WoW future mudflation compaired to EQ?

[boy-]

Originally Posted by Akileese

not only is it necessary, but it creates the conflict of caster vs. melee. If you can solve this problem, you will be a billionare and every mmo will try to adopt your style (if it works the way most itemization works but eliminates this problem).

How exactly? The caster vs. melee itemization problem has nothing to do with how mudflation works, but how the utterly retarded dmg foci system in eq1 works.

Wow has +dmg and/or dmg affecting effects on every slot that you can wear, and they stack. Eq1 has two focus effects that affect dps, +dmg (which currently equates to +35% dps above being naked), and spellhaste (which is still capped at 18%). It will only take the highest of each, so it's clear that dpscaster itemization is totally fucked in scaling. Then on top of that, realize that caster foci has gone in effectiveness a whopping 15% dps since pop (note that 70% dmg foci only results in 35% dps gain).

The diachotomy between caster and melee itemization in eq1 is solely their own fault. Why exactly do you have scaling dps mechanics like attack (vengeance), accuracy, and now +backstab/frenzy dmg which stacks with itself for melee, yet have absolutely none of that for casters? Even flowing thought, the one thing that does scale, is currently capped at 20 and has been for the past two years. It simply makes no sense, and becuase of that, of course there's going to be a melee vs. caster issue here.

To generalize this and say there's a general melee vs. caster issue here I think is a stretch. The way wow caster damages scales from gear allows them to prevent any of these things from occuring.

p.s. You know how fucked up caster itemization is? Wizards still wear concussion pants. You know, those pants from Fennin Ro / PoTime.

[Etadanik]

Biggest thing that pisses me off in EQ 2 is TLC. Hated it in EQ (Warrens). Hated it when I heard about it in Vanguard. And still hate it in EQ 2. However, they sort of make up for it by allowing you to mentor down so you *could* still raid the old raid mobs if you could find some guys of the appropriate level. But what are the chances of that happening?

Personally, I'd rather deal with farming than TLC. Yeah, bottom feeders suck, but they don't suck as much as worthless content. EQ 1 had plenty of soloable boss mobs as the expansions hit - and guess what, that was part of the experience. To one day be able to solo Trakanon and twink your level 1 with a full suit of Kunark. That was the drive that made people progress.

Course, I recognize that WoW isn't really a valid comparison because its loot is all fucking randomized (also pisses me off), but I do want to point out that to have a successful casual player game, TLC is not required. It's not next gen. Hell, let me tell you the real effect of TLC: I was playing EQ 2 a couple nights ago with a casual gamer friend who was 2 levels above me. We were fighting in the Ruins or some such doing some green quests (remember, casual gamer - doesn't really care about xp / hour). Some twinked level 16 farmer was running around looking for nameds to solo, which just goes out to show that TLC does jack to stop real farmers who can keep their characters at a certain level just to farm. But soon enough we came by a pretty cool heroic named encounter with adds and special abilities and all that jazz. The fight was actually pretty close, us being noobs and in crappy armor and all. But because my friend was 2 levels over me and group level is determined by some average, the mob turned out to be grey - and we got jack for our efforts. Our first impressions were as follows:

"WTF? Is this a bug? This game sucks!"

Just say no to TLC.

[Moontayle]

Originally Posted by Etadanik

Biggest thing that pisses me off in EQ 2 is TLC. Hated it in EQ (Warrens). Hated it when I heard about it in Vanguard. And still hate it in EQ 2. However, they sort of make up for it by allowing you to mentor down so you *could* still raid the old raid mobs if you could find some guys of the appropriate level. But what are the chances of that happening?

Personally, I'd rather deal with farming than TLC. Yeah, bottom feeders suck, but they don't suck as much as worthless content. EQ 1 had plenty of soloable boss mobs as the expansions hit - and guess what, that was part of the experience. To one day be able to solo Trakanon and twink your level 1 with a full suit of Kunark. That was the drive that made people progress.

Course, I recognize that WoW isn't really a valid comparison because its loot is all fucking randomized (also pisses me off), but I do want to point out that to have a successful casual player game, TLC is not required. It's not next gen. Hell, let me tell you the real effect of TLC: I was playing EQ 2 a couple nights ago with a casual gamer friend who was 2 levels above me. We were fighting in the Ruins or some such doing some green quests (remember, casual gamer - doesn't really care about xp / hour). Some twinked level 16 farmer was running around looking for nameds to solo, which just goes out to show that TLC does jack to stop real farmers who can keep their characters at a certain level just to farm. But soon enough we came by a pretty cool named encounter with adds and special abilities and all that jazz. The fight was actually pretty close, us being noobs and in crappy armor and all. But because my friend was 2 levels over me and group level is determined by some average, the mob turned out to be grey - and we got jack for our efforts. Our first impressions were as follows:

"WTF? This game sucks!"

Just say no to TLC.

I think WoW would have TLC if their instances weren't... well, instanced. The issue relates to bottom feeding and farming in general, which is already out of control even with the good loot being instanced or super rare world drop. In a non-instanced dungeon, in a system where Bosses guarantee good drops, they'd be monopolized by farmers, thereby killing the chances of a legitimate group of getting the loot that really is meant for them. EQ got around it by making the boss have Placeholders and the good loot being rare on top of that. So even if you did get the boss there was a greater chance of getting the booby prize rather than the one you really wanted (anyone remember farming Ghoulbane? Or the FBSS?).

[Etadanik]

I know the argument. I just don't agree with it. I don't think there are enough real $$$ farmers in the world to monopolize all the spawns. I don't think that these farmers care enough about EQ 2. And most of all, I don't believe in sacrificing the range of what is considered legitimate gameplay for hypothetical worse-case scenarios.

There are other ways to deal with farmers, such as the use of LORE and NO-DROP flags. Such as the introduction of play-nice policies. I'd much rather have those than TLC.

And as a matter of fact, I do remember things like the FBSS and SMR camps. I also happened to have farmed them (for plat) as a necro, though I always gave the spot up when a group showed up. That was part of EQ's charm. If not for the fact that I could farm the FBSS or SMR, I probably would've quit EQ out of boredom pre-Kunark (or was it post? I forget).

[fucker]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

The -big- difference honestly, is that single-group trash hasn't started dropping end game quality loot. The thing about EQ was that with each expansion, the new soloable/group trash mobs dropped the previous expansions raid loot. It'd be like if they added some lvl 59 elite trash to the plaguelands that suddenly started dropping Chromagus loot.

hmm, no

current top EQ item is a 415hp range item from Ayo Ro, and best single group item i have seen is about 250hp (maybe a bit more)

250hp items are GoD raid drops, 4 expansions ago

also, the ac and effects are way lower

if EQ does something right, its feed your sense of superiority over non-raiders

[Angrier]

Originally Posted by Moontayle

In a non-instanced dungeon, in a system where Bosses guarantee good drops, they'd be monopolized by farmers, thereby killing the chances of a legitimate group of getting the loot that really is meant for them.

Funny how PvP solves all that.

[Szlia]

The genious of mudflation is that you become stronger and stronger in absolute numbers but weaker and weaker relative to the mobs.

[Brodda Thep]

It would be interesting to see a game actually be designed around mudflation.

Basically they seem to give items some incremental upgrade for the next tier and then design encounters with the previous tiers gear in mind. However, the small upgrade means that it is relatively easy to completely skip tiers of content. ie skipping luclin and going straight to elementals. Or skipping most of MC/ZG and going straight to BWL.

The upgrades just aren't that big. All that really slows people down is the rate at which content is added and learning the encounters once it is added. The only time in EQ that gear really seemed to determine your progression was in Velious. Even quest armor was a huge upgrade over kunark armor. I think i twould be really rough hitting NToV without that armor.

EQ2 does have very immense gains in character power. However, most of the fun in that is ruined by TLC and is mostly determined by level. Levels make a rediculous amount of difference in that game and it is rather easy to hit stat caps even without top flight raid gear. Of course I really hated their combat system and their encoutners seemed like a step back from EQ let alone WoW.

However, having a system where gear determines your pace of progression has a few nice properties.

1. You can give your audience a taste of things to come without them being able to complete it right away. It woudl add a lot to the world I think if both Naxx and AQ had released at nearly the same time. But if you tried Naxx you would get your ass handed to you seven ways from sunday until you got more gear out of AQ.

2. This would also allow for easier tuning. If something was slightly too difficult it simply means that more gear must be earned before being able to beat it.

3. Also, you would have a greater disparity in guilds across your own server and server wide. The really excellent guilds would complete content long before they were completely geared from the previous tier. Other guilds would take long and require more gear. But eventually they would beat it.

However, I wonder if this would really work in practice. Let's just ignore the PvP angle in WoW for a bit. Would it require an increased production of content? Depends on how it was developed. You could tinker with item drops until it matched your release pace.

Also, you could put in code where after a certain amount of time bosses start dripping more items than usual. In this way you could catch people up so that your content is enjoyed by more people that just the most hardcore guilds.

You would also probably want to put in a progression path for non-raiders. Something which has been missing in just about every raid centric game to date. Usually you will see raiders with two upgrade tiers to each upgrade tier for a non-raider. And more time was put into developing the tiers for the raiders. Though I am not convinced that there are that many non-raiders all that interested in difficult and time consuming upgrade paths.

However, it is obvious to me that mudflation is good. It just depends on how the individual game deals with it. I think too many games are too scared of completely obsoleting old zones.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by fucker

stuff

Nobody gives a shit about EQ post-PoP. 8(

[Gallenite]

Originally Posted by Etadanik

I know the argument. I just don't agree with it. I don't think there are enough real $$$ farmers in the world to monopolize all the spawns. I don't think that these farmers care enough about EQ 2.

With all due respect, this is incorrect. I wish they didn't care.

In games that have any kind of uncommon, valued loot dropping in predictable means from shared spaces in the year 2006, the supply of farmers is more than sufficient.

We remove farmers in batches of usually 50-150/day, with periodic larger sweeps of a few thousand all at once.

One strong source of reports are in the form of complaints of monopolization from people who are just trying to have fun. If this weren't the case, I doubt you'd see TLC in EQ2 by now.


For the record, I am not a fan of TLC in the least. I think you'd be hard pressed to find many (if any) people on the EQ2 team who are.

However, we are fans of dungeons remaining playable.


I don't think any of us think that TLC is the only or best answer. It's a topic that comes up on the team every now and again as well. (As recently as a meeting this afternoon, actually).

I hope that another, less restrictive answer that fits does come along. If we think of or see one that fits with the content and vision for EQ2, you can bet we'd seriously consider it.

- Scott

[Etadanik]

That's good to know, Scott, but I think professional farmers can easily get around TLC by twinking capped-level chars to farm whatever valuable loot you have at the lower-end, and at the higher end the point is moot. I respect the fact that you're trying to do something about farmers, but I don't see TLC making a big effect on it. People can monopolize spawns with thug tactics as it is - all it takes is a single high level to kill off all the greys in an area and his twink buddy the low level to mentor down with to duo the Heroic when it spawns.

TLC feels like the wrong route to pursue and I hope you and your team comes up with a better solution because until then, I can't enjoy this game whole heartedly because I'm afraid to level lest I miss content, and I'm also discouraged from exploring zones that are partly grey to me because I won't get anything from them. The point is, of course, moot at the higher end since TLC fixes neither farming nor does it affect people who only group/raid with a single high-level char, but I think part of the issue with lower level loot being so damn expensive is because higher levels can't go back to get it so in order to buy it for their twinks they gotta go to the low level farmers, who have a system set up to monopolize the spawns anyhow.

As far as suggestions go, maybe consider a time-based loot system in which you can't get loot from the same heroic encounter twice within, say, a week if it's grey to you. That way if me and my friend can hit upon a heroic encounter and get something from exploring new zones, but can't monopolize the spawn and farm it 24/7.

Please also consider increasing the range of blue and green at the lower levels, especially in the solo zones because nowadays it's quite difficult to find low level players to group with for the sake of a single heroic encounter that rarely spawns. While I understand the desire to promote grouping, I hate that I'm actually *discouraged* from exping because I might end up gimped with obsolete equipment while being unable to go back and get equipped due to TLC.

But as always, thanks for responding with your side of things. I strongly appreciate it.

[Zehn - Vhex]

WoW's instancing of any content that matters has very much helped lesson how much people care about farmers. It's only because they muck it all up with retarded stuff (Such as the retarded amounts of Arcane Crystals and Essences of Water needed for Nax stuff) that the rang rangs -can- farm that any issue remains.

Heck, the competition between farmers on my server has actually resulted in lower prices in the auction house then if there were no farmers at all. It's some sort of sweet irony I guess.

Edit: The best is on pvp servers when you can get them to go to war with eachother and a little battle plays out that can go on for hours. It's like playing Dynasty Warriors with real people! Except gold farmers aren't people. 8(

[Etadanik]

Zehn: if a game has no economy, then there will be no farmers - that's obvious. The rationale behind those "retarded stuff" that Blizzard does is life support for their dying economy, since their push for raid-focused content has pretty much made the economy worthless for raiders outside of the "retarded stuff" that they put in, such as arcane crystals for flag quests and escalating repair costs.

If Blizzard was willing to give up their economy and instance everything, that'll stop the farmers alright. But once again the question is posed: are farmers worth sacrificing other aspects of the game over? Monopolizing spawns is a definite problem, but it's not as serious of a problem as TLC or all-instanced content, imo.

There are less stringent solutions.

[Zuuljin]

Having the TLC is only part of the problem though. So they take the TLC away. It will be like its raining free loot from the heavens. There is absolutly 0 challenge against stuff as little as 10 levels below you. You'll be able to walk into RE at 60 and wipe the entire zone clean in under 20 minutes. You'll be able to do it in under 10 when your 70. Imagine if more then 1 person wanted to do this, let alone 5-10 including farmers. Not only would there be no mobs up, but people who actually were in the level range would never have mobs to fight. So it is a tricky situation indeed.

What needs to happen is they need to stop increasing the level cap every expansion (already started with the new expansion) and widen the powerband of future levels increases when they do. It should be roughly blue's are 1-10 levels under you, and greens are 11-20 levels under you. But each will have the same difficulty of their current con. That way dungeons will last longer, still be farmable, but not till much, much later.

I dont think it will ever mimic EQ, just because in EQ the mobs were SO much more powerful then solo players, it wasnt feasable until many expansions later. And even when it was possible, it still wasnt a cakewalk because the fights would last so long, and you would risk getting killed by add's if you didnt do it right. Noone really dominated old world dungeons in EQ because it just wasnt possible. To many mobs, and it takes way to long to solo them.

If they could somehow translate this extreme mob power into EQ2's group mobs, then get rid of the TLC, it might be close to EQ's system.

[Etadanik]

I guess that brings us back to the subject of this thread: mudflation, but with levels instead of items.