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Zekkii wrote on 2014-04-08 10:45
Intro:
First off, despite the name this isn't actually a guide but more of a discussion topic so please don't move it. This is a 10 step general guide to how I would create new challenging content in the current version of Mabi. It is almost entirely focused on the enemy monster and not the player character, which I'm sure has already been discussed to death. After reading please post you criticism, praise, and overall thoughts. Sorry for typing so much.
Step 1: Devaluing Crisis and AoE powerhouses
So the thing most people are screaming foul about right now is crisis. So how do we design content without crisis making it easy as hell? Well the answer is rather simple. The first answer someone might come up with is the more obvious of the two; giving mobs advanced heavy stander. The problem I find with this method is that advanced heavy stander is some grade-A bullshit and turns Mabi into more of an irritating version of your holy trinity MMO. Of course some mobs can still have heavy stander, but certainly not the majority of them.
The second answer, as illustrated somewhat by the new dungeons, is to spread mobs out over a large room or area. This way you can other gather a few select mobs at a time, and the effect of crisis seems rather poor in comparison to areas such as NPC or many other closely-knit areas of mobs. This is also illustrated by hopper, a pet most people consider useless because of its small area of effect when using its version of crisis. So why don't we just lower the radius of crisis? Well the answer to this is simple, because it's not just about crisis; every single AOE in the game can effectively damage mobs in close quarters.
Step 2: Beefing up those mobs
This is something that so many people have been opposed to, quoting concepts such as artificial difficulty and comparing it to holy trinity tanking type games. Something we absolutely must get past as a community is that mobs are too damn weak and need an HP buff. I don't care how smart or creative the AI you develop is, if the mob has proverbial one health then I'm going to kill it fast and easily. On the other end of the same coin, if mobs do 1 damage to me then they're not going to kill me. Mobs need to have a hefty amount of health so that they have a chance to retaliate in our openings between attacks, so that our AoEs aren't effectively the same damage as our single target skills, and so that we can actually pull of combos instead of just using the skill which can hit the most mobs in the shortest amount of time. Mobs needs health and damage to fight back.
The best example I could think of here is mobs in NPC, if you were to try to solo without a particular strategy. If you can one-hit them in round one then they're rather harmless, but once you get to round 6 and they take 5 hits to kill then they have a shot at you. Now bare in mind that NPC mobs are all extremely fast-AI mobs with several other unique features that make it so they aren't intended to be fought one-vs-many, which is why slower AI is important in certain areas as well which I will talk about later.
As a side-note, we might consider giving players the ability to create high health potions at high ranks of potion making to compensate for the damage a bit. This should make it feel a bit less punishing and a bit more challenging.
Step 3: Immunity to Summon Pets; Bringing back the hurt of screwing up
Summon pets are horrible, they completely remove the punishment of failure and alleviate risk and excitement in Mabi combat. Missed a shot? Nimbus. Stuck in smash animation? Ice Dragon. Mob hit you? Pegasus. Five mobs running to kill you? Scooter.
The solution is to give monsters complete summon pet immunity, or at least a good portion of them. This means not just Nimbus, Scooter, and Ice dragon, but all summon pets. A player with enough Pegasuses or Bone Dragons can stun monsters for longer than they'll ever need without having to do much at all. The good part is, most people understand this so it shouldn't be too hard to pull off. This has seen moderate success in certain areas of Mabi already.
Step 4: A little bit of this, and a little bit of that
As much as I do hate passive defenses, they do certainly help to add some variety. Maybe not always level 3, but just enough to discourage people from spamming the same skill over and over again on absolutely everything. Also not like peaca (mostly normal but also abyss somewhat), where almost everything has magic defense but a ranger or gunner can get away with soloing next to everything.
Step 5: Gotta go fast/Slow and steady wins the race
Fast and weak mobs, slow and tough mobs. This is something we don't see too often anymore but if every mob runs or shoots are normal speeds and has average health, then they start to seem rather homogenous. Throw in some giant mobs, some tiny mobs, have fun with it.
Step 6: Not just the archer or warrior fomor #876543
Mob skill and ability variety. Recently there hasn't been too many new skills added to mobs outside a very select few. We could really use mobs with a grapple shot ability, mobs that have some kind of charge, or mobs with minor AOE skills instead of just fireballs. Not every mobs needs to be a fully loaded Cessair's Heart, but the smash/defense/counter cookie cutout with maybe a bolt is getting rather old. Make the players think about what they're up against.
Step 7: You idiot, hit me already (AI)
Anther one about the mobs, as they're rather central to challenging content. We could use some new, perhaps more advanced AI. Some smart mobs, some dumb mobs, some quick thinking mobs. For example a mob that does nothing but run up and hit you with normal attacks, perhaps one of the most deadly mobs you could make in Mabi. Another example is a mob that tries to distance itself from allied mobs, to make it difficult for the user to AOE. Now the third example might be something we're more familiar with, a rather slow-witted AI mob that might try to keep near its comrades.
Why the third one? The dumb and easier to kill mobs are absolutely vital to creating a balanced game, they may become low-priority targets or give the players a mental break from otherwise harsher content. Without these mobs, there really won't be much variety in AI. A well designed idiot fomor can really improve the challenge of the game if used properly.
Step 8: What's the point of Ice Spear if every monster has above 20,000 health and is 500 yards away from the other?
Similar to my last point about dumb mobs, we also need weak monsters, and grouped monsters thrown in. The key point here is to create situations where certain skills are useful, and situations where they aren't. Maybe have some missions with rapid spawn mobs that have lower health for quick attacks, or extremely tanky mobs to highlight DoT/heavy damaging skills, and so forth.
Step 9: I just drank a 5-hour energy, your lullaby isn't going to work; Skill Immunities
Most notably aggro control skills. Players should not be able to spam rain casting and have absolutely nothing notice them forever, and they shouldn't be able to lullaby every monster to cast their proverbial meteor strike without retaliation. This generally applies to aggro control skills, but can also apply to offensive skills similarly to how passive defenses work. As always a key point here is to add variety, so some mobs should be absolutely dumfounded by these skills. A good example of this might be frozen wave, which tends to not work on extremely tough mobs and can be used sparingly on most weaker mobs.
Step 10: REWARDING CONTENT
With the above steps, I think you could have some decent combat challenges. Now we need to make it so people play it, and so that they don't feel like they're wasting their time doing it and have them go back to spamming NPC the day after release.
The best way to do this isn't to have it give the best enchants or weapon at a 0.01% rate, or some outfit, but to give it a decent stream of exp and gold. Item rewards are great, but it's very hard to guarantee the value of them over an extensive period of time. Throw in some great rewards, make them uber rare if you want, but give players something along the way.
This is the main reason why peaca abyss is a failure in my eyes; after grinding for hours in what is some of the tougher content in Mabi you are typically left with some crystals you don't want a large repair bill. If you give players a steady stream exp and gold for doing your content then they probably won't get upset if their item rewards aren't showing up much. In fact, you could probably even increase the rarity so that when they do happen upon them it will still feel special and hold value. Players are getting tired of NPC, but most of them still do it because nothing even compares to the exp given when monotonously spamming it over and over with the strongest couple of skills they have.
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Paradise wrote on 2014-04-08 12:43
those are some nice ideas
still, there are too many things to take in account (reforges) to improve content
like using reforged IS to kill stuff at the reserve for easy mass exp
make content that is even more rewarding, but more difficult, for both reforged and non-reforged players
maybe dungeons/missions where reforges are turn off, with fast AI and multiaggro, with venom devices (to make use of healers)
and as you said, using more skills, and why not, revamping them to the new cooldown system
Make players to be able to craft RE and SE potions (maybe available for an apothecary GM? )
Give some monsters the ability to:
- disable skills or giving them a bigger cooldown (maybe randomly or the last skill you used?)
- disable your weapon for a set time (like it was 0/0 dura)
- make your char walk in random directions for a set time
- change your stats for a set time
- screen upside down
- desummon your pets/golems/puppets, and disabling them for a set time
- doing 1 damage for a set time
- posses you and use you to attack your party members
- High HP support monsters buffing the others and giving them abilities like heavy stander/natural shield/magic shield (1-3), and healing them. They should not be aggressive tho.
For dungeons:
-Dungeons performing traps that applies all the points above.
-puzzles in order to open a room, while its being solved, monsters keep spawning, every time someone fails to solve a puzzle, a trap activates, and even a r1 meteor strike can be summoned against the party.
-Solo rooms where you fight your shadow (with steroids to make it better)
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wilson10000 wrote on 2014-04-08 13:43
I agree with the spread out mobs. When crisis cannot pull every monster into 1 group, all it takes is 1 straggler to mess up your act 7 combo.
Monsters in Peaca abyss and lords already resist pet stuns and such except the bone dragon and pegasus. Those two pet summons are the most OP once you get enough of them. Dev-cat could probably lower the stun rate by a lot to midigate the effectiveness of it.
What you said about rewards is so true. There's a reason why people still run Lords/Dailies/NPC even after they've been doing it for years. Gaining exp and gold is very rewarding along side the ap. Who doesn't want to rank up a skill after running a dungeon or two?
Also if more monsters gain more heavy standers, Fighter skills will just become flat out useless if they aren't already behind. There should be more ghasts-like monsters where certain ones are more resistant to others. Maybe don't reduce the damage to 1's, but to halve the effectiveness.
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tachiorz wrote on 2014-04-08 14:16
Adding new level of difficulty to old missions seems like a nice idea.
They should have some mobs with adv heavy stander, more hp and use of pets completly prohibited.
The point of ice spear is blaze
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Tropa wrote on 2014-04-08 17:46
I agree with all of this, and it's true too.
Another thing I want them to do is expand on the Elemental system, more lv9 Fire and lv9 Ice monsters, more of a reason for hybriding Flameburst with Watercannon, Hailstorm with Firebolt, ectect.
Quote from Paradise;1213545:
Give some monsters the ability to:
- make your char walk in random directions for a set time
- screen upside down
http://wiki.mabinogiworld.com/view/Bewilder
Shame only one monster has this skill
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Chihaya wrote on 2014-04-08 18:16
I don't use AoE pets
I don't use OP reforges
I don't spam Crisis except for missions like offering where monsters need to be killed in the circle
I don't use Lullaby. I only ranked it for master bard (and Encore ES)
I use NPC-purchased (and blessed) Control Bars to spam Climactic Crash.
I have a 4 year old laptop that literally gives me 2 fps in WD raids even if I put it on the lowest settings.
I'm on a school internet.
What is challenging?
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Syliara wrote on 2014-04-08 18:18
Quote from Chihaya;1213584:
I don't use AoE pets
I don't use OP reforges
I don't spam Crisis except for missions like offering where monsters need to be killed in the circle
I don't use Lullaby. I only ranked it for master bard (and Encore ES)
I use NPC-purchased (and blessed) Control Bars to spam Climactic Crash.
I have a 4 year old laptop that literally gives me 2 fps in WD raids even if I put it on the lowest settings.
I'm on a school internet.
What is challenging?
Do you run end game content? Things like npc spam, soloing elite shadow wizard, soloing Sulfur spider elite, soloing all the other elite shadow missions.
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truefire wrote on 2014-04-08 18:19
Because ignoring the impact reforges have on the creation of challenging, meaningful and rewarding content is apparently so irrelevant that they aren't brought up once in the list of proposed solutions. I disagree with the general buffing of health and damage. That'll be all fine and dandy until the reforge level somehow gets uncapped to 40 (and it will because power sells) and then a thread just like this will pop up again proposing that monsters need even more buffs because the content has gotten "too easy," and the people complaining the most (as usual) will be decked out in rank S five-lined lvl 40 reforge gear wondering why they don't feel any challenge anymore.
Everything else you described would be immensely beneficial.
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Slayerj wrote on 2014-04-08 18:21
I disagree with number 2. It's not that the mobs are too weak, it's that WE CAN GET INFINITELY STRONGER. We have NO restrictions. We can learn and master EVERY SKILL IN THE GAME. We can level up FOREVER (at least to my knowledge there is no level cap.) We have totems for extra stats, enchants for more stats/dmg, reforges for more dmg, bard skills we can play on our own for even more buffs, and soon to come we have massive food buffs too!
The point is, even if you buffed them to be stronger than a freaking god, we'd still eventually, with enough new skills to learn/weapons/enchants/buffs, cut through them like butter at some point.
Remember when dungeons where hard? Buff. Not anymore.
Remember when shadow missions where somewhat challenging? New skills/more stats/buff, not anymore.
Remember when we didn't have free rebirths and more than half the community couldn't handle anything on their own easily because they couldn't get stronger? Not anymore.
Remember when Peaca GHOSTS made everyone shit their pants and scream for everyone to gang bang them with attacks? That's because they were stronger than us. Now we're stronger than them/can get stronger than them EASILY.
TLDR/Where was your point?: Unless they make a system to take everyone's skill ranks, stats, and total levels into consideration and buff/nerf mobs accordingly, there's never going to be 'tough' mobs, because we'll pass them sooner or later and demand for new 'tough' mobs.
Also yeah, AoE skills are always sooooooooooooooooooo much stronger/effective than Single Target spells...it's like the opposite of how they should be.
Edit: ALSO, can we get some damn buff to party play? Being in a party shouldn't hurt your exp, but buff it slightly like 99% of other MMOs. Not so much because we need a buff or anything but... Good lord, when I go to run something with a friend I don't want someone I got just so we could go into the mission to drop for losing a bit of MONSTER EXP, and drop because my friend isn't 1 shotting 50 things at once, thus costing us 2 seconds longer to finish.
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Zekkii wrote on 2014-04-08 19:39
Buffing monsters is an effectual way to balance out reforges. As much as we can get some crazy buff that would make us surpass this content, there is nothing in the future that indicates we will. If Nexon so chooses to unlock reforges to 100 levels or add 20 lines and elemental availability to each weapon, then it's pretty obvious that they screwed up. It's taken years of mindless player buffing and content/mob neglect to get to this point, and it's high time mobs got the same treatment. It's rather obvious that no one has faith in devCATs balancing, which is rather justified, however this is not an excuse to forgo it entirely.
I know people are just waiting for me to say something crazy like "REMOVE ALL THE REFORGES!", but that would be an effectual way to kill the game off at this point. Not only is it their main stream of revenue, but players who have invested immense time and/or money into reforges deserve to keep them.
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Friggerton wrote on 2014-04-08 21:01
I agree with #9. I put a mob in a dungeon who had "the wary" title to sleep. That made me chuckle.
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Kingofrunes wrote on 2014-04-08 21:03
If it makes you feel better. Devcat has tried something interesting with one type of mob in episode 2 which should get an honorable mission for trying to be different.
Slimes! Big Slime runs away from you while the smaller slimes attack you. When you deal damage to them, same damage gets applied to you so you can't blindly spam the same skills over and over again.
*windmills slimes*
*gets put into deadly because all that damage got applied to me*
*another slime runs up to me and wacks me*
*dead*
Unfournately the big slime only takes 2 fully charged firebolts to the face and the mission is done.
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Syliara wrote on 2014-04-08 21:04
Quote from Kingofrunes;1213621:
If it makes you feel better. Devcat has tried something interesting with one type of mob in episode 2 which should get an honorable mission for trying to be different.
Slimes! Big Slime runs away from you while the smaller slimes attack you. When you deal damage to them, same damage gets applied to you so you can't blindly spam the same skills over and over again.
The damage reflection is sort of like with G10 final no? I found it incredibly annoying honestly....
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Kingofrunes wrote on 2014-04-08 21:07
Quote from Nui;1213622:
The damage reflection is sort of like with G10 final no? I found it incredibly annoying honestly....
Annoying, if not done right, yes. However I only mentioned it cause of the whole mob running away Zekkii mentioned which this mission exhibited.
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Tropa wrote on 2014-04-08 21:20
Quote from Kingofrunes;1213623:
Annoying, if not done right, yes. However I only mentioned it cause of the whole mob running away Zekkii mentioned which this mission exhibited.
On the topic of the new monsters, I love the giant crystal's lazer attack, it's like the grim reaper's attacks, I really hope theres tanky versions of those in future missions.