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Poll: How many people would play a game likes this?
Originally posted by Sovrath
Originally posted by spookytooth
ya know, even some invasions can help somewhat. I remember the first time I returned to turn in my quests, only to find a "major life invasion" occupying the quest hub. So a bunch of us fought it out with these interlopers and took it back. That was a breath of fresh air. Because I was riding on rails through the quests and finally something meaningfull happened that woke me up and got me involved. The game needs a lot more of that. Not just optional, but essential.
I completely agree.
It was the invasions that took quest areas or that made it so that players had to deal with them, that were interesting and really spiced things up.
I took this quote from the Rifts NDA thread because I wanted to ask a poll question about a theoretical game with a variation on this mechanic
The idea is the game has many quest hubs, you know the drill, BUT each quest hub is constantly being invaded. While its invaded you cannot turn in any quests or receive any quests. Imagine you are questing in a war zone, doing miltary missions as some sort of freelance recon mercenary and the frontlines are constantly shifting.
Quest HUBs would be invaded AT LEAST 50% of the time. An invasion would take take multiple people a number of minutes to clear out and possibly have multiple waves. Ie. Real cooperation and substantial time, not forever but enough to not be a steam roll.
Probably as a balancing factor any HUB that has been unused by players for say 2-3 hours would have allied NPCs do their own invasion. Or something to make it not a complete dead end. Similarly if the invasion are getting cleared ALOT and QUICKLY then make nastier larger ones with more waves. I know that this is possible because COH has done it with Rikti invasion events (which are automatically done and not GM driven). That even works quite well in many ways and could be adapted
Obviously there would potentially be major population issues in this paradigm if you gate leveling in zone with somehting that requires other people to get anywhere there can be problems when most people are leveled out of that zone. Or vice verse too many people and you are back to on rails predictable questing.
Comments
There is something you totally over looked into your theory.
The game is now dynamic, so ye the players will have to be dynamic too, and not stay like cow watching a train passing, they have to move their ass, join up together and do somethign about it. Also they are in the process of tweaking the rifts spawn so that it won't overwelm the player, and the player won't overwelm them.
And your poll is just like not at his true spot, something just doesn't sound correct about it, as if you haven't played the game.
This game has something for everyone. Crafter, explorer, end game raiders, soloers, PVP players, gatherers, collectors. This MMO is full package in terms of features a trypical MMO player expects.
So i am quite confident that anyone who was burned by bad launches for last 4 to 5 years would enjoy the polish and quality of RIFT. the biggest draw for this game is that it is coming with lots of end game dungeons on normal and expert settings. You don't have to sit and level cap and eat empty promises of devs.
Who could have thought that WOW could bring super power like USA to its knees?
Originally posted by Arcken
To put it in a nutshell, our society is about to hit the fan, grades are dropping, obesity is going up,childhood the USA is going to lose its super power status before too long, but hey, as long as we have a cheap method to babysit our kids, all will be well no?
Im picking on WoW btw because its the beast that made all of this possible
I would try it. It might get aggravating to have to clear out the invasion mobs to turn in quests or complete quests though.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
well you missing the option for no quest hubs at all, need to get rid of the quest hubs all together imo - do not read this as all quests, but alone the quantity of quests in RIFT turns me off completely, solo quests lines is what made me really dislike EQ2 from the RoK expansion and forward - yes Im still playing the game, but opposite to my first 4 years in the game I do not log in anymore outside of raidhours, and ofc the odd hour here and there...
but to me EQ2s quests is actually fun compared to RIFTs, which I thought wouldnt be possible.
less hubs more connective, deep and most important mainly group based quests, but ofc the usual "while waiting for group or only have 30 min to play" quests....which is how I see solo quests like
The game is incredible, the invasions are sporatic and even though, at times, they may kill the quest givers, overall it has little impact on your play. Most invasions are quelled and there are also mutliple hubs for quests so you will be able to go from place to place.
This has been one of the most enjoyable (and almost entirely bug free) betas I have EVER played over the past 10-15 years. I a was constantly sitting back and thinking, "wow, this is only the first twenty levels..."
Such fun and with the great stability, graphics and the community working together, it rates at the top of my list of games to look forward to.
The problem with this, and this is how I voted, is population. Just like in Warhammer, on this ONE thing (I do not think Rift is LIKE Warhammer), but if there are not but two people around and there's an invasion......"Houston we have a problem."
In beta this wasn't an issue, however.....later on, it will BECOME an issue. If I'm say level 14 and I'm in an area to turn in a quest and it's invaded, and most people have out leveled that area and moved on and I'm stuck waiting to turn in a quest because I cannot fight off an invasion alone....I am a cranky bitch, let me tell you.
WAR's PQs were fun in beta too. They were NOT, however, as fun once most of the players had leveled PAST the lower areas and you wanted to do the PQs.
I mean....I'm just sayin'.....it CAN be a problem for a few different reasons.
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You make a good point and one that I think needs to be addressed at some point in the future. I thought about this after scanning some of this thread, but you beat me to it. I believe the thought may have to be that, later after the servers have been around for a bit, the invasions will have to remain minor for quite a bit longer???
Levels = a large part of what is wrong with game design
Be better if you started out a base level of power and your "levels" were really just specializing and getting better at whatever niches you wanted to fill. Sure someone who had played longer could be vassssssssssstly more powerful but even a brand new player would be able to contribute or help.
On the subject, I love the idea. Invasions hitting and wowwwww fun.
I haven't played Rifts and don't really care if I do. I am simply interested if people would play a game where they randomly had to fight to even be able to quest.
I don't care or expect Rifts to work that way.
See questing is predicable. Completely predictable. You can plan what you get and what routes you take etc. So is adding in a factor that randomizes and adds some sense of communiity going to be well received?
This is not a comment on Rifts. Nor even an analysis of rifts. This is simply my curiosity to see if the sentiments shared by some rifts players are actuallly a good game feature in a broader context and when taken to a greater extreme
Only thing I can say for you is to try it out. I have definately grown into a gamer that loves progressive, quest-driven play and I had nothing but fun in these two beta events. I truly do not think you would have a problem with it as the invasions do not spawn on top of quest hubs at all. Some times they will invade or, if the rift is closed soon enough, they will move towards hubs or citys, but that takes a while and there is usually enough people in an area to take care of it. (See my post above about post-beta)
Yes the problems with many features like this is they seem good at first. Indeed they are fun at first. But eventually may become more of a chore than fun. Or the reverse could happen. You dislike having your normal questing routine disturbed and would not appreciate it until you started to feel the questing is very repetitive and predicable.
However I believe its possible through a) good design by developer and b) good interactions of a community to make the chore feeling not much of an issue.
In the end whether we are talking about Tabula Rasa control point or COH styke Rikti invasion or Rifts rift invasions. They will all be somewhat formulaic.
However you never know what other people will do and formulaic does not have to mean predictable. Rikti invasions are formulaic in COH but you never quite know exactly how they will turn out. You know if you have enough people and you defeat the first number of normal waves you can get a wave of Elite Bosses but exactly how these waves turn is fairly unpredicable.
I think the key components are involving the community and unpredictabilty. I would say that questing in its current state in MMOs lacks these features the most. And that something like this can, possibly, add those in.
But the fact of the matter is some people like predicable routines. For them I think this would simply be unacceptable.
Unless they scale back the invasion rate for release, most of the quest places WERE invaded 50% of the time, while some were under a constant attack. This sounds bad on paper but it was insanely fun to see a bunch of people band to gether to push back forces from an area. Trion has also included ways for players to call in NPC's "armies" should there be no PC's around to help out but it is NOT an easy button and can fail if the invasion is too strong. Overall, I think I spent more time and had more fun running around between rifts and invasions than I did actually questing since you get a fairly decent amount of XP from doing them, not to mention good loot.
One thing I see overlooked by people about this game is the sound effects. They are amazing. When you have 30+ people battling a rift or invasion, it sounds like war and total chaos. Each type, be it fire, water, exc., has different sounds affiliated with it and effects the areas around them accordingly. (ie burning trees, ground, creatures) It really pulls you into it and lends itself to a very fun time.
Ah but see, I am more like Sovrath. I think I would prefer if they did spawn on quest HUBs.
In fact I think I would prefer a game where the questing infrastructure was in constant tumult and chaos. I don't expect Rifts to do this. Its not a safe play for a developer at all. I am sure it works as you described and was designed to do so.
Perhaps a game that opted to do this instead of the safer play Rifts is doing would be doomed to be niche I dunno. But that seems quite possible to me.
But in general this is not actually a new feature created by Rifts. These sorts of things have been around in MMOs for at least 3-4 years. COH has been doing this stuff very well for 3 years (way way better than other MMOs of the last 3 years). I hope that Rifts pulls it off successfully. I found control points in Tabula Rasa to be very fun.
However I think features in this vein have alot of potential that is not really being taken advantage of. Often relegated to "just for fun" occasional events to spice things up or give some special badge. I like the idea that Rifts will (probably) let you get significant xp just by closing rifts.
However what if we go an entire step further? What if dynamic events like this have a large and broad ranging effect on how you play the game? Clearly this would be difficult to pull off. Rifts is playing a safer game by simply layering more prevalent dynamic content onto a tried and true quest model and nit letting either one be a significant burden on the other. I think that is a fine first step. There is no reason for Rifts to bet the farm on something that could be extremely problematic.
But theoretically as just a sort of thought experiement what if we did do this extreme step and made the not so safe design decision of having these two feature actively interfere with each other?
What do think would happen if Trion released 3 server types based on invasion frequency and location?
Something like:
1) Low frequency and not that close to key places
2) Medium frequency and sometimes close to key places
3) High frequency and absolutely anywhere
Would this be a good idea? Is there any reason to not have one type for everyone?
Well the concept itself is really predicated upon having quests.
So if you dislike a quest system that intensely I would mark "Sounds like crap". Same thing for people who hate quests because they want only pure sandbox.
unless the rifts scale to the current population in that particular area.
my thought is that a good game world would have a full invasion of a lower end area. Ok, no problem as of yet... but then that invasion starts effecting higher end area. no trade of a particular material found only there, or taxes in that area go unpaid to the castle land holder. Essentially forcing other players to descend on the area and make it right.
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I would encourage you to try a Rikti Invasion in CoH.
CoH has a concept of "unleveled" monsters. Intially this was only for Giant Monster so that all players could fight it simultantouesly and do a similar relative amount of damage (ie. a level 5 or a level 50 hit the mob for a corrected amounr of damage that winds up being similar).
When they implemented Rikti Invasion they made all mobs whether bosses or minions be "unleveled" consequently whenever the event triggers you can see a vast array of different leveled characters particpating in the event and onctributing well.
Now a level 50 still has more powers and more enchancment slot in there powers. But this systems workls very well for this sort of stuff and it is really a shame other games do not copy it.
Not only does everyone controbute at least decently. But it makes high level character unable to solo an event they should not be soloing.
IIRC the rifts were scaled, the danger of them, frequency and number being adjusted towards the number of players in an area. Of course, it all depends on how well that scaling is being done to see if it works as smoothly while still being challenging but not impossible.
There was also the case that when rifts are becoming dominant because for example few players were online or busy elsewhere, then they have the mechanic that the rifts of the 6 planes are at war among themselves too, keeping eachother in check in some measure, Life attacking Death mobs, Fire vs Earth and Water etc.
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Ok i understand your concern, its totally valid, and i made the same point in the french beta test forum about that exact thing.
But if i can make a very bad parallel it would be the same as in Aion when you got invaded by the other faction, and you'll just watch and shut up, and do not react about it.
You will have to make other people know you need help there so they can come help you, if you just wtach and do nothing, well you'll do nothing. Also you don't need that much people to close a rift (in closed one with a duo without healer), an invasion its lot harder.
And yes thats definitly one thing they really have to work in the next few beta, they need to put some more comunication medium available for players. Like implement a kind of automatic grouping when people enter a rift or invasion zone, and they need to put a link on the world map that can be called and send in the chat box as it was in Aion, so people got better reactions and coordinations. Stuff like that.
Yeah, seeing the various rifts actually begin fighting one another when opposites collided was really cool. I think more than a few times I just sat and watched it with a little popcorn. lol
If it does scale based on the amount of people in the area, and it works like its supposed to, then that seems like the right way to do it. It seemed like there was at least 10+ rifts/invasions at any one time in just that one area cause of the concentration of people so that does make sense. I never saw any get totally out of control except when they got a foothold setup on that tiny island that let them send forces nearly constantly so that small group was under a constant attack.
Hard to say how it will work in practice but the beta1 rifts were soloable as were the invasions. Theoretically the rift content is dynamic and scales to the players. So when the population decreases the levels and difficulty of the rifts and invasions should also scale down.
Also there were npc heros or something that showed up sometimes to help fight off the rifts or invasions. So the world wont' get overrun the good guys will eventually rally and fight them off. Rifts also have timers and automatically close after awhile.
But yes if a foothold took over a quest hub with group mobs you would be screwed and it wouldn't be fun but I'm guessing a quick shout for help in your guild channel would summon some higher lvl players to come to your aid
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