devote ridiculous hours. It's not that those people don't exist any longer, it's that folks like me have moved out of that class and into another class entirely.
My experience too. As kids came along the idea of spending 8 hours during a day goofing around with people in the bowels of some dragon lair wasn't an option anymore. Dungeon finder doesn't appeal to me either though, simply because I have no urge to get nerd-raged at by some college freshman who absolutely needs to get through the 12 dungeons a day he has to do to cap his points before lab starts. TBH I never really cared much for pugs even doing it the old fashioned way, sitting in LFG and spamming chat channels. Would gather friends, or friends of friends. If they weren't on we'd make do with less (How many things did we do 1 or 2 people down, without a tank, etc?) or simply not take the plunge.
Anyway my big draws in MMOs are:
1) Open-world "dungeon-like" areas, multi-person quests, etc. The Herioc4's in SWTOR for example. I've only done one or two traditional dungeons in my time there, but frequently do these little group ups. They're a lot of fun, and don't have so much of the same "gogogog" problem you find in larger dungeons.
2) Big maps. None of this loading screen stuff everywhere, give me a giant world to explore, or at least make it feel like I'm not in a box the whole time. Also related is extra space. Not every inch of land needs to be covered with quest objectives.
3) Mob variety. If you can use the same rotation/buttons/strategy/whatever on every mob in the game things get old fast. It doesn't need to be impossibly difficult, just make it engaging.
4) Something to tinker with. If you don't want to give me talent trees anymore, at least give me a deep profession system, or just something to tweak to my heart's content.
5) Lots of character appearance options. Because I want an orange handlebar mustache, olive colored skin, and plenty of scars.
6) Story: at minimum give me some decent reason to collect bear asses.
Edited, Jul 5th 2013 10:28am by someproteinguy
That monster in the mirror, he just might be you. -Grover
Quote:
Let me put it this way - in most modern MMOs right now, mobs are literally reducable in value to the exp they can offer.
With the way quest EXP works in most games now, mob EXP is almost inconsequential.Spoonless wrote:
Quote:
Let me put it this way - in most modern MMOs right now, mobs are literally reducable in value to the exp they can offer.
With the way quest EXP works in most games now, mob EXP is almost inconsequential.
That monster in the mirror, he just might be you. -Grover
someproteinguy wrote:
Spoonless wrote:
Quote:
Let me put it this way - in most modern MMOs right now, mobs are literally reducable in value to the exp they can offer.
With the way quest EXP works in most games now, mob EXP is almost inconsequential. I at least liked having it as an option.
IDrownFish wrote:
Anyways, you all are horrible, @#%^ed up people
lolgaxe wrote:
Never underestimate the healing power of a massive dong.
I like in FFXIV that you get a Hunting Log, where it tracks mobs you kill, and you get bonus EXP for killing a certain number of each mob type. At my level, it seems to be 4 or 5 of each mob type you come across. I don't know how it gets at higher ranks yet. So this is great while leveling, since it makes you go "oh, a new mob! I should go kill them and see if it updates my log".
Spoonless wrote:
I like in FFXIV that you get a Hunting Log, where it tracks mobs you kill, and you get bonus EXP for killing a certain number of each mob type. At my level, it seems to be 4 or 5 of each mob type you come across. I don't know how it gets at higher ranks yet. So this is great while leveling, since it makes you go "oh, a new mob! I should go kill them and see if it updates my log".
There was a time when randomly killing mobs, simply for the sake of killing mobs, was frowned upon as it could mess up faction that you may need later.
I think I miss the EQ faction game.
Alma wrote:
I lost my post
Jophiel wrote:
Seriha wrote:
For example, in the instanced environment you have the big baddy just chilling at the end waiting for the party to engage. Everyone who ever enters the instance has a shot. If it's open world, this baddy must be no longer available, respawn at set intervals, or have pop requirements. If you take the first, incentive to do the dungeon plummets. Do the second, people will just camp the end, not really caring about the rest of the dungeon and maybe even cheesing past other portions if they can get away with it because the baddy is what matters.
This wasn't my experience in (early) Everquest. Dungeons may have a raid level boss at the end (many didn't) but also have numerous named mobs with nice drops. People would camp sections for the named mob loot and because experience rates were increased due to both set spawns and Zone Experience Modifiers that rewarded the extra risk. People entering to fight the raid boss were a different class; they'd usually come in get ready, breeze to the end and do their fight and leave. Honestly, they rarely even interfered with the regular campers just due to zone lay out.
For most people, most of the time, the named mob drops and xp were their own reward. Most people who entered a dungeon weren't doing so for the purpose of killing the end guy. The dungeon was its own destination. With modern instanced dungeons, the end boss is the reason for showing up -- blow through in as short a time as possible, kill the boss, grab loot and scoot on out.
Edited, Jul 5th 2013 7:59am by Jophiel
Lower Guk, camping the ghoul, Hand and um... some other guy, don't feel like looking him up now. Hours and hours with those mobs. And I think I had about 735 Serpentine Bracers from the Hand
Recent Visitors: 215
All times are in CST
Anonymous Guests (215)
- Forums
- Cross Site
- General Video Game Discussion
- MMO Preferences
© 2024 Fanbyte LLC