A View From the Road: Dungeons, Directed
- Thread starter John Funk
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Considering how many times I've failed to get through a map on L4D I believe the answer is yes.coldfrog said:
Personally I wouldn't stop at the bosses. Let's make those trash mobs random too.
As far as the harcore gamers are concerned: just keep the hardmode, don't bother adjusting the loot.
None of this is difficult L4D already gave you the answer.
Raiding guilds kill these bosses over and over anyway just for the loot keeping the fights fresh just makes it more exciting.
I see your point, I just don't agree because I'm a competitive elitist. Your idea is great and I'm sure that kind of system would make some companies a lot of money if they marketed the game to the right people but scalability of difficulty in a multiplayer game, especially a competitive one is pandering to the lowest common denominator in my books. That can make a lot of money and create a large user base but I think its harmful to the gaming community as a whole, at least the kind of gaming community I'm interested in being a part of.CantFaketheFunk said:
Hence why PvP gear is available from both PvP and PvE? (zing!)CantFaketheFunk said:
Really though I think what they did with wrath in the last few patches is the best route to go with WoW raids. Before nobody really saw the final raid pre expansion simply because you had to have bested everything before it to even have the chance to survive trash. BC tried to help this by including heroics to help gear you up to get into the raids, but they made those heroics REALLY freaking hard so you still had to be "hardcore" to get anywhere. Nowadays you can just do the new regular dungeons to gear up for the heroics, do the new heroics to gear up and you're off to the 10man raid, making the content very accessible to people.
Speaking as someone who's a hardcore raider in spirit, but could never put up with the drama of a top end guild, I like it. preBC I just barely made it to pulling trash in naxx before the expansion came out, and that was simply because I lucked into knowing an officer in a top end guild. in BC I only got to try SSC a couple times before guild death and eventually the expansion. Now I'm rolling into ICC with my guild every week. It's nice, I see no need for scaling of encounters.
P.S. also the only reason the scaling in L4D is needed is because otherwise it's like 4 hours of gameplay with NO replay value pretending to be worth $60, they had to do something to keep from getting a punch to the face.
I think this is would be a great idea for WoW to try because once groups have bosses down the whole experience becomes lackluster and you just "go through the motions". And I also hated, when I played, getting that 1 in 50 "butt fuck" where the two healers are targeted by the ability and the tank is left to drop without any heals. Even the most experienced raiders who did everything correctly would still have a chance to fail. If the boss AI was more intuitive then fights would not be so cookie cutter and the experience would be a little different every time making the game have a more lasting appeal. Instead of going in just to gear people up for the next instance you would be going in to have fun defeating a semi-unpredictable boss.
Having something like this in WoW is simply not possible at this point, and not only because of all the technical challenges it represents.
A system like that would eliminate gear factor in PvE almost completely. Gearing up is one of the major driving forces in the games such as WoW.
It would be wiser to develop a new game which would use this idea to its full potential without all the restraints imposed by a "5 year old refined collection of mmorpg ideas" franchise.
If you are talking about small elements added to already existing mechanics, I don't think it would be something worth the trouble to implement, not with the mysterious next gen mmo Blizzard are working on.
A system like that would eliminate gear factor in PvE almost completely. Gearing up is one of the major driving forces in the games such as WoW.
It would be wiser to develop a new game which would use this idea to its full potential without all the restraints imposed by a "5 year old refined collection of mmorpg ideas" franchise.
If you are talking about small elements added to already existing mechanics, I don't think it would be something worth the trouble to implement, not with the mysterious next gen mmo Blizzard are working on.
Personally I don't like the idea, WoW raids are suppose to make players learn the strategies and react to whatever the boss throws at them. I think it is different to L4D in a sense that at the end of a boss fight, there's tangible rewards, unlike the "You have survived" screen in L4D.
They still spend a huge amount of time on balancing arena pvp for competitive play, something only about 1% of players seriously do and about 90% of the content in WOW is only populated about 5% of the time (like pretty much all of old kingdom and the outland) how is that not phenomenally stupid compared to producing cookie cutter raids over and over?. I mean lets face it at this point WOW is at American idol-like popularity, if Blizzard announced that the next expansion revolved around saving Miley Cyrus from Emo Vampires this time next year it would have 50 million subscribers. Does that make it right?CantFaketheFunk said:
Arena they've already admitted was a mistake. And, uh... pretty much 100% of the playerbase experienced leveling in old Azeroth and Outland. Just because it's not populated now doesn't mean it wasn't ever populated and that it wasn't worth the design time, because it certainly was. Compare it to pre-BC Naxxramas, which <10% of the playerbase ever saw. How many people beat Kil'Jaeden? Sunwell was a huge investment of resources for a tiny percentage of the playerbase.DObs said:
Cookie-cutter raids? Ulduar is one of the best dungeons they've done yet, and while there's a lot more to come, Icecrown looks equally awesome. But they're accessible.
"The other night, my World of Warcraft guild and I made our first exploration into the frigid halls of Icecrown Citadel, the final (and most difficult) raid dungeon in Wrath of the Lich King."
Oh god, I laughed so hard.
I feel sorry for you, Funk.
Anyway, I'd love something like that to come to WoW, at least in 5-mans. It might make things interesting and less formulamatic, which is what makes doing the instances stale in the first place.
Oh god, I laughed so hard.
I feel sorry for you, Funk.
Anyway, I'd love something like that to come to WoW, at least in 5-mans. It might make things interesting and less formulamatic, which is what makes doing the instances stale in the first place.
This doesn't apply to raiding. Killing a boss should mean you have reached a certain level of skill and gear that allowed you to beat it, and now you can move on to learning the tricks of the next one, and increasing your skill and gear further until it is a winnable fight.
If the game makes itself easier for you when you play poorly, then you are not going to get better (there is no reason to), you will never actually know if you are getting better (because skill and gear have little to nothing to do with a fight where having neither results in an easy fight (for others), rather than a loss).
If the game makes itself easier for you when you play poorly, then you are not going to get better (there is no reason to), you will never actually know if you are getting better (because skill and gear have little to nothing to do with a fight where having neither results in an easy fight (for others), rather than a loss).
This reminds me of some top down shooters, like Strikers 1945. When you're doing well, the game inundates you with enemy projectiles. But when you die, it cuts back, making it a bit easier.
And the implementation in FF8 was poor at best. It wasn't about the levels, but the abilities that determined the difficulty. The hardest monster in Balamb was the T-Rexaur. But at level 100, it was one of the easiest monsters in the game. It would have been harder if it gained immunities as it leveled, or they did something like Oversoul from FF10/10-2, it would have made things more challenging. But the main stories of Final Fantasy games are rarely about the challenge and more about completing them. But even the difficulties of most side-quests were hampered by the lack of challenging enemies.
And the implementation in FF8 was poor at best. It wasn't about the levels, but the abilities that determined the difficulty. The hardest monster in Balamb was the T-Rexaur. But at level 100, it was one of the easiest monsters in the game. It would have been harder if it gained immunities as it leveled, or they did something like Oversoul from FF10/10-2, it would have made things more challenging. But the main stories of Final Fantasy games are rarely about the challenge and more about completing them. But even the difficulties of most side-quests were hampered by the lack of challenging enemies.
So you want something like reverse Demon Souls but on a MMO level.
The game makes it harder for you to beat certain targets if you raping the poor sod and also makes it easier for you to beat targets if the jerk is stomping your team into the dirt.
But you don't it so hard you can't win or so easy that you can't lose.
The easiest way to do that, would be to set each target to have different skill sets for different battles. Also a counter which counts how many times you played an instance. After a set limit, the boss changes his skills and tactics forcing your group to start playing at a higher difficulty.
This way you both a boss target who can change to suit your team but also one, that will change one you depending how times you attack it. Increase repeatability and decrease boredom from the grind.
The game makes it harder for you to beat certain targets if you raping the poor sod and also makes it easier for you to beat targets if the jerk is stomping your team into the dirt.
But you don't it so hard you can't win or so easy that you can't lose.
The easiest way to do that, would be to set each target to have different skill sets for different battles. Also a counter which counts how many times you played an instance. After a set limit, the boss changes his skills and tactics forcing your group to start playing at a higher difficulty.
This way you both a boss target who can change to suit your team but also one, that will change one you depending how times you attack it. Increase repeatability and decrease boredom from the grind.
I disagreed with you until the 3rd to last paragraph, where you made a damn good point.
I wouldn't change the boss as much as having more adds come in to help him fight and occupy the raid team. Kind of like an AI director for the instance. A stronger team = more adds to contend with. Upping or downing the bosses power based on the circumstances risks being immersion breaking. Of course, the more powerful the boss, the more (and better) the loot.
One last thought: Champions Online attempted this with mixed success. If there were more players fighting in a given area, there would be a bigger aggro radius as more mobs were called in. The actual implemenation was problematic in the open world, since say you were questing, and then another unrelated group of a few players happened to be passing through the area, well all the sudden every zombie in burning sands is attacking you. This article refers to instances so such problems wouldn't be the same--but the general idea has at least been considered by one MMO.
I wouldn't change the boss as much as having more adds come in to help him fight and occupy the raid team. Kind of like an AI director for the instance. A stronger team = more adds to contend with. Upping or downing the bosses power based on the circumstances risks being immersion breaking. Of course, the more powerful the boss, the more (and better) the loot.
One last thought: Champions Online attempted this with mixed success. If there were more players fighting in a given area, there would be a bigger aggro radius as more mobs were called in. The actual implemenation was problematic in the open world, since say you were questing, and then another unrelated group of a few players happened to be passing through the area, well all the sudden every zombie in burning sands is attacking you. This article refers to instances so such problems wouldn't be the same--but the general idea has at least been considered by one MMO.
This kind of AI system wouldn't just "displease the hardcore"; it would make WoW's combat easier, and therefore conquering it (within the player's subjective definition of "conquering" an essentially endless game) similarly easier. That means Blizzard would make less money out of it. Which is precisely why the difficulty will stay at the same level that it always is.
Even if it did, somehow, get implemented, it's not actually a great idea for MMO games in general. If you compensate for the damage done to tanks after destroying the healers, as you suggested, then that removes basically the only way to win against opponents in an MMO match.
In other MMOs like Guild Wars, destroying the healers is absolutely critical because they are essentially any party's link to an eternal supply of health - magic replenishes itself quickly, so the fact that it is used to restore HP makes it possible for one squad to take on 50 enemies in a single fight. And from what I know about WoW, the same rule applies there as well. Therefore, any AI compensation system like this is simply an artificial way of lowering difficulty, which ultimately removes the cardinal rule of MMO tactics (which is a constant simply because it is fun) - which is to take out the healer first, so that all others can fall.
That's only the tip of the iceberg. The damage to other tactical rules, and the inconsistency of gameplay that would result, would make PvE even more unstable than it usually is, making it impossible to know which strategy would work in any given situation. Worse, it would affect PvP because the expectations that apply to PvE would be so different that players would not adjust easily.
In short, it would be a disaster if this was implemented. The moral of the story is: do not take a piece of FPS pizza and put it in your MMO vegetable soup. The cheese will not curdle well.
Even if it did, somehow, get implemented, it's not actually a great idea for MMO games in general. If you compensate for the damage done to tanks after destroying the healers, as you suggested, then that removes basically the only way to win against opponents in an MMO match.
In other MMOs like Guild Wars, destroying the healers is absolutely critical because they are essentially any party's link to an eternal supply of health - magic replenishes itself quickly, so the fact that it is used to restore HP makes it possible for one squad to take on 50 enemies in a single fight. And from what I know about WoW, the same rule applies there as well. Therefore, any AI compensation system like this is simply an artificial way of lowering difficulty, which ultimately removes the cardinal rule of MMO tactics (which is a constant simply because it is fun) - which is to take out the healer first, so that all others can fall.
That's only the tip of the iceberg. The damage to other tactical rules, and the inconsistency of gameplay that would result, would make PvE even more unstable than it usually is, making it impossible to know which strategy would work in any given situation. Worse, it would affect PvP because the expectations that apply to PvE would be so different that players would not adjust easily.
In short, it would be a disaster if this was implemented. The moral of the story is: do not take a piece of FPS pizza and put it in your MMO vegetable soup. The cheese will not curdle well.
Soooo, you're suggesting we get rid of challenge and sense of accomplishment? Even if it's geared to always be challenging, it still removes any sense of progressing since it doesn't matter if you try the encounter in crap gear with a bunch of slightly trained monkeys or a top-geared guild of skilled players working together like a well oiled machine.CantFaketheFunk said:
The reason it works in L4D is because there is no progression. There aren't any higher tiers of difficulty (unless you turn on the higher difficulty settings) and there are no lasting rewards that come after you clear the encounter. Every time you start a new game in L4D you get knocked back to your original power level. However, MMOs assume the players gradually grow in power and provide appropriate rewards as the player progresses.
The only way your idea would work is if the gear dropped depended on your performance. If the boss had to go easy on you, then you'd get worse gear than if he went all out. But that's already in WoW, isn't it? Normal and Hard mode dungeons (with appropriate loot drops), some boss encounters can be harder or easier depending on how you set it up such as the Sartharion fight, etc.
Basically, this comes down to two things:
1. Not all game mechanics are compatible.
2. You're just sad you didn't get any loot the first time you tried the hardest raid dungeon in the game. L2P
Well, end-game content is meant to be a challenge - that's why the rewards are so much better.
The idea of scaling things to make a battle easier or harder could work (as it does on the Malygos drakes or the Ulduar vehicles), but at the very least you'd need a 'minimum' level of scaling so that top end content is still kept out of the reach of the lowest of the low - and the problem lies in what level you set that minimum at. Do you go for the safe option and open it up to as many as you can, or do you stick with the tiered content progression model that's worked so well over the past five years?
Having the bosses scale up for just hardmodes would be quite a smart thing to do, though - since the challenge on those should match (or outmatch) the raid group attempting to complete them.
The idea of scaling things to make a battle easier or harder could work (as it does on the Malygos drakes or the Ulduar vehicles), but at the very least you'd need a 'minimum' level of scaling so that top end content is still kept out of the reach of the lowest of the low - and the problem lies in what level you set that minimum at. Do you go for the safe option and open it up to as many as you can, or do you stick with the tiered content progression model that's worked so well over the past five years?
Having the bosses scale up for just hardmodes would be quite a smart thing to do, though - since the challenge on those should match (or outmatch) the raid group attempting to complete them.