So, after all these years in MMOs. communities of players after a time, figure out and settle in on " the fastest most bestest most efficientist most profititablist" path possible. and stick to it.
leaving countless zones untouched in general. and the majority of players all commune in the same areas...
Think of all those zones in EQ that were deemed pointless. if you are leveling ,you only need to consider a few choices out of dozens and dozens of of possibilities...
What if there was some sort of a " zone" bonus. or, say, each 24-72hour real life time period, that a mob, stays alive. it gains 5% exp bonus, or 5% coin drop bonus that caps at 72hour +15% bonus or something.
maybe the bonus doesnt tick on till its been alive for 72 hours. allowing for entire zones, that are not beling played or populated. to give players a reason to leave their most loved camping spots. to go elsewhere and do other things. Populating large parts of the world, all the time. instead of 4-6 " popular" zones the majority of the time.
Groups can figure out what zone hasent been farmed or camped in a while. and go there for grind and exp sessions.
Because , Crushbone/Unrest/Guk(s)/velkors's/revamp splitpaw is beyond stale... I would love to avoid a certain future like this...
How do we recycle or make old " dead" or undervalued areas and zones viable and worth going to, over the usual " best/hot"spots?
One of the goals VR has stated is to make lower level goals attractive in various ways to players that have leveled past them. One way being to have pockets of higher level content in that generally low level zone.
Some games have periodic bonuses for doing things in specific zones- to encourage players to go there. This, of course, requires that there be something to do in the first place. A level 50 getting no experience or loot in a level 10 zone is unlikely to go back because there is a 50% bonus.
I note that the benefit of attracting high levels to a low level zone is not self-evident. In fact it can be very harmful if precautions are not in place. I have seen many passionate complaints over the years about high levels in low level zones and how it destroys the experience for characters that "belong there". Thus if I am killing level 2 wolves (for a quest or a task or just to grind) and a level 50 races through and kills every wolf in a large area within 30 seconds - I am rather unlikely to be a happy camper.
If there is level 50 content in that same zone I am going to be even *more* unhappy if it is not clearly segregated from the level 2 area. Instant death to a level 50 dragon is not fun to a level 2. If the dragons are in a level 2 area there needs to be a way for the level 2 to see them if paying even minimal attention. Not, e.g., a dark forest where you can barely see and there is a continual 5% chance that a dragon will happen to be going invisibly past and feel in the mood for a small snack.
The main issue with those zones was they had poor itemization, followed by the fact that other zones had bonus experience modifiers. Solve for itemization and don't give certain zones bonus EXP and you solve for a lot.
@Dorotea,
Yeah, I wasn't going that far, I was talking more about level appropriate stuff. not trying to bring lvl 50s into low lvl zones. nobody enjoys that. boring for high levels, practically the worst as a low level.
I get where you are coming from though and that makes complete sense.
I was leaning more on the appropriate lvl type thing. 5-10 25-35 45-50 for example.
I was thinking, after some time has gone by, I am looking forward to multiple viable options for my journey.
Not some time and tested optimal one. but yeah I feel you.
appreciate the feedback :)
OK my mistake - I considered commenting on the replayability feature but thought it would be less germaine to your point and didn't want to sidetrack the thread.
I agree entirely that it is good to have different paths. This is usually not an issue at low level - there is almost always a set of choices unless one constantly replays the same race/class. It is an issue at the middle levels.
To oversimplify deliberately - take level 20-25. It is a tautology to say that either there will be one "zone" to level in, there will be multiple zones but one will clearly be more efficient, or there will be multiple zones all approximately of equal efficiency in terms of experience per hour played and loot.
If there is one zone - nothing will help. We will all have to go there. If all of the zones are about equal nothing is needed - the developers did a great job and people will either flip a coin or choose based on personal preference. If one zone is clearly better than others (purely in terms of loot and xp per hour) some corrective action is warrented as you posit. The zones will probably not be designed with the intent of having some "inferior" but over time players will come almost universally to prefer some to others. Giving bonus experience or bonus drops in the zones that we are all ignoring seems to be an excellent idea.
Did I focus on the right point this time? If not feel free to correct me until it slowly sinks in.
EQ added rotating hotzones, though didn't keep on top of the system. Some zones, even with hotzones bonuses still suck. Poor itemization, high mob level disparity (wandering high level mobs in low areas), high mob difficulty on level, difficult mob traits like healing, reflecting damage or insane resists, and worst, just low mob density.
Fixing issues and proper balancing a zone goes far beyond just giving double experience for a month.
WHAT IF
They did Progeny, and to make retiring a Char, and giving replayability a chance
an Expansion instead of adding higher level zones was a revamp of these zones?
Not cosmetic but take mobs that origanally gave "place holder" TASK on release and convert them into more elaborate actual quest (for the same levels) I've never played a MMORPG yet that didn't have dozens of NPC's standing arround doing nothing. Add a few Quest givers.
Don't remove any actual real quest, ADD to them, enhance them, get creative beyond what they were able to do at launch
Look for reasons these " the fastest most bestest most efficientist most profititablist" path possible. are that way and balance those ( I hate player Balancing, Zone (path) balancing might work)... those paths were in zone X on launch, for Expansion 1 Zone Y and Z have been adjusted to balance it better with Zone X
What was the problem with the mobs in Zone Y&Z in the first place? Spawn rate? Experiance Given?
Observe it, Correct it, give the game replayability
Zorkon said:WHAT IF
an Expansion instead of adding higher level zones was a revamp of these zones?
I was coming in here to say just that lol.
feel like i've heard at least a dozen games during developement trying to advertise worlds evolving once player involvement in X reaches Y but havent never actually played one yet to pull it off. I think a better option for making the world evolve would be just revamps as focus of an occasional expansion. taking the idea of unused zones would fit well into this, monitor which zones are dieing and then build lore around why they are being revamped. could be some new faction moving into zone, the mobs of the region left unchecked have grown in power, or someone summoned some eldritch horror. added bonus of keeping player base from spreading out becuase the map keeps growing. revamps also don't have to exclusively turn zones into high level ones. could raise or lower level range and drops by only a handful of levels or keep same and just swap out mobs/loot tables.
Firstly I'm hoping Pantheon doesn't have 'duff' zones like some games have. As has been noted, lazy itemisation and frustrating features are what 'kill' zones and and something like an XP bonus, while better than nothing, is a lazy sticking plaster on top of a lazy problem.
It strikes me there are three aspects to this issue: -
Modern development tools, Modern gaming metrics and ongoing business model.
I'm hoping VR will be able to make timely ongoing changes to things like itemisation and monster population. Modern games *should be* much easier to adjust and tweak than older ones and VR have made tools for zone design, etc, that apparently can be largely used without technical dev 'coding'.
Metrics are another thing much easier to gather than in 'the old days'. I'm sure VR will be able to get 'heat map' information (aggregated data about where players go and what they do) and identify quiet zones and pinch points before the players even start to appreciate it.
The combo of modern metrics and tools should mean VR could quite quickly make tweaks to address zone usage issues.
Having said that, there have been relatively modern games that don't do that... It's always going to be a matter of the will of the developer. I would hope, with a subscription-based funding model, that monitoring with metrics and timely tweaks - even redesigns - will be a planned regular part of the future of Pantheon.
Some zones are just no fun. Whether it be scenery, pathing, obstacles, mob placement. If the amount of effort to reach a zone, or to play within a zone, exceeds the enjoyment and/or benefit to the players they will not utilize it very much.
No amount of bonus xp or gold will change that fact, it may increase traffic slightly, but only during the bonus, then it goes dead again. Some zones may need a revamp occasionally.
My initial theorycraft on this topic when first brought up was that this would be solved with the idea - the new and groundbreaking idea- of horizontal leveling where: there are no "levels". That means 1. a player that has adventured and gotten better skills and armor and resists can still get killed by so called newbie zone monsters, but does not because they are more skilled at avoiding them or killing them. Where a newbie group would fight an epic battle against a bug, a horizontally seasoned character would squash it with one nudge of a 2hb. However if the horizintally seasoned character did nothing- it could still die to that bug. 2. Newbie group being emboldened with the conquering of the bug goes two zones over and attempts a giant spider which, because of their skill, becomes a battle of attrition against them and they flee, or also because of their skill and lack thereof becomes a quick win for the spider and the newbie group goes back to hunting bugs near the city gates.
This means the non-leveled but horizintally seasoned character would still find challenge in newbie/old zones and dungeons, from the troo-skool(what makes a great player) first person perspective they could still get blind-sided and have to deal. But they may have better skills/abilities to handle it.
The best solution is to design a system that is self-balancing. This will require the least maintenance and won't use game mechanics which are confusing or easy to exploit.
The game could count all players in each zone (excluding in cities) once every 5 - 15 minutes at each level range (1 - 5, 6- 10, etc) and determine player density. Areas with lower density would receive proportional XP and loot drop bonuses. The calculation is done frequently enough to be pretty accurate but not so frequently as to tax system resources. It would provide each area with XP & loot drop modifier value.
Thus, as the game evolves, VR isn't constantly feeling the need to micromanage rewards in over-camped areas. And adjusting the Low Density Bonus (LDB) is much easier than manual adjustments. They could even add in things like a special loot table that has some rare (but not OP) items only drop in low density areas. Notd that the calculation is based on ratios, not numbers of players, so it will work about the same in peak and off-peak hours.
Even with perfect balance, there will always be population imbalance. Some areas are easier to get to, closer to popular grouping areas / resources, more attractive, etc. This is good and I want some asymmetry since that makes for some areas that feel more like I'm exploring off the beaten path. But I don't want that imbalance exacerbated by substantially imbalanced rewards, hence my suggestion for a player-density based auti-balancing mechanism.
Tulac said:Zorkon said:WHAT IF
an Expansion instead of adding higher level zones was a revamp of these zones?
I was coming in here to say just that lol.
feel like i've heard at least a dozen games during developement trying to advertise worlds evolving once player involvement in X reaches Y but havent never actually played one yet to pull it off. I think a better option for making the world evolve would be just revamps as focus of an occasional expansion. taking the idea of unused zones would fit well into this, monitor which zones are dieing and then build lore around why they are being revamped. could be some new faction moving into zone, the mobs of the region left unchecked have grown in power, or someone summoned some eldritch horror. added bonus of keeping player base from spreading out becuase the map keeps growing. revamps also don't have to exclusively turn zones into high level ones. could raise or lower level range and drops by only a handful of levels or keep same and just swap out mobs/loot tables.
While this sounds fantastic, someone will always complain if you change existing zones. It's also almost as much work to revamp a zone as create a new one, which gives double the space. I think maintenance and engaged developers can do loads to keep a zone from getting forgotten. I just see revamps rarely turn out popular.
Counterfleche said:The best solution is to design a system that is self-balancing. This will require the least maintenance and won't use game mechanics which are confusing or easy to exploit.
The game could count all players in each zone (excluding in cities) once every 5 - 15 minutes at each level range (1 - 5, 6- 10, etc) and determine player density. Areas with lower density would receive proportional XP and loot drop bonuses. The calculation is done frequently enough to be pretty accurate but not so frequently as to tax system resources. It would provide each area with XP & loot drop modifier value.
Thus, as the game evolves, VR isn't constantly feeling the need to micromanage rewards in over-camped areas. And adjusting the Low Density Bonus (LDB) is much easier than manual adjustments. They could even add in things like a special loot table that has some rare (but not OP) items only drop in low density areas. Notd that the calculation is based on ratios, not numbers of players, so it will work about the same in peak and off-peak hours.
Even with perfect balance, there will always be population imbalance. Some areas are easier to get to, closer to popular grouping areas / resources, more attractive, etc. This is good and I want some asymmetry since that makes for some areas that feel more like I'm exploring off the beaten path. But I don't want that imbalance exacerbated by substantially imbalanced rewards, hence my suggestion for a player-density based auti-balancing mechanism.
I like the idea. Not so keen on overt XP bonuses, but more subtle loot table adjustment - drop percentages, unusual drops - means those players who would normally be over-opulating the 'efficient' areas will be encouraged to roam the world looking for quiet, out-of-the-way camps.
Zorkon said:WHAT IF
[...]
an Expansion instead of adding higher level zones was a revamp of these zones?
This won't happen. it's almost as much work as creating a new zone but it doesn't sell expansions like having a new zone does. The publisher wants to be able to advertise a new zone, not advertise that less content sucks. This is the reason zones rarely get updated much in MMOs.
Counterfleche said:Zorkon said:WHAT IF
[...]
an Expansion instead of adding higher level zones was a revamp of these zones?
This won't happen. it's almost as much work as creating a new zone but it doesn't sell expansions like having a new zone does. The publisher wants to be able to advertise a new zone, not advertise that less content sucks. This is the reason zones rarely get updated much in MMOs.
I'm not so sure of that. First I did use the word "revamp" but followed it up with more
Zorkon said:Not cosmetic but take mobs that origanally gave "place holder" TASK on release and convert them into more elaborate actual quest (for the same levels) I've never played a MMORPG yet that didn't have dozens of NPC's standing arround doing nothing. Add a few Quest givers.
Don't remove any actual real quest, ADD to them, enhance them, get creative beyond what they were able to do at launch
You're correct if it's a total cosmetic (my meaning was terraine,textures,buildings,landmarks,etc.) It's not near the work of a compleatly new zone if these arent done. I belive it a fraction of the work to ADD content to an existing zone, make adjustment where the origanal zone might have been lacking.
Your opinin on it would also be true if VR chooses to cater to the 15% that rush to End Game (like is the standard in MMO that few of us want to play) and they want to eventually add $35 level boost, and stat creep and all that nonsence then yes, your absolutly correct. Instead if they choose to break that mold and cater to players looking for the journey and generations of new players to come my suggestion would promote a game that would be viable for decades to come.
Over 10,000 people are born every day in the USA alone.
That leads me to belive There are that many coming of gaming age every day.
There are generations and generations of potential MMO players comming into the market, do they want to play a game where the first thing they need to do is buy a lvl 85 boost just to be viable? or are they going to want to get into a game that has zones hevaly loaded with quest and features. Games refined year after year to improve the new player experiance, games where they havent already been left behind?
You may well be correct, expecially with the going norm that is MMORPG's today, but I was under the understanding that VR was planning to break that mold, keep what worked and get rid of what doesn't. Continually expanding the world out of reach on the incomming generations of new playes i consider a part of the current normal that doesn't work.
Suterian said:So, after all these years in MMOs. communities of players after a time, figure out and settle in on " the fastest most bestest most efficientist most profititablist" path possible. and stick to it.
leaving countless zones untouched in general. and the majority of players all commune in the same areas...
How do we recycle or make old " dead" or undervalued areas and zones viable and worth going to, over the usual " best/hot"spots?
Well, one reason why many old zones end up being unused is because new content, usually, only appears further and further away from the original world zones. And because of that, new places where you can find all the comforts/conveniences of cities end up appearing there. VR has said, from the very earliest days, that they want to new content to appear in, around and between the existing areas of the world moreso than always expanding the world outwards.
Now if that actually remains something they stick to over the years remains to be seen. I'm not overly optimistic that such an approach can be kept for long because you'll run out of space between the existing areas, especially given the change from a zoned world to zoneless world. Eventually, sooner than later, the only option will be to keep moving further and further outwards and that will necessitate establishing new city-like areas..unless teleports to all these new areas are a thing.
I have promoted this topic as part of my CM content; please continue the discussion and have fun! :)
"Hot Topic - Rekindling Old/Unused Zones And Areas - How would you handle this issue, would our Progeny system solve this? Let us know your thoughts https://seforums.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/13909/rekindling-old-unused-zones-and-areas"
Levels always make content obsolete. It is simply the level up system working as designed when zones are abandoned by everyone except for high level foragers / bots / completionists looking for perception updates. Even new low level content is often viewed as obsolete content by many. I have little hope for a system that sacrifices your main to fix the inherent problem leveling creates. Rather than the giant rats leveling to 100 like in ESO, why not give players the option to level down to a set zone level. No low level player required to scale off of. I realize it breaks the idea of levels to a degree but rather than needing a low level ally, higher level players could still go experience old zones to at least experience the content at the appropriate level. I have no desire to one shot or effectively no clip / god mode past grey mobs.
I am a big fan of future expansions repurposing old zones. I know it removes content, but the entire idea of patheon's emerging land masses full of new creatures and even civilizations allows for all sorts of fun ideas like new high level mobs spreading out and taking over a neighboring territories. This aids in funneling players together when they are sparse at that level range YEARS into any MMO. Add in the likely time saving measures of not needing to design EVERYTHING for new content would be helpful on that aspect. Have the world grow and change rather than leaving it empty.
Jobeson said:Levels always make content obsolete. It is simply the level up system working as designed when zones are abandoned by everyone except for high level foragers / bots / completionists looking for perception updates. Even new low level content is often viewed as obsolete content by many. I have little hope for a system that sacrifices your main to fix the inherent problem leveling creates. Rather than the giant rats leveling to 100 like in ESO, why not give players the option to level down to a set zone level. No low level player required to scale off of. I realize it breaks the idea of levels to a degree but rather than needing a low level ally, higher level players could still go experience old zones to at least experience the content at the appropriate level. I have no desire to one shot or effectively no clip / god mode past grey mobs.
I am a big fan of future expansions repurposing old zones. I know it removes content, but the entire idea of patheon's emerging land masses full of new creatures and even civilizations allows for all sorts of fun ideas like new high level mobs spreading out and taking over a neighboring territories. This aids in funneling players together when they are sparse at that level range YEARS into any MMO. Add in the likely time saving measures of not needing to design EVERYTHING for new content would be helpful on that aspect. Have the world grow and change rather than leaving it empty.
Making content obsolete doesn't necessarily have to make areas obsolete. As they have stated previously, the plan is to have areas of high level mobs among the low level content as well in order to encourage returning to zones that you might have "outgrown".
Dynamically assigned instances of zones based on population.
When the game opens, there are 50 beginner zones and no log in queues.
Three months later (when all the whiners about long developement times have quit and gone back to Runescape) there are only 2 beginner zones.
As I said in my twit reply:
Counterfleche said:The best solution is to design a system that is self-balancing. This will require the least maintenance and won't use game mechanics which are confusing or easy to exploit.
The game could count all players in each zone (excluding in cities) once every 5 - 15 minutes at each level range (1 - 5, 6- 10, etc) and determine player density. Areas with lower density would receive proportional XP and loot drop bonuses. The calculation is done frequently enough to be pretty accurate but not so frequently as to tax system resources. It would provide each area with XP & loot drop modifier value.
Thus, as the game evolves, VR isn't constantly feeling the need to micromanage rewards in over-camped areas. And adjusting the Low Density Bonus (LDB) is much easier than manual adjustments. They could even add in things like a special loot table that has some rare (but not OP) items only drop in low density areas. Notd that the calculation is based on ratios, not numbers of players, so it will work about the same in peak and off-peak hours.
Even with perfect balance, there will always be population imbalance. Some areas are easier to get to, closer to popular grouping areas / resources, more attractive, etc. This is good and I want some asymmetry since that makes for some areas that feel more like I'm exploring off the beaten path. But I don't want that imbalance exacerbated by substantially imbalanced rewards, hence my suggestion for a player-density based auti-balancing mechanism.
Ah, so you want something like the Cardinal system! Nice, I agree.
@kalok those high level mobs/content sprinkled into zones are only high level for launch. 4 expansions in will they still be high level and relevant? This is a part of the future problem the OP is addressing I believe. Overtime people just stop showing up to the least optimal zones, but a large part of that is the player population isn't pushing people to new areas because they are all sitting at end game.
Edit: I think trying to load balance zones with xp/loot drop bonuses is the wrong idea to push players out. If only 5 groups are active at 2AM having 3 of them all in the "best" zone makes that zone more fun. One group alone in a zone for the XP bonus is not an ideal MMO experience to me. I like having the open world real population to contend with. VR should be doing the opposite of your idea and trying to pack various zones full of players. Get most of the lvl 30s to x zone for an xp/loot bonus to have an active world for new players to level up in. If they want to rotate the zone each month that is an option, but as MMOs age you need to focus on funneling players together not spreading them out.