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Loot hunting MMO like Diablo or Borderlands.
MattD
Member Posts: 18
Loot hunting would be a great feature for an MMO, it would be fun buying and selling rare weapons, also there would be no auction house so you can set up shop wherever you like.
So why wont developers use this feature?, I think its because of the damn gold sellers, they have destroyed any chance of us getting a feature like this.
Comments
What are you talking about? Pretty much half the games out there are like this. It's pathetic at best.
Unless you're talking about randomly generated loot, then yeah...... I totally agree. Very few had it and SWG was king till it was destroyed.
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I like arpgs the way they are. The last time they tried that formula in an mmo was hellgate and if they focused on making hellgate a full arpg rather then trying market it as an mmo it might not have failed. diablo, pso, sacred 2, borderlands..they are all multiplayer games, you just play with your group. i dont know how it would work in a persistent world but I don't think it'd be that good.
Make games you want to play.
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This is a subject dear to my heart.
I haven't played every mmo ever (probably not even close), but I do see that mmos don't use the same kind of loot distribution scheme as a Diablo type game. I first noticed it big time in SWG, but eventually I came around and learned to appreciate the player economy. A player economy is in many ways the same, just in a different context.
However, I then played wow, and was frankly sickened at the method of loot distribution. No player crafted economy (I can live without that), and all the bosses had extremely static and small loot tables (that's what really got to me). From my perspective, I think those minimal loot tables really hurt the game. Probably the most obvious negative effect was that once someone had the 2-3 pieces of gear they wanted from a dungeon, there was no need for them to go back. Everything decent was bind on pickup, so players truly had no motivation whatsoever to go rerun a dungeon. In a smaller guild, this is an extremely negative factor, as it means some players who were a bit unluckier could never count on their guildies to help them out and often would have to complete sets in pugs while fighting other pug players for their gear.
That's really just one of the negatives, although it is by far the strongest negative to the small and static loot table concept. The other big negative is that the concept forces developer to continually churn out new content because the existing content isn't setup as repeatable content. A lot of people claim to hate repeatable content but in my view repeatable content is the cornerstone of a good mmo. The simple fact of the matter is that devs cannot create content at an equal rate at which the content is used. Thus developers like Blizzard get stuck in a rut because they're always trying to keep up with new dungeon content, and thus they fail to enhance other aspects of the mmo experience such as crafting, player housing, politics, etc because they are always working on the next new dungeon which will be obsolete in three months.
Although I believe the OP is correct in that developers are gunshy because of the gold farmers, what they fail to realize is that gold farmers succeed through very specific mechanics that are in their favor. Easy gold dropping off of lower level mobs that can be bot grinded, static dungeon layouts that encourage easy botting, and static outdoor boss spawns that also encourage botting and easy coin generation. I'm sure astute players will notice a pattern emerging here, that being that not only are static mmos more boring for players, but more static mmos are more suitable for gold farmers. Once devs figure this out and make a mmo more random with less focus on currency, then the gold farmers are forced to gear out and compete with their characters, making the gold farmers a player like any other without inherent advantage.
I know that currency as the primary factor of trade has its advantages. There's a good reason why it is used in the real world instead of trading a chicken for a chunk of beef. However, in mmos currency serves to propel players and gold farmers into gold grinding and auction houses. Those are negative externalities in the mmo environment that serve to reduce player interaction (primarily through means of an auction house) and encourage gold farming (for all player) in lieu of actually going out to run dungeons and find gear. In that context, currency is actually damaging to the mmo, and I'm a big advocate of getting rid of it. In a proper item economy such as D2's, other aspects of "currency" emerge, such as 7% magic find small charms, or small poison charms. Stuff that is desirable to many characters, yet drops at enough of a measured rate to eventually turn into currency.
So there you have it. My manifesto on why today's mmo economies fail and why we should go back to an item based mmo without currency. Pick apart as you see fit. After all, I just wrote this up on the spot, so it's certainly not gonna be perfectly presented.
If I had a Diablo MMO I'd be set for life =D
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WoW is basically a Diablo 2 MMO. Loot treadmills, skill trees, warriors, wizards, and rogues.
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Blehh, D2 mmo? As long as it wasnt click to move and not 2d. Had a better ruleset than wow and didnt cater to casuals to much. Would like to see Bliz make a more gritty mmo. if iot flops you canalways change the ruleset to play like a kids game.
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Asheron's Call - best loot in game drops off of monsters randomly. You never know what you will get after killing a creature. A rat could drop an amazing sword for example.
Also there is no auction house, there is a marketplace and people set up bot vendors there.
Indeed.
@OP ;
Closest ever to what you mention was Mythos.
What is now Torchlight (singleplayer, to be released in next days) and later to be developed as MMO. ( estimated release 2011 )
WoW is basically a Diablo 2 MMO. Loot treadmills, skill trees, warriors, wizards, and rogues.
Worst statement of the year.
WoW uses static loot tables. Everybody can and often gets the same gear. Diablo had random loot tables. Plethora of mods. It also had stat variety, minimums and maximums, so older players would be looking for perfect stats, and newer players would get good items with imperfect stats cheap.
You can't place your own stats in WoW, to further add to generic build every WoW player has until endgame.
D2 had randomly generated dungeons/caves/etc.
D2 had shrines, crafting, horadic cube, gems AND runes. Yes, WoW already took some of these ideas. I think WoW crafting is bland though. D2 is simple, and effective.
D2 wasn't target based (unless you held it down) and had a lot of splash damage. Lot's of AoE damage. In that aspect it felt like a 2D FPS. Meaning you had to actually dodge, not just have a stat that randomly dodged for you when you watch everything actually hit them because it's target based (boring).
You could use other classes skills in WoW, because items had random skills, or unique items had special abilities from other classes. That allowed for some REALLY interesting builds (until everyone went enigma for teleport - which they would fix if they still were around).
D2 player's builds varied a lot more than WoW, because in WoW you get most of the skills no matter, then just use talents to modify them slightly. Whereas in D2 you commit to a tree or a mixture of a true.
D2 didn't have player inspection. Sucks imo. Doesn't even make sense immersive wise. I'd even prefer not displaying levels. Levels have nothing to do with a fantasy world. 2Moons doesn't display levels or equipment.
D2 had gambling.
D2 mechanics placed very heavy emphasis on player level, item level, item requirement, monster level, area level, etc. and it had the great item system as a result. I'd imagine SWG probably was better.
WoW is crap. Played it for 3 years. It's pros were lost after BC.
If they could improve D2 they would make it even more PERCENTAGE based, not hardcoded numbers like WoW (Frostbolt 1 = 21-29 damage, etc).
Agreed. Excellent dynamic loot sytem and a great crafting system to help further customize and specialize gear.
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I'd be quite content with PSO II.
But that'll never happen, since Sega seemed to have forgottten how to make good games these days. (I can barely wait for D3 though)
Agreed w/OP.
Borderlands has one hell of an awesome randomized loot table (and one of the most catchy intros/songs imho www.youtube.com/watch). Also it reminds me a lot of a sort of "Trigun" setting sans Vash... but I digress.
Diablo 1 and 2 were/are the best with mainstreaming randomized everything. Mythos had a lot of good ideas that never came to fruition (miss my gadgeteer gunslinger!) Um, Dungeon Runners did an awesome job of filling where Diablo 2 left off (sadly they're shutting down in the near future, but a ton of tongue in cheek humor towards gear)
If the next MMO project Blizzard is working on incorporates the randomness of DIablo 1 and 2 (since games seem to be leaning towards instancing anyways) it could help keep games fresh
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I didn't put that much time into Hellgate, but Borderlands seems like the exact same game without the suck. I'm not quite sure what MMO features Hellgate even had, as I only played beta and used my GF's copy of it to mess around for a while (seem to vaguely recall having to use her account, so I guess that'd be one MMO-like feature.)
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I didn't put that much time into Hellgate, but Borderlands seems like the exact same game without the suck. I'm not quite sure what MMO features Hellgate even had, as I only played beta and used my GF's copy of it to mess around for a while (seem to vaguely recall having to use her account, so I guess that'd be one MMO-like feature.)
Technically speaking, HGL was very far from a mmo. I was one of the people (and still am as a matter of fact) who doesn't believe all of the "rules" of being a mmo are necessary to be a mmo, and I argued that HGL could very well be a mmo in my book. After playing it though, yeah, it wasn't even close. Good old D2 had a lot more replayability. Such a shame really. I felt bad for flagship, but they really brought it upon themselves with overhype and under delivery.
OMG you like soooooooo like stated my thoughts.
PSU just fucking sucked, nothing has that good old PSO v1 feeling, but episode 3 for GC was pretty good excdept the same problems that killed v1, killed ep.3
In any case, I'm also hoping for some PSO remake.
And thus, I'm also waiting for D3 ... in fact, out of all the games, its the one and only game I'm truly excited for.
WTB Shadowbane 2
Torchlight MMO will be exactly that. An action mmo where you dungeon crawl for loot and other stuff.
And made by many of the original D2 developers and producers. It's quite possible that Torchlight could actually be a vastly superior game to D3. I'm looking forward to D3 of course, but I don't have much respect for Blizzard and they will need to prove they can still make an edgy non-carebear game. It's the design of the D2 variable loot system that really made it shine, and one should wonder if Blizzard is capable of such a feat after creating such a static loot treadmill in wow. Obviously, different games, but culture does cross team borders, and the people who were responsible for D2's success are no longer at Blizzard.
wtb
And made by many of the original D2 developers and producers. It's quite possible that Torchlight could actually be a vastly superior game to D3. I'm looking forward to D3 of course, but I don't have much respect for Blizzard and they will need to prove they can still make an edgy non-carebear game. It's the design of the D2 variable loot system that really made it shine, and one should wonder if Blizzard is capable of such a feat after creating such a static loot treadmill in wow. Obviously, different games, but culture does cross team borders, and the people who were responsible for D2's success are no longer at Blizzard.
Exactly. Couldn't have said it better myself. They basically have been living off other people's creativity for ages. Runic games, the makers of Diablo, Fate and Mythos will be making the Torchlight mmo. It might not be the most innovative thing but I think it is going to be fantastic in terms of graphics, music and gameplay.
For those who dont know.
"like Diablo or Borderlands" = a subgenre of RPG games called ROGUELIKE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike
Diablo had almost all the characteristics of what is considered a Roguelike game, Diablo 2 and other games changed some of the characteristics but kept the "randomization" of dungeons, and dinamic random generated loot tabbles and the idea of never ending, long term vertical character progression.
Nowadays games are losing the long term aspect, trying to deliver longevity mainly through loot, wich is still somewhat accepted by the majority. Other than that, level/skill/proficiences (that add to character power) all have a maximum of a few days to reach level cap, unlike true Roguelike games where you could keep playing and evolving in a steady pace for many months. (Diablo 2 vs Diablo 2 LOD shows this transiction).
To the main point.
It hasnt been done in MMOs, simply because the randomization aspect conflicts with the balance aspect.
UO MMORPGs School of Thought made games where balance affected different play styles, but not different classes, and all characters could do everything, so everyone could do everything and it wasnt a big issue if a certain style or strategy was better than other, because everyone could do it.
In Everquest MMORPGs School of Thought, also know as linear games, balance is an issue due to the fact that players cant do everything, so all the different possibilities are divided ammong character and having one possiblity that is superior to others would create a situation where people couldnt overcome the inferiority unless they had to start over (this happens in "class based" games where certain classes are arguably stronger than all others).
For the purpose of this thread I will have to differentiate balance. I will call homogeneous balance and heterogenous balance.
Homogeneous balance is when all characters can do everything and different play styles affect everyone equally. In sandbox games with skill based systems, everyone can and achieve the same things, what changes is what you choose to do now or later, therefore when something is unbalanced, a change affects everyone or when it doesnt change the effect is that everyone flow goes to that specific gameplay style. ex.: when everyone can use spells and swords, but spells are stronger, so everyone focus on magic and more specifically a certain spell, then if it becomes an issue where sword gameplay is not viable developers come and balance between spells and sword, and such homogeneous balance affects everyone indistinctivelly, since everyone could at any time use spells or swords.
Heterogeneous balance is when characters have to choose a linear path, and their gameplay experience is limited by that path, example: having to choose a class that will ultimatelly define wich are the skills/abilities you can or cant use, it often comes with class based gear, the concept of builds (wich attempts to give an illusion of uniqueness, but ends up creating a division where skills are stetical therefore worthless or strong therefore overpowered making the players flow focus on those defeating the uniqueness aspect of it while slaving everyone of a limited class to a determined playstyle) and character progression based on levels, used as pre-requisites/conditions. Besides the dozens of game breaking genre slaving side effects the Everquest MMORPGs school of though have the notion of heterogeneous balance is one of the stronger. It is a core design decisions that works in a net of other design decisions and features and base many others. It makes it so developers always have to balance the game after the flow of people, wich is a recurring phenomn that always lives scars and piss people off due to the developers inability of balancing a game in such circumnstances. They cant, its an exercise in futility and the last generations have learned to keep quiet and do nerf wars on forums, ridiculous publicitary campaigns attempting to force developers to "balance" games, always misleading and lead by vocal minorities who doesnt have 10% of the knowledge of the game mechanics the developers who made the game have, but they end up driving masses of people, the flow to their intended direction, devs have no choice, end up breaking the balance even more, game sucks, people quit, everything falls down, see you in the next hyped game.
Conclusions:
MMORPGs evolved from Everquest School of Thought, and Roguelike games (like Diablo, and newly released Borderlands and Torchlight) are inside that philosophy's area of effect.
One thing is a single player game, or an online multiplayer game with public servers and characters stored localy.
Because you dont have a fair ground where all the community is bound by the same rules and limitations of power, being able to compare themselfs and cause effect to each other. And as so, balance is not as important as it would be in a massivelly multiplayer online game where everyone has to play the game in the same rules, with permanent characters stored on protected servers, with anti-cheat softwares, offering the SAFEST POSSIBLE (yet not 100% safe) ENVIRONMENT for COMPETITIVE GAMEPLAY.
The last one, is the MMORPG route, as opposed to multiplayer online game with characters stored locally and no anti-cheat solutions and add to that cd-key verifications, so that people who cheat are risking something, thats important (we dont have that in F2P games, so all people need to do is make another account and maybe change the ip).
MMORPGs require balance. But roguelike games brings TWO INHERENT PROBLEMS:
1. Safety: roguelike games were never made for safe/fair environments, and even thought Battle.net is the closest thing possible to that, we all know its historic problems (duplication of items, bots, maphacks, etc). Perhaps in Battle.net 2.0 things will be different.
Not saying it cant be done, Im just saying it was never done before and it will be a challenge to make it so.
Now to the main problem:
2. Imcompatibility between Balance and Randomization. In linear games such as MMORPGs industry nowadays, if you add random loot tables you break that core net structure that affects multiple design decisions. You take away developers control. They cant balance the game, because they cant prevent people from "rolling" better gear over and over.
This prevent the purpose of limiting player POWER with all the classes, levels, skills to manageable levels. Eventually you will have hardcore gamers that after thousands of drops, managed to get a single weapon (since he doesnt need more than one, just THAT ONE) that makes him a god and allows him to break the game.
Can you guys understand now? If you want balance, you have to limit randomization. If you limit randomization to manageable balance levels, it loses its appeal. The whole purpose of roguelike games is to get better and better gear, thus becoming more and more stronger, in ROGUELIKE GAMES YOU RIP THE INNER SCROTUM OF BALANCE, thats what you do.
I don't have a great deal to add to this topic, but I do feel inclined to say:
Borderlands. Freakin' awesome. I'd love an MMO version.
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Im not digging the art direction of D3. It seems to me that blizzard is catering towards the WoW crowd and not the Diablo crowd.
The MMO you're looking for is Dungeon Runners, but it's being shut down on New Years Eve.