Let me begin by saying that I believe that solo, group, PvP and Raid playstyles need to all be given equal development consideration. I'm sick of the Raid or Die approach to most post-WoW MMOs. I also am one who believes that there needs to be multiple versions of end-game content to give each playstyle a purpose without excluding content from anyone. It svcks that some awesomely designed locations in MMOs are only to be seen by those who raid...

What if it was done like this:

PvP... A dungeon crawl in enemy faction territory. All enemies are players of the defending faction. All chests and other containers are standard loot. The Boss fight involves the defenders protecting the boss from the attackers. Reward loot is essentially standard, but with a boosted stat when wielded/worn in PvP engagements only.

PvE-Raid... A dungeon crawl with all enemies being NPCs but in massive numbers that scale with the number of players in the raid group. All chests and other containers are standard loot. The Boss fight involves a constant flow of NPC mobs protecting a boss mob. Reward loot is essentially standard, but with a boosted stat when wielded/worn in Raids only.

PvE-Standard... A dungeon crawl with all enemies being NPCs in numbers balanced for a full standard party of adventurers. Standard and Reward loot as well as boss encounter are same as raid. Reward loot is essentially standard but has a boosted stat when wielded/worn while grouped in a standard-sized party.

PvE-Solo... A dungeon crawl with all enemies being NPCs balanced against a single player with each standard encounter capable of inflicting 50% damage to the player even if the player is 100% on his game dealing and absorbing best damage for his level. Chests and other containers are standard loot. The boss would be one-on-one with the boss balanced against a single player and capable of dealing 90% damage to the player even if the player is 100% on his game. Reward loot would essentially be standard, but with a boosted stat when player is adventuring solo only.

For each of the above examples, the same map would be used.

Multiple conditional stat boosts can be achieved by having different gear pieces of the same type but with different conditions broken down by a crafter and reforged using the appearance of the item of player's choice. As much as I hate bound items, Items reforged in this manner would be bound to the owner.

When the next set of content including all of the above types releases, the reward loot of the previous content becomes craftable and unbound.

Thoughts?

All dungeon crawls?

No.

I used dungeon crawl as an example.

There coule be any sort of content adapted for all playstyles.

The idea is not to gate any player's ability to experience the gameworld, and to differentiate the reward loot that would be gained based on the method of its gaining, while including a player-crafter mechanic allowing multiple stat boosts on the item to exist if the owner obtained multiple reward loot versions.

What would decide how the map would be loaded would be how the player is traveling. If solo, they enter the solo version. If grouped, they enter the standard grouped version. If wearing a factional uniform, the PvP version is loaded. If part of a raid group, the raid version is loaded. Phasing and/or instancing would apply.

One problem I see off the top of my head is you separate solo PvE and "normal," what I am expecting to be group, PvE.

How exactly do you propose this be done when I could be soloing a Saber Cat right next to a group of six players fighting a Saber Cat?

Am I just much higher in level than they are? If so, why am I still fighting Saber Cats in the same area as they are partying against them?

Sounds to me like creating even more gear to grind. Most amusemant park style mmo's are bad enough in that department. I would rather see crafters able to make gear on par with stuff that can be looted out of dungeons. Then again, everything I have seen thus far leads me to believe that this wil not be a sandbox style mmo. Said mmo's gain the most from more easily obtainable gear than having to raid or engage in hours and hours of pvp to farm it. The idea of having to farm 4 or 5 complete sets of gear just makes me shudder. Wait, Im a healer that needs to be able to farm so I need some dps gear as well..making that even more gear to have to farm and tote around.

Most MMOs have group handling systems where you actually join a group, not just traveling around with other players.

If you are grouped with those six players then the game would see you as "in a group"

If you just happen to be in close proximity but have not accepted an invitation to join their group, then the game would see you as "Solo"

But the mobs stats are not different.

Me too. But unless the top-end content rewards are playstyle restricted and uncraftable, there will be no end to the kicking and screaming from elitists among whatever playstyle that thinks his or her playstyle should be the only way to get the gear associated with it. I have seen this argument many times before, and nothing ever gets done by the developers in question to resolve it.

Allowing everything up to the next-to-top-end content is fair. as it allows the achiever types to be the first to get the best-in-slot gear, but does not exclude anyone from being able to jump right in at top-end. The player base must not be segregated based on "gear score".


That is why I suggested what I did, so all playstyles get something at each update to the endgame. Solo, Grouper, Raider. PvPer... Everybody should be able to experience every location in the game with an experience that reflects one's preferred playstyle.

Well if mob encounters are tied to a conditional trigger so that if there is a group of six players who trigger a mob spawn, they would be facing enough of that mob that it would require all six to take them down.

If you are out of a group and trigger a mob spawn, It will be just one... maybe two, depending on your level... Enough that you'll lose 50% health fighting both even if yuo fight them flawlessly.

Mobs are already out in the world, players don't trigger them to spawn.

One of the things the HeroEngine is capable of, and was used frequently in SWTOR was proximity encounter triggering. So there is already a base for what I suggest. It may just need some extending.

So... what exactly do you do in the case of a group spawning a mob, then running, and the mob aggros a solo player who was walking by?

Kyting has always been an issue in MMOs as mischievous scoundrels grab tough mobs and drag them into areas generally populated by low level players, and laugh as the noobs get splattered.

I propose making mobs smart enough to stay focused on what drew their attention. So their several mobs would go after them, your one or two mobs would go after you.

If someone not in their group targets and attacks one of the mobs, then that mob would react to the iminant threat. If the other person is also in a group, then enough of the mobs chasing the first group to adequately challenge the second group would break off their pursuit and deal with the immediate threat.

If a group has generated a cluster of mobs and someone leaves the group, enough of the mobs in the cluster would break off and go after the now solo character and the rest would stay focused on the rest of the group.

That doesn't touch the problems that Invisibility and Stealth can create... or Frenzy.

Also, if you're doing it solely on solo or group spawn... how exactly do you handle solo players that have a large level gap between them?

Why are you posting about MMO's when you should be working on Legends of the Frost! I want noa!

Edit: Dang, spelling again.. I svck tonight. *Nao haha

Honestly, no. An MMO should be focused on group content. I do agree that multiple playstyles should be rewarded but not necessarily in the same way. I don't think someone should solo a party dungeon, etc.

I once felt that way as well. But then I realized something something that was very very true.

MMO stands for Massively Multiplayer Online.

What is multiplayer? More than one player.

What is massively multiplayer. A great many players.

What is massively multiplayer online?

A great many players online at the same time.

So for a game to be considered an MMO it has to handle a great many players online at the same time. However, it does not dictate that they all must be interacting directly with each other all the time. This too has been a topic of great debate for a long time.

Let's look at real life for example. It's a massively multiplayer experience, so to speak. Billions of people sharing a worldspace. You can be doing something alone in your house and it doesn't change the fact that at that moment, billions of others are doing their own thing: Working, traveling, sleeping, eating, learning, whatever. Some people in this life prefer to keep to themselves. It's not that they are antisocial or anything. They just feel uncomfortable depending on or being depended upon by others. They do their own thing, occasionally getting together with the few friends they have. In an MMO, that is tryically the mindset of a soloist. I am a soloist, most of the time in MMOs. My available play time is somewhat limited. I don't like to group with others because far too often I need to log out before the group finishes what it formed for. I hate being THAT guy. This is why I loved Ultima Online so much when I first experienced an MMO. I could log in, do my thing as a fletcher for my guild and log out, knowing that my guildmates would divide them up and put them to good use while doing their thing. I was treated with kindness and respect.

Tavaati... Keridwyn... If either fate has brought either of you to this community know that Ector Laban sends greeting with fond memories of our Glamervelt on Catskills! and many thanks for the wonderful roleplaying experiences we shared.

Ever since Everquest, the notion of just letting MMO players decide how they want to play and facilitate whatever emerges has become lost on developers. As a soloist, I don't necessarily want or need pre-written questlines to give me something to do in my preferred playstyle. But since TESO isb lookint to be more of a themepark game than a sandbox game, the best I can hope for is an on-going series of solo-oriented quests. Gone are the days when I could log into an MMO, spend half an hour contributing to my guild through crafting, log out and feel like I accomplished something. There were no Level Ups in UO. We "dinged" whenever we managed to complete whatever objective we set for ourselves. There was no epic loot. No other real reason for doing a dungeon crawl aside from "Because it's there".

I miss that, and I am deeply saddened that no developer has the courage to revisit that approach. Some would say that I should try EvE Online. Nothanks. I don't call that a sandbox. I call it insanity. Just give me what I once had in UO... In a modern-era MMO.


They wouldn't be soloing a party dungeon. They would be soloing a solo dungeon that happens to use the same map as the party dungeon, but optimized for one player

I hear ya. I've been sick for the past week, so the creative center of my brain has sort of been shut off. The stuff I've been writing in here is based on things I've had rattling around in my head for years.

I hope to start back on writing the Pilot Episode script on Monday, and possibly start doing test shooting within a week. My time is unpredictable which is why I don't group very well in MMOs, so I have to just hope that nothing interfered with production too much.

Thank you for your interest...

With all due respect, I am not a developer on this project. I could go for days laying out a concept to you on group combat mechanics etc, but that is not what this thread is meant to be about. The idea of this thread is to present ALL gameplay content in a way that no playstyle gets left in the cold, Crafters have a meaningful role, and everyone can get playstyle-apropriate rewards for their preferred playstyle's gameplay.

I meant to establish a basic framework. And yse... in order for it to work the rest of the stuff would have to conform to it, which is why I realize that there's probably no point in writing this thread to begin with. All the fundamentals are etched in stone for this game, and the ones governing playstyle-oriented content and rewards likely won't bear even the slightest resemblance to this. But I don't care. I thought I would share my thoughts on how to approach it, anyway. Just for shiggles, you know

I agree

forcing a player to grind for raids to have a chance in hell is NOT COOL

unless they make skill matter more than gear !!!

Attention to playstyle content management and apropriate rewards is a very important issue to address. Unless they do something different from how it has been done in the past, then no matter how true to TES lore they make it, from a gameplay mechanics perspective, we might as well be playing just another WoW-killer-wannabe MMO.

Ever since EverQuest, MMOs have tried to take on an exclusivistic approach to the different playstyles. So unless you Raid, you don't get to see this or that. Unless you PvP, you don't get to see this or that. If I am going to be expected to pay the same amount for the game as everyone else, then I think it is fair to ask that I be allowed to experience what everyone else does, but in a way that suits my preferred playstyle...

One thing I can say that I do not want to see is gating of solo PvE content until I complete a Raid or PvP bit of content.

One of the things I loved about Lord of the Rings Online's book (epic) quests was that early on, you followed a single player plotline, and if you WANTED to, you could join a group and take the plot even further. For example, I could complete all of Book I's solo-able content and move on to Book 2 without having to do the group content for Book I. But then in a later book quest the started making it where if you wanted to move on to the next book, you HAD to do the group content.

Now keep in mind that durring LotRO's development, I maintained a position that Lord of the Rings is about heroes working together to defeat the Enemy. I took the "It's an MMO so it needs to be about grouping" position. Plot-oriented mandatory grouping sounds really good on paper, but seeing it in practice changed my mind. I want to do the quests. But having to sit around trying to form a decent enough group, and then having group members bail on us before the end one session and ME having to bail in the next session proved to be an exercise in frustration. Turbine later fixed this by implementing inspiration buffs that made a single character capable of soloing elites. the buff would decrease or go away if you met someone and decided to group together. It was an artificial solution, but it DID allow everyone to achieve everything regardless of playstyle preference. Oh... Just because you can solo something doesn't mean its easy. These mobs would kick the snot out of you if you weren't paying attention. But if you were careful, you could survive.

As much as I liked being able to skip the group content and thus forfiet the better gear associated with it, not being able to see what was at the deepest part of a plotline sort of rankled me as well. Lord of the Rings was a story first and foremost. Imagine being able to read Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, but had to pass on Return of the King... You see where the story starts and where its going, but you don't see how it gets there. Not good if story is important.

Had the inspiration buff thing been in effect all along, it would have been perfect.

And if it worked for dungeons that were designed for six, could the mechanic not be rebalanced for raid-level dungeons? If you like doing raids with a full raid group, then fine. But if you are looking to just experience the world, being barred from content because of playstyle preference is not fun. And it certainly is not fun if endgame content releases factor in everyone else's playstyle but yours. That's the sort of thing that makes one want to quit.

Well there wont be a need for seperate dungeons since there will be public dungeons. Since pretty much the whole game has the spirit of Dark age of camelot in it. They will do the same they did with that game for dungeons. There wont be that only big guilds can raid and not everyone gets to see content and such. Since everyone can get into the same inst. Dungeon your going to see people forming up raids and random grps inside them. If you want to join them you can and if you dont then dont. There will be lowbie mobs at the beginning of the dungeon but as you progress further you will need a few people to kill the harder mobs. This acually works out nice cause you dont have people saying they are harder core cause there really is no reason to since raids are done the same way. Like in a big inst. There might be a raid boss but once it dies it would go on a 12-15health hour cooldown before it respawned. Well its back up someone forms a raid yo kill it and if u want to go you can and if not then dont.

Just like i hope they do the way loot worked in that game of where nothing was soulbound. If you didnt want to use a piece of loot anymore you could sell it or give it to an alt. But it would degrade after alot of use. But to get a good ubderstand people should read up on that game some and they can get an understanding of what they are probably goin to end up doing for thinga like loot abs dungeons.

There are both public and instanced dungeons. I just don't get people who bring a single player mentality to an MMO. I mean its like, "I wanna play D&D by myself" Derp.

Rather than retype my explanation of the "mentality," let me just link you back to http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1373966-handling-loot-for-each-playstyle/page__view__findpost__p__20774851 in this thread. Let me know if there is anything in that post that is in any way unclear, and perhaps we can discuss it in private.

You're just playing word games in that post. Care to try again?