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tons of Vanguard goodness in one post..
lordtwisted
Member UncommonPosts: 570
Someone linked this in another forum I was reading, check it out.
Let me post some more detail. I can't say a lot, because it's just now going to be tested. So it's not set in stone. But it is our next phase of refining the /con system, the death penalty, etc. based on what we have learned in beta to-date. At the end, I’ll also talk more broadly about what kind of game Vanguard is and what we’re trying to achieve by making it the way we are (of which this next revision of the con system, death penalty, and mobs with varying threat levels is a significant part).
So keep in mind that what I'm saying isn't set in stone -- it's just closer to what we will likely ship with, but we still need feedback and we will likely revise things several more times before release. That is, after all, what the beta is for (amongst other things).
Mobs have a Threat Level. They also have a regular level (e.g. their level relative to your level). These are two different attributes, and when you encounter a mob, you are made aware of both via the UI.
This makes it such that we can place mobs of the same level or around the same level in the world that behave differently than one another, require additional (or less tactics) to deal with, have better (or worse AI), drop better loot, are rarer (or more common) etc.
The difficulty of the mob (or encounter, e.g. a group of mobs) is determined by its threat level. Difficulty can mean more HP, more DPS, special abilities, better AI, and can also relate to location, or that it's at the end of a quest or an encounter route, etc. It's up to the designer populating the area.
The death penalty is then also derived by that threat level. We thought originally about making this region based, but doing it by the mob's threat level even gives us more control and also allows players seeking different degrees of risk vs. reward to adventure in the same area if we so choose.
In simple terms, a basic overland mob likely will have a lower threat level and a boss mob at the depths of a dungeon a much higher threat level.
But that is an over simplification. You could certainly find high threat mobs outdoors, for example. And you could also find a lower threat mob in a dungeon. It's really relative to the region you are in, whether it’s designed for solo/casual, or group/core, or raid, whether it's a boss mob, or a mob at the end of an encounter route, or a quest mob, or just a basic wandering monster.
It's about risk vs. reward.
When you die to a mob, the death penalty is also different depending upon the threat level.
Why are we differentiating between threat level and regular level? Because we want, for example, difficult mobs and even raids in mid level dungeons. And we also want more casual content at higher levels where appropriate. This has always been a goal of Vanguard: that the game isn't all about racing to the end game. That there can be challenge, fun, reward, and a sense of accomplishment at all levels and more players with different playstyles and preferences.
I'm not going to go into details about what death penalty exactly results from what threat level -- again, we are going to be tweaking things, so it’s premature to post specifics.
But in general, the death penalty can range from a money sink, to some exp lost but able to be regained, to exp lost period, to dropping a corpse with all of your gear but having that gear respawn after X number of hours real time at an Outpost, to a corpse that drops with all of your items that has to be recovered or dragged out by a friend, to even more severe penalties (for example, perhaps a corpse cannot be dragged, or even you have to defeat the mob that killed you in order to have access to your corpse (for example, a giant worm that eats your corpses, and until it dies, there is no corpse to loot)).
(note, yes I said exp loss – our plan is still to offer the players the choice of losing exp or gaining exp debt, except at the maximum level, and except where you would lose a level – at maximum level, you will likely have a cap on the amount of debt you can rack up as well as some other mechanics working slightly differently. Also, if you have chosen to lose exp but lose so much that you would de-level, the game will likely switch to adding exp debt because level loss would cause many more problems than it would solve given the way advancement, skill and spell acquisition, etc. works in Vanguard).
Anyway, mobs with varying threat levels gives us a lot of flexibility. It allows us to make casual, group, and raid content at all levels. It allows us to make boss mobs that spawn rarely or only spawn at the end of an encounter route (e.g. the Advanced Encounter System, e.g. our answer to Instancing), or part of a quest, or an encounter that involves using multiple spheres to overcome (e.g. inter-sphere dependence). We can make mobs of the same level harder or easier than others of the same level. We can make mobs drop better gear or worse gear even if they are the same level without only having the mob that drops better loot rarer. And we can make the penalty for dying to these mobs variable and relative to the situation.
We've been fans of a dynamic death penalty from day one. This has led some people to assume that we are implementing corpse retrieval in all situations and exactly as it worked in EQ and/or other games. This is *not* the case. We are strong believers that challenge doesn't have to mean tedium. We lead you to corpses via a compass (and perhaps a silvery cord, but that is TBD). We provide horses and other vehicles that are soul bound in which you can store additional sets of gear so we can eliminate (or at least severely reduce) the likelihood of having to do a naked corpse run (as well as promote gear hoarding, which slows down MUDflation, as well as situational gear). So when we talk about CRs, it’s different than what you may have experienced in the past – in particular, if your death results in a CR (and it won’t always), the above features make doing that CR a lot easier. So also will some additional death penalty variants I’ll talk about in a moment.
So, and to be clear, what I described above re: CRs we've had in beta from virtually the beginning and also in the game’s FAQ. What I’ll talk about next hasn’t been covered, however:
We can now create mobs that don’t require a CR, or that do, but the corpse eventually repsawns at the nearest Outpost (like graveyards in other games) after a certain number of real time hours or days. Now is the time (beta 3) to take the con system and death penalty to the next stage and make it even more dynamic.
Now, before anyone panics, does this mean we are dumbing down the game? No, I really don't think so. We *are* making deaths from mobs with a lower threat level easier, but then we are also making deaths from mobs with a high threat level as hard or even harder than before. And then we have options in-between. What we are doing is making the game more inclusive and less exclusive – players with different playstyles, tolerances, varying contiguous play times, etc. will all have plenty to do, again regardless of their level. No, we’re still not trying to make a game that is all things to all people, and yes, our primary audience is still the core gamer and we won’t make decisions that hurt what makes it attractive to our core audience. But there is a middle-ground – we can and are making a game where solo/casual, core, and hard core/raid gamers can co-exist. So while Vanguard is by no means niche, it also isn’t going to sacrifice challenge and the feeling of accomplishment that many players crave in order to reach the ‘mainstream’; -- we remain confident that Vanguard will attract all different types of players and will arguably be mainstream. Will it be #1? Who knows, but it won’t be #10. What it has that makes it different, amongst other things, is content that varies in challenge, difficulty, and risk vs. reward, and this content exists at all levels. That may not appeal to everyone, but we’re quite sure it will appeal to quire a few. As I’ve posted many times, I think a LOT of players want a game like this, both old school MMOG players as well as new players, say for whom FFXI or WoW was their first MMOG.
Mob threat level and varying death penalties *do* add a degree of complexity, but I still think it's consistent and elegant, and I know our UI will make it clear to players what sort of risk they are taking when they decide to take on a mob or encounter. It won't simply be a matter of conning the mob to determine its level relative to yours. And it won't be a simple matter of assuming that if a mob has a special name that it is therefore not only more rare but also has better loot. What it does do is offer us more flexibility when populating areas, both dungeon and overland. And, as I mentioned, it also helps us create more difficult mobs that can be any level, such that you don't have to wait until the end game to experience something exciting and challenging. Likewise, it also allows us to create areas, regardless of level range, that are more casual friendly as well.
Again, bottom line: risk vs. reward. The higher the threat level of the mob, the better the loot you will likely receive if you defeat it, and also the more severe the death penalty if it defeats you. And also, as I mentioned earlier, it gives our designers and populators more options in terms of placing special abilities on mobs, creating situational encounters, etc. In other words, needing to use more tactics, special abilities, situational gear, symbiotic abilities and spells, counter spells, etc. will be tied to the threat level of a mob.
Let me know if this makes sense. Other than providing specifics (e.g. threat level X = Y type of death penalty), I will try to answer questions and to provide more clarity in terms of where we are heading with this, how, and why.
It’s important that people understand what Vanguard is about and that it is not a ‘hard core’ only game. As always, the majority of the game is geared towards grouping and the ‘core’ gamer, but then also has plenty of content for both more casual gamers as well as more hard core gamers. It is also a game where you can log on, regardless of whether you are hard core, core, or casual, and accomplish things and advance your character whether you have only an hour to play or an entire day. Populating the world with mobs with varying threat levels, regardless of actual level, helps us achieve this goal. Having varying degrees of death penalties does also. And then so does having different spheres of advancement (adventuring, crafting, harvesting, and diplomacy).
So does meaningful travel, mechanics that keep groups together (like the Caravan offline travel system), advanced LFG systems that not only help you find other players of a certain level or class, but also more about who that person is in RL, how they play MMOGs, their preferences and dislikes, etc. In-dungeon teleportation like evacs and call to hero type spells allow people to play the game together even if one of them logged on later than his or her friends. The Fellowship system allows players to keep their friends close to their level by sacrificing some of their own exp, even if some of those friends don’t play as often. The Veteran system rewards replayability and gives alts a significant but not unbalancing advantage when equipped with higher level gear, assuming you also have another character on the same shard that is as high or higher in level as the gear you are equipping your new character with. Harvesting that can be done alone or in a group gives players more options. Crafting that involves risk vs. reward and tactics allows us to escape the monotony of earlier click-fest mechanics. Diplomacy allows players to advance their character in ways that don’t involve combat, allowing us to make faction systems that much more integral to the game as well as reveal story and lore more easily, not to mention more closely resemble quality fantasy literature which is not all about hack-n-slash but that also includes political conflict that isn’t always rewarded by who is the more powerful combatant.
Vanguard is the MMOG that many players have been waiting for, the game that is deeper, has more options and freedom of choice, and also more challenge if desired. The ability to customize your character when creating him or her is unparalleled. The number of outfits reflecting the gear you have earned (whether obtained from defeating a mob in battle, or found harvesting deep in a dungeon, or crafted using rare components, or as a reward for a quest or for overcoming a Diplomatic encounter) is also unparalleled.
You can travel just about wherever you wish in a truly seamless word. You can own a ship and sail the seas not on a ‘rail’, but wherever you want. You can buy a horse and then equip it with saddlebags for more storage, or better horseshoes such that it will run more quickly. You can even eventually own a flying mount and travel across continents and oceans high above the earth, seeing everything below you and at a distance only restricted by the horsepower of your computer. You can own your own house and decorate it with items not simply bought from a vendor, but with trophies won in battle – you can hang the head of a recently slain wyvern on your wall, or place the Troll King’s idol on your table for all visitors to see and appreciate. You can explore vast dungeons along with other players, invite new people into your group as others leave, or observe another group doing battle with a boss mob that you hope one day to defeat yourself. And you can take on a quest or encounter route with your friends in one of these dungeons, not have to worry about other players in the same area interfering with your quest or encounter route, and the boss mob or mobs that spawn when you complete such a quest or encounter route can’t be stolen or interfered with at all by other players (unless you decide to ask for help).
Anyway, I know I segued from talking about our next phase of death penalties into a more general description of the game, but I did so to illustrate what kind of game Vanguard is and how it allows you to do and experience things no other MMOG does. And I also again wanted to make the point that challenge, variety, depth, and options equal freedom, not tedium. All of the above does not make Vanguard a ‘hard core’ or ‘niche’ game like some have claimed it to be; rather, it offers you a game that is designed and architected to last for years, both from a technological standpoint as well as a gameplay standpoint – it’s about community, multiple ways to advance your character, more options, more challenge if you want it (though you don’t have to want it to achieve and to succeed).
It’s about freedom.
So keep in mind that what I'm saying isn't set in stone -- it's just closer to what we will likely ship with, but we still need feedback and we will likely revise things several more times before release. That is, after all, what the beta is for (amongst other things).
Mobs have a Threat Level. They also have a regular level (e.g. their level relative to your level). These are two different attributes, and when you encounter a mob, you are made aware of both via the UI.
This makes it such that we can place mobs of the same level or around the same level in the world that behave differently than one another, require additional (or less tactics) to deal with, have better (or worse AI), drop better loot, are rarer (or more common) etc.
The difficulty of the mob (or encounter, e.g. a group of mobs) is determined by its threat level. Difficulty can mean more HP, more DPS, special abilities, better AI, and can also relate to location, or that it's at the end of a quest or an encounter route, etc. It's up to the designer populating the area.
The death penalty is then also derived by that threat level. We thought originally about making this region based, but doing it by the mob's threat level even gives us more control and also allows players seeking different degrees of risk vs. reward to adventure in the same area if we so choose.
In simple terms, a basic overland mob likely will have a lower threat level and a boss mob at the depths of a dungeon a much higher threat level.
But that is an over simplification. You could certainly find high threat mobs outdoors, for example. And you could also find a lower threat mob in a dungeon. It's really relative to the region you are in, whether it’s designed for solo/casual, or group/core, or raid, whether it's a boss mob, or a mob at the end of an encounter route, or a quest mob, or just a basic wandering monster.
It's about risk vs. reward.
When you die to a mob, the death penalty is also different depending upon the threat level.
Why are we differentiating between threat level and regular level? Because we want, for example, difficult mobs and even raids in mid level dungeons. And we also want more casual content at higher levels where appropriate. This has always been a goal of Vanguard: that the game isn't all about racing to the end game. That there can be challenge, fun, reward, and a sense of accomplishment at all levels and more players with different playstyles and preferences.
I'm not going to go into details about what death penalty exactly results from what threat level -- again, we are going to be tweaking things, so it’s premature to post specifics.
But in general, the death penalty can range from a money sink, to some exp lost but able to be regained, to exp lost period, to dropping a corpse with all of your gear but having that gear respawn after X number of hours real time at an Outpost, to a corpse that drops with all of your items that has to be recovered or dragged out by a friend, to even more severe penalties (for example, perhaps a corpse cannot be dragged, or even you have to defeat the mob that killed you in order to have access to your corpse (for example, a giant worm that eats your corpses, and until it dies, there is no corpse to loot)).
(note, yes I said exp loss – our plan is still to offer the players the choice of losing exp or gaining exp debt, except at the maximum level, and except where you would lose a level – at maximum level, you will likely have a cap on the amount of debt you can rack up as well as some other mechanics working slightly differently. Also, if you have chosen to lose exp but lose so much that you would de-level, the game will likely switch to adding exp debt because level loss would cause many more problems than it would solve given the way advancement, skill and spell acquisition, etc. works in Vanguard).
Anyway, mobs with varying threat levels gives us a lot of flexibility. It allows us to make casual, group, and raid content at all levels. It allows us to make boss mobs that spawn rarely or only spawn at the end of an encounter route (e.g. the Advanced Encounter System, e.g. our answer to Instancing), or part of a quest, or an encounter that involves using multiple spheres to overcome (e.g. inter-sphere dependence). We can make mobs of the same level harder or easier than others of the same level. We can make mobs drop better gear or worse gear even if they are the same level without only having the mob that drops better loot rarer. And we can make the penalty for dying to these mobs variable and relative to the situation.
We've been fans of a dynamic death penalty from day one. This has led some people to assume that we are implementing corpse retrieval in all situations and exactly as it worked in EQ and/or other games. This is *not* the case. We are strong believers that challenge doesn't have to mean tedium. We lead you to corpses via a compass (and perhaps a silvery cord, but that is TBD). We provide horses and other vehicles that are soul bound in which you can store additional sets of gear so we can eliminate (or at least severely reduce) the likelihood of having to do a naked corpse run (as well as promote gear hoarding, which slows down MUDflation, as well as situational gear). So when we talk about CRs, it’s different than what you may have experienced in the past – in particular, if your death results in a CR (and it won’t always), the above features make doing that CR a lot easier. So also will some additional death penalty variants I’ll talk about in a moment.
So, and to be clear, what I described above re: CRs we've had in beta from virtually the beginning and also in the game’s FAQ. What I’ll talk about next hasn’t been covered, however:
We can now create mobs that don’t require a CR, or that do, but the corpse eventually repsawns at the nearest Outpost (like graveyards in other games) after a certain number of real time hours or days. Now is the time (beta 3) to take the con system and death penalty to the next stage and make it even more dynamic.
Now, before anyone panics, does this mean we are dumbing down the game? No, I really don't think so. We *are* making deaths from mobs with a lower threat level easier, but then we are also making deaths from mobs with a high threat level as hard or even harder than before. And then we have options in-between. What we are doing is making the game more inclusive and less exclusive – players with different playstyles, tolerances, varying contiguous play times, etc. will all have plenty to do, again regardless of their level. No, we’re still not trying to make a game that is all things to all people, and yes, our primary audience is still the core gamer and we won’t make decisions that hurt what makes it attractive to our core audience. But there is a middle-ground – we can and are making a game where solo/casual, core, and hard core/raid gamers can co-exist. So while Vanguard is by no means niche, it also isn’t going to sacrifice challenge and the feeling of accomplishment that many players crave in order to reach the ‘mainstream’; -- we remain confident that Vanguard will attract all different types of players and will arguably be mainstream. Will it be #1? Who knows, but it won’t be #10. What it has that makes it different, amongst other things, is content that varies in challenge, difficulty, and risk vs. reward, and this content exists at all levels. That may not appeal to everyone, but we’re quite sure it will appeal to quire a few. As I’ve posted many times, I think a LOT of players want a game like this, both old school MMOG players as well as new players, say for whom FFXI or WoW was their first MMOG.
Mob threat level and varying death penalties *do* add a degree of complexity, but I still think it's consistent and elegant, and I know our UI will make it clear to players what sort of risk they are taking when they decide to take on a mob or encounter. It won't simply be a matter of conning the mob to determine its level relative to yours. And it won't be a simple matter of assuming that if a mob has a special name that it is therefore not only more rare but also has better loot. What it does do is offer us more flexibility when populating areas, both dungeon and overland. And, as I mentioned, it also helps us create more difficult mobs that can be any level, such that you don't have to wait until the end game to experience something exciting and challenging. Likewise, it also allows us to create areas, regardless of level range, that are more casual friendly as well.
Again, bottom line: risk vs. reward. The higher the threat level of the mob, the better the loot you will likely receive if you defeat it, and also the more severe the death penalty if it defeats you. And also, as I mentioned earlier, it gives our designers and populators more options in terms of placing special abilities on mobs, creating situational encounters, etc. In other words, needing to use more tactics, special abilities, situational gear, symbiotic abilities and spells, counter spells, etc. will be tied to the threat level of a mob.
Let me know if this makes sense. Other than providing specifics (e.g. threat level X = Y type of death penalty), I will try to answer questions and to provide more clarity in terms of where we are heading with this, how, and why.
It’s important that people understand what Vanguard is about and that it is not a ‘hard core’ only game. As always, the majority of the game is geared towards grouping and the ‘core’ gamer, but then also has plenty of content for both more casual gamers as well as more hard core gamers. It is also a game where you can log on, regardless of whether you are hard core, core, or casual, and accomplish things and advance your character whether you have only an hour to play or an entire day. Populating the world with mobs with varying threat levels, regardless of actual level, helps us achieve this goal. Having varying degrees of death penalties does also. And then so does having different spheres of advancement (adventuring, crafting, harvesting, and diplomacy).
So does meaningful travel, mechanics that keep groups together (like the Caravan offline travel system), advanced LFG systems that not only help you find other players of a certain level or class, but also more about who that person is in RL, how they play MMOGs, their preferences and dislikes, etc. In-dungeon teleportation like evacs and call to hero type spells allow people to play the game together even if one of them logged on later than his or her friends. The Fellowship system allows players to keep their friends close to their level by sacrificing some of their own exp, even if some of those friends don’t play as often. The Veteran system rewards replayability and gives alts a significant but not unbalancing advantage when equipped with higher level gear, assuming you also have another character on the same shard that is as high or higher in level as the gear you are equipping your new character with. Harvesting that can be done alone or in a group gives players more options. Crafting that involves risk vs. reward and tactics allows us to escape the monotony of earlier click-fest mechanics. Diplomacy allows players to advance their character in ways that don’t involve combat, allowing us to make faction systems that much more integral to the game as well as reveal story and lore more easily, not to mention more closely resemble quality fantasy literature which is not all about hack-n-slash but that also includes political conflict that isn’t always rewarded by who is the more powerful combatant.
Vanguard is the MMOG that many players have been waiting for, the game that is deeper, has more options and freedom of choice, and also more challenge if desired. The ability to customize your character when creating him or her is unparalleled. The number of outfits reflecting the gear you have earned (whether obtained from defeating a mob in battle, or found harvesting deep in a dungeon, or crafted using rare components, or as a reward for a quest or for overcoming a Diplomatic encounter) is also unparalleled.
You can travel just about wherever you wish in a truly seamless word. You can own a ship and sail the seas not on a ‘rail’, but wherever you want. You can buy a horse and then equip it with saddlebags for more storage, or better horseshoes such that it will run more quickly. You can even eventually own a flying mount and travel across continents and oceans high above the earth, seeing everything below you and at a distance only restricted by the horsepower of your computer. You can own your own house and decorate it with items not simply bought from a vendor, but with trophies won in battle – you can hang the head of a recently slain wyvern on your wall, or place the Troll King’s idol on your table for all visitors to see and appreciate. You can explore vast dungeons along with other players, invite new people into your group as others leave, or observe another group doing battle with a boss mob that you hope one day to defeat yourself. And you can take on a quest or encounter route with your friends in one of these dungeons, not have to worry about other players in the same area interfering with your quest or encounter route, and the boss mob or mobs that spawn when you complete such a quest or encounter route can’t be stolen or interfered with at all by other players (unless you decide to ask for help).
Anyway, I know I segued from talking about our next phase of death penalties into a more general description of the game, but I did so to illustrate what kind of game Vanguard is and how it allows you to do and experience things no other MMOG does. And I also again wanted to make the point that challenge, variety, depth, and options equal freedom, not tedium. All of the above does not make Vanguard a ‘hard core’ or ‘niche’ game like some have claimed it to be; rather, it offers you a game that is designed and architected to last for years, both from a technological standpoint as well as a gameplay standpoint – it’s about community, multiple ways to advance your character, more options, more challenge if you want it (though you don’t have to want it to achieve and to succeed).
It’s about freedom.
__________________
Brad McQuaid
CEO, Sigil Games Online, Inc.
Exec. Producer, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.
Brad McQuaid
CEO, Sigil Games Online, Inc.
Exec. Producer, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.
Not so nice guy!
Comments
Here is a link to the actual post.
http://www.vanguardsoh.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1278950#post1278950
Not so nice guy!
Really excited.. been following for about 3 years now, and I'm STILL excited. Don't dissapoint me, or there will be hell to pay.
All I can say is ... WOW .. if they manage to pull this off .. just WOW ...
The corpse thing made me not like this .. but damn if you put gear in your saddle bag for fire mobs or dragons .. then switch out to something else .. You would give Iron Man a run for his money. Sounds impressive , but we have been hearing things like this since 1999 from developers nobody has pulled everything they want.
This seems at least more realistic list.. Might be worth pre-ordering to check it out in the final stages.
There's free love on the Freelove Freeway.