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Instanced Gaming
Pouf
Member Posts: 341
Hi I would like to ask gamers what they think of instanced PVE/PVP. I'm talking about party instance ( even wow dungeons and such ). What feature do you like and hate about those. I'll give an example.
Also tell me what kind of instanced you loved or hated.
PROS:
- Completion ( it is fun to start from 0 ( entrance ) and kill last boss )
-You can group up with your friends, play half an hour and leave
-Love MOBA PVP ( smite, lol , dota, dota2 ,hon ) because you can log , play and compete and leave
-Not always needed to have required gear/level to play with friends, so you can team up with everyone
CONS
-Breaks immersion , games like continent of the ninth where you have no real exploration is a game breaker for me
If any of you have ideas on how to make instanced PVE fun apart from dungeon grinding tell me!
Comments
I find instanced gameplay nearly always ends up playing better than world content. World gameplay in practice tends to come with a variety of strong negatives, with only a single mild positive (seeing random other players.)
Instanced gameplay makes it easier for a game to provide tight challenges, which by extension makes player decisions matter more, and causes the depth of a game to show its face. But it's a lot more than just tighter challenges, you avoid all the negative (or at best: boring) things like waiting for mobs to spawn because someone stole a mob (which itself is immersion-breaking)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Immersion should not over-ride good gameplay.
Lobby based instance dungeons, with random matching, is the way to go.
1) least dead time forming a group, can jump in and play
2) well designed experience, tuned to the group size & level
3) can leave whenever you don't like the group for any reasons
4) can play with anyone (on or off your server), including friends
Instanced games overally are not bad in general gaming when taking all genres into account.
I played instanced games in past, I play some of them now and there is strong possibility that I will find one or few instanced games that I will like in future.
Still even hundreads of great instanced or / and lobby games won't make me not won't to play games that focus on open world. Why?
Because even biggest amount of icecream in many favourswon't make me not won't to eat chocolate and even biggest amount of great chocolate of greatest quality won't make me forget icecreams and want them less.
It is that simple.
Since there are such strong pros and cons to instancing, I judge this on a game-by-game basis. I don't think that instanced content is superior to or inferior to noninstanced content, and I would never avoid a game on principle simply because it had or lacked instances.
Instanced content tends to be the best PvE content in the game.
Also, Guild Wars 1 is the king of instanced PvP.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
For me:
- instanced gaming is more competitive
design boss enounter for fix number of people. The thing with open world pve is it's hard to design the difficulty of encounter since you don't know how many people are at both side
MOBA pvp have to be in instance so both side have same number of people
- non - instanced is more social
Basically you get to know people. I do enjoy open world pvp, or more of a rvr. Because you get to know people. In wow, for example, I dont' know anyone other from my guildmate.
well i love instance they give you nice challenges and usually decent rewards.
but to me it all depends on the games setup.
like im not big fan of gw1, vindictus, c9 instance setup. (The Lobby)
as id rather open world to exploe and such with instances to party with.
i know im hard to understand :X
Instancing is something I think is a lot harder to avoid as there's only so much data that can be handled. Some games due a great job at hiding the loading but it's there regardless. Halo used a good technique of slowing down and talking to the player while they travelled through a closed path allowing the next area to load without taking you out of the game. With mmo's I can only imagine all the objects textures etc. that are needed for world maps. If you try to pack it all in one something has to suffer be it textures or world details or scale. At the end imo as long as it suits the game design and loading isn't a wait forever, go make a sandwich it's gone be a while type of thing then who care's. I have found the tips most games display in loading screens is a great way to keep the player engaged and learning as well.
I'm really tired of instances in gaming its time to go back to open world stuff with a twist or if imtsances let it be with random layouts!
Below is where we can disscuss and come up with new ideas for Sandparks!
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/5164689#5164689
Instanced dungeons have rarely ever been more fun than public ones for me. You can craft a pretty devious and scripted dungeon and still have it be public. Instancing was the start of the end for MMOs.
Then you dont actually belong in the MMO space as you dont enjoy there designs. You should stick with FPS's, LOL... and online RPG's. But MMO's are not meant for you.
As for the topic. I hate all forms of instanced; PvE and PvP. They take away from what an MMO is, a Virtual World. Its always painful to see the developers creating a wonderful world and having it watered down by people camping out in the city just waiting for there dungeon queue to pop.
We need more world bosses like L2 had.
"In the immediate future, we have this one, and then weve got another one that is actually going to be so were going to have, what we want to do, is in January, what were targeting to do, this may or may not happen, so you cant hold me to it. But what were targeting to do, is have a fun anniversary to the Ilum shenanigans that happened. An alien race might invade, and they might crash into Ilum and there might be some new activities that happen on the planet." ~Gabe Amatangelo
Instacing solves a lot of the game design problems that comes with 'a lot of people in the same area'.
If a player wants to kill 'big dragon', instancing lets the designer make sure the player can do that.
If it isn't instanced, the designer can not.
Whether the player should enjoy killing the 'big dragon' or the thrill of camping that spot while interacting with other players is irrelevant.
The issue is 'player wants to do X' and instancing lets the designer give that player what he/she wants without outside interference.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I don't know man, looking at the MMO playerbase, you are the minority. (FACT)
So why is a niche group telling the majority that 'mmos are not meant for you'?
Logic?
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Maybe because im not part of the minority just the less vocal. (FACT)
"In the immediate future, we have this one, and then weve got another one that is actually going to be so were going to have, what we want to do, is in January, what were targeting to do, this may or may not happen, so you cant hold me to it. But what were targeting to do, is have a fun anniversary to the Ilum shenanigans that happened. An alien race might invade, and they might crash into Ilum and there might be some new activities that happen on the planet." ~Gabe Amatangelo
Since it is a fact that themepark MMOs like WOW has the largest players, you are saying MMOs are not meant for yourself as well right?
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
If WoW is so great why isn't it rated #1 on the released chart?
"In the immediate future, we have this one, and then weve got another one that is actually going to be so were going to have, what we want to do, is in January, what were targeting to do, this may or may not happen, so you cant hold me to it. But what were targeting to do, is have a fun anniversary to the Ilum shenanigans that happened. An alien race might invade, and they might crash into Ilum and there might be some new activities that happen on the planet." ~Gabe Amatangelo
Exactly. That's why people like me play wow, aion, aoc, fallen earth etc. Since even though those are not mmorpg in your eyes. I still like to play it.
If you want to call wow as lobby game, MOBA, single player game, not MMO or whatever it's up to you. Why can't I enjoy a lobby game, MOBA, a non MMO, or single player game like wow?
Ah! So to you 'majority' = rated #1 on the release chart?
Good to know.
I find it illogical and totally bizzare as I thought 'majority' meant 'having more players' but whatever, can't argue with a 'this is totally legitmate logic' like that! LOL
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I see both pros and cons to instancing, and that varies hugely between different games with different mechanics. I'll use Guild Wars as an example here, because it's the one game that I've played the most, and know the best. It also fits the OPs description perfectly - "lobby" outposts with all explorable zones being instanced to your party.
The positive:
The biggest plus for instancing is that the developers could set up scenarios within the instances, that would play out (near) perfectly when you explore them. You'll always be the first one to see what is happening and react to it, and that way be able to see the background story of the zones. This is a major one for telling any sort of personal story in an online game in order to keep it immersive.
The second major positive about instances is that nobody is competing with you over quests, loot (except for henchmen - Alesia is laughing at me with her collection of rare drops that I never got), kills, exp, and so on. This usually stems from game mechanics in most games though, and is a problem that doesn't necessarily have to exist in an open world game (see GW2). However, as in most MMOs you can kill steal, tag mobs, ninja crafting nodes, I'll mark this one as a plus.
The rest of the positive sides are relatively minor and very subjective, so many people will likely not agree on them. In short though, I usually do like having the place to myself and a few friends, and I like the fact that I can go AFK for half a day in the middle of a zone without anything killing me if I need to/want to. I also like the fact that things you kill stay dead and don't respawn (until you next time enter the instance at least). Instancing also enabled vanquisher titles for GW1 (kill every mob in a zone in hard mode). Grindy? A bit. Enjoyable to me at least though.
The negative:
I don't personally see that many cons, however they are major ones to make up for the lack of numbers.
An instanced game with lobbies is not an MMO. It's not "massively multiplayer" if you have 8 people with you at all times, except for lobbies. This is a dealbreaker for many - it's more like a single player game with multiplayer options, than a MMO. I'll grant it that this is what Guild Wars in current days really is - mostly a solo experience. It was less so four, five years back during the "golden" time, when a lot more people played it and teamed up. (Then again, I would argue that due to instancing and heroes/henchmen, it has managed to keep a playerbase for this long, as the population threshold to keep the game attractive is minimal.)
Second major con - persistence and immersion breaking. If you leave an instance and re-enter it, it resets. That can be a major immersion breaker. No random encounters with other people as well - if you're in a zone, you KNOW you're alone there, and won't find anyone else.
Abundant loading screens can also be an issue for some.
Overall (AKA TL;DR):
To me personally whether instancing is a good thing really depends on game and game mechanics. I have no problems with instances per se, but using them has to be deliberate and well thought out. For GW it was imperative because of the way the world was laid out, and the way the story of the areas was told, and that way actually made the game more enjoyable.
For most traditional MMOs out today, instancing would probably not be a good idea in general, as the world hasn't been designed around that. Certain gameplay problems would be solved with instancing (kill steals, etc.), however it would cause more damage than good overall. Instances are good where meaningful (dungeons, raids, personal parts such as gw2 personal story), but if entire zones are instanced, the developers should really think about their game design.
Just like in the sandbox threads, people have to accept that the target audience of MMOs has changed.
We (as in oldschool MMOers) are a niche market now, we can't expect the big AAA titles to be aimed at us.
Instancing / phasing / etc. are here to stay, we can mostly only avoid them by playing niche games.
It's also a fact maplestory has more players than WOW. So does farmville. MMOs wont be for you either in a few years. We were all the majority at one time. You might say those arent real mmos. Id say welcome to the club.
I don't know if themepark MMOs like wow have more players.
After failures like AoC & WAR, which can't hold more than 100k players after a year, the only MMO like WOW that didn't lost 50-80% of it's player base after a couple of months was... WOW.
I'd say that people like WOW, not MMOs like wow, because every MMO like wow has failed horribly in the last 8 years.
And the only one who didn't fail had to go F2P because most of it's player base where lifetime subscribers (LOTRO).
SWTOR had 200+ servers at launch, now it has 20, Rift also merged almost all of it's servers and now Trion it's trying to sell 25$ mounts to pay the server bills.
Where are all this MMOs like WOW with so many players? I can't find any of them!
But in games like TSW they have one entrance for everyone, which isn't so bad. The world keeps its reality while allowing separate groups to play through quests.
It's a mixed bag for me though as I used to love the old EQ dungeons with multiple groups spread about, but I think that style of gaming has been replaced by the easily developed X-Box style of gaming.
Aion had 2-3M before they went F2P.
DDO / LoTRO had 500k before they went F2P and are now generating 2x $$$ after the F2P.
To say 'WoW like MMOs are not the majority' is a false statement.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Going by this logic, all MMO will be like Call of Duty or Angry Birds or Cut the rope or Tiny wings etc
Screw it, lets just get a Samsung Galaxy S3 and say 'This is IT!' okay? :P
/serious post
Certain games are more popular and therefore the mechanics in them will be in more games. I am not understanding the issue here. To call out a player that likes 'instancing' that 'mmos are not for you' makes no logical sense right now.
Instancing is a MMO mechanic in the majority of MMOs, deal with it.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.