Suggestion: Group PvE, aka Raids (that requires a team of players)

Legends

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Raid (from Wikipedia):
A raid is a type of mission in a video game in which a number of people attempt to defeat another number of people at player-vs-player, a series of computer-controlled enemies in a player-vs-environment battlefield, or a very powerful boss. The term raid itself stems from the military definition of a sudden attack and/or seizure of some objective.[1] This type of objective is most common in MMORPGs, and usually but not necessarily occurs within an instance dungeon.

We occasionally have the player-vs-player component in Entropia in the form of Land Grabs. We have the powerful boss component in the form of big mobs which are impossible for the average hunter to solo, e.g. King Kong, Old Fred, Hussk, Sand King, etc... But we don't really have this type of PvE in Entropia (again from Wikipedia):
The combat encounters comprising a raid usually require players to coordinate with one another while performing specific roles as members of a team. The roles of Tank, Healer, and Damage Dealer are known as the "Holy Trinity" of MMORPG group composition.[4] Other common roles include Buffing, Crowd control, and Pulling (selectively choosing targets with which to initiate combat).[5] A raid leader is often needed to direct the group efficiently, due to the complexities of keeping many players working well together.

All of the MMOs that are currently occupying the top 10 in terms of number of active players do have them:
1. World of Warcraft has 'Ashran' (PvP) and 'Raids' (PvE)
2. Guild Wars 2 also has 'Raids'
3. The Elder Scrolls Online has 'Trials'
4. Final Fantasy XIV has 'Dungeons'
5. The Lord of the Rings Online has 'World Instances' and 'Raids'
6. RuneScape has 'Mazcab Raids'
7. Black Desert Online has 'Node wars' (PvP) and 'World bosses' (PvE)
8. EVE Online has 'Incursions'
9. TERA has 'Harrowhold'
10. Maple Story has 'Dungeons'

Group PvE (Raids) could do so much for Entropia and I think it would really be worth taking a long hard look at this, despite the challenges involved with creating them within the current engine. If this was done properly, they could:

1. Help to revitalize Team and Society hunting and skilling. This is practically dead right now, most players would just rather hunt solo. Even Shared loot spawns aren't that popular in Entropia. By creating group PvE content that can only be completed by a Team of players, it would encourage more collaboration among players, and give Societies something to organize for.

2. Help to solve automated (botting) skilling and gameplay issues. Bots for sweating and skilling are actually pretty common in Entropia because it's very simple to automate using key-mapping and scripts. Hunters that are at the top of their profession need to continually skill up their avatar or else others will pass them so some turn to botting to solve that problem, which means that it can be incredibly difficult (impossible even) for new players to catch up to these guys, even when hunting every day for many hours. Group PvE raids on the other hand are usually too complex to automate due to the need to coordinate activities based on commands from the Leader and collaborate with and react to other players' actions. This would be a great opportunity to reward participants with bonus skills and other things that they can't get anywhere else in the game. In other words, reward real players, not bots.

3. Give players additional professional opportunities in the game. In Entropia, Healers are quite useful and a vibrant part of the hunting profession game play. Healers allow hunters to hunt certain mobs that they might not otherwise be able to hunt. But in Entropia, tanking is practically nonexistent as a specialization. Team buffs are also non-existent. Group PvE raids could open up new opportunities for players to specialize in something and enable them to contribute something to Teams. New items or skills could be introduced which would give Team buffs. Tanking could become an important strategy, not only through the use of a particular set of Armor but also through high Evade/Dodge skills and maybe also the introduction of new effects that cause a mob to aggro them and not other members of the Team.

4. Provide a more permanent PvP element that pits Societies or Teams of players against one-another could be a lot of fun. Land Grabs are quite far and few between it seems and are not really the time for players to hone their PvP combat skills. Some sort of Arena type instance with a cap on dps and/or profession level could afford players the space and opportunity to train and test their PvP strategies.

5. Make Mindforce relevant again. In Entropia, Mindforce is the equivalent of Spell Casting in most other MMOs. By making good use of such chips as Deceleration and Synchronization for example, and introducing new ones, Mindforce professions could be revitalized, which could in turn also benefit the Sweat economy.

...

These are just some of the things that I think Group PvE could provide to Entropia, at a glance. I'm sure there many other things.

Cheers o/

Legends

PS: An interesting video I just stumbled upon on youtube from a 2005 Blizzard conference where the game director explains how they design raids in World of Warcraft.


Around 6:09 he explains:
So hmmm, we also try to mix things up and I think Onyxia is a good example of that or like the Razorgore encounter. We don't want everything to be like this 30 minute snooze fest of 'Ok, here we go, everybody start doing DPS and healing' and that's all you're gonna do for the next 30 minutes... Because there's just nothing interesting about that. And we also don't want 1 boss to feel just like the next boss ...

There's also some very interesting statistics at the beginning of the video about how many players participated in their Raids at that time. This is one of the main aspects of WoW that made it so popular.
 
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We have beacons, and hardly anyone ever does them (for a number of reasons). The noob instance thing at Camp Icarus (I forget what it's called) is also in the "raid" style and used to be quite popular, I don't know if it is now.
 
Yes we have beacons, but loot on them is completely broken since loot 2.0 and MA are too busy working on other things to look into it and fix it (even though it reaaally shouldn't take a lot of time and will be a huge benefit to the game)
 
I'm sorry, I guess I wasn't totally clear in the first post, but what I mean by Group PvE is 10, 20, 40 players, not just 2. And those teams typically have to have the right balance and composition in order to succeed. Typical MMO raids have a leader to coordinate the actions of the group and someone to tag enemies.

Robot beacons do not fit the description of what I would call Group PvE or Raids, they can be solo'ed or done with a healer... Here's camburrinse solo'ing Akbal - Sector 7, naked with a healer:


The Gauntlet is the same idea, just go in there and shoot the mobs, no strategy required, 2 disorganized players (could be solo'ed but I think it cannot be entered by just 1 player), can get it done easily.

Here's what I mean by Group PvE:

77 man fleet in EVE Online:

25+ player Raid in World of Warcraft:

There is no solo'ing these Environments, it just would not be possible. Furthermore, getting through these Raids requires strategy and coordination. The right composition of Healers, Tanks, DPS, Spell Casters, etc ... is essential, and someone must coordinate everyone's efforts.

That's what I mean by Group PvE.

Massively Multiplier Online games, to me, means playing a video game with other people. Their appeal lies in that I'm sure to see other people there and be able to interact and play with them. All MMOs should have all kinds of opportunities in them for people to get together and cooperate towards an end-game. Raids like these are perfect for MMOs because they do just that.
 
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Tl’dr

Only thing I can think of is those shared loot , wave events , that’s the best you can get atm
 

As for what you are talking about with 70+ avatars in one spot, expect half of them to fall through the floor and go underground, etc. as THE ENTROPIA UNIVERSE SERVER CANNOT HANDLE THAT KIND OF LOAD.... It'd be nice if it could, but in it's current state we all know that the server almost crashes if you get more than 20 avatars in one location.
 
That's what I mean by Group PvE.

OK, in that case yes, we have nothing like that, beyond the shared wave events which lack the strategic element you want.

Personally I don't think I'd be very interested in this type of thing but I'm sure many would.
 
Bigger beacons require more people, sector 7 I can easily solo not a problem, sector 9 however requires a few more people. It would be nice however if MA came out with bigger beacons as we've all got 2x the dps and 50% more hp than we did 5+ years ago when sector 9s required a full team of ubers.

They are just never run because they are a huge waste of PED as you're guaranteed to lose a ton long run.
 
An interesting video I just stumbled upon on youtube from a 2005 Blizzard conference where the game director explains how they design raids in World of Warcraft.


Around 6:09 he explains:
So hmmm, we also try to mix things up and I think Onyxia is a good example of that or like the Razorgore encounter. We don't want everything to be like this 30 minute snooze fest of 'Ok, here we go, everybody start doing DPS and healing' and that's all you're gonna do for the next 30 minutes... Because there's just nothing interesting about that. And we also don't want 1 boss to feel just like the next boss ...

There's also some very interesting statistics at the beginning of the video about how many players participated in their Raids at that time. This is one of the main aspects of WoW that made it so popular.

All I'm suggesting with this thread is some Raids that actually have something interesting about them rather then all feeling the same, just grinding mobs mind numbingly. I've heard some players in Entropia complain that it's just a 'grind-fest', and I have to agree with them, there's not really any strategy or interesting, challenging content that requires planning and proper execution, it's mostly all just point and shoot, loot, point and shoot, loot....

Anyways, I feel like no one really understands what I'm talking about so I'm gonna shut up about this now

:dodge:
 
Pve Raids and categorized/instanced pvp would make this game much more attractive imo.
Take a page out of the WoW playbook, they obviously know wtf they are doing over there. Just put an entropia twist on it. E.g - 2 teams each player pays 5 ped into the pot, MA takes their cut, then distributes the loot to the winners and losers accordingly (game objectives,dmg,heals,kills, margin of victory etc.) Think more like a poker table, less like a slot machine.
 
They are just never run because they are a huge waste of PED as you're guaranteed to lose a ton long run.

Thats caused by moving the former beacon exclusive loots to comon big robots outside of beacons.

I remember times when beacons was the "only" source of different robot loots like flare filters and a few other robot loots needed for crafting.

That times beacons have had a value and have been a money maker not a PED waste.

Well it still was possible to lose if you paid to much for the beacon itself.
 
Raid (from Wikipedia):


We occasionally have the player-vs-player component in Entropia in the form of Land Grabs. We have the powerful boss component in the form of big mobs which are impossible for the average hunter to solo, e.g. King Kong, Old Fred, Hussk, higher maturity Eomons, etc... But we don't really have this type of PvE in Entropia (again from Wikipedia):


All of the MMOs that are currently occupying the top 10 in terms of number of active players do have them:
1. World of Warcraft has 'Ashran' (PvP) and 'Raids' (PvE)
2. Guild Wars 2 also has 'Raids'
3. The Elder Scrolls Online has 'Trials'
4. Final Fantasy XIV has 'Dungeons'
5. The Lord of the Rings Online has 'World Instances' and 'Raids'
6. RuneScape has 'Mazcab Raids'
7. Black Desert Online has 'Node wars' (PvP) and 'World bosses' (PvE)
8. EVE Online has 'Incursions'
9. TERA has 'Harrowhold'
10. Maple Story has 'Dungeons'

Group PvE (Raids) could do so much for Entropia and I think it would really be worth taking a long hard look at this, despite the challenges involved with creating them within the current engine. If this was done properly, they could:

1. Help to revitalize Team and Society hunting and skilling. This is practically dead right now, most players would just rather hunt solo. Even Shared loot spawns aren't that popular in Entropia. By creating group PvE content that can only be completed by a Team of players, it would encourage more collaboration among players, and give Societies something to organize for.

2. Help to solve automated (botting) skilling and gameplay issues. Bots for sweating and skilling are actually pretty common in Entropia because it's very simple to automate using key-mapping and scripts. Hunters that are at the top of their profession need to continually skill up their avatar or else others will pass them so some turn to botting to solve that problem, which means that it can be incredibly difficult (impossible even) for new players to catch up to these guys, even when hunting every day for many hours. Group PvE raids on the other hand are usually too complex to automate due to the need to coordinate activities based on commands from the Leader and collaborate with and react to other players' actions. This would be a great opportunity to reward participants with bonus skills and other things that they can't get anywhere else in the game. In other words, reward real players, not bots.

3. Give players additional professional opportunities in the game. In Entropia, Healers are quite useful and a vibrant part of the hunting profession game play. Healers allow hunters to hunt certain mobs that they might not otherwise be able to hunt. But in Entropia, tanking is practically nonexistent as a specialization. Team buffs are also non-existent. Group PvE raids could open up new opportunities for players to specialize in something and enable them to contribute something to Teams. New items or skills could be introduced which would give Team buffs. Tanking could become an important strategy, not only through the use of a particular set of Armor but also through high Evade/Dodge skills and maybe also the introduction of new effects that cause a mob to aggro them and not other members of the Team.

4. Provide a more permanent PvP element that pits Societies or Teams of players against one-another could be a lot of fun. Land Grabs are quite far and few between it seems and are not really the time for players to hone their PvP combat skills. Some sort of Arena type instance with a cap on dps and/or profession level could afford players the space and opportunity to train and test their PvP strategies.

5. Make Mindforce relevant again. In Entropia, Mindforce is the equivalent of Spell Casting in most other MMOs. By making good use of such chips as Deceleration and Synchronization for example, and introducing new ones, Mindforce professions could be revitalized, which could in turn also benefit the Sweat economy.

...

These are just some of the things that I think Group PvE could provide to Entropia, at a glance. I'm sure there many other things.

Cheers o/

Legends

I'm tanky and I approve of this suggestion
 
I get it. I just didn't see this thread til tonight. Real raids have complexity and demand a well organized approach, nothing like the hp-fests that are Sand King and Kong; and the game that have raids also have mechanics such as classes, specialties, and the holy trinity of roles to support that complexity which in turn supports more fun.

And they demand that degree of collaboration too, nothing like this individualistic score-competition that calls itself multiplayer.

... Structure. Raids have structure. Frameworks on which to build the fun.
 
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I get it. I just didn't see this thread til tonight. Real raids have complexity and demand a well organized approach, nothing like the hp-fests that are Sand King and Kong; and the game that have raids also have mechanics such as classes, specialties, and the holy trinity of roles to support that complexity which in turn supports more fun.

And they demand that degree of collaboration too, nothing like this individualistic score-competition that calls itself multiplayer.

... Structure. Raids have structure. Frameworks on which to build the fun.

That's awesome, finally someone that gets it :)

One of the things that I find is so true, not sure if you watched the 2005 Blizzcon video I linked earlier, but the game director said:"The game feels a lot bigger for everyone if there is unbeaten content out there."

Well in Entropia, 'unbeaten content' comes mostly in the form of items not yet looted or discovered, for example smuggler armor or plates... This just reinforces the grinding aspect of the game; you must grind (Iron missions) to level up, you must grind to discover a new item, etc... So the game is mostly a grind fest at this point.

I see now that Cyclops Depths is perhaps the best effort to date on MA's part to introduce something to Entropia where players have to do a little more then just grind down mobs and I think that's great:


It's not a Raid, but it's different and it looks like fun, at least the first time through.
 
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Anyone else want to weigh in on this one? If MA introduced some Raids in Entropia, would you try them?
 
These are great ideas. It strikes me as odd though that nobody picks up on one of the most significant changes we had in recent times, the enabling of mission point sharing in team. As much as I've been one who asked for this loudly, as sluggish is the rate it's being taken up afaics. Old troopers I tried to motivate aren't responding, don't know about the 'ung ones if they're building teams now and tackle mighty beasts but there is little evidence in the chatter (I don't observe Rookie though.) Maybe it takes some more palpable excitement before the developers are motivated to build more elaborate missions on top of the new mechanism.
 
These are great ideas. It strikes me as odd though that nobody picks up on one of the most significant changes we had in recent times, the enabling of mission point sharing in team. As much as I've been one who asked for this loudly, as sluggish is the rate it's being taken up afaics. Old troopers I tried to motivate aren't responding, don't know about the 'ung ones if they're building teams now and tackle mighty beasts but there is little evidence in the chatter (I don't observe Rookie though.) Maybe it takes some more palpable excitement before the developers are motivated to build more elaborate missions on top of the new mechanism.

Yes I also saw this (mission point sharing) as a big step forward and have been hopeful ever since that it would lead to many great things in Entropia gameplay, i.e. more team hunting and possibly some Group PvE like I have proposed in this thread.

But there is still a few things that will need to be solved in order for hunters to become truly comfortable with hunting in teams, the biggest hurdle of all being the matter of item drops which cannot be split fairly between hunters, for example an armor piece or weapon... Of course, in a Society, there's usually an arbitrator and democratic process to decide who should get the item and how the others will be compensated, but not everyone is civilized when it comes to these things and just the possibility of getting 'screwed' by the system is enough to turn many away from it.

I think MA will have to solve this one somehow. I'm confident that they can. It might be that shared mobs won't drop single items, only stacks that can be divided fairly among all.
 
But there is still a few things that will need to be solved in order for hunters to become truly comfortable with hunting in teams, the biggest hurdle of all being the matter of item drops which cannot be split fairly between hunters, for example an armor piece or weapon... Of course, in a Society, there's usually an arbitrator and democratic process to decide who should get the item and how the others will be compensated, but not everyone is civilized when it comes to these things and just the possibility of getting 'screwed' by the system is enough to turn many away from it.

I think MA will have to solve this one somehow. I'm confident that they can. It might be that shared mobs won't drop single items, only stacks that can be divided fairly among all.

There seems to be a wide-spread assumption that distributing the value of a looted item is the only moral choice and hence should be supported or even enforced by the game itself. Well, it is not. The system already distributes as fairly as it can (individual perceptions or actual imperfections and evolution of algorithms aside) and "finders=keepers" is the default. It would be everybody's turn eventually if you did it often enough, even while it is a core characteristic of the game that chances aren't even but a function of how you develop and equip your avatar. If an organised group wishes to decide on a mode of sharing, they are welcome to do so, but exerting pressure on strangers who got lucky in an open-for-all setting to accept such an obligation is not okay. For example, compare the Feffoid pit wave events with the most recent Hussk events and the discussion which ensued there.
 
Anyone else want to weigh in on this one? If MA introduced some Raids in Entropia, would you try them?


Raids/Trials were always one of the more fun aspects of other MMOs for me, so yea... but I don't really see how you could introduce them into a game with zero combat mechanics.
 
if you do stuff like beacons, etc. in the future, do away with the timer junk at the end. New system has many folks not able to maneuver as they could before the new system came in to place. without that little 'target' thing where you click on something and it aims your avatar in that direction I cannot do the blasted stuff like the mario instance in cyrene any more since my time sucks way more than before.

If there was a way to bring that double click on something and it 'targets' your avatar to run in that direction it'd be swell... but I suspect like many things in old system it is gone forever... replaced by a click anywhere on an item in your estate on accident and pick it up system that makes you almost afraid to click anywhere since you may accidentally move something or remove markup that took you a long time to align 'just right' or set markup on after careful thought on what level to put the markup in the shop, etc.
 
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Interesting read. I've never played any of the games you referenced, but I am familiar with the concept you are expressing and I do think it would be a good addition to the game.

The problem is I question MindArk's creative ability to develop such a product that is actually engaging. The Arkadian dev team appears to be attempting to introduce creative content, but they lack the player base to really get it off the ground. They seem to be relying on Calypso's player base which is so used to the typical point and shoot grind-fest that the solving of puzzles and is not particularly appealing, especially when the carrot at the end of the stick is completely hidden. Rather than take a chance at wasting 10+ hours trying to figure out an elaborate riddle I'd personally prefer to just stick to what I know works and let someone else solve it, then slide in for sloppy seconds after the answer to the riddle has been made public, and I don't think I am alone in this sentiment.

In summary yes, proper PvE raids would be awesome, but I question whether it will actually become a reality any time in the near future.
 
There seems to be a wide-spread assumption that distributing the value of a looted item is the only moral choice and hence should be supported or even enforced by the game itself. Well, it is not. The system already distributes as fairly as it can (individual perceptions or actual imperfections and evolution of algorithms aside) and "finders=keepers" is the default. It would be everybody's turn eventually if you did it often enough, even while it is a core characteristic of the game that chances aren't even but a function of how you develop and equip your avatar. If an organised group wishes to decide on a mode of sharing, they are welcome to do so, but exerting pressure on strangers who got lucky in an open-for-all setting to accept such an obligation is not okay. For example, compare the Feffoid pit wave events with the most recent Hussk events and the discussion which ensued there.

I'm not familiar with what happened there but am assuming that there was much grievance and name calling...

If, while hunting in a team, a rare unlimited item like a Shadow armor part drops, how is it fair that only 1 player reaps 99% of the value in that loot event when the reality is that a handful of players participated in killing the creature and producing the loot event to happen?

Sure, you can say that "It would be everybody's turn eventually if you did it often enough", but a rare item like this might not happen again while you are online for another 10 years. "If you do it often enough" becomes unworkable when the statistical model would require a player to live to 150 years old for his "turn" to come...

But this is an extreme case and my hope is that MA will figure out a way so that this type of situation doesn't happen anymore. They seem to be working on getting rid of things in the game that cause a lot of frustration (i.e. cost to tier items, mission mechanics and point sharing, quality of life issues, ...), and so I'm sure this is something they are also looking at.
 
Interesting read. I've never played any of the games you referenced, but I am familiar with the concept you are expressing and I do think it would be a good addition to the game.

The problem is I question MindArk's creative ability to develop such a product that is actually engaging. The Arkadian dev team appears to be attempting to introduce creative content, but they lack the player base to really get it off the ground. They seem to be relying on Calypso's player base which is so used to the typical point and shoot grind-fest that the solving of puzzles and is not particularly appealing, especially when the carrot at the end of the stick is completely hidden. Rather than take a chance at wasting 10+ hours trying to figure out an elaborate riddle I'd personally prefer to just stick to what I know works and let someone else solve it, then slide in for sloppy seconds after the answer to the riddle has been made public, and I don't think I am alone in this sentiment.

In summary yes, proper PvE raids would be awesome, but I question whether it will actually become a reality any time in the near future.

Thanks Captain Jack.

It doesn't really have to be a complex riddle though, and the carrot at the end doesn't have to be completely hidden either, in fact, it probably would be better if it wasn't.

The primary purpose of these Raids shouldn't be to give the player base a very complex riddle that will be extremely difficult to solve, I don't think this is a good idea, especially in an RCE game. Instead, the primary purpose should be to give the player base an opportunity to work together and collaborate with one another, again and again and again. In EVE Online, Incursions are one of the best sources of income that's available to players who don't really like to PvP. So players flock to them and do them over and over again. Some people do them all day long. But these Incursions are very engaging and you have to pay attention otherwise you will die and the leader and other members of the team will not like you (speaking from experience hehe). In WoW (I haven't really played WoW a whole lot so my info might not be totally accurate), I believe Raids are often the only way to obtain certain items or gear, and they also reward participants quite well financially for participating.

So, if MindArk was going to make some Raids for Entropia, their primary focus should be on making something that gives players opportunities to work together again and again. Don't make it too complex because it's only a matter of time anyway before the answers are all known and made public in this forum, twitch and youtube. Just make it fun, make it so the risk/reward makes sense and perhaps even inform participants of what they stand to gain if they complete the Raid successfully, that way players can decide if it's worth it or not before enlisting themselves, otherwise you're just asking them to pay a price to find out, and the weight of disappointment is always greater on public forums then the satisfaction of accomplishment in the game.

As a way of example, here's what that might look like:

A new Raid called 'Robot HQ' is released. The Raid is accessed via a Portal located just outside Zycion Citadel or Camp Pheonix. When you 'operate' this new portal, you get this message:

"Robot HQ is a Group PvE Raid requiring a team of 8 players to complete. The Raid takes on average 1 hour to complete and has a 2 hour timer, after which the Raid ends and participants will be brought back here at the Portal entrance. In addition to the regular creature loot, all participants will receive 1xAdvanced Nano Adjuster upon successful completion of this Raid, which is an item necessary in the upgrade process of certain advanced weapons and armors (talk to 'NPC' at 'location')."

Now when it comes to actual Raid mechanics, here's some things you can play around with:
1 - The sequence in which mobs are killed (if the team is not killing the mobs in the right sequence, they will just keep re-spawning endlessly, one of the core mechanics of EVE Online Incursions)
2 - The Aggro range of mobs, i.e. how do you get the right mob to aggro you without getting any of the others on you? Might have no choice but to tank many of them at once to get the sequence right... How will that be accomplished? How many healers would be required? There's an opportunity here to also play around with damage types, e.g. having to tank a Shrapnel mob and an Acid mob at the same time cannot be done efficiently (not enough Sigyn armor in the game), meaning now there is no choice to have healers because armors cannot be relied upon.
3 - Aggro type: code some of the mobs to aggro healers specifically (anyone holding a tool instead of a weapon). Would be nice if there was a way for the healers to circumvent that one, lets say by using mindforce chips instead of FAPs for example.
4 - Booby traps: a mob you're not supposed to kill. If you kill it, all the ones you just killed re-spawn, or a very powerful one spawns, wasting time.
5 - PED drains: Mobs that regen too fast but that don't need to be killed to complete the Raid. How does that actually work in the game? Is it a mob that needs to be out-run using speed buffs? Or just skipped using TP chips? What happens to the PED 'earned' by them?
6 - Damage type: code some of the mobs to be immune to Burn/Pen damage, making them impossible to kill using regular guns. Another option is coding the mob so that it's vulnerable only to 1 type of damage, like Cold for example, now you can only kill it using Cryogenic MF chips (or shrapnel for rocket launchers).
7 - Out-of-range: a ranged mob or turret that fires from over 200 meters away. Do you run to get passed it quickly? Or do you go slow and get heals along the way? What if the healers die here, does everyone die?
8 - Area of Effect: areas in the Raid that give bonuses to AoE, making field regen chips and rocket launchers much more effective. Or AoE damage mobs that you can only kill using melee for example, there's lots that can be done here with AoE game mechanics.
9 - etc ...

Now I chose Advanced Nano Adjuster as the reward which could be used to make Modified Nemesis/Jaguar/Boar armor for example. This is where MindArk has to do some math and figure out how many of these would be required in order to upgrade 1 piece of armor, could be 100, 200, whatever makes sense. Obviously it wouldn't be just 1 Advanced Nano Adjuster to upgrade 1 piece of armor because 1 team of 8 players successfully getting through would be all you need in order to upgrade 1 armor set. So it should probably be around 150, along with some other ingredients which could come from Robots inside the Raid dungeon, as well as outside.

Legends
 
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First off, I haven't played WoW or any of those other MMO"s. EU is simply the only one I know (I love) :wtg:

I've had many talks, years ago, with a collegue about raiding in WoW. The way he descrips it, it's so much fun! But I have some doubts if it can work here in EU as well. I also like those vids of other games in this thread.
So, here's some of my thoughts:

Strategy
A EU team is too generic. Everyone is a tank, healer, dmg dealer, leader, tagger, etc. Let's say in an EU raid upfront each team member chooses what he will be. You're a healer? Cool! Now there's two options that I think of: a) you do 50% dmg or b) you heal for 150%. Same goes for the other choses, a tank for example could get 50% more HP or 50% more evade/dodge, but only do 50% dmg and heals for 50%.
I think that way it would be more coordinated upfront who takes what role and what are the perks of each individual player in that role.

The endboss
A boss (or just any mob really) attacks and fights the say wether it's a 100% HP or 0.01%. Make that different for the endboss in a raid by making it consists of different 'body parts'. Your team maimed it's tail, now it does 20% less attacks/min. Cracked the spikes in it's back: regeneration is down 30%.
I think this would also lead to more strategy. Wich 'body part' do you destroy first? (It doesn't have to look like it's completely gone, like a mob losing one leg, more like that it can no longer use it's leg).

The loot
Economy is a double edge sword here in EU.
Maybe, in stead of high end items that 'need' to be split among the players, let there be a reward for all players based on their commitment (not only dmg done) in the form of attribute tokens or raid tokens or stuff like that. Might also make it dependant on if you use gear to your level. Say a lvl 20 players using a lvl 20 gun get's a relatively higher reward then a lvl 100 payer using a lvl 60 gun.

There's more that I want to say and more ideas and thoughts floating around in my head like ducks in a pond looking for a way to waggle on the land, but I am running out of time lol. :laugh:
 
First off, I haven't played WoW or any of those other MMO"s. EU is simply the only one I know (I love) :wtg:

I've had many talks, years ago, with a collegue about raiding in WoW. The way he descrips it, it's so much fun! But I have some doubts if it can work here in EU as well. I also like those vids of other games in this thread.
So, here's some of my thoughts:

Strategy
A EU team is too generic. Everyone is a tank, healer, dmg dealer, leader, tagger, etc. Let's say in an EU raid upfront each team member chooses what he will be. You're a healer? Cool! Now there's two options that I think of: a) you do 50% dmg or b) you heal for 150%. Same goes for the other choses, a tank for example could get 50% more HP or 50% more evade/dodge, but only do 50% dmg and heals for 50%.
I think that way it would be more coordinated upfront who takes what role and what are the perks of each individual player in that role.

Actually, I think that's a really good idea, that would be a really good way of reinforcing each role for sure :)

The endboss
A boss (or just any mob really) attacks and fights the say wether it's a 100% HP or 0.01%. Make that different for the endboss in a raid by making it consists of different 'body parts'. Your team maimed it's tail, now it does 20% less attacks/min. Cracked the spikes in it's back: regeneration is down 30%.
I think this would also lead to more strategy. Wich 'body part' do you destroy first? (It doesn't have to look like it's completely gone, like a mob losing one leg, more like that it can no longer use it's leg).

I understand what you're saying, the challenge is always figuring out how to deploy/implement that within the current game engine. Not always easy. I think that what I mentioned in the post just before yours about killing off mobs in the correct sequence and playing around with aggro range and different damage types is an attempt at this sort of thing, where you have moments that are more challenging than others, rather then the whole raid being sort of flat from start to finish. I think part of the fun is having highs where it's important to not make any mistakes, and lows where it's okay to relax a bit. I think this helps keeping the players engaged.

The loot
Economy is a double edge sword here in EU.
Maybe, in stead of high end items that 'need' to be split among the players, let there be a reward for all players based on their commitment (not only dmg done) in the form of attribute tokens or raid tokens or stuff like that. Might also make it dependant on if you use gear to your level. Say a lvl 20 players using a lvl 20 gun get's a relatively higher reward then a lvl 100 payer using a lvl 60 gun.

Yes I was also recommending this, a reward that each of the members of the team receives at the end, regardless of role, dmg or contribution. I called this reward an Advanced Nano Adjuster but really could be anything. I think that this type of Raid would work better if each creature killed would give loot, as opposed to the current paradigm where you have to open a number of storage boxes or treasure chests at the end of the instance to get your loot. I say this because of the roles, for example the healer might not actually spend as much ped as he goes through the Raid as the damage dealer for example, so perhaps it would work better if each creature paid out loot based on each member's contribution, and then at the end, everyone gets the same reward, for example and Advanced Nano Adjuster as I said above, or something else.

Thanks for your ideas :)

Legends
 
Thanks! You got some pretty good ideas yourself too. :)
I'm not a big fan of your idea of a mob being totally unvunarable against some dmg types. Some protection I do like, but it would suck if we couldn't do anyting for the team for a while. Also, don't like the idea of mobs attacking the healers. The man from WoW said something about that in the end of his presentation as well: players might say they want more realistic gameplay, but imagine being that healer: first you die because the boss is so smart to take you out and then you see all your friends die, because you couldn't heal them. Players like to run around with 200kg and carry a rocket launcher in their backpocket.
Also not sure about the "time waste mobs" like ultra regeneration or endless respawns. You need to take the RCE into account too. Players (customers!) would be pissed if they spend 10p trying to kill a mob and nothing happens.

I had some more ideas, but didn't had the time yesterday to write it all done :laugh:

Fireworks
We do have a few fireworks ingame atm that gives a positive area of effect for a short time. Now, let's make it that one teammember (Leader, maybe?) can pick a number of fireworks upfront to entering the raid. Think about buffs like faster regeneration, faster reload, more HP, etc. The usual stuff that's in pills and all those as well.
If each team can only take like 20 Fireworks, you'll have to chose carefully when to light one too.

Your gear and level
As Hijacker mentioned, the Ubers are getting better all the time. I am nowhere near their level, so I can't image how it is to solo the top instances of today. But I can get a sense how it feels, because I can solo the mobs today, that I hunted in a team 5 years ago.
How MA can create a system that is and ultimately stays interesting for all, I'm not sure. One possibility could be that your skills are capped in an instance. So, for example when going into Raid #1, your prostanding is capped at lvl 10. But then, why invest so much into your skills and gear for +50k$, when your skills don't matter?
Another possibility is to perhaps make mob stronger depending on the level of the team. A team with lvl 10 players would see lvl 10 mobs, a team with lvl 150 players, would see lvl 150 mobs. But then, again, why invest blablabla when you can do the same raid?

I can't think about a good solution atm.
That man from WoW also said that the thrill of raids is that the playerbase has something unarchieved. Now, try to apply that to EU and the RCE. You and your uberfriends to into the raid. Killing all the mobs. Endboss! Shooting 1k each ... whooops ... can't kill it yet. Too bad, eh?
I remember something from years ago when the Atrox Queen spawned (I think it was her). One Über soc found her and started shooting. Soon they realized they couldn't do it on their own, so they called a friendly Über soc and maybe even a third. With all that help, it could be killed. Bottomline: players don't like it when they spend lots of peds only to find out that they can't make it.

That's about all the things floating in my head ... I think :scratch2:
 
Your gear and level
As Hijacker mentioned, the Ubers are getting better all the time. I am nowhere near their level, so I can't image how it is to solo the top instances of today. But I can get a sense how it feels, because I can solo the mobs today, that I hunted in a team 5 years ago.
How MA can create a system that is and ultimately stays interesting for all, I'm not sure. One possibility could be that your skills are capped in an instance. So, for example when going into Raid #1, your prostanding is capped at lvl 10. But then, why invest so much into your skills and gear for +50k$, when your skills don't matter?
Another possibility is to perhaps make mob stronger depending on the level of the team. A team with lvl 10 players would see lvl 10 mobs, a team with lvl 150 players, would see lvl 150 mobs. But then, again, why invest blablabla when you can do the same raid?

Yes that's a bit of a puzzle but some of the ideas I mentioned were specifically aimed at tackling this issue of figuring out a way so that the Raid could not be solo-ed, ever, not even by a level 500. Here's Messi91 solo'ing Akbal Sector 9:


For almost 3 hours, Messi91 kills robots, 1 at a time, no strategy, no variation, nothing happens at all, just kill 1 mob, watch your health so you don't die, kill the next mob, repeat, again and again, for 3 hours...

So to me the first thing that needs to change is that these mobs need to have aggro, and there should be areas where you have more then 1 mob on you so you have to think about strategy. There is a little bit of strategy involved outside of instances which has to do with picking the mobs one at a time, it's very rudimentary but it does give the player one additional element to think about: "being careful not to aggro too many mobs at the same time".

But how to make it so that it can't be solo'ed? First let's look at what brute force would look like, meaning amping up the numbers. Let's have a stage during the Raid where 7 mobs are on you at once, for the sake of example, I'm going to say, 3 level 40 Drill Bots (Shrapnel/Burn/Impact), 3 level 40 Mind Reavers (Cold/Cut/Stb) and a Gen 10 Defender (Burn/Pen and modified to also do Electric). An experienced hunter would say 'Well I'll just use Pegasus armor with Impact plates, that will protect me efficiently against both the Defender and the Drill Bots and I'll just kill the Mind Reavers first'. But there's a catch, if you kill the Mind Reavers and the Defender is still alive, they just re-spawn. The only way for the Reavers and Drill Bots to stay dead when you kill them is to kill the Defender first. This means you have no choice but to tank the 3 Mind Reavers and 3 Drill Bots for a while until the Defender is dead. And considering the Defender is Gen 10, it's going to take a while. So now you need healers to do this (or a big pile of MediStim) cause you can't shoot the Defender if you are having to constantly heal yourself.

A better way probably is through the use of Area of Effect. If the boss is doing 400 AoE damage, it's much easier to manage if it's split between 8 players (50 dmg each) instead of just 1 (400 dmg to 1 player). And if you make the boss immune to everything except Impact/Cut/Stab, now to kill him efficiently you have to get close to him to use your melee weapons. And if his regen is too fast, no one could do him solo and take that much damage.

Also I think that Group Raids like this should make ample use of timers and triggers, meaning something happens at a specific time, or when a specific event occurs. For example, when the boss' health is down to half, all buffs are lost, now you have to finish him without any buffs, or another mob spawns, etc...

Also, don't like the idea of mobs attacking the healers. The man from WoW said something about that in the end of his presentation as well: players might say they want more realistic gameplay, but imagine being that healer: first you die because the boss is so smart to take you out and then you see all your friends die, because you couldn't heal them. Players like to run around with 200kg and carry a rocket launcher in their backpocket.
Also not sure about the "time waste mobs" like ultra regeneration or endless respawns. You need to take the RCE into account too. Players (customers!) would be pissed if they spend 10p trying to kill a mob and nothing happens.

Well, the Game Director in the video said a smart boss that kills all the Priests first. But that's not what I suggested. I just said a mob that aggros to the healers. And the reason I said that is just to throw in something unexpected. Any experienced hunter knows that mobs aggro players that are attacking it, usually, not the healer. So if a mob at some point is aggro'ing the healer instead, it would be something unexpected. You saw the video above, it's the same thing over and over again for almost 3 hours, there's no surprises and no variation really. I didn't suggest that the mob kill all the healers. And really, the only difference here would be that the healers would have to switch to healing themselves at that point, and they would survive. And if they are smart healers, they would wear an armor that protects them against that mob so they can continue to do their job and make sure that the damage dealers don't die.

The PED drain idea is probably not something that MA would ever consider doing because they would probably be afraid they will just get a ton of support cases because of this. But I put it in just to get people thinking about what is possible. And if they wanted, they could do it, but they would probably have to put a treasure chest at the end of the Raid with the name of the mob so people know that is the loot for the money spent on that mob, or something like that.

But as I write all this, I realize that something needs to be done to make Healing much easier to do. As it is, it's kind of tricky because you cannot select another player. And if your cursor is not on the player you want to heal, all sorts of unwanted things can happen... This does not lend itself very well to a high stress environment where the stakes are high if someone dies. (well when you're in team you can click the player's health bar, but not everyone knows how to do it I guess, it's a bit convoluted since it doesn't work the same as other systems)

Legends

PS: Decoys need to be fixed too...
 
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No one wants to do Team missions.
It's dead.
The gauntlet gives out a robo beacon and no one ever goes to do the mission from noob towm.
I hate team play.
I hate sharing loot.

I never did the noob one because it said I needed a team.
I tried to figure out how to do these solo and lost my beacons.
I got in by creating a team but you are unable to loot any mobs if your solo.

Open up these Instances to solo players.
It's retarded to force people to play in teams.
 
I wonder if the new RDI Secret Lab incorporates/uses some of these suggestions and ideas :)

Thanks Captain Jack.

It doesn't really have to be a complex riddle though, and the carrot at the end doesn't have to be completely hidden either, in fact, it probably would be better if it wasn't.

The primary purpose of these Raids shouldn't be to give the player base a very complex riddle that will be extremely difficult to solve, I don't think this is a good idea, especially in an RCE game. Instead, the primary purpose should be to give the player base an opportunity to work together and collaborate with one another, again and again and again. In EVE Online, Incursions are one of the best sources of income that's available to players who don't really like to PvP. So players flock to them and do them over and over again. Some people do them all day long. But these Incursions are very engaging and you have to pay attention otherwise you will die and the leader and other members of the team will not like you (speaking from experience hehe). In WoW (I haven't really played WoW a whole lot so my info might not be totally accurate), I believe Raids are often the only way to obtain certain items or gear, and they also reward participants quite well financially for participating.

So, if MindArk was going to make some Raids for Entropia, their primary focus should be on making something that gives players opportunities to work together again and again. Don't make it too complex because it's only a matter of time anyway before the answers are all known and made public in this forum, twitch and youtube. Just make it fun, make it so the risk/reward makes sense and perhaps even inform participants of what they stand to gain if they complete the Raid successfully, that way players can decide if it's worth it or not before enlisting themselves, otherwise you're just asking them to pay a price to find out, and the weight of disappointment is always greater on public forums then the satisfaction of accomplishment in the game.

As a way of example, here's what that might look like:

A new Raid called 'Robot HQ' is released. The Raid is accessed via a Portal located just outside Zycion Citadel or Camp Pheonix. When you 'operate' this new portal, you get this message:

"Robot HQ is a Group PvE Raid requiring a team of 8 players to complete. The Raid takes on average 1 hour to complete and has a 2 hour timer, after which the Raid ends and participants will be brought back here at the Portal entrance. In addition to the regular creature loot, all participants will receive 1xAdvanced Nano Adjuster upon successful completion of this Raid, which is an item necessary in the upgrade process of certain advanced weapons and armors (talk to 'NPC' at 'location')."

Now when it comes to actual Raid mechanics, here's some things you can play around with:
1 - The sequence in which mobs are killed (if the team is not killing the mobs in the right sequence, they will just keep re-spawning endlessly, one of the core mechanics of EVE Online Incursions)
2 - The Aggro range of mobs, i.e. how do you get the right mob to aggro you without getting any of the others on you? Might have no choice but to tank many of them at once to get the sequence right... How will that be accomplished? How many healers would be required? There's an opportunity here to also play around with damage types, e.g. having to tank a Shrapnel mob and an Acid mob at the same time cannot be done efficiently (not enough Sigyn armor in the game), meaning now there is no choice to have healers because armors cannot be relied upon.
3 - Aggro type: code some of the mobs to aggro healers specifically (anyone holding a tool instead of a weapon). Would be nice if there was a way for the healers to circumvent that one, lets say by using mindforce chips instead of FAPs for example.
4 - Booby traps: a mob you're not supposed to kill. If you kill it, all the ones you just killed re-spawn, or a very powerful one spawns, wasting time.
5 - PED drains: Mobs that regen too fast but that don't need to be killed to complete the Raid. How does that actually work in the game? Is it a mob that needs to be out-run using speed buffs? Or just skipped using TP chips? What happens to the PED 'earned' by them?
6 - Damage type: code some of the mobs to be immune to Burn/Pen damage, making them impossible to kill using regular guns. Another option is coding the mob so that it's vulnerable only to 1 type of damage, like Cold for example, now you can only kill it using Cryogenic MF chips (or shrapnel for rocket launchers).
7 - Out-of-range: a ranged mob or turret that fires from over 200 meters away. Do you run to get passed it quickly? Or do you go slow and get heals along the way? What if the healers die here, does everyone die?
8 - Area of Effect: areas in the Raid that give bonuses to AoE, making field regen chips and rocket launchers much more effective. Or AoE damage mobs that you can only kill using melee for example, there's lots that can be done here with AoE game mechanics.
9 - etc ...

Now I chose Advanced Nano Adjuster as the reward which could be used to make Modified Nemesis/Jaguar/Boar armor for example. This is where MindArk has to do some math and figure out how many of these would be required in order to upgrade 1 piece of armor, could be 100, 200, whatever makes sense. Obviously it wouldn't be just 1 Advanced Nano Adjuster to upgrade 1 piece of armor because 1 team of 8 players successfully getting through would be all you need in order to upgrade 1 armor set. So it should probably be around 150, along with some other ingredients which could come from Robots inside the Raid dungeon, as well as outside.

Legends
 
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