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Since FFA Full Looting is here to stay in Sandboxes, is there a way to perhaps make it fun?
MMOExposed
Member RarePosts: 7,387
Well seem like most Sandbox developers dont want to go outside the box when it comes to PvP ruleset,
So my question is,
is there perhaps a way to make FFA Full Looting PvP fun instead of a griefest?
What if there was a benefit to not getting looted as well as when you get looted, so there could compensate and take the negative distress of FFA Full Loot and drop it.
What you feel could make FFA Full Loot gameplay more fun and less distressful?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Comments
Simple .. don't play any game that has it. It is not like there is a lack of other entertainment.
not a lot of sandbox mmos have no FFA PvP. so pretty hard to avoid.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
I personally don't like full loot. I have fun working to obtain the good gear via pvp / raiding / harvesting / crafting. The rewards for me are using those hard-earned weapons on other players.
I do, however, like having the ability to loot any coin or non-equipped items from players.
This is about right. There were those few really nice magic items though but for the most part I make 4 or 5 sets of gear and bank em. If I died I could just throw on another and ready for the fun.
Don't play sandbox MMOs then. It is not like they are your only entertainment option.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Some people still do not understand what sandbox means and think its a open FFA pvp, loot and griefing estravaganza.
In most theme park games, you're a weak little fleshy creature inside of almighty legendary items.
in these type of sand box games, you're a force to be reckoned with decorated with less meaningful gear. But if you were naked, and could get ahold of a near by piece of wood: LOOK OUT.
Which really sounds more fun lol.
I will simply not play any game that has FFA PvP Looting. That will make me very happy indeed. About the only thing that would make me happier is if the developers would just stop putting in any form of PvP in my PvE games.
Ratero.
If you ask me in that quote is the first misunderstanding of sandboxes and full loot. In a sandbox mmorpg it should all be about player made stuff.. so every armor, every weapon should be player made, and it should not take a lot of working to get some armor. (see UO)
But as the time goes by we got games like Everquest and World of Warcraft were there was a huge emphasis on gear, and gear as raid rewards. (Raids and raid rewards are somewhat anti sandbox)
And withit it was a hard working to get the gear and a pain in the ass to lose that gear. And some games appeared, who mixed those two concepts together like Lineage 2, where albeit not full loot, it was a pain in the ass to lose a item you have to work weeks or even month for. (in comparsion, in UO almost every item, or generally top tier items were obtained within 1 hour or less)
If you want full loot you have to see armor and weapons as you would see healing/mana potions in WoW, and in all honestly healing/mana potions in WoW are much more expensive as any gear in UO was.(time investment)
Gear is and should be a replaceable item, a part of a working player economy. Gear get stolen, get get broke by using and so on and so forth. And by the way, games like UO got a lot more replaceable items(which a generally a good thing for a player based economy), like arrows for your bows, like reagents for your spells, or even your mount and so on and so forth. And to be honest, i miss it, because it introduced a long living demand for different stuff. And economy and player trading was very healthy, and withit player interaction. Everyone needed on a very regular basis different stuff from different crafters/traders.. or with other words noone was self sufficient.
And as much as i know noone is crying in WoW that healing potions are one time useable items and are so expensive..
But with that you need of course other rewards, other targets to accomplish instead of collecting some super rare and expensive gear. And those have to be your house, your land your territority, your community(like a player settlement) and so on and so forth.
And if you introduce a lot of replaceable items, or with other word any item you wear, you can introduce some roleplaying elements like stealing(thievery) or player looting... in any single player rpg those are important parts.. but are completely took out at mmorpgs. With other words you would be able to introduce a lot more gameplay elements in a game, a lot more emergent game play and a lot more player generated content.. and that is what sandboxes are all about.
PS/Edit: Another story would be player progression and the power gap between characters of different levels or between noobs and veterans. But that one would be a thread for it self.
You can either make it skill based (so levels have no impact) but this might be viewed as losing the 'rpg' part in mmorpg.
Or you can severely punish griefers. For example, if you kill someone else you will be flagged as a pker and if you die, you will die permanently and lose all your stuff.
The sad thing is that this next generation of MMO sandboxes is that their apparent reliance on open world PvP as content will kill their wider appeal (specifically to the builders/ socialisers/ PvEers) and restrict them to a small niche. This will mean they will 'fail' in the eyes of the mainstream and it will be seen as sandbox has no market.
It will be the open world PvP that kills the model ultimately, not the concept of sandbox play itself.
But then, ofc, the themepark will be back in fashion by then so it won't matter anyhow.
In these FFA loot games you don't get your gear from epic dungeon bosses.................
Gear is easy to come by... the focus is on the combat and the battle, not on what you're wearing to it.
Compared the loot more with clothes...... you're wearing clothes into the fight. If someone takes your clothes, you can go back to your closet, get another shirt and pair of pants... when you win a fight, you take his shirt and pair of pants and put it in your closet.
IMO it's a lot better because you don't spend countless hours trying to farm instances for the most epic gear so your gear can overpower your oponent even if you're bad at the game.
Yup. You have to shift your player base away from Trophies as much as possible.
We've seen crafting economies, disposables economies and we've seen no-loot-at-all economies. Anything works, as long as your game is focused around your basic strategy.
Welcome to the new generation of loot PvP games... where what you actually loot has no value.... is that what you're saying?
The why have full loot?
I remember EQ1 having 1 item loot, which dosen't sound bad until you realise how valuable to a player that 1 item was. *That* was a loot system worth having, because there was a real loss if you were beaten (with all the risk and fear that bnrings).
Sounds like modern full loot PvPers want it to be pretty carebear...
Trying to imagine the uproar if some developer created a "full loot" game, without any significant loot.
Seems rather pointless, but given how people actually play full loot games (de facto-everything of value carefully stowed in a locker), is it really any different?
Well.. it is about economy... and yes high valuable items for player loot is inherent buggy, because withit you will discourage pvp altogehter. And about modern or oldschool. UO and full loot exist some time before Everquest.. and Everquest was never really a pvp game. To bring pvp in a pve game as a afterthough is almost always a bad idea, and a very bad execution.
And again, the why have full loot question:
- increase the demand, increase replaceable items (reagents, player loot, non-durable gear).. strengthen the player driven economy
- introduce reward and risk into pvp (but it have to be balanced, very high value items would have the counter effect)
- withit open up your game for other gameplay options, like thievery
Earthrise had a pretty good system...
It was full loot sandbox however you could insure your wielded items. This at least gave a player a chance to "not lose it all" in the event of a gank or even being overwhelmed by mobs. You lost your inventory but not your equipped... In the errant case that you forgot to insure well... thats your own fault.
As an extra measure insurance was not cheap... so death was still very meaningful.
Full loot at least for me makes me never want to wander off to far from some form of bank or "safe storage" it becomes more or less "Bank Quest" After going around hunting mobs or players for a few I would start getting antsy knowing I had about 1-2 hours worth of farming on me and it was "shit... time to bank again" This take a lot of immersion out of the game... I enjoy risk but this feels like another artificial barrier when you have to constantly be on the edge like that... however for some that IS the juice...
What are your other Hobbies?
Gaming is Dirt Cheap compared to this...
if there are strong sanctions in place to punish people who grief, then people will still grief occasionally but it wont be nearly as bad as it would otherwise be. Case in point, high-sec space in eve. While eve is technically a FFA pvp game with item destruction and looting, in high sec a player can easily go a year without being pvp'd. (when i first played i went almost 2 years without being touched in "non consensual" pvp).
L2 also had a system in place to punish griefers (they turned outlaw and that limited their EXP gain and caused them to drop items when they died).
of course i am left with the "i fed a troll" feeling as always when answering a mmoexposed post, but there ya go :]
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D Eisenhower
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
Henry Rollins
Can we get a list of current sandbox FFA full looting titles? I am looking to play some but can't find any, besides garbage like Darkfall.
Runescape also has a very specific area that warns you over and over that you are about to enter a PvP area. PvP in that game is almost a "flag system" since you can only partake in a certain area... much like Eve only to less of an extent.
I of course only speak for modern Runescape as iirc the old school Runescape was much like pre tram UO?
What are your other Hobbies?
Gaming is Dirt Cheap compared to this...
neocron had quite the nice idea regarding to that topic.
your "quickbelt" (the quickbar where you droped your items to use em) was dropped in death, so you didnt lose EVERYTHING you had with ya, but everything you used.
also, on drop, you first had to hack that baby if you found one, you couldn't just go there and pop it up and then quickly run away. if you decdied to do so in combat, you were basicaly dead meat since it takes some time to achieve that hacking
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