Yeah, on PvE I love playing with Twinks. It makes grouping fun. And I like making Twinks, since it rewards my hard work. But on PvP, it's terrible. If PRotF has PvP, I hope it's kept to designated areas/servers.
Pan'Theon: Rise' of th'e Fal'Len - #1 Thread in MMO
- Thread starter gogojira_sl
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Thats a double edged sword. One one hand it pretty much invalidated low end content when you twinked out a person. But on the other hand it also gave people a reason to go back and do content again for the actual twink gear and then go back and slaughter everything with the twink.
That being said, Im personally for twinking. It was definitely a game feature IMO. I spent countless hours in EQ twinking and hunting down gear with my main to twink out with. And in reality it did not hurt anything. In fact im sure that twinking kept zones and some items alive and worth a ton. Like the Fungi tunic.
Also the entire shift to BOE and BOP gear with the current crop of MMORPGs has to stop. I totally understand the why it needs to be this way from a logical stand point but there is just something lost from a game that solely relies on BOE and BOP gear.
It's something that has been missing in MMOs mostly because of the "everything binds to character" plague that hit a while ago. To me, items should be rarer, with a purpose (instead of having random stats) and have a life cycle where they get worned out (after a long period, months IRL, could be repaired, but could be costly and not infinitely)
I dont really like to play multiple characters, but twinking got me leveling some alts back in EQ. Without it I just dont bother.
Khane
Got something right about marriage
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I posted this earlier but here are my thoughts on it:
A few people started to touch on this earlier but I really would like to see this game incorporate unrestricted items. Being able to twink my subsequent characters on each new play through adds a lot of satisfaction to the experience for me as a player. Equipment that binds has its place and I think the highest end raid gear should be "mostly" bound to the character that loots it but even on those raids I think there should be some non bind gear, or bind on equip rather than pickup sprinkled in and there should be no level requirements on that gear. It bolsters the economy and even adds kind of a political landscape to the game. Items become commodities in a game that allows people to transfer, trade or sell powerful items and it allows people to create markets. But the biggest reason of all is once I have outgeared the highest dungeons I still have something to do during my downtime besides play an alt. I can farm certain items to sell for cash or give to friends or alts, I can create demand and control supply of those commodities if I play enough or have knowledge other people don't and I can use that to my advantage.
Going even further it allows players who do not want to deal with the politics and drama associated with guilds and raiding an avenue to advance their characters to raid tier power. They can farm these items themselves, create that same market, bolster their caches and buy what they want. It lets a player play the game in different, non superficial ways to advance. Also, I would really like to see rare spells make a return. That also becomes a commodity and fosters economic diversity. It also added a lot of flavor to the game and EQ did it very well. If a shaman had torpor his downtime was trivial but without it he was still very useful in a group. It wasn't an all or nothing spell. Things like the group or AoE versions of single target spells. I didn't need my AE slow to function in a group but it was certainly something other players noticed and gave us a little extra edge on split pulls gone bad or add trains. Shamans weren't ever excluded for not having these things but if you did have it you were known on the server and that notoriety could work in your favor. And it wasn't prohibitive. The spells weren't bound, you could sell and trade all of them so it wasn't a case of only the raiders had it. If you farmed up the cash, which was easy enough to do, you could purchase it for yourself.
A few people started to touch on this earlier but I really would like to see this game incorporate unrestricted items. Being able to twink my subsequent characters on each new play through adds a lot of satisfaction to the experience for me as a player. Equipment that binds has its place and I think the highest end raid gear should be "mostly" bound to the character that loots it but even on those raids I think there should be some non bind gear, or bind on equip rather than pickup sprinkled in and there should be no level requirements on that gear. It bolsters the economy and even adds kind of a political landscape to the game. Items become commodities in a game that allows people to transfer, trade or sell powerful items and it allows people to create markets. But the biggest reason of all is once I have outgeared the highest dungeons I still have something to do during my downtime besides play an alt. I can farm certain items to sell for cash or give to friends or alts, I can create demand and control supply of those commodities if I play enough or have knowledge other people don't and I can use that to my advantage.
Going even further it allows players who do not want to deal with the politics and drama associated with guilds and raiding an avenue to advance their characters to raid tier power. They can farm these items themselves, create that same market, bolster their caches and buy what they want. It lets a player play the game in different, non superficial ways to advance. Also, I would really like to see rare spells make a return. That also becomes a commodity and fosters economic diversity. It also added a lot of flavor to the game and EQ did it very well. If a shaman had torpor his downtime was trivial but without it he was still very useful in a group. It wasn't an all or nothing spell. Things like the group or AoE versions of single target spells. I didn't need my AE slow to function in a group but it was certainly something other players noticed and gave us a little extra edge on split pulls gone bad or add trains. Shamans weren't ever excluded for not having these things but if you did have it you were known on the server and that notoriety could work in your favor. And it wasn't prohibitive. The spells weren't bound, you could sell and trade all of them so it wasn't a case of only the raiders had it. If you farmed up the cash, which was easy enough to do, you could purchase it for yourself.
Outside of an item granted to you by gods or other hugely powerful beings, it really does not make sense to me to have binding gear. I also prefer endgame encounters dropping materials for crafted gear (even if crafters are NPCs in a game without crafting for players).
When I tried out WoW after years of EQ, I thought their scripted flightpaths were one the most awesome new features. Flying over dangerous areas that one day you may get to visit, seeing actual players on the ground doing their thing, high level creatures that roamed far below you.... . I also loved the scripted horse rides in DAOC for the same reason, so I guess that feature really sits well with me. EQ2's could have been nice were it not for all the hitching and stuttering and horrible clipping during such a flight.
However, I am not a fan of freeform flight and am not a crazy fan of Mounts; I would love to see dedicated teleport classes again and boats (maybe this time with something to do on them). I think both Teleport classes as well as scripted horse/flightpaths can go well together. And in a World without mounts there would also still be a place for runspeedspells(though SoW was so much more in EQ: it was like a "save your bacon" spell which in turn relied on several other game-mechanics like deathpenalty and corpseruns).
All in all, I am a proponent of the feature that convenience should be earned over the levels, being part of the road from Rags to Riches. WHen playing EQ, I do not oppose to the PoK portal stones anymore, because after playing 14 years (on and off) I feel I have earned the right to travel the lands (i.e. 450 zones and 20 expansions) in such a way.
So next to scripted horsepaths and teleporting classes, you could give high level players access to certain portal features, preferably with some variety and in tune with Class and Racial Lore. I.e. not some generic "Everyone gets to teleport everywhere at level 50) but rather stuff like the Firepots(tucked away in some high level zone), clickies with a single teleport location on cooldown, expensive potions, extensive Quest opening up a few portal locations, you name it. I realize that this is a LOT of work though, it is off course much easier to develop a single system for everyone and be done with it.
My advice fro Brad would be to keep it lean and mean in the beginning, then work from there. Off course if he wants people to be able to instantly group up together so they can do a dungeon, then discard all this.
However, I am not a fan of freeform flight and am not a crazy fan of Mounts; I would love to see dedicated teleport classes again and boats (maybe this time with something to do on them). I think both Teleport classes as well as scripted horse/flightpaths can go well together. And in a World without mounts there would also still be a place for runspeedspells(though SoW was so much more in EQ: it was like a "save your bacon" spell which in turn relied on several other game-mechanics like deathpenalty and corpseruns).
All in all, I am a proponent of the feature that convenience should be earned over the levels, being part of the road from Rags to Riches. WHen playing EQ, I do not oppose to the PoK portal stones anymore, because after playing 14 years (on and off) I feel I have earned the right to travel the lands (i.e. 450 zones and 20 expansions) in such a way.
So next to scripted horsepaths and teleporting classes, you could give high level players access to certain portal features, preferably with some variety and in tune with Class and Racial Lore. I.e. not some generic "Everyone gets to teleport everywhere at level 50) but rather stuff like the Firepots(tucked away in some high level zone), clickies with a single teleport location on cooldown, expensive potions, extensive Quest opening up a few portal locations, you name it. I realize that this is a LOT of work though, it is off course much easier to develop a single system for everyone and be done with it.
My advice fro Brad would be to keep it lean and mean in the beginning, then work from there. Off course if he wants people to be able to instantly group up together so they can do a dungeon, then discard all this.
PvP, now we're talking. PvP in general is a must for me for about 1,000 reasons. I know the focus of this game will always be PvE, but we need to have some sort of a FFA rule set (sorry but I hate factions). Most people associate PvP with a gank fest, but on a FFA server that is rarely the case. It usually comes down to the way you act/treat others, what guild you are in, and who your guild is aligned with. You can go around ganking people all day but rest assured that no top guild will want you, and most group won't take you. I can go on forever about this topic but I'll save the wall of text.
You make a good point that allowing people to twink with their gear keeps older content relevant and encourages players to re-experience the low level zones, thus keeping them alive and populated for newer players.
You don't have to understand game development to realize every mechanic you add in a game takes time and money. I'm not going to list off random imaginary dollars and start multiplying a bunch of digits, but with smaller teams it's naturally going to magnify in relative costs. Of course it's doable, but can you justify it's implementation?
Don't waste man hours on a system that most people don't even seem to want.
Twinking on P99, especially gear from mobs that require long camps really reinforced my opinion the underlying design of EQ was lacking.
I think twinking is fun, but when it detracts from the average persons main due to time constraints and lack of valid alternative for players then it becomes a bottleneck preventing advancement in a very poor manner.
Also, twinking and powering should not invalidate faster grouping speed at mid levels.
I think twinking is fun, but when it detracts from the average persons main due to time constraints and lack of valid alternative for players then it becomes a bottleneck preventing advancement in a very poor manner.
Also, twinking and powering should not invalidate faster grouping speed at mid levels.
That's why I would like to see a game focus on a smaller world but making it evolve in time with patches and expansions. If you only enlarge the world with each expansions you end up having to introduce fast travel. Would be interesting to see a game 10 years old still maintaining their original views instead of being forced to move away from them.
I sure as hell hope so. I miss my walk of shame.I forgot to ask, are corpse-runs already on the featurerequestlist?
OU Ariakas
Diet Dr. Pepper Enjoyer
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Why not have a teleport location in each zone but make characters have to unlock it via mob kills/quests/actions/levels? You could even have some sort of consumable that allows you to port to any unlocked location but it must be on some sort of long (i.e. 1 hour+) timer to use? Hell, the teleporters don't even have to look the same and could even be disguised and put in non-obvious places like an old dead tree that you somehow revivie in the great forest or the eye socket of the remains of the ancient sea best for the water zone.
Get captured ?
/say everyone check their guild/friend list too replace this assclown
captured player sees you have been removed from the party
/say everyone check their guild/friend list too replace this assclown
captured player sees you have been removed from the party
Lunis
Blackwing Lair Raider
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Vanguard actually had a pretty good system called Equipment Expertise where every piece of gear had a % value based on your level. You could wear all your gear as long as all the %'s added to up <100% - so you could equip gear and weapons higher than your level but they would be a higher % than standard level gear.
For example, if a weapon dropped that was lvl 30 but you were level 25 you could equip it but you might have to unequip a couple pieces of gear (or wear much lower lvl) to do so.
Mr Creed
Too old for this shit
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I hope there is alot of environmental danger in the game. Drowning and burning obviously, but possibly actual pit traps with poison spikes and stuff like that. GW2 mini-dungeons have some features like this and its good fun. That said, player induced damage to my character is only acceptable if I have a way to retaliate.
On that note, I am unhappy with PvP being a stretch goal. PvP was a stretch goal for WoW and that turned out pretty crappy.
BilboFaggins
N00b
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You are making this way harder then it needs to be. As for boss mobs that drop uber gear, you can't have them always drop their weapon, but you want their fight to include the weapon of course. The way to handle this is have broken pieces of their weapon in the loot table that can be used for crafting when he doesn't actually drop his weapon. Simple.
As for non-boss mobs that don't always have their weapon on them, your example was an elite warrior who spawned with out his sword. Ok. If you run in to an elite warrior who does NOT have their sword on them, then that's a pretty stupid warrior OR a warrior caught off guard. Either way, that warrior does not have their weapon, so they can't fight with their weapon. What's the next best thing, they use their fists. They might even perform berserking moves because they are fighting with out a weapon of choice and become desperate.
Ultimately, you see it as a static mob that does one thing the same way everytime. Hence, you believe the elite warrior should fight with a weapon effect no matter if they are carrying a weapon or not.
The way I see it, this mob is more dynamic my way. If you see an elite warrior carrying a weapon, you know he is going to fight with his weapon. If you see an elite warrior with out a weapon, you don't know what he might do. He is upredictable. The fight is dynamic.
From a technical stand point, what we really have here behind the scenes is two different versions of the spawn with the same name. One is a sword wielding elite warrior that fights with traditional sword wielding techniques. The other one is a fist wielding elite warrior that will pull off more monk like moves and could go in to a low defense high offense berserker stance when he gets to low health.