Ryzom

Just a few thoughts here.

It is not because you have a fleshed out mission system that the sandbox is gone. Sandbox is about options, a fleshed out mission system is one of the options ( look at EVE, or even SWG pre-CU-NGE ).

In EVE the missions aren't that great, still they are improving and various other PvE options have been added to the mix like cosmos, epic mission arcs, wormhole space ( which is mixed pve-pvp ) with sleeper AI. Next expansion is focussed on group PvE.

Alot of the players ( including myself ) stick a reasonable amount of time with the dumb mission system in the beginning, while learning the game, making friends, looking for guilds. It is better that, than the alternative ( quitting because you don't know what to do ).

So in effect, you can choose to play EVE linear like a WoW in space clone, you advance from level 1 missions to level 4, you go from tech 1 ships to tech 3, etc. But that is your own choice and that is what a sandbox is about.

Meanwhile you still come in contact with all the other gameplay systems, the economy, the PvP ( suicide ganks, gatecamps ), you are not completely isolated.

On the other hand, I do not see the need to reduce the grind, I don't need an mmo with instant gratification, And I don't think Ryzom would improve with that.

I do believe there should be a more fleshed out mission system on the mainland, guiding the players, especially now when you arrive and you are all alone. They should not give alote more XP tho.

jwenting wrote:The main reason for that is that people drift to the 250 zones quickly as their skills go up and a lot of people now are high enough overall that most all their skills are at levels that need the content there.

As a result newcomers find themselves alone in the lower regions except for the occasional bosshunter or trekking party moving through.

To change that would require a radical rethinking of the entire mob level system.
Instead of having mobs of different levels in different regions, you'd need to have mobs of all levels in all regions.
In order to prevent the lower level regions (which'd no longer exist) from becoming impossible for low level players, the level of the mob you're fighting would have to depend on the highest level skill in use in the team.

So if for example I'm using my lvl125 mace in Haven of Purity on a Timari, it's be a lvl151 Nettled Timari I see, if I were carrying my sword at lvl160 I'd see a Violent Timari instead, if I'm teamed the mob level gets adjusted up to compensate.
Effectively then each mob no longer has a series of variants of different levels, but a new system gives each mob hp, hitting power, etc. depending on who's fighting it at the time.
Of course something would need to be done to prevent parties from camping all the herds just outside the capitals instead of them camping herds in the 250 zones, so it's not a total solution (in its idiot version it'd simply mean the current lvl50 zones would become filled up and the rest of Atys empty, there'd need to be some incentive to roam around, quite apart from wanting a change of scenery which is reason enough for me personally to do so already).

You said right things, except what you said about animal adjusting their level depending on the fighting team. This cannot be done in a single instanced world. You need to create instances to do that.

Anyway you have choosen a long and almost impractical solution.

It's too expensive to rebalance the whole game and I don't think the actual dev team could do that. I don't think it's worth the effort.

Also you don't consider that what we have seen lately about people leveling is because of the low population. With a high population the way to level would be a bit different, for many reasons.

First of all, people would search for different spawns and different way of hunting to avoid to share the usual spawns that would be too small for a high population.
One of the problems is that the newcomers are almost always driven by the guilds thru a fixed path.

With a high population this could not happens anymore and people would do different things.

Driving people thru a fixed path makes people hardly recognize other good spawns. Atys is filled with spawns that almost no one uses actually. In example, how many people (except some old timer) have ever hunted the red shallas in Enchanted Isle? How many people hunted Great Kinchers in Scorched Corridor instead of Void? These are just 2 examples but, you know, I could mention a lot more, for every region.

With a high population many spawns actually ignored would be used, depending of the formed groups around.

In my opinion, we can't judge well the actual balance of the game, with this kind of population.

So, in general terms, I still consider the idea to add more sand in the box (with examples in previous posts) a better way to rebalance the world, in terms of people distribution.
It also would give players new things, while a rethink of the leveling system would not be seen as an addition to the game.

Of course, it could be something in the middle, with some sand in the box and some change in the animal distribution.

jwenting wrote:...no easy way to gain exp just by doing simple tasks over and over again (kill 10 yubos for 10000 exp type missions)...

now you just kill millions of yubos without any aim but getting XP.
how about a system where if you get a mission to kill yubos, you get half XP for killing it, but the other half (or maybe a little bit more than a half) for returning the mission to the mission giver.

the player can choose: he can just grind the xp, or he can port or run to mission giver to get xp. how about that?

jwenting wrote: What should I guess be made clearer on Silan is that the missions there are really the tutorial.
Having the missions give exp and gear is something that maybe should be removed there, the gear instead provided through the merchants at dirt cheap prices so any player there can afford it (as a player with a higher level Silan alt I'd like choice and exc mats to make decent gear for people there too).
That would make Silan more like the mainland while still retaining the tutorial role it's supposed to have.

Imo... no. Players want to be rewarded for missions they do. Award is a core point of a mission. You are doing something the NPC is asking for and getting something for completing it. The clue is to find the balance between missions and reward.

jwenting wrote: Maybe the ultimate would be a system of player instigated missions, where as a player I can create a task I want done and post that to a message board.
Others can take up the task and I pay them when completed.
In its simplest form those would be missions similar to those handed out by the current scout and surveyor npcs, more advanced (and requiring more dev input) would allow the task giver to create missions that spawn semi-instanced resources for the task taker to retrieve (like the pearl of the corsairs mission or even special mobs or npcs to kill that can only be attacked by those with the mission to take them down, and only spawn when the mission is active).
Power to the Players

awesome idea.

I don't get why people are so opposed to quests, but are in favor of hours of mindless repetition.

Lets take Great Najabs in the Void for example - one of the most popular hunting spots.

As it stands now, people will kill najabs for literally dozens if not hundreds of hours on end to reach 250. This is hardly taking advantage of lore or storyline.

Why not something like this from one of the NPC's in the Void:

"Hello Thom. The Zorai Guard have been fighting the kitin back in the Void and they need more shields for their soldiers. Please gather me 50 Great Najab ligaments for our artisans to forge new shields. You will be rewarded for your efforts."

And upon completion you get like 50,000 xp and some zorai fame for example.

A similar quest could be in GoC killing Great Jugs to get Matis fame... and so on.

This takes advantage of the fame system, reduces the mindless grinding, involves a bit of storyline. It's a WIN WIN.

I suppose you speak about non repeatable quests, otherwise the players instead of grinding najabs for hours, would grind same quests for hours.

Everything is repetitive, even in the real life. More choices can mitigate the feeling of repetition, but at the end the best solution is to find what people would like to repeat more often and why.

Anyway we have to remove the concept that leveling fast is the goal of the game. Most veterans are still here because they didn't cared (and supposedly they still don't) at all to reach a master as fast as possible while I saw a lot of people rushing to a master and leaving just after.

I'm absolutely not against quests (i wish to see more rites and I liked the new quests added some time ago), but they are not the solution or, better, they are only a part of an eventual solution. In my opinion.

larwood wrote:"Hello Thom. The Zorai Guard have been fighting the kitin back in the Void and they need more shields for their soldiers. Please gather me 50 Great Najab ligaments for our artisans to forge new shields. You will be rewarded for your efforts."

This seems just fine to me really.

Repeatable quests without a downtime that give XP and some dapper, I see no problem with. It's basically the same as grinding mobs without a quest, but it gives those people who feel lost and expect quests to guide them something to hold onto. Really this is the quest-system that EVE has and that someone mentioned as example up there, there's no fancy storyline quests (well, there are some, but that's another story), just a repeated "go kill some generic pirates" or "deliver this message".

Ryzom has those same kinds of quests already from the corporals, scouts, messengers, etc, so they definitely fit in the sandbox. They're only hardly used because:

• Silly arbitrary downtime
• Reward is only dappers

Get rid of the downtime and give em a small XP-reward, and voila, something to do for all the people who need quests to guide them, while keeping all missions perfectly in Ryzom's style. (A re-balance of the missions will be needed, ofc.)

Even better than using Najab parts, why not have the quests hunt for mobs that are rarely hunted like yelks or cuttlers or kiban, then make the XP-bonus such that killing 50 kiban + quest XP is about equal to if you'd killed 50 najabs in that time. Makes some more variety as well.

gcaldani wrote:I suppose you speak about non repeatable quests, otherwise the players instead of grinding najabs for hours, would grind same quests for hours.

No they could be repeated, but there wouldn't be just this one. You could have dozens of different ones with different requirements in different locations - that are all equally weighted as far as difficulty/reward.

The idea is to give purpose and involve the lore/story in your leveling, instead of just grinding. Yes i know there is going to be lots of repetition in any mmo, but we can spice it up and give people more options.

the options part brings me back to the combat sytem, i want to see people leveling rifle as efficiently as nuke - same with daggers/1h, etc. Make them all viable choice that you would see in a boss hunt - cause right now in 99% of boss hunts, you bring a tank, nukers, and healers - because they are the most efficient.

If players had a variety of equally efficient combat choices to level with when they start out, it would make the game much more interesting.

jwenting wrote:Unless the exp gained by taking and turning in the quest all the time is higher than the exp gaines staying in the spot and grinding, they wouldn't...
And if it is, you've effectively started mandating those quests for people wanting to get to high level quickly (which is most people) and changed Ryzom from a sandbox grinder to a quest driven grinder.

Let's face it, as long as there is advancement to be made by doing something, people will grind it.
The only way to remove the grind is to remove all levels in anything, so everything arriving is an instant master in all skills.
Of course then they'd instantly get bored because there's no spawn camping to gank and grief newbies (both because there's no forced pvp in most places and because there'd be no easy to kill newbies), and either complain about that or quit.

Like it or not, there's always grinding in some way, whether quest driven or not.

You are mistaken if you think that quests equals themepark and spawn camping equals sandbox.