So Zone instance has been beaten to death... 10+ pages here, but what about instancing the actual contested Mob itself. Even just rare spawns, if you killed it in the last X hours, it won't spawn, or at best your odds are 1:1000, if you havent killed it, and if you need it.... your odd increase greatly say 1:10
Farmer boy odds = 1:1000
Havent killed it odds = 1:100
Need it odds = 1:10
And when it did spawn, farmer boy wouldn't even be able to see it until it was offically tagged by the player needing it. Unless of course he offered to group up and help the Need player.
Jeez..not this again. You should have just added this to the existing thread and not started yet another thread on this topic. Besides, how the hell do you declare to the game that you 'need' to kill a mob? And how do you stop people from just claiming they need it every time?
Vandraad said:Jeez..not this again. You should have just added this to the existing thread and not started yet another thread on this topic. Besides, how the hell do you declare to the game that you 'need' to kill a mob? And how do you stop people from just claiming they need it every time?
Show me the thread... i was going to add it to the Instance Zone thread but it's locked. There is another in the VIP fourms but i don't have that access.
And I'm not actually talking about an instanced zone, im talking about an instanced Mob. But i did think adding this as an alternative to an instance zone would be appropriate, until i found it locked.
And apperantly your unaware that that "Ogre Warrior" your playing is in reality, actually nothing more than a database entry. (It may LOOK like an Ogre to you, but trust me... database) a simple addition of a field MOB-X with a boolean catagory of killed (true/false) and a counter of how many times it's been killed etc..., it a DEV thing... not the player "declairing" they need to kill the mob (do they have the quest in their log true/false)
Your not REALLY an Ogre, or a Wizard or Elf, your a database entry
Zorkon said:Vandraad said:Jeez..not this again. You should have just added this to the existing thread and not started yet another thread on this topic. Besides, how the hell do you declare to the game that you 'need' to kill a mob? And how do you stop people from just claiming they need it every time?
Show me the thread... i was going to add it to the Instance Zone thread but it's locked. There is another in the VIP fourms but i don't have that access.
And I'm not actually talking about an instanced zone, im talking about an instanced Mob. But i did think adding this as an alternative to an instance zone would be appropriate, until i found it locked.
And apperantly your unaware that that "Ogre Warrior" your playing is in reality, actually nothing more than a database entry. (It may LOOK like an Ogre to you, but trust me... database) a simple addition of a field MOB-X with a boolean catagory of killed (true/false) and a counter of how many times it's been killed etc..., it a DEV thing... not the player "declairing" they need to kill the mob (do they have the quest in their log true/false)
Your not REALLY an Ogre, or a Wizard or Elf, your a database entry
Problem isnt your post, or the threads being locked it is because it has been said again and again no instancing like we had in EQ and actually games like AoConan if you remember thoses dailies?
The threads are locked because it has been said, no reason to open more dialog. The Devs do not wish to put it like EQ, but if there is no way to do it otherwise do to the current engine then they may have no way around it. But currently the deal is no Instancing unless done correctly.
It maybe a special case instancing only, maybe Technical reasons but not game play instancing.
I think i got it right, not to down play you or your topic, its been said over and over the same things.
FFXI used instances very sparingly, specifically for storyline related encounters, BCNM's, and Dynamis. All 3 were enjoyable and served a purpose. I am in the camp that wants to avoid instancing as much as possible but must admit that they can be used effectively when their implementation is heavily moderated.
Massive use of instancing is very bad in any game and worse than very bad in a game with the objectives of Pantheon.
Selective use of instancing where there is a compelling reason and where it does not conflict with the social aspect of the game is another story entirely.
Instanced dungeons has been talked to death, but this thread isn't on that topic.
On OneADseven's point -I can see instances used productively for story purposes as in Final Fantasy. They can be an excellent way to tell a story with more player involvement than in the open world and less interference by others. And they do not let players level or get valuable items outside of the open world environment.
On Zorkon's point. Soppose there is a quest to kill a particular soloable mob, or there is an item that the mob drops that the developers don't want everyone to have, just those that actually killed the mob. It isn't that hard to have the mob spawn whenever a player with the quest enters a certain area, or whenever a player that doesn't have the item enters that area. It isn't that hard to have the mob not attackable by any other player, and despawn after a few minutes. Of course having the item drop for anyone with a minimal sale value and bound to character would also work if a particular item was the issue but an "instanced mob" is a not irrational approach.
This certainly wouldn't be done very commonly but I can see possibilities for using the device when you you want people to be able to do a particular thing without needing to compete with others who might not even need the mob but are griefing people who do need it.
Zorkon please elaborate if this isn't where you were going with your suggestion.
From the FAQ - highlighted the FAQ portion most relevant to your thread:
9.0 Are dungeons open world or instanced?
All dungeons are open world. There are no plans for instanced dungeons at this time. The dungeons will be very large to handle multiple groups of players. More shards/servers will be added if overpopulation becomes a problem.
20.1 Will the game have instances?
Pantheon will support instancing to a limited degree, using it primarily for storytelling in a linear fashion, perhaps at the end of an epic quest. The vast majority of content, however, will exist in non-instanced shared zones.
Overcrowding and too much competition are indeed problems that have plagued both MMOs with and without instancing. If there are not enough players around, it can be hard to group and socialize. But if there are too many people around, the world feels crowded and people have to wait for encounters or spawns, or even compete for them. Our answer to this issue is twofold: first, primarily during the later phases of beta, we will determine how many people online at one time in our game world feels right -- neither under-crowded nor overcrowded. Second, if and when a server’s/shard’s population grows too large, we will launch a new shard with incentives for players to spread out. And with our harnessing of cloud hosted servers/shards, this is actually something we can do dynamically, easily, and quickly.
dorotea said:yes Dorotea, thank you, your on the right track of what I was trying to suggest.Massive use of instancing is very bad in any game and worse than very bad in a game with the objectives of Pantheon.
Selective use of instancing where there is a compelling reason and where it does not conflict with the social aspect of the game is another story entirely.
Instanced dungeons has been talked to death, but this thread isn't on that topic.
On OneADseven's point -I can see instances used productively for story purposes as in Final Fantasy. They can be an excellent way to tell a story with more player involvement than in the open world and less interference by others. And they do not let players level or get valuable items outside of the open world environment.
On Zorkon's point. Soppose there is a quest to kill a particular soloable mob, or there is an item that the mob drops that the developers don't want everyone to have, just those that actually killed the mob. It isn't that hard to have the mob spawn whenever a player with the quest enters a certain area, or whenever a player that doesn't have the item enters that area. It isn't that hard to have the mob not attackable by any other player, and despawn after a few minutes. Of course having the item drop for anyone with a minimal sale value and bound to character would also work if a particular item was the issue but an "instanced mob" is a not irrational approach.
This certainly wouldn't be done very commonly but I can see possibilities for using the device when you you want people to be able to do a particular thing without needing to compete with others who might not even need the mob but are griefing people who do need it.
Zorkon please elaborate if this isn't where you were going with your suggestion.
When people read "instance" they immediately go to an instance ZONE (I agree has been talked to death) I'm trying to suggest JUST instancing the MOB, not all mobs, just some of the contested, heavily camped named mobs.
Example:
I have killed "a Frinzied Ghoul" three times and looted a FBSS
I'm standing right beside you, in the same zone, I see you, you see me. But you have never looted a FBSS.
WE are standing looking in the same direction... YOU see "a Frinzied Ghoul" I see simply "a Ghoul"
It could be a social benift to have me help you with this fight to get your FBSS and so if we were grouped we would both see the "a Frinzied Ghoul" (as long as one in the group hasn't gotten him yet.
@Zorkon
Given your above example, how would that individual group with the person who sees a frenzied? You wouldn't be fighting the same mob. Would the game "reload" you after you group with them? You're then basically creating an instance at that point.
And, even if you figured a way around my first point, if you're only creating an instance for the highly contested camps, that's really just creating instanced zones anyway as that was the major benefit of creating instancing in the first place - so everyone can have their toy and item rarity is reduced.
And, not meaning to offend, but there's been plenty of discussion on alternatives to avoid highly contested camps that don't involve instancing - I'd recommend either waiting till testing to see those solutions implemented or try to brainstorm ways of how to make contested camps better within the confines of the already existing FAQ, rather than suggest to create instancing when the developers and old threads have beaten the topic to death (with most ending locked).
@Radian no offense taken, it's simply conversation. I notice all through your post you keep referring to "creating an instance" like I'm suggesting a zone, or a mini zone.I am not.
Maybe I shouldn't have used the word "instance" and should have called it an "Alternate Mob" instead.
As to your first question, Mobs instantly spawn and despawn all day long without reloading. Why would you need to reload.
A secondary option to instancing is consumable spawn triggers. Your average farmer isn't going to pay for the materials required to force a specific spawn unless it is very lucrative. If most of the desired spawns can be triggered in some way, then that method becomes a mini quest in itself. There could still be a chance for the desired spawn to show up on its own but the randomness factor makes it too unreliable for most people.
In an open world game I think spawn triggers could be used for raid bosses to give some of the effect of timers and instancing without going all the way there. Say a raid enters the Welcoming chamber to Hall of the Mountain King. The raid leader places an object on the pedestal in the center of the room. Said object took 4 hours of farming from each raid member to create. With the offering accepted the outer doors to the Welcome Chamber closes and the Raiders are trapped inside for 4 hours. The rest of the Hall of the Mountain King spawns and the raid has 4 hours to complete the raid before the front doors reopen.
Either through a raid group failing to complete the raid in the first 4 hours, or a natural respawn populates the zone, the raid becomes free for all available. This should allow smaller guilds a way to try and experience the raid without needing to compete with the super guilds that can assemble a full raid force at the drop of a hat. It could be a reasonable addition to have triggered spawns have a lower drop rate than a natural spawn to reward those who are able to compete for random spawns.
Zorkon said:So Zone instance has been beaten to death... 10+ pages here, but what about instancing the actual contested Mob itself. Even just rare spawns, if you killed it in the last X hours, it won't spawn, or at best your odds are 1:1000, if you havent killed it, and if you need it.... your odd increase greatly say 1:10
Farmer boy odds = 1:1000
Havent killed it odds = 1:100
Need it odds = 1:10
And when it did spawn, farmer boy wouldn't even be able to see it until it was offically tagged by the player needing it. Unless of course he offered to group up and help the Need player.
Yeah no. lol. We all buy the game at the same price. We all have equal "need" value to every piece of content. The internal need of one player to another is where the social aspect comes into play.
I would agree with Shasta in general - we don't want things dumbed down or catering to the "reward me now" crowd.
But, and this is a rather *large* but, we are not discussing making the mob easier to kill or easier to find or giving it a higher drop rate or reducing its respawn timer, if any.
We are talking about eliminating the element of competition with other players so that if someone who needs it arrives and the mob is available (no respawn timer or the timer has been satisfied) the person that needs it can try and kill it without competition from others that by definition do NOT need it. In other words I wouldn't have to wait for the mob, perhaps a long time, because someone that did NOT need it killed it to be nasty or not knowing it was a quest mob.
I do not see competition between players on a pve server for something that one of them needs and one of them does not need as either necessary or desirable.
Zeem said:Zorkon said:So Zone instance has been beaten to death... 10+ pages here, but what about instancing the actual contested Mob itself. Even just rare spawns, if you killed it in the last X hours, it won't spawn, or at best your odds are 1:1000, if you havent killed it, and if you need it.... your odd increase greatly say 1:10
Farmer boy odds = 1:1000
Havent killed it odds = 1:100
Need it odds = 1:10
And when it did spawn, farmer boy wouldn't even be able to see it until it was offically tagged by the player needing it. Unless of course he offered to group up and help the Need player.
Yeah no. lol. We all buy the game at the same price. We all have equal "need" value to every piece of content. The internal need of one player to another is where the social aspect comes into play.
I can't say that I agree with this. There are definitely circumstances where some players have need over other players. A player doing and Epic quest and camping a mob that drops the item needed for a specific stage of that quest, assuming that the mob doesn't drop other items, has much more "need" than someone not on that same quest. And these are things that can be checked in regards to spawning said mob. In this case, I would see no problem with that mob spawning when someone with the flag of "On quest x step 6" is within a certain distance of the spawn area or at least having a greater chance of spawning if there is a placeholder. I wouldn't even mind the mob being in an instanced room for scenarios like this.
DragonFist said:Zeem said:Zorkon said:So Zone instance has been beaten to death... 10+ pages here, but what about instancing the actual contested Mob itself. Even just rare spawns, if you killed it in the last X hours, it won't spawn, or at best your odds are 1:1000, if you havent killed it, and if you need it.... your odd increase greatly say 1:10
Farmer boy odds = 1:1000
Havent killed it odds = 1:100
Need it odds = 1:10
And when it did spawn, farmer boy wouldn't even be able to see it until it was offically tagged by the player needing it. Unless of course he offered to group up and help the Need player.
Yeah no. lol. We all buy the game at the same price. We all have equal "need" value to every piece of content. The internal need of one player to another is where the social aspect comes into play.
I can't say that I agree with this. There are definitely circumstances where some players have need over other players. A player doing and Epic quest and camping a mob that drops the item needed for a specific stage of that quest, assuming that the mob doesn't drop other items, has much more "need" than someone not on that same quest. And these are things that can be checked in regards to spawning said mob. In this case, I would see no problem with that mob spawning when someone with the flag of "On quest x step 6" is within a certain distance of the spawn area or at least having a greater chance of spawning if there is a placeholder. I wouldn't even mind the mob being in an instanced room for scenarios like this.
Yeah, by
Zeem said:The internal need of one player to another is where the social aspect comes into play.
is what I meant for people doing quests etc. Talk to people and say hey I need this and work together. Not some mechanic. Something for a quest piece for one player and another needs it for selling to buy key spells is a social decision and both have valid merits. Have a discussion in the group and if no soultion, random roll. Leave it up to the players not in game mechanic is all I'm saying.
The epic mob quest isn't a good example because if it is for an epic quests then there is no other reason for it to be killed if it dont drop gear. So why not just have the spawn rate not be rare because people who "need" it get the lower spawn rate anyways? lol. SO this means people who don't need it, won't spawn it and if they do it won't be killed prolly because it drops nothing they can use. Epic quests are supposed to be difficult and if each mob you needed popped on arrival then thats just lame imo.
It is the kind of scenario that the OP is talking about and it isn't the only example. There are plenty of situations where someone is trying to get a mob needed for a quest and some griefer gets some sort of enjoyment out of killing it whenever it is up so that those that need it have a hard time doing so. While rare, I've seen things like this with my own eyes, not just stories. But I'll grant that it shouldn't be rampant.
But my point is that there isn't some equal need for all on all content. There are a lot of examples where one player would have more need than another due to in-game mechanic reasons. And in those situations, using whatever mechanic minimizes abuse is a good idea.
Zorkon said:@Radian no offense taken, it's simply conversation. I notice all through your post you keep referring to "creating an instance" like I'm suggesting a zone, or a mini zone.I am not.
Maybe I shouldn't have used the word "instance" and should have called it an "Alternate Mob" instead.
As to your first question, Mobs instantly spawn and despawn all day long without reloading. Why would you need to reload.
@Zorkon,
Regardless of what you want to call it, we'd be just arguing semantics there. Even if it's a triggered spawn, you are creating an additional "instance" of the mob. My previous point was that if Player A sees the Frenzied Ghoul at its spawn point in the room, but Player B sees a Ghoul at that same spawn point, then if grouped, there would have to be some "trigger" to activate to reset that mob to the Frenzied Ghoul. Or, Player A would be whacking at the Frenzied and Player B would be whacking at a ghoul. Or, if the Frenzied Popped, would Player A then have a ghoul add from player B? In addition to that though, you'll create a nightmare development wise with unintended issues.
As Vandraad said, what determines what spawns the frenzied ghoul more often? Is it time in zones, is it # of kills, is it amount of times that it is seen? Give it a known variable and farmers will find a way around it. More than likely, you'll just create farmers on rotation. Let me box an alt to trigger a frenzied and then join with my main who may not have seen the spawn.
I'm all for less artificial mechanics than more, and, I'm also ok with the player competition as well in the fact that even if I paid my $15/month on a PvE server, it does not entitle me to be able to obtain all loot, just for the access on the server. With that said, I do think there are other alternatives though that can be put in place other than "instancing" or "triggering" that would avoid some of these issues. Multiple haste items at higher levels, randomized spawn points, roaming guards, have some of the items be no drop... etc. etc -- you just have to be more creative.
Raidan said:With that said, I do think there are other alternatives though that can be put in place other than "instancing" or "triggering" that would avoid some of these issues. Multiple haste items at higher levels, randomized spawn points, roaming guards, have some of the items be no drop... etc. etc -- you just have to be more creative.
Pretty much this.
Though a part of me would be interested in how it would play out for the economy if every character were only able to loot each rare item from a named mob a single time (2x for duplicate slots like wrist/ring/ear) or even with a 1-6 month lockout, but could otherwise get more if they buy from other players. I'd imagine that might put too heavy of an emphasis (or burden) on crafting/crafters.
Iksar said:Raidan said:With that said, I do think there are other alternatives though that can be put in place other than "instancing" or "triggering" that would avoid some of these issues. Multiple haste items at higher levels, randomized spawn points, roaming guards, have some of the items be no drop... etc. etc -- you just have to be more creative.
Pretty much this.
Though a part of me would be interested in how it would play out for the economy if every character were only able to loot each rare item from a named mob a single time (2x for duplicate slots like wrist/ring/ear) or even with a 1-6 month lockout, but could otherwise get more if they buy from other players. I'd imagine that might put too heavy of an emphasis (or burden) on crafting/crafters.
LOL the game would fail. If people are really worried about this then play on a pvp server.
Raidan said:I don't really think it is just semantics, an instanced zone is removing the player from the open world. An instance of a mob is not doing that, the player still has open world. Your adding a mob too the world.@Zorkon,
Regardless of what you want to call it, we'd be just arguing semantics there. Even if it's a triggered spawn, you are creating an additional "instance" of the mob. My previous point was that if Player A sees the Frenzied Ghoul at its spawn point in the room, but Player B sees a Ghoul at that same spawn point, then if grouped, there would have to be some "trigger" to activate to reset that mob to the Frenzied Ghoul. Or, Player A would be whacking at the Frenzied and Player B would be whacking at a ghoul. Or, if the Frenzied Popped, would Player A then have a ghoul add from player B? In addition to that though, you'll create a nightmare development wise with unintended issues.
As Vandraad said, what determines what spawns the frenzied ghoul more often? Is it time in zones, is it # of kills, is it amount of times that it is seen? Give it a known variable and farmers will find a way around it. More than likely, you'll just create farmers on rotation. Let me box an alt to trigger a frenzied and then join with my main who may not have seen the spawn.
I'm all for less artificial mechanics than more, and, I'm also ok with the player competition as well in the fact that even if I paid my $15/month on a PvE server, it does not entitle me to be able to obtain all loot, just for the access on the server. With that said, I do think there are other alternatives though that can be put in place other than "instancing" or "triggering" that would avoid some of these issues. Multiple haste items at higher levels, randomized spawn points, roaming guards, have some of the items be no drop... etc. etc -- you just have to be more creative.
Also taken wrong from my previous posts, I wouldn't want this to Trigger the spawn. Nothing would Trigger the Frenzied more often. The Frenzied would still spawn for whatever rotation or frequency the Devs intended. This idea was more targeted at the gold seller, or the Farmer locking a spawn down for weeks at a time blocking other players that could use the item. Blocking the Famers, not Triggering for others.
I think you probably already came up with a way around it... having an alt. to get the spawn, then have him drop group while the main (once he saw the mob) kill it and loot... then back to the alt. to spawn another. Would be a bit less convenient, but the farmer would still farm.
hmm.. The way I see is then that it's a regular (non instanced) event/mob, roaming mob in a zone.
Then based on the character's history tracking, server side, a signal is send to have a mob show a different name to a character when other player's characters.
Then when such mob is killed, it could be looted by other players and vanish from the world, but may stayvisible as corpse in the world for that one signalled character.
Then, even though other players see nothing, this character would be able to loot an item not available to other characters.
@Zorkon
I agree that it would still remain open world, but my point was that your idea would still create a similar effect as instancing - in reducing item rarity - more frenzied would ultimately spawn due to people taking advantage of a known system to spawn named mobs. If you had to have an either/or scenario, it would be better than a full zone being instanced, but I still would not like it.
When you say, "Nothing would trigger the frenzied more often", unless I'm misunderstanding your point - you invalidate your original premise. Based on the variables you listed in your OP, I read it as based on the character's experiences in game - the odds of triggering the frenzied increase (leading to more opportunities to spawn), which, leads to my alt scenario.
Either way, we'll just have to /agree to disagree here as I think we're both fairly firmly entriched in our opinions :).
Zorkon said:Raidan said:I don't really think it is just semantics, an instanced zone is removing the player from the open world. An instance of a mob is not doing that, the player still has open world. Your adding a mob too the world.@Zorkon,
Regardless of what you want to call it, we'd be just arguing semantics there. Even if it's a triggered spawn, you are creating an additional "instance" of the mob. My previous point was that if Player A sees the Frenzied Ghoul at its spawn point in the room, but Player B sees a Ghoul at that same spawn point, then if grouped, there would have to be some "trigger" to activate to reset that mob to the Frenzied Ghoul. Or, Player A would be whacking at the Frenzied and Player B would be whacking at a ghoul. Or, if the Frenzied Popped, would Player A then have a ghoul add from player B? In addition to that though, you'll create a nightmare development wise with unintended issues.
As Vandraad said, what determines what spawns the frenzied ghoul more often? Is it time in zones, is it # of kills, is it amount of times that it is seen? Give it a known variable and farmers will find a way around it. More than likely, you'll just create farmers on rotation. Let me box an alt to trigger a frenzied and then join with my main who may not have seen the spawn.
I'm all for less artificial mechanics than more, and, I'm also ok with the player competition as well in the fact that even if I paid my $15/month on a PvE server, it does not entitle me to be able to obtain all loot, just for the access on the server. With that said, I do think there are other alternatives though that can be put in place other than "instancing" or "triggering" that would avoid some of these issues. Multiple haste items at higher levels, randomized spawn points, roaming guards, have some of the items be no drop... etc. etc -- you just have to be more creative.
He was being polite and letting you off the hook for a not good idea.
I strongly oppose any mechanic that makes content more accessible because people want something (haste item) from it. I have no issue with mechanics that can alleviate competition for resources that players need (Don't want to dive in too deeply here, but let's just say an epic quest mob that does not drop anything desirable to other players) but I would hope to see these things used sparingly. The ghost option in particular has been mentioned as a planned solution for this topic. I do not want to see hand outs. I absolutely do not want to see some sort of imposed cap on players only being able to farm a single "rare" item from mobs. I feel that it's extremely important that NPC's in the world have value. That value is diminished, tremendously, if they are artificially made to be more accessible. Again, I don't care if it's done sparingly. I'm okay with certain access mobs being more accessible, but not all of them. I feel that there is merit in the idea of certain NPC's dropping a key that grants access to another area, and for that key to be rare/valuable.
Exclusivity of content is very important if we want the "ooohhh and ahhhh" factor to exist when we travel to an "exotic" location. I don't think it should be possible for players to purposely "block" others from gaining access to areas (they kill something that has zero value to them with the sole purpose of preventing another player from experiencing content), but I am in favor of there being some competition in how certain items/keys are acquired. Keep in mind, I am using the word competition loosely. I am using it in the context that the mob drops something desirable and that multiple people will likely be seeking it out, this has nothing to do with PVP. It's purely supply/demand rationale. I personally wouldn't mind seeing a ghost used for these situations that drops a temporary/consumable key, whereas the standard version drops a permanent skeleton key. If you want to travel to "exotic dungeon A" then you can always acquire a temporary key by killing the ghost version of the mob that drops it. If, however, you manage to kill the "rare/contested" version, that key would be permanent. I like the idea of these permanent keys being tradeable as well.