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Some ideas to cover some issues I read about a lot on here...
xenobias
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 26 Arc User
I just finished reading a post from someone disappointed about the zerging happening with PUGs. This thread also touched a bit on the worthlessness of traps as well as a couple other things.
Moderator Ambisinisterr replied:
{*sighs* I feel for you truly.
There's a different attitude between those who love good old D&D exploration and those who just want the end reward. I personally play with friends who love exploration, love reading the conversations and love looking for things off the beaten path...
But yeah...that goes away in random groups often times.
Do you have any suggestions on how to improve it though?
This is very much a difference in gameplay preference. How could that be solved in your opinions? }
Let's use Cloak Tower as an example. If you zerg it you miss at least 1 crystal pickup. If you skip the optional mini boss in the lower cavern you miss 1 pickup some seals and a decent drop. This dungeon has 2 end chests. The golden chest is the delve event chest only but the 2 end chests are there always. Trouble is they will not appear unless all 6 pickups are placed on the correct pedestal. So if you zerg you miss your end rewards.
Also, zerging thru the next to last stone hallway area will cause you to miss at least 1 additional chest and 1 resource node. So zerging may be fast but with this dungeon its a losing proposition.
So here are some of my opinions.
Tie the effort to do something other than what is required to some type of reward. If group is below level 60 the reward can be additional experience. If the group is 60 the reward can be additional special loot, special resources, or at the very least an additional chest. Imagination can come up with a lot of different things that can be given out.
Of course all rewards go to each person in group regardless of whether they activated the achievement or not.
A short list of possible additional rewards:
Experience
Special potions
Special buffs->available at certain pts found inside secret walls and such.
Special Loot->either cosmetic or useful
Special resources
Additional chest, pouches, dead bodies to loot.
Find an exceptionally rare spawn that when killed gives a unique item or title.
Additional titles, achievements etc.
Just having a list of rewards isn't going to do it..now we need to tie them to certain aspects of the dungeon crawl.
BTW->It's called a dungeon CRAWL for a reason!
List of possible additional achievements rewards can be tied to:
A no death completion-> exception will be made for dieing pets, this won't work if a pet death works against you.
Grand total of monsters killed-> To get this you need to explore all of the spawn areas.
Complete dungeon map/explored-> to get this every section of dungeon must be found.
All secret doors found->.self explanatory.
All resource nodes found-> maybe unlocks an end node with a blue resource or tool.
All traps disabled.-> Self explanatory.
We can get a little harder with this as well.
Short man completion
Self heal completion->use only potions
t2 completion with t1 equipment.
etc, etc.
A bit about traps:
Traps in this game really make no sense.
First everyone can see where they are-> Make it so only a rogue can see them
They appear in the same locations-> make them random
Damage isn't death dealing on one blow-> Most need to be stronger
Only time I ever see any traps being disabled is when a node is trapped and there isn't a way to activate it without setting off trap.
Trap types limited->need more elemental type damage
Trap activation slow-> if trap is to go off continuously it needs to be more rapid.
Traps don't block the way good enough-needs improved placement or room design needs to funnel us into the trap better.
Trap types:
Elemental traps-> ex: acid traps once sprung the acid never goes away and covers a larger area
False floor traps-> drops you into another area or causes a group detour.
False ceiling traps->drops stalactites or rocks or the whole ceiling on you.
Slide traps-> causes floor to tilt sending you on a detour.
False wall traps-> another detour tool->walls shift or rise or drop into place. I would love a spiked wall crushing trap to escape from
Trap some of the better end chests.
etc, etc
About secret doors:
These should be able to be located by characters with the dungeoneering skill and rogues only-once found they can be opened without a kit.
Of course loot and nodes can be found behind them.
New rooms, passages, lore can be found behind them.
Some just activate a trap-what kind of trap? you decide
If you have some ideas for exploration rewards, achievements, trap types, or secret door use post em here.
Peace
Xeno
Moderator Ambisinisterr replied:
{*sighs* I feel for you truly.
There's a different attitude between those who love good old D&D exploration and those who just want the end reward. I personally play with friends who love exploration, love reading the conversations and love looking for things off the beaten path...
But yeah...that goes away in random groups often times.
Do you have any suggestions on how to improve it though?
This is very much a difference in gameplay preference. How could that be solved in your opinions? }
Let's use Cloak Tower as an example. If you zerg it you miss at least 1 crystal pickup. If you skip the optional mini boss in the lower cavern you miss 1 pickup some seals and a decent drop. This dungeon has 2 end chests. The golden chest is the delve event chest only but the 2 end chests are there always. Trouble is they will not appear unless all 6 pickups are placed on the correct pedestal. So if you zerg you miss your end rewards.
Also, zerging thru the next to last stone hallway area will cause you to miss at least 1 additional chest and 1 resource node. So zerging may be fast but with this dungeon its a losing proposition.
So here are some of my opinions.
Tie the effort to do something other than what is required to some type of reward. If group is below level 60 the reward can be additional experience. If the group is 60 the reward can be additional special loot, special resources, or at the very least an additional chest. Imagination can come up with a lot of different things that can be given out.
Of course all rewards go to each person in group regardless of whether they activated the achievement or not.
A short list of possible additional rewards:
Experience
Special potions
Special buffs->available at certain pts found inside secret walls and such.
Special Loot->either cosmetic or useful
Special resources
Additional chest, pouches, dead bodies to loot.
Find an exceptionally rare spawn that when killed gives a unique item or title.
Additional titles, achievements etc.
Just having a list of rewards isn't going to do it..now we need to tie them to certain aspects of the dungeon crawl.
BTW->It's called a dungeon CRAWL for a reason!
List of possible additional achievements rewards can be tied to:
A no death completion-> exception will be made for dieing pets, this won't work if a pet death works against you.
Grand total of monsters killed-> To get this you need to explore all of the spawn areas.
Complete dungeon map/explored-> to get this every section of dungeon must be found.
All secret doors found->.self explanatory.
All resource nodes found-> maybe unlocks an end node with a blue resource or tool.
All traps disabled.-> Self explanatory.
We can get a little harder with this as well.
Short man completion
Self heal completion->use only potions
t2 completion with t1 equipment.
etc, etc.
A bit about traps:
Traps in this game really make no sense.
First everyone can see where they are-> Make it so only a rogue can see them
They appear in the same locations-> make them random
Damage isn't death dealing on one blow-> Most need to be stronger
Only time I ever see any traps being disabled is when a node is trapped and there isn't a way to activate it without setting off trap.
Trap types limited->need more elemental type damage
Trap activation slow-> if trap is to go off continuously it needs to be more rapid.
Traps don't block the way good enough-needs improved placement or room design needs to funnel us into the trap better.
Trap types:
Elemental traps-> ex: acid traps once sprung the acid never goes away and covers a larger area
False floor traps-> drops you into another area or causes a group detour.
False ceiling traps->drops stalactites or rocks or the whole ceiling on you.
Slide traps-> causes floor to tilt sending you on a detour.
False wall traps-> another detour tool->walls shift or rise or drop into place. I would love a spiked wall crushing trap to escape from
Trap some of the better end chests.
etc, etc
About secret doors:
These should be able to be located by characters with the dungeoneering skill and rogues only-once found they can be opened without a kit.
Of course loot and nodes can be found behind them.
New rooms, passages, lore can be found behind them.
Some just activate a trap-what kind of trap? you decide
If you have some ideas for exploration rewards, achievements, trap types, or secret door use post em here.
Peace
Xeno
Post edited by xenobias on
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Comments
Because the game's economy is built around real world money, this becomes an even bigger problem. AD is "worth" something because it can be exchanged for Zen and the player based economy, the AH, likewise inexplicably runs on AD instead of coin.
So you've basically created a job. People want maximum hourly pay ( In AD ) for minimum effort. Hence the ninja looting, speed running, exploiting, class bias, etc. It fosters this bad behaviour.
Making final dungeon rewards dependent on a scaling system based on your overall performance across the entire dungeon would certainly help. How much did you explore, how many puzzles did you solve, how many monsters did you clear, etc instead of just how fast can we get to the Loot Pinata at the end.
There's already a scoreboard rating system in game. Expand it so it covers more desirable behaviours than e-peen measuring. As long as the scoreboard just measures how big your math was, people will focus on making their math bigger.
The game design itself encourages the undesirable behaviour. Both through the dungeon design and the design of the economy. Creating AD and then basing the inter-player economy on AD was a terrible decision. The reason Zone chat is such a huge mess is because there is no way for players to sell goods using the actual in lore based currencies. Instead of the artificial cash shop ones.
Traps can't be disabled in combat. What are rogues going to do about the big rooms that are full of both mobs and traps?
Avoiding them isn't a great option, as players are going to be focused more on mobs and mobs with knockback effects...yeah. There's going to be lots of rage when players are knocked into traps.
Also, "OMG stupid TR focus on the mobs not stupid worthless things" *kick*
I also agree with Xhiven - There will always be those who will need to get the most (whatever) per minute they can get be it exp, gold, resources etc. I also agree the game economy needs work- a healthy economy will do wonders for every aspect of the game.
This is not an economy thread.
Economy already has a huge number of threads.
This one is about a more immersive and fun dungeon, with good traps, secret doors, old style exploration. None of which I am proposing as being a 'must do' so the zergers can still zerg.
Peace
Xeno
There are three forces that drive the socially undesirable player behaviour in this game:
- Dungeon Design
- The Economy
- The Scoreboard
Fixing one of three will not improve the game as much as we would hope. If we change the dungeon design to incorporate more exploration, puzzle solving, etc but leave the personal profit focused economy, then the same problem remains. It will just have to spend a bit more time figuring out to optimize its profit. So people like us would enjoy the change in the dungeons, but it would not do much to encourage more people to play like us or more players like us to begin playing.
Thus the 3 key issues are:
Dungeon Design:
Encourages minimizing time and maximizing profit rather than enjoyment. Due to linear nature and focus on loot pinata bosses.
Economy:
Encourages maximizing profit by forcing a real world component to currency exchange. When you value player's time with a real world measure, they will try to get as much out of it as they can. Because again, you're created a pseudo job so to speak. Time has become money instead of entertainment.
Scoreboard:
Encourages class bias by directly measuring the math along arbitrary lines. Resulting in groups coming up with the "best" class composition and shunning or kicking classes that do not fit this ideal. The scoreboard needs to be replaced with a more FPS like scoring system that rewards points for each class performing its role and bonus points for "medals". Did you heal pull aggro off someone at the last second before the mob killed them? You get a bonus point medal. Did the CW and GWF pull off an epic Arcane Singularity / Slam combo on 10+ mobs? They get bonus point medals.
You reward players for performing their role and for going above and beyond with mini-achievements over the course of the dungeon. Then you compare the point totals on the scoreboard. Nothing more. Just comparing raw damage totals or healing totals doesn't tell the whole story of how the group went. You can rack up damage by just spamming AoE on everything. But was it smart damage? Did it pull adds off the cleric? Did it lock down a group of adds from getting to the CW? Who knows, the damage total doesn't tell you.
yes. I like this idea very much. I was part of the thread you was mentioning about the traps. And having the rogue able to disarm the traps or anyone with theivery kits (with about a 25% success) able to disarm the traps WHILE in combat. And have it be where they must protect the rogue (where its usually having people protect the cleric in normal combat circumstance). It puts a very nice variety and makes dungeons as a whole feel more like dungeons.
The probelm is there's no way such systems could be worked into Foundry content but it sure would be nice to get some additional rewards for going out of our way.
Most dungeons do have secondary rooms and puzzles. The Pirate King, for instance, has quite a few chests and such off the beaten path. Problem has become players don't really care because while the rewards will add up they are, generally, small rewards. Nothing worth much money of note.
So coupled with the ideas within this thread, off the beaten paths need proper rewards for the time it takes to complete such tasks. And more gear drops aren't the solution otherwise gear will just become meaningless.
Honestly at this point Cryptic should probably start considering what they could add to the game which could be of value beyond gear. Perhaps items which need to be built which have a superior visual appearance or stats. Perhaps a rare chance at refined AD drops. Perhaps activated items.
In any event I think in order to address the issues with off the beaten path dungeons we also need to address the incentives for doing such activities because the current rewards are just to pale compared to the Boss and Mini-boss rewards.
But then again, that's an issue which really spans far beyond rewarding off the beaten path exploration.
Woah, woah, woah. No!
Rogues need that unique ability. It's bad enough as it is with a 100% disarm chance
One thing that needs to be adjusted is: Rogues can't disarm in stealth or in combat. By the time they can disable the traps the team is running past that. That's just depressing. I'd like to see a way for rogues to do their classic job of infiltrating the enemy camp.
I like the score board idea a lot. For I dont look too much into the raw numbers of the score board as that doesnt show anything.
Someone can be in the middle list of the board, but was the most useful of all the group.
Also with the mimic changes we should have a way to discern between a real chest and a mimic-some magical check a wiz and/or cleric could do.
For rogues - maybe have two types of stealth - one for combat and one for scouting. Add some poison ability-poison throwing knives or some such.
Add a search skill for special traps and secret doors.
Of course anything added for a single class will mean something will have to be added to each of the others or we will have unhappy players. Yes, not everyone will be happy about everything.
Oh - as an aside - the spider mount should be like a 4 x 4 but it's not
Peace
Xeno
I can go with that. I wanted the theivery kits with a 25% chance of disarming traps so that way even if there isnt a rogue in party there is a chance a trap can be disarmed.
Additionally, another option would to be able to select between Speed (Zerg) and Slow (Explore) PUG's when getting in the queue.
A simple preference button, which would set the toggle to walk instead of run as the default when out of combat.
AKA Cyber Troll and Euben Hadd
True Dat!
I second it!
AKA Cyber Troll and Euben Hadd