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Roamers, Runners and trains OHH MY!!??
cybertrucker
Member UncommonPosts: 1,117
Lower Guk was always a dungeon full of fun, thrills and excitement while coming up in the early days of Norrath. A group would always have to be on their toes. Watching over their shoulders for an unexpected visitor to the area of the dungeons they had decided to stake their claim on. The dungeon was full of Froglocks or other possible threats such as minotaurs and evil eyes, that would roam large expanses of the dungeon. Other adventuring groups could end up in a bad spot and end up making a run for their lives in the process they could end up moving thru you and your group causing mass havoc. A runner that was about to die might not have been snared in time and would take off down the dark hallways calling for allies to come slaughter your adventuring group.
This was only one dungeon,while there were many, and even open areas could pose great risk if you didnt watch out. Not only that but some mobs would have HUGE aggro threat ranges. They would charge you from far away. Open areas would also have differing types of threats. Beginning your adventures you could roam out into the common lands battling giant snakes and rats only to have a massive griffon swoop down from the skies that would devour you. Or a giant turn you into a smear on the ground. The game was filled with bit of randomness that kept you more on your toes. Everquest... It wasnt the only game that did this many of the earlier games were built in the same manner.
So what has happened? Now a days games have mobs stand 10 paces away from you as you combat their allies and look stupidly on awaiting in turn for you to turn their attention to them. They dont run for help and if they do.. they run so slow all you have to do is look there way and take a single step and you have outrun them.
Open lands in newer games are generally so crowded mobs that you cant take a step without tripping over them, however since they dont BAF there is no real danger. They are also totally organized. Roamers might roam 3 or 4 steps in one direction then turn around and take 3 or 4 steps back in the other direction. Compounding this is the worlds are not like worlds at all. As you go into circle A on the map it is filled with type A mobs . In circle B there are type B mobs. Rarely ever do they cross over. And hardly ever do they roam. The chances of having that large menacing rare threat appearing has been removed to make the game easier.
Why have games been dumbed down to this level? Not only does it ruin emmersion (spelling?) but it takes alot of the thrill out of the game. Companies boast about advanced combat. Sure action combat can be fun. However when the world is dull bland and predictable the combat gets old. EQ1 used the old TAB targeting system stand there and auto attack method. However what it might have lacked in the actual mechanics of combat it made up for in the anticipation that something could go wrong. However in a group combat was really ever rarely dull as you would have a good tank go out and pull 4 to6 mobs at a a time to make the group work and keep it challenging. All the while knowing the limits of the group. However.. there was always the unknown factor in the game that is missing from games today. No Large pathing roamers, Runners if they have them at all are should be called crawlers due to their rate of movement. No trains due to combat being locked, and overally dumb AI that allows mobs to just stand by while you hack their comrades to shreds just a few short paces away. And also the lack of immersion due to mob layout mixed with the whole no roaming thing.
Curious am I the only one that feels games have went entirely in the wrong direction when it comes to these things? Dont get me wrong. There might be a few instances of the above in a game here and there. But over all games are just really dumbed down in these departments.
Example.. TERA.. dont get me wrong I enjoy the combat. Also when fighthing BAMs you do have to be somewhat catious as your BAM might jump into another BAM. But overall The dungeons and world layout make me think wow... This game is so dumbed down it is actually kind of stale.
The last 2 good games that I can think of that have some of the unpredictability were Vanguard and Aion. I dont play Aion anymore but there were areas like the villages and such that did bring back somewhat of an oldschool design philosophy that I actually enjoyed. Getting to people to run the outdoor villages though was pretty hard as everyone seemed to want the easy predictable instancing... which i just dont get.
What are your thoughts and opinions on this topic ? I guess discuss below...
Comments
I agree with everything you said. Referencing EQ, as a noob in the commons fighting wisps for the lightstones, there was nothing more frightening at night than the appearance of the wandering Dark Elf Shadow Knight that would wander around the giant lake and attack good races. It made things interesting and the zone more immersive. The fact that there would be monsters of varying level in the zone that you had to keep your eyes out for made the sense of danger much greater.
At the time, I remember a mix of emotions as the aforementioned Dark Elf spewed threats at me and chased me across the zone , but now I look back at these experiences as ones that added to the overall challenge, character, and excitement of those older games. The genre has come a long ways in many ways but things like this and what you mentioned were unfortunate casualties that I wish were still found in todays MMOs.
Predictability is a good thing for common gamers. They know what to expect, they know how to be prepared, and they won't lose much time if they fail. This is the main reason why gamers don't like the old "Random Encounter". Too many people lost their characters to a gryphon swooping in for the last hit on their character. Too many people got killed because someone saw them struggling with a monster and decided that instead of helping, they would pvp them with low hp to begin.
I personally love the "Random Encounter" idea. RoM just started using it in the newer zones by providing normal mobs with one of a few buffs, including damage reduction, attack/casting speed boost, damage boost, or health boost. It's really nice because the random buffs also increase the experience you get for killing them. They also made all the new mobs to Chain Aggro, which means that if you pull a mob and some other one is within their aggro range, you get both of the mobs.
I played WoW up until WotLK, played RoM for 2 years and now Rift.
I am F2P player. I support games when I feel they deserve my money and I want the items enough.
I don't troll, and I don't take kindly to trolls.
It's simply different design. Mainstream moved from roguelikes full of surprises but often dumb fights with tank and spank to less surprising dungeons which however require more planning on group pulls (in theory, some themeparks went as far as allowing you to steamroll it all..).
WoW TBC is a good example of such design, where heroics had very few surprises, except for some freeroaming mobs, but groups were brutal to pull and even trash often required extended planning.
The key to the whole thing though was that there was a death penalty in place that made that fear real.....Yo usimply didn't want to die as it would take time to get taht experience back.....The same wouldn't work in WoW for example because people would just die and run back as if nothing had happened.
Needlenose, thats it Needlenose.
How many times my young Froglok inadvertantly pulled this mosquito and died.
No, you are not alone.
I'm halfway to cap in what I'm playing. In the main world none of the mobs aggro unless attacked. Walk straight through the middle of a group of what the game passes off as "hostile" mobs and they do nothing.
It's like I'm battling eggplants. You couldn't die in here unless you went to sleep at the keyboard.
It's quite a learning experience for me. Is this what modern gaming has become?
The vast majority of gamers are sheeple. They need to be lead around by the nose from point A to point B.
Spending millions of development dollars on a niche game doesn't tend to pay out in the end, therefore games are written for the 9.4 million sheeple.
It's a sad truth, and the primary reason that EVE Online has been my primary game for eight years. It's not perfect, it has it's own set of problems, but at least it doesn't hold your hand every step of the way.
I'm with you, though, I wish games were more challenging (MUCH more challenging) than the ones that are released these days. I walked around wanting to punch kittens after playing SWTOR for a month, and I kept asking my friends and myself "Is this what gaming has become? Running up to completely static mobs and punching them in the dick for XP over and over? People really consider this 'fun'?"
But then again, we're in the minority.
Sheeple.
The thing that MMO's really need to incorporate from single player games is difficulty level (and not that retarded game plus mechanic - that's just lazy developing). I always play single player games on the maximum difficulty. To do the same thing in WoW (for instance) you have to solo elites or go into instances by yourself. Many other games don't even allow that. We've all played the quick gratification games and we're all tired of them. I don't get why this is so hard for developers to understand.
+1, i remember my first fight with a wisp that was quite a learning experience turn out you needed magic or a magic weapon lol dam that wisp being immune to normal weapons lol, run where the guards, run run run where the hell am i, turn around now i have 6 wisps and 3 gnolls chasing me. lol hmmmm after 5 minutes i found the guard luckly lol great times. I tell you what though i learn my lesson not to mess with the wisps
Unpredicatability and challenge is the best thing in games unfortuently it doesnt exsist anymore also death penalty go a long way and most people dont see that, death penalty add a great deal into immersion of a game. Fear is the biggest thing that causes immersion for a game i reckon. not to mention its physicaly impossible to feel lost in any new games nowadays, sigh 
I leave you this one video for the old memories of Everquest : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKDkvy9sKuY Enjoy, the first few words carry the most meaning imo
You're definitely not the only one.
And everyone who doesn't agree with you is usually someone who never tried what you've experienced and hence will never understand what you're talking about and would probably just disagree because of that.
There alot of people who havant tried it, WoW advertised which brang in the masses into mmorpgs thats never played the previous games such as EQ so they havant experienced how good these things are.
I totally agree with this thread. The creatures in todays games are so boring. I played Tera to level 26 and just couldn't continue due to boring monsters that just standing around and are of no threat. I never died once. And with Tera, the action combat was awesome (telegraphing of monsters bad though) and the graffix and animations were awesome. DID NOT HELP - STILL BORING!!! If they would have made big wide open zones (so big you could get lost in them) with roaming creatures, runners, creatures that will add, and take out the dam telegraphing of monster attacks, this game would have been something great. I mean will some game maker actually let me hunt for a monster, actually hunt with risks involved? Throw in a few high level wanderers to be afraid of - how hard is that?
I am hoping like so many that EQnext is going to do it right, but who knows. Will anyone ever get it right?