I hope to see penalties other than the standards we have seen in the past in most MMOs. When a person gets hit during a fight they take damage and loose health. We get it. That is core and ideal. Don't mess with that. But I would like to see other penalties apply as well. I think their should be some mobs that not only deal damage, but EXP-drain you too. Say you are fighting a Wraith and he hits you for 100 damage. You take that damage and lose 20% of that hit as a permanant loss to your XP total (in this case, a hit for 100 would be 100 damage and the loss of 20 XP). I would like to see some blob-type creature that hits you for damage and randomly creates areas on your screen that you can not see through (or it is just blurry) for a few seconds. Or in some cases, it becomes permantent until cured by a healer or a specific potion. I would like to see creatures that spit acid at you and it damages your gear. Not all the gear - just a random piece. Make it so that it can be countered for a short time (ie, whipe the acid off your shield before it damages it). I would like to see a LOT more dispels from the caster mobs.
What kind of penalties would YOU like to see?
There's a distinct difference between a Challenging experience and a Punishing experience.
Many people will play and enjoy a game that is challenging. Not very many people will play a game that punishes them and outright wastes their time.
Also, permanently adding effects like blurry/distorted screens will cause problems for people with visual impairments in real life.
I honestly don't want to see pretty much any of this unless it actually affects combat outcomes. Most of the mechanics mentioned only serve to annoy but don't actually matter much. It's just a waste of time.
If you need to tank swap in the middle of an encounter because of damaged gear, sure. If an encounter requires you to click a pond of water to wash your eyes and cure blindness, sure.
As for mobs that drain xp, lol no. Nobody would bother killing such a mob. Not unless you have deleveling which is a terrible idea anyway.
Dispells? Whoever decided NPCs should dispell players in EQ should have been fired at the very least.
Mechanics that exist just to piss players off should be scrapped.
Edit: Jeron said it better than I did. Penalties for the sake of penalizing is just an atrocious idea. I constantly have to remind people on these forums that tedium is not challenging, it's boring.
Increasing difficulty for players for not preparing, despite having all the tools to do so? Good.
Increasing difficulty for players that aren't paying attention, at all? Good.
Increasing difficulty for players who aren't playing their role? Good.
Increasing difficulty for players who aren't playing as a team? Good.
Punishing players for doing everything right? Bad. Very bad.
We already lose exps if we die (presuming same thing happens as in EQ) exp draining...hmm might drive the more faint hearted player away. I don't think we want to scare people off. And personally if I knew a certain mob drained exp...he'd be at one end of the zone and I'd be at the other, no encounter.
I'm actually OK with this . . . sort of. Using your example, those XP stealing mobs would need to grant additional XP upon kill to balance things, otherwise we'll all just avoid them. Blindness has been done, as has mobs that deal additional gear damage. DDO comes to mind for both of these. As a general rule, I'm against any random mechanic that would send the group back to town for "healing." The goal here is comminity above all else, right? Therefore we'd need for PC's to have the ability to cleanse this effect, either via healer or consumable. Again, this additional mechanic should offer additional rewards such as a higher gold drop or better XP, or like before, we'd just grind other mobs.
I'm deffinitely OK with certain mobs being harder within the same level range, but not without reason. Why would a group wish to kill your mobs over your basic boar that grants the same XP?
No mob should steal experience. We already have that mechanic. It's called death.
I thought blindness in EQ was actually very well done and relatively effective as a player debuff.
I really don't like gear damage as a game mechanic. I believe it's done in most games as a cash sink to try to fight inflation. I don't think it's terribly effective in that regard but it is pretty annoying to spend a period of time far from town (perhaps multiple play sessions) and be forced to return to town just because your armour is hanging onto your body by a thread. If there is going to be armour damage, then make it repairable by players and implement portable craft stations or spread crafting stations out through the land so you can get things fixed fairly local to where your group is adventuring.
Same would hold true for any possible penalty mechanic where your party is cursed, poisoned or whatever and needs to seek out an advanced healer. Don't make a trip to town mandatory.
If these punishing mobs with their heavy penalties make sense in the game lore and there are strategies to avoid them (ie not simply a function of the RNG) then I don't have a problem with them. Actually the more we mix up the strategies needed to take down specific types of mobs or specific nameds, the more interesting the game gets. EQ's Planes of Power expansion had a lot of aspects that I hated, but one of the best parts was the variety of encounters and how they forced you to figure out what was needed to succeed.
So bring on the curses, the blindness, the 7 plagues, make my armour itch so I have to take it off... Get creative and make the encounters interesting provided you can avoid them most of the time with a good strategy and that they make some sort of sense for the mob in question to have that ability.
Porygon said:As annoying as it was, I didn't mind blindness in eq.
I ended up taking my monitor back to the shop for repair. Since everything went blank and there was no UI left, it looked like a fault.
I did a small video on a floppy disk of the problem for them to see :)
It all comes down to risk vs reward. Maybe some of them can steal some of your gold but then drop it upon death? Maybe one of them can hit you with a minor debuff that will last 30 minutes and then run off ... if you manage to hunt them down and kill them, that debuff goes away and is actually replaced with a minor buff. I wouldn't mind seeing "rare dispositions" where mobs can act a bit different than normal ... and it might be cool if some of their behaviors could be a real pain in the ass to deal with. Keeping all of that in mind, there should be a fair reward for any challenge. I am the kind of gamer that would be seeking these "annoying" mobs out due to the potential rewards. As long as we have an opportunity to counter play and the rewards are commensurate with the risk/challenge, I am good with it.
As far as the XP leaching mob goes, I could get down with it. Again, balance risk vs reward. They should be worth bonus XP. If you lose the fight it's a double whammy because you lost XP during the fight and then some more XP upon death. When it comes to all of these kind of things I think they should be used somewhat sparingly. Again, the idea would be having "rare dispositions." What this means is that any mob has a chance to respawn with a "rare disposition" -- that doesen't necessarily make them a "Named Boss" but they would have characteristics related to additional risk/reward. I would love something like that.
I am ok with exp loss on death, but not with deleveling. It can put you in the hole, sure, but losing access to spells/abilities that might be keyed to level is just going to be a little too punitive to today's players, I think.
And getting resurrected by a player should restore some of that lost exp, of course :). Overall I want death to sting. Moat current games today, even the good ones, don't really have enough of a death penalty to prevent people from using it as a fast way to respawn somewhere, and that's really bad Imo.
As far as blindness, I am all in favor of eq style blindness though I think you should still be able to see some UI elements just so people don't think their video card fried or something. Likewise I am ok with mobs that blur your on screen image as long as it makes sense in context and can be avoided/mitigated somehow once you learn it. Side note: Remember how some potions in EQ would make you drunk? little things like that should be present here too.
I will echo what 1ad7 said about risk/reward too. If mobs are going to exp leech, blind/blur, corrode gear, and so on... There should be an extra reward for beating them. Whether it is a better drop table or more exp or both.
Finally, I think for any on-hit effect we give a mob, players should have a way to counter it through preparation, planning, or smart thinking. Potions that cure blindness, spells that restore vision or hearing, buffy that protect or mitigate against energy or mana drain. Reward players who take the time to prepare for these fights and play smart.
Pretty sure deleveling is on the table Neph. If it wasn't, wouldn't the death penalty at max level be decreased? There was a conversation that came up awhile back about this: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5753/spiritual-conversion
I think it's very important that max level players continue to respect their environment. If XP loss is going to be a major component of death, it should continue to apply at max level. If it doesen't, then it should be replaced with something else. Death should never become trivial and that's exactly what has happened in many games that remove the ability to delevel. I like the idea of max level players needing a "buffer" before they set out on a dangerous journey. I would almost look at it like a "daily quest" but not your traditional kind. You would have to continue adventuring/farming responsibly before taking any major risks.
Porygon said:As annoying as it was, I didn't mind blindness in eq.
As everyone said, if a mob is more challenging than it's worth too kill, no-one will kill it. Plain and simple.
I don't mind blindness, but can we at least still have our UI?
If I blind, Im not void of all my other senses. I should know I'm getting hit, I should know I'm almost dead, I should still be able to attack (Even at a large penalty for accuracy).
I am not ok with a mob being able to steal XP that you have already gained, but I do think that a mob can have an ability that everytime it is uses reduces the experience you GAIN from killing it. So if you can kill it fast you get 100% of its XP, but if it takes you a long time your XP goes down. That kind of thing I can see.
I could see deleveling at max level. I just think we have to balance between us old school people and potential players who have never had to deal with a death penalty before. So perhaps some kind of scaling where the higher level you are, the more it takes, and then from 45-50 there is a chance if deleveling too? Something that we can ease people into.
my concern is in two parts. First, a high penalty at low levels may discourage new players. Second, I don't want the penalty to encourage extremely risk averse behavior like camping zone walls. We saw plenty of that in eq. Anyway it is all just my opinion :)
I agree with Liav on this one.
And losing a fight because of long or repeated stuns or other impairments or anything that prevents you from using your abilities is about the most frustrating way to go. There is some room for this in some fights but it should be very uncommon.
Nephretiti said:I hope to see penalties other than the standards we have seen in the past in most MMOs. When a person gets hit during a fight they take damage and loose health. We get it. That is core and ideal. Don't mess with that. But I would like to see other penalties apply as well. I think their should be some mobs that not only deal damage, but EXP-drain you too. Say you are fighting a Wraith and he hits you for 100 damage. You take that damage and lose 20% of that hit as a permanant loss to your XP total (in this case, a hit for 100 would be 100 damage and the loss of 20 XP). I would like to see some blob-type creature that hits you for damage and randomly creates areas on your screen that you can not see through (or it is just blurry) for a few seconds. Or in some cases, it becomes permantent until cured by a healer or a specific potion. I would like to see creatures that spit acid at you and it damages your gear. Not all the gear - just a random piece. Make it so that it can be countered for a short time (ie, whipe the acid off your shield before it damages it). I would like to see a LOT more dispels from the caster mobs.
What kind of penalties would YOU like to see?
Yeah i think with this thinking, instead of the mobs giving us powerful debuffs, you simply just make them stronger like, instead of the npc damaging our armor, you simply make it to where he avoids most of the tanks ac or something to this effect, than blindness and such liek this they can keep, also npc's dispelling people is simply annoying and slows down everything is such an annoying fashion that it usually stops people from even doing them, so i have to say this could be left out, but some other things instead of it giving us a debuff simply make it a buff of theirs that we cant dispel from them.
Porygon said:I don't mind death penalties, but I would love to see reduced penalties for raiding...
I used to feel really bad for our monks, especially while we were breaking into new content with a lot of caster mobs.
However, part of the game was always making sure you had a decent buffer in your level before you put yourself at major risk. That, and spending time between raids with some friends, chatting it up while you did a bit of group action to recoup exp loss. I think a guild has better cohesion if the members get to know each other well outside the raid environment. So maybe there's a silver lining in that cloud?
Nephretiti said:I think their should be some mobs that not only deal damage, but EXP-drain you too. Say you are fighting a Wraith and he hits you for 100 damage. You take that damage and lose 20% of that hit as a permanant loss to your XP total (in this case, a hit for 100 would be 100 damage and the loss of 20 XP).
Wraith train! An improved form of griefing.
philo said:Nephretiti said:I think their should be some mobs that not only deal damage, but EXP-drain you too. Say you are fighting a Wraith and he hits you for 100 damage. You take that damage and lose 20% of that hit as a permanant loss to your XP total (in this case, a hit for 100 would be 100 damage and the loss of 20 XP).
Wraith train! An improved form of griefing.
yeah, does not sound good at all..lol
Jeron said:There's a distinct difference between a Challenging experience and a Punishing experience.
Many people will play and enjoy a game that is challenging. Not very many people will play a game that punishes them and outright wastes their time.
Also, permently adding effects like blurry/distorted screens will cause problems for people with visual impairments in real life.
This right here. Temporary distortions/blindness is one thing but long lasting/semi-permanent is aggravating.
If you had a mob that sucked experience away, even if it happened to reward more exp it is a bad design. It also begs for abuse via training others OR by groups of friends/guilds powerleveling by use of these increased exp pinatas.
Celandor said:Porygon said:I don't mind death penalties, but I would love to see reduced penalties for raiding...
I used to feel really bad for our monks, especially while we were breaking into new content with a lot of caster mobs.
However, part of the game was always making sure you had a decent buffer in your level before you put yourself at major risk. That, and spending time between raids with some friends, chatting it up while you did a bit of group action to recoup exp loss. I think a guild has better cohesion if the members get to know each other well outside the raid environment. So maybe there's a silver lining in that cloud?
I don't disagree! But I've always felt bad for tank types, so many more deaths.