Monsters and Memories (Project_N) - Old School Indie MMO

Mrniceguy · 2026-07-14T13:13:36-0400

Tol said:
lol its the only real content that even exists in these shitty tab-target hotbar-based MMOs

Which is exactly why you don't get it, MMOs can't be a hard genre. They will always be an easy genre, games don't need to be hard to be enjoyable.

Tol · 2026-07-14T13:56:32-0400

Mrniceguy said:
Which is exactly why you don't get it, MMOs can't be a hard genre. They will always be an easy genre, games don't need to be hard to be enjoyable.

No ones saying it needs to be on the level of challenger league in LoL, but you might as well just play VRchat if you want an immersive world or a shitty number-goes-up grind game like project gorgon at that point. It's not about difficulty, it's about being even slightly engaging to play. Zerg raids absolutely bore the living shit out of me and camping dungeon mobs might even be worse. I can't say the same for mythic/savage content because it's usually engaging. There are people out there who enjoy clicking their Cheal macro button once per minute or so for hours on end, week after week and I think thats the most unenjoyable thing possible

Arden · 2026-07-14T15:23:27-0400

Mrniceguy said:
Which is exactly why you don't get it, MMOs can't be a hard genre. They will always be an easy genre, games don't need to be hard to be enjoyable.

Games generally need to be at least be challenging to be enjoyable (unless you are a small child).

But it's fair to say that more challenging doesn't necessarily equal more enjoyable.

jayrebb · 2026-07-14T15:46:05-0400

Flobee said:
I had a conversation with their new class Dev about backstab, and abilities more generally, a few months ago because they fully normalize weapon damage for ability calculations. Its a big reason that Backstab feels lame IMO. My suggestion was to use a sliding normalization formula (which I provided an example of) so they could dial it in for specific abilities. The result being that you could make it feel better to use a high damage weapon vs just only focusing on ratio which is how it currently is. This would help backstab feel juicy with a slower mainhand, 2hand weapons could feel better in general etc. Gives you some play with, to use BS as an example, do I keep the high damage primary for fatty backstabs or take this faster better ratio weapon for more white damage. Because there is a adjustable variable you can change it easily for specific abilities as well.

Seems more fun to me but he dismissed it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You can somewhat achieve the same effect by just piling on more flat damage bonus but its going to make scaling feel bad. Normalization is boring

What you suggested means changing the way melee weapons work. They have been pretty set on a level-based scaling formula that predominantly uses your current level and your current main stat as the drivers of increased potential damage. This makes weapon damage fairly unimportant (I.E. not a huge deal if you got that 38 damage 2hander instead of that 45 damage 2hander versus getting the same upgrade in EverQuest). A driving factor behind it not mattering much is something called max hit. Yes, your max hit goes up with a higher damage weapon in MNM.

However........

Unlike EverQuest which the game is based, the frequency of a max-hit is well....infrequent. EverQuest skills for weapons significantly increased your chance to score maximum hits as you leveled. By level 40ish to 50ish you were quad attacking for nearly your total damage potential with your weapon 80-90% of the time. Seeing a low hit was occasional. EverQuest was designed around the presumption that players should be hitting for their maximium damage potential very often, even far before level 60 or getting any stats. Stats didn't matter as much in EverQuest as your weapon skill and your weapon damage. This made weapon upgrades noticeable and tangible. The normalization isn't just 1 skill or backstab. This is a core design decision for the way weapons are currently calculated and implemented in MNM. They have a vision for scaling that emphasizes levels and primary stats, and changing that vision and adding exceptions for specific skills to spice up the importance of weapon damage is something they are not going to be interested in-- because it's a deviation from the core design that levels/primary stat are king.

Flobee · 2026-07-14T15:52:12-0400

jayrebb said:
What you suggested means changing the way melee weapons work. They have been pretty set on a level-based scaling formula that predominantly uses your current level and your current main stat as the drivers of increased potential damage. This makes weapon damage fairly unimportant (I.E. not a huge deal if you got that 38 damage 2hander instead of that 45 damage 2hander versus getting the same upgrade in EverQuest). A driving factor behind it not mattering much is something called max hit. Yes, your max hit goes up with a higher damage weapon in MNM.

However........

Unlike EverQuest which the game is based, the frequency of a max-hit is well....infrequent. EverQuest skills for weapons significantly increased your chance to score maximum hits as you leveled. By level 40ish to 50ish you were quad attacking for nearly your total damage potential with your weapon 80-90% of the time. Seeing a low hit was occasional. EverQuest was designed around the presumption that players should be hitting for their maximium damage potential very often, even far before level 60 or getting any stats. Stats didn't matter as much in EverQuest as your weapon skill and your weapon damage. This made weapon upgrades noticeable and tangible. The normalization isn't just 1 skill or backstab. This is a core design decision for the way weapons are currently calculated and implemented in MNM. They have a vision for scaling that emphasizes levels and primary stats, and changing that vision and adding exceptions for specific skills to spice up the importance of weapon damage is something they are not going to be interested in-- because it's a deviation from the core design that levels/primary stat are king.

I get what you're saying, but it actually doesn't mean any of that. Its a very simple suggestion to provide a variable that can be passed into an ability calculation (only abilities!) to increase the impact of weapon damage to the roll. Some bad code below to explain. This has 0 impact on anything outside of abilities, and even then ONLY the abilities you want to be impacted. The default is always the same normalization they already do.

Code:

if (IsAbility)
                {
                    // 2.0 is the base floor, 0.2 is the "Wiggle" factor.
                    // Increase 0.2 to favor slow weapons more.

                    const float WiggleFactor = 0.2f;
                    const float DynamicStandard = 2.0f + (SourcePrimaryDelay * WiggleFactor);

                    float NormalizedWeaponBase = (SourcePrimaryDamage / SourcePrimaryDelay) * DynamicStandard;
                    // Ensure abilities at least use the raw weapon damage if it's higher than the normalized version
                    float FinalBase = FMath::Max(NormalizedWeaponBase, SourcePrimaryDamage);

                    EffectiveWeaponDamage = FinalBase * WeaponAbilityMultiplier;

                }
                else
                {
                    EffectiveWeaponDamage = SourcePrimaryDamage * WeaponAbilityMultiplier;
                }

To be clear, not doing this is totally fine and their decision to make. I just think weapon damage being normalized for abilities feels bad and its noticeable. This is a method to fix that in the cases the devs wanted to do so thats all.

EDIT: Not sure if full context is in that snippet to make my point and not going to dig up the original conversation to do so. My spaghetti will have to suffice for the point

bolok · 2026-07-14T15:54:39-0400

jayrebb said:
What you suggested means changing the way melee weapons work. They have been pretty set on a level-based scaling formula that predominantly uses your current level and your current main stat as the drivers of increased potential damage. This makes weapon damage fairly unimportant (I.E. not a huge deal if you got that 38 damage 2hander instead of that 45 damage 2hander versus getting the same upgrade in EverQuest). A driving factor behind it not mattering much is something called max hit. Yes, your max hit goes up with a higher damage weapon in MNM.

However........

Unlike EverQuest which the game is based, the frequency of a max-hit is well....infrequent. EverQuest skills for weapons significantly increased your chance to score maximum hits as you leveled. By level 40ish to 50ish you were quad attacking for nearly your total damage potential with your weapon 80-90% of the time. Seeing a low hit was occasional. EverQuest was designed around the presumption that players should be hitting for their maximium damage potential very often, even far before level 60 or getting any stats. Stats didn't matter as much in EverQuest as your weapon skill and your weapon damage. This made weapon upgrades noticeable and tangible. The normalization isn't just 1 skill or backstab. This is a core design decision for the way weapons are currently calculated and implemented in MNM. They have a vision for scaling that emphasizes levels and primary stats, and changing that vision and adding exceptions for specific skills to spice up the importance of weapon damage is something they are not going to be interested in-- because it's a deviation from the core design that levels/primary stat are king.

Except the there’s precious little evidence of weapon dmg mattering for max hit and plenty of people continuously going wtf, why does my dagger have a higher max hit than this slow ass 2h. It’s way too keyed off ratio. It makes entire swathes of weapon never the correct choice to use. Makes me feel bad for the artists honestly.

Flobee · 2026-07-14T15:56:37-0400

bolok said:
Except the there’s precious little evidence of weapon dmg mattering for max hit and plenty of people continuously going wtf, why does my dagger have a higher max hit than this slow ass 2h. It’s way too keyed off ratio. It makes entire swathes of weapon never the correct choice to use. Makes me feel bad for the artists honestly.

THAT is a result on ONLY the ratio mattering for abilities and is exactly my point

Mrniceguy · 2026-07-14T17:44:22-0400

Arden said:
Games generally need to be at least be challenging to be enjoyable (unless you are a small child).

But it's fair to say that more challenging doesn't necessarily equal more enjoyable.

Any MMO that is "Challenging" for me is also going to be frustrating for me, not because of the challenge but because i know the raid/group success will have little to do with me and a ton to do with the LCD in the raid.

I prefer my MMOs to feel more like this

GuardianX · 2026-07-14T17:52:16-0400

fanaskin said:
your taunts mean nothing to me, i'm having fun.

Im in the best guild with the most 60's and get into all the groups, guild groups where 60's stay out of group and help power level everyone, late night farms with the better people in other guilds ect, have so much loot i have some of the top items on alts. we pvp together in groups on discord and wreck everyone else on server, i can do 95% rez and everyone wants me to help them do stuff to farm BIS while we wait for raids to come back and crush them. life's good.

unbuffed wis is near the BIS i need 2 skulls and a gilded spellbook but that will come with time.

View attachment 634132

instead of being a whiny bitch loner who wants to instance everything at their own pace I just joined a guild and made friends

I seriously hope you aren't calling cohesion "the best guild", fucking guild had to be told not to face a Drake to the raid in a tank and spank encounter and even then their alcoholic guild lead had to watch it be done in front of him to figure it out.

Kirun · 2026-07-14T18:38:37-0400

GuardianX said:
I seriously hope you aren't calling cohesion "the best guild", fucking guild had to be told not to face a Drake to the raid in a tank and spank encounter and even then their alcoholic guild lead had to watch it be done in front of him to figure it out.

LMAO you sound like a loser with no friends. I'm in the game making love with the boiz!

Kithani · 2026-07-14T19:11:47-0400

GuardianX said:
I seriously hope you aren't calling cohesion "the best guild", fucking guild had to be told not to face a Drake to the raid in a tank and spank encounter and even then their alcoholic guild lead had to watch it be done in front of him to figure it out.

Come on baby gimme some more drama what’s the deal with the alcohol thing

edit, are we taking about Bru? That dude is super annoying on Discord.

fanaskin · 2026-07-14T19:35:27-0400

I will say this, the rune system for wizards is ass

GuardianX said:
I seriously hope you aren't calling cohesion "the best guild",

I'm on the pvp server

Kithani · 2026-07-14T19:49:25-0400

fanaskin said:
I will say this, the rune system for wizards is ass

I'm on the pvp server

So you’re in the only guild, then?

jayrebb · 2026-07-14T20:49:38-0400

fanaskin said:
I will say this, the rune system for wizards is ass

I'm on the pvp server

I bought the "runes", scribed them, and logged out. Waiting to hear anything positive before I engage with the system.

uniqueuser · 2026-07-15T00:26:26-0400

fanaskin said:
I'm on the pvp server

The “too much to lose, can’t fight” mentality of some posters on this forum apparently extends to their virtual world politics as well.

Agraza · 2026-07-15T04:07:41-0400

I do feel like there is a dynamic of open ended raid content that can still be explored.

Ashes actually had some cool ideas.

One was the raid is basically to maintain access to some kind of exclusive crafting area like a racial forge or alchemy table. You only get rewards if you show up with materials and use the crafting area successfully. As you use the crafting area the content in the area changes.

So you could basically go in and make raid loot while also triggering raid content (ring event) for your team. Anyone not affiliated with the crafting team can't get inside to grief you but they can be in the zone and watching what you're doing if they're nearby.

If you wipe or flee the area goes back to zero and other groups can try their luck. Depending on what you're making different content gets unlocked. So if you're making step 1 of some caster pants you fight some dragon and he drops stuff that's like 110% of that. If you're making step 8 of the best tank hat, you fight a giant that drops stuff that's similar to step 8 or vanity/cosmetic stuff. You don't swim in the kiddie pool if you're there for hard stuff.

Personal preference would be that the majority of super difficult content is for status symbols (amulet of necropotence) not mudflation.

Agraza · 2026-07-15T04:13:12-0400

I would also love to see announcements for people fighting open world content. Not so I can set my watch, but so I can go watch. Some player decided to throw down and insult yelinak because zlandicar told you he's a bitch and you want to help zlandicar rule skyshrine, yelinak does some world shout firing back at the player and we know a cool fight is going on.

If you're nearby you can see the players guild going off against yelinak. Even if you're a solo weekend warrior you can hoover down your next mountain dew while tryhards bounce around and fight the white dragon behind a locked door.

Daidraco · 2026-07-15T09:18:28-0400

The more I thought about the "closed" off cage of Bone Construct and how they could possibly implement things further.. the more I started to think they need to take it one step further in implementation. You can see it here, through the veil of what people are saying but it just hasnt been said bluntly.

Yes - its cool to watch some guild kill a raid target from a safe distance. Its nothing that I would travel across the world to see if I was a solo player. But the idea that you can just be exping on a dungeon's cliff overlooking a Trakanon type dragon, see/hear some dialogue from the raid NPC and rush over to the edge of the cliff (that if you jump from, dispels you and you fall to your death) - but to see a guild engage them and you're just.. up there killing shit on the cliff while thats happening below you? That just sounds fucking cool. No doubt about it.

But the reality is that most people that would watch a raid fight are going to fall into two categories in my opinion.
1. Theyre there waiting for you to finish. If its a slot machine raid target (quest spawn) then theyre just being patient. If its a F2E target, then they are there waiting for you to fail. There is no "cool" factor here - just straight theme park roller coaster ride.
2. This falls back into the Noows origin of this very forum - people are looking at your guild struggle on this raid target. Putting in wipe after wipe after wipe of your guild/group trying to learn the convoluted mechanic that some dev thought was "neat". After your 200th wipe (I sincerely hope no one wipes that much on raid content in a game like MNM) - they see your guild finally succeed and they take that strat back to their guild and they go in and kill the target in a couple tries.

The first one Im not too concerned with. The second one.. that hits a little closer to home for me with my past raid experience. I'm too old for that sweaty shit now, but there was a time when that would have mattered to me in WoW at the very least.

So .. I would like to see them add a craftable to the game that you can use in any of the raids that blocks others out. Something that creates a smoke color above the field of battle in the Bone Constructs room (example) and anyone outside of the cage cannot see into the cage while the fight is happening. "Incense of Concealment" or whatever. Its nothing major, and after the first few weeks it would ultimately be useless because.. well, "google" exists. But make it cheap and not a hassle to use - especially if there will eventually be a raid fight that is a 200 try type of encounter.

Which, ultimately, falls back down to making the gear, the "prize" - last that much longer in popularity. Your guild put in the effort to get this thing killed, and people can hate on and be jealous of you for having some awesome gear that they cant get yet.

Or whatever, make it a cheap experience. Idc. Just spit balling shit.

fanaskin · 2026-07-15T10:43:49-0400

Kithani said:
So you’re in the only guild, then?

there's like 4 guilds with 60's that can do stuff. There will be more guilds too as more 60's populate to support the end game stuff.

The pvp server is better than pve IMO, like everyone want's the same camps doing this with 3x the pop and no ability to challenge spawns seems boring.

all you need is a group to do anything, even a raid just ally with another guild and you can do it.

so many losers shit talk the low pop doing the "sour grapes" routine, but there's only so much content, so whatever, I think if you have a crew it's to your benefit you can just do whatever you want, PvP also helps in these scenario's.

Search

Monsters and Memories (Project_N) - Old School Indie MMO

Mrniceguy

Blackwing Lair Raider

Tol

Trakanon Raider

Arden

Vyemm Raider

jayrebb

Ssraeszha Raider

Flobee

Ahn'Qiraj Raider

bolok

Trakanon Raider

Flobee

Ahn'Qiraj Raider

Mrniceguy

Blackwing Lair Raider

GuardianX

Perpetually Pessimistic

Kirun

Buzzfeed Editor

Kithani

Vyemm Raider

fanaskin

Well known agitator

Kithani

Vyemm Raider

jayrebb

Ssraeszha Raider

uniqueuser

Ahn'Qiraj Raider

Agraza

Registered Hutt

Agraza

Registered Hutt

Daidraco

fanaskin

Well known agitator