Idea ramblings (Mostly end-game NPC related)

Zudrag · 06/13/2008 01:59:27

So the whole ninja-box thing, and my easy time with both Pandora's boxes and Captain Raeder has gotten me thinking: What would be a way to make it to where people who say, find special methods around doing hard things like box 4's to make them easier, have a more difficult time doing end-game content so they don't blow through it in a day, BUT, don't make it so hard that your average Joe team doesn't get completely overwhelmed by the end-game NPC spawn?

And on top of that, what about the $info we all accumulate over time? Most people I know hoard their $info and don't really have anything to spend it on. What would encourage people to still accumulate $info over time, but not over-do it and make people want to farm constantly?

So a possible solution I worked over while bouncing ideas off people was something like this: A consumable ticket, similar to everyone's favorite stat hacks and archive missions, but cost a large amount of $info. A good reward I could think of that people would pay say, 60-100 mil per ticket on are Override codes. Yes, they're annoying at things like Live Events, but I think overall, it'd be a good money-burner.

The mission would be something along the lines of you "Hear from a guy that knows a guy that heard there's override programs in a warehouse." You go in, there's a room that stays shut with a computer in it. To open the door, you have to kill say...5-10 level 53 Accelerated Machines/Exiles in the warehouse to open it. Door unlocks, but lo and behold, there's more Accelerated programs blocking your path to the computer! They're somewhere in the level 55 ball park, 5 or so of them.

Then things really kick off. On one of them is the access code for the computer. You put it in, search the computer, and spawn in one of the big warehouse rooms the set of three Overrides normally found during the Intruder Live Events/storyline. Escorting them is a whopping 5-8 level 60 three-chevron Accelerated exiles (Or level 59, so they don't drop accelerator bits if that's a problem.) So you'd have to wade through the exiles just to have a good chance of taking out the set of 3. (To prevent people from having one person aggro the Exiles, then running around the warehouse with them in tow and having the other three just kill the set of three, the bits aren't actually on the NPCs. They would be given to the team leader as soon as the mission is complete. That means killing every NPC in the mission area.)

I think this would be of a decent enough challenge to at least keep players moderately entertained, even if they do specialize in NPC shenanigans, challenge your average joe team enough to maybe make them learn a little bit. It'd have a reward that people would want, but would not terribly hinder things such as Live Events, Player events, every-day PVP, etc.

However, a few problems arise. For one, people like to, when fighting hard NPCs in Critical missions/archive missions, they like to invite people onto the team, then have that person leave team so they can have more than 6 people in a mission area at a time. This isn't really terribly useful to people as of now that I could think of, but for a mission like that, it would make it much less challenging. The runtime would help a bit, but I think perhaps making the Accelerated Machines/Exiles permanently enraged would help against this. NPCs in mission areas, once a player has left the mission team, don't like attacking players that aren't on the team, BUT are still attackable by those players. So, if they're in the proximity of an Enraged NPC, the enraged NPC's AI makes it want to interlock anything attackable within interlock range of it. This would also help with other things, such as one of someone's favorite farming method that where long-explanation-short, the NPC who is aggro'd to a player can't get to that player for one reason or another. So, whenever anyone interlocks them, they just roll out from interlock. So they hardly do damage to anyone who interlocks them, and it makes them dreadfully easy to kill. Having an enraged NPC solves this, as they don't roll out once interlocked, and again, attempt to interlock anyone in range. But of course, there is a work-around I could already think of for this solution as well. It won't work 100% of the time, but it's a start.

A few other minor problems that pop into my head at 4 A.M. are: people recycling the ticket to get some of their info back before they complete the mission (easily fixed), people pulling accelerated machines outside the mission area to attack other players (Which, if the mission is always in a warehouse like the ones in Uriah, this shouldn't be a big problem), and the AI for NPCs getting bugged out to where they just don't want to move or attack anymore (Which I would not like to discuss in public on the forums how to do :P).

Thoughts, suggestions, ideas?

I might amend this when I'm a bit more coherent.

**Cadsuane**

It might be a good idea to have each 'wave' in a seperate mission area (phase). It could be explained as 'following the trail' or somesuch.

MattRobson · 06/13/2008 03:13:37

Sounds good and like a good team idea for people who really want a said item.

But personally i hate all this content you HAVE to have a team for. I enjoy doing stuff solo even if it really really hard to solo and it annoys me that to get said item i have to round up a full team, yesh i know its a MMO but i still like to be able to so stuff on my own as its not all ways possible to get a big group of players to do said task.

like these ninja boxes i reckon we will have a few weeks maybe months where we have some strange alliances so most people can get the new items (if there are any) or the bragging rights to say "yep we did it" then it wont be used and it will become "sati's ghost town"

This isn't me being negative either its me being realistic its just my 2pence.

Zudrag

Also, Seymour brought up a good idea to me but doesn't post on the forums, so I'll post it.

Instead of it just being a warehouse like any other mission, it'd be called like the Org Construct missions. Goto a door, teleport to another area. That would cut down on people running in and out of a mission area with NPCs aggro'd on them to keep them in one place, and discourage just simply sitting outside of the mission area nuking the NPCs.

**Ballak**

I think this would be a great idea. It would make missions actually worth doing, because I know I haven't done my crits in.. how long? It'd also be good for those who can't make live events usually, giving them a chance to experience content that's usually only present during Live Events.