HalfOrcHeavyMetal Goblin Squad Member |
Something I noticed in the Blog is that Dragons will be encountered in various places.
Now it's a topic that's dripping with Holy Cow marinade, but I'd like to suggest that Dragons are not something that should be lumped in with the other monsters. We're talking an enemy on par with a Master Vampire, a Lich, a powerful Demon or .... just a really powerful enemy.
When a player sees a Dragon, it should not be 'wah-hey, pile of treasure somewhere nearby!' it should be "OH GODS, WHERE IS THE EXIT?". A Dragon should be something that makes anyone but a large, trusted band of Heroes (or Villains) quake in their boots. To take one down should be an epic moment in and of itself, let alone the resources you could harvest from it or the treasure waiting to be looted, or the Lair now vacant and ready to be remodelled into a formidable base of opperations.
And g@+#$*mit, Dragonbone Thrones, PLEASE. When a Dragon is finally killed, so many things can be done with the body. Can you imagine the joygasm of a Necromancer finding a Dead Dragon and being able to permanently 'add' that Dead Dragon to his list of summonable Undead? Or the Fighter who can take the scales, horns, bones and hide and turn it into a suit of armor.
To prevent TL:DR, I guess what I am asking for is to avoid the Warcraft Model where a Dragon is just another mob to be tanked, ganked and spanked. A Hex known to contain a Dragon should at once be a dangerous zone, and yet attractive to ambitious and/or powerful Heroes/Villains eager to conquer the beast and claim the hoard ..... or just conquer the beast and use it to wreak havoc on their enemies!
Arbalester Goblin Squad Member |
Oh yes. Seconded wholeheartedly. What people forget is that a dragon's two most underestimated assets are their long life and good Int score. They aren't just a lizard with wings; they can make plans, craft dangerous lairs filled with traps to their advantage, bargain with other creatures, lure adventurers there and split up the party, all kinds of tricks. And yes, if you have some butchering skill, a dead dragon would be its own holiday for you; so much hide and bone, so many things to turn it into.
BollaertN |
To prevent TL:DR, I guess what I am asking for is to avoid the Warcraft Model where a Dragon is just another mob to be tanked, ganked and spanked. A Hex known to contain a Dragon should at once be a dangerous zone, and yet attractive to ambitious and/or powerful Heroes/Villains eager to conquer the beast and claim the hoard ..... or just conquer the beast and use it to wreak havoc on their enemies!
So it should be scary and special, definitely not to be simply tanked, ganked and spanked... until aforementioned powerful heroes show up to conquer it? Presumably by tanking, ganking, and spanking it?
You will need to be more specific on how you wish to differentiate a Dragon from any other PVE Raid Boss.
DeciusBrutus Goblinworks Executive Founder |
HalfOrcHeavyMetal wrote:
To prevent TL:DR, I guess what I am asking for is to avoid the Warcraft Model where a Dragon is just another mob to be tanked, ganked and spanked. A Hex known to contain a Dragon should at once be a dangerous zone, and yet attractive to ambitious and/or powerful Heroes/Villains eager to conquer the beast and claim the hoard ..... or just conquer the beast and use it to wreak havoc on their enemies!
So it should be scary and special, definitely not to be simply tanked, ganked and spanked... until aforementioned powerful heroes show up to conquer it? Presumably by tanking, ganking, and spanking it?
You will need to be more specific on how you wish to differentiate a Dragon from any other PVE Raid Boss.
Well, since there won't be "Raid Bosses" of the type found in WoW, simply because there won't be Raids of the type found in WoW, because it will be a sandbox rather than a theme park.
That means that dragons can be made to be VERY hard to kill. Any group big enough to threaten one is also going to have to be able to outrun it or track it to its other lairs, or somehow force it to engage. (I'm discussing the Great Wyrm dragons; younger dragons might be easier to corner or provoke into fighting to the death, while the oldest dragons would not allow themselves to be attacked by mortals. No, you cannot tank Tiamat.)
BollaertN |
BollaertN wrote:HalfOrcHeavyMetal wrote:
To prevent TL:DR, I guess what I am asking for is to avoid the Warcraft Model where a Dragon is just another mob to be tanked, ganked and spanked. A Hex known to contain a Dragon should at once be a dangerous zone, and yet attractive to ambitious and/or powerful Heroes/Villains eager to conquer the beast and claim the hoard ..... or just conquer the beast and use it to wreak havoc on their enemies!
So it should be scary and special, definitely not to be simply tanked, ganked and spanked... until aforementioned powerful heroes show up to conquer it? Presumably by tanking, ganking, and spanking it?
You will need to be more specific on how you wish to differentiate a Dragon from any other PVE Raid Boss.
Well, since there won't be "Raid Bosses" of the type found in WoW, simply because there won't be Raids of the type found in WoW, because it will be a sandbox rather than a theme park.
That means that dragons can be made to be VERY hard to kill. Any group big enough to threaten one is also going to have to be able to outrun it or track it to its other lairs, or somehow force it to engage. (I'm discussing the Great Wyrm dragons; younger dragons might be easier to corner or provoke into fighting to the death, while the oldest dragons would not allow themselves to be attacked by mortals. No, you cannot tank Tiamat.)
Actually, they have said Sandbox with Themepark Elements, which leaves open that they might have PVE Raiding.
Onishi Goblin Squad Member |
Actually, they have said Sandbox with Themepark Elements, which leaves open that they might have PVE Raiding.
Theme park elements is possible, however raiding in the sense that we've come to know from WoW, they have more or less confirmed that with the exception of the modules the PVE content will not be instanced, and not be repeatable. IE random bosses/mobs/encampments etc... will appear on a hex, and once cleared will either be gone for good, or once in a blue moon become a habitable empty structure for players to take over. Even the modules the development team shows an extreme hesitance on being repeatable
For such instanced content, offering persistence is tricky. We want you to have the sense that the world changes based on your own successes or failures, and it would break that immersion if you could potentially play the same exact module multiple times. How we untangle that will be a challenge for the development team.
So yes there may be major huge bosses that take enormous teams to take down, but no there will not be a heavy focus on traditional raid bosses, in which you gather a group together and kill the same boss 50 times until everyone has the epic drop from it. The key on GoblinWorks focus for the game is persistence, they want the setup to be when you kill a boss, that boss stays dead. Now a new boss of the same type may appear, in a random part of the world at an unknown time, but odds are the probability of the same group that took out the first one, being in the right place at the right time to catch the next, is highly unlikely.
BollaertN |
My point still stands though... "special" and "kill for loot" are almost antithetical terms in these kinds of games, if you'll pardon my pessimism :-p
When AD&D put out Deities and Demigods with stats, what happened? D&D groups started killing gods :-p
Now perhaps I misread the OP, and what he hopes is that a Dragon will be a "boss" type encounter with some sort of unique scripted mechanics other than traditional tank and spank... But my interjection was a Boss is a Boss and Players are going to wind up treating it as such and farming it :-p
I am having a failure of imagination on how you can make a dragon a kill-able monster and simultaneously give it a mystique a cut above traditional kill-able monsters in an MMO.
Kryzbyn Goblin Squad Member |
Nihimon Goblin Squad Member |
@BollaertN, there won't really be any "farming" of dragons, because the same dragon won't respawn when it's killed. I believe the OP is mostly saying "Please make Dragons suitably difficult". I agree they should be at or near the very top of the "raid"-style content.
I'm very much looking forward to seeing what kind of effort is involved to clear out a Lair. I expect, from reading the Adventure in the River Kingdoms blog, that Wilderness Lairs will be very comparable to traditional Raids, except that the players won't know what's around every corner, and will have no way to be prepared for every single boss mechanic.
Onishi Goblin Squad Member |
Now perhaps I misread the OP, and what he hopes is that a Dragon will be a "boss" type encounter with some sort of unique scripted mechanics other than traditional tank and spank... But my interjection was a Boss is a Boss and Players are going to wind up treating it as such and farming it :-p
Again the term farming is where I think you are off.
Farming reffers to the same people going after the same enemy over and over again. When the enemy appears in a completely unpredictable location, at an unpredictable time, possibly months apart, no group can "Farm" it. They can patrol their own areas, and deal with the threats that show up in them, but no-one can have the resources to continuously scout 133 sq miles 24/7 to actually cover and farm a specific boss.
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
@BollaertN, there won't really be any "farming" of dragons, because the same dragon won't respawn when it's killed. I believe the OP is mostly saying "Please make Dragons suitably difficult". I agree they should be at or near the very top of the "raid"-style content.
I'm very much looking forward to seeing what kind of effort is involved to clear out a Lair. I expect, from reading the Adventure in the River Kingdoms blog, that Wilderness Lairs will be very comparable to traditional Raids, except that the players won't know what's around every corner, and will have no way to be prepared for every single boss mechanic.
You are very clearly making a vey specific assumption here: "none of the quests (which will be in the game, it's not just sandbox) will have any dragons in them."
Like I said, there's a lot of reading between the lines going on in these forums.
BollaertN |
BollaertN wrote:
Now perhaps I misread the OP, and what he hopes is that a Dragon will be a "boss" type encounter with some sort of unique scripted mechanics other than traditional tank and spank... But my interjection was a Boss is a Boss and Players are going to wind up treating it as such and farming it :-pAgain the term farming is where I think you are off.
Farming reffers to the same people going after the same enemy over and over again. When the enemy appears in a completely unpredictable location, at an unpredictable time, possibly months apart, no group can "Farm" it. They can patrol their own areas, and deal with the threats that show up in them, but no-one can have the resources to continuously scout 133 sq miles 24/7 to actually cover and farm a specific boss.
Fair enough. But mobs are mobs, they will have their work cut out for them to make them "special" but I certainly hope they do!
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
Farming reffers to the same people going after the same enemy over and over again. When the enemy appears in a completely unpredictable location, at an unpredictable time, possibly months apart, no group can "Farm" it. They can patrol their own areas, and deal with the threats that show up in them, but no-one can have the resources to continuously scout 133 sq miles 24/7 to actually cover and farm a specific boss.
You are assuming there won't be any dragons in any quests. We know there will be repeatable quests. We don't know what will be in them. How do you?
KitNyx Goblin Squad Member |
KitNyx Goblin Squad Member |
Skwiziks Goblin Squad Member |
Blaeringr wrote:We know there will be repeatable quests.Have they stated this somewhere? Seems especially anti-persistence to me.
I think that was in reference to modules. The idea that you would pay for an adventure module and only be able to use it once seemed like a bad business model to the CEO, if I remember correctly. So those could be repeatable.
Onishi Goblin Squad Member |
Onishi wrote:Farming reffers to the same people going after the same enemy over and over again. When the enemy appears in a completely unpredictable location, at an unpredictable time, possibly months apart, no group can "Farm" it. They can patrol their own areas, and deal with the threats that show up in them, but no-one can have the resources to continuously scout 133 sq miles 24/7 to actually cover and farm a specific boss.You are assuming there won't be any dragons in any quests. We know there will be repeatable quests. We don't know what will be in them. How do you?
They have listed every type of major PVE content intended.
Wandering monsters: These are creatures you may encounter as you explore the world. Typically, the further you are from civilization, the more dangerous the monstrous creatures you'll encounter. These creatures are spawned into the game randomly, and if left unmolested for a certain period of time, they'll automatically despawn.
Harvesting hazards: These are opponents that are generated randomly as an effect of harvesting certain resources. The longer a harvesting operation continues at a given location, the more likely it is to attract unwelcome attention. These hazards are scaled so that the larger the harvesting operation, the more numerous the creatures attracted will be. And like wandering monsters, the further the encounter is from civilization, the tougher the opponents will be. A single character harvesting close to an NPC settlement will likely be able to fend off the occasional interloper with a relatively minimal amount of ability and gear. A large party operating deep in the wilderness is going to have to be prepared and well organized to fight off substantially harder hazards.
If the harvesters flee and avoid interaction with the hazard for a certain amount of time, the hazard will automatically despawn. But if a new group attempts to harvest the resource that attracted the hazard, it will shift its attention to those newcomers as if they'd been there all along.
(Yes, this means that people harvesting are potentially creating content for people who want to slay monsters. Win/win!)
Ruins, lairs and caverns: These are the classic set-piece adventuring experiences of many tabletop games. Call them "dungeons" for the sake of discussion. You will find these areas using abilities; once located they'll spawn on the map and be findable by anyone who travels to the correct location. If they are cleared, or if no character interacts with them for a fixed amount of time, they'll be removed from the game world automatically.
Each of the three types of dungeon has different properties:
Ruins: In civilized areas, these are fairly low-level experiences. They are often the haunts of undead, oozes and vermin. Be prepared for traps and puzzles. In the wilderness, they can be extremely dangerous, home to high-level opponents and many minions.
Lairs: These represent the hardest and most challenging creatures in a given hex. In civilized areas, these are likely to be magical beasts, and are good sources of content for mid-power PCs. A lair may consist of one or more really tough creatures alongside other critters that live with or around the main threat. In the wilderness, these encounters may also feature aberrations and dragons.
Caverns: These are underground spaces inhabited by the strange and the exotic. In civilized areas, these are truly challenging, with all the lower-level dangers having been long ago removed or the entrances sealed. Within, characters will find aberrations, dragons, magical beasts, oozes and outsiders. In the wilderness, caverns are a lower-power experience, and may be fairly limited in size and scope.
All of these types of areas often include monstrous humanoids as well, which are common in every type of PvE experience in the game.
Encampments: Encampments represent organized bands of monstrous humanoids actively engaged in trying to control their hex. They begin as fairly small, easy-to-eliminate camps, but left unchecked, they will escalate, becoming larger, more numerous and generating more and more powerful foes. Eventually they can overrun a hex and begin spreading to nearby hexes as well. If the people living in a hex don't regularly sweep their lands and the nearby region for encampments and deal with the ones they find, the residents may find themselves facing a full-blown horde with the potential to destroy even player created structures!
Short of harvesting hazards, every single one of them has the traits of spawning in random locations, and being defeated when they are defeated.
Every single mention of the developers goals has always been persistence, the goal of eliminating the WoW trait of killing the fierce dragon that was there yesterday, but came back to life 3 days later so he needs to be constantly killed.
Honestly assuming infinitely repeatable major bosses, to me is like assuming we will all start out the game with AK47's. They didn't say we wouldn't start out the game with AK47s so that must be it!
Nihimon Goblin Squad Member |
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
Every single mention? You're forgetting about modules:
For such instanced content, offering persistence is tricky. We want you to have the sense that the world changes based on your own successes or failures, and it would break that immersion if you could potentially play the same exact module multiple times. How we untangle that will be a challenge for the development team.
And there's even the chance that you might be able to create your own module content for other players—perhaps even on a for-profit basis. Imagine an "app store" for Pathfinder adventures! It's speculative at this point, but we want you to know that we see the potential, and we are just as interested as you in finding a way to get there.
More reading between the lines...more seeing just what you want to see...
If they do bring in player created modules, as described at the end, I guarantee you at least one player's going to be submitting a dragon module ;)
Nihimon Goblin Squad Member |
Nihimon Goblin Squad Member |
the blog wrote:... it would break that immersion if you could potentially play the same exact module multiple times. How we untangle that will be a challenge for the development team.
That's the quote you're using to back up your claim that "we know there will be repeatable quests"? And you're accusing us of reading between the lines and making assumptions?
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
Blaeringr wrote:We know there will be repeatable quests.We do? Are you sure you're not the one reading between the lines, here?
Yeah, that's right...they're going to spend extra time developing modules for instanced quests that can't be repeated ;) That's not exactly an economic plan...
I'll admit it's an assumption, but I think it's safer than the one that they will waste a ton of money on making modules NOT repeatable.
Onishi Goblin Squad Member |
Every single mention? You're forgetting about modules:
** spoiler omitted **More reading between the lines...more seeing just what you want to see...
If they do bring in player created modules, as described at the end, I guarantee you at least one player's going to be submitting a dragon module ;)
No I didn't, I mentioned it several posts up, and put extra attention onto this paragraph
For such instanced content, offering persistence is tricky. We want you to have the sense that the world changes based on your own successes or failures, and it would break that immersion if you could potentially play the same exact module multiple times. How we untangle that will be a challenge for the development team.
They have already admitted that they don't like the idea of modules being repeated, as far as player modules, we don't know what tools, what enemies etc... will be permitted, how submission will work, whether rewards will even exist for player made modules etc...
They themselves admit modules create a whole new line of uncertainty that can break their primary goals, and that they will proceed with caution.
Nihimon Goblin Squad Member |
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
They have already admitted that they don't like the idea of modules being repeated, as far as player modules, we don't know what tools, what enemies etc... will be permitted, how submission will work, whether rewards will even exist for player made modules etc...They themselves admit modules create a whole new line of uncertainty that can break their primary goals, and that they will proceed with caution.
They have also admitted they don't know how to work around it. Perhaps you have, rather than a flood of assumptions, a solid plan they could use to invest time in producing modules of quality that won't ever be repeated?
Onishi Goblin Squad Member |
They have also admitted they don't know how to work around it. Perhaps you have, rather than a flood of assumptions, a solid plan they could use to invest time in producing modules of quality that won't ever be repeated?
Right, but you are asking why I don't assume that they will base key quests and important parts of the game, around something that they are trying to find a way to avoid altogether. That is like if an engineer is noting a crack in the ceiling that he can't figure out how to fix, and assuming that his intention is that if he hasn't told you how he plans to fix the crack, you are assuming his goal is going to be to widen it into full fledged hole. In general when a developer says they are trying to find a way to avoid something... It does not mean that they are going to shift their focus to expanding it's use.
and actually I do have a solution for modules. Considering player modules bring up tons of issues (you can't stop players from making modules super easy with high rewards etc... unless you GM certify every single one). I think the best way to control modules would be to make them purely illusions. Think hollodeck from star-trek. No consequence, no reward, the only time prizes are in them, is if the creator himself puts his own items from his inventory into the challenge. (IE so a module creator can issue a huge near impossible dungeon he dosn't expect anyone to complete for months, and stake his best item at the end for the lucky and talented first party that accomplishes it).
Apart from for fun and potentially rewards donated by the creators, possibly a high scores/time score system to turn it into an ego boost thing, maybe certain GM ones can grant reputation with certain factions, maybe certain player ones can be used as an admission trial for guilds...
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
They didn't say that repetition was the issue, or something they're "trying to find a way to avoid altogether".
The blog says breaking immersion is the issue. Whether they plan to get around that by eliminating repetition, or by finding another way, was not clear. What is clear though is that eliminating repetition would be the expensive way to solve that problem, which again is stated as breaking immersion, not repetition.
Onishi Goblin Squad Member |
They didn't say that repetition was the issue, or something they're "trying to find a way to avoid altogether".
The blog says breaking immersion is the issue. Whether they plan to get around that by eliminating repetition, or by finding another way, was not clear. What is clear though is that eliminating repetition would be the expensive way to solve that problem, which again is stated as breaking immersion, not repetition.
Right, the breaking of the immersion is due to the events not having impact, as if it resets itself it is not persistent, which is what breaks the immersion.
Also why my suggested solution was not to make it unrepeatable, but in fact to give them an excuse for why they are infinitely repeatable without changing the world. An illusionary dragon with no items, makes perfect sense as to why it can poof back into existence 10 seconds after being killed without breaking immersion. As well it also prevents the issues that would come from being able to empty a dragons horde of treasure 500 times, as well as allowing player created modules to be added at will, with no risk of exploiting in rewards.
(any automated system for judging difficulty to appropriately apply a reward can be tricked, anyone can make a system with intentional backdoors/exploits designed to be kited, AOEd, or fill an instance entirely with enemies that would be 100% avoidable with the right spell etc...
Zidash |
A squad of 24 rangers with +5 Dragon bane bows! Pew pew pew!
On such a note - I don't think this kind of tactic should make it *easy* to kill Dragons. Rather, it should make it *possible*.
For a WoW comparison, Molten Core, back when you needed specific armour with fire resistance to be able to even last in the instance. The fire resistance didn't make it easier... it was impossible without it. I'd like to see a similar approach in aspects like this.
Onishi Goblin Squad Member |
Blaeringr wrote:A squad of 24 rangers with +5 Dragon bane bows! Pew pew pew!On such a note - I don't think this kind of tactic should make it *easy* to kill Dragons. Rather, it should make it *possible*.
For a WoW comparison, Molten Core, back when you needed specific armour with fire resistance to be able to even last in the instance. The fire resistance didn't make it easier... it was impossible without it. I'd like to see a similar approach in aspects like this.
To a pretty large extent I disagree on that. What I hated the most about WoW was the endless gear grind etc... I would like to see it more practical to have the perfect geared vets, and the mid, and low players contributing to the same battle, No the weaklings should not do nearly as much as the vets, but they should actually have a shot at doing something, rather than have all goals "tiered", there shouldn't be a clear line of when something is "Possible" to attempt IMO. I personally would like it if dragons took 100 people to take them down, but that 100 could be a mixed bag of people from 5 different guilds of all different levels, working together to rid the hex of the great menace.
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
KitNyx Goblin Squad Member |
If I was given a game in which I can team with good people and build something great socially, economically...and physically (as in our city)...then that is a game I am looking to play for fun. If I get to enjoy conflict with and versus other players and enjoy roller coaster content once in awhile...well that is just icing. For me anyways.
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
KitNyx Goblin Squad Member |
Agreed, but so is making the system so people can abuse it, making what they accomplish in the non-module game worthless, such as making an easy module for the purpose of farming gear or gold. In fact...I would go so far as to say this is more game breaking.
I think we both agree it is not possible to expect devs to review everything.
Onishi Goblin Squad Member |
If I was given a game in which I can team with good people and build something great socially, economically...and physically (as in our city)...then that is a game I am looking to play for fun. If I get to enjoy conflict with and versus other players and enjoy roller coaster content once in awhile...well that is just icing. For me anyways.
Exactly, everything about modules to me sounds like it is intended to be icing on the cake, something to do for fun. Everything else in the game is about highly competitive, non-repeatable content with high cost, high difficulty finding etc... So really I can't really grasp any way that an infinitely repeatable quest that brings rewards in... would not completely negate the purpose of the rest of the game. It is a sand box, and there are many sand box elements that people do because they enjoy them. Heck look at eve, there is an entirely player run tournament called Red vs Blue. All of the rewards for it, are funded entirely by the players, no new resources are created, and many resources are consumed like crazy... Yet people love it. LOTRO has music playing, where people can set up instruments and play concerts... It takes quite a bit of time to create a piece and it offers no mechanical benefit whatsoever.
And again rewardless instances are the only way player made dungeons can possibly work... Because if there are rewards at stake the only dungeons that will be popular will be the ones about granting the most reward for the least time and risk... When the idea behind a fun and challenging dungeon is often the oposite.
HalfOrcHeavyMetal Goblin Squad Member |
Sorry, I go to sleep for 6 hours and all this happens!
Right, I meant that, yes, Dragons are killable, but not whole maps of Dragons like what you would find in WoW, with whole maps containing swaths of Dragons and Dragon-kin to murder.
I'm fighting a young adult Dragon? Not alone I'm not. This is it, arguably the 'Last boss' or 'second-to-last Boss' of a cavern-system or a ruin. We're talking arguably the most successful and potent Apex Predator on Golarion.
Most Dragons have spells, spell-like abilities, supernatural abilities plus a host of natural attacks, more health and armor than nearly anything else in the game, and probably more intelligent than most of the PCs.
I'm hoping this will be reflected in Pathfinder Online.
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
Agreed, but so is making the system so people can abuse it, making what they accomplish in the non-module game worthless, such as making an easy module for the purpose of farming gear or gold. In fact...I would go so far as to say this is more game breaking.
I think we both agree it is not possible to expect devs to review everything.
But now we're talking about different things.
I agree on leaving rewards out for player created modules. Goblinworks made modules is what I was talking about in my last post. You know, the part about calling it economically unviable? Surely it was clear I was not talking about modules made by players at no expense to Goblinworks - that wouldn't make any sense.
Even player made ones though should be able to have lasting rewards once properly reviewed.
Nihimon Goblin Squad Member |
@Zidash and @Onishi, I think there's a middle ground there, where you don't have to get geared in a certain tier to be able to contribute, but maybe if you don't have good fire resistance, you know you need to hide or take extra-special precautions when a Fire-breathing Dragon inhales deeply. That leaves room for vets who have the special gear to stay in the fight more effectively, and only take basic precautions.
I'm not exactly sure how to do that in such a way that the players can reasonably be expected to respond to it, without them knowing it's coming up. There's going to be a very significant challenge for PFO to design encounters, or boss mechanics if you will, that challenge experienced players, but aren't impossible to complete unless you know exactly what to expect. I wish them the best of luck.
Onishi Goblin Squad Member |
KitNyx wrote:Agreed, but so is making the system so people can abuse it, making what they accomplish in the non-module game worthless, such as making an easy module for the purpose of farming gear or gold. In fact...I would go so far as to say this is more game breaking.
I think we both agree it is not possible to expect devs to review everything.
But now we're talking about different things.
I agree on leaving rewards out for player created modules. Goblinworks made modules is what I was talking about in my last post. You know, the part about calling it economically unviable? Surely it was clear I was not talking about modules made by players at no expense to Goblinworks - that wouldn't make any sense.
Even player made ones though should be able to have lasting rewards once properly reviewed.
Again though what keeps an infinitely repeatable instance from dwarfing the rest of the world where all rewards are finite and competed over, where bosses are rare and hard to find etc... How do you put a reward that ballances out between
Person X, spends 2 days scouring 10 miles of territory, finally finds a lair, pulls together a team to clear out this lair. Upon exiting must defeat 3 packs of player bandits who noticed the lair spawn on the mini map, and came to scavenge and attack the now worn out players.
Next to
Person Y, Spends 2 minutes forming a party in the central hub for modules, groups up and runs the module 25 times in the same 2 days.
Either person X's reward has to be so darn big it's going to take a cart to haul it home, or person Y's reward is going to be tiny it is barely noticable.
Or we just throw out the sandbox and change the term of the game to a theme park game with a bit of a sandbox off to the side.
thedarkelf007 Goblin Squad Member |
One thing that can do is to defeat a dragon you drive it off, but not kill it...
it comes back at a later time for revenge...
If you manage to kill it, other dragons take note, and come for revenge...
This would make an interesting effect of occasional dragon raid on player settlements as revenge for killing of specific dragons.
And as it is in a dragons frame of reference, who could say exactly when the dragons will retaliate...
Nihimon Goblin Squad Member |
@Onishi, what do you think of the idea of rationing the rewards that are available from player-created modules? For example, it can be run repeatedly by whoever wants to run it, but only a set value of special items can be won from it in a given day (or week), and each player only get the chance of earning those items the first time they run it during that day (or week). Once any player earns the item(s) during that day (or week), no other player will earn them until that time frame resets.
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
@Onishi how indeed. Zero on one side certainly isn't a balance. Plus greater risk is supposed to yield greater reward.
As the blog put it:
Such players will have fewer opportunities to find adventure or to earn treasure than their braver and less risk-averse peers, but they'll be safe from griefers.
@Nihimon keep in mind he's not only suggesting no reward from player created modules, but from Goblinworks modules as well. His last post explains that any reward at all makes it unbalanced for players exploring non module lairs.
Nihimon Goblin Squad Member |
One thing that can do is to defeat a dragon you drive it off, but not kill it...
it comes back at a later time for revenge...
If you manage to kill it, other dragons take note, and come for revenge...
Excellent! That's another idea that really gives me chills just thinking about.
So, instead of having a dumb dragon that lets you try to kill it over and over again until you figure out all of its tricks, maybe it escapes and changes form and seeks you out in other settings.
*Nihimon murmurs in sheer ecstasy as the magic courses through his veins*
Love it!