I love this idea conceptually. Human-controlled bosses have existed before in MMOs. Such as the Bael'Zharon event in Asheron's Call. But that was a dev controlled boss. I agree it would only work in a trinity-free MMO, because any smart player controlling a boss would just jib healers or target switch a lot and rape less-defensive classes.
These sort of ideas are so good though, I'd love to see them implemented.
Someday we'll all look back on the age of computers - and lol.
Throw in the monsters as well. You start as a simple skeleton, you get to hang out with other undead and not be attacked, you're hunted by players, life is brutal, if you survive you grow up to be something like a lich some day. It's a good way to satisfy all these supposed hardcore people.
It would definitely be interesting. And much more difficult than just a regular COMP controlled boss.
Will players act like jerks when they play as bosses? Duh. But that would just add to the fun, IMO, because the players who are trying to take him down will have to rethink their strategy rather than just the normal tank and spank method.
They have this mechanic in Demon's Souls on the PS3.
When ever you are in the third zone of the game and you flag yourself for co op play, you can either be summoned by another player or you will be summoned as the boss of the end of the third world known as Old Monk.
It really is fun getting to play as the boss and play against that boss you know is controlled by someone else most of the time.
Thinking more and the responses come in. (Thank you all!)
There should be an incentive for players run bosses not just to stand there for an easy kill. Maybe the player gains loot for the amount of participation in the encounter. Sort of like a PQ. The Player run boss gets loot based on the amount of dmg it inflicts to the raid. The higher the damage the higher chance of exclusive boss loot it can get. If the player-boss stands there, then he wasted a "boss soul" (the rare drop that allows players to participate in raids as the Boss), receives no loot at the end. An afk timer of 60 seconds can be implemented too foe player-bosses. No activity means the player gets kicked and the boss resumes NPC activity.
What about those open world bosses we occasionally see. I remember those fun days in EQ when Dorn B Dyin would be a nuisance to young travellers , then you go to a big behemoth Sand giant would be pulled along the shores of Oasis of Marr... While not a true boss, the concept is the same. A big feller stomping around while getting pelted by anyone who dared attack it. You could run away if things got too dangerous, but when the big boy fell, my level 10 self enjoyed it.
---------- "Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
Thinking more and the responses come in. (Thank you all!)
There should be an incentive for players run bosses not just to stand there for an easy kill. Maybe the player gains loot for the amount of participation in the encounter. Sort of like a PQ. The Player run boss gets loot based on the amount of dmg it inflicts to the raid. The higher the damage the higher chance of exclusive boss loot it can get. If the player-boss stands there, then he wasted a "boss soul" (the rare drop that allows players to participate in raids as the Boss), receives no loot at the end. An afk timer of 60 seconds can be implemented too foe player-bosses. No activity means the player gets kicked and the boss resumes NPC activity.
What about those open world bosses we occasionally see. I remember those fun days in EQ when Dorn B Dyin would be a nuisance to young travellers , then you go to a big behemoth Sand giant would be pulled along the shores of Oasis of Marr... While not a true boss, the concept is the same. A big feller stomping around while getting pelted by anyone who dared attack it. You could run away if things got too dangerous, but when the big boy fell, my level 10 self enjoyed it.
If the boss-player and the raid are cooperating, they will be able to coordinate in such a way as to maximize the rewards. The boss will be jsut enough active as to get its bonus loot while not actually doing enough damage to the raid to wipe it. Then all of them decide which final outcome gives them more rewards and they steer the battle that way.
It would have to be a no-reward, bragging-rights-only thing for it not to be exploited that way.
well, to solve exploiting, there is one easy solution: dont give any reward for this fight (besides maybe "He defeated a Boss XXX played by player YYY". Be the reward only the fun you have from fight itself.
Thinking more and the responses come in. (Thank you all!)
There should be an incentive for players run bosses not just to stand there for an easy kill. Maybe the player gains loot for the amount of participation in the encounter. Sort of like a PQ. The Player run boss gets loot based on the amount of dmg it inflicts to the raid. The higher the damage the higher chance of exclusive boss loot it can get. If the player-boss stands there, then he wasted a "boss soul" (the rare drop that allows players to participate in raids as the Boss), receives no loot at the end. An afk timer of 60 seconds can be implemented too foe player-bosses. No activity means the player gets kicked and the boss resumes NPC activity.
What about those open world bosses we occasionally see. I remember those fun days in EQ when Dorn B Dyin would be a nuisance to young travellers , then you go to a big behemoth Sand giant would be pulled along the shores of Oasis of Marr... While not a true boss, the concept is the same. A big feller stomping around while getting pelted by anyone who dared attack it. You could run away if things got too dangerous, but when the big boy fell, my level 10 self enjoyed it.
If the boss-player and the raid are cooperating, they will be able to coordinate in such a way as to maximize the rewards. The boss will be jsut enough active as to get its bonus loot while not actually doing enough damage to the raid to wipe it. Then all of them decide which final outcome gives them more rewards and they steer the battle that way.
It would have to be a no-reward, bragging-rights-only thing for it not to be exploited that way.
I would hope players would coordinate that way. At least that behavior would make the event so boring that no one would want to waste the opportunity to play as a Boss. But as you say, if there is something to exploit, it will be exploited. i could respond in that raids and player bosses could not be able to chat, but with Vent/ teamspeak out there the point is moot. The point of course is to make the event FUN for all. FUN for the player boss to enjoy a role as a ultra powerful entity against an army of other players. FUN for the raid group because the Boss they are encountering will react unexpectedly and be more of a challenge.
have to admit posting an idea on the WoW forum along these lines years ago in an attempt to balance casual and hardcore raiders. The idea was the people raiding the hardcore raider
Anyway yeah, good thinking outside the box- that I think should be looked at further along with ideas like people playing races with different scenarios. For instance, a gnoll and defending a den versus the undead or something.
""Okay now it's your turn to use the boss to feed the raid free loot!"
If the rewards for Boss vs. Normal players aren't balanced extremely tightly, then all sorts of variations of the above statement will occur.
Differently skilled boss players ruins the intended "sweet spot of challenge" that a good boss monster provides. Bad players would be too easy; good players might be too hard.
Bosses are typically large, and therefore look ridiculous if they jump around as agilely as a typical player -- either that, or you have to implement rather harsh control limitations for the boss (which can potentially make it feel like it controls more sluggishly than necessary.)
There are more factors like these which just add up to player-bosses being an extremely difficult thing to implement in a fun way.
Better just to have interesting asymmetrical playstyles for players to pit against one another in PVP. At least in PVP if you want to have one player promoted to a powerful "Commander" of a battleground, the other team can get one too to achieve parity.
Few-against-many PVP is sort of flawed by its very nature. Looking back, it occurs to me I don't think I've actually played a game with different-sized teams where the PVP was rewarding and enjoyable. It's always spoiled by the population imbalance, which causes a dramatic power imbalance, which makes player decisions meaningless (and making interesting decisions is sort of the reason to play games vs. non-interactive media like TV.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Suppose a game offered the ability for players to play as Bosses they defeated? It could be in the form of a Boss soul for example. A rare drop.
If the player loots it, they get the option to play as the boss once. Players who won the prize are placed on a list. Much like a LFG list. When a raid or team has reached the spawn area of the Boss, the game asks the raid/ group if they wish to encounter a player run Boss. When they say yes, that executes a random call to players online who have won the prize.
If there are no players available/ willing then the game goes into default npc mode.
If a player accepts the role, the players avatar is suspended and "summoned" into the boss. A 30 second timer perhaps to begin. Players have access to all the skills the Boss gets. Player bosses get experience and loot depending on who they defeat. Raids get a higher chance to loot rare items when fighting player run bosses.
Could it be possible?
Well, there have been game where players/GMs could take over monsters. Most famous is probably Biowares Neverwinter nights (and Cryptics CORPG version might have this features too).
But your version wont really work practically. A better solution would be to give players a GM possibility where you can take over monsters in the game, but you must not have any characters on the same server. Say that you have 8 char slots and a GM slot, the GM selects a server which you don't play on, or even better in another region with the same language (like UK/US).
That would lead to some monsters would be played by humans and you couldn't be sure which until after you attacked it. Add a 1 minute cooldown before you could posses a new mob and a good tool for giving quests and it might just work.
This would be a good idea in games, which doesn't have predefined roles or classes like Mortal Online or Darkfall, Dawntide....
Having trinity roles is fine. The tank is the main role that would need a change up in its functionality. Tanking by being a tank. Hindering abilities actually working. Multiple tanks could perform certain things in unison like a push attack if boss is large. Healers/casters actually making use of the arsenal of escape abilities they are typically given. Rogues need to behave like rogues instead of just standing in the back?
A slight mechanics change-up to support much more mobile enemies.
However in games with classes it would be very difficult to balance. A tank, who can't aggro the boss would be pretty much useless.
So the tanks couldn't body block, hinder, shove, grapple, etc a boss? The gameplay would likely be less about spam heal, spam dps, spam taunts to something more "realistic". My vision of how it would function would actually leave healers with very little to do.
A healer, who gets attacked all the time also.
A taunt skill for example would have to change the tanks and healers appearance, so the boss player would have to decide, which one the fake is.
Or taunts could be another hamper ability that provide one of a number of functions that make sense.
They would also have to choose the bosses player randomly, so people can't play the boss for some friends and stand still, so they get faster the loot.
Defined roles (tank/heal/dps/cc) would still work fine even in a game without threat mechanics. There are already genres of games that function just fine without threat mechanics and defined roles/styles.
As far as MMORPGs, there are all those abilities that bosses have been immune to all these years just to enforce the mindless tank and spank gameplay. How about all those skills and builds that have been solely for pvp useage? There is so much more that could be done with a little bit of change up.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
concerning the usefullness of a tank that seems easily solved.If the same agro calcutations are used to force lock the boss that is being played to the tank you basicly get the same mechanics.Ofcourse the player boss would get a few tricks to counter this and the players fighting the boss will have tactics availlable to pull the agro (force lock).This also almost solves the problem with the player boss attacking the healler exclusivley so the healer gets a oposing skill to force lock wich renders the healer untargetable for a period of time ofcourse with a cooldown on the skill.
^tweak and balance this and it should work with a classic MMO raid party i think.It would become a sort of battle chess like most good MMO/RPG games.
I would A) Eploit it by giving my friends an easy kill or If I don't know the people I'm fighting, I'd try and kill them as best I can or C) Grief in the form of prolonging the fight and making it as boring as possible.
2/3 are bad for gameplay. The leftover choice doesn't give equal challenge to everyone since players playing the boss aren't equal in player skill.
Not a good idea when you start thinking about it. Too many problems.
For several years now, my friends and I have thought it would be a good idea to allow certain players - vetted by the game company if needed - to play low to mid-level mobs at various places/times in a game. Instead of a mob thus behaving/spawning predictably in a certain way and being easily exploited/farmed, a player in charge of a mob could make a much more enjoyable and challenging gaming experience. If the player running the mobs could maybe have another mob or two accompany them as "henchmen" or part of an animal pack, things might get even more interesting.
Say you were farming the usual old "ten wolf tails" only to find the wolves had a leader played by an actual player, and that player could maybe rally three or four wolves into an actual pack that stalked and hunted the enemy player. Maybe have humanoid mobs in small patrols that were comprised of about one player-run mob to every 4 or 5 NPC mobs.
I wouldn't think having players control mobs that dropped anything "epic" or "rare" would be a good idea, as this could be open to abuse... "I'll just stand there when you hit me and I won't fight back" kind of thing, but it would make for more interesting encounters in the rest of the game. It might even satisfy some of the need for PvP in games where PvP isn't that common - you have to kill mobs anyway, and if a player is controlling the mob you're fighting it might keep PvP'ers and PvE'ers happy at the same time.
Comments
I love this idea conceptually. Human-controlled bosses have existed before in MMOs. Such as the Bael'Zharon event in Asheron's Call. But that was a dev controlled boss. I agree it would only work in a trinity-free MMO, because any smart player controlling a boss would just jib healers or target switch a lot and rape less-defensive classes.
These sort of ideas are so good though, I'd love to see them implemented.
Someday we'll all look back on the age of computers - and lol.
Throw in the monsters as well. You start as a simple skeleton, you get to hang out with other undead and not be attacked, you're hunted by players, life is brutal, if you survive you grow up to be something like a lich some day. It's a good way to satisfy all these supposed hardcore people.
It would be fun & wild... I wanna be Cazic-Thule & Innorruk just so I can death touch people.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
It would definitely be interesting. And much more difficult than just a regular COMP controlled boss.
Will players act like jerks when they play as bosses? Duh. But that would just add to the fun, IMO, because the players who are trying to take him down will have to rethink their strategy rather than just the normal tank and spank method.
Good idea, I think.
If a company would try this in a mmog then it will be blizzard......the rest just isnt ready to try something this size project.
They have this mechanic in Demon's Souls on the PS3.
When ever you are in the third zone of the game and you flag yourself for co op play, you can either be summoned by another player or you will be summoned as the boss of the end of the third world known as Old Monk.
It really is fun getting to play as the boss and play against that boss you know is controlled by someone else most of the time.
http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/walk3-3-boss for more info!
Thinking more and the responses come in. (Thank you all!)
There should be an incentive for players run bosses not just to stand there for an easy kill. Maybe the player gains loot for the amount of participation in the encounter. Sort of like a PQ. The Player run boss gets loot based on the amount of dmg it inflicts to the raid. The higher the damage the higher chance of exclusive boss loot it can get. If the player-boss stands there, then he wasted a "boss soul" (the rare drop that allows players to participate in raids as the Boss), receives no loot at the end. An afk timer of 60 seconds can be implemented too foe player-bosses. No activity means the player gets kicked and the boss resumes NPC activity.
What about those open world bosses we occasionally see. I remember those fun days in EQ when Dorn B Dyin would be a nuisance to young travellers , then you go to a big behemoth Sand giant would be pulled along the shores of Oasis of Marr... While not a true boss, the concept is the same. A big feller stomping around while getting pelted by anyone who dared attack it. You could run away if things got too dangerous, but when the big boy fell, my level 10 self enjoyed it.
Finally - Best site for Chuck Norris
http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/
LOTRO MPvP
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
If the boss-player and the raid are cooperating, they will be able to coordinate in such a way as to maximize the rewards. The boss will be jsut enough active as to get its bonus loot while not actually doing enough damage to the raid to wipe it. Then all of them decide which final outcome gives them more rewards and they steer the battle that way.
It would have to be a no-reward, bragging-rights-only thing for it not to be exploited that way.
Did people enjoy the monster play of LOTRO? Could you earn a role as a boss type?
Finally - Best site for Chuck Norris
http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/
well, to solve exploiting, there is one easy solution: dont give any reward for this fight (besides maybe "He defeated a Boss XXX played by player YYY". Be the reward only the fun you have from fight itself.
Finally - Best site for Chuck Norris
http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/
have to admit posting an idea on the WoW forum along these lines years ago in an attempt to balance casual and hardcore raiders. The idea was the people raiding the hardcore raider
Anyway yeah, good thinking outside the box- that I think should be looked at further along with ideas like people playing races with different scenarios. For instance, a gnoll and defending a den versus the undead or something.
RaidBoss: AFK BRB 5 minutes ...mother in law Wife babycrying...
)
It's a risky venture for quite a few reasons:
""Okay now it's your turn to use the boss to feed the raid free loot!"
If the rewards for Boss vs. Normal players aren't balanced extremely tightly, then all sorts of variations of the above statement will occur.
Differently skilled boss players ruins the intended "sweet spot of challenge" that a good boss monster provides. Bad players would be too easy; good players might be too hard.
Bosses are typically large, and therefore look ridiculous if they jump around as agilely as a typical player -- either that, or you have to implement rather harsh control limitations for the boss (which can potentially make it feel like it controls more sluggishly than necessary.)
There are more factors like these which just add up to player-bosses being an extremely difficult thing to implement in a fun way.
Better just to have interesting asymmetrical playstyles for players to pit against one another in PVP. At least in PVP if you want to have one player promoted to a powerful "Commander" of a battleground, the other team can get one too to achieve parity.
Few-against-many PVP is sort of flawed by its very nature. Looking back, it occurs to me I don't think I've actually played a game with different-sized teams where the PVP was rewarding and enjoyable. It's always spoiled by the population imbalance, which causes a dramatic power imbalance, which makes player decisions meaningless (and making interesting decisions is sort of the reason to play games vs. non-interactive media like TV.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Well, there have been game where players/GMs could take over monsters. Most famous is probably Biowares Neverwinter nights (and Cryptics CORPG version might have this features too).
But your version wont really work practically. A better solution would be to give players a GM possibility where you can take over monsters in the game, but you must not have any characters on the same server. Say that you have 8 char slots and a GM slot, the GM selects a server which you don't play on, or even better in another region with the same language (like UK/US).
That would lead to some monsters would be played by humans and you couldn't be sure which until after you attacked it. Add a 1 minute cooldown before you could posses a new mob and a good tool for giving quests and it might just work.
Players are bosses, when you're talking about overpowered gear/equipment.
Defined roles (tank/heal/dps/cc) would still work fine even in a game without threat mechanics. There are already genres of games that function just fine without threat mechanics and defined roles/styles.
As far as MMORPGs, there are all those abilities that bosses have been immune to all these years just to enforce the mindless tank and spank gameplay. How about all those skills and builds that have been solely for pvp useage? There is so much more that could be done with a little bit of change up.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
concerning the usefullness of a tank that seems easily solved.If the same agro calcutations are used to force lock the boss that is being played to the tank you basicly get the same mechanics.Ofcourse the player boss would get a few tricks to counter this and the players fighting the boss will have tactics availlable to pull the agro (force lock).This also almost solves the problem with the player boss attacking the healler exclusivley so the healer gets a oposing skill to force lock wich renders the healer untargetable for a period of time ofcourse with a cooldown on the skill.
^tweak and balance this and it should work with a classic MMO raid party i think.It would become a sort of battle chess like most good MMO/RPG games.
Why is option #2 bad?
Give me liberty or give me lasers
For several years now, my friends and I have thought it would be a good idea to allow certain players - vetted by the game company if needed - to play low to mid-level mobs at various places/times in a game. Instead of a mob thus behaving/spawning predictably in a certain way and being easily exploited/farmed, a player in charge of a mob could make a much more enjoyable and challenging gaming experience. If the player running the mobs could maybe have another mob or two accompany them as "henchmen" or part of an animal pack, things might get even more interesting.
Say you were farming the usual old "ten wolf tails" only to find the wolves had a leader played by an actual player, and that player could maybe rally three or four wolves into an actual pack that stalked and hunted the enemy player. Maybe have humanoid mobs in small patrols that were comprised of about one player-run mob to every 4 or 5 NPC mobs.
I wouldn't think having players control mobs that dropped anything "epic" or "rare" would be a good idea, as this could be open to abuse... "I'll just stand there when you hit me and I won't fight back" kind of thing, but it would make for more interesting encounters in the rest of the game. It might even satisfy some of the need for PvP in games where PvP isn't that common - you have to kill mobs anyway, and if a player is controlling the mob you're fighting it might keep PvP'ers and PvE'ers happy at the same time.
I suggested this for LoTRO, and got flamed. so hey
Philosophy of MMO Game Design