I think not every dungeon needs to be the same in it's design. Every duneon Trsh free would be boring. And to be fair The Secret Worlds dungeons are not completely trash free. All Dungeons there have at least a couple of trashmobs. But the ration of time you spend clearing them vs killing the bosses is in clear favor of the bosses.
I kind of liked the mechanic of having a trash-respawn, as a definite measure for failure, if you can't lear fast enough to get through before the respoawn you have to admit defeat and normally just give up. I liked some of the challenging Trash Groups in WoW dungeons, when you where 5 against 7 and needed to creatively use the crowd control, kiting and tanking capabilities of your group.
Bad recent example is Guild Wars 2 with it's etra long Explorable dugeons with extralong healthbar trashmobs. Tedious and not fun at all. (The whole DUngeon experence, from grouping over time requirements, boss mechanics to risk versus reward is completely off putting and the games biggest weaknes)
Some Trash is needed to introduce mechanics and if there is some satisfaction in slaying them, fine, but some games obviously use them as slowdown and then it feels cheap.
Originally posted by shastaman401 Trash is part of the crawl... don't like the trash? Don't do the crawl...
I am not so sure they have to be. Anything that isnt challenging really have little place in a raid or dungeon.
Trashmobs are fine in the open world, things should really be of different difficulty there but in raids they just leads to people sitting bored and rotate their skills. Upping the loot is not really the right way to handle them either unless you also make them more challenging and fun to fight.
I think MMOs needs to do a better job to cut out the boring parts, fewer and harder trashmobs with a bit better loot would actually help doing this without adding more work for the devs. Win Win as I see it.
Originally posted by shastaman401 Trash is part of the crawl... don't like the trash? Don't do the crawl...
Shrug, essentially. All a pacing mechanism.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Dungeons should involve skill based challenges. Like you should need two competent lock pickers, someone good at disarming traps, and those who can detect hidden levers and mechanisms. Not all on one character, each of these abilities should be something a character has to focus on.
There should also be charisma checks, and parts where you have to platform, puzzle solve, and use raw strength, climbing ability, stealth, etc.
There's SOOOO many things they could add, including randomized parts of dungeons that act as a maze, that would make it more than just combat combat combat boss fight, repeat. The amount of trash clearing could be reduced, along with the normal amount of tedium and grindyness that is felt when playing these dungeons.
Need developers with balls to get it done though.
That's true +1 men.
For example, in EQ1 you got zones so big that seems a maze, and actually EQ1 didnt work too because its really outdated for the thinks you could do now.
But I dont know about other game with many "rubish" spells that actually come to be usefull in some situations.
INVIS: You had it for a random time between few secs to 10mins and you don't know. It can leave an entery group trying to figth to survive in a very difficult part of the dungeon. Remember that EQ1 had many roamers and an agro really anoying some times.
SHRINK or GROW: Useless unless you are a big race, just for the fun of it, makes a the world more credible, spells that dont have a use in combat, yet they exist for some purposes. Today's games just have skills or spells to kill, you don't really interfere with the world, your character doesn't "exist" in it.
LEVITATE: The worldmap or mazes just need it for survive...
And more spells that with time and expansions became more a more useless because you got AAs with Passive skills or a great magic armor with it.
Also, today you just farm a dungeon because from that dungeon you get the Full set of blablabla, before that exist different pieces of armor, from different places, different bosses and they combined irregularly to give you a bit more of INT or HP or CHA... etc. I think today you don't create a world where your char have to live, survive, grow, etc...
And I'm not defending EQ1, his craft sucks, you got also a interesting craft and involving world in UO, but today it seems too difficult for them to creat so big worldmaps, mazes and so many details to keep them really cool.
GW2 for example have the jumping Puzzles and really big maps, with many details and it cost them a lot of time for work in them and even with that, the world doesn't have this live the old ones got. Its a game for PVP or WvWvW, thats it.
First scene: you attack the bad guy and kill him after 3 minutes of intense fight.
Credits.
End.
Isn't great?
Yes, every mob can have an own personality, skills, etc, but does it worth the effort?
Try to enjoy the journey, and not only the arrival, A long travel is the best appetisers known.
I am usually one to smack down analogies - but this hit the nail on the head.
Trash may feel like a pointless time-sink, but the amount of time (regardless of difficulty) that it takes you to reach a boss before engaging him adds to the excitement of defeating said boss. It is one of many mechanisms used to enhance the feeling of victory.
The thing about TSW is that The instance your in is rarely the end of that story. Hell Dimensions story for example is in 3 parts, and we don't even know if its over yet or not. Polaris ties to Ankh and Facility Ties to Slaughterhouse. If you go and read the lore Polaris also ties to Darkness war aswell.
If there is one thing in TSW i have learned is that to never think the story has ended. Lets face it with Tornquist Writing it, the story has only begun.
Because i can. I'm Hopeful For Every Game, Until the Fan Boys Attack My Games. Then the Knives Come Out. Logic every gamers worst enemy.
I don't mind trash, but I hate it when they respawn - that is kind of an immersion killer and never made a lot of sense to me. It just never made sense that we had to kill the same group over and over again - that not "realistic" (and yes, I use that term lightly..lol).
That the one thing SWTOR did well I thought, no respawns in the Operations. Sucked that the trash didn't drop loot (and least not till the later Ops at least), but at least once they were dead..they stayed that way.
I remember the old days of raiding, and if the raid fell apart early or w/e, we would have to go back the next day and redo stuff that we already did before - and I got to the point where if I even thought we weren't going to be able to commit to a full run (or at least the bosses we had set for our goals that night), I didn't want to go. And I LOVE raiding...just wasn't worth the aggravation to me at times...
I will say, all the talk of the TSW dungeons, you guys are making me want to go check it out.....
Comments
I think not every dungeon needs to be the same in it's design. Every duneon Trsh free would be boring. And to be fair The Secret Worlds dungeons are not completely trash free. All Dungeons there have at least a couple of trashmobs. But the ration of time you spend clearing them vs killing the bosses is in clear favor of the bosses.
I kind of liked the mechanic of having a trash-respawn, as a definite measure for failure, if you can't lear fast enough to get through before the respoawn you have to admit defeat and normally just give up. I liked some of the challenging Trash Groups in WoW dungeons, when you where 5 against 7 and needed to creatively use the crowd control, kiting and tanking capabilities of your group.
Bad recent example is Guild Wars 2 with it's etra long Explorable dugeons with extralong healthbar trashmobs. Tedious and not fun at all. (The whole DUngeon experence, from grouping over time requirements, boss mechanics to risk versus reward is completely off putting and the games biggest weaknes)
Some Trash is needed to introduce mechanics and if there is some satisfaction in slaying them, fine, but some games obviously use them as slowdown and then it feels cheap.
I am not so sure they have to be. Anything that isnt challenging really have little place in a raid or dungeon.
Trashmobs are fine in the open world, things should really be of different difficulty there but in raids they just leads to people sitting bored and rotate their skills. Upping the loot is not really the right way to handle them either unless you also make them more challenging and fun to fight.
I think MMOs needs to do a better job to cut out the boring parts, fewer and harder trashmobs with a bit better loot would actually help doing this without adding more work for the devs. Win Win as I see it.
Shrug, essentially. All a pacing mechanism.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
That's true +1 men.
For example, in EQ1 you got zones so big that seems a maze, and actually EQ1 didnt work too because its really outdated for the thinks you could do now.
But I dont know about other game with many "rubish" spells that actually come to be usefull in some situations.
INVIS: You had it for a random time between few secs to 10mins and you don't know. It can leave an entery group trying to figth to survive in a very difficult part of the dungeon. Remember that EQ1 had many roamers and an agro really anoying some times.
SHRINK or GROW: Useless unless you are a big race, just for the fun of it, makes a the world more credible, spells that dont have a use in combat, yet they exist for some purposes. Today's games just have skills or spells to kill, you don't really interfere with the world, your character doesn't "exist" in it.
LEVITATE: The worldmap or mazes just need it for survive...
And more spells that with time and expansions became more a more useless because you got AAs with Passive skills or a great magic armor with it.
Also, today you just farm a dungeon because from that dungeon you get the Full set of blablabla, before that exist different pieces of armor, from different places, different bosses and they combined irregularly to give you a bit more of INT or HP or CHA... etc. I think today you don't create a world where your char have to live, survive, grow, etc...
And I'm not defending EQ1, his craft sucks, you got also a interesting craft and involving world in UO, but today it seems too difficult for them to creat so big worldmaps, mazes and so many details to keep them really cool.
GW2 for example have the jumping Puzzles and really big maps, with many details and it cost them a lot of time for work in them and even with that, the world doesn't have this live the old ones got. Its a game for PVP or WvWvW, thats it.
I have a great idea for a movie.
You are the good guy,
First scene: you attack the bad guy and kill him after 3 minutes of intense fight.
Credits.
End.
Isn't great?
Yes, every mob can have an own personality, skills, etc, but does it worth the effort?
Try to enjoy the journey, and not only the arrival, A long travel is the best appetisers known.
I am usually one to smack down analogies - but this hit the nail on the head.
Trash may feel like a pointless time-sink, but the amount of time (regardless of difficulty) that it takes you to reach a boss before engaging him adds to the excitement of defeating said boss. It is one of many mechanisms used to enhance the feeling of victory.
The thing about TSW is that The instance your in is rarely the end of that story. Hell Dimensions story for example is in 3 parts, and we don't even know if its over yet or not. Polaris ties to Ankh and Facility Ties to Slaughterhouse. If you go and read the lore Polaris also ties to Darkness war aswell.
If there is one thing in TSW i have learned is that to never think the story has ended. Lets face it with Tornquist Writing it, the story has only begun.
Because i can.
I'm Hopeful For Every Game, Until the Fan Boys Attack My Games. Then the Knives Come Out.
Logic every gamers worst enemy.
I don't mind trash, but I hate it when they respawn - that is kind of an immersion killer and never made a lot of sense to me. It just never made sense that we had to kill the same group over and over again - that not "realistic" (and yes, I use that term lightly..lol).
That the one thing SWTOR did well I thought, no respawns in the Operations. Sucked that the trash didn't drop loot (and least not till the later Ops at least), but at least once they were dead..they stayed that way.
I remember the old days of raiding, and if the raid fell apart early or w/e, we would have to go back the next day and redo stuff that we already did before - and I got to the point where if I even thought we weren't going to be able to commit to a full run (or at least the bosses we had set for our goals that night), I didn't want to go. And I LOVE raiding...just wasn't worth the aggravation to me at times...
I will say, all the talk of the TSW dungeons, you guys are making me want to go check it out.....