Bring back the old school XP loss ala EQ1

Chryos

"Are both of you on drugs?

First off, I played EQ1.. the only reason it made money was because it was the first of its kind.

Also, slowing the rate of experience is a terrible idea, worthy of another perma ban. After questing and grinding to 50, now I have to do quest hell for vet ranks?

And that's not slow enough for you?

The people that are already max level either got in on some exploit, or literally have no lives."



To first answer your question: No. I am not on drugs. Did drugs come up in this thread?

Why do you play the game then if questing is hell to you in the first place?


Difficult games like the original UO and EQ will ALWAYS be the games to which other MMOs will be judged from. They were the pioneers. You didnt just start getting magic weapons at level 1 like in todays games. Magic items have no more special meanings in games. How many people had epic weapons in EQ1? Not many, it took a long time and alot of people, and you had to be liked to get the help of that many people in game. Wipeouts and corpseruns as well as that first victory against Derek the Vindicator (the first endgame mob to get your foot in the door) brought an emotional element to the game.

Times change I know, some might call the new easy MMO as progress, but I just think a harder challenge makes it all the more rewarding.

I sorta get that sense when we pvp against overwhelming forces so maybe I'll find some of that old school sense of gaming in pvp.

I just have to remember that todays MMOs are really single player games with people in it. Maybe thats why they are too easy nowdays.

Varivox9

There are already enough complaints about having to grind without adding this to the mix. I do like the system (I wish something was actually "lost" once I died) but I don't want to have to grind out an extra 2 hours to get back to where I was.

Chryos

Yeah WoW was easy for kids to play thats why it was popular. The game practically plays itself. I loved it too at first but never felt a real sense of accomplishment. The target audience pretty much ruined the rest as I'm sure people could agree. But I know games are for kids, and not adults.

Chryos

Well I can't wait to see what challenges await for the end game, so I'm pretty excited about that. I'm also pretty much excited about the pvp dungeon so that will bring back memories. I really don't have any real complaints about ESO so far. I just figured I'd see if there were any others out there that still liked the old school xp loss penalty. Gear damage alone just doesent really give me a fear (in game) of death. Not sure what or if there is a happy medium or a fix for that. Them days is prolly over unless the original creator of UO comes out with his game and is able to pay the rent with it.

DanielMaxwell

UO was not hard

EQ was not hard

WoW is not hard

UO and EQ launched at about the same time , but EQ did much better because it was more fun to play . WoW drew players from EQ because it did not punish them for playing the game when they died while being as fun to play.

a harsh death penalty such as what your referring to in the OP does not and has never made a game challenging , all that does is punish players for playing the game . making a game challenging requires the use of timing , and a complex AI . The second one is the hardest part as no game AI has yet been able to match up to the minds of players .

Chryos

You know what Imean. How easy was it to make it to the end of the Plane of Air? Three real days, with the guild logging in at the same time and logging out at the same times.... Emperor fight? You say the end game in eq1 wasnt difficult? I call BS on that one.

DanielMaxwell

time consuming , but not any more difficult then UO or WoW .

large scale raids have most of the challenge outside the game in the forum of organizing them and planing them , both aspects that are generally handled by a small number of people today(in EQ's time there was alot of phone calls made to get people online when the early raid bosses spawned).

also remeber that in every raid the content is all following a script due to the lack of a good complex AI program that can be placed in the game by the developers (cost alot to make even a simple AI ) .

DragonMother

Noooo thank you. You can keep that debt system in other games. It doesn't belong in ESO.

Chryos

Well, I was thinking about this during my cig break. Maybe after 20ish of playing MMOs maybe I'm just getting better vs. it's not as hard. Perspective thing.... however, those were the good ole days when everything was new...

DanielMaxwell

Chryos wrote: »

those were the good ole days when everything was new...

that is very true , just imagine how much of a challenge it would be if they could actually put a true complex AI on the servers that was capable of controlling every hostile NPC and having them work together in the various zones . That would be something to see and a challenge that would make alot of players from the old school games feel like kids again.

7788b14_ESO

L2 has all of that and it's so popular they went F2P, and re-did the first 40 levels to make leveling easier. It still takes millions of xp to level so enjoy.

Noth

7788b14_ESO wrote: »

L2 has all of that and it's so popular they went F2P, and re-did the first 40 levels to make leveling easier. It still takes millions of xp to level so enjoy.

To be fair L2 only went f2p recently. It was sub based for almost 8 years of so. Though it was a grindfest and most of the population in the game was from asia.

Chryos

Korea loves them some xp grinding, they dont play around with old school group grinding.

Chryos

Ok, I'll tell you a leel story. My very first experience in MMORPGs was UO. I spent an hour making my char just the way I wanted, as we all do. I get into the game world and think to myself "Wow, this is awesome" (It was, UO just came out, state of the art, so to speak) Well, my char had nothing but rag clothing and a crappy dagger. I had no idea what to do, nor did I have any real life friends whom played computer games. I was for the most part alone in my game. I figured out that I needed to hunt rabbits to sell pelts to get money. Before I could do that BAM! Playerkilled and stalked, over and over again till whomever was doing it got bored.

This caused me to decide that mmo's werent for me anymore. So i quit and went back to single player games for a while. Now if I had someone in RL or in game to mentor me, I woulda prolly stuck it out. Then I was very anti pvp.

Later along comes EQ1, and met some great people. I had a RP'r mentor who would make me dungeon crawl with him, and made me use a broom for a weapon. And in true rpg mentor style, there was sorta rookie hazing. However he was teaching me how to play and building my innate armor class skills etc etc but through RPing. It ended up being allot of fun. Theres tons more cool eq1 stories, so thats why that game is near and dear to me and nothing will ever top that experience i doubt. Dying in that game was a real bummer, for sure

Im sure others have similar experiences about favorite moments. I'll have to make another nostalgia thread lol.

Anywho, EQ1 is the reason why I now love MMO's

I'd like to hear ya'lls stories.

DanielMaxwell

differance between fun to play and unneccassery grind , L2 is more time sink then actual fun game play

that grind aspect is what has held L2 back from being as successful in the western martkets as EQ was and WoW still is ( and that is shrinking fast due to the developers of that game)

Chryos

I was into WoW for a time, but I deployed so I got waaay far behind my peers so that was the biggest factor. I deployed during my EQ1 time as well, but when I came back I got a nice surprise for letting my guild use my Druid as a porting mule. They went ahead and got my epic weapon for me. Pretty nice return present I thought

DanielMaxwell

Chryos wrote: »

I was into WoW for a time, but I deployed so I got waaay far behind my peers so that was the biggest factor. I deployed during my EQ1 time as well, but when I came back I got a nice surprise for letting my guild use my Druid as a porting mule. They went ahead and got my epic weapon for me. Pretty nice return present I thought

thats one of the big differances between the two communities , EQ1 due to the way the raiding was done in it did build a tighter game comminity then WoW has ever had

Chryos

The buggiest MMO upon launch, I'd say has to goto Anarchy Online. When it finally was patched enough for it to run on my computer. I made my character and logged into the game world for the first time. First reaction " Where the heck is my head!?!?" Thats right, I had no head.

Selphea

The way combat is right now, this would work very badly. Fix the sluggish controls and laggy hit detection first, otherwise the only thing this accomplishes is that the game punishes players for its own flaws.

Chryos

I have to disagree about sluggish controls. Heres why tho:

I live in Dallas and I have fast wireless internet. (on a scale of 1 to 10, a 9)
I have a good gaming computer ( on a scale of 1 to 10, an eight)

Barring no server problems, my combat is pretty fast, so much so I can fire arrows in midair and hit targets then rolldodge and knockback, stunlock and dispatch my target. It's pretty fast and super responsive for me.

I might have a better than most setup, but not an elite setup by any means. I do run my computer stripped down of all junk software, no internet toolbars, no background programs other than antivirus running in the background etc. I keep my harddrive clean etc.

I'd have to know more about your setup then I could give you some tweaking advice. Mainly though, it's internet connection and a good fast computer thats the two things to look at first on an MMO.

(not trying to assume you dont know this stuff already, but just in case you dont, this is what I have/do)

Very Respectfully,

me.

Selphea

The main issue is the lack of lag compensation. I live in Asia, so the best ping I'm looking at is ~300ms. No amount of hardware will fix that. Same goes for the European players.

But I'm running on an i5 3550 with GTX 760 and 8GB RAM with ESO on a Plextor M5S SSD if you're wondering.

Chryos

Ok well the good news is that they are going to move your EU server overseas soon according to the announcement, so that should fix that for ya. The reason the EU server is still in the US is to be able to easily work on your server from over here (until they iron out the initial problems). It's coming tho, hopefully soon for you guys.

Xaei

Not in ESO. You get exp mainly from quests at this point in PvE, which are non-repeatable, and so if you die too much, you basically screwed yourself over win this system.

In other MMOs, it still is quite controversial. MMOs have a huge emphasis on progression, and doing that is basically taking your earned progress away, something players often find not enjoyable.

In the end of the day, a game isn't supposed to 'punish' you or teach you harsh life lessons, that's your wife/boss's job. It's supposed to be fun and enjoyable, so if death exp losses aren't fun or enjoyable to most people, then devs will drop it.

Chryos

If thats the case then there shouldnt be death in the game, yeah there should be severe punishment for dying otherwise it messes up the whole risk vs. reward concept. We talk about how we want immersion, but not when its an inconveince. Another point is the whole, i can teleport anywhere and I get to miss out on the scenery. Game worlds at least seemed larger when you actuallly had to walk around instead now there is a Wayshrine to port around every 5 feet (just an example) So the thrill or rush of dying is gone, because who cares how much you die if you have plenty of gold. The game world is smalller because your instantly tp'd across the zone. All these little things people want to make life easier, really have destroyed the game for some of us. Not that I can do anything about that in this age of instant gratification.

I garuntee you the dungeon experience would have been alot more meaniful and emotional if people really had to be careful for fear of losing some xp or deleveling down a bit. You would have had to play in those days to feel that sense of dread when you die. It gave immersion a real meaning.

It's not about teaching anyone a hard life lesson in a game or making it unenjoyable, it's about a punishment suitable for death, and death being something to be feared in a game (as much as it can be)

This really wasnt that big a deal in the first MMOs, other than from the complainers who complain how "everything" is too hard.

Chryos

We want immersion, but we dont want to pay the price that comes with it.

Skeletun

Instead of punishment for death, How about a reward for staying alive? This could be through titles and or gear repair tokens. So if you earn ##xp (level dependent) you earn gear repair tokens.
Another motivation could be a "survivor board" something that shows server wide those who survived through the most levels/Xp without dying.
Maybe a special pet...say a squire that is received once you hit a survival marker. Once you get the squire it's look can be upgraded through more survival milestones.
Or instead give survival tokens that can be used to purchase in game items including gear repair kits and/or the previously mentioned squire pet.
Okay, I've got on enough. Just thinking maybe a reward system instead of punishment. But I'm just rambling at this point.

Kendaric

Chryos wrote: »

We want immersion, but we dont want to pay the price that comes with it.

Immersion doesn't really work when talking about death systems.

If you want an immersive death system:

Character dies and unless revived by another player, the character remains dead and in the world as a lootable corpse for a set period of time. After that, the body is decayed and the character gets deleted.
If you die in an enforced solo instance, tough luck. Guess it's permadeath then.

Would that be immersive and realistic? Yes. Would it be fun? Definitely not.
The same goes for experience/level loss upon death. It's not really fun and that system isn't featured in modern MMORPGs for a reason.

I do agree about the wayshrine travel, that's essentially unneeded convenience. It's up to the player though to use them. Most of the time I don't use them for travel, unless I need to reach an area that can't be reached otherwise (like switching between Pact and Covenant areas) or I have time constraints.

Chryos

I stand firm in my belief that xp loss makes the game alot more intense and exciting. That is just how I feel. I never said make it "permadeath real", but I feel death should be an unpleasant experience not a mere inconvienance. I never said it would be easy or fun to lose xp. It would sure add a sense of realism and emotion to the game.

Chryos

I try not to use wayshrines either unless I'm in a real hurry. I think they should at least reduce the number of them, there is way too many. There should be one in town and maybe just enough to port to the farther reaches of the zone. Thats kinda why I miss EQ1 because of the massive zones like E. Karana, that zone was huuuge, it took some time to travel across that map. I know I am in the minority though, but I figure I would try and change some minds as far as the current trend I see in MMOs these days. I doubt a harder MMO would sell to todays audience anyway. Everyone seems to be spoiled on the instant gratification MMO. Now people are asking for the Endgame to be dumbed down or made easier.

Nightscar

ummm this isn't 2000 anymore..
times have changed.. the world has changed..
and MMo's have changed.. I guarantee you will never see xp loss in a MMo again..
Thank
God!
And you can thank WoW for that imo
Best to deal with it, stop asking for it
or stop playing MMo's
K
Thx
Bye!