Hello all! I been looking and I have not found any info on this question.
Is VR looking at a way to cut down or prevent higher level players from farming content that is way below there lvl and preventing those groups that are of level from exploring or getting the drops that have a chance to drop from the area they are adventuring in?
Example lets say max level is 50, so; a lvl 50 or pair of lvl 50's go to a level 30 to 35 area and camp it because it is easy and they get no experience from it but they know some good drops have a chance of being found. then a group of adventures say between 28 and 32 come exploring in but there is nothing due to the lvl 50's in the area farming. That is a hinderence and it prevents those that actually need it at level from experienceing it and having a chance to progress.
I was wondering if there is any talk on like zone scaling to cutt back on this or to help deter this from happening. If I missed this conversation in the community please point me to the topic on the forums.
Here is a quote from Aradune:
"This is a tough one, as as already noted, also a controversial issue.
We are not fans of having higher level players go into lower level zones, disrupting the gameplay of the players that should be there, and then also trivially obtaining items that are supposed to be rare (for the intended level of that area).
But we are also not fans of creating rules and limitations that feel artificial. We want players to feel like Pantheon's world is theirs, that it is an open world, that it has sandbox elements, etc.
Other games have tried to address this issue indirectly, for example with loot that is no-trade or bind-on-equip. We're also not fans of those kinds of 'solutions' because we want an open player driven economy. Outside of specific quest items (e.g. items you obtain and then trade in to, say, complete a quest), we're not big on no-trade or bind-on-equip.
So the big question is, how could we achieve both? And is 'both' even achievable?
We have ideas on how to address this issue, I think they're pretty good. But we aren't going to discuss them yet because 1. it's early, and there's no reason to create controversy now and 2. because they are the types of ideas that should be tested in Beta, so we can get feedback from players, listen to their reactions and opinions, etc. Sometimes it's great to theorycraft, but when it comes to issues like these, it often just creates unnecessary drama and concern. The time to discuss this sort of topic is when people are in the game, in beta, where we can experiment and get feedback on the actual implementation."
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/1867/trivial-loot-code/view/page/2
I respond on page 3 (my 2'nd post ... the one from 2018) with my thoughts on how "both" could be achieved. The short answer is ensuring that players have to consistently gauge the opportunity cost of how they spend their time. I have seen it done and it's pretty remarkable. After doing a little research of the EQ TLC implementation I found this from 2001: http://everquest.allakhazam.com/story.html?story=235
That's a good quote but when it is coming from 2015 you have to wonder if there are any thoughts behind this that are more recent and not so outdated?
We know there will be perks for participating in the mentor system (deleveling yourself temporarily in order to group at a lower lvl that is more appropriate to the content ). That is one way they will incentivize people to play content at the appropriate lvl.
I don't feel that farming lower lvl areas is enough of an issue to restrict it. Especially if there ends up being a higher lvl bottleneck like in most games. That is a much larger issue that they are trying to counter with systems like the mentor system mentioned above and the progeny system.
I feel like the perks from those system that incentivize replaying lower lvl content at the appropriate lvl range will have to be extremely beneficial in order for people to voluntarily make that lower lvl content more challenging.
philo said:That's a good quote but when it is coming from 2015 you have to wonder if there are any thoughts behind this that are more recent and not so outdated?
But we aren't going to discuss them yet because 1. it's early, and there's no reason to create controversy now and 2. because they are the types of ideas that should be tested in Beta
I agree with the OP that high levels in low level zones farming low level mobs and dungeons can be terrible for a game. Especially in starting areas and near starting areas when new players are deciding if the game is worth paying for.
Hopefully Aradune remains of a similar belief as he was in the quoted comment.
Those who repeatedly emphasize the desirability of a completely unfettered open world with few or no game mechanics designed to encourage or force players to operate in ways good for the game remind me forcefully of Ayn Rand. Her philosophy of objectivism. Her book "The Virtues of Selfishness". Is unregulated chaos good for a game? Perhaps not.
Those who think I am referring to them - probably correctly - please do not take this as an attack or insult. Ayn Rand was one of my favorite authors and I read that book more than once. I felt it had many strong points. But I was never perusaded - not quite - that it could work in a world of human beings. Maybe in heaven (if there is one) with the angels (if there are any).
Tylee said:philo said:That's a good quote but when it is coming from 2015 you have to wonder if there are any thoughts behind this that are more recent and not so outdated?
But we aren't going to discuss them yet because 1. it's early, and there's no reason to create controversy now and 2. because they are the types of ideas that should be tested in Beta
Not sure if you realize or not, at the point that was posted in 2015 we were told beta would be in 2017. A lot has changed since then to say the least. We are on a very different timeframe than what was being referred to in 2015.
Honestly I don't see it as much as an issue, it wasn't really a problem in EQ, and camps like FBSS were technically "high level" back then.
The fact is, to improve your gear and comfort on play (bags and such) you often need money, but when you farm money in group it depends of drops to sell back to other players and they are rare enough not to be sure you obtain one at all.
When your gear is lacking improvement and you are undergeared for proper content of your level, a few hours in a lucrative yet lower level area are a mean to improve your gear through ingame money.
It's also a benefit of levelling up, if levelling is only a hidden gate to what relevant content you can access but not offering you the opportunity to overwhelm some content, then what is it even usefull for ?
As a rogue in EQ It was crazy hard for me to solo anything, and pickpocketting mobs in party was stealing to my teamates so from time to time, I went in some areas (like goblins of warsliks woods) and farmed a it for hours to get grachnists the destroyer to pop and hope for a shrunken goblin skull earring. I never disrupted anyone as I rarelly crossed any other players here, and the spawn and drop rate were low enough that usually no one came here as a party.
Thus, I'm against any artificial fix, levelling by itself has the benefits of opening ways to perks and farm some lower ennemies during loose time, while valorizing your own character.
OP acts like the level 50 will be clearing the entire dungeon and not the 1-3 mobs where the named spawns. What if this level 50 spent levels 32-42 in this dungeon looking for this drop and didnt get it? This happens a lot. Now that he is 50 he wants to come back and get it. if he was there first its his camp, simple. He might even buff your group and help if you are experiencing nearby.
I shake my head at a lot of the post on these forums constantly trying to control other peoples behavior.
My bad experiences with high levels returning to *much* lower level areas has been in landscape not dungeons.
They run around pulling every mob and one-shotting them (often many at a time with area effect abilities) and people that *need* to be there because they cannot yet do higher level content can only curse, ask the high level to group so they can get credit for the kills (a request usually ignored) and wait for respawns, praying to whatever Gods they worship that the high level will be gone by then.
I understand why the high level may have a reason to do it but I am more concerned with the negative impact on new or relatively new players.
The problem I see is much worse when a level 50 goes back to level 10 content than it is when he or she goes into a dungeon that caps out at level 42. Given reasonable game design a 50 is unlikely to be able to pull the whole dungeon or even most of it and leave all the people that actually belong there (based on level) with nothing to do.
I never had a problem with farming. I used to do it in EQ (and other games) to help make money and when I came to an area I needed some mobs as a lower level that was being farmed by another player I just asked if they would leave me some. And I may be lucky but every time they didn't mine sparing a few for a lower player. You're going to run into idiots sometimes though, but I'd still rather be in a game that has no restrictions on farming.
Time wil tell on this issue, but I will stand by my position that the largest instigator of imbalances, exploits, and numerous game play issues is player trade.
Take away player trade and you still have a multiplayer game where people have to work together to achieve victory.
Players being able to buy and sell items by its very nature conflicts and defies the concept of risk/reward systems.
I know many may disagree, or be upset at such, but this is the number 1 problem of MMO gaming. The complete disregard of effect trade has on the game system (ie there are no controls, designs, etc... as there are in the adventure side of gaming which defines the game world, players are free to trade without any real consequence or control that a RL system would have).
I think this is an area where, depending which games we have played previously (and when), each of us is going to have had massively different experiences.
If you want to prevent bottom-feeding then you need to look at why it happens and figure out how to mitigate that. So, why is that high level player killing things in the low level zone?
1) They're farming something for the purpose of making money somehow
2) They're killing things in order to work up a number of some kind - faction, or a skill usually.
3) They're after a specific loot drop for some reason
There might be more causes but I think those three cover most of the scenarios I've seen over the years. If we want to solve the bottom-feeding problem overall, we need to think about each of these scenarios and how we can enable players to achieve their goals without degrading the game experience for others.
As mentioned previously, it's been stated that Pantheon isn't necessarily going to follow the old trope of distinguishing zones as either high level or low level. This has been demonstrated in BRK where the zone consists of content from multiple level brackets. It's an intentional design choice to have high level and low level players sharing the same space. If you want to discourage high level players from "disrupting" low level players then there should be a sense of balance in how they both approach PVE content. I know it's a crazy concept to some but this entire issue can be solved quite easily by embracing competition as an inherent aspect of open world gameplay and having rules that compliment that ideology. If you allow a single high level player to have an insurmountable edge against a full group of low level players ... of course it won't seem fair and the consideration of a TLC-like mechanic feels more warranted. This issue is solved quite trivially by adding a rule to the "open world competition" paradigm that shifts the focus away from pseudo-PVP and toward PVE.
Rather than players being labeled as heroes or villains ... as the entitled or the disruptors ... every player must make a conscious decision on how they spend their time in the world. They should evaluate the opportunity cost of fair open world competition on a case by case basis. This isn't something that needs to be heavily regulated by a GM presence. Establish the rules and then set the players free. Tell them to bugger off and go have fun rather than saying "see you soon." The latter is an expectation if there is a huge grey area in the rules that requires consistent intervention and interpretive analysis. At the end of the day ... it's been stated that Pantheon embraces the idea of fun/healthy open world competition.
The next chapter of this story ultimately comes down to how the game is designed and what rules/systems are put in place to compliment that philosophy. Competition for resources shouldn't be considered taboo. Players need to manage their expectations of playing in an open world and if they choose to ignore "contested resources" as an inherent aspect of the game, they are in denial. I think Pantheon is in a great position to emerge as a game that incorporates an innovative take on fun/healthy/fair open world competition. Conflict is the element that should be better controlled or alleviated and all of the signs point toward that happening.
It boggles my mind that anyone could think it's acceptable for a high level to be able to freely wander throughout a lower-level area with 0 risk, kill trivial mobs by mindlessly using their OP abilities, and get rewarded for it with rare drops/gear, and then be able to freely sell those items.
Might as well put a slot-machine in town that high level characters can use to get the same gear by pressing a button. At least that way the lower levels won't have to deal with never being able to enjoy the boss fights/camping for rare mobs.
Sicario said:It boggles my mind that anyone could think it's acceptable for a high level to be able to freely wander throughout a lower-level area with 0 risk, kill trivial mobs by mindlessly using their OP abilities, and get rewarded for it with rare drops/gear, and then be able to freely sell those items.
Might as well put a slot-machine in town that high level characters can use to get the same gear by pressing a button. At least that way the lower levels won't have to deal with never being able to enjoy the boss fights/camping for rare mobs.
You seem puzzled by pretty much anything not involving artificial mechanics, and dampening the feeling of sharing a world at all. If outgrowing a zone in level has a negative effect on drops, why taking level ? Why making hyperbolic statement like "Lower levels will never being able to enjoy..."
I think you can express your opinion withouth constantly trying to make it look like an evident truth, as it seems against the notion of open, shared world with levels. There are games with constant scaling or loot rules on grey mobs, and they aren't much enjoyable, maybe it's because it isn't a solution at all ?
I do not like trivial loot code or anything like it. While I do not make a habit of doing it, I do occasionally go back to lower level zones to get items I want/need.
I only see "farming" as a major issue when content at the top of the game stops and higher level players do not have anything else to do. That's when more frequent visits to lower level zones will happen.
Sicario said:It boggles my mind that anyone could think it's acceptable for a high level to be able to freely wander throughout a lower-level area with 0 risk, kill trivial mobs by mindlessly using their OP abilities, and get rewarded for it with rare drops/gear, and then be able to freely sell those items.
Might as well put a slot-machine in town that high level characters can use to get the same gear by pressing a button. At least that way the lower levels won't have to deal with never being able to enjoy the boss fights/camping for rare mobs.
LoTRO dealed with this to an extent in their early release of the game. That is, there was a mechanic that even though you leveled on and became more powerful, your ability to block damage to you was lessened over time (relational to the mobs of lower level) and at the same time, your ablility to do damage while certainly increased, was also greatly reduced (with certain mobs). The result was... clever and very persitent and skilled players could, with certain classes and through very difficult play, achieve a result in lesser content within given range (I remember soloing a lot of the older content, but not without serious effort to achieve a result). Even a level 50 running through the Great Barrow would have many difficulties with certain stages of the dungeon. They could not "easily" defeat the encounters.
This kept a certain deliniation between old content and new as levels progressed.
I think that if content is designed in such a way to creat gating betwwen such usefulnes, that high levels will not seek that range of play to profi on as it is too low of a spectrum to afford their need in the current range of play (ie a level 50 seeking to make money on level 20 content would not be "profitable" and so it would result in less demand). in EQ, chasing after the 30 mins spawn (rare chance) to farm for lower gear was less productive for gamers. The better return was farming current level gear. As a monk in EQ, there came a time when I had enough raid gear to where I couldn easily solo a lot of the 20-30 dungeons and so I tried to farm the gear for sale in the bazaar at the time. Nothing sold to any worh because it was not of any value (ie players could easily take an alt in and gather the items as need).
The problem would be with Plat sellers PURPOSEFULLY targeting spawns to block such means. To be honest, before I left EQ around GoD, there were some farmers trying such, but it was a fruitles endeavor. Fact was, unless they tied up a spawn 24/7 as a business approach, there was no way for them to control the market at that level. Nevermind that it was not a profitable adventure, but even if it were, the Plat sellers would be quickly identified and removed by players reporting them.
bigdogchris said:I do not like trivial loot code or anything like it. While I do not make a habit of doing it, I do occasionally go back to lower level zones to get items I want/need.
I only see "farming" as a major issue when content at the top of the game stops and higher level players do not have anything else to do. That's when more frequent visits to lower level zones will happen.
TLC, I hate.
I hate to be blunt and matter of fact about it, but if Pantheon uses TLC, I won't play it. I hated EQ2 because of it, it sickend me to play the game because it felt like I was being led around with a collar. I mean, I could have crap gear, but apparently, even though I could beat a given mob (ie gear should reflect its level of obtainment), I wasn't allowed to have the item it may have dropped. No... and may all games that implement such die in a fire.
MauvaisOeil said:You seem puzzled by pretty much anything not involving artificial mechanics, and dampening the feeling of sharing a world at all. If outgrowing a zone in level has a negative effect on drops, why taking level ? Why making hyperbolic statement like "Lower levels will never being able to enjoy..."
I think you can express your opinion withouth constantly trying to make it look like an evident truth, as it seems against the notion of open, shared world with levels. There are games with constant scaling or loot rules on grey mobs, and they aren't much enjoyable, maybe it's because it isn't a solution at all ?
And you fail to even try being open-minded that game design choices/mechanics can be implemented in a way which maintain a high fidelity of the feeling of an open world, while mitigating against the abuses that will happen. You also express your opinions as an evident truth, making blanket statements about how loot rules on grey mobs make a game less enjoyable without clearly articulating exactly how that is.
Especially in this day and age of gaming, if loot rewards from grey-cons are meaningful in any way and obtainable by someone who's far out-leveled the content, they will be camped by someone. Sure, they may not be perma-camped, but does it really matter if most people are playing during specific hours in the evening and that's when they're most likely to be camped? Doesn't matter if the mobs are up at 3 AM when most of the people running into issues with others farming are sleeping since they have work the next day.
philo said: As much as I personally dislike trivial loot code or other, similar artificial restrictions it seems like a lot of people are for them in regards to raiding (including VR with some of the mechanics that have been mentioned with raid bosses). It seems pretty hypocritical to want to artificially restrict raids but not be ok with artificially restricting other content...and vice versa.
That is because most of those people wanting such do not have any regard to group content, and think it should be a quick passing transition to leveling to their raid content. I always thought it interesting the arguments people who claimed raid items should be no-drop, but group items should be tradable. Is that not saying people should be able to "BUY" their way to the top, you know... because the "journey" is a waste of time, the real game is at "END GAME"?
You would be surprised how much hate I get when I press to the extreme problems player trade as is currently implemented (ie no game play governing factors). I start brining up that the system should be more like the adventure portion of the game with extreme risk and reward and most people start freaking out. Player trade is a cheat most people are unwilling to admit.
It's a long standing issue in open world MMORPGs. Personally I don't mind it so much, those people camping the spots are doing so in order to either equip themselves, their guildmates, their friends, or to sell the item on the market. Do you really need to have all of your equipment dropped by mobs that you killed yourself? Because that is ultimately what this complaint is about. Should max level players be camping low level areas? Well that depends on if those low level areas have extremely valuable items doesn't it? Because going by what I am seeing here people seem to really dislike the concept and want high levels to stay in their high level areas. The potential of camp hogging by high levels is there however and it can get severe if there are must have items in the low level content.
So do we really need a trivial loot code? Couldn't the game simply be designed in such a way that the lower level dungeons/mobs are not dropping extremely valuble stuff? That would take away a good portion of the incentive for high levels to camp the low level content. There would still be high levels doing it of course for other reasons, but unless you outright restrict high levels from being able to hit low lvl mobs there are always going to be players who go in and kill trivial content. I'm not fond of the artificial restrictions I think they do more harm than good if your goal is an open world. But I understand the arguments and can appreciate the sentiment of wanting to get the item yourself and not have it sold to you.
((So do we really need a trivial loot code? ))
Yes we do.
Make it so that low levels don't drop anything all that valuable and it won't really matter. Some high levels will come through and slaughter them by the hundreds because a 10 copper item times 100 gotten in a few minutes with no risk and no need to form a group is a fast and steady source of revenue.
((You seem puzzled by pretty much anything not involving artificial mechanics, and dampening the feeling of sharing a world at all. If outgrowing a zone in level has a negative effect on drops, why taking level ? Why making hyperbolic statement like "Lower levels will never being able to enjoy..."))
Wanting some artifical mechanics here and there when they prevent undesirable conduct and do little or no harm is not trying to avoid an open world. Wanting to to discourage or prevent things that we know have hurt or destroyed other games is not the same thing as putting Pantheon on rails and removing all sandbox elements. Wanting a few "artifical mechanics" is not even remotely close to being puzzled by anything that *isn't* artifical mechanics. Making abuses harder in a few situations will not mean that we do not share a world. Your own statements reflect far more hyperbele than saying lower levels will never be able to enjoy when it was entirely obvious to both you and everyone else that what was meant was that too often they would be unable to enjoy.
Not a fair response.
Just for the sake of clarity I note that no one here is arguing that people shouldn't be allowed to kill trivial mobs. Some people want a trivial loot code and some do not so that there is no *incentive* to kill them but unless someone is outright griefing (killing them solely to take them away from someone else and harass that other person) I think essentially no one wants to restrict killing them. I don't.
Implicit in all that is that if a mob of any level drops a crafting item there is nothing wrong with any player of any level killing the mob to get it. And I would object to any trivial loot code so written as to mean that a mob dropping low level hides for a tailor would only drop them when killed by a character with a low adventure level.