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View Full Version : Different Path from Loot Locking



jacksin125
04-08-2017, 07:49 PM
So loot locking was recently added, and it caused all the problems it normally does in games. While reading everyone's upset comments, I had an idea that some other games implement, and that works pretty well: Rather than loot locking in order to make sure only 1 group fights a boss, why not make the boss scale to the number of players fighting it? They would have base stats for the number of player who should be facing them (So let's say 4), but if a group happens to have more members than that, or another group/a few solo players happen to join in, the boss would still provide an appropriate challenge (This also means that content would not scale down for someone who decides to solo a group dungeon). I think this would fit better with the idea Eric discussed - where players could group up and leave whenever they wanted in dungeons - than loot locking. Also, it might be better to make this happen to all mobs rather than just bosses, but I imagine that would also increase the number of calculations significantly (which might slow the servers too much)

So, does anyone else agree/disagree with this? Or does anyone have any suggestions to make the idea better?

Now, I've already thought of a few potential problems, and come up with solutions. I will edit this post if I think of (or someone mentions) any more.
If a new player join a group currently fighting a boss that's half dead, the boss's health would have to increase. However, it would suck for the players already there if the boss's current health increased by the same amount, thereby forcing them to fight longer. The solution would probably just be to make the boss's health still be 50% of his max health, and increase the max health.

What if a lvl 10 player managed to make his way into the labyrinth, just to troll appropriately lvled players by joining battles and thus making enemies harder? This solution would probably add quite a few more calculations to what might otherwise be a few lines of code, but my idea is to account for the player's level when scaling content. So if there's 4 lvl 60s, and 1 lvl 10 joins, the lvl 60s might not even notice the difference.

jacksin125
04-11-2017, 05:25 AM
I guess my idea wasn't as good as I thought it was. Either that, or I chose a bad name, because there haven't been many views according to the forum.

Niph
04-11-2017, 05:43 AM
It seems to me it would complicate balancing bosses vs players. If you say "ok, this boss is intended for N players at level L" you can make it hard or easy and ask players to test it. Removing N from the equation is difficult.