Why not grind and questing?

[Rau]

I personally think grinding should award less EXP.
Games like Aion should reward players for skill, not the huge amount of time some people are willing to put into the game.
Once a certain level of ability is reached, anyone can grind. I think there should be some repeatable quests which require great amounts of skill to complete, and will be different every time. That way people can play for a long time to get EXP, but the more skilled you are the more you will be able to get.

[Calindor]

Originally Posted by Firestar_Jes

I do see a small problem with a game giving both as viable means to exp'ing.
A system that rewards both equally can be to hard to implement.

The problem with this is that too make grinding viable, you have to either lower the quest exp reward, or up the mobs exp reward, which gives players questing, both the upped mob exp and the quest exp. Making questing the best way to level.

If we lower the quest exp reward, no one wants to do the quests, as it's just as good to just kill mobs.

But perhaps if you add some good item rewards for doing the quests, people would be inclined to do more quest. Even if the exp isn't as fast as just grinding mobs.

It wouldnt be hard...for example if it takes you 10 minutes to run from the town, to the quest area, then back to the town, and you get 5000XP for the quest...then 10 minutes of grinding should yield 5000XP.

Originally Posted by Rau

I personally think grinding should award less EXP.
Games like Aion should reward players for skill, not the huge amount of time some people are willing to put into the game.
Once a certain level of ability is reached, anyone can grind. I think there should be some repeatable quests which require great amounts of skill to complete, and will be different every time. That way people can play for a long time to get EXP, but the more skilled you are the more you will be able to get.

Explain how getting a quest that says go help this random NPC who is being attacked by mobs, you kill the mobs and return to get EXP is any more of a challenge than sitting in the same area killing mobs over and over. Grinding is what you make it...in classic grind games (L2, FFXI) you can make full parties goto the hardest areas and use your skill/organization to get some awesome XP which will be far better than soloing, or doing a small group in another area...but it is high risk, easy chance to die or mess up.

*edit: this could be another solution, maybe Questing should be more efficient if you are solo or in a small group, but going to the very hardest areas in the abyss with a perfect party (I guess that wouldnt be hard in Aion, would just need a cleric, chanter and the proper amount of DPS/CC) would be more efficient grinding.*

Originally Posted by mobius

Not really. The 'casal player' will most likely need to invest four to five times the amount of time a 'hardcore' player will need to in order to 'earn' the same quality item. Additionally, 'casual players' tend to play less often so the actual time to reward could be as long as thirty times longer.

I'll assume you're a 'hardcore' player, then I'll assume you're slightly pompous/arrogant and somehow assume that being 'hardcore' makes you better. Tell ya what, it doesn't and you're not.

If anything, MMO designers need to cater to the casual crowed for the following reasons:

1. There's millions of them (hundreds of casuals for every hardcore player)
2. They play less often, therefore use less resources and pay the same amount of money
3. Tend to be easier to retain and usually end up paying more money to the developers than the hardcore players do.
4. Did I mention there are millions of them? Hundreds of millions?

Make sure you think about that any time you're assuming being l337 makes you a better gamer in the eyes of the company making the game you want to play. In the end, it all comes down to money.

IMO chain quests suck because they are the opposite of casual unless you love to solo. I'd much prefer just picking a few random friends/clannies and going out to grind. If we are all on chain quests then we all need to be on the same part, and it becomes inneficient to group unless we are always playing at the exact same time to make sure we alway have the same quests, which is not very casual. Also a casual player doesnt need to invest anymore in game time than a hardcore to earn anything....it will just take him longer because they are not playing as much. You saying that a hardcore player is no better than a casual player should prove this doesnt it? And thats quite ignorant to be assuming Terpsichore is an arrogant/pompous person...I dont see how you could derive all of this simply because he said he doesnt like chain quests.


MMO's need to cater to a specific group and stop trying to be generic and trying to appeal to as many people as possible. A racing game doesnt appeal to shooters, I dont know why all MMO's are taking this generic approach. Probably because developers are too lazy to do anything innovating and just end up copying the other successful MMO's, and thus far we haven't had anything truely unique that was popular/long lasting since EQ..except maybe AoC...which is a total fail.

[Terpsichore]

What i don't like is raid quality gear just for doing some lame solo quests, who would raid then?

Its an online game, there is no possible justification for giving raid quality rewards to soloers.

Plus if you are "casual" why would you want top quality gear when you don't care much about competitive gaming?

[Heinel]

Originally Posted by Calindor

Explain how getting a quest that says go help this random NPC who is being attacked by mobs, you kill the mobs and return to get EXP is any more of a challenge than sitting in the same area killing mobs over and over. Grinding is what you make it...in classic grind games (L2, FFXI) you can make full parties goto the hardest areas and use your skill/organization to get some awesome XP which will be far better than soloing, or doing a small group in another area...but it is high risk, easy chance to die or mess up.

That need not happen. I think the notion of public quests would fit the description of a quest with dynamic outcome as well as challenge. The first game to come out with that is probably Warhammer, so maybe NC can take a look at them (provided they got it right).

Originally Posted by Terpsichore

What i don't like is raid quality gear just for doing some lame solo quests, who would raid then?

People who enjoy raiding. In GW you don't really get anything worthwhile from any of the elite missions, but people still do them anyway. When you have a bunch of guildies around, what are you going to do just solo farm? You'll raid.

Besides, I think even if the quests are to give equipments on par with raid gear, they'd still look different. The purpose, after all, is for people to play on a more level playing field.

[royce]

honestly, at the end of the day, u wont mind the grinding because u will play the game nonestop, and eventaully max out everything...then poon in pvp....i want this game to last for me...this is one game i wouldnt mind grinding for hours cus its so beautiful to look at, and im sure the gaming experience will add to that as well...

truth is, its impossible to make an mmorpg without grinding...only reason u hate grinding is because it takes so long to lvl due to low experience gains correct? so...if experience changed and u got to max lvl in less then a month or 2...u would still need to hunt and grind to get best gear correct? so why not knock out 2 birds with 1 stone and grind up the *** but know that once u reach max lvl, ul have the equipment to match that accomplishment as well...and not only that, but truth is, a sense of dominating another player cus ur so many lvls above him has its beauty as well, and for people who will start playing years after aions release will be newbies, and a mmorpg without newbies i wouldnt play...because i love ****in them off that much

[Terpsichore]

Originally Posted by Heinel

People who enjoy raiding. In GW you don't really get anything worthwhile from any of the elite missions, but people still do them anyway. When you have a bunch of guildies around, what are you going to do just solo farm? You'll raid..

It doesn't work like that, people are lazy and want easy rewards to feel momental superiority, even if that goes against the very point of a MMO.

[Heinel]

Originally Posted by Terpsichore

It doesn't work like that, people are lazy and want easy rewards to feel momental superiority, even if that goes against the very point of a MMO.

It doesn't work for you. It worked for GW.

[Calindor]

L2 handled the end game gear farming quite well...although the gear itself left much to be desired.

You could kill an epic RB once a week and get some epic drops. But you also had the ability to craft them aswell. It was very time consuming..you would have to farm the highest lvl spots in the game with a full party long enough to get 1000 quest items from a mob, then you could turn them in for the Epic Recipe...then you needed to farm for all the materials, and still had a chance to fail upon crafting.

I dont like the idea of having only certain ways to get certain gear, especially the idea of a specific raid boss being the only thing that drops a certain item...its too restricting and uncasual in a way to me.

[LethalGT]

Complete solo'ers = Complete anti social loners/losers.

Sorry for the stereotype.

[BahamutKaiser]

I think they took a page out of Guild Wars and decided to allow everyone reasonable access to the best gear, it isn't like a casual player is likely to match a hardcore one, giving them weaker gear is a lame handicap. Rather, Raid gained gear will probably be more attractive and characteristic to make it covetted, casual players will have armor as effective as Raiders and PvPers, but they probably woln't look as good.

[Calindor]

Theres a simple solution. Raiding, crafting and PvPing can all be a way to get the same gear, just with equal difficulties...as for raiding it doesnt have to be time spent...raiding can simply be skill based by having long spawn timers and PvP before the boss spawns. I'm sick of games making you choose between raiding and PvP...why cant there be both, why cant you do both?

[Firestar_Jes]

Originally Posted by Calindor

L2 handled the end game gear farming quite well...although the gear itself left much to be desired.

You could kill an epic RB once a week and get some epic drops. But you also had the ability to craft them aswell. It was very time consuming..you would have to farm the highest lvl spots in the game with a full party long enough to get 1000 quest items from a mob, then you could turn them in for the Epic Recipe...then you needed to farm for all the materials, and still had a chance to fail upon crafting.

I dont like the idea of having only certain ways to get certain gear, especially the idea of a specific raid boss being the only thing that drops a certain item...its too restricting and uncasual in a way to me.

I agree about L2, having played that game aswell. And i agree that there should be more than one way to get great stuff.
Even solo'ers can get some awesome gear. Sure it will take them maybe 4-30 times longer (not based on anything, just an example).

Originally Posted by Calindor

Quote:
Originally Posted by Firestar_Jes View Post
I do see a small problem with a game giving both as viable means to exp'ing.
A system that rewards both equally can be to hard to implement.

The problem with this is that too make grinding viable, you have to either lower the quest exp reward, or up the mobs exp reward, which gives players questing, both the upped mob exp and the quest exp. Making questing the best way to level.

If we lower the quest exp reward, no one wants to do the quests, as it's just as good to just kill mobs.

But perhaps if you add some good item rewards for doing the quests, people would be inclined to do more quest. Even if the exp isn't as fast as just grinding mobs.

It wouldnt be hard...for example if it takes you 10 minutes to run from the town, to the quest area, then back to the town, and you get 5000XP for the quest...then 10 minutes of grinding should yield 5000XP.

Some people really enjoy soloing, i don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to get some great gear too.

The problem arises because you would have to up the exp for mobs, and lets say the quest requires you to kill 50 mobs, then you would get that extra EXP for the mobs, and also the 5000XP from the quest in that same time.

[Calindor]

I still dont see the difference, if the XP/time is the same as nonstop grinding as is is for 75% running from point A to B and 25% grinding quests, then it would still all be balanced, it would just give you a choice, and im sure a combo of both would be the best, and the skilled players would find out how to get up the fastest.

[mobius]

Originally Posted by Calindor

I still dont see the difference, if the XP/time is the same as nonstop grinding as is is for 75% running from point A to B and 25% grinding quests, then it would still all be balanced, it would just give you a choice, and im sure a combo of both would be the best, and the skilled players would find out how to get up the fastest.

^^ this

Calindor has just said what I was trying to convey.