As far as I'm aware this is something VR are already doing and tweaking.
They have said in the past, I believe, that one way dungeons (including overland 'dungeon' areas) are more challenging is via higher spawn rates and, yes, that means a feature like safe spots are a good idea to support the 2-3 hour gaming session concept.
Newbie zones should have higher spawn rates, to support the population, but would have more space to avoid them.
Given I think it already is intended to be a thing, I actually thought you were going to talk about *dynamic* spawn rates.
That might be interesting.
If a place is 'farmed' then the spawn rates could increase or the spawn rates of certain monsters ('guards') could increase or the likelihood of certain monster types spawning could increase or the likelihood of monsters with certain Dispositions could increase.
This wouldn't have to be very local or specific. It could be that if lots of Gadai bandits - throughout their area - are killed in a certain period, that their spawns change. It could be that if a lot of wolves are killed, more rabbits are likely to spawn.
It's perhaps overly complex and a little problematic, but some small but notable variation would be good?
/shout Crikey, the Gadai are fiesty today! Was there a big effort here earlier? Did The Angry Gadai Chieftain spawn? Did anyone kill them? How fast are the guard respawns? Are the levels higher?
Faster spawn rates can be a disaster under many scenarios. Unless VR makes them dynamic and the system for controlling them is very well done.
To me a classic example of this is some of the Mordor dungeons in LOTRO. They may have been well designed for the initial crowd of players but once things calmed down and fewer people were in there they were a nightmare. Even fast killing classes had trouble getting through an area before the mobs they had just killed respawned again. Slower classes just couldn't handle the place well at all.
Given a choice between two .....imperfectly ideal ..... scenarios, I would prefer a spawn rate too slow to keep a full, well balanced group happy over a spawn rate too fast to allow any other group to function with a reasonable level of success.
EQ had dynamically changing respawn timers, based on the number of people in the zone. The respawn times were always exact, but changed according to a hidden threshold. I do not know when this was added but I suspect it was in the game for a while due to many people believing that respawn timers had a "variance" to them. However, extensive testing revealed that the respawn was always the same (at least for the zones tested) so long as the zone population remained approximately the same. The more people, the faster the monsters respawned. There did seem to be a max limit and I think it topped out between 20 to 25% faster which I think is a great number. If a zone is crowded, faster respawns can help accomodate a larger population, but if the respawn rate reduction is capped at a relatively low number then it won't really be possible to exploit. It worked especially well in EQ because the gap between specific NPCs didn't change. If you killed a monster then 1 minute later killed another monster, then the gap between their spawn rates was always 1 minute regardless of the total respawn time.
I like VRs overall idea of if a zone is too crowded it pushes people to explore new areas to go and play in. I think this goal should be focused on.
Modifying respawn timers should be very lmiited to a few horrific days like launch day. Make those giant crabs spawn faster! FEED THE ZERG OF NEW PLAYERS!
With that said, I am not a huge fan of a hard spawn timer. Killing the same 5 mobs in the same order of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and loop back around is not as fun as needing someone to pull the room properly every time. I would love to see changes to the normal spawns, but not to speed them up to match local population or some such thing.
Jobeson said:I like VRs overall idea of if a zone is too crowded it pushes people to explore new areas to go and play in. I think this goal should be focused on.
Modifying respawn timers should be very lmiited to a few horrific days like launch day. Make those giant crabs spawn faster! FEED THE ZERG OF NEW PLAYERS!
Yeah, as long as that focus goes hand-in-hand with nicely spread and varied itemisation and lots of alternative areas at any particular level range that you can 'easily' get to, because otherwise this kind of 'natural' effect often leads a lot of time spent running around, which eventually, in games like Everquest, lead to the trivialisation of transport by things like taxi guilds and eventually the Planes of Powers teleportation hub as devs realised it was a significant problem (but then the trivialisation of transport was of course a problem too).
I like the idea of 'natural' population spread, but I'm sceptical. It's one of those issues I hope VR get right, but worries me. I'd prefer they did more than hope for it to sort itself out 'naturally'.
Jobeson said:With that said, I am not a huge fan of a hard spawn timer. Killing the same 5 mobs in the same order of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and loop back around is not as fun as needing someone to pull the room properly every time. I would love to see changes to the normal spawns, but not to speed them up to match local population or some such thing.
I agree that the 'breaking' of an area is the most satisfying part, but if the spawns then randomise so as to mean you have to regularly 're-break' that area, does that mean you never actually get the satifaction of 'breaking' an area, or that you regularly get the satisfaction? Hehe.
I like the idea too, but that's got to be a difficult thing to design and balance. A lot of the joy of MMORPGs is the feeling of 'mastering' an area, but then, yeah, it becomes less challenging. I suppose you have to move on at some point, due to out-leveling the area, so the question is, do you want to feel you had 'mastered' it before you moved on, or want to have always been challenged even if it felt a bit random and you never got to 'master' it?
I'm really not sure, actually. I'll have to mull it over. Nice.
I thought you were going to talk about spawn rates with the keeper system.... like there would be a skill to make the area you are in spawn faster mobs.
Faster spawns sound great in the beginning when there are a lot of people in the zone or area, but it can get pretty crazy too... Not sure if I like the idea completely; however, it is entertaining to think about.
Haha, yeah Nytman, looking at the title I see how you would think that! I am a fan of the oh crap unexpected moments when it comes to group play and re spawns nipping at your heels while you're focused on moving forward is a great way to keep people on their toes. Scouting forwards is one thing but having someone tasked with looking back adds a good bit of tension too. Especially if (I hope) there are a lot of wandering mobs coming back to haunt you in terminus
I really liked the idea you could break a camp. Intentionally not killing specific mobs to adjust spawn timers. Breaking rooms in specific order, and fast enough to settle in before respawns. It gave dungeons a strategic feel, not just the individual mobs. It also paid off long term, reduced stress, fewer deaths. This doesn't mean camps would or should be easy, but planning ahead should be rewarded. It also allowed groups that were planning 1+ hour sessions to have times when people would AFK knowing what would spawn and when good times for replacements to run to camp would be.
Manouk said:hopefully there wont be a need. the random pathing and population will be just right to not need that kind of tweeking to world zones.
Even if they do an absolutely perfect job designing the zones, some form of dynamic mob control will add a lot of value.
At launch it will help deal with expected extreme fluctuations in zone population. A function of how many people try the game. what percentage stick with us and how quickly characters move to higher level zones. Even with multiple layers of the starting zones, which they may or may not do.
Longer term, apart from normal fluctuations, there will also be time zone and day of the week fluctuations. 3AM is likely to have a rather different population than 8PM. Saturday afternoon will be more populated than Wednesday afternoon.
I really hope respawn rate isn't a specific time but rather a range. A specific time that we can track and count on breaks immersion. I want to feel like the world is real and I want as little as possible to be gamified.
I also want respawns to either come from out of view or by opening a door, not by simply popping into place.
And I strongly favor having dynamic respawns (different mobs, different numbers) as well as patrols. And if we've been in an area too long, mobs should send larger patrols, a war party, retreat, lay ambushes, or some other strategy that shows they're reacting to us murdering members of their group.
Allowing us to simply follow a standard step-by-step process is artificial, it feels fake, and it gets boring.
Counterfleche said:And I strongly favor having dynamic respawns (different mobs, different numbers) as well as patrols. And if we've been in an area too long, mobs should send larger patrols, a war party, retreat, lay ambushes, or some other strategy that shows they're reacting to us murdering members of their group.
This is how I interpreted the title. I would love to see this play out based on kill rate. It could be the opposite of a mob evolving due to not being killed in a certain number of hours/days.
Let's say a group is camping a room with 3 mobs that has 1 mob ocassionally patrolling it. After an hour of the system detecting this room is killed within 5 mins of spawning, there'll then be 4 mobs in the room with 1 occasionally patrolling every 3mins. After hour 2 there'll be 4 mobs with 2 patrolling every 3mins. Hour 3 has 5 mobs in the room with 2 patrolling every 3rd minute and another single mob patrolling every 4.5 minutes.
This will make people keep moving withing certain zones if they don't want to be overwhelmed. It'll prevent breaking zones as dorotea pointed out once populations decrease in them. It'll also greatly increase the challenge and available enemies if several groups are patrolling the zone.
This feature could be implemented only in certain places, like dungeons, so other places like the overland can be more predictable for solo'ers and smaller groups.
Feastycentral said:Counterfleche said:And I strongly favor having dynamic respawns (different mobs, different numbers) as well as patrols. And if we've been in an area too long, mobs should send larger patrols, a war party, retreat, lay ambushes, or some other strategy that shows they're reacting to us murdering members of their group.
This is how I interpreted the title. I would love to see this play out based on kill rate. It could be the opposite of a mob evolving due to not being killed in a certain number of hours/days.
Let's say a group is camping a room with 3 mobs that has 1 mob ocassionally patrolling it. After an hour of the system detecting this room is killed within 5 mins of spawning, there'll then be 4 mobs in the room with 1 occasionally patrolling every 3mins. After hour 2 there'll be 4 mobs with 2 patrolling every 3mins. Hour 3 has 5 mobs in the room with 2 patrolling every 3rd minute and another single mob patrolling every 4.5 minutes.
This will make people keep moving withing certain zones if they don't want to be overwhelmed. It'll prevent breaking zones as dorotea pointed out once populations decrease in them. It'll also greatly increase the challenge and available enemies if several groups are patrolling the zone.
This feature could be implemented only in certain places, like dungeons, so other places like the overland can be more predictable for solo'ers and smaller groups.
This makes alot more sense to me and I understand the issue better now. Like, if there are 3 goblin miners being cleared to get access to an ore node, from a world perspective the goblin foreman would see that production is slowing down in a certain area and will path (spawn? from behind a closed door?) to investigate. To make it interesting the foreman could spawn in/roam to random areas on its way to the 3 goblins possibly affecting other groups who happened to be in the way and nowhere near the 3 goblins being cleared that "spawned" the foreman. Additionally, if enough Foremans were hindered from reporting an overlord could "spawn" to investigate. If it was me, I would have the overlord enter the mine from the entrance, right where all the lowbies are and be indiff/non-aggro for a distance of 100 feet as it walks in to "assess" the area before heading fast to where the nearest foreman died with a steadily enlarging AE aggro radius. So like half way to the last foreman death spot his aggro radius would be almost max and he might lash out at any non goblin player character on his way. Once at the spot, he would then roam untill slain. If not slain he would continue to roam. Invis works.
Manouk said:This makes alot more sense to me and I understand the issue better now. Like, if there are 3 goblin miners being cleared to get access to an ore node, from a world perspective the goblin foreman would see that production is slowing down in a certain area and will path (spawn? from behind a closed door?) to investigate. To make it interesting the foreman could spawn in/roam to random areas on its way to the 3 goblins possibly affecting other groups who happened to be in the way and nowhere near the 3 goblins being cleared that "spawned" the foreman. Additionally, if enough Foremans were hindered from reporting an overlord could "spawn" to investigate. If it was me, I would have the overlord enter the mine from the entrance, right where all the lowbies are and be indiff/non-aggro for a distance of 100 feet as it walks in to "assess" the area before heading fast to where the nearest foreman died with a steadily enlarging AE aggro radius. So like half way to the last foreman death spot his aggro radius would be almost max and he might lash out at any non goblin player character on his way. Once at the spot, he would then roam untill slain. If not slain he would continue to roam. Invis works.
I love that flow from a narrative perspective.
I'd just say they'd have to be careful with what types of mobs are introduced over time with this since camping spots will then be seen as a reward as opposed to a way to encourage more exploration. Would be cool to see rarer dispositions spawn in order to throw the groups off even more, keeping up with maintaning challenging and dynamic content.