How to save this game.

[Megaton_Samurai]

This is all my opinion of course. I am quite willing to discuss and be proven wrong.

I don't know about all you other DDO vets out there, but I am a problem when it comes to new players. Sometimes I'm fine and take things slow when I start a new character. I find groups and help out or lead the way. But more often than not I'm blasting through Waterworks, Info is Key, and Bonebite Hideout 3-5 times at warp speed because I simply have no patience for the low level grind. I don't want to wait around for noobs to find their way around when I can simply solo it to the end. I could probably map out every harbor quest by memory and even have mob spawns in there. (and before you start thinking I should play quests I'm not familiar with I must tell you that I'm familiar with all of them, thanks to the favor system)

The following are things I believe I need to change my horrible ways:

1. Randomized Dungeons

Dungeons don't have to be totally random of course. Start with traps and maybe mob spawns and go from there. Any amount of randomization would be helpful.

2. Experience Rewards

I have no idea how the xp rewards were figured out in the first place, but I can tell you the only thing that matters to a player bent on leveling their character; and that's time to completion. The devs need to figure out a formula for xp that can by applied to quests that's based strictly on par time to completion and then modified by difficulty.
For example: (5000xp/hour)*(0.5+0.1*X) = xp recieved
where X is based of difficulty ranging from 0 to 10

This is just an example so please don't critique my formula. The point is xp needs to be normalized so I'm getting more or less the same amount of xp no matter what quests I do. The best way to earn good xp should be to assemble a good group that can handle quests of higher level and capitalize on the n/h/e first-time bonuses and level disparity bonuses/penalties. REWARD me for doing lots of different quests.


3. Broken Characters

This is something being addressed in the next mod but I'd figure I'd at least mention it. Glad to see it being addressed.


4. Favor

I like the idea of the favor system. I *think* the goal was to reward playing through all the quests, not just the ones with the best rewards/xp. That's probably true, but it does a horrible job of making it fun. All it really does is make a huge list of chores for all my high level toons.

I try to knock out elite stuff as much as I can while leveling, but there are two roadblocks to doing that. The first being that hard and elite cannot be chosen without first having done at least the previous difficulty. If my group is capable of doing elite then why waste my time with normal and hard or having someone log in an alt to open elite? The second problem is that some enemies scale up way too much in elite. Those enemies mostly being vermin. I don't know what the deal is with scorpions and spiders on elite but they're insane. The hardest part of elite tangleroot by FAR are those 2 brown spider princes. I almost didn't want to bring that up because I really like that elite is as hard as it is. Elite should be doable by a group who is the same level as the (elite increased) quest assuming they are skilled and very well geared out. I feel that is already the case for most elite quests, but sometimes there are mobs that simply cannot be dealt with in a reasonable manner simply because the numbers achievable at that level aren't high enough.

I should be able to level up to 16 with mostly elite quests if my group and I are very good and have great gear.

[Deathseeker]

Totally agree on the random dungeon comment...

Here's a variant on your theme...ALLOW US TO RUN ELITE QUESTS W/O DOING NORMAL OR HARD FIRST ONCE WE HIT 2250 FAVOR (or whatever the next level beyond 1750 should be). Why? Well for those that care to powerlevel and blast up the xp and favor chart, this would be very helpful. For those that don't care about that...well, then just don't choose this option. By making the favor target quite high to unlock this, only players that REALLY WANT IT will hit it. But for those that like to reroll, build toons, and power level, this would be handy and I just don't see a downside.

[totmacher]

from a programmer's perspective, random dungeons could probably happen but it would take something like 2 mods worth of work at their current pace and the benefit would not be worth the gain (imo)

[captain1z]

funny.

when I saw the thread title, I thought it was a question from a new player looking for a save (as in save progress) function in the game.

silly me.

[GlassCannon]

Select "Save Game"

Select the Memory Card you want to use

Save the game onto the memory card.

Return to play.

[Alcides]

Alt+F4 - Log in later?

[cdbd3rd]

funny.

when I saw the thread title, I thought it was a question from a new player looking for a save (as in save progress) function in the game.

silly me.

I was leaning more towards an Incense and Holy Water answer....

[Luth]

You'll notice in these vast MMO worlds the landscape, deep dungeons, and lovely scenery are awfully static. Kudos to the first dev team that comes up with a system that will allow their 3D artists to create dungeon components and it can then randomly piece the puzzle together for a 100% dynamic 3D object they can then instance and allow their players to run. This would allow for dynamic questing which would mean little to no "grinding". The repetition would be gone. This would mean....who knows what lurks around this corner or across this rickety bridge? No one! No one has ever run this particular dungeon before. It may or may not be worth the gain as stated above for the DDO dev team. But a dynamic, online, DnD experience? The masses would come running for sure. Massive amounts of hours spent, possibly a new 3D engine, but with the right design a new mod would take a day instead of 3 months. It would be a rare circumstance a company so far along the game process would be able to pull off such a feat. But I believe this to be the future of MMOs.

[GlassCannon]

You'll notice in these vast MMO worlds the landscape, deep dungeons, and lovely scenery are awfully static. Kudos to the first dev team that comes up with a system that will allow their 3D artists to create dungeon components and it can then randomly piece the puzzle together for a 100% dynamic 3D object they can then instance and allow their players to run. This would allow for dynamic questing which would mean little to no "grinding". The repetition would be gone. This would mean....who knows what lurks around this corner or across this rickety bridge? No one! No one has ever run this particular dungeon before. It may or may not be worth the gain as stated above for the DDO dev team. But a dynamic, online, DnD experience? The masses would come running for sure. Massive amounts of hours spent, possibly a new 3D engine, but with the right design a new mod would take a day instead of 3 months. It would be a rare circumstance a company so far along the game process would be able to pull off such a feat. But I believe this to be the future of MMOs.

Clipping Errors. Suddenly, you fall through a wall. Suddenly, the floor that you thought was there is not really there. Things walk through walls. You think DDO was a mess in Alpha and Beta? That's nothing.

Having truly random dungeons would make said dungeons literally unplayable, even by testers.


Unless you break away from the traditional MMO Engines and lag the ever loving cr@p out of all the player base... Then again that would make DDO unplayable. Either way, it's a broken concept in a 3d environment, regarding MMOs. In a single-player area like Morrowind, it's doable with to extremely high memory usage. In an Online setting, it's just not practically feasible... until we get 4 Terrabyte connections from our ISP, anyway, in which case Turbine would need the next step up, whatever that is, transfering around 800,000 terrabytes per second from its server.

[Dariuss]

funny.

when I saw the thread title, I thought it was a question from a new player looking for a save (as in save progress) function in the game.

silly me.

you and me both

PS. I support an xp rebalancing - I hate that half the content gets ignored as players attempt to power level to gianthold

[Luth]

Well, I've only dabbled in 3D programming. (I get to do more fun financial software day to day.) It seems to me like with a solid engine that would at least allow you to componentize the rooms(and some of their mob/trap/etc content) you could create (obviously client side) a 3D object that is your dungeon instance. Saving out said instance would probably need to be done blueprint wise and not the actual object. As far as clipping and invisible floors, if the larger 3D objects are able to avoid this, smaller components should be the same. No one has done it, which means it's obviously difficult if not impossible. But dynamic instances? The bomb.

[GlassCannon]

Right Click


Select "Save As"

Enter a Filename, or use the default

Select "Save"

[Ghanlar]

Clipping Errors. Suddenly, you fall through a wall. Suddenly, the floor that you thought was there is not really there. Things walk through walls. You think DDO was a mess in Alpha and Beta? That's nothing.

Having truly random dungeons would make said dungeons literally unplayable, even by testers.


Unless you break away from the traditional MMO Engines and lag the ever loving cr@p out of all the player base... Then again that would make DDO unplayable. Either way, it's a broken concept in a 3d environment, regarding MMOs. In a single-player area like Morrowind, it's doable with to extremely high memory usage. In an Online setting, it's just not practically feasible... until we get 4 Terrabyte connections from our ISP, anyway, in which case Turbine would need the next step up, whatever that is, transfering around 800,000 terrabytes per second from its server.

Hellgate London has random dungeons. They create 'areas' that are then stitched together when the zone gets instanced. It all looks pretty good, the pieces they use fit together well, and I haven't noticed any issues with collision and clipping. So, if done right, it can work. Now, I do think that they would need to add a few things in, like being able to set 'seeding' parameters to control what 'kind' of content gets generated, but that is easy. Is this the end the dev's want to work to? No idea, I don't work with them so I can't say. Would it be cool? Hell ya!

------------------------------------------------------
Gruk - 16th Fighter - King's Blood - Argonnessen

[Depravity]

You'll notice in these vast MMO worlds the landscape, deep dungeons, and lovely scenery are awfully static. Kudos to the first dev team that comes up with a system that will allow their 3D artists to create dungeon components and it can then randomly piece the puzzle together for a 100% dynamic 3D object they can then instance and allow their players to run. This would allow for dynamic questing which would mean little to no "grinding". The repetition would be gone. This would mean....who knows what lurks around this corner or across this rickety bridge? No one! No one has ever run this particular dungeon before. It may or may not be worth the gain as stated above for the DDO dev team. But a dynamic, online, DnD experience? The masses would come running for sure. Massive amounts of hours spent, possibly a new 3D engine, but with the right design a new mod would take a day instead of 3 months. It would be a rare circumstance a company so far along the game process would be able to pull off such a feat. But I believe this to be the future of MMOs.

City of Heroes/Villians does this. I quit playing CoX because I was bored by the grind of running the random instances. You actually start to internalize the randomizer engine and a veteran player will usually just go straight towards his mission goal. Add in all the rooms you've seen a million time before, with the same basic wallpaper all over the place, it gets boring.

DDO has an advantage in a substantially more complex set of dungeon crawling options; traps, secret doors, interesting magical effects, etc. It could be far more interesting than CoX's implementation, and given the generally high level of craftsmanship we get in quest designs, almost certainly would be.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, in fact I'd love a random dungeon generator to keep that "new dungeon smell" around, but at the moment I think it's not worth the development time. They're still working on more basic mechanics such as the last 4 levels, including spells and enhancements, AI, dynamic lighting (more Rainbow please), etc. Asking them to do the massive amount of work required by pretty much the entire Dev team to get a random dungeon generator up and running is, imo, not a good use of resources at this point in time. Give them a while to get the game filled out and tweaked nicely. Then would be a good time to ask for this (the other point it would have made sense was in pre-release).

Glasscannon - regarding time to transfer dungeon information, if the random dungeon is made out of a number of set modules that get put together by the randomizer, you can save bandwidth by a) keeping architectural information/models on client side, and possibly b) passing parameters/seed numbers back to a copy of the randomizer kept client side. Quick hash comparison to check that everything lines up, and you're good to go, as you never have to transfer the map itself.

[DasLurch]

The following are things I believe I need to change my horrible ways:

3. Broken Characters

This is something being addressed in the next mod but I'd figure I'd at least mention it. Glad to see it being addressed.

Ummmm, I don't have any broken characters, AND I have 2 rogues that I play. It took me some trial and error, but I didn't think that was something WRONG with the game. Maybe you could explain this, because as of right now, it makes me think YOU don't know how to build a good character. It is difficult to build an effective character, especially for newbies, but it still CAN be done. It is also difficult to plan out builds for their future because our leveling process still has not been defined completely due to all of the incremental small bumps the level cap has recieved.

So if you are referring to the NPE as a cure all to the poor builds, you are probably going to be wrong. That is my opinion though because a "broken character" can still be played well if someone knows what they are doing. A "broken character" can still be fun if you play it the way that YOU want to. There is no correct way to build a character. It is something that has been pretty much aggreed upon here in the forums. You have the right to make your character any way that you want to. Some of those builds may not be as effective as others, but they are still not broken.

I'm sorry if this comes off as a flame post, but it just seems that you are trying to tell people how to play. I think you ought to clarify this part a bit more is all.

Your other points OP I am split on. It would be nice if there was SOME XP rebalancing. Some quests are not as difficult as others though. I don't think that anyone would be able to come up with a plan that would make everyone happy as far as XP distribution goes. I think randomizing quests would add some flavor, but as another poster pointed out, it eventually backfired for many CoH/CoV players (I loved that game, but running one more warehouse quest would have had me commiting suicide I think.). That is a very slippery slope. I think having MANY MORE QUESTS PERIOD would be the best way to combat the continual re-running of some that we see here. And to wrap this up, I actually like the idea about favor that you propose. It should be something that is flexible though. For example, if you have a character that is currently at maximum favor or within 10-5 points, this change you offered is an option for you. If you slack off and do not stay in that "buffer zone" the option should go away. I think that would help people run some of those long lost quests a bit more frequently at the very least.

[Tanka]

Hellgate London has random dungeons. They create 'areas' that are then stitched together when the zone gets instanced. It all looks pretty good, the pieces they use fit together well, and I haven't noticed any issues with collision and clipping. So, if done right, it can work. Now, I do think that they would need to add a few things in, like being able to set 'seeding' parameters to control what 'kind' of content gets generated, but that is easy. Is this the end the dev's want to work to? No idea, I don't work with them so I can't say. Would it be cool? Hell ya!

Considering how easy it was to get stuck in the geometry in Hg:L, I wouldn't suggest their method at all. That game was buggy as all get out, and it doesn't help that they went under because of how badly it flopped.

A better "random" system would be Diablo 2, IMO.

[Lorichie]

funny.

when I saw the thread title, I thought it was a question from a new player looking for a save (as in save progress) function in the game.

silly me.

As did i........

[silverraven]

This is what the NPE is all about...the entire harbor has been remodeled and some quests have been changed, or replaced. It will be new for everyone. Besides, the dragon area will be the "new" harbor as noobs will learn more there, then the present...**** can't remember where new chars spawn.

[transtemporal]

What kind of randomization are we talking about? Layout? Monsters? Storyline? I would be far more in favor 0 at 0 at 0 at 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 of slightly randomized spawn spots and monster types, so instead of fire mephits in co6, occasionally you meet dust mephits, for example. Just to keep you on your toes.

[Depravity]

A better "random" system would be Diablo 2, IMO.

Actually, my standard is Nethack. When they can come up with a random dungeon that keeps me on my toes as much as a 'hack run, then we have a good system. Granted, there aren't any basilisks, so I can't pick up their corpses and use them as weapons.

As far as geometry goes, CoX did manage to get it to work. Everything else about the randomization was sorta...meh. What I'd expect to see is more bugs cropping up in the AI - sorta like things refusing to go through doors, tethering strangely, having problems engaging past a mesh border, that sort of thing.