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Originally Posted by bionicbadger
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Make it the original continent only.
Every week have the loot tables and spawn tables randomized so that people couldn't just go use a walkthrough and camp stuff.
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I like the idea somewhat.
Camping in classic EQ was probably the thing I hated the most. I can live with the death penalty. I can live with corpse runs. I can live without the map. As a matter of fact, I kind of like those things. But camping is the one thing I always hated.
This was an idea I've had for a while for open worlds to reduce camping. The problem is that dungeons or areas in open worlds tend to have persistence even moreso than instances and similarly tend to have a hierarchy of creatures from the lowest to the highest which is somewhat predictable. Even if you randomize the loot, players will still "camp" areas for bosses and/or special loots. One example I can think of that's somewhat relevant were the randomized dungeons in Diablo II. Even though they were randomized, bosses still tended to be distributed in predictable ways. For instance, there was a boss (or string of semi-bosses) at the end of Act 1 and Act 2 and Act 3 and Act 4. So players would rush through an act to get to them. There also tended to be bosses on particular levels of certain places, so players would also "camp" those too. Thus, you can see that even randomizing loot probably won't prevent camping. The lesson is that players will camp whatever is predictable and will also grant them a significant reward.
It's my argument that you can't completely eliminate camping, but you can spread it out. And this is a good thing. The goal is to keep the player moving and not stuck in one place.
I made a post here on p1999 recently and it's related:
http://www.project1999.org/forums/sh...d.php?p=773284
I made a post on another site and wrote this:
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In instancing you have the same set of circumstances each time. You get better and better quicker. There're still random things like random breaks in a spell or a random critical. In open environments, the mob might not even be there because another player killed it. You might get a train. You might find that somebody else is doing it.
Instances are more controlled environments. And they're infinite.
To make open environments competitive you have to work a lot harder.
So the answer probably is a rethink if what open environment means.
1) Named and mobs that players camp for items and experience
Problem: In open environments players tend to camp named or mobs. They do this over and over to get certain items or experience. Many players didn't like this because it clogged traffic and prevented them from taking part as somebody else had gotten their first.
Instances solved this problem by creating duplicate copies of the zone which contain the named and any other mobs. Players could enter any number of these so camping anything became redundant.
How to solve this in an open environment? Well, think dynamic open environment interactive content.
Named:
One way is to randomize the spawn point of the named so it moves around. This gives others a chance to kill it. Another is to have all possible named items drop on all named. This way all you need to do is find out where a named is and kill it. This would spread players out so they use all possible options. The only downside is that you can't plan which items you'll get. One way to alleviate this, but not solve it, is to randomize which area or zone a named will spawn in. This way if you see a particular named you will know what they drop, but you still can't say for sure where the named will spawn unless that's not random.
But developers shouldn't make the mistake of making the process too linear. For example, in diablo we would rush to level 3 to kill the named butcher. Where he was on level 3 was random, but he was always on level 3. It ruined the feeling of adventure on levels 1 and 2 since we spent our time in a rush looking for the stairwells that went down below. It made it all feel like a chore. A better way to do it would have been to put the butcher on any level between 1 and 3 or maybe have a named on every level with a smaller reward. This would encourage us to play the game as it's meant to be played. Emphasis -should- be put on the normal adventuring activities. This way it doesn't get ignored. Being ignored inevitably proves the belief that players have that the normal adventuring is too boring. If enough players are doing the normal adventuring then it will receive attention and the developers will have to make it funner.
Experience mobs:
One thing I can think of is to increase the spawn rate of mobs with increased player counts in the area. So, the more players there're the faster they spawn. This would help to keep players occupied and from not having anything to do because there's no where else to go. With enough thought put into it you could determine the amount of population an area can serve at max allowable limits.
Another idea is to have dungeon entrances that're outposts of a main dungeon. These dungeons entrances are mini-dungeons that're fed by the primary dungeon. These would be like instances in that they'd sometimes be off limits. They would, however, be open environment in that players would compete for spawns. Player would not be able to enter them when they're empty. When the primary dungeon is high in player population it starts to 'feed' the mini-dungeons. They start to fill up. When they're full they can be entered. Perhaps a deafening roar is heard in the region as cries and shouts of green forest ogres can be heard as they claim a new outpost in their conquest to reclaim land. Now the mini-dungeon can be entered. The catch is that the mini-dungeon will slowly empty if the primary dungeon is not filled up with players. This should be kept track of. In theory, if players did not kill anythying in the mini-dungeons then they would stay full indefinitely regardless of player populations.
Keep them moving:
This idea is more experimental in that so few have ever tried it. The idea is to give declining experience returns the longer a player stays in a particular area. So at some point a player is encouraged to find a new area because they will get more experience that way. Perhaps after 3 hours they get declining returns. Perhaps this is stored for 24 hours before returning to normal. This will keep players moving around. It can't ensure that players will move around, but it will increase the possibility. In so doing it will allow players who might want to try an area to have a greater chance to try it. A bonus effect is that it reduces the grind. But this assumes, ofc, that players have a reason to camp. If camping is substantially reduced because it's ineffective then this change is redundant.
Last comments:
I can't keep writing here in the post. I have to stop somewhere. So I'll stop here. The whole idea is that we need to address the biggest problem with open environments: finity and predictability. They're finite. And they're predictable. Thus far. This has to be changed if we hope to solve any problems.
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And there's this:
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Basically, why does it seem that dungeon crawling happens so easily in instances, yet not so easily in non-instanced content? It's my thesis that this is because normal, non-instanced everquest is one giant camp. In other words, the content is designed in such a way that players assume a safe spot and grind themselves into the ground until they level up. Whereas, in instances, the task requires you go perform many things in order to level up. This usually means acheiving subgoals, killing trash, and ultimately, slaying the baddy or saving the prisoner.
Yes, I admit, in the broadest sense, doing an instanced task over and over is not much different than forming a camp for experience and/or reward purposes. However, you must admit yourself that I have a point. If you cannot do that, then we cannot work together to figure out what all this means. There -is- a difference between instanced tasks where you delve into a dungeon to slay a baddie and a simple camp where you're killing the same mob(s) over and over!!! In one, the experience is much more diverse and open to interpreation. In the other, barring outside interference, you're killing the same ph over and over until the named pops. How is that adventerous? That's the confounding dilemma.
Here's a thought experiment... What would happen if mobs respawned in 1 to 3 hour intervals???
What would happen if named mobs no longer spawned in a single place, yet randomly spawned all over the zone in random time intervals? What would happen if we were to eliminate the need to camp a single place for hours and hours for efficiency purposes. What if it was more efficient to move around and adventure?
How do we reward people for NOT doing the same thing over and over?? Why reward this kind of behaviour????
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12-30-2012, 03:04 AM
Linear Mode
