Monsters and Memories (Project_N) - Old School Indie MMO

Kaines · Oct 21, 2020

Dizzam said:
Might be how you design games for mass audiences, but designing games for mass audiences is how we got here. I don’t think having instance versions of open world dungeons solves the problem. It takes the same toll on immersion and community as instancing alone. And doing the same work for less of a reward just because you’re in the instanced version instead of the open world version would be frustrating.

It’s about freedom of choice. If you want to compete and deal with trains and shitheads by all means you should have that ability. And get properly rewarded for it. If you just want to enjoy the content with some friends then that should be an option too. Deciding everyone should always play the game the way you want them to every time they log in is how MMOs have a good first month and die.

Khane · Oct 21, 2020

I also never said less reward, I said the instanced version would be soulbound and have level restrictions. It would be the same exact loot otherwise.

Tmac · Oct 21, 2020

TJT said:
The biggest thing that MMOs really need to make it a World and not just another game with a social aspect is to make the world scary.

You need to fear death and the environment around you. And know that wandering into some random location can mean your death. Which would be inconvenient or at least slightly punishing to do things completely alone. That is something that WOW completely neutered for the sake of convenience and accessibility. For there to be community and immersion you absolutely need reasons to turn to other players for help. Which is something WOW moved away from since Classic. I remember in BFA and Legion all of the suggested 3-5 person quests were barely different than other quests and could be soloed without much effort.

This is some solid design too. Unbound loot would become very valuable in the game economy.

Yes. The challenge seems to be making the world scary and having zero barrier-to-entry for engaging w said scary world.

In the past MMO's forced players to group to accomplish anything, which created community. Let's assume that players today simply aren't going to invest the time to sit around and do nothing while building groups organically. WoW and others solved this two ways:

1. They made the world less scary and easy to engage with solo, but that can potentially kill community
2. They automating the grouping process, but that ultimately kills community.

So, the question becomes how do you make a world scary, allow players to engage with it immediately (solo or groups), and not kill the community or the scariness with the convenience that seems to be required in this day and age?

Secrets · Oct 21, 2020

Khane said:
I also never said less reward, I said the instanced version would be soulbound and have level restrictions. It would be the same exact loot otherwise.

This is the right way to approach it. Honestly, instanced 'hard mode' raids sounded cool on paper, but in retrospect I actually *love* the idea of the tradeable loot being from contested raids, but it would also be the same gear as instanced loot.

Don't tell Daybreak that idea; they may make more Krono!

Dizzam · Oct 21, 2020

Kaines said:
It’s about freedom of choice. If you want to compete and deal with trains and shitheads by all means you should have that ability. And get properly rewarded for it. If you just want to enjoy the content with some friends then that should be an option too. Deciding everyone should always play the game the way you want them to every time they log in is how MMOs have a good first month and die.

That’s a rather dramatic interpretation of what I’ve said. It’s also not true. WoW didn’t give players the option to do open world versions of all of its dungeons, and it’s doing just fine.

I would hope we could agree that more player choice is not always a good thing. If we can’t, we just have different ideas of what would make a great MMO, which is fine.

Khane said:
I also never said less reward, I said the instanced version would be soulbound and have level restrictions. It would be the same exact loot otherwise.

But....that is less of a reward....

Your idea is an interesting one though. And I’d prefer it over instance only dungeons.

TJT · Oct 21, 2020

WOW abandoned open-world bosses (with drops) after Burning Crusade also.

Lambourne · Oct 21, 2020

Definitely would like to see more of a "world", I'm kind of sad that all the cities and factions in EQ stopped mattering three expansions in. It's those classic roleplay elements that give so much life to the world. No city that welcomed everyone ever felt "real" in the way Neriak or Kelethin did.

To be sure, I don't think hardcoded factions are a good idea, but the races should matter beyond what they look like.

Cabales · Oct 21, 2020

EQ's faction system was pretty cool imo. It was always neat to see a Troll or Ogre running around openly in Freeport or Kelethin. I even liked the way they handled factions later in the game with stuff like Velious. I'd like to see something that brought back some of the danger and community from EQ, but no way would I ever be able to play an MMO that required 3 or 4 hour sessions at a minimum to accomplish anything. I also don't want to be entirely dependent on groups to progress.

I think you could still have a group finder and keep a sense of community. I think with EQ it was the size of the pool not the process of forming groups that supported that. Groups could only be formed on your server and there were fewer people on a server. Battlegroups and megaservers contribute more to anonymity then the group finding tool does. There's just too many people in the pool to get to know anyone. Plus, the group content is so easy that nobody needs to communicate at all. Just queue up, mash your buttons, and get out.

ZyyzYzzy · Oct 21, 2020

Cabales said:
EQ's faction system was pretty cool imo. It was always neat to see a Troll or Ogre running around openly in Freeport or Kelethin. I even liked the way they handled factions later in the game with stuff like Velious. I'd like to see something that brought back some of the danger and community from EQ, but no way would I ever be able to play an MMO that required 3 or 4 hour sessions at a minimum to accomplish anything. I also don't want to be entirely dependent on groups to progress.

I think you could still have a group finder and keep a sense of community. I think with EQ it was the size of the pool not the process of forming groups that supported that. Groups could only be formed on your server and there were fewer people on a server. Battlegroups and megaservers contribute more to anonymity then the group finding tool does. There's just too many people in the pool to get to know anyone. Plus, the group content is so easy that nobody needs to communicate at all. Just queue up, mash your buttons, and get out.

The faction tab for classic and kunark for EQ is insane, so many factions.

Secrets · Oct 21, 2020

Cabales said:
I think you could still have a group finder and keep a sense of community. I think with EQ it was the size of the pool not the process of forming groups that supported that. Groups could only be formed on your server and there were fewer people on a server. Battlegroups and megaservers contribute more to anonymity then the group finding tool does. There's just too many people in the pool to get to know anyone. Plus, the group content is so easy that nobody needs to communicate at all. Just queue up, mash your buttons, and get out.

Megaservers are fine, imo. The issue becomes when you automate grouping to the point where you don't have a choice in who you want to group with or not. If you got a shitty DPS in your group, in EQ you could just kick them. With games like WoW, you can even be matched in the group finder with people you have on ignore.

Cybsled · Oct 21, 2020

TJT said:
WOW abandoned open-world bosses (with drops) after Burning Crusade also.

Because they became grief fests. All their bosses had anti-Zerg mechanics from what I recall, so you could basically wipe a guild just by “accidentally” getting too close. There were lots of “accidents” in those days.

Non-instanced content doesn’t scale well. The more popular your game, the more demand there is for the content. This will be a niche game, so perhaps it won’t be a giant problem, but there will still be a lot of toxicity (which can lead to quitting players). Plus in EQ we just Zerged everything.

Maybe something like FFXIV did with the new relic zone: boss encounters arent instanced and you queue to fight it. Behind the scenes stuff gives priority to people who did the stuff to get the boss to spawn. Then they get placed in an arena circle and fight the raid boss. Other players can watch, but they can’t help or hinder directly.

Cabales · Oct 21, 2020

Secrets said:
Secrets said:

The issue becomes when you automate grouping to the point where you don't have a choice in who you want to group with or not. If you got a shitty DPS in your group, in EQ you could just kick them. With games like WoW, you can even be matched in the group finder with people you have on ignore.

Click to expand...

To me this seems like a problem with execution rather than with the system itself. Give people more control over how they setup who they want to be grouped with, but don't make us go back to shouting for groups in public channels. That's just not an efficient use of my time.

Ukerric · Oct 21, 2020

Khane said:
I also never said less reward, I said the instanced version would be soulbound and have level restrictions. It would be the same exact loot otherwise.

In other words, you have everyone in the instanced dungeon, and the Chinese farmers competing for the outdoor version. Neat.

LachiusTZ · Oct 21, 2020

Cybsled said:
Because they became grief fests. All their bosses had anti-Zerg mechanics from what I recall, so you could basically wipe a guild just by “accidentally” getting too close. There were lots of “accidents” in those days.

Non-instanced content doesn’t scale well. The more popular your game, the more demand there is for the content. This will be a niche game, so perhaps it won’t be a giant problem, but there will still be a lot of toxicity (which can lead to quitting players). Plus in EQ we just Zerged everything.

Maybe something like FFXIV did with the new relic zone: boss encounters arent instanced and you queue to fight it. Behind the scenes stuff gives priority to people who did the stuff to get the boss to spawn. Then they get placed in an arena circle and fight the raid boss. Other players can watch, but they can’t help or hinder directly.

We fought over Kazzack for like 14 hours once.

Prolly one of my top few times in wow

Khane · Oct 21, 2020

Ukerric said:
In other words, you have everyone in the instanced dungeon, and the Chinese farmers competing for the outdoor version. Neat.

Lol, yea because Chinese farmers are known for their grouping game prowess and being able to contest camps against real players.

Hey guys, everything needs to be instanced because otherwise Chinese farmers get everything. Hahahaha

Secrets · Oct 21, 2020

Khane said:
Lol, yea because Chinese farmers are known for their grouping game prowess and being able to contest camps against real players.

Hey guys, everything needs to be instanced because otherwise Chinese farmers get everything. Hahahaha

Gotta be honest, if it's not Chinese farmers it's <boogeyman that causes us not to get loot or kills in on a boss that drops loot>

The bigger issue is in the design spectrum - if you don't limit encounter sizes, how do you determine an encounter's strength? How do you handle players outside your guild engaging the same content with less numbers or less gear? If you have, say, 20 endgame people on a server and the encounter requires 72 people and the game is hemorrhaging players long-term, does the developer now make future content accessible to the 20?

It's a big fucking mess for a game's long-term health and has no easy solution... short of instancing, or group/raid size limits.

etchazz · Oct 21, 2020

The problem with grouping in EQ was that there was a hard code built into the game where you pretty much needed a cleric, a warrior, and a chanter. The other spots in the group could be a mix of bards, rogues, and a few others, but there were so many classes that were just not group friendly, it made the whole system a huge pain in the ass. I know from experience, cause as a wizard, I was almost totally useless until SOV came out. Yeah, they gave wizards and druids evac, but we were still pretty useless when compared to other classes in a group setting (AoE groups were fun for those that knew how to run them). I think the solution is not group lobbies (I'm totally against them because once again, you're not really interacting with the community) but to try and make every class useful in a group setting.

Lumi · Oct 21, 2020

etchazz said:
The problem with grouping in EQ was that there was a hard code built into the game where you pretty much needed a cleric, a warrior, and a chanter. The other spots in the group could be a mix of bards, rogues, and a few others, but there were so many classes that were just not group friendly, it made the whole system a huge pain in the ass. I know from experience, cause as a wizard, I was almost totally useless until SOV came out. Yeah, they gave wizards and druids evac, but we were still pretty useless when compared to other classes in a group setting (AoE groups were fun for those that knew how to run them). I think the solution is not group lobbies (I'm totally against them because once again, you're not really interacting with the community) but to try and make every class useful in a group setting.

Well, EQ has quite a lot of classes which is kind of the problem. Considering that most of the classes all have similar roles, one or two are always going to shine above the rest. What really needs to be done imo is to make content sort of require a more diverse group. You can think of it sort of like how diablo 2 did their end game with monsters having different immunities so that different classes are either required or highly recommended for certain content.

For instance, take Efreeti for example. The lava guardians should have a permanent ds that can't be dispelled like it can be now. This would make melee classes, especially dual wielders much less effective against them and make casters feel more meaningful. Then you can have the imps be highly resistant to magic damage so that melees are necessary for them. This way you create demand for a disversified group and also make it impossible to be soloable.

Khane · Oct 21, 2020

Secrets said:
Gotta be honest, if it's not Chinese farmers it's <boogeyman that causes us not to get loot or kills in on a boss that drops loot>

The bigger issue is in the design spectrum - if you don't limit encounter sizes, how do you determine an encounter's strength? How do you handle players outside your guild engaging the same content with less numbers or less gear? If you have, say, 20 endgame people on a server and the encounter requires 72 people and the game is hemorrhaging players long-term, does the developer now make future content accessible to the 20?

It's a big fucking mess for a game's long-term health and has no easy solution... short of instancing, or group/raid size limits.

Why does this matter? The encounter only drops a certain amount of loot, if people want to zerg it let them, let the drama ensue when 100 people want the 3 items that drop. And let people bring 25 for those same 3 items. Why can't developers understand this?

Let the players decide how to play the goddamn game in a way that suits them

Noodleface · Oct 21, 2020

Something that changed with wow, especially as years went along, was the loss of identity. There was something special about grouping up with people and exping for several hours together that really bonded people. I met some friends in FFXI more than 15 years ago that are still people I talk to daily, more than I talk to any other friends.

Sure, having guilds help, but even in wow it's so easy just to move on to a new one - I did it too.

I think solo content is great, but I also think extended group content is great too. Doing a dungeon is fine, but these days you might as well be grouping with bots A-D and walking through.

I miss seeing the same people at my camps, or looking for party, or just walking around the world.

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