|
I like the 3 server or single server public multi-instance.
It is nice to go out and it actually be difficult to find people instead of tripping over people out in the back country.( I hated that in wow, I would be as far from town as I could get and I still would run into people constantly.) but it is also nice to be able to switch over to where ever my friends are(and in instance economy would behave as single server)
depending on pop. you could as a compromise for low end systems have instances only for high-pop hexes.
Goblin Squad Member
|
I also agree with your wishlist on naming parameters, Nihimon. Please no unique first names. Instead, I prefer unique surnames with the ability to emphasis non-alpha characters. I disagree with wishlist item number seven! :-P
I say make it unique names period.
For instance there could be:
Andius Meuridiar
There could also be:
Andius Julii
OR
Kaemik Meuridiar
There just could not be a 2nd Andius Meuridiar.
If we use the suggested ability to set nicknames so someone can type /tell Andius or /tell Andy, as long as they have that set as my nickname then long complicated names will be fine.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
With single server, I would prefer a completely open naming system. Every character would have an identifying tag, which would be used for mail, private messages and such.
I would really like to see a game where you don't know the name of a person, or any information about them until you /greet them or receive a dossier on them created by a spy-type player. Players would be able to train skills to disguise them selves, as well as players could train to see through disguises.
The system should be designed to provide no advantages for criminally flagged or lawful bounties. This would help and hinder players operating through legitimate breadmaking businesses.
|
|
That becomes problematic when you go looking for your friend who just joined and named himself Bob. You try to pm/find Bob but then there are 30 Bobs around.
Now if you just want names to be invisible except for people you have been introduced to, I could go for that and it doesn't need id tags cause your whole name is the id tag.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
That becomes problematic when you go looking for your friend who just joined and named himself Bob.
Yes, there are problems with identifying the person you want to send a /tell to, but requiring everyone to have a unique name is not the only solution.
In most cases, the system should be able to automatically determine who you mean. Do you have a /nickname for someone named Bob? Did you just group with someone named Bob? Have you ever sent a /tell to a Bob before? Did someone named Bob just walk by?
In the cases where there's really no clue, the system can present information about the candidate Bobs and let you choose. I would think just showing the date the character was created and the character's race would probably be enough to allow you to uniquely identify the correct Bob.
Another possibility is to require a registered email address (with a default @pathfinderonline.com if the player doesn't want to use a real email). It's fine for the email address to have to be unique, but there's really no need for the character names to have to be unique.
(Well, no reason other than that it's a lot simpler...)
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
One upside to the system is you will never receive a message from a gold spammer, or any person that cannot directly see you.
If you have a friend that just joined, make sure you know their unique character tag. If you know someones tag, you would be able to send them messages, but you wouldn't recognize them if you randomly see them. From there it would be easy to pick a location to meet up. If you aren't using some sort of out of game communication, you need to step into the modern gaming world.
I like the email address idea, it would be a good way to break the in-game to out-of-game barrier. If you have to be away, you can send a email to a character that they will get in game, or can read through the main website.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I thought LOTRO missed an opportunity in naming schemes with their earned titles. In the game, there can be only one Bob. But if the first Bob chooses the title "the Bold", then that guy is no long "Bob" - he's "Bob the Bold", and the name "Bob" is now available again.
Of course, the second Bob cannot choose "the Bold" as a title, until the first Bob moves on to a better title, nor can the first Bob go back to just plain "Bob".
If GW had such a name-title scheme, they could tie titles to some merit badges. They could also create titles from place names. When some group founds a settlement named Happyville, the title "of Happyville" becomes available, likely just to citizens.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Instancing is a must, no matter what. Social hubs will exist and there needs to be ways to handle them...
You just said that there are social hubs so one must have a technology to prevent aexactly that - a social hub. Because with instancing I could as well be at another server.
I think the idea is to spread out pop, to not have the one and only hub that matters. Also I guess as the most content will be player based players will form into factions and being with a faction will pretty much decide where your hub is while you might be inclined to kill PC's of another faction if you encounter it there.
For this kind of game single server is paramount as the community > all.
If the devs want the players to contribute and change the world, then 1 server and 1 character for an account should be the way, in my opinion.
That way, theres 4500 unique characters out there to interact with each other, and if you're a total jerk and like to gank other people, you cannot switch your character and hide. Also makes your character more meaningful, I think.
On the topic of not being able to see a character's name when you meet them is a nice idea, one that I've though about several times before. In a game like this where essentially you could get backstabbed by people you don't know, in my opinon adds more depth to it, though at the same time it might give some protection to those griefers as you don't know the name of the killer, and hence how would people going after the bounty look for him? The bounty would include visual picture of the killer?
It would also give the option to appear as someone else, giving more some intruiging options, but I guess it would be too much to hope that every player of the game would be in it for RP, and treat the game as such as opposed to 'get to the high-end and get epic loot as fast as possible'.
Just my opinions.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
If the devs want the players to contribute and change the world, then 1 server and 1 character for an account should be the way, in my opinion.
That way, theres 4500 unique characters out there to interact with each other, and if you're a total jerk and like to gank other people, you cannot switch your character and hide. Also makes your character more meaningful, I think.
While the spirit is admerable. Unenforcable rules are rather pointless. People who want multi's can
wire through proxy servers to hide their IP.
Set up credit cards in other countries etc...
and the list of ways to avoid detection could go on for ages.
People who would be harmed in any attempt to moderate this.
Families: Brothers/sisters, husband/wives, father/son etc... Likely to need to share a credit card, and almost certainly have the same IP
College students: Entire campus's and dorm facilities are likely to share a single external IP address.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
In Memmoraths defence, he did say 1 character per account. That is enforcible, just do not allow alt slots. He did not argue that people cannot have multiple accounts (although this is what he might have meant). This is actually almost in line with what the majority of players will do in PFO. Why pay twice as much to be able to train 2 characters on a single account, yet only play one at a time...when you could open two accounts and play both simultaneously if one wanted...for the same price?
As for the "forced anonymity". I am a huge supporter. If your buddy Bob wants to meet you in game, instead of him having to know the server to find you on (since there is only one server), he will need to know the time and place...and name of who he should be meeting in-character. This to me is a good thing; necessitating actual character contact. As long as you can click on a character and mark them in some way without having to know their name (We actually fleshed out a system for this months ago, search for "anonymity").
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
In Memmoraths defence, he did say 1 character per account. That is enforcible, just do not allow alt slots. He did not argue that people cannot have multiple accounts (although this is what he might have meant). This is actually almost in line with what the majority of players will do in PFO. Why pay twice as much to be able to train 2 characters on a single account, yet only play one at a time...when you could open two accounts and play both simultaneously if one wanted...for the same price?
Well from what the devs have said, it will be the same amount or possibly less to pay for 2 skill trainings on one account. I fail to see a reason why multiple accounts or multiple characters on an account, should or would be different, unless you are account sharing, which is almost universally against TOS (though admitted unenforcable). Personally I think they should and can offer a slight discount to skill training an alt if one character is already paying full on the account. IE assuming 100 skymetal = roughly $1, then first character could cost 1000 skymetal for training, second 900 etc...
As far as any balance or mechanical reasons I cannot think of a single reason why the devs would want to intentionally encorage/require multiple accounts per person. I can't think of a single good reason to want someone to have multiple characters belonging to the same person online at the same time. I would much rather if selling is done through a stall/store type system, to permit someone to have a store that functions regardless of where their character is, then to waste resources/bandwidth of having people connect an extra client to the server at the same time as they are off doing things on their main.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Well, I guarantee if they make a trained alt the same price as a main, there will be many who multi-box to have a heal-bot. That is the advantage of two separate accounts versus only one. I can set-up my laptop next to my main computer and have a support character.
To be clear, I am not advocating this behaviour. I for one only play alts when I am curious about aspects of the game that are locked from my main (such as class based stuff...for different classes). My hate of grinding make playing alts difficult. However, this seems to be a trend as I see as people have more computers available. In fact, in my opinion, this ends up destroying the community because there is no more need for other players when everyone has their own support team.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Well, I guarantee if they make a trained alt the same price as a main, there will be many who multi-box to have a heal-bot. That is the advantage of two separate accounts versus only one. I can set-up my laptop next to my main computer and have a support character.
To be clear, I am not advocating this behaviour. I for one only play alts when I am curious about aspects of the game that are locked from my main (such as class based stuff...for different classes). My hate of grinding make playing alts difficult. However, this seems to be a trend as I see as people have more computers available. In fact, in my opinion, this ends up destroying the community because there is no more need for other players when everyone has their own support team.
And the solution to that issue, is to make the high reward content itself challenging enough that that option isn't viable. 2 PC botting is only viable in 2 circumstances.
1. Fighting takes so little damage that you only need to heal between battles.
2. Fighting is just set and forget, so you can focus on healing.
The issue is the game being simple enough that it only takes 1/4th focus on one character, 1/4th on the other, and half on switching between the 2. If the games challenges are actually deep enough that everyone involved actually needs to be ready to respond, that issue rapidly vanishes. Open PVP alone will greatly lower the odds of this (2 active players will put 1 active player and 1 toggled character into the grave pretty quickly).
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I definitely do not agree. Most MMOs have a follow function, and most MMOs allow spells/abilities/macros to be mapped to a keyboard. It does not take 75% of my attention to set an alt to follow my main and mash the occasional "1" set to target main, "2" set to heal current target, "3" to target main's target, and/or "4" to nuke current target...repeat as needed. I don't see why this would take more than a 95%/5% attention split...even less if you only use "1" then "2" as needed.
Especially the last option leaves you to utilize almost all your attention upon your main's combat.
I do not know a solution to this. Making combat so difficult/busy that this would not be viable would also place a definite barrier on the audience, some people just do not like or do well with twitch type combat. One solution is to make alts RL expensive, but this then only hurts the people who cannot afford to pay more.
Oh, I just realized, since the game will be limited free-to-play, this compounds the issue. Anyone who can multi-box will...they will just use their main on one account and as many alts on free accounts as their resources will allow. There are entire guilds who specialize in multi-box zerging.
Note, my link above is an EVE player...and what he is doing would not violate most EULAs (because he/she is technically in direct control of each character).
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
In Memmoraths defence, he did say 1 character per account.
I believe the spirit of his post was for 1 character per player, but I could be wrong.
Why pay twice as much to be able to train 2 characters on a single account, yet only play one at a time?
I'm still holding out hope that when Ryan said "you'll be happy" in response to my post asking to "never punish a player for using a single account", that he really meant it, and will allow multiple characters from a single account to be online at the same time. Ultimately, I'd like it to be slightly less expensive to train two characters on the same account than it would be to train them on separate accounts, including whatever cost there is to allow a second character online at the same time.
I can't think of a single good reason to want someone to have multiple characters belonging to the same person online at the same time.
Really?? My wife and I used to 2-box in EverQuest, it was quite fun. Apparently, there are quite a few MMO fans who agree because 2-boxing is actually fairly common. I wouldn't be surprised if 5% or more of all MMO fans have 2-boxed at some point in time.
In fact, in my opinion, this [2-boxing] ends up destroying the community because there is no more need for other players when everyone has their own support team.
I see it from the exact opposite angle. 2-boxing was a means to get something done when other support characters weren't available.
The key thing to remember about this is that it will be utterly impossible to enforce any rules that try to limit 2-boxing. In my mind, the proper thing to do in that case is create incentives for players to put all their characters on one account, such as slightly cheaper training.
And the solution to that issue, is to make the high reward content itself challenging enough that that option isn't viable. 2 PC botting is only viable in 2 circumstances.
1. Fighting takes so little damage that you only need to heal between battles.
2. Fighting is just set and forget, so you can focus on healing.
That's not true. Forencith is right. It was an extremely simple thing to put my Druid on the laptop and follow my Paladin around, then I just had to reach my left hand over to the laptop and hit 1 or 2 keys every once in a while to keep my Paladin healed. In combat or out of combat, it didn't mater.
Honestly, I think the effort spent trying to find a "solution" to this "problem" is utterly wasted effort.
I'm highly skeptical of arguments that it has a negative impact on the community. Consider the worst stereotype of a 2-boxer, the purely anti-social loner. Option 1, he plays with a pocket Druid that follows him around and heals him when he needs it, thus depriving some real Druid somewhere the opportunity to play with him. Option 2, he doesn't play the game at all because he's anti-social and doesn't want to be forced to group with other players, thus depriving some real Druid somewhere the opportunity to play with him.
Now consider the case of a 2-boxer like me. Option 1, I look for someone to group with, but no one's available so I pull out my pocket Druid and try to accomplish something. Option 2, I look for someone to group with, and find someone, and we go accomplish stuff.
In neither case is there a Druid stuck unable to group, where they would be able to group if there weren't any 2-boxing.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Well, I can only talk from experience, Saga of Ryzom relatively recently opened up a limited free "trial"...which essentially only capped your level to 50%. However, even a 50% character in SoR is useful. As such, the population exploded with alts due to multi-boxing. But, it also led to an exodus of players who did not want/could not multi-box...and could no longer compete with the legions made up by a handful of players who perfect the art.
All that remains is multi-boxers (a little hyperbole, but point still stands), and as you say Nihimon, they don't need others to accomplish things. In all fairness, what you say is also correct, the reason MBing because so prevalent in SoR is specifically because of the low population initially. It was difficult to find people to team with. So, I can see your perspective.
However, since I knew I could not change these MBers misbehavior, I just made friends with them and once accepted as a reality, it was possible to put together groups and events and include MBers. It was fine. There are after-all, entire guilds/clans that specialize in MBing for PvP...and that requires many working together.
I suppose it needs to be mentioned that many of these MBs in SoR ended up changing their free trials to subscribed accounts. They wanted their alts to have more power and abilities. This ended up good for the distributor of SoR.
I also must agree with Nihimon, I do not know a solution. Or even if one is possible or necessary.
In the name of full disclosure, I have never multiboxed and do not intend to, but this is a personal choice. Perhaps in PFO where it is not necessary to grind to level, I will be more open to the opportunity.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I would like to see all accounts starting with 2 slots, further slots can be purchased. After 4 slots you must re-apply to the game to purchase further slots, and will not be able to have more slots until there is an open space in the queue of people waiting to get in the game.(to account for the evolution of the hardware as the game progresses) This simulates getting a 2nd account so you can have more slots.
All characters on a single account can be online simultaneously within the same client, or split across as many clients as they choose(multi-boxing)
All characters can be easily switched between at any time by clicking a location on the screen, or a keybind. When a character is not currently being viewed that instance goes into a standby state with minimal processing.
This is primarily for people who want to do something like crafting, but also want to explore. If they can multi-task well enough they can do both efficiently.
With this system, the only people that are going to buy multiple accounts are the malicious players that know they are doing things that could get them in trouble. they will have their griefer account bouncing through a proxy, and their main account running normaly. There is no way to encourage these players to stick to one account.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
That sounds great, Valkenr.
I would especially like to see actual support for multiple characters online simultaneously in the same client.
Also, keep in mind, everything I say is coming from a position that would really like all characters to be in-game all the time. So having multiple characters in-game at the same time is just a natural extension of that.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
That's not true. Forencith is right. It was an extremely simple thing to put my Druid on the laptop and follow my Paladin around, then I just had to reach my left hand over to the laptop and hit 1 or 2 keys every once in a while to keep my Paladin healed. In combat or out of combat, it didn't mater.
Honestly, I think the effort spent trying to find a "solution" to this "problem" is utterly wasted effort.
I suppose you are right I left out a 3rd, healing is so simple a single button does the job well.
I do think one other note that people are taking for granite. Some of these problems that multiboxing is a solution to, are actually caused by multiboxers. Lets go with Jim, Jim enjoys playing healers and supporting parties. Now lets port him into a world where 70% of players multibox and run with an army of themselves. Most of these don't even take the time to shout out and look for a healer anymore, they just grab their pocket druid, and move on. Now Jim can't find anyone to group with, gives up and rolls a solo character. Now there are even less supports as the supports themselves retire, and the next wave of melees that would want a support, can't find one, roll up a pocket druid etc... The people who want to team, give up quickly after finding no-one able to team up with.
Now I'm not saying everything in the game should be so difficult that it takes a group of actual active players, but the high risk high reward tasks, should be. Healers taking care of difficult bosses should need inteligent use of heal short term buffs that make a difference what time in the battle they are used, dispell, break enchantment Hots, dots, CCs etc... When a class is effective by mindlessly pressing a single button, it's no supprise the burnout is too high for anyone to play it as anything other then a pocket class and they become difficult to find.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I never even considered that Nihimon...100% agree. I have not been thinking about the problem from that perspective, simply because I assumed it would not be dev/resource friendly and hence not implemented (no matter how much I hope they would).
Valkenr, that would definitely be an evolution in game design. I like it.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
SWGemu was my inspiration. They allowed multiple characters on a single account to be simultaneously logged in(you were only supposed to have 2, but there where tons of potential errors that would cause the check to fail(probably latency))
I think at one point I had 4 gatherers(harvesters weren't implemented), an entertainer, a doctor watching/grinding(in a family friendly way) on the entertainer and my 2-H main out exploring with my ranger on /follow. all across two machines. Twas fun.
Of course SWG has a terribly simple and low resource client.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I think it already has been said that you can have "any" amount of characters on your account, but the skilltraining will be divided between them.
If you want to have two or more characters at full training speed you have to pay.
Works for me as I never have more than one character anyways but if you char hop regulary you will either have weaker characters or must pay more money.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I'm very sympathetic to the concerns that underlie (I believe) most of the objections to multi-boxing. I have very high hopes that PFO will not create a situation where a single support character only acting every once in a while can make such a big difference.
I am also very hopeful that PFO will not actually punish players for grouping the way that most games do. I can't express strongly enough how bad I think it is to cut rewards (usually XP) in half if someone helps me kill a mob. It creates a dynamic where I feel compelled to gripe at the friendly hero who wanders by and helps me slay the dragon I'm locked in mortal combat with. That's a very bad dynamic.
Since there's no real XP in PFO, I'm hoping this dynamic never rears it's ugly head. But there are still other ways PFO could really step up and let the game mechanics reward us for grouping. There's enough of a downside in grouping with random strangers that any downsides added in by the game mechanics often push players over the edge into pure soloing just to avoid the hassle.
I expect most of the goals that players will have in PFO will reward group play very significantly. I know I intend to travel in force any time I leave the safety of the NPC Settlements.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My main desire would be for combat in the game to be deep and challanging enough that playing a SINGLE character well in all but the most one-sided situations requires a significant amount of FOCUS for the player, thus multi-boxing should prove IMPRACTICAL to do EFFECTIVELY in most situations.
In other words, I don't neccesarly want to mechanicaly prevent Nihimon from running a 2nd character on another box if that's what he really wants to do.... but I DO want him to feel like he's not really getting all that much out of it when compared to having another real live person sitting at that other console and FOCUSING thier attention on controling that other character.
To me, multi-boxing is a symptom of overly-simplistic and unengaging game-play then anything else. It does cause other problems, obviously...and I don't like seeing it in games....but mostly I want players to feel like they are engaged enough playing 1 character at a time that trying to handle 2 or more just stretches them too thin.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I've played a lot of games that allowed dual boxing and in my experience it never bothered me. For the most part it was just solo players grinding out mobs and using a buff bot.
But what does get annoying is when your out exploring and keep running into player chars that don't respond (dual char left unattended). I found myself just killing them for no reason other then being annoyed.
So either way I'm fine with it if that's what one wants to do but I personally would prefer not to run into dozens of unattended chars hiding in the bushes with no pulse.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
|
Any system that can be played acceptably by a median gamer with one character can be played well twice at the same time by 10% of gamers, with the right hardware. I could run two DCUO villains at once, passably. It wouldn't be fun, in any sense of the word, for anybody, including me.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
P.S. - Tangent Incoming.... Multi-Boxers don't NECCESARLY have to be anti-social folks... it is odd but I have met a few that were rather social.
However, having a large percentage of the player community which is anti-social or simply unresponsive IS bad for a game of this sort...particular in terms of new players. The players one encounters, especialy early on in ones play experience DEFINATELY sets the tone for the community of the game, and especialy in terms of what new players will expect of the game.
If a new player walking around see's the majority of players as unresponsive or purposefully ignore them, they are going to think....
1) The community of the game is unfriendly
2) That's how you are SUPPOSED to play the game, and adjust thier own behavior accordingly.
3) If they are really interested in a "friendly/active" community, they might even think..."this is not the game for me" and head elsewhere.
I'm sorry for those who think otherwise, but forced interdependance IS actualy a very effective mechanism for building strong communities. Complete self-reliance, as much as it can make play more convenient does tend to make for weaker communities.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Returning to Saga of Ryzom...the game's claim to fame for the first 6 or so years was the superb quality of the community. It is still the best community that I have ever been part of, but...now there is a definite line and source of conflict (even faction internally) between the haves and have-nots. This line is now drawn almost exclusively between those who do not multibox and those who do. They are all still great people, it is just very frustrating for the non-multiboxers to get crushed all the time because they cannot field the same firepower as the multiboxers. And while the multiboxers are not officially breaking any rules, there is many who feel they are...something less than honest.
Full disclosure, I was allied with the guild that was most powerful, and in which multiboxing was most prevalent...so I admit to have benefited directly from their actions. As such, I will not make a moral claim...I am only pointing out my observations.
Oh, and the one aspect of multiboxing I really did not like is calls for teams/assistance/etc disappeared overnight. There was no longer a need to find people for help when you could field your own healers and support. This is what I fear for PFO.
On the otherside, I agree with Nihimon, multiboxing allowed players to enjoy content they otherwise could not have. Saga of Ryzoms population has gone through some very slow periods, as such it was sometimes very difficult to find teams for anything. This made multiboxing a necessity to enjoy some content...even for the biggest guild to defeat some bosses.
As mentioned, I am not making a moral judgement nor am I saying it should not be allowed. I just hope the game is designed in such a way that players do not feel the need to multibox.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Single server, it will be. Server being single world instance, not the supporting hardware, which I imagine will actually be several servers.
Single character per user account, I doubt that. More user accounts makes it harder for support features etc. I hope they go with the slightly reduced cost to train secondary characters. Not so much that there is alot of them, but enough to lower user accounts.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
I'm not suggesting everyone multi-box. I'm suggesting everyone have easy access to Hirelings, which would function at least as well as most boxed alts, because they'd be attacking at full speed while the boxed alt is only doing what the player has time to tell it to do. Significant limits, or even outright disabling, of auto-attacks would make sense, too.
There would have to be significant advantages to being grouped, and Hirelings should count against group size. The goal being to ensure that 6 characters with 2 or 3 Hirelings each were not as effective as 6 characters in the same group. Group-based aura-buffs would probably accomplish this goal.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
One of the very few good things in TOR is the balance of the companion system. You can do most of the open world content meant for 4 people with two if your companions fill the empty slots in the team, but only when you are playing above the zones you are playing in(I'm always above the planet level range) But when you move on to more challenging and rewarding group content, you must bring players. Companions are good to a point, and then you need a real healer, or real tank using a less random ability rotation.
People are going to multi-box, there is no way around it, the only way to catch them is to pay someone to watch them, otherwise it is indistinguishable from two people playing on one connection. So why not make the process easy for everyone?
You could have alts act as hierlings, and follow your main around running an AI, which would make them slightly better than hired NPC's but still not the judgement of a real person for tight situations. The downside is, you have to keep them trained and above the ability of regular hirelings you can get, to make it worthwhile. I wouldn't mind seeing your alts unlock travel/slaying requirements while in this AI form.
Or better yet, allow players to make their own party like in NWN, and switch between them easily. Still you would have to put in the time to train all of the accounts.
I'm not against recluses playing the game, if someone wants to shell out 200/mo to train their small party, i'm fine with it. And if someone has spend 15/mo to train a similar party over the course of 7 years, they have earned the right to go play on their own.
You still aren't getting the same safety net of having a real party, but you don't need to find a group of players to help get you over every little bump in the road, just the substantial ones.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
I'm not suggesting everyone multi-box. I'm suggesting everyone have easy access to Hirelings, which would function at least as well as most boxed alts, because they'd be attacking at full speed while the boxed alt is only doing what the player has time to tell it to do. Significant limits, or even outright disabling, of auto-attacks would make sense, too.
There would have to be significant advantages to being grouped, and Hirelings should count against group size. The goal being to ensure that 6 characters with 2 or 3 Hirelings each were not as effective as 6 characters in the same group. Group-based aura-buffs would probably accomplish this goal.
Companions are one thing that SWTOR did right (for the most part).
The only thing I worry about, is that having these hirelings out in PvP becomes the norm. Before they disallowed the companions on the world PvP planet, it just seemed silly that everybody had their little NPC helper out to heal, and when you killed the player, the NPC disappeared.
I suppose you could put a significant initial cost on hiring a hireling (in addition to a weekly cost while they are hired) to discourage throwing them away constantly in PvP, and make it so they stay near your corpse when you die, continuing to fight (and usually die themselves).
Sure, it worked great in SWTOR because it isn't a group-centric game, but I don't mind either way if it makes it into PFO.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Or better yet, allow players to make their own party like in NWN, and switch between them easily.I am convinced this will eventually happen in some MMO, at which point it will soon be in almost every MMO after that. It's just a question of breaking the taboo.
And you need a company like GW, to break that taboo, and become really successful. Because there is no way any big studio will take any risk, this has been proven time and time again by EA, SOE, NCSOFT, Cryptic, and pretty much every studio over in SE Asia.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
In theory, I'm not against the concept of having "hirelings" to help out, as long as they cost in game resources (i.e. coin for "wages" to hire and keep up and as long they are NOT an effective substitute for having a real live player behind the console controling another PC.
There are some technical drawbacks to that model however...as now you are having to handle 2, 3 or 4 character objects per active player as opposed to just one, it's going to put higher resource demand on both server and client.
I'm still really not understanding the point/desire of wanting to play a Multi-Player game where you isolate yourself from having to deal/cooperate with other players by building your own self-sustaining party of robots/drones.
It also will have a negative impact on the game community by reducing the need for dependance/interaction with other human beings...the only question is the DEGREE to which it does so.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
You aren't isolating your self, you just aren't being dependent on everyone for everything. There is a reason MMORPGs are coming out with more and more solo content. Players like myself like to play with a tight group of people, and that tight group of people is not always online. We need something to do while everyone is not around that still moves things forward.
If someone is able to make a 'solo party' of their own characters, more power too them, they are either paying enough, or spent enough time in the game to deserve some independence.
I hate dealing with game markets, they are usually way over inflated, I would much rather make my own crafter for the majority of my needs, and only go to the market when i want the best-of-the-best.
A system like this also forces people to excel in their profession, if you are playing a healing character, and the healing hireling is better than you, you need to improve your abilities.
A purely team based MMO will be a very boring one, all of your time will be spent finding parties instead of doing content.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I'm still really not understanding the point/desire of wanting to play a Multi-Player game where you isolate yourself from having to deal/cooperate with other players by building your own self-sustaining party of robots/drones.
It's as simple as the desire to adventure in a persistent world, with the option of multi-player... when you're in the mood for it.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
You aren't isolating your self, you just aren't being dependent on everyone for everything. There is a reason MMORPGs are coming out with more and more solo content. Players like myself like to play with a tight group of people, and that tight group of people is not always online. We need something to do while everyone is not around that still moves things forward.
If someone is able to make a 'solo party' of their own characters, more power too them, they are either paying enough, or spent enough time in the game to deserve some independence.
I hate dealing with game markets, they are usually way over inflated, I would much rather make my own crafter for the majority of my needs, and only go to the market when i want the best-of-the-best.
A system like this also forces people to excel in their profession, if you are playing a healing character, and the healing hireling is better than you, you need to improve your abilities.
A purely team based MMO will be a very boring one, all of your time will be spent finding parties instead of doing content.
Well, I have to say you have preferences that are diametricaly opposite to mine. If I want to play a game with a tight group of friends then we look for a CO-OP game and setup a scheduled time to play.
Problem here is games who's mechanics are DESIGNED to support solo-based play well (for the core function of the game-play, not having individual activities that can be done solo)....pretty much destroy the fun for those of us who are INTERESTED in group based play.
It also becomes the "norm" for how the player community behaves...you'll note that growing trend toward solo-focused MMO's has lead to games with weak communities where people largely play SOLO whether they prefer to or NOT...just because that's what everyone in the environment is doing, and it's difficult to get other people to interact EVEN WHEN YOU TRY. It also leads to designs that make game challenges so trivial that trying to do it in a group becomes boring.
P.S.....for those of us why enjoy Group Based play...interacting with other players IS the content. It's why we come to these games, if I just want to slay orcs by myself, I have Skyrim for that.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I'm still really not understanding the point/desire of wanting to play a Multi-Player game where you isolate yourself from having to deal/cooperate with other players by building your own self-sustaining party of robots/drones.It's as simple as the desire to adventure in a persistent world, with the option of multi-player... when you're in the mood for it.
How would that be different then playing Diablo?
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I find it a little funny.
One thing that really cut down a lot on people playing solo was the Dungeon Finder in WoW, yet it's one of those things that's roundly criticized for "destroying the game".
The key is to give players something fun to do, and to avoid punishing players for grouping.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Nihimon, Grumpy acknowledged that he and Valkenr (and you...and probably me since I am very much like Valkenr's tight group player) have opposing views...I think he is just trying to understand (and is probably exasperated by the apparent lack of logic on our part, because we have failed to fully explain ourselves).
To clarify for my case, I am very much like Valkenr because I only play with my tight group. I went from level 1 to 80 in WoW and the only pug instance I ever ran was Dead Mines once...because the experience was so traumatic for me (in fact, I do not think I ran another instance until level 70...and I am not a fast grinder). But, my wife and I and a friend from another game started a private guild that over a few years ended up being 20-30 people...all became part of my "tight group". I can make new friends (aka, people I enjoy playing with), it is just a slow process for me. And I really enjoy making new friends...I just don't push it (quality over quantity and all that). So, even though I end up segmenting myself away from the larger community, I really enjoy being part of that larger community. I even like making enemies (read RPPvP enemies) almost as much as making friends.
Also, I enjoy PvP (including political play) which does not require me to view the other PCs as anything more than complex NPCs, but until AI gets that complex, I am forced to play MMOs to get that level of complexity.
In conclusion, I do only enjoy personally playing with a tight knit group of individuals. However, I enjoy adding quality people to this group as I run across them. This occurs rarely, but is such a highlight of my play that removing it (such as playing Diablo) would be a noticeable deficit. Likewise, although I only play with my tight group, I enjoy pitting my group against complex challenges to achieve goals. Unfortunately AI still does not provide the necessary level of complexity to drive my enjoyment of this aspect of play. Therefore, I am forced to seek out competition with other Players, also something missing from single player or even group games. But...I may never even talk to anyone but my tight group.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I'm still really not understanding the point/desire of wanting to play a Multi-Player game where you isolate yourself from having to deal/cooperate with other players by building your own self-sustaining party of robots/drones.It's as simple as the desire to adventure in a persistent world, with the option of multi-player... when you're in the mood for it.
Well I think the issue, is when teaming up isn't needed ever, then when you are in the mood for it, it is almost impossible to find someone to team up with. I used to play the perfect world games, which IMO were the worst culprits for this flaw, I preffer to party 90% of the time, maybe 5-10% of the time I wouldn't mind soloing. I'd spend hours trying to find anyone, and generally wind up giving up.
Admitted the game was also flawed in grouping by being extremely quest dependent. IE everything you earned came by what quest you were on, basically meaning that if 2 people wanted to team up, if one player was 2 quests behind, the other person had to take an hour to complete the first 2 quests for the other guy and get themselves both on the same page for them to gain together.
But even without that horrible system, the key is, SOME things need to take a group to be done well, if the game is to encorage it. Note: I am not saying everything should require a team, I am saying there should be enough things that can only be performed better with more active players that have rewards that cannot be easily obtained solo or with bots/multis that people will not turn down group requests when they are offered.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And you need a company like GW, to break that taboo, and become really successful. Because there is no way any big studio will take any risk, this has been proven time and time again by EA, SOE, NCSOFT, Cryptic, and pretty much every studio over in SE Asia.Or better yet, allow players to make their own party like in NWN, and switch between them easily.I am convinced this will eventually happen in some MMO, at which point it will soon be in almost every MMO after that. It's just a question of breaking the taboo.
^^ This 100%
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Nihimon, Grumpy acknowledged that he and Valkenr (and you...and probably me since I am very much like Valkenr's tight group player) have opposing views...I think he is just trying to understand (and is probably exasperated by the apparent lack of logic on our part, because we have failed to fully explain ourselves).
You're going to be a good influence on me.
Well I think the issue, is when teaming up isn't needed ever, then when you are in the mood for it, it is almost impossible to find someone to team up with.
I understand the argument, I'm just not sure I buy it. If you force a player who enjoys soloing to group to get anything done, which seems more likely: that he will joyfully embrace grouping, and be a good groupmate; or that he will get frustrated and either take it out on his groupmates out of spite, or simply quit playing the game?
I simply don't buy the argument that taking away the ability to solo produces good groupmates.
Making grouping fun and worthwhile, and as painless as possible, is what will encourage players to group.
More carrot, less stick.
** DISCLAIMER: I am not arguing that there should not be any interdependence between players. I am simply saying that it's not a dial you can turn up to produce more group-friendly players.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
If you force a player who enjoys soloing to group to get anything done, which seems more likely: that he will joyfully embrace grouping, and be a good groupmate; or that he will get frustrated and either take it out on his groupmates out of spite, or simply quit playing the game?
It is a great fallacy that nowadays people expect to play a so called MMO without wanting to be forced to play with other people.
Following this logic you could ask why you have to shoot people at Counter Strike because it will let the people that would rather plant a tree quit on the game...