The Zerg

[Umber]

So I went on my first group dungeon run last night and holy cow was it fast paced and lucrative!

What I am finding is that Zerging dungeon chests/bosses seems to be the best way to gain loot and councils. Since Dungeons are not instanced (which I love by the way!) and boss loot IS instanced, it creates a situation where solo play is far out-shined by zerging. I'm not sure if this is even an issue, but it seemed it merited a discussion. It certainly incentivizes grouping, which is great. What is doesn't seem to do, is promote long-term group hunting. Zerging through the bosses and disbanding as soon as the dungeons are complete.

As it was my first multi boss experience with a group, can anyone confirm whether or not bosses can be farmed (beyond specific boss items on a timer)? Didn't see this happening, which is good, but is it possible?

[alleryn]

I agree, zerging is unbalancing. The whole "outnumber your opponents and outDPS them" phenomenon leads to buttonmashing in place of any actual strategy and should be looked at (though i'm not sure what the solution is).

For now, i just avoid doing it myself.

My biggest fear is that if i ever get to the point where i can attempt one of the popular zerg locations with a small group (assuming i can find others interested), some wave of players will just blow past us and stomp everything.

[Khaylara]

Bosses can be theoretically killed every time they respawn (10-15 mins more or less) but their loot "decays" on a 3 hrs timer. What it means - you get nice loot the first time then if you kill him again you get next to nothing. If you kill it again in 3 hours it drops nice items again but it has to have that 3 hours time period between kills otherwise you get rubbish. So farming bosses would not present much advantage for the farmer:)

Some dungeons (and even outdoors areas) have also elite mobs which have shared loot just like the bosses.
Grouping is recommended for dungeons but many would disagree with the "zerging" although that is the situation right now, if the group has mad dps that group storms through dungeons. Ideal would be to have some party/group roles but it's gonna get there eventually when the game is finished.

It's definitely better for your finances to run the dungeons in groups

[eikona]

I agree, zerging is unbalancing. The whole "outnumber your opponents and outDPS them" phenomenon leads to buttonmashing in place of any actual strategy and should be looked at (though i'm not sure what the solution is).

For now, i just avoid doing it myself.

My biggest fear is that if i ever get to the point where i can attempt one of the popular zerg locations with a small group (assuming i can find others interested), some wave of players will just blow past us and stomp everything.

This is already happening, and it's what has been keeping me out of dungeons. Most times when I try a dungeon with a group, a larger zerg group blows by us and takes over the area, leaving us very little to hunt at best. Some few are nasty about it and deliberately train us to death or have a smaller group split off to follow us around to make sure we get nothing to hunt. It is very frustrating.

I haven't posted about it because I can't come up with a solution either, that doesn't bring modern mechanics that I am here in Gorgon to avoid into the game. But it is frustrating. I keep hoping to find the dungeons growing into the large sprawls that I remember from EQ, that could support multiple groups.

[Khaylara]

It's unfortunate that some people are being nasty and griefing because there are few simple solutions to sort out the lack of space in dungeons

-join groups and rush bosses and chests. A dungeon can be ran with 20 people split in 2 groups and talking in nearby chat, there's not much need to compete

-it's custom not to bury mobs in dungeons. Throw that rule off the window when there are others nearby. If one group buries their corpses the group coming behind would have fresh new mobs to kill. It involves not being an asshat and actually being considerate.

-if people are griefing it's not bannable but it's frowned upon. This community tends to get rid of the sort of players who love to grief others so call out their behavior.

The dungeons won't be instanced (I understand the engine doesn't support large instances) but the devs know the playerbase is growing and probably intend to sort that out so sharing resources doesn't have to depend on someone's courtesy or common sense. Till then try the above mentioned tips:)

[Crissa]

If a group rushes the boss, you can always walk in and get the loot, too. And if the the boss despawns and you don't get a shot - you can still get loot for yourself on the next kill.

One group can't deprive another of the loot, since the loot is locked per player, not the world.

...Also, I've never seen it possible to 'train' mobs onto other players. The mobs always just run away. Is that something new?

[alleryn]

If a group rushes the boss, you can always walk in and get the loot, too. And if the the boss despawns and you don't get a shot - you can still get loot for yourself on the next kill.

One group can't deprive another of the loot, since the loot is locked per player, not the world.

Yeah, but loot isn't everything. I want to actually do the boss fight in a way that is challenging and fun...

[eikona]

If a group rushes the boss, you can always walk in and get the loot, too. And if the the boss despawns and you don't get a shot - you can still get loot for yourself on the next kill.

One group can't deprive another of the loot, since the loot is locked per player, not the world.

...Also, I've never seen it possible to 'train' mobs onto other players. The mobs always just run away. Is that something new?


It is certainly possible. Mobs right now seem to switch aggro to random players, for no other reason than their walking by. If you're doing zergs/ highly populated dungeons you may not have noticed it. But if you go into a low pop dungeon with another player, ungrouped, and both fight solo and "leapfrog" each other, you will see more often than not, the mob you're fighting will literally in the middle of combat with you stop fighting you, turn its back to you, and charge the other player. It works this way with groups as well - walk past a group fighting and it's more than likely that at least 1 or their mobs will turn and attack you even when you do nothing at all.

So the "trainers" aggro a bunch of mobs, then run in circles around us until their horde switches onto us and we die. It doesn't take long at all, as it seems as though there is some odd mechanic that prioritizes aggro onto non-participants.

edit to say - Yeah, what alleryn said. :) I want an old fashioned dungeon crawl, the loot is secondary.

[Citan]

Hey guys, love getting feedback but this thread feels very vague. It'd be really useful if people gave any sort of specifics. "Zerging" where? What levels are you? How many people are involved? Without specifics I can't give specific feedback. Here's some general feedback that I've posted before on the old forums (more or less):

Some low-level dungeons, I honestly don't care if you bum-rush them with a million people. If a high-level player wants to organize a bunch of newbies to kill Gajus? I can't really bring myself to give a crap. It's not important in the scheme of things. But if you're doing high-level content in groups of eight or ten, that's a bigger problem, one that we're aware of and that's on our to-do list to fix.

My current plan is to basically use EQ2's system: hunting groups have a max of 6 people, monsters become "loot-locked" (and XP-locked) to the first person or group that attacks them, and a little icon shows that the monster is locked. There are simple level-range restrictions on the group, as well, to keep a level 100 from carrying a group of 50s. This system works well for keeping the game's challenge level up. But it has down sides, mainly that you HAVE to group up in order to share loot and XP from a monster -- casual "nearby grouping" stops working. It also opens up some dumb abuse situations, like "high level guy runs to boss and keeps him perma-locked for hours just so that you that can never kill him", but in practice that's pretty easy to fix. We first disincentivize the abusive situation as best we can (e.g. after the third repeated boss kill, you get literally nothing from it), then if people continue to be dicks just for fun, we ban them.

But as I said in the Big Dev-Info Roundup post, these plans will come later this year. The main hold up is that I need the GUI revamp to be done first. I don't currently even have a way to show a little "locked" icon overtop monsters. I could hack something in, but I'd just have to re-code it again in the new GUI. So that's wasted work, which I try to avoid.

In the mean time, please try to exercise a little self-restraint. Yes, you can abuse the limitations of the alpha and run a dozen people through a dungeon. But you should understand what you're doing: you're twinking yourselves. There are literally no dungeons in the game right now where a group of more than 6 should be needed -- and most dungeons are balanced for a group of 3 or 4 -- so if you have more than six, you're playing on an "easy mode" that is only going to be available until I can change it.

Why should you care? Because once you twink yourselves, your feedback becomes worthless. You don't really know how hard or easy things are, so you stop being able to help me balance content. Plus, the combat metrics generated by oversized groups are worthless, so I can't balance it that way either. I know that there are level ranges where it's hard to level, and dungeons that need work, and skills that need improvement at certain level ranges... but I don't really know where they are exactly, and I need your help -- your untwinked help -- to find and fix them.

The game isn't finished yet, but stuff like this won't be a problem forever. In the mean time, I'd like people to use their sense of restraint. It's not hard! Try it. :)

Edit: here's the big dev info roundup. It's from August, so it's a bit outdated in a few places, but it may fill in some gaps for new players: http://projectgorgon.com/blog/entry/developer-info-round-up

[eikona]

I am very sorry to hear that you are introducing EQ2's loot locking. I found that damaged the community, and disincentivised people from helping and interacting with each other. It completely changes the way combat, grouping and player interactions in hunting grounds function. Once you're in a locked combat, you're essentially removed from the rest of the world as most people see that lock icon and their eyes slide away to find an open mob and you've become an obstacle rather than another player.

[Citan]

Well, no system is perfect, but I actually found the opposite. As a templar in EQ2 I routinely helped out others, just for the sake of being nice, and because of the locking system, it was understood as a nice gesture instead of an attempt to steal a kill.

In Gorgon right now, you can "help" somebody, but if you do more damage than them against a solo creature, you stop being a helper and start becoming a kill-stealer. And since XP is split right now, many players will resent your "help" because you're inevitably slowing down their leveling.

I guess the bottom line is that the current system is obviously not going to cut it in the long term because the loot system heavily rewards mega-groups. Mega-groups are actually really boring, even if the rewards are good. It's not healthy for the long-term of the game. The best system I've seen is EQ2s. If you have other systems to propose, that's cool and I'm all ears! But we can't stay with the exact system we have now forever.

[Oxlazr]

That "Kill-stealing" mentality cripples so many games it's ridiculous. I don't see why you can't use both systems, though. I think Manticores work well with a zerg-group if only because it brings people together - and nearly all of that loot sees its way to a vendor regardless.

Otherwise, interior dungeons should require a degree of co-ordination and a well-rounded group; having people play specific roles really makes people feel like they full a niche in the community.

If you're going to push a group-only loot system, it might pay to flesh out a few of the popular dungeons with additional bosses - ideally, when those spots are contested the groups would effectively kill one boss, then switch to another boss while another group might do the same to avoid diminishing loot-returns.

Also, I wonder if the "power creep" going forward could be smaller than traditional MMOs might have? If the difference between a level 50 and 100 character isn't overwhelmingly significant, then those two players could more effectively group without levels getting in the way - while the level 100 character could effectively replay older content with it still presenting a challenge. It might mitigate the effect of power-leveling, rather than outright denying a high level player from helping a much lower level one.

I tend to avoid min/maxing and generally just give away my gear when it passes a certain threshold where the game would otherwise become boring; I don't even bother with transmuting/augmenting - but increasingly I feel the game is presenting more and more ways to min/max and that creates a sort of pressure for players to do so.

I think it's also important that powerful items cycle out of the economy in a meaningful way - I realise items becoming "bound" is a thing now, and this isn't really going to be an issue until much later (given that level 70 loot will likely become irrelevant going forward anyway) but I feel I should mention it anyway.

People often think in terms of efficiency - more gear = more gold = more skills and abilities, and a more flexible & powerful character. I'm still not convinced gold is the best means of progression, but it certainly feels like the only one right now.

[Crissa]

I have never had a mob 'leapfrog' me that wasn't hit by the other player or reset to its position. The fact that mobs often generate on top of players or their paths is the only time I've seen them add to players.

I've played far more hours solo than in groups.

And yes, playing to challenge yourself and a group is fun. I've done that through the Crypts, lending a hand in a group that could barely take the Rhino. I tanked it for a couple minutes but I ended up dying and waiting for them to come back through the dungeon ^-^

I hate loot-locking. It leads to kill-stealing and buggy bosses and munged attempts to fight them. It's bad enough that a loot-locked spider can land on your head in the dungeon and collide with your character and trip you up. Why is collision turned on when you can't interact with the corpses?

[cratoh]

I am so happy that you are using the group locking system from EQ2. It was really good. Do remember however, it was optional - you could set or lose it. Contested dungeons there were great fun. One of the things that made them work though were different areas within the dungeon, and a fair few quest and bosses. For example Runnyeye dungeon, a fairly mid midrange dungeon at the start of the game, could easily cope with 5 at level groups of six people. This was because repop times were pretty quick, and there were multiple path choices. On top of that there were 2 dungeons that were instanced inside as well that took some time. There were also overpowered x2 group mobs as well. The most important thing though - you needed roles in EQ2. You could go to Runnyeye as a healer/tank duo and progress very slowly through. Add one dps and go a bit faster. Add a healer/dps hybrid, a bard for buffs and a 2nd dedicated dps and you knew you were going to have a great time. The reason that things can feel like a zerg here is that there are no defined roles. You can go to a dungeon with 2 people and its a dps, self healing, damage soaking firstaid kit, armor patch using mini zerg. Add more peopel, just use less first aid kits, and faceroll the mobs. Again, in EQ2 - the fights were meaningful, even trash - the trash could drop nice loot, but they didn't just melt at level.

Another important thing - boss loots. I really dislike the 3 hour loot roll. It completely removes the dungeon crawl from the game. An MMO standard is that Adventurers go to dungeons to get loot and the best loot drops from bosses. The problem in Gorgon is that everyone gets the loot whether they were there for the kill or not. This, to me, is a glaring but easily fixable error. Code in need/greed/pass mechanic - keep bosses dropping loot all the time - stop giving loot to everyone - make it so the boss has RNG to drop pieces for anyone that was IN on the kill - not halfway down the dungeon around another corner. Make it so that if there is for example necro/spider, fire/staff and druid/hammer present for kill and druid/hammer drops - make it need/greed/pass for druid, and greed/pas for other 2 players please.

It's totally out of keeping with the genre to have these massive loot pinatas like manticores, lab runs, effectively any run at all, in the whole PG dungeon world. Loot doesn't feel special - there is no reward for grouping again and again - you just see used tabs full of vendored stuff from people steamrolling through content. As for the bosses - that is really weird, I mean I have walked in a room with a dead boss in it, and looted it for full loot. What adventurer would leave a boss full of loot on the deck?

Lastly - again leaning slightly on eq2 here where they had a level limit to receiving loot in dungeons. It has always bothered me that I can go into say Serbule Crypt as a max levelled fire/BC character and get full loot. It would be nice if you ascertained what level you thought a dungeon was - say SC was level 15 at start, level 25 on necro floor then make it that anyone going in there max level auto-delevelled to 20 at start and 30 for necro floor. What is the point of having nice content if new player just shouts out in chat and some high level goes down and face rolls them to the necroboss? Or if someone gets loads of curses and then gets a high level to clear them all? It totally devalues the dungeon - it stops the new player learning Risk/Reward, and ultimately takes away from the longevity of the game. It makes notoriety meaningless, it further devalues loot - i mean, the low level player just went follow/loot..

I come from a gaming background which went from super hardcore raider to pretty casual part time player/grouped pick up raider over many years. I absolutely love grouping. I love a challenge, I love the experience of grouping up and beating a dungeon. I have seldom felt any excitement at all in Gorgon thus far on any group content. I know it is Alpha, and I am so glad to hear you are going to be really looking at group content, and putting some challenge in the game. I hope you have a think at least about my other points, thanks.

TL:DR

EQ2 group lock - great, it worked.
Bigger dungeons, multiple paths, quests, more bosses, faster repops, much harder mobs.
No more loot for everyone. No more 3 hour loot ban. Make bosses drop 3 loots max - make people who killed it need/greed/pass.
Make all chests boss related - key from boss - or better yet key from random mob drop in general area required to open chest.
Make roles important - bring variety to P:G. Allow people to be good at a role. Make dungeons depend on roles.
Make dungeons autolevel overleveled characters.

[Khaylara]

Citan we ran Lab few times with 20+ people. Not carrying newbies through, but groups of adequate level people. It's simply because it's the highest level dungeon and there's not much choice yet in that department. It's going to be a bit difficult if it gets loot locked but maybe by that time we get more options so we're not limited to that one dungeon.

Maybe a stupid idea but...if instancing is not possible, would the server support duplicates? For example 2-3 yeti caves with the same layout and mobs but with the entrance placed in different locations? I know it sounds stupid because people skip it anyway but if the playerbase grows maybe it's worth considering, I don't know.

[Niph]

Regarding the original poster concern, I have experienced zerg groups in two dungeons, Kur Tower and Labyrinth. Neither are true zerg, in that if you just run forward killing everything, you'll eventually die before you reach the target (Lomas, Claudia). It always requires some decent pulling. Yes, it's chain pulling (there is always a mob being killed), but not a zerg. A zerg is when you throw yourself at something hoping to defeat it with shear number, and it doesn't work in PG: the recast on Resucitate takes care of that.


The motivation for big groups is of course that they are better performing. While Claudia can be done with 6, it's so much easier with 24! And the loot is the same...


There is also the fact that a group must constantly try to beat the respawn behind. Currently, the perception seems to be that you need big groups because of that. But, in practice, two players is enough to clear to the deepest floor of Lab (I know it from experience). Based on that, I think that changing the game to promote 6-men groups should do fine, at least for the well-geared older players. :)

[Elenoe]

EQ2 group lock - great, it worked.
Bigger dungeons, multiple paths, quests, more bosses, faster repops, much harder mobs.
No more loot for everyone. No more 3 hour loot ban. Make bosses drop 3 loots max - make people who killed it need/greed/pass.
Make all chests boss related - key from boss - or better yet key from random mob drop in general area required to open chest.
Make roles important - bring variety to P:G. Allow people to be good at a role. Make dungeons depend on roles.
Make dungeons autolevel overleveled characters.

;TLDR
- group lock is awful
- instanced loot is the best. No "60runs, 20 drops, rolled nothing, thanks for timesink"
- loot CD is great in open dungs without instance CD, especially when dealing with zerg
- trinity sucks, especially in classless games, don't bring that rigid WOW concept as an improvement

The Negative:

- played EQ2 just after UO, maxed out and left just because how non-instanced bosses worked, it was terribly boring. We waited for 8h respawn. Other groups came to wait. You've waited hours but needed to be fully prepared to make first shot. Because only that group got A CHANCE to get one item. That was awful and I managed to avoid any other games that followed such rules.

- next worst thing is crafting/equipment tiers. The thing when you somehow get tier 50 gear in 4 months of playing. And then next update says it's completely useless, because white 60 is always better then yellow 50. And then lvl 65 update... This was lazy concept back then and it still is.

(The opposite idea: The Secret World builds on what you have and further improves it. So with new content either horizontal system is added, or there is new dung/raid where you get the upgrade tools that allows you to upgrade one piece of gear you have for years a bit higher. New players have the "same gear" as you do, but they need all those items from low dungs/high dungs/quests/raids/new content to make it better. No effort is ever lost. Everything you do accounts to your character. Seasoned players have more pieces with different stats, more possibilities in roles/tuning and more things to upgrade. It's the best way for PvE "theme park" game I've seen. )

- and the worst in the end: RNG. When you just have a chance to get one item in group (need/greed idea) that has only chance to drop with quite a small chance to have actually good stats. Never seen anything frustrating like this.

(So to be sure... collecting "tokens" that can be traded for things is better. For players anyway. In TSW, again (it's really good game for dungeoneering), you get token for each boss you kill. More for the last one. Good aspect of this is players are not afraid to go dungs they cannot complete. And even if you don't get RNG loot, you still have feeling you got something out of it and you are closer to the upgrade. People are not afraid going to dung where last boss is "unbeatable". It's a way to gradually raise difficulty to make dungeons accessible for wider spread of people.)

- things like class locked roles, or trinity roles as a whole, or barely usable market tool (known as auction house)...

- killing trash for RNG chance of getting needed key... useless. You don't go to dung to grind trash. That's what you do outside the dung. Dung should be directed with purpose and mechanics, not RNG and trash.

The Positive:

- group lock - don't see reason for it. In EQ2 it was there to avoid "kill stealing". In some games kills are shared. Everyone can participate, everyone close enough gets a kill (hit wasn't good enough for healers/buffers). It worked too. It TESO (I think) xp are not "shared", everyone gets full XP + bonus for grouping (if that's what developer prefers). No problem with that either.

- instanced loot is always good - again, no scare of competition, people packs naturally. Everyone who participated gets a thing. Problem with AFKers (people who hit and then just wait) solves for example Secret World by reward tiers (you need to do certain threshold to get highest reward, just for "participation" you get lowest, there are three tiers of rewards for public world event bosses). Instanced loot also allows to distribute rewards based on player (low level gets worse things then high level).

- if there are public dungs, loot timeout it actually the good idea. High respawn CD (combined with group-lock) is the WORST! (Blessed be EQ2 and Anarchy for showing this) So you can kill the boss for whatever reason again but you don't get the best you could. Many game follows this with 24h CD and it's ok (18h is better for obvious reasons).

- classes/trinity roles - if anyone wants this, just pick one of gazillion games out there. Don't bring it everywhere else please. It doesn't "add to the game", it binds it. In Secret World there are trinity roles. But it's also classless. So people combine. There are healtanks, dpstanks, dpsheals... then they added dung finder with trinity in mind and how do you get a group when it's "supposed to" find tank+healer+3dps but you actually need healtank + 4 dps. Trinity/classes are mainstream concept, not the only one. And you may notice the classic "trinity" roles players break wherever they are allowed.

In TSW my "role" I'm good at is dissolving purple shields. I have the timer in my brain, I feel when to interrupt quite fast casting, in every situation I know how to move with purple mobs/mechanic, My priority is obviously to get purple related things upgraded first so I do it better then anyone in our group. In raids I have build for shooting pods, controlling adds and when needed, to carry beating from boss for a while. These are "roles" I like, I'm trained for and I'm good at. I don't trinity for anything like this.

Tank/heal/DPS adds nothing. Where needed they come by naturally. With all those variations like offheal, dps with one buff, and such. I don't think the game itself needs to create artificial places for those. I hated RIFT for being "forced" to do roles. They callout for offheal, it had to be offheal (and there was one good offheal class, no others accepted). And RIFT has at least basic roles switch, even when it's class locked game, EQ2 was the worst example of this for me.

- if zerging bosses is an issue, then it's mechanics issue. If the boss only needs DPS to kill then more players means more DPS. World bosses are known from many games. They still can have mechanics (simple, so it's fun for random guys) and be fun even with more players (Defiance wasn't bad in this).

If you want to have open dungs with good GROUP bosses, good mechanics are the way. Something like split the group, each individual/group needs to get to designated corner/area, where they are fighting their small mobs and they need to pull lever with elemental damage the boss gets immunity for, while main group fights him... Or highdmg AOE when not enough players stand at the right spot when they need to... Or limit it naturally like in one moment players need to spread themselves or be killed - if you limit the size of room then, no more players "fits" in for one fight, the rest will wait outside for the next one... Or there may be organization limits, like 10 pads, each needed the exact same number of players doing specific thing - so smaller group is easier organized and you make "certain" lowbies are not carried because they cannot handle their part on their own, and putting there two people means putting two people everywhere else...

This means it won't be random, it still needs coordination/preparation. More players makes phases easier but not much faster and certainly not trivial, etc. Tiered (again) is bad. In character based games where character skills > player skills (WOW, PG), people need constant feel of progress (TSW FTW in this). So you raise level to 70. Then you need harder dungs. But you need to leave old content for new players. So in the end there is only one/two dungs people can use at any time (once they reach higher tier, they move there and they never return lower because what with lvl 50 s... gear). This is bad way. Getting tokens, which can be raised in higher dungs so doing any dungs is useful works well (in TSW all dungs are used by endgame players). Works best with CD, so people starts with highest level, get 10 tokens, more dedicated can spend more time to get another 6 tokens, even more dedicated can run low level and get 2 more tokens while still on CD for the highest tier.



...
I have no idea what "motives" developer has for PG. But making it "trinity", "rng", "tiered"... well, that's fight that cannot we won IMO. There are too many much better games out there that do things exactly just like you want much better. What there is not are games like SWG, UO, Runescape. That do things about exploration, non-combat activities etc. Those that actually exists in genre are 15-20years old (except EVE which is newer, but that's another beast) or are related to small area like A Tale Of The Desert, which has similar technical background as PG, but doesn't try to implement "mainstream" ways to do things. Instead it is the ultimate research/crafting game (way ahead of EVE).

[Grobyddonot]

Theres one thing that solves all the dungeon problems above.. Instances. Instanced Dungeons.

[Zhahadum]

It's interesting how perceptions differ. Personally I find the EQ2 Loot/XP lock system to be one of the hallmarks of when MMORPGs began the process of shifting from 'the players as a group against an open world' to 'a lot of people playing solo in the vicinity of each other in a theme park with a train track zone progression.' I entered EQ2 after playing the original EQ which I began in the days of original content (back when players equipped bronze/combine gear because it was an actual weapon upgrade rather than the cash loot it is these days) so I came to it having played through the problems that the EQ2 devs were seeking to fix. An interesting note on that front, by the way, at Launch for EQ2 the devs main argument for the mob locking wasn't preventing kill stealing it was that the mechanic enabled the developers to better manage challenge levels. I recall at the time being struck by how the locking had impacted the community. I'd gone from a community where drive by buffing was common to one where the locks made each combat a little pocket reality within the zone and caused people to start ignoring each other's existence because assistance was blocked and/or penalized.

(It's also worth noting that how kill stealing is being defined in this thread is radically different from how players at the time would have defined it. In their case kill stealing was an issue because the XP/Loot was an all or nothing matter. And even though the person who made the kill received all of the XP and all of the Loot, it was only the loot they cared about and more specifically only the known good drops from the named mobs. Almost no one quibbled about who got the trash loot from the yard trash. So those players would have been perfectly happy with shared XP and an instanced loot table especially in a situation where the loot is proceduraly generated. So from their point of view the situation you're discussing would have been a solution to kill stealing and not a problem to be solved.)

As far as the mechanic itself goes, I find it doesn't so much solve the problem as create different problems. As is common with such mechanics you don't so much solve a problem as trade one problem in for other issues. In this case you seal off 'kill stealing' at the expense of enabling griefing and facilitating/encouraging power leveling. Some of that griefing can be handled by bans, though after the fact bans don't do much to change the emotional experience of the player who was griefed in the first place, but some of it gets into very interpretative areas. The power leveling winds up becoming an even larger problem. Sure, ten to twenty people getting together and zerging overconsumes the content and impacts game enjoyment, but the power leveling does the same thing with a reduced number of players profiting. In this scenario instead of ten to twenty people you get as few as two who are overconsuming the content as the low level tags and locks the mob and the high level blasts it causing the low level character to reap all of the rewards. The pair in this scenario will devour spawns at a rate that no level appropriate group can match unless you take the next step and apply a damage lock to the mob. Of course doing that only stops direct interference so the high level player is forced to shift to damage shields, buffs, and heals leading to the same result. (I've got my defense buffs, my damage shield, and my heal bot so I target, shoot, target next, shoot, and repeat the cycle while the things I'm attacking kill themselves attacking me.) The fact of the matter is that you really can't mechanically eliminate bad behavior short of using some of modern algorithmic voodoo where a complex series of factors is used to determine if the essence of the rules is being followed and applies penalties (such as quartering the XP award and denying loot) where it isn't.

Truthfully if I were in your position I'd turn to a different approach. I'd probably use a system which evaluates the threat factor of the group involved and if it passes a calculated threshold have the game instantly spawn reinforcements of a dissuasive size. If they group can then kill that? Hey, they earned it.

[Crissa]

If it's a DPS vs Boss issue, I would use level locking. You could get messages (like the boss messages) if you're touching or approaching something outside your level. Gear you can't use is useless, anyhow.

Another would be to have 'hardness' and/or to-hit values which prevent lower level characters from participating in zergs against a target.

...

I've only had kill-stealing as a problem once; I needed those stupid rat-teeth and tails for quests and someone kept shooting the rats over my shoulder. It was really annoying - I'd go down the other tunnel and they'd come zipping back around, and shoot the rat over my shoulder.

After chewing them out, we traded the items we were farming, but... It was really annoying. Mostly that just means we needed more mobs to interact with.

[Easylivin]

My current plan is to basically use EQ2's system: hunting groups have a max of 6 people, monsters become "loot-locked" (and XP-locked) to the first person or group that attacks them, and a little icon shows that the monster is locked.

I remember when there was a bug that caused elite mobs to become loot locked for the first group, it caused a lot of drama in the game. Maybe we could be discouraged in other ways?

The 29-30 person lab run we had the other weekend was silly. The lag was terrible, getting sub 5fps for most of the dungeon, this slowed the run down and reduced the amount of loot I could get. Earlier this week I did lab with a group of 7, it was nice and we finished the entire dungeon without any issues. Mad loot!


So my feed back is, if there are too many players in a dungeon, turn on an appropriate level of the foul air debuff to discourage the larger groups. Or a new debuff that slows everything down and lowers combat xp% making the zerg not profitable.

[Caustic]

Instances ruined EQ, I hated not having random people in zones that you help. The only *good* was in WoW with the dungeon generator so you could join with other random people.

Training and griefing? Not seen it yet but we have had a big influx laterly so maybe a problem at lower levels.

As much as I hate suggesting it, it would be a benefit to the game to reduce or remove xp for higher levels in lowbie dungeons. At the moment I can gain more xp in low dungeons mass slaughtering mobs which hampers lowbies getting xp

[Crissa]

As much as I hate suggesting it, it would be a benefit to the game to reduce or remove xp for higher levels in lowbie dungeons. At the moment I can gain more xp in low dungeons mass slaughtering mobs which hampers lowbies getting xp
You get the same (actually more) xp if you tank for lowbies in the dungeon, so there's that. And when you're just grinding, having a lowbie to 'protect' gives you sort of a quest to do ^-^

As long as they don't bite off more than they can chew. But I'm sure we've all run into those.

[alleryn]

You get the same (actually more) xp if you tank for lowbies in the dungeon,

Is this true? Seems like if you have higher dps you'd be able to farm more mobs faster if you are killing them yourself.

[Tagamogi]

Make dungeons autolevel overleveled characters.

This would then not allow people the challenge of trying to run a dungeon with fewer than the recommended number of people in their group. There's still quite a bit of entertainment to be had trying to solo or duo a tough boss, even if you outlevel the dungeon in general.

I also don't think there's anything particularly wrong with a high level character coming in to rescue lower level characters from a boss curse.

The ability to scale down a character's level as needed for grouping actually sounds great to me - I just think that should be the player's choice and not done automatically. (And I imagine a scaling system like this would be a small nightmare to code, so it's not too likely to happen. It would be fun, though. )

[cratoh]

Having mulled it over for a few days, the best solution I can think of is basically to utilise ideas from EQ2

1. If a character is using a skill more than 15 levels over the intended dungeon level, make it no loot. This would stop people powerleveling their own secondary new skill in dungeons, but allow them to level low skills in tandem.

2. Have a few contested dungeons, like we already do, but also add some instances. Both small instances in the existing contested dungeons, and also a few extra instanced dungeons in the world. This would spread players out. It's almost certainly gong to be needed as time goes by anyway as with 100 people ondaily in the level 60 - 70 range, all at peak time for example, the caves in Gazluk are going to be very unpleasant, plus depopulated and something like labs in going to be thrashed.

[Crissa]

Is this true? Seems like if you have higher dps you'd be able to farm more mobs faster if you are killing them yourself.
Yourself? That's not how xp works in groups. More DPS means more mobs - and groups share xp, they don't split it. At least, that's how it has been. Citan had the xp to encourage grouping, not discourage it.

When you're in a group, you stop 'stealing' the xp in a kill.


1. If a character is using a skill more than 15 levels over the intended dungeon level, make it no loot. This would stop people powerleveling their own secondary new skill in dungeons, but allow them to level low skills in tandem.
That would ruin crafting. And side-leveling skills.

[cratoh]

Instances ruined EQ, I hated not having random people in zones that you help. The only *good* was in WoW with the dungeon generator so you could join with other random people.

Training and griefing? Not seen it yet but we have had a big influx laterly so maybe a problem at lower levels.

As much as I hate suggesting it, it would be a benefit to the game to reduce or remove xp for higher levels in lowbie dungeons. At the moment I can gain more xp in low dungeons mass slaughtering mobs which hampers lowbies getting xp


I disagree with this, sorry. Instances, alongside contested, provided content for people with all sorts of different desires of playstyle. Some people liked to go to contested (which were huge) and do that, but they also liked to go and pit themselves in a small controlled group against instanced content as well. There were random people in contested, and open world.

Another thing to remember - not everyone wants to be helped. It can be incredibly annoying when in a group of at level people and some high level white knight comes charging past and either buffs, or kills mobs or somehow interracts with said group without being asked, ad unbalances the situation.

[cratoh]

This would then not allow people the challenge of trying to run a dungeon with fewer than the recommended number of people in their group. There's still quite a bit of entertainment to be had trying to solo or duo a tough boss, even if you outlevel the dungeon in general.

I also don't think there's anything particularly wrong with a high level character coming in to rescue lower level characters from a boss curse.

The ability to scale down a character's level as needed for grouping actually sounds great to me - I just think that should be the player's choice and not done automatically. (And I imagine a scaling system like this would be a small nightmare to code, so it's not too likely to happen. It would be fun, though. )

It absolutely would allow people to try running a dungeon with fewer than the recommended number - just at level - where the gear you are wearing would effect it rather than the level? Maybe.

[alleryn]

groups share xp, they don't split it.

I'm not sure i understand the distinction between sharing and splitting. Are you saying that everyone receives the full xp from a mob that they would have if no one else had been there?

[Telcontar]

So I agree with a lot of the general concerns in the thread but I actually decided I don't like the word "zerg" to describe the problem.

The problem, I think is OVERGEARED and OVERLEVELED players.

If 7-8 level appropriate people want to get through a boss or remove a curse from someone that's seems fine to me.

The problem is when you get even 1-2 overpowered players in the middle of the group. DPS tanking because lolololol.

That RUINS the experience.

A mass of players of appropriate level that loses the first 3 tanks is part of the fun/failure.

Solution-

I would be more inclined to just turn off loot drops if your gear and level score is too high.

Give them a status like you do when people have 2 skills mismatched in level.

"Why am I not getting any drops? Oh I'm overgeared... maybe I'll switch to my offspec or downlevel my skills and gear a bit, but gosh I'll have to play a little better"

That would be the best result in my estimation.

[xerandus]

From what I have read, instancing is not supported by the game engine. To me that makes the talk of instances moot.

I've played two MMOs prior to P:G, almost extreme ends of several axes of design. EQ2 (set classes/defined roles/multiple shards/rare pvp/heavily instanced) and EVE Online (no classes/skill based/single shard/no instances/pvp anywhere). I feel to make this work well without instancing there will need to be a -lot- more zones available so that people can spread out and not crowd each other. Maybe some mechanism that allows small level-appropriate (to the parent zone) dungeons to spawn at random? A couple minutes after the chest at the end is looted, zone despawns.