Do what old school MMORPG's did and implement both low and high level content in the same zone. I miss this aspect a heck of a lot the more that i think back about it. I used to love seeing high level players in super cool armor running by my lowbie on his/her way.
Of course this requires a rethinking of how leveling works. The quest hub to quest hub approach will have to be altered in some way. I'm fine with that though as i'm tired of it anyway.
"Why not place end-game dungeons across low and mid-level zones?"
This is something I've said for years.
Heck, in EQ2 in Antonia Bayle, there is a dungeon for beginner players (it's a sewer system ordeal) but there is also a level that is much harder that would require a group or at least higher level players.
However, in Elder Scrolls Online, since every place levels to you, you will find that it doesn't matter where you are, you will probably see players.
City of Heroes would have missions that sent you back to lower level zones. Which is great. It added to the population of a zone.
They added ambushes to missions which spawned mobs outside the instance. They would spawn somewhere in the zone then move towards the instance location and set awaiting at a distance. So low level players would see these high level mobs running around and sometimes they would attack them or aggro them and die. A great benefit was that it added danger to the lower level zones.
I can't 'insightful', 'agree', and 'awesome' this, so you will have to settle with an 'awesome'.
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!
Most MMO's, imho, appear just to want players to rush to the end game. WoW is & again imho, the worst culprit. I like questing & will scour all areas to finish all q's, however even for crafting I "have" to do dungeons. I don't particularly want to be forced to do something that I, personally don't like anymore. ( usual prob: It's the tanks fault even when someone else fucks up). Scaling is good but there needs to be a better hook to get people to revisit old stamping grounds or even stay a while longer: random rare drops more in lower levels than higher, better ore,hide etc drops in lower levels, new q lines with good rewards that only appear at higher Char level but set in the scaleable lower levels. The list is endless if the dev's put their minds to it. I'm going back to ESO after doing legion as I love poking around in all the nooks & crannies.I'm only low level but am happy to just wander around looking, questing & just having fun,which at the end of the day is all that matters.
"Why not place end-game dungeons across low and mid-level zones?"
This is something I've said for years.
Heck, in EQ2 in Antonia Bayle, there is a dungeon for beginner players (it's a sewer system ordeal) but there is also a level that is much harder that would require a group or at least higher level players.
However, in Elder Scrolls Online, since every place levels to you, you will find that it doesn't matter where you are, you will probably see players.
City of Heroes would have missions that sent you back to lower level zones. Which is great. It added to the population of a zone.
They added ambushes to missions which spawned mobs outside the instance. They would spawn somewhere in the zone then move towards the instance location and set awaiting at a distance. So low level players would see these high level mobs running around and sometimes they would attack them or aggro them and die. A great benefit was that it added danger to the lower level zones.
I can't 'insightful', 'agree', and 'awesome' this, so you will have to settle with an 'awesome'.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
I fear that the levelmechanics in themselves is the problem here. Unless you use an oldschool mechanics like that night creatures are in a higher levelrange any zone is close to useless once you outleveled it (well, it still is with that mechanic but at least you have 2 ranges then).
For a zone to be constant useful you need a low powergap and mixed encounters which mean that there will be things you just can't beat when you first come to the zone.
I don't think the current generation of gamers are willing to have encounters in an open world zone where the only option is to run away.
I fear that the levelmechanics in themselves is the problem here. Unless you use an oldschool mechanics like that night creatures are in a higher levelrange any zone is close to useless once you outleveled it (well, it still is with that mechanic but at least you have 2 ranges then).
For a zone to be constant useful you need a low powergap and mixed encounters which mean that there will be things you just can't beat when you first come to the zone.
I don't think the current generation of gamers are willing to have encounters in an open world zone where the only option is to run away.
IMO FF11 and no FF14 have addressed this the best way with there Jobs , all the zones always have plenty of people levleing up other classes
2) If your game is already zoned (booo), then spread the difficulty level of encounters around the zone based on such things as land features and population zones. For instance, the roads and the towns would have the lower level encounters near them, while venturing out into the scary woods of silence would have mid level encounters and that dark cave at the far corner of the zone? Yeah, don't go in there unless you are max level with some decent gear. Bad shit awaits you.
I like this idea. I always wondered why most starter zones place you out in the middle of nowhere and then you have to battle and level your way to civilization. I think MMOs should start new players out in civilized areas (capital city or settlements) where you trade and craft and congregate and then place progressively more difficult content the farther you get away from those areas.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I personally love exploring new territory in mmos. Sure, take me back to old zones for seasonal quests or dungeons, but discovery has always been a huge part of the fun for me. This was a big reason why I stopped playing ESO. Tamriel is an amazing world, but most of it is locked. TG and DBH were an example of what I wasn't looking for with ESO. Orsinium was great and the effort fell off from that. Think of Skyrim. How many hours did we all spend simply walking around and exploring? Great gameplay will always have to have this element for me...too bad that Bethesda gave up on that with ESO. Could've been one of the greats
If a zone is empty its a cause of a few problems.
1) Your population has grown past it. You'll need to make it more challenging.
2) Its too difficult for the population.
3) There are little rewards compared to other zones.
4) Its simply boring or more tedious than your other zones.
Recognize the problem, and find the solution. Or just go to the forums and blame WoW, texting, liberals or conservatives.
Level scaling is a horribly devastating mechanic in a mmorpg. I would prefer not replacing a small problem (empty zones) with a huge negative mechanic (level scaling).. There are better ways.
Final servers and leveling servers could always be different. This is especially true in PVP games.
Take for example Aion. If they had say 3 servers that were only for new players(and say at 2x exp) and at the end of each month a server was opened and a server was deleted, it would make things more populated, more interesting, less twinked, and far more economically sound. When your server's term is up, you get to move to any normal server you want. In the final 3 weeks of a servers existence, guild representatives from the various guilds can ghost in to recruit.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
its ironical how Elder Scrolls series is one of my favorite game series ever and I have zero interest in ESO.
This is interesting as my TES background was a love of Morrowind, like of Oblivion and I'm on my 3rd attempt getting into Skyrim, but have lost a bit of interest....again.
Saying this, I'm loving TESO and have for the past 15 months. On the classes subject, I have 2 magicka DragonKnights (as well as 6 other alts). One DK is a heavy armour wearing S&B user with some utility to buff, DPS and off-tank; I may change up their skills with a respec to focus on being an out and out Tank.
My other DK is a light armoured wearing Destruction Staff wielding out and out DPS. I currently share 2 DK skills over my 2 ability bars and yet they play completely different....but same class! It doesn't feel like it in practice
- Have zones that live on their own. - Introduce mechanics that make crowded areas less rewarding and non crowded more. Could be dynamic loot systems, rare (and therfore more rewarding) spawn. - Mechanics to make it easier to "summon" group members or other forms of faster travel exclusively for groups. - Dynamic world, either manually changed by devs or gm or by dynamic world system like eqnext proposed.
Yeah, there are tons of answers to this, with the elephant in the room being "Maybe the fix is not using progression based on the XP/Level formula that was undeniably broken when there were only a dozen or so levels (ex: ADnD), let alone at 60-300 levels.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
Absolute answer: no. Games launch, people play them, people leave. So population declines. So the real question is what can be done to delay the inevitable.
Games that use megaservers have an edge; level scaling in some way - ESO's One Tamriel etc. - helps; having people go back and forth on quest - as was added in ESO with TG and DB dlcs say (the complaints about having to revisit old zones!) - helps; no specific end zone - check.
With no megaserver capacity could be set at less than the demand for specific servers - FFXIV style say. So you are always trying to keep a core populated. Game world restarts is another option.
At the end of the day though keep selling the product. Gold editions. Expansions. And so on.
The most common solution I've seen to this problem is a rebirth system. Allowing you to start over on your guy with higher base stats than you had before, which will ultimately pay off in the end, and can be done repeatedly to allow you to exchange vast amounts of your time for exponentially better end game stats. I was always a fan, I rebirthed 2 or 3 times on my favorite game back in the day.
its ironical how Elder Scrolls series is one of my favorite game series ever and I have zero interest in ESO.
This is interesting as my TES background was a love of Morrowind, like of Oblivion and I'm on my 3rd attempt getting into Skyrim, but have lost a bit of interest....again.
Saying this, I'm loving TESO and have for the past 15 months. On the classes subject, I have 2 magicka DragonKnights (as well as 6 other alts). One DK is a heavy armour wearing S&B user with some utility to buff, DPS and off-tank; I may change up their skills with a respec to focus on being an out and out Tank.
My other DK is a light armoured wearing Destruction Staff wielding out and out DPS. I currently share 2 DK skills over my 2 ability bars and yet they play completely different....but same class! It doesn't feel like it in practice
I get tired of telling this to the crowd that thinks they know all about ESO but actually don't when they say "only 4 classes? that sucks" or "It has classes? that sucks." Those 4 classes give you 20 core variants and then all of their offshoots when you combine select skills and armor procs.
There are literally hundreds of possibilities when you actually play the game and know what you're doing with it.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
If Blizzard applies what they did to Legion to the entire game of WoW, you would essentially have a game in which:
1. All the zones scaled to you.
2. All the mobs dropped loot appropriate to your level.
3. Dungeons and Raids throughout the entire world.
4. WQs/dailies throughout the entire world.
5. Credit for kills based on having participated in the kill.
If they modified it further to:
1. Spawn nodes throughout the world with all the various levels of materials so that there is no one place to farm.
2. Spawn WQs/dailies as you pass through an area not merely presented to you on a map as a list of things to do.
3. Credit for kills regardless of faction.
4. Replace Suramar ("somethings not quite right") type zones with faction zones/cities.
Will that create less empty zones? Not if the game populations are sinking.
You could make a good MMO that a lot of people want to play and a lot of new people want to try out even after launch. If your zones are empty maybe it's for reasons other than that you decided not to recycle your world areas. What is mixing in higher level players with the newbs even going to do, anyways? It'd only work for pvp off games and the only work it does is show each group other players they have no need to interact with. All of the friendships I've made online with players I met out in the game world started with both of us being at the same power level, doing the same content. It sounds like you just want the illusion of a busy zone and not the icky reality of having to interact with folk.
I don't see empty zones as an issue in-and-of-itself.
The actual issues are:
1) Can't find players to do group content
2) Overcrowding of a couple of locations at endgame
The first is the biggest problem in my opinion. It really doesn't matter if a zone is empty or not as long as you can still do the content. Sure, it's nice seeing other people running about, but its really not an issue unless you need to find a group.
The only way fix the problem is horizontal progression. You can either go proper horizontal progression, which would be awesome, or you can go with ESO's style with the level-syncing, so even though it has vertical progression, the syncing wipes it out.
Having quests that zig zag through zones, or mixing up the content in zones wont solve the issues, it will just put more people on the screen.
The second problem isn't much of an issue in my opinion. I always kind of liked the fact that there was a main hub at endgame. It gave you somewhere to hang out with others, made it easier for form endgame groups, gave u somewhere to fight duels, do crafting and trading etc. It can get a bit boring just hanging out in one place, but at some point in a themepark you're always going to run out of content and end up hanging out at the most convenient location.
When I last played everquest 1 they had a sort of solution to this problem. Have 10 possible zones where people can hunt at level 27 and each one has 3 players in it? Just make exp double in one of those zones and have the zone where it is double change week to week. Then you end up with 25 of the 30 in the zone with the higher exp.
EQ1 screwed up when they created "hotzones".....By doing that they removed any desire whatsoever to go to non hotzones.....Also with all the instant travel people didnt have to go through many of the other zones anymore...EQ1 went from a game of exploration and comraderie to a game of soloing with mercs and racing to end game.
Kyleran mentioned EVE but I'll throw in Ultima Online both of which never had this problem because they don't have the typical level gated zones of a theme park MMO.
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Comments
Of course this requires a rethinking of how leveling works. The quest hub to quest hub approach will have to be altered in some way. I'm fine with that though as i'm tired of it anyway.
I can't 'insightful', 'agree', and 'awesome' this, so you will have to settle with an 'awesome'.
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!
City of Heroes was AWESOME!
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
For a zone to be constant useful you need a low powergap and mixed encounters which mean that there will be things you just can't beat when you first come to the zone.
I don't think the current generation of gamers are willing to have encounters in an open world zone where the only option is to run away.
I like this idea. I always wondered why most starter zones place you out in the middle of nowhere and then you have to battle and level your way to civilization. I think MMOs should start new players out in civilized areas (capital city or settlements) where you trade and craft and congregate and then place progressively more difficult content the farther you get away from those areas.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
1) Your population has grown past it. You'll need to make it more challenging.
2) Its too difficult for the population.
3) There are little rewards compared to other zones.
4) Its simply boring or more tedious than your other zones.
Recognize the problem, and find the solution. Or just go to the forums and blame WoW, texting, liberals or conservatives.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
Take for example Aion. If they had say 3 servers that were only for new players(and say at 2x exp) and at the end of each month a server was opened and a server was deleted, it would make things more populated, more interesting, less twinked, and far more economically sound. When your server's term is up, you get to move to any normal server you want. In the final 3 weeks of a servers existence, guild representatives from the various guilds can ghost in to recruit.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
This is interesting as my TES background was a love of Morrowind, like of Oblivion and I'm on my 3rd attempt getting into Skyrim, but have lost a bit of interest....again.
Saying this, I'm loving TESO and have for the past 15 months. On the classes subject, I have 2 magicka DragonKnights (as well as 6 other alts). One DK is a heavy armour wearing S&B user with some utility to buff, DPS and off-tank; I may change up their skills with a respec to focus on being an out and out Tank. My other DK is a light armoured wearing Destruction Staff wielding out and out DPS. I currently share 2 DK skills over my 2 ability bars and yet they play completely different....but same class! It doesn't feel like it in practice
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
Games that use megaservers have an edge; level scaling in some way - ESO's One Tamriel etc. - helps; having people go back and forth on quest - as was added in ESO with TG and DB dlcs say (the complaints about having to revisit old zones!) - helps; no specific end zone - check.
With no megaserver capacity could be set at less than the demand for specific servers - FFXIV style say. So you are always trying to keep a core populated. Game world restarts is another option.
At the end of the day though keep selling the product. Gold editions. Expansions. And so on.
There are literally hundreds of possibilities when you actually play the game and know what you're doing with it.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
1. All the zones scaled to you.
2. All the mobs dropped loot appropriate to your level.
3. Dungeons and Raids throughout the entire world.
4. WQs/dailies throughout the entire world.
5. Credit for kills based on having participated in the kill.
If they modified it further to:
1. Spawn nodes throughout the world with all the various levels of materials so that there is no one place to farm.
2. Spawn WQs/dailies as you pass through an area not merely presented to you on a map as a list of things to do.
3. Credit for kills regardless of faction.
4. Replace Suramar ("somethings not quite right") type zones with faction zones/cities.
Will that create less empty zones? Not if the game populations are sinking.
Events
Meta Events
Rewards by Location special vanity items transmutations skins ....and so on
It can be fixed by it would cost ZOS a lot and they will never bother to fix it .....
The actual issues are:
1) Can't find players to do group content
2) Overcrowding of a couple of locations at endgame
The first is the biggest problem in my opinion. It really doesn't matter if a zone is empty or not as long as you can still do the content. Sure, it's nice seeing other people running about, but its really not an issue unless you need to find a group.
The only way fix the problem is horizontal progression. You can either go proper horizontal progression, which would be awesome, or you can go with ESO's style with the level-syncing, so even though it has vertical progression, the syncing wipes it out.
Having quests that zig zag through zones, or mixing up the content in zones wont solve the issues, it will just put more people on the screen.
The second problem isn't much of an issue in my opinion. I always kind of liked the fact that there was a main hub at endgame. It gave you somewhere to hang out with others, made it easier for form endgame groups, gave u somewhere to fight duels, do crafting and trading etc. It can get a bit boring just hanging out in one place, but at some point in a themepark you're always going to run out of content and end up hanging out at the most convenient location.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
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