Do you think certain zones should be restricted from entering them based on character level and/or keys/flags they have earned ?
POLL:
https://www.pantheonrotf.com/polls/view/246/restricted-zone-access
Personally I don't think there should be any restrictions based on level. If a level 1 wants to go exploring in (and potentially get squished quickly) a high level area, so be it. If they die corpse recovery could be a challenge . I am, however, all for there being zones or dungeons in which you have to earn the right to hunt in. Zones that take long quests to get keys for should offer greater challenge and offer better lewtz for the most part I think .
For sure. Regarding level access, I'm on the fence. I think there should be a reason for everything in a virtual world. That said, if there was something specific tied to my level the prevented me from accessing a Planar type of area, I would be OK with it. I don't want to just see anything lazy like, "You don't meet the level requirement to enter this zone." That's weak.
No level restriction, but flags and keys work just fine, imho.
Once again, go back to the king of the hard games and ask how Velious era EQ1 did it. Very little was level locked, some stuff required keys, some stuff required seriously absurd key/flags (hello Veeshan's Peak and Sleeper's Tomb), but if you could make it to the zoneline, a level 1 could roll right up to Nagafen if they were so inclined, if memory serves.
Keying makes some sense just due to risk vs reward scenarios, such as the potential for changing the game once a specific loot is obtained (think of the Vex Thal chest piece drops from Aten Ha Ra, for instance). But really, EQ1 got by with gear checks, which the Velious dungeon/raid progression gives the best example of in MMO histroy imho. Another great example is beginning the farming in of ToV, east side. To do that, you had to come correct with resists, and that all started with the crown of the Froglok King, so back to LGuk live side, and let us begin farming, and then let's farm velium blue diamond bracers, and then...and then...just to be able to not get insta-killed for zoning into ToV. Gear progression accomplishes a lot without the more artificial feeling roadblocks, and then quests can handle everything else.
But there should be zones where a level 1 can get to if they have that kind of luck and bravery. Again, Permafrost and Sol B....if you wanted to try, it was possible to get all the way to the bosses at level 1. Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Afterlife "raid" Crushbone with all level 1 t00ns? Silly and a waste of time maybe, but why shouldn't bored raiders be able to stroll a brand new wood elf into CB and try to pull off the impossible?
Plus, wrong turns ending in insta-dead are AWESOME world mechanics to make the game scary. Recall our introduction to nightfall in Kithicor? The random curbstomp from Gix or Slate, or everyone's fave...the brownie scouts in LFay? Before all the transporter mechanics, Norrath was hellah scary and dangerous, and it was cool like that. Low level toons shouldn't be insulated from danger. Have the random uber bad guy wandering the lowbie zones ready to wreck face on the unsuspecting player. Why not? Allow them to take that wrong turn into a zone like Old Seb and be 20 or so high level mobs away from the exit. Why not? And seriously...why not let them through the Fear portal? They'll only go through it once, guarantee. :D
Right now, the only game that has that way cool pucker factor is playing Diablo 3 in Hardcore. No MMO has anything close. Take away level restrictions and keeping players safe from themselves, and a lot more excitement is added to the game right off the get go. Let lots of deaths, gear grinds and quests be the keys, not level restrictions.
OK,, Here's where I'm at on this.
I'm not a fan of restricting zones and absolutely despise the idea of keys.. Progression, in the form that I have to do raid 1 to raid 2 to do raid 3, I'm ok with. But, If I can play devils advocate, There was a reason things like Naggy and Vox banishing any player over level 50 got put in the game.
What you saw was the higher end guilds, that were 55, 60, perma-killing lower level content (Fear, Hate, Naggy, Vox) to block other guild from getting the gear to compete for Kunark, Velious content and you had things like FBSSs , SMRs, Froglock crowns perma-camped so if you wanted/needed that item you had to buy it.
So that said, like it or not, every game needs some sort of mechanics that keeps content available to level appropriate players. Not to protect lower levels, (Trust me, I tried some some stupid stuff at lower levels. FYI, you can not get a Ghoulbane from Guk at level 13ish.) but to ensure that higher levels aren't monopolizing lower level content for the purpose of farming for profit.
I think when it comes to Raid content, I would really like to a system where there was a logical progression through them. Ex: You have to do Phinny, to do Vox, to do Naggy, to do Fear, to get to Hate..... and so on, to where even as new content or levels are added the content stays relevant for players that started later.
Anyways, thats my take on it.
PS.. Jason - Originally, were you able to trade it, you coulda put a Hate BP on a lvl1 and they would have got all the benefits. I miss those days!
I don't want to see level restrictions for zones. However, I also think there should be no "level based level" aggro (meaning mobs aggro you from much further away because of your low level, or not at all because you're high level). A mob should attack when it is natural for it to do so, not because of your level.
Castwell said:
OK,, Here's where I'm at on this.
I'm not a fan of restricting zones and absolutely despise the idea of keys.. Progression, in the form that I have to do raid 1 to raid 2 to do raid 3, I'm ok with. But, If I can play devils advocate, There was a reason things like Naggy and Vox banishing any player over level 50 got put in the game.
What you saw was the higher end guilds, that were 55, 60, perma-killing lower level content (Fear, Hate, Naggy, Vox) to block other guild from getting the gear to compete for Kunark, Velious content and you had things like FBSSs , SMRs, Froglock crowns perma-camped so if you wanted/needed that item you had to buy it.
So that said, like it or not, every game needs some sort of mechanics that keeps content available to level appropriate players. Not to protect lower levels, (Trust me, I tried some some stupid stuff at lower levels. FYI, you can not get a Ghoulbane from Guk at level 13ish.) but to ensure that higher levels aren't monopolizing lower level content for the purpose of farming for profit.
I think when it comes to Raid content, I would really like to a system where there was a logical progression through them. Ex: You have to do Phinny, to do Vox, to do Naggy, to do Fear, to get to Hate..... and so on, to where even as new content or levels are added the content stays relevant for players that started later.
Anyways, thats my take on it.
PS.. Jason - Originally, were you able to trade it, you coulda put a Hate BP on a lvl1 and they would have got all the benefits. I miss those days!
There are ways to stop high level players from monopolizing content, such as instead of having those mobs that drop those loots be static spawns, have them be dynamic. They did this with the Howling Stones dungeon, where named mobs could spawn in many different locations throughout the dungeon, thus making them less able to be monopolized, it just needed to be applied to many more hot locations. Nothing better than camping an area and knowing every extra mob you kill could be a PH for the named, just need to tweak the spawn rates to make the named itself more rare per extra spawn placeholder.
Also level 60 guilds didn't kill naggy and vox just to stymie competition, they did it also because the loots they dropped were worth a ton of plat/RL money back then, and it was worth it to kill it if you had the time/people. I don't think there should ever be restrictions that say a player/guild can't kill something and get loot from it, there should just be many alternatives that yield better results if you are capable of doing it.
How much more fun would camping Myconid Spore King have been if all of the Myconids down there were a PH for it, and if you wanted to bring your guild down there and raid it for more chances at the Fungi Tunic, then so be it. That would have made for some even more fun times, because you always want to promote social interaction.
About Camped items:
I like it if there are Spots with items players really want, it means the Game Economy is good. It means theres a reason to play that Game for me.
In a Game with a real good Community where ppls actually care about theyre Reputations Camping shouldn be so much of an issue. Since blocking others for along time from a certain valuable item and monopolizing it should cause other ppls to shun them.
The worst issue are Bots to me if you can detect and identify them with 100% certainity and Bann them the World will surely regulate itself thats what i believe at least.
Sarim said:
I don't want to see level restrictions for zones. However, I also think there should be no "level based level" aggro (meaning mobs aggro you from much further away because of your low level, or not at all because you're high level). A mob should attack when it is natural for it to do so, not because of your level.
I always saw that as a balance type of deal, where the lower you were the more appealing you looked to mob and the mob was a threat to you until the tables turn and some time later, you are now the higher level and the threat to the mob, which would make you less likely to be attacked unless you were in the mobs personal space and posed as a threat.
That was my take on it anyway ;)
Ondark said:
About Camped items:
I like it if there are Spots with items players really want, it means the Game Economy is good. It means theres a reason to play that Game for me.
In a Game with a real good Community where ppls actually care about theyre Reputations Camping shouldn be so much of an issue. Since blocking others for along time from a certain valuable item and monopolizing it should cause other ppls to shun them.
The worst issue are Bots to me if you can detect and identify them with 100% certainity and Bann them the World will surely regulate itself thats what i believe at least.
The truth is, there needs to be both static and dynamic spawns. There is an excitement about finally getting into an area with a chance at a really good item you need, knowing the spot is highly contested. That should definitely still be a thing. However, it was too much in classic, so much that in Kunark many mobs were set to spawn dynamically throughout zones or throughout specific areas in a zone. That was because there were many who monopolized a spot by continuing to farm the item for cash/trade value, even after they had their own.
The Skeletal Warlord (t-staff) in KC, the goo in HS (fingerbone hoop), the random drops (rbg, book of obulus) off common mobs in Seb... really everywhere from Kunark on had many rare spawns spread throughout zones to allow multiple groups of players to farm a particular item.
I don't think static spawns should be done away with altogether, it creates scenarios where players can interact positively and cooperatively, or situations where jerks reveal themselves as such. A little drama is part of a virtual world. There just isn't any reason to make every camp a drama hazard.
I agree i dont just want static Spawns some randomness is fine and add some random triggers to trigger rares, there have been rumours about rare spawn triggers back in EQ i always wondered about, but i think actually there have been none, but i found it exciting so it would be cool to add some. As long as there are Items the Players do want there will always be some ppls running around and killing mobs as fast as they can in order to find / or spawn the rare ones. Didn we have tracking too in EQ hmm.
Ondark said:
I agree i dont just want static Spawns some randomness is fine and add some random triggers to trigger rares, there have been rumours about rare spawn triggers back in EQ i always wondered about, but i think actually there have been none, but i found it exciting so it would be cool to add some. As long as there are Items the Players do want there will always be some ppls running around and killing mobs as fast as they can in order to find / or spawn the rare ones. Didn we have tracking too in EQ hmm.
Triggers would actually be a great way to encourage crawling and people to work together. If there were a few different rares that spawn throughout a zone before a "boss" type rare spawns, it would make things much more interesting. I actually mentioned this in another thread about rangers and making track more useful by adding more randomness to the way rares work.
Four words:
I MISS KEY QUESTS.
Ok... more than 4 (but not much) : One thing I miss from EQ was having obstacles to overcome to get in certain areas / zones - and how amazing it felt to work my way into those areas / zones. Being one of the first folks in my guild to be Sleeper keyed, VP keyed, Time keyed... was very cool for me. I do understand that for some, not getting in those places made it easy to begrudge the mechanics that made it so they weren't in those places...
But that, to me, is part of MMO life. You WILL have the time and drive to do some things - you WON'T have the time and drive to do others. You only pay for the ability to be in the world and have a chance to do those things... you don't pay to be able to do everything automatically.
I always thought the Idea was something like: Here we are, at this level, you and I and those others some whom we have friended from good PUG experiences. Lo, consider yon castle of riches, for do we not see the older guild X habituating such space and leaving with interesting and powerfull things. How now! we are close to their ranks in age and experience!, why not WE, yes WE, conspire to muster our friends of the same ilk and desire, so WE can also experience such a place for ourselves, let us begin keying/flagging so we can say, yes, we too habituate yon castle and this truly is a fine staff. and then as the years pass, we can see younger versions of those like our younger selves, standing outside and looking at the castle and hearing " Lo! consider yon castle!, why don't WE...." and buff them in passing.
I am talking about achievement, but the flip-side to that is, if there are new members and the back flagging or keying excercises can get a bit tedious and you can always tell those who were powerleveled because they just don't know how to play their class, at least not like your friend that you see most of the time who is on when you are on and you go looking for groups to do stuff. the End game content has to come in due time, I think, and through the development of relationships. I mean, how much steak can you eat?