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Ok, I guess everyone agrees that camping sucks, and that it's becoming more and more of a problem as static, "uber" NPCS/mobs with rare loot are added to the game.
Now for ideas. What would be the best way(s) to combat this? I'm not sure Funcom takes any notice of these boards, or even feels that camping is a problem, but in any case a set of constructive suggestions is always better than a "camping sucks! fix it!" whinefest.
Comments?
Stop making items so powerful that they unbalance the game and as such FunCom feels the need to make them super ultra rare.
If something is very powerful in terms of giving a leg up on PvM or PvP, then players will think they 'need' the item. They then feel 'forced' to aquire the item. If it is rare, then whatever means FunCom seems to be able to come up with will be viewed as 'camping'.
Instead, they could have one item at every inventory spot that is 'best'. But, not necessarily 'uber'. Not too far behind could be slightly less powerful items for each inventory and equipment and implant slot. You could 'go for the gold' and get the very very best at every position where you could use an item and the aggregate would be a discernably more powerful character. Or you could take an alternate path and dabble in the 'tough stuff' and still enjoy the game.
As for the truly, truly rare items. They should never, ever affect a player's power. One of the most coveted items in UO was 'a marble table'. It did absolutely nothing but sit in your house. It was not unbalancing and yet was still drooled over. I think the same could be said about a Cherry Red Yalmaha. This is a point FunCom needs to learn. An example of this is the Heavily Padded Overcoat. Now that it isn't (if it ever was) uber, people still want it because it's rare and looks cool. FunCom doesn't have to worry about too many people getting it or 'balancing' the game because there's no call for it. Yet people still desire it.
Picture Grid Armor MKII-A. It is just like Grid Armor MKII, except it puts you in Red pijamas instead of blue. Imagin how coveted that would be. But, FunCom is screwed. They made Grid Armor so incredibly good that they have to keep it artificially rare. Rather than making something that was only marginally better than the best non-smurf setup, they put (what some players say is, and I tend to agree having seen GA4 in action) Godmode into the game. So players camp Claws and petition killstealers and **** others on the exchange forum and ninjaloot, etc. And I would be tempted to do so as well. This should never have happened. These things should be a 'choice' and if desired, obtaining them should be a 'rite of passage'. But if you want the /Red pijamas, well you best be one of the lucky 4 a year who's gonna get it. I got no problem with the Red GA going for 1 billion credits. And you know it would.
People only feel they are camping if they are (in their minds) forced into any action (killing mechdogs, killing smugglers, etc.) by FunCom. At least, it's only distasteful when your character is gonna suck if he don't do something. Without my Dodga and Alvin pads I'll have 300 less health and nano. Thus I 'camp' mechdogs and camp TK. Gimme an alternative and it would be more like I chose to kill mechdogs and perhaps I could do it more as a spare time thing rather than thinking of it as 'work'.
Yah, good points. I guess part of the problem is that there are some items that are simply better than anything else for a certain profession, and of course everyone wants these. Eventually it degrades to everyone using just a few different types of items, the best ones.Quote:
Originally posted by Bionitrous
As for the truly, truly rare items. They should never, ever affect a player's power. One of the most coveted items in UO was 'a marble table'. It did absolutely nothing but sit in your house. It was not unbalancing and yet was still drooled over. I think the same could be said about a Cherry Red Yalmaha. This is a point FunCom needs to learn. An example of this is the Heavily Padded Overcoat. Now that it isn't (if it ever was) uber, people still want it because it's rare and looks cool. FunCom doesn't have to worry about too many people getting it or 'balancing' the game because there's no call for it. Yet people still desire it.
Currently AO has a ton of items, but only a small subset of those is actually usable. That needs to change, and the item balance need to looked at seriously.
There should be a lot more variety, and (like you said) items that look cool etc without necessarily being all that powerful. I think a lot of people would drool after a Yalmaha with camo textures (for example) instead of the normal silver color.
Dunno. At worst the current style leads to the idiocy of Camelot, where - as far as I understand - you have waiting lists and raffles for who gets to kill and loot the boss. I mean, what the f*?.
Maybe this whole concept of "boss monster with special loot spawns at place X every Y hours" should be dropped from the game. It automatically leads either to camping (it the loot/exp is good) or zero interest (if not). There needs to be a *lot* more randomness and intelligent AI. But that's harder to code, so I'm not holding my breath. Sigh.
Oh, and another thing that FC could learn from the collectible card game industry:
Never, ever count on rarity to be a balancing factor. It an item is extremely powerful, people *will* figure out ways of getting it, in CCG games this involves money, in MMORPGs this involves time and camping (usually). When you introduce an item into the game, *always* assume the scenario in which everyone will have one. Design the item accordingly (level limits, breed limits, appropriate power level, whatever). ..
...but don't introduce an "uber" item like Grid Armor N and assume that rarity will balance it out. It won't, it will only lead to problems.
good point... because to put it blatantly it doesn't balance things out...Quote:
Originally posted by Tedric
...but don't introduce an "uber" item like Grid Armor N and assume that rarity will balance it out. It won't, it will only lead to problems.
Knowing that if I get item x from mob y with drop z will make it nearly impossible to kill you... will only make you wait for mob y to spawn and kill it as many times as it takes to get said item. Because knowing if you have that item, you will level faster and with less effort and more time to just screw around and do what you want to do!
some people it makes fork out their money on Ebay... some people it makes fork out millions of creds... suddenly it becomes a most useful item if you need to make a lot of money fast... If you know when mob y spawns... be there with a team... outdamage for item... put it up for auction, so that you are now instantly rich...
NERF CAMPING!
Things FunCom doesn't understand:
You got something like the Edge of Tarasque that is far and away the best weapon in the game. You put it on the despised and laughed at (by aficionados of other games) 'future-dragon' and you end up with two types of players:
1.) Those who will ninja-loot it. Break friendships. Quit the game. Die of boredom. ***** on forums. Fake alliances. Make time-consuming petitions.
2.) Those who have the item and (obviously once someone is not OE with it) become Gods simply because they picked up an item.
That's not good for the game.
Then you got the (soon to be fixed) Queen Blade. It's not (nor will it be) the uber-duberest weapon in the game. But, it'll be good. Now, killing the Queen is a royal pain in the ass. It's a true test of a group. If you manage to fight your way into a semi-deserted hive and work your way to the Queen and manage to kill her and get your item, you've had fun (Oh, the horror!). You got an item that might be pretty top notch. You and your friends are happy. Now, not everyone else will choose to make the treck into the hive and will settle for a slightly more marginal weapon. But, they don't feel like idiots or losers because they don't have Grid Armor, or Nullity, or the Edge of Tarasque, or the Gaily Hood, or Dragon Armor, like all these really good players who are so much 'better' at AO than they are.
That fricken' Dragon is the worse thing to happen to this game and has caused more people to quit than I can count on all my fingers and toes. The reward for killing it should have been the BB sign in Newland changing to 'Omni-Tek fighters defeat the Clans in today's battle in Camelot!!'. That's all that should ever have been given for killing the dragon and people would still have gone there. And the funniest part is that those who showed up would have had more fun than the loot-whores who lag the place out now.
The dragon is supposed to be made by the Knights to test warriors. Why the hell would they stick a sword or a hood inside it? The reward was supposed to be defeating it and the other team. Now, it's like the Knights clan uses the Dragon as some sort of P.R. opportunity as they hand out party favors to whoever breaks the piņata.
Give me 6 more quests like Alvin and Dodga for similarly powered shoulder items that require a hard analysis of the tradeoffs in both power and difficulty to achieve and I can guarantee you that the MechDogs won't be so 'camped'. It was actually fun a couple times there before the hell of everybody trying to outdo the next guy as they frothed at the mouth trying to get their brain parts before the next guy. As it stands, it's that or the Eggs. Can't effectively camp SF's, and so the dogs become a 'campfest' where friendships are rarely initiated.
I wanted to post that I thought they did a good job with the Jack Clones. I like to think my vitriolic posts when I heard of every profession having to kill Jack had something to do with the fall back on the 'clone' idea. As un-original as those quests are (it would be ok for maybe two professions to kill jack, but let's be real), our guild actually managed to kill him 3 times in peace. That said, we were all constantly looking over our shoulders for some 'uber-guild' to come along and totally ruin our night. We should never have to feel that in a game. A dozen people having a good time for crying out loud in AO, should not have to worry that they will have to log off in disgust because some other group of people decides they are more important.
That's where the missions came in and why they were and still continue to be popular.
And this all winds down to --> Mission Keys for Static Dungeons and the houses of Unique Mob's, et al. You don't ruin my fun and I promise not to ruin your fun.
all funcom developers should be required to read this thread
every day before they turn on thier computers.
bump
Make the most powerful items in game player made.
Sounds good. Let me max my tradeskills tab first :D
I have a (small) hope/feeling that notum tank is somehow player made from rare/unknown drop(s). Be a nice step in the right direction. Unless any of those drops is a god**** 18 hour bull**** mob again.
I say it again...
NERF CAMPING!
or you could just make the uber things part of dynamic missions instead of stupid crap static ones. Go talk to npc, it spawns a very hard mission for you, VERY HARD. not 6 mobs that hit for 1k and all have 345634-235443534 hp. But mobs that actually test a players ability to change and adapt...
oh wait..thats a good idea..funcom wont do it then...
Quote:
Originally posted by KlngArthur
or you could just make the uber things part of dynamic missions instead of stupid crap static ones. Go talk to npc, it spawns a very hard mission for you, VERY HARD. not 6 mobs that hit for 1k and all have 345634-235443534 hp. But mobs that actually test a players ability to change and adapt...
oh wait..thats a good idea..funcom wont do it then...
Ohh Yeah!!!...that's a REALLY good idea!!!...can't be that hard to code too...this is the path I like AO to go down...hate that crappy camping...:)
Everytime a Boss gets killed me moves to another location or camp. So that if someone kills it in one location it would reppear some place else now it doesnt have to be completely random but if you made it so the respawned far enough away it would cut down on camping