Yeah thread got way off track and Im somewhat to blame...Anyhow...
Id like to see more intelligent mobs.
It seems like mobs dont have much brains, and are really mostly canon fodder to players. Is this because mobs with a brain are "hard"? Id guess because its hard to program that type of AI. Sure sometimes youll get a mob that does something interesting, but its usually because the AI always does that because its _A_Wizard_ , its programmed for that specific mob, not part of an overall intelligence.
Now, I dont mean like "Oh well too much healing, I got aggro!!" I mean the mob is pulled to the camp, sees there's a healer and casts silence on them. An enchanter mob is pulled and while the wizard is casting his 7 second mega nuke, the ench mob pops off a 2 second casted stun so that it doesnt get blasted. Rogue mobs would actively try to get behind players to backstab their bitchasses. How about this? Mobs dont want to get fucking pulled. What kind of monster just follows some dude down a hallway and lets itself get this shit beat out of it by 5 dudes in platemail? It would seem to me that theres a whole nature of mobs design that would open up if there was some more creative AI.
This sort of thing should really be implemented. Not only would it encourage player co-operation, but players would be obligated to pay more attention to their abilities. It would also foster the design of skills beyond simply different animations for similar DPS between classes. This would also dramatically cut down on "Run to mob, 1, 2, 3, 4. Mob dead. Next. 1, 2, 3, 4." Games aren't so tedious when they require the ability to make intelligent decisions on the fly, rather than the tedium of mashing skill bars.
I've heard various devs talk about this and how with our current technology it's pretty much impossible due to the amount of server cycles AI takes and if they were to implement this, the client would run like shit. If every mob in the game had complex AI like that would only be able to support a small number of players. Idk if there is any truth to that as I don't program.
We might not get ai that's that complex, but it'd be nice if we could at least get things like caster mobs trying to keep their distance; making use of crowd control, and the like, rather than every mob having the "run into melee range, start spamming abilities" programming that's so common.
I've heard various devs talk about this and how with our current technology it's pretty much impossible due to the amount of server cycles AI takes and if they were to implement this, the client would run like shit. If every mob in the game had complex AI like that would only be able to support a small number of players. Idk if there is any truth to that as I don't program.
The difficulty of creating interesting creature AI is the primary reason I think pvp should play a much more central role in the game experience. Competing players will create those very complex moments (for free) that otherwise take months to develop. The trick comes in how to integrate PvP into what essentially was a PvE space without shitty design loopholes that lead to collusion, griefing, lack of conflict, lack of interest.
Players are complex and they are simple. They are complex in how the approach a problem, and how they use the tools given to them. They are simple in the fact that they will generally go for the best reward to time ratio available to them.
I think the best method of doing this is to tie rewards directly to successful action when dealing with a competitive situation. If the rewards come in a big lump at the end, people will try to bypass the content to get at it. If the rewards depend on defeating the enemy, players will try to set up win swapping or back capping or whatever other kind of non competitive winning they can come up with.
So pairing personal rewards to personal actions taken against hostile targets is about the only way you can ensure people will stay on task and focused on the game and not the reward mechanics. Or at least make the rift between the two much smaller. Players are now engaging the enemy for both the greater and lesser goods.
However, these personal rewards should be amplified when an objective is reached. Otherwise, people will simply try and create a stalemate or bottle neck and farm kills for personal reward and not care completing objectives. This could come in the form of a multiplier, however people may wish to stall completion to eek out more points before cashing them in. I think a modifier that changes the nature of the points earned would be a more powerful incentive to see something through to the end.
So lets say there is an engagement between rival factions over an outpost. Both sides commit forces to taking and defending the point. As the battle ensues, each player starts generating points that will enable personal character growth. Stat points, abilities point, Exp. points what have you. However that is all they are getting until one sides wins the fight. Whichever side wins gets a different kind of reward proportionally based off of their personal reward. You ear 10,000 xp in that fight, you win 100 reputation points, you earn 1000 xp, you win 10 rep points.
These reputation points, would be used for a more public character development track that would elevate a character through ranks with their faction. There should still be some reputation points given to the losing team, at a much reduced ratio.
I think there should also be an opportunity for the game to support commanders and leaders of traditional pug environments. Give people the chance to lead these encounters and promise them a guaranteed fat bonus of reputation points if the objective is achieved. However, if the objective fails... the commander should stand to lose a personal stake and lose reputation at a flat rate per loss, going so far as potentially losing rank.
These rep points would not be spent but merely used to determine rank and when certain faction benefits should open up.
I think if you use an item system like I detailed in one of my earlier armchair posts that directly ties gear to faction rank, this could result in a very compelling system that could be hard to abuse.
Now as for integrating pvp into a pve environment. I think if you started off by offering missions to players from their faction. The missions range in objectives, but are always aggressive in nature. You are heading out to do damage, capture intelligence, sabotage, interrogate.. whatever. You take the mission and have to head out from the faction controlled intelligence center. The missions should be randomly generated to a degree... in terms of objective and location.
Now... once a mission has been accepted it starts a timer. You only have so long to get to the location before the mission is a failure. and then here comes the fun part. The moment you accept the mission, a counter intelligence notice gets pinned on an opposing factions board. They caught wind of your scheme and are asking for people to try and stop it. They don't have the whole picture, they have an idea where you might be headed and they know you are on the clock to get there. They also don't exactly know what you are trying to do, but killing you would probably put a stop to it... probably.
So there you go, off to try and achieve victory as either a solo mission, or a group mission, or a raid maybe. And you have no idea when or where the opposition is going to come. But they stand a chance at a big fat reward for stopping you.
The amount of information the defending team receives could be modified by the strength of the intelligence network in that area. So anywhere from a general warning that people might be coming to a specific location and time.
Certain level missions like raid and above should happen at intervals. Maybe a bunch of group level content needs to be completed first to lay the ground work for the raid to start. And there could be a bunch of solo missions that would make all of those go smoother.
So now instead of just going out and collecting bear asses, you get into a region and you find out what the status of the effort is. How close are we to a battle, what still needs to be done. How can I help, and go from there. Even if you are by yourself and don't want to group, you could head out and try and track some enemy movements and generate a report that other players would use.
Ok this post is really too long already... time to wrap it up.
One way to improve the AI is to have a real person play the mob. Think along the lines of the Disney theme parks where the staff goes on "stage". Hire actors who know the lore, back story, and game mechanics. Nowthatwould be a badass Erronius' style Dragon.
One way to improve the AI is to have a real person play the mob. Think along the lines of the Disney theme parks where the staff goes on "stage". Hire actors who know the lore, back story, and game mechanics. Nowthatwould be a badass Erronius' style Dragon.
Like others have stated, I still have yet to see a PVP game that doesn't devolve into ganking and griefing. That's what those games attract it seems. Plus, they ALWAYS cause PVE to get nerfed for balances sake. You can't have unique classes it seems. EQ classes like SK just become way OP and classes like bards that are needed in PVE are rarely played in PVP because their skills don't translate we'll into the PVP game. Basically the class with the best combo of damage, heals, and armor is the best. It never changes.
Having 2 sets of skills in the game hasn't been done well either. Skills still get nerfed for PVP. If you're gonna do a PVP game, all damage needs to revolve around PVP type numbers like DAOC. 1 pt damage to a player = 1 pt of damage to a mob. But then you won't have classes that are unique. No buff classes, CC classes, etc.
Like others have stated, I still have yet to see a PVP game that doesn't devolve into ganking and griefing. That's what those games attract it seems. Plus, they ALWAYS cause PVE to get nerfed for balances sake. You can't have unique classes it seems. EQ classes like SK just become way OP and classes like bards that are needed in PVE are rarely played in PVP because their skills don't translate we'll into the PVP game. Basically the class with the best combo of damage, heals, and armor is the best. It never changes.
Having 2 sets of skills in the game hasn't been done well either. Skills still get nerfed for PVP. If you're gonna do a PVP game, all damage needs to revolve around PVP type numbers like DAOC. 1 pt damage to a player = 1 pt of damage to a mob. But then you won't have classes that are unique. No buff classes, CC classes, etc.
I never understood why the hell anyone would want to play on a PVP server in WoW since the time of WOTLK. Not once did I ever find myself in a situation where we had anything similar to the PVP back in the early days of Tauren Mill. It never failed to be doing something unrelated to PVP only to have a douche bag jump your ass. Maybe I just suck at open world pvp in WoW, but I seem to do well in games that are centered around PVP though. Shadowbane or DAoC for example. As far as skills and attributes - I still have no idea why it is so hard to just have different values or effects on skills and attributes when it comes directly to PVP. Keep the shit separate? This skill stuns an NPC for 6 seconds and does 900 damage. That same skills stuns a player for 1 second and does 200 damage. Hard stuff right there.
Oh, and Darkfalls client ran smoothly for my computer. The User Interface was just absofuckinglutely horrible. The AI in that game was downright fucking annoying, but smart.
I would love to hear a good idea about how to make items get back to a nice rarity, though. One without camping mobs for hours on end. One without running the same dungeon 50 times. etc. etc. etc.
If the items are relatively rare, then they must take large amounts of either:
- Luck (low random chance)
- Time (farm dungeons, materials, whatever)
- Opportunity (be there at the right time or miss it)
The camping mobs you don't want is luck. The running dungeon you don't want is time (if we're talking about valor pts loot; otherwise we're back to luck). That leaves you the opportunity: Stormfeather respawns every 30 hours to the mark, so you must be there at 4:18 am and get the kill, or try again on friday noon.
I never understood why the hell anyone would want to play on a PVP server in WoW since the time of WOTLK. Not once did I ever find myself in a situation where we had anything similar to the PVP back in the early days of Tauren Mill. It never failed to be doing something unrelated to PVP only to have a douche bag jump your ass. Maybe I just suck at open world pvp in WoW, but I seem to do well in games that are centered around PVP though. Shadowbane or DAoC for example. As far as skills and attributes - I still have no idea why it is so hard to just have different values or effects on skills and attributes when it comes directly to PVP. Keep the shit separate? This skill stuns an NPC for 6 seconds and does 900 damage. That same skills stuns a player for 1 second and does 200 damage. Hard stuff right there.
Oh, and Darkfalls client ran smoothly for my computer. The User Interface was just absofuckinglutely horrible. The AI in that game was downright fucking annoying, but smart.
I have to agree with you. I started out in WoW Vanilla on a PVP server and my god was it fun raiding Tarren Mill, or defending Southshore. The tide would eb and flow back and forth, usually a few hundred players during peak hours. Then I remember the Devs saying there were going to find a way to implement this better, so they introduced AV. That was fun too, back in the day. Epic battles that where the same instance could go on for over a day. But something changed in WoW after BC. AFter that there was never anything like Tarren Mill. And raiding cities halted altogether until the Achievement system came, then it spiked while people were getting their achieves. So since BC probably the vast majority of world PVP revolves around higher level/geared players ganking lower leveled/geared players that have absolutely no hope of being able to win. Ok... if some people enjoy that, well good for them, but I don't.
Those to whom PvP oriented games appeal, especially the more open and unrestrained forms of PvP, are a self-cannibalizing market segment.
The ability to enjoy PvP really comes down to one thing; don't be one of the bottom feeders. As long as a player isn't always somebody else's bitch and get's to make other people theirs often enough, they'll keep playing. Once the pecking order of the game or server becomes established and the bottom feeders realize who they are, they begin to quit and a new group within the game's population become the bottom feeders and the death spiral begins. Eventually the population distills itself down to those who are close enough in skill and ability that almost everyone is viable, plus a few assorted hangers-on.
Developers try to avoid this by devising ways to prop up the bottom feeders to keep the game enjoyable enough for them that they keep playing, generally referring to it as "balance". The PvP predators typically loath and decry such devices while they opine for the bygone days of pre-Trammel UO and the Zeks in full bloom.
We really need to stop with this Hybrid PvP/PVE shit. I'd rather the focus be on one or the other.. considering that the majority of us remember EQ for it's PVE I'm all for a full PVE game=P
Seriously.. It never seems to work out. If they were to even consider PvP in EQN I would rather them draw up 2 different skill sets and implement them on 2 different servers. Full PVP server with PVP like classes/abilities and Full PVE with PVE like abilities. 1 game. 2 radically different experiences. I've played so many PvP games and continue to but Like I said before, I'd rather get my PVP fix from a game fully dedicated to it like DF than play some hybrid bullshit. Don't any of you guys just want a true next generation PVE game? I feel like we are in serious need of one to move the genre forward in the right direction.
Long camps, incalculably rare drop rates, and obscure zones were some of EQ's biggests lures. Can't find a group? Find a group, too many Spaniards XD / Germans (chaos) in that group? Well, you could bail and go farm x-item or explore x-zone. I'd say easily half of my EQ time over the last 13 years has been equal shares of grinding exp or progression and exploration. The other day, I selo'd myself and ran all over Dreadlands etc and explored old zones for fun. I remember in my really premier EQ days I wouldn't group for exp. We all would group up and run to Kaladim from Gfay or try to find Unrest etc or see what the dark corners of Lesser Fay and other zones had lurking in them (fucking brownies, I hate you).
Maybe, it's just me or due to EQ being my first game, but Ive not explored like that in any other MMO, and I played my fair share of WoW. And, as far as I can tell, people didnt explore Azeroth and Kalimdor like that either. I think there's something to be said about a certain REQUIRED amount of time investiture that makes a good MMO. Check the /played of "ding 60" screenshots in Kunark- the majority hit it with +100 days. In Vanilla WoW, it took 20 casually.
EverQuest taught you the valuable lesson.. Time is valuable.
Staying awake for 29 hours straight waiting for the godforsaken gnome, Hasten Bootenstrutter in Mountains of Rathe, weighed down with the coinage of 3250plat and the NO RENT shadowed rapier teaches you things.
How about a 9 month long WAITING queue to get the epic piece from the Shissar spawn in PoFear? Do you know when I've assembled my epic on my enchanter? People were doing 9th Coldain Shawl quests for about 2 months when it was finally my turn for that head to complete my epic.
That's what todays MMO's don't have. Time is scaled down the the least possible. 1-90 in two weeks if you're casual, 3-5 raids later you have BIS pre-heroic raid gear, 2-3 weeks after that, you're in practically BiS Heroic raid gear. So you're on top of the food chain as far as loot goes in 2 or 3 months. I'm sorry, how long did the breaking of Fear take? Can anyone remember how long it took before Fear was broken down and was easy? I remember us dying in Fear due to insane aggro/trains even in Kunark. Cazic is up, bang Deathtouch. Entire raid was being deathtouched because some idiot (1 in the raid) didn't want to die on the spot, but kept on running.
I'm sorry, but todays MMO gamers don't value time. The only other MMO out there where I can seriously say time is valued is EVE. The longer you've been playing, the monumentally larger pool of those skills you have because you could learn more of them. No where in EVE can a 3 month player be on an equal footing as someone who has played for 2 years.
Like elves in Warcraft 2 would say:"Time is of the essence."
They do, it's just that the market has been expanded to include people who aren't willing or able to sacrifice to the MMO gods the other things that place demands on their time. They constitute the majority of the current market. Development costs have risen to the point that the companies making the games can't afford to ignore that majority. For a newer game to have old school EQ style time requirements, it will have to be made on a shoestring budget or be simple enough to be portable to personal devices and allow players to access it in many little bite sized sessions.
Imagine that you're in a PvP match against someone who's mildly retarded (IQ wise) but has millisecond reflexes, knows exactly the amount of damage to the decimal of the spell you're currently casting, can run and instantly stop at a range of 39 yard, 2 feet and, 11.6 inches from you to cast a trinketed dot. And he has an encyclopedic knowledge of every single ability of you, and full charts on the damage of each class. He can figure out if the healer is capable to sustaining the damage output he's going to apply to the highest DPS of the group, completely ignoring the tank whose damage output is negligible because he doesn't get Vengeance stacks, and can reposition so that said tank can't bash and stun him until he's finished casting.
And he doesn't tire of the match, and never make an inattention error.
Think it would be fun if all your opponents were that kind?
