So, I know it"s probably been said before, but can you make it so that casters don"t have to stand still to cast? That is some seriously annoying crap.
Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling
- Thread starter Lord Thanos_foh
- Start date
And they made chat channels without the most basic functionality that was in EQ six fucking years ago. Did this ever change? Being able to actually own a channel and restrict it with a permanent password would be a nice start.Zarcath said:
I"d just like a MMO with a continuous storyline and possibly many side branches of it for once. A storyline you could go from level one to max with. I don"t think I speak for myself when most everyone around here is tired of the kill 10 boars for their pelts, tongues, hooves, teeth, whatever shit. Or AoC"s version of a storyline where you do 1 quest and come back in ten levels. I want a long drawn out storyline from start to finish. Probably asking too much. I"d even be happy with just one long drawn out quest storyline per PoI you come to. One where you aren"t rushing to hit accept and just look on your radar for the quest spot.
The storyline could be done solo with some group parts. You can do it on your own time anytime you feel like logging in. For those more group oriented there"d be plenty of dungeons, group quests, and the like. I think the next gen MMO will definitely have to incorporate some brand new styles to ever be considered next gen. None of these MMO"s have anything different over what"s already been out 5 years ago.
The storyline could be done solo with some group parts. You can do it on your own time anytime you feel like logging in. For those more group oriented there"d be plenty of dungeons, group quests, and the like. I think the next gen MMO will definitely have to incorporate some brand new styles to ever be considered next gen. None of these MMO"s have anything different over what"s already been out 5 years ago.
Since it was mentioned. For the love of Jesus, Allah, Buddha, and Babe Ruth, please Curt (or whoever else is reading) ... no consumables. Adding an additional hour of farming for every hour of raiding is one of the worst mechanics ever. Fuck flasks. Not to mention it keeps thousands of asian farmers in business.Gaereth said:
Interesting point, when you think about it. Curt, in your development are you considering the potential impact "farming" may have on the game?
I would be more happy if this new game explored an entirely different avenue of end game other than "raiding".Froofy-D said:
Forwarding this to our lawyers so they can get that phrase trademarked. You should start seeing it in our press releases very soon.Faille said:
I would really like to see the return of meaningful questlines and have them incorporated into raiding. Something I always thought would have been cool was to have actually been able to watch each part of my Water Sprinkler of Nem Ankh or Orb of Mastery forged. That"s a whole lot of time and frustration spent just to have someone hand me the thing and there was nothing truly "epic" about any of it other than my time invested in acquiring them. Not that I"m really complaining. They should take a long time, but the payoff needs to be adequate. If not in the item itself, in the experience. It would have also been nice to have those questlines started very early in the game, like from the moment you enter the world. I know some people hate forced grouping, but this could be one area where all parts of the quest require a group, if you do them at the level range you"re meant to. This is all assuming class specific epic weapons/armor are even implemented. I"m just throwing it out there. Please don"t hate me for being a masochist.
While you may be kidding it does bring up a thought I had during the production of VG.Moorgard Mobhunter said:
I would love to see more variety in group numbers and raid numbers in the game. Have some dungeons made for only 4 people, some for 6, some would allow 8 in the group, ect... Balance the dungeon difficulty and itemization based to a large extent on this allowable number of group members. The same thing all the way up to raids, have some raids for only 20 people, some for 30, some that allow 40, and as someone who misses the huge raids of EQ have some that allow up to 60 people to participate.
For the raids it would work really well to have those large number of people required and then having smaller raids as well. Anyone who has been in a raiding guild even in WOW knows that in prime-time when most people are online you have a huge number of people who are ready to go, alot of the time people had to miss raids because of the 40 person cap. Then 4-6 hours later people start quiting because they have to go to sleep and the group starts to lose its ability to do the raid content. If you had various raids with varying amounts of people required the raid leaders could aim for the content that takes alot of people during the primetime and as the numbers dwindle they could switch to a smaller raid requiring less people for those hardcore late nighters.
You could even make the group/raid limits soft caps. Basically just say "reccomended for 12 people" on a tab and then have the 13th person cause the mobs to take 5% less damage from all attacks of all kinds and have it do 3% more damage. A 14th person causes 10% less damage to be dealt to the mobs and 6% more damage done by them. And so on. This would limit the groups but allow for that 13th or 14th buddy if you wanted them there.
It would also work amazingly well for raid content when you have 3 or 4 extra max level people that want to come but with no slots open. Then later in the night when people start leaving the raid is not left short handed, it instead now be going down to the reccomended level and seeing a loss of a couple people but a increase in DPS and damage mitigation.
This would of course all be balanced through beta and the math of what the extra character is worth. In a 4 man reccomended group an extra guy is cleary going to cause more of an alteration in DPS and damage then a extra guy in a 40 man raid is going to cause.
It would take some work and fiddleing but a system that did something like this would be very player friendly and give guilds and groups alot more freedom to prowl around and kill stuff without telling some guy he has to go because they have the limit of players reached for an instance.
I remember that thread as well Tropics. There was actually a few good discussions on the Sigil games board occasionally.Tropics said:
Anyway, I think the basic idea of no arbitrary difference between raid or group is a good one. Just invite however many people you like and go do stuff (up to the maximum raid size of course).
That way you can do the same content with either 4 people or 10 people. The 4 man group will just get more loot and more XP.
I never quite figured out why in most fantasy raiding MMOs there are usually just two sizes of dungeons: small ones with X people (where 3 < X < 7) and large ones for Y people (where 20 < Y < 50). Why aren"t there dungeons for all the numbers in between and on either end?
Because it"s nigh-impossible to design well-tuned, consistently challenging and rewarding content for fluctuating group sizes. Class power is predetermined by the combat designer based on a fixed maximum number of players in a group, which means the creatures are also balanced around these numbers.
In other words, you need to determine what a class" max DPS or healing output will be based on group size and composition. This can vary wildly by class depending on the number of players and class composition. No fixed sliding scale for monsters will be able to accurately match the changes in player power, especially because things like player power tend to fluctuate as players figure out new ways of min/maxing, or new gear and spells get introduced.
The only way you could implement this is if the game was entirely based around simple, linear DPS with no group synergy. Group damage would have to scale in a perfectly linear fashion. The system that controlled monster scaling would require a perfect understanding of the group"s composition, spell use, and power scaling to appropriately scale the mobs. I don"t think a computer can do this and make the content appropriately challenging for players.
In other words, you need to determine what a class" max DPS or healing output will be based on group size and composition. This can vary wildly by class depending on the number of players and class composition. No fixed sliding scale for monsters will be able to accurately match the changes in player power, especially because things like player power tend to fluctuate as players figure out new ways of min/maxing, or new gear and spells get introduced.
The only way you could implement this is if the game was entirely based around simple, linear DPS with no group synergy. Group damage would have to scale in a perfectly linear fashion. The system that controlled monster scaling would require a perfect understanding of the group"s composition, spell use, and power scaling to appropriately scale the mobs. I don"t think a computer can do this and make the content appropriately challenging for players.
faille
Molten Core Raider
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I really like the 8 man groups in vanguard. Made it so much easier to get groups happening and to add people. There was a lot more flexibility in terms of adding the perceived non essential classes. It"s amazing how restricting it felt when they dropped it back to 6.
Digo, there would be no sliding scale, just fixed content. Bring how ever many you want (up to the raid cap). Back in WoW when you could take multiple groups to Strat/UBRS/etc... was that really hurting anyone? If you brought 20 people to Strat you probably weren"t getting loot and very little XP.
There is always incentive to do stuff with less people: more loot and more XP. Remember back in EQ if you were good at a camp like Seb Crypt or Shroom King with 3-4 people most people wouldn"t invite anyone else, due to less chance for loot and less XP.
Analyzing a non-fixed size group in more WoW terms:
- Challenge rating for sub-max level content does not matter (in any game), since it can be out leveled. Who cares if someone brought a 6th man Gnomeregan?
- For max-level single group dungeons, does anyone care if you did Heroic Underbog with 5 people or 7 people? If you are competent and do it with 5, then more loot for you. If you aren"t good enough to do Underbog with 5, then bring a few extra. It will mean less chance for loot though. The best loot does not drop here, so the challenge rating isn"t as important as the fun rating.
- For raids: challenge level is intact because you cannot go past the max raid size. The best loot drops here, so you can guarantee a specific challenge level for the best loot. Game integrity intact.
Anyway, just a suggestion. Alternatively I totally agree with Faille that the 8 man group (in DAOC as well) much more group friendly than 5-6.
There is always incentive to do stuff with less people: more loot and more XP. Remember back in EQ if you were good at a camp like Seb Crypt or Shroom King with 3-4 people most people wouldn"t invite anyone else, due to less chance for loot and less XP.
Analyzing a non-fixed size group in more WoW terms:
- Challenge rating for sub-max level content does not matter (in any game), since it can be out leveled. Who cares if someone brought a 6th man Gnomeregan?
- For max-level single group dungeons, does anyone care if you did Heroic Underbog with 5 people or 7 people? If you are competent and do it with 5, then more loot for you. If you aren"t good enough to do Underbog with 5, then bring a few extra. It will mean less chance for loot though. The best loot does not drop here, so the challenge rating isn"t as important as the fun rating.
- For raids: challenge level is intact because you cannot go past the max raid size. The best loot drops here, so you can guarantee a specific challenge level for the best loot. Game integrity intact.
Anyway, just a suggestion. Alternatively I totally agree with Faille that the 8 man group (in DAOC as well) much more group friendly than 5-6.
Yet from reading these forums what you often hear about fixed group-size dungeons is that they are not rewarding, challenging or well-tuned. So fixed group size in and of itself does not guarantee these desirable qualities. On the other hand encounters based on some sort of difficulty scale by their very nature could be tuned by the players themselves to fit their level of comfort. It"s a path worth exploring when it comes to new games at least.Digo said:
The funny thing though Wynd, back in EQ we pretty much had no limit on raid sizes, people through as many bodies at Naggy, or Vox, or Trakanon, or TOV, as they could manage. Usually the raids were 50"ish but I remember having upwards of 60+ people in TOV and plowing through that place. Sure we might have gimped the content abit with that DPS we got from those numbers and the overkill on healing, but it was still fun as heck and a stupid move could still wipe ya out.Digo said:
Some fights were so tough the no limit cap was almost required, I remember our endless attempts at the AOW with 60+ people until we finally got him. In the beginning we needed everyone we could get to have a chance.
In alot of ways I miss the open endedness of EQ"s system. With instancing it definately changes things compared to EQ. I am not sure how one could create a system that gave the freedom EQ had while using the raid instances WOW has (and there are alot of advantages with those instanced raid zones). The above was just some musings, by no means would it be easy and it would require a ridiculous amount of tweaking and testing, but impossible? I would think not to get it into a good workable system with some devoted hard work.
I do not miss zerging in the slightest. It was a product of competition for limited spawns, so guilds that lacked the gear to get said spawns threw as many bodies at it as possible. I think you"re confusing nostalgia for quality of encounters. I fail to see how anyone could think that any of the NToV fights are even close to Onyxia in terms of complexity or challenge.