On "Farming"

[medierra]

For my first post in “developer topics” I thought I’d go into some depth responding to a recent suggestion posted in the Grim Dawn section of the titanquest.net forums. This suggestion, posted by yerkyerk described how the behavior of “farming” could be curbed by linking drop rates to experience gain.

When I first read it, I thought it was a really fantastic concept. It especially appealed to me because the approach epitomized one of the most important ideals of good design: simplicity and unobtrusiveness. It is an elegantly simple way to seamlessly change gameplay behavior without introducing in some arbitrary, ostensibly awkward new mechanic.

If we wanted to discourage or remove farming behavior, most notably boss runs, this would perhaps be the perfect way to do it. However, after considering this for a moment, I wondered if that was a behavior we really wanted to discourage.

I'm not sure the answer is as clear cut as it might seem. First let us consider why farming is perceived negatively.

An obvious complaint may be that the behavior of repeatedly running down the same path to kill the same enemy over and over again certainly does not make sense in the context of a real, believable world. As much as we may want to create believable, immersive worlds though, we have to keep in mind that gameplay and fun are the foremost considerations. So, if farming is an unintended but fun gameplay dynamic that has organically emerged in this genre, shouldn’t that supersede believability?

To that point though, it could be said that farming is not, in fact fun. It is something that players feel forced to engage in if they want to acquire the best items in the most efficient way possible. Repeated runs on the same boss are monotonous and boring. Wouldn’t the game be so much better if players could spend their time focused on just playing through the game normally?

I was about to suggest that perhaps farming is fun to a certain portion of players, however, I then realized that farming is probably not fun for anyone. That doesn’t mean it isn’t enjoyable though. Wait what?! Confused? This is probably fodder for a whole other discussion topic and at some point I’ll have to write about what I see as the difference between fun and enjoyment in games. In brief, I take enjoyment of gameplay to mean that you’ve come away from the experience with a positive feeling. It was pleasurable in some way. That could mean that it was outright fun or it could be another positive feeling such as satisfaction or accomplishment. For many players, doing runs on bosses makes them feel as though they are “getting ahead” in the game. We’re hardwired by nature to feel good when we believe we are doing things to advance ourselves / promote our well-being. Of course, collecting loot in an ARPG is probably the total opposite of personal advancement but, our brains don’t seem to know that. We perceive the collection of loot and advancement of our character as personal gain for ourselves and this tricks us into feeling satisfied. When we believe we are doing work above and beyond what might normally be expected, it increases this satisfying sense of accomplishment.

I personally have a low tolerance for monotony but I do like knowing that if my character is getting behind on the equipment curve and progress through the game is getting too difficult (especially in hardcore) that I can turn to farming as a way to bring my equipment up to par. This, in turn, makes me feel like I am facing a much greater challenge. In hardcore D2, for example, in order to prepare for the passage from normal to nightmare and then from nightmare to hell, I found that I always needed to replay areas to stay safely ahead of the level curve and do boss runs to put together gear with enough defenses and damage that I’d have a good shot at surviving. If I was always just progressing though the game normally, I don’t think I’d feel like I was facing an epic challenge.

Farming also adds a different type of gameplay dynamic. I think it is good whenever a game allows you to engage in different types of activities to achieve different purposes. Normal progression leads you to the completion of the game while boss runs are an alternative means of pumping up your character at the expense of forward progress and enduring a little repetition. I often alternate between normal progression and boss runs when I play. Sometimes I don't have time to really sit down and seriously play for more then 15-20 minutes so I'll jump in and do a couple boss runs on the off-chance that I might hit the jackpot. If you remove boss runs, then you only have normal progression... it’s like you're removing a mini-game.

Boss runs are also potentially one of the best ways to earn XP if you haven't out-leveled the boss you’re fighting. So the adjustment would probably have to be a little more complicated than just XP gain. In conclusion, the more I think about this, the less I feel that trying to do away with boss runs is a clearly positive goal.

Whatever the result, this suggestion was good in that it did get me thinking. It may be worthwhile to explore ways of making boss runs less monotonous because I do feel that, while there is an audience that derives satisfaction from boss runs, there is another segment that doesn’t like them but feels forced into doing them in the pursuit of loot. One idea would be to have a system where the drop rate for a boss decreases slightly each time you kill them but gradually returns to normal after enough time has passed. This would at least encourage players to farm different bosses instead of only doing runs on the final boss. I’m not sure how exactly we’d implement that though in a way that players couldn’t figure out some way to circumvent it. Another idea would be to set up loot tables so that each end-boss could only drop a certain portion of the unique items in the game. So, if you wanted different items, at some point you’d have to farm different bosses. That has some drawbacks of its own though…

Perhaps the best thing to do is nothing? ; p

What are your thoughts?

[yerkyerk]

First off, let me say congratulations to opening up the site! Was about time too :D

Anyway, on topic;
In the original post (on tq.net) I also stated that farming had to do with rebirth fountains and portals.
In D2 (yay, there we go again) I had less problems with farming, as I could do farming runs and access all locations quickly from a teleport pad. So I visited like a small dozen places each gaming session. It still was monotomous, but less so.

However, with the rebirth fountains in TQ, it became inefficient to visit several places in a single gaming session (or even hundreds of gaming sessions - took me a while to get my first legendary SBC's :)). Since farming for good gear already takes a long, long time (which i find positive, mind you), I couldn't drag myself to doing it in a very inefficient way.
I was thankful for the Secret Passage though, as that was almost as easily accessible through a portal as through a rebirth fountain - and I often took that as my second and final farming location.

Ofcourse, with the xp=mf solution, there's the players who can't play long enough to benefit from it and they'll be penalized for not having tons of time, that's not really fair.
One possible solution to this problem is by quickly capping the mf, say that after an average of 20 minutes you already reached the max %mf you can get (or use a diminishing returns value where 2 hours of xp-farming hardly delivers more mf than 20 minutes - much like in D2, where going pass the 200%mf find was almost useless).
The other part is to offset the %mf formulae against the time won by doing quick - so farming bosses or just farming the game is both as effective.

As for boss-exclusive droppings* (http://www.ontariowildflower.com/images/elkdropping.jpg), I already thought that was the case in TQ?


EDIT: I hope the order of posts will be reversed, as this change is too much for my little mind to fathom..

[Renevent]

My personal opinion is that killing bosses and collecting the best loot from their dead corpses is the best part of these types of games. I think where it becomes a drag is you start so close to the boss. Basically you can just run for 20-30 seconds, kill the boss, collect loot, then restart the game and repeat ad-nauseam.

I think there's something that can be learned from newer games that have expanded on the ARPG formula...namely MMORPG's. I know some people might get riled up with my even mentioning this game, but let's talk about World of Warcraft. Basically, you can run bosses in that game over and over too...and people do...the difference is you have to complete some challenges prior to slaying it...mainly completing a difficult dungeon.

I think this keeps things a bit more fresh for two reasons:

1) The amount of time per run is increased, and the player is involved in more than simply killing one enemy over and over and over and over every 30 seconds.

2) Greater risk which means the reward is that much sweeter

Also, because the time investment is so much greater, the reward can also be scaled up accordingly. There's nothing more disappointing than killing Typhoon and seeing nothing but yellows. I realize why it has to be like that, though, as if the loot % quality was high a couple hours of farming would be out of whack balance wise.

Oh, and just to be clear, I am not suggesting 4 hour raids requiring the perfect team of 5 specific classes :p

I don't have that kind of time either, and I would absolutely hate that kind of thing.

Another idea that might be worth consideration is something that HG:L did. I don't know how many people played it, but in the stone henge area they had an interesting mechanic for fighting the final boss (and most lucrative boss). Basically you had to run around different areas and kill his generals and take their heads, after collecting all 4 you could open up the portal to his dungeon and eventually fight your way to him.

While HG:L was a seriously flawed (in many ways) game, I thought that game play mechanic was very cool. It also had a secondary effect...which is encouraged cooperation in multiplayer. People would try to find others who had that extra head they were missing or find people to maximize the amount of runs they could do. The nice thing is this didn't hamper the lone ranger either, as it was all completable solo as well.

[decius]

Followed from the tq.net forum.

I don't like the aspect of games where I have to do the same thing n times in a row to proceed. I think it would be far better to have a large world, all of varied difficulty, and allow the player to decide where in the world he goes.

Don't fall into the Morrowind trap, and make the entire world of uniform challenge, scaled to the player. Don't make areas inaccessible to 'low level' characters, either; give everyone enough rope to hang themselves, and let them use it.

As far as top-tier equipment goes, every single piece should be interesting. Give each 'set' or higher quality bit of stuff at least a paragraph of backstory, explaining the benefits and drawbacks of that piece, then base the stats of the equipment on that story. (Don't neccesarily make the history player-readable. It's for your benefit.)

And finally, don't make mechanical changes to gameplay based on the playstyle of the player. Ideally, have an option to save the entire state of the current game, and continue from exactly the same point at a later time. If that is impractical, minimize the amount of replay needed to get to the same point.

[medierra]

Followed from the tq.net forum.

I don't like the aspect of games where I have to do the same thing n times in a row to proceed. I think it would be far better to have a large world, all of varied difficulty, and allow the player to decide where in the world he goes.

Don't fall into the Morrowind trap, and make the entire world of uniform challenge, scaled to the player. Don't make areas inaccessible to 'low level' characters, either; give everyone enough rope to hang themselves, and let them use it.

Don't worry, we'll give you plenty of rope. We have a hybrid scaling system where enemies within an area will scale to provide the right level of challenge but only within certain level limits. If you run ahead in the game without leveling, you will easily be able to find enemies far enough above you in level to handily punch a large hole in your face. On the other hand, if you linger around the starting area too long, eventually you'll exceed the level limit of enemies that can spawn there and you'll want to move on.

This issue seems like something players are concerned about, so perhaps int he near future I'll write about it in more detail.

[Munderbunny]

Congrats on website! (Read the backstory, and man, the premise is pretty awesome).

On topic: what I personally like about the exp-to-loot gain is not that it discourages farming (it doesn't as far as I can tell), but discourages farming backwards. Obviously this encourages players to move forward with newer characters, causing them to progress through the game, and get better loot and experience. It also means, when they roll a new toon, they won't want to take their high-level, already-beaten-the-game-90-times toon to farm up some gear to mule over; they'll want to fight those bosses fresh with the new toon, as that's how they'll get the best loot. And, because they won't be overleveled, it'll still be challenging and exciting. If you give players a reset on the penalty, it'll actually encourage them to go back and fight those boring fights even more so than no penalty at all, because it's a virtual reward.

The problem is, players will, against all reason, farm like compulsive gamblers for better loot. While there are a few true, OCD farmers for whom this is the entirety of the gameplay experience, for the rest of us, the game suddenly becomes unfun, and before you know it, you're burnt out.

Surely you must have recognized this on some level, otherwise why have a loot penalty for repeating a boss chest in TQ? It keeps players moving forward, and that's what players want--they want to get better gear by moving forward. An exp system doesn't need to have a hard line drawn; it can be more gradual and allow the player a few decent runs before the slope begins to get steep, meaning players who have been falling behind, or have made poor skill decisions, can still farm up. That's a perfectly reasonable and common ARPG thing to do. :)

And, players who want to gain an advantage still have the hand-me-down edge with better gear from later sections of the game that can help them through those tough boss fights more easily.

And, best of all, OCD-like farmers will be even happier with the new system, as it means they get to make spreadsheets to figure out what the prime farming sweet-spots are for their desired items--I can already see post number 42 in the thread Top-25 Optimal Farming Runs--"Oh ho ho, DarkAvengerCrow, you may be correct that at level 48 a hero has a 38.229% less chance to get a Golden Scepter of Eternal Glory than a level 33 hero, but a level 48 Ovinomancer has the Sheepination skill, which lets them get past the Dread Guardians 3 minutes faster than a level 33 could, which means a 62.765% reduction to your posted farming run time, which actually increases your hourly chance to get the GSoEG by 24.536%!!!"

[medierra]

I'm not sure the proposal of tying exp-gain to drop rate will accomplish what you're talking about though if I understand you correctly. So long as you're fighting a boss that gives you decent exp, farming would probably be just as effective as it is now. Typically when I'm farming a boss, it is a boss that will give me good XP because A) I want to also be gaining XP while I farm otherwise I'm collecting loot at the expense of char progression, which is already penalty enough in my mind and B) if you're farming lower level bosses, you're much less likely to get good loot that is going to be useful to your current character since they will tend to drop lower level items.

The main purpose of the high initial drop rate on first time opening of boss chests and then diminished rate thereafter was to ensure that people had a high chance of getting a good reward the first time defeating a boss. After that it went down to what we felt was a more typical drop rate otherwise people could quickly farm every item in the game. Of course, since the probability settings on the drop system in TQ are terrible, people often didn't get a very good reward. We've vastly improved the way we handle drops in GD.

Are you trying to prevent people from farming lower-level bosses to collect gear for new characters? Perhaps I am confused. I interpreted yerk's suggestion to mean that drop rate would be tied to the rate at which players were earning XP. Perhaps you're talking more about a system where drop rate is tied to the disparity between player and enemy level?

[Munderbunny]

Are you trying to prevent people from farming lower-level bosses to collect gear for new characters? Perhaps I am confused. I interpreted yerk's suggestion to mean that drop rate would be tied to the rate at which players were earning XP. Perhaps you're talking more about a system where drop rate is tied to the disparity between player and enemy level?

Yes, the latter? This is how I understood it: the more exp you gain from the monster at a kill (the percentage of your the exp it takes for you to go from your current level to the next), the more likely you are to get a good drop. So, if I'm a level 60 and I kill Typhon lvl 66, I should get a bigger chance for primo-drop than if I'm level 75. But, it has to be the exp gain from the monster, not the monster level alone--don't want to get the same boost when killing a level 66 Maenad champion; the exp is always--ideally--tied directly to the difficulty of the monster, so having the relational gain seems like the best way to give greater reward for overcoming greater challenge.

I did not understand the suggestion to be like based on exp per minute or something--I definitely don't want the best farming to be AoE-rolling Satyrs. :O

And, just to be clear, I'm not down on farming; I think it's fine and fun (within reason). I just think players become item junkies (have been there myself), getting skittish with the game when it starts to get a little difficult, and stopping in their tracks to begin farming like crazy. While it's smart to farm up some if you're struggling, I don't think it should be to the exclusion of improving the hero's skills (and the player's). Overcoming obstacles through more than a shiny breastplate is far more rewarding if you can get there. However, if you can just kill the same mini-boss over and over again, stock up on a bunch of loot, what follows will be less exciting, and every subsequent drop less interesting.

Dunno if you've tried Torchlight, but there's this thing they have, where you can buy these dungeon scrolls that teleport you to one of their many cut-and-paste dungeons. The monsters are much higher level than you, it's tougher, the drops are better, the exp gain is better. You get to the end of it at some point and are teleported back to the city. I did two of those in a row. I went back to the main quest, and I was grossly overlevelled and overequipped for the game. The main quest became too boring to play, yet I didn't want to spend anymore time pointlessly spelunking for levels and loot. It was a stalemate. I don't know if their dungeon scroll thing was just messed up, and they weren't supposed to be that hard or rewarding, but that's exactly the kind of thing I think needs to be avoided: encouraging players to stop making forward progress.

The exp/droprate seems like such a clever solution to that. I've never heard of anything like that, but I like it instantly. So, I'm voting yes, if something like that were even doable within reason.

[jiaco]

Of course, since the probability settings on the drop system in TQ are terrible, people often didn't get a very good reward. We've vastly improved the way we handle drops in GD.

This is the most important aspect of farming, IMO, that needs to be fixed. People that re-play the game ALOT, will farm. But when a first timer in the Act I Labyrinth in TQ, is looking for SBCs and gets crap drops time and time and time again because the random number never rolled right is just nuts. I have played with these weights and such in the loot tables quite a bit and it seems like you developers had to push the crappy table weight to extreme values to limit the incessant triggering of the good loot as if I just take each loot record and divide the largest weight by 10, all of a sudden there are blues all over Helos. But if you could somehow put a more toon-dependent equation into the formula that dictates loot (and remove the dependence on the initial random roll at the same time) than that would make the best re-play value as then a new toon could just skip the trash mbs and head straight to the loot-able areas in hopes of finding something worth the tough fight.

While the exp-to-drop-rate equation could be cool, it almost seems like the drop-rate should depend on a player OA/DA vs monster OA/DA or some such stat which takes into account gear. As it seems that in an attempt to thwart people going back in game with their level 75 toon to farm bosses, you have created a loophole where players can just take a level 18 toon twinked to high heaven and get better farming results.

[medierra]

I think a completely different solution that might work better would be to create special "challenge" areas or dungeons where the enemies are tougher than normal but also have significantly higher chances of dropping good items. Then basically balance the difficulty and drop rates such that it is more effect to farm an entire area like that then to just repeatedly kill the same boss. In my opinion this seems like a better direction since it isn't adding a new "rule" to the underlying game mechanics that might seem to penalize certain players. Instead it seems like a universally positive addition that, at the same time, would help to reduce the monotony of performing runs on an individual boss. I also still like the idea of making it so that each area has a different range of possible uber items that can drop.

[Chameleon]

Why not make farming bosses obsolete? Make it so bosses drops certain items 100% of the time.

Buuut to make farming a bit more fun make it so that the best items drop from "Champion" monster that randomly spawn within an act. That means you have to play through the whole act or until you find the "Champion" monsters...

I duno if it would work or make farming less fun...its just a thought.

[ASYLUM101]

Why not make farming bosses obsolete? Make it so bosses drops certain items 100% of the time.

This is an interesting idea, and I kinda like it but it gets a little boring. Eg; Borderlands sorta has this feature. Key bosses(like the intro miniboss, bonehead or whatever his name is) ALWAYS, drops the boneshredder. I killed him like 5 times cause the first time he dropped this awesome gun. Second time, he dropped it again. Third time I figured it must be the same thing every time. I stopped after the 5th. I mean, yeah it's really cool, provided A) You don't have the weapon already and B) you can kill him. But once you get it, whats the point of revisiting? I guess it'd remove the farming aspect and make more like, if you can kill this dude, you deserve this loot. Which is neat, unless you're super uber powerful and can just waltz through and own everything, kinda makes it lame.

Also, I'm a bit curious about what people think about this prospect(i know some people, like the I KILLED HIM ALREADY WHY DID HE RESPAWN people, will hate it):

What if, there was a way to reset the spawns? To force the creatures you killed on your last farming run to respawn again so you can kill them over without the whole quit game/select character/load game thing? IF farming is a key aspect in the game, as it is in almost every RPG, maybe you can skip one of the more annoying steps? I dunno how this could be implemented thoguh... maybe you travel to a certain area and then go back to find every monster has returned, but it'd have to be set up in a way so that you can go to town, but scrolls or pots, whatever, and come back to your still deceased enemies.

[medierra]

What if, there was a way to reset the spawns? To force the creatures you killed on your last farming run to respawn again so you can kill them over without the whole quit game/select character/load game thing? IF farming is a key aspect in the game, as it is in almost every RPG, maybe you can skip one of the more annoying steps? I dunno how this could be implemented thoguh... maybe you travel to a certain area and then go back to find every monster has returned, but it'd have to be set up in a way so that you can go to town, but scrolls or pots, whatever, and come back to your still deceased enemies.

One of the items on the tech list is proxies that can respawn and I think a very good use for them would be in "challenge" areas. They could either be set up sort of like MMO respawns or it may be possible to craft some sort of setup where groups of enemies are periodically pouring into the level through one-way entrances - the proverbial enemies crawling of a hole in the ground or jumping down on you from a ledge. Maybe there are monster-spawner objects that you can destroy to end the flood of enemies and move on or leave standing if you want to hang around and fight.

[ASYLUM101]

Ah, that sounds like a great idea. Something like those Dark Obelisks from TQ, right? Would be pretty sweet.

[Munderbunny]

I think a completely different solution that might work better would be to create special "challenge" areas or dungeons where the enemies are tougher than normal but also have significantly higher chances of dropping good items. Then basically balance the difficulty and drop rates such that it is more effect to farm an entire area like that then to just repeatedly kill the same boss. In my opinion this seems like a better direction since it isn't adding a new "rule" to the underlying game mechanics that might seem to penalize certain players. Instead it seems like a universally positive addition that, at the same time, would help to reduce the monotony of performing runs on an individual boss. I also still like the idea of making it so that each area has a different range of possible uber items that can drop.

I like the idea of an area that has a chance to drop an item, as opposed to just one monster, but it's still sort of the same thing. And I'd be wary of creating areas that are more exciting than the main campaign and can be repeatedly farmed (ala those torchlight dungeons). Yerky and I added some challenging secret areas to TQ in Underlord, and farmers don't like them for their length (since all they care about is getting the new items, and wouldn't be playing the game at all if there was a mod that gave them the items), and new players struggle with the difficulty in them (the one I made has no indication that it's an option area, besides being difficult to find), and feel compelled to complete it, no matter how much it brutalizes their character. :O

As far as the drop-rate-from-exp thing, I didn't think it was a penalty, so much as a boost. That, lower level characters got an increase to the magical droprate for taking on greater challenges, not that overlevelled heroes would get nothing from farming a boss.

Anyway, it is a big, core change, which is why I was all about voting for it, since you're in the early development of GD, which is where stuff like this can be accounted for, instead of trying to add something like that onto the game afterwards.

Anyway, I am procrastinating work now. I just want to say that my first time through these games, I don't like to stop to farm much; I'm always excited by what I'll find in the next area. That's when the game is most fun. I look at the challenges long-time players put up to return some excitement to the game, and besides the obvious "hardcore," there are challenges like live off only what you find, and you must go from health fountain to health fountain, and cannot go back to farm an area, you can't twink, etc.. And most of these things are creating gameplay that more closely resembles the first time playing through the game, where you had to live off what you found, and you couldn't twink, and you didn't go back to farm areas. The idea that the better loot is had by taking on the next big challenge is one that appeals to me, as it seems it would keep you moving forward more often, which seems like it would keep players in the difficulty pocket you want them in.

[medierra]

Generally I only see the farming dynamic really coming into play for the higher difficulty modes. I assume people spend most of their time farming typhon and by that point it isn't as if the farming is interfering with forward progress since there isn't really anywhere else to go except perhaps to another difficulty level if you aren't already in legendary.

I am having a bit of a struggle now trying to determine how closely we should stick to the tried and true formula of making progress through a relatively linear world vs. creating more of an open-world sandbox where the emphasis is on exploration and character development. In the later scenario, progress through the game would be based more on powering up your character than fighting your way over a long distance down a linear path.

[ASYLUM101]

The whole open-world vs linear thing is kind of a weird argument. Open world is ALWAYS cooler than linear, of course. But, at the same time, if one area has higher level dudes than the other, it kinda forces you to go to the other place anyway, right? Similarly, if BOTH places had the same level dudes, or the dudes were equal to the player's level, it would be somewhat fun, however the whole "i like to feel epic by endgame" comes into play and it makes it kinda lame.(like endgame Oblivion characters where the creatures overpower you in high levels.)

I for one, really enjoy the exploration aspect. Having enemies similarly leveled, is great and all, but there should be a min/max cap for that. For instance, if you go to a place that was for level 20's as a level 50, the guys shouldn't raise all the way to 50, but maybe cap at around 35 or something. *shrug* I really don't know, I'm just throwing stuff out there.

[Rhis]

Having enemies similarly leveled, is great and all, but there should be a min/max cap for that. For instance, if you go to a place that was for level 20's as a level 50, the guys shouldn't raise all the way to 50, but maybe cap at around 35 or something. *shrug* I really don't know, I'm just throwing stuff out there.

That's how it works in Grim Dawn. =)

[Malpheas]

Generally I only see the farming dynamic really coming into play for the higher difficulty modes. I assume people spend most of their time farming typhon and by that point it isn't as if the farming is interfering with forward progress since there isn't really anywhere else to go except perhaps to another difficulty level if you aren't already in legendary.

That's my stance on farming, more or less.

It's an endgame activity, from what my activity has been. I think you should be rewarded for your efforts. As well, mf might be limited to an inventory item that gives downsides as well as mf. So as to drive the point home that farming isn't the whole of the game. More risk is more gain. Like a challenge quest, for example.

I liked the mechanic that was the first drop off a boss gave a better loot selection and that subsequent runs were reduced in value. That was TQ and Diablo, etc.

The one thing I REALLY liked about Sacred 1 (and 2) was the survival bonus, a reward to mf based on the length of time between your character's last death and now; also enemies did more damage and the level difference between you and the enemy was higher. Higher reward based on risk.

Also: For farming, one of the many things that BrotherLaz, creator of Median XL (and all previous versions), did VERY well was make item type drop biases for certain uber areas. So you wanted something you had to go to a certain place and farm, each area offering a challenge of a different type. However, these areas were all endgame locations.

Also: I'm in favour of removing rebirth fountains and going from a way point instead.

I like the idea of an area that has a chance to drop an item, as opposed to just one monster, but it's still sort of the same thing.

I like this idea as well.

Also: Here is my quote from Tq.net forums "On Farming (http://www.titanquest.net/forums/grim-dawn-suggestions/33919-farming.html#post378621)"

Nah, how about getting rid of unique items altogether. But make items a reagent based process, like say, Legend of Mana.

You can still make standard type items (of specific mods and other qualities), but please make it a little more work based; other than farming for certain items. Although, this way, you're still farming reagents. Better yet, make the reagents drop from certain areas depending: Bones - skeletons or whatnot, Wings - a demon or some enemy with wings, etc. For the truly rare items, make the reagents from them drops from non-boss creatures of a rare type. I dunno. I think the formulas were a great idea in TQ, but expand that a little.

On the other hand, Yes, I think that's a decent idea, to push for progression through the game. But then to make item sets becomes a little harder to obtain.

Just as an addend to my post.

[medierra]

*shrug* I really don't know, I'm just throwing stuff out there.

No, I think you do know... too much for your own good!

[ASYLUM101]

Oh... crap. /me grabs his sapros. :D

Great minds think alike I guess then eh.

[medierra]

We're currently thinking about a hybrid system where recipes sometimes involve unique items.

[Malpheas]

I for one, really enjoy the exploration aspect. Having enemies similarly leveled, is great and all, but there should be a min/max cap for that. For instance, if you go to a place that was for level 20's as a level 50, the guys shouldn't raise all the way to 50, but maybe cap at around 35 or something. *shrug* I really don't know, I'm just throwing stuff out there.


This is the way Sacred 1 did it. It worked well; pity Sacred 1's loot system was an absolute shambles of organisation.

Cheers,

Malph

[Chameleon]

The one thing I REALLY liked about Sacred 1 (and 2) was the survival bonus, a reward to mf based on the length of time between your character's last death and now; also enemies did more damage and the level difference between you and the enemy was higher. Higher reward based on risk.

Yeah but with S1 you could save where/when you wanted and reload the game if you died and lost your SB. I'd hate it in a game that has auto/always save like TQ. I dont like the auto/always/active or whatever its called save function games have.

I like to have control of my char and reload a save file if something doesnt go the way I like. It was S1's best function, I wish all games had the same save function as S1.

[Renevent]

That feature in Sacred was so exploitable it was ridiculous :p

[Chameleon]

It wasnt an exploit it was a feature! :(

[Renevent]

The feature was the save system, the save system was exploitable :D

You could save right before you killed a dragon (like 1 or 2 hits left)...then kill it and keep reloading until it drops EXACTLY what you wanted.

I think that's why most ARPG's don't go that route as far as the save system...

[yerkyerk]

Yea, not being able to save and reload the game is a good thing, imo. Makes the character and actions feel more permanent (though I think the save button should still be there - just in case you're afraid your pc crashes right after you find the cracked sash of doom).

Anyway, to avoid confusion on the idea I postponed; my intention was to let players build up an mf meter (which is build up through experience) which resets every game. The higher the meter, the more chance at finding magical items you'll have.

I also consider farming to be mostly an end-game activity, to further progress your character. Farming is a mini-game - but the monotomy doesn't seem to be a necessary part of it. You can still do bossruns (and keep them an effective way of farming), but also remove the high reward of running the same boss over and over again. If the rebirth=faster than portalling thing is fixed, you can plan to do several boss runs. You could visit Typhon, Hades, Secret Passage, Snake sisters, Dragon Liche, Hydra, 3x Telkines, Charon, Cerberus, etc... all in a single game, instead of just visiting Boss X and restart the game a hundred times over because
1. You have the fast rebirth fountain activated
2. Boss X has the best drops
This problem will remain if things aren't changed, and though this only has an effect on endgame - it would make farming less fun and enjoyable to me. There's a reason I used to farm my ass off in D2, whereas in TQ:IT my farming was rather limited (except when playing hardcore on an increased difficulty mod).

And in regards to the OP; although I do understand what point medierra is trying to make by completely disregarding the dictionary, I see no harm in farming being both fun and enjoyable.

[Chameleon]

The feature was the save system, the save system was exploitable :D

You could save right before you killed a dragon (like 1 or 2 hits left)...then kill it and keep reloading until it drops EXACTLY what you wanted.

I think that's why most ARPG's don't go that route as far as the save system...

That is EXACTLY what I LOVED about it. Makes farming much more fun compared to any other game I've ever played.

If this was a certainty in GD, I'd almost immediately become a Legendary Donor. :)

[Malpheas]

Hmm, maybe it's just me, but I played closed Ascaron.net servers Sacred 1 and never had the opportunity to exploit the save file for survival bonus. That was never an issue. Ah well, for playing non-single player.

[TheRani]

Hmm, maybe it's just me, but I played closed Ascaron.net servers Sacred 1 and never had the opportunity to exploit the save file for survival bonus. That was never an issue. Ah well, for playing non-single player.

Almost every aspect of Sacred 1 in single-player is very abusable in some kind of way. You could have a starting character with lots of money and a stockpile of skills to turn into whatever you want by just abusing the Import function, I recall.

[eisprinzessin]

I would appreciate an easy way to fight bosses repeatedly. Not to farm them, but to test my skills or my set-up or to enjoy a longer fight.

Farming wouldn't be an issue, if the overall drop quality was satisfying and/or unique items weren't so imba.

#1 You need to farm, if your melee toon finds mostly caster items and vice versa ... that cannot be helped (well, it can but should not because) and has been an incentive to start a new toon of a different class, which can use the stuff effectively.

#2 In TQ I ignore white/grey and most yellow items. I wonder if GD can improve in this aspect. White items could offer the highest armour values, but nothing else. Yellows items could have decent armour and absolute attribute/HP/energie/damage bonuses. Green items could come with good armour, mediocre absolute bonuses and best resistances. And so on for unique items. The blue ones could include %-bonuses and the purple ones boost skills. (Mobs will wear some grey stuff, but it will not drop in GD, will it?)

A balanced set-up would require items of different quality. An all blue or purple set would require that set-bonuses compensate the lower base values.

Farming would become less beneficial/necessary as unique items would serve a more specific purpose. But you could allow, that players put enchantments on them in GD.

Optional - not sure if this is fun: White items are non-magical. They might take damage and wear out (turn grey) eventually. So you need to replace them from time to time. Any enchantment on them should return to your inventory.

[medierra]

I agree with much of your thinking eisprinzessin. I think toning down a lot of the bonuses, especially on the lower tier unique items would help bring things into balance better. If white items dropped in a wider level-range there would be more chance to find white items that greatly surpassed the base armor or damage of whatever magical items you might have equipped, at least early on in the game.

It might also be good to lower the drop rate of bosses a little more after the initial kill but locate them in areas with other tough enemies that had increased drop rate so its more of a level-run than just a boss-run. Then we could make things a little more interesting by allowing for spawn variances with unique hero monsters. To some extent, part of the lottery aspect of the run would then also be the potential for big drop-rate increases caused by randomly spawning heroes.

[TheRani]

Maybe instead of just near the bosses, make heroes spawn very frequently throughout the game which have boss-like drop rates every time you kill them. If you can find heroes frequently throughout the game that have similar drops to 2nd-time bosses, you won't be so inclined to run a boss over and over. Think about the frequency with which hero monsters appear in Torchlight. That often. Like at least 1 or 2 per floor/area.

[yerkyerk]

That should work, one way to get people away from spamming bosses would be to offer interesting random rewards..

Also, here's an idea for whites;
Allow them to drop with sockets/enchants - and allow them to get socket slots. Say you find a white unsocketed hammer. You can than go to the local socketeer and pay him, he'll than give you a random amount of sockets on your weapon.
You can either use these socket slots for actual sockets, or you can go to an enchanter, which you can pay for putting an enchantment on your weapon (which costs 1 socket slot and a bunch of currency).

It could make for an interesting money sink as well allowing people to get their personal items.

[medierra]

Maybe instead of just near the bosses, make heroes spawn very frequently throughout the game which have boss-like drop rates every time you kill them. If you can find heroes frequently throughout the game that have similar drops to 2nd-time bosses, you won't be so inclined to run a boss over and over. Think about the frequency with which hero monsters appear in Torchlight. That often. Like at least 1 or 2 per floor/area.

Definitely something we want to do. With our new drop system we will be able to improve the consistency of drops for heroes.

[TECHNOmancer]

I think that increasing the occurrence of the hero monsters is a great idea, as is sweeting their loot tables. It is fun to encounter the heros in TQ, however it's also anticlimactic since few of them are of significantly greater ability than their lesser cohorts.

Here's another possibility regarding loot: Make some or many of the game's items occur in very specific areas of the game. Loot in TQ in Normal difficulty was, with very few exceptions, found in a single act. The bulk of items that dropped in Epic and Legendary difficulties could be found in two or more acts in either difficulty. Instead, Grim Dawn could limit items to specific zones within a given act. If Act I had twenty different areas, perhaps Iron Ore could be found in areas six (foothills), seven (mountain), and fifteen (mine). Monster charms in TQ were managed in this way and I thought that it was inventive, not to mention a refreshing break from farming those poor old Telkines. Similarly, perhaps different technologies could be regionalized around specific towns. If there is a village in area eleven, leather armor produced by craftsmen of that town could be found in the adjacent area(s). This would create a greater incentive to farm/revisit areas of the game that don't necessarily involve farming a boss ad nauseum.

TECHNOmancer

[medierra]

I had to play nice on TQ. You can expect hero monsters to be significantly beefier. I was thinking it would be cool to create even a higher tier randomly occuring "uber hero" type monster.

[yerkyerk]

I had to play nice on TQ. You can expect hero monsters to be significantly beefier. I was thinking it would be cool to create even a higher tier randomly occuring "uber hero" type monster.
Oh yes, definetely :)
And at least as strong as, or perhaps stronger than endbosses. They're optional, so people can skip them if they can't beat them.
If they could drop interesting stuff that others don't it'd also detract people from running the same bosses.

[Chameleon]

I had to play nice on TQ. You can expect hero monsters to be significantly beefier. I was thinking it would be cool to create even a higher tier randomly occuring "uber hero" type monster.

:eek: I was hoping they'd be a little easier. I hated getting 1shotkilled regularly by various monsters I encountered. I thought TQ was quite unbalanced in that regard in some parts.

[Ironwind]

Hello all and congrats on the new site/game. Just my quick .02, I think a loot scaled system would work well. For example, Loot is placed in category's A,B,C,D, etc. "A" scaled loot will be up to 5th level category equipment, "B" 10th level, etc. This way..the guy/gal who likes to farm will eventually get a complete set of level 5 equipment, but it will start to become useless when he enters the B,C, and D zones. This does not discourage farming, but does render it useless eventually. He also feels a sense of accomplishment finding a complete set of scale "A" equipment regardless of it's effectiveness. Which also keeps the the ones who like to collect in TQ, myself included, happy *coughmorestoragespacecough*. Thanks for a great game and being so loyal the the community/fans. You guys are great.

[medierra]

:eek: I was hoping they'd be a little easier. I hated getting 1shotkilled regularly by various monsters I encountered. I thought TQ was quite unbalanced in that regard in some parts.

We have a much improved system for assigning and balancing monster stats. In TQ it was a little chaotic and sometimes inappropriately configured. I think you'll see less of this and encounter difficulty more as a sustained fight with a difficult enemy then a surprise death. Although, in legendary, I figure its "anything goes". ; )

[winsrp]

uhhh long time since i talk with you medierra, all the way back to about a year before titan quest came out!!!, congrats on the new company and the new site, game, etc etc... I won a t-shirt back then for the idea for the titan quest expansion, and still have that one and use every week actually. Enough happy though, and back on subject.

Lets talk a little bit about Farming:

why you farm? to get better items
why you need better items? cus you normally get you ass kicked by small groups of normal monsters, and when you find a bad ass boss with little ones... you will see the need to both level up or farm items.

now... whats going on with the good items, where the heck are they.???... 90% of the time, when you receive a good ... good .... good item for you, is like 10 levels below and its normally far better than what you have on, that might even be another great item, that is 20 level below that you found 2 hours ago. So.... it is really hard in a game to actually find items that you can use that will actually give you some good boost. most of the items are a 1/10000 chance that a huge boss will drop an item your level, and it has a 1/10000000000000 chance that it will drop a great item that is 5 levels above you, and you are willing to bust your ass in order to use it.

Now.... how can you help people farm less and play more.

#1 GOOD crafting system: intead of wasting time in making a billion rare/set/legendary weapons, invest time in giving the player the ability to create their own rare/set/legendary items, even with their names on it. So I can make my Winsrp kick ass set #1, and give them some cool bonuses.

Example on how to make a good crafting system:

You need 2 thing, prime materials,and crafters. I found some wood (killed a wood monster or something), and some iron, so i go to a blacksmith and pay so they make me a sword. then i find a ruby, and a some acid, so I go to an alchemist to combine those 2 and see what comes out, this transforms into a weird substance that can be put into my sword, so i go to the blacksmith and pay again so he will merge those 2... etc etc... you can have a book of alchemy recipes, and have some combines and pure items that could be merged with what ever item you have, lets say you can add up to 10 bonuses to your sword, but the first recipes are low level, you can also increase that given bonus from the 10 you have already picked by applying a level 2 formula of the same bonus, and so on, so there you have a way to entertain players doing something useful, and a way to spend money.

#2 Add items, or bonuses or some stuff that increases your chance to find rare items: most games have this, i think even titan quest did, but they alway use some weird formula that at the end does not adds crap. the idea is simple and there should be no motive to over complicate this, lets call it the "luck" stat of your player, if you have 0, no rares for you, if you have 100% all rares.... there you go, simple.

-----

Now, the idea you propose about making a challenge area, like an arena kind of place I suppose sound like a great idea, but i think that it will become like one of those places where you will be hanging most of the game, if this game becomes a game core made item centric game, instead of a crafted item game.

----

On another note, you can add also more interaction with the environment by adding crafts to players, and instead of needing an NPC as a blacksmith, then you can have a player that is a blacksmith and can charge you for that service, same as a lumberjack, miner, alchemist, and a handful others that players could pick as a side profession in the game and add also a progressive leveling system for you profession. this will make the game players more usefull and since this is a downloadable game everyone should be able to connect to the web and find a blacksmith, or offer that service. Of course, a 4 player game should be a little unsufficient for such an economic approach, but maybe a 8/16 player game might suit right in, since it will be really fun to get online to find a player with a profession you need. So you would gain recipes when you level up (but you can guess them if you want) if you hit a recipe that you don't know or someone performs a recipe for you it will be added to a recipe book, where you can always go back and check them.

just some wild ideas of how to make a game with more replay value and long time progression interest.

[medierra]

Example on how to make a good crafting system:

You need 2 thing, prime materials,and crafters. I found some wood (killed a wood monster or something), and some iron, so i go to a blacksmith and pay so they make me a sword. then i find a ruby, and a some acid, so I go to an alchemist to combine those 2 and see what comes out, this transforms into a weird substance that can be put into my sword, so i go to the blacksmith and pay again so he will merge those 2... etc etc... you can have a book of alchemy recipes, and have some combines and pure items that could be merged with what ever item you have, lets say you can add up to 10 bonuses to your sword, but the first recipes are low level, you can also increase that given bonus from the 10 you have already picked by applying a level 2 formula of the same bonus, and so on, so there you have a way to entertain players doing something useful, and a way to spend money.


This is actually very similar to the crafting system we are creating. ; )

[Chameleon]

We have a much improved system for assigning and balancing monster stats. In TQ it was a little chaotic and sometimes inappropriately configured. I think you'll see less of this and encounter difficulty more as a sustained fight with a difficult enemy then a surprise death. Although, in legendary, I figure its "anything goes". ; )

Thats good to hear.

I dont enjoy entering an area and find myself tombstoned before I know what hit me...like with the Barmanu boss and those champion tigermen to name two. :(

[deimos]

Or - you guessed it - Toxeus. Come on, what gave you such misery that you dished it unto him and made him what he is?! :D That asswipe alone is responsible for so many untimely deaths, Barmanu doesn't come close. The Secret Passage version of him, that is. So far i haven't even found him outside SP, where he's supposed to dig even deeper graves for my unwary travellers...

I still want to see him in GD. :D

[medierra]

I think he is mostly talking about normal difficulty.

Don't worry, in Legendary there will still be ridiculous uber heroes that run out of nowhere and pwn you.

[Chameleon]

I think he is mostly talking about normal difficulty.

Don't worry, in Legendary there will still be ridiculous uber heroes that run out of nowhere and pwn you.

Now I'm sad again.:cry:

[TECHNOmancer]

Legendary Dactyl 2.0?? :furious:

[Roros]

I find that boss runs and farming in general can go both ways. There are times where I'm perfectly fine with grinding and I genuinely have fun doing it. This is when I just want to relax and "beat some sh*t up a bit", and possibly walk away with some type of rewards after doing it.
Obviously this depends entirely on how the game works, whether "grinding" involves exploring a sandbox world with some type of goal in mind and continously facing a series of microchallenges, or if you're repeatedly loading a savegame before a 20 minute bossfight that has a 4.5% chance to drop the set gloves you need (which you could probably just obtain via a mod or editing your savegame anyway).

I don't think that deliberately limiting farming would be what I'd want. It would give me this sense of the game telling me "no, you're not allowed to play this way" rather than it encouraging me to play in a more fun way. On the other hand, I don't like it when the rewards for some type of monotonous and unfun playstyle is so rewarding that you'd feel punished for not doing it.

All in all, since items and loot are such a big part of these games, I think it's natural that farming will as a result always be part of them as well. That's why I feel it's important to be conscious and deliberate about farming when making them.

[Scryer]

I would also like to congratulate everyone at Crate on their new website!

Well here's a quote, "The path of least resistance, should also be the path of most fun." That's a direct quote from Jay Wilson, developer of Diablo 3. It rings true in many respects.

First lets set out in determining the path of least resistance. For the Diablo 2 player it was boss runs - the path of least resistance implies a game-play strategy that all players use. They use this strategy to advance their Character or their account to one extent or the other. Boss runs in Diablo 2 were very monotonous and quite unsavory, run to boss, kill boss, there is no other game-play mechanic tied to it.

A game-play mechanic is essentially how the player interacts with the game, so the player clicked 1 button 200 times and the boss died. This is not the most fun way to play a game, especially with the technology we have nowadays. So how do we make this more fun for the player?

Well, while there's been a lot of things the people have done, Torchlight for one stopped spawning bosses once you killed them, this is actually a pretty interesting and dynamic way to change the game. You get the benefit of slaying a boss once and getting really good drops, but beyond that you can not continue to run past everything to further obtain good loot.

However, because this will be a Multiplayer game, you will not be able to de-spawn a boss just because another player has entered the game. So how do we make this path the most fun? well, by adding extra fun game-play mechanics. The Diablo 3 developers have decided that it is time to end the Era of potions and mana, and go back to the drawing board to develop fun and interactive game-play elements. They've decided to crunch the numbers, go outside what was originally defined by Diablo, and create new-interactive and fun elements.

So, there are ways to make a game more fun, but they require a little innovation. You have to imagine, what will be a fun game-play mechanic, while fighting a boss? What other games have made fighting bosses more interesting and fun?

I will tell you right now - I'm not a fan of potion hoarding, or Mana for that respect, and I am for-sure not a fan of Town Portals - when you're out on the battle field, you should feel like you have to plan your attack, at least for a few seconds.

You want the path of least resistance, to be the path of most fun.

[Malpheas]

First lets set out in determining the path of least resistance. For the Diablo 2 player it was boss runs - the path of least resistance implies a game-play strategy that all players use. They use this strategy to advance their Character or their account to one extent or the other. Boss runs in Diablo 2 were very monotonous and quite unsavory, run to boss, kill boss, there is no other game-play mechanic tied to it.

I think the solution lies in more heroes and uber heroes. Also, non-story-boss related challenge levels (I could be wrong in that this is just a suggestion by player base and not actually in development). Better drops from that. Although, when these happen, it's just a different kind of farming. Although, with regards to that, I would like to see a proof of farming in that you can wield your new toys in harder and more challenging places. That's just me.

I will tell you right now - I'm not a fan of potion hoarding, or Mana for that respect, and I am for-sure not a fan of Town Portals - when you're out on the battle field, you should feel like you have to plan your attack, at least for a few seconds.

Potions? No idea. Maybe a return of mana per kill? Based on level comparison between player and monster? Not sure really what to suggest.

Town portals? I'm not sure what you mean by "plan your attack, at least for a few seconds." Does this mean you want to be rid of town portals? Do you have any suggestions?

[Scryer]

Yes, it means I don't like town portals, they are a quick "get out of jail" free card that you almost always have, this doesn't help you enjoy the game more, it causes a break in action. This break in action should not be in an ARPG, an ARPG should promote action and fighting.

While you're out on the field you're always in "Action" once you've reached a place of sanctuary you are no longer in action and are now simply exploring the items you've accumulated while playing.

I have played the Diablo 3 demos, and one thing I have taken a liking to is Health Orbs, they are a definitive addition to the ARPG genre, that literally rocked my perceptions of ARPG.

Instead of town portals, Check points and Way points make the game easier to get back into action and give the player options. Town portals, as a last resort is not far-fetched (Something that has a long cooldown). However they could be easily exploited, if they worked the same as they did in Diablo 2 (Having 2 up allows unlimited access to town).

So, I think the game should promote healthy combat, and shouldn't force the player to retreat to town, the developers need to give the players enough tools to get out of a sticky situation, or to triumph over every foe.

[Renevent]

So are you saying take out town portals (or severely limit them)? If so, I think that's a terrible idea. In fact, I think it's an idea that would actually harm the game.

I remember a reviewer of TQ marking points off the game because he said there was no way to return to town and their backpack filled up so quick...so he was constantly forced to lug stuff back and fourth all the time. Now, obviously the reviewer was a moron as there was a portal function in TQ, but I think it clearly shows that inconveniencing a player in that manner is a serious negative.

[Scryer]

Well, Torchlight had a pretty good idea - Your pet gets rid of all the items you want to sell.

Torchlight also added wandering vendors in which you could sell loot to.

Those 2 options alone made it near un-reasonable to travel to town unless it was to put loot you've collected into your stash.

Diablo 3's solution was this, don't drop so much trash that your inventory could ever get too full before you reach your next destination. That worked out pretty well in the demos.

That coupled with the previous Torchlight solution insures that you do not really need a town-portal function.

[Renevent]

Except both games still have portals as well...

I think creating mechanics that ease the players requirement to go back to town constantly are cool, but removing (or limiting) their ability to do so is a bad idea.

[ASYLUM101]

Really, your solution to the "get out of jail" card portal is to just remove it? Wouldn't it be easier to just ... you know, make the player actually CAST a portal spell? Or have to wait a duration for it to pop up so you can't summon it in the middle of a battle. Or just restrict it completely provided you're in combat.

[Renevent]

Really, your solution to the "get out of jail" card portal is to just remove it? Wouldn't it be easier to just ... you know, make the player actually CAST a portal spell? Or have to wait a duration for it to pop up so you can't summon it in the middle of a battle. Or just restrict it completely provided you're in combat.

Yeah, if it's a balance thing making the cast for town portal a bit longer and maybe interrupt-able is probably a better solution...

[Scryer]

Except both games still have portals as well....

Wrong, Diablo 3 does not have town portals, and to my knowledge never will.

[Renevent]

Wrong, Diablo 3 does not have town portals, and to my knowledge never will.

Well whatever, still, Torchlight does and so did TQ (which this game is from) and I would not want to see it removed.

[Chameleon]

Wrong, Diablo 3 does not have town portals, and to my knowledge never will.

That is a HUGE oversight by the developers of D3 in my opinion. TQ had it perfect with the portal system as fas as I.m concerned.

[Scryer]

I think, just because other ARPG's have this mechanic, is not a reasonable reply, in terms of a town portal's necessity in any game in this genre.

Maybe town portals that only activate in certain areas - like Way points are all that is needed. A town portal that a player can use from anywhere is like a free-waypoint, thus making way-points even more useless then they should be.

Way - points have their purpose, I just have not seen any reasonable argument to have town portals, especially when there are many interesting ways to apply game mechanics in a way that make the game more fun to play. Game mechanics that would cause town portals to be pointless in use.

Also - it's nothing personal, we have our stances and either argue for or against them. This type of debate helps the developers.

[ASYLUM101]

Wrong, Diablo 3 does not have town portals, and to my knowledge never will.

I'm pretty sure that's a horrible decision for blizzard. So much for being on top of the RPG market.

[Renevent]

It's not just because other ARPG's have it, real reasons were given.

I'm pretty sure that's a horrible decision for blizzard. So much for being on top of the RPG market.

Well I agree that mechanic stinks...but it certainly ain't game breaking or anything :P

[Scryer]

That is a HUGE oversight by the developers of D3 in my opinion. TQ had it perfect with the portal system as fas as I.m concerned.

I don't think it was an oversight, I concur with the Diablo 3 developers, having crutches like town portals right off the bat does not foster innovation or help further the genre in any way. A game should be fun and stand on it's own merits, if you player is forced to use this type of mechanic then it creates a break in the action and causes game-flow problems.

I think trying to come up for solutions to "What if we didn't have this?" is a much better way to develop game mechanics.

[Malpheas]

Well whatever, still, Torchlight does and so did TQ (which this game is from) and I would not want to see it removed.


+1, if it matters.

[Renevent]

I don't see how removing an enjoyed feature is innovative...at all. And your generalization of the portal as a "crutch" I think isn't helping either...because that's not how people use it. There's many practical reasons for town portal that have nothing to do with it being a crutch.

[ASYLUM101]

I think the problem is he is tempted to use it as crutch himself. He can't help himself but teleport from the battle if there is danger! Easiest way to deal with an addiction is to have someone else tear it away from you, right?

:P

[Renevent]

:p

Hehe...but seriously...regarding the crutch thing there is a simple solution (mentioned a few times already) that could fix* that problem without the obvious negatives of removing portal all together.

*I don't think this is something that even needs a fex, but whatever :D

[Inwards]

I am having a bit of a struggle now trying to determine how closely we should stick to the tried and true formula of making progress through a relatively linear world vs. creating more of an open-world sandbox where the emphasis is on exploration and character development. In the later scenario, progress through the game would be based more on powering up your character than fighting your way over a long distance down a linear path.

Please, for the love of God, don't go the non-linear sandbox route. Games that do this tend to feel directionless and bland. Ultimately, you end up with Sacred 2 and I doubt most TQ fans want that. Somewhere along the line, "linear" became a shameful word amongst game reviewers and I think this is pure BS. TQ and GD are not GTA or Morrowind and are unlikely to be improved by pretending that they are.

Personally, I think that Sacred 2 would be 5x more fun if it were laid end-to-end and had a proper teleportation system.

[ASYLUM101]

AFAIK, inwards, the game is going to be goal directed but non linear. I doubt it'll be sandbox like Oblivion or S2(which did a horrible job at that). Crate seems to know what they're doing, I trust them to make a successful nonlinear style.

[Renevent]

AFAIK, inwards, the game is going to be goal directed but non linear. I doubt it'll be sandbox like Oblivion or S2(which did a horrible job at that). Crate seems to know what they're doing, I trust them to make a successful nonlinear style.

Yeah, agree. I think I heard medierra suggest a system kinda like a wheel spoke...where progress is more or less linear, but certain hubs allow exploration and option quest and such. I think that's a pretty good mix between the two systems.

[Scryer]

I'm also not a fan of sandbox games, you end up feeling trapped once you've done everything it becomes a pretty mote point to continue. Randomized levels is always fun though...

Randomization is always good, and having a linear story, well that's a little different, I think you should not restrict players from completing any part of the story no matter where they are in the game world, the great thing about online Multiplayer is that you can go back and finish the un-finished story later. That might sound like a sandbox, but it's not this big open world is all.

[JackKerras]

I personally think that farming bosses is pretty okay; it's entrenched in the genre so thoroughly that I tend to doubt it's going to go anywhere even if there -is- a system in place keeping folks from getting the best loot from boss drops.

There've actually been a number of mechanics that I didn't see in this thread. I'll admit to skimming, so apologies if these have come up, but I figured I'd throw some out there:

Earth Eternal uses a Luck system. Luck is concerned with how long it's been since you died; the longer you live and the more things you kill without dying yourself, the more loot drops and the more crits you can pull out while you're fighting. Marginal, on the crit side of things, but in terms of drops, luck is quite important. There was a minor penalty, as I recall, for logging out; I doubt this would work well for Titan Quest thanks to the fact that things would just turn into a Luck-grind followed by numerous boss runs and more Luck grind. Still, it's a neat idea, and worth considering for reference on making new systems.

I played another game, not certain which now that I think on it, that had drops scale depending on how long it had been since you had another drop. Something like a thousand-point scale, with trash drops being a point each and magical drops being none, then a -1 for blue or green (Titan Quest's version of blue and green, mind you, not WoW's). As you mounted up towards 1000 points, you'd get better and better drops until an epic dropped, at which point it would set you back down to a thousand.

I happen to be a fan of little invisible systems that are tough to work out unless you know what you're doing. Defense Grid's heat damage system is pretty awesome, although experimenting and figuring out how to make your heat-based towers do the best damage isn't easy as a result! Simple to learn, tough to master. It's kind of a mantra amongst game developers but very few actually manage to nail it.

Most things that work behind the scenes to improve cruddy luck are cool in my book. Having a boss drop -some-thing no matter what would be relatively crazy unless there were a -lot- of sidegrades and options as pertains to max-rank gear and weapons; having lots of choices up in the top tiers of awesome-gear is excellent 'cuz speccing -that- out is as interesting (to me, at least) as speccing your character and abilities out.

Long first post. Hi, folks! I'll be picking up that Legendary dealie as soon as I get to the bank. I'm very excited.

[Scryer]

Suggestions incoming.

The biggest reason boss runs are inevitable in a multiplayer game is because you can not de-spawn a boss that has not been defeated by a new player. However de-spawning bosses after killing them would create a game in which the player goes to as many new games as possible and spoils the game creator's fun by destroying the boss before they reach them. That is counter-productive in a multi-payer co-op experience.

A better idea would be to make the story versatile enough that a player is not "stranded" once they reach a boss that has been defeated. In Diablo 2 when your character could not finish a quest you could not progress in the world. In a multi-player game this is unnecessary. It would be easier to allow the player to progress to any-point in the game that he/she is able to progress to without a need to continue the story. But the player should be ale to pick up on the story anywhere and at anytime, in the game world.

That being said, the player could at any time return to complete the unfinished business.

So to support players playing together while farming would be to maybe "Block" other players from entering a boss room unless the game creator is there to "open" the door. This would force players to play together to achieve the goal of unlocking the boss and taking it down.

Also please tell me that there will be individual loot in this game (I.E. I won't be able to see the other-players drops). That alone will help foster better team play.

As for farming directly, I think that you should make the path of least resistance (going to the boss for loot) the most fun for all the players, and forcing players to fight together (game creator has to unlock a room boss and only that) does help the co-op feel.

[JackKerras]

I'm dead-against everyone-gets-their-own-loot systems. It smacks of lazy design to me; frankly, I think that folks should HAVE to split their stuff out amongst themselves. Most other games that have tried this have been critically flawed in other ways, but I consider that system, in itself, a flaw. See: Mythos, Hellgate London, etc.

Frankly, if you want to be sure you're going to get The Good Stuff, then play with folks you know. There's no reason why you should expect to go out on a game on the Internet and have everyone be nice to you, and I am personally all for a somewhat lawless environment. I tend to surprise people by giving up drops that are good for their class and spreading the wealth. There are a lot of people like me. Find us.

This goes for the boss-room-unlocking deal, too; if random Internet asshats wander into your game, and you're not playing with folks you know, you're kind of in for whatever they feel like doing. Maybe, MAYBE I would be cool with something popping up and saying 'XXXXX is entering the Lair of the Mad Alchemist!' so that a game creator could go 'WHOA, STOP' or just boot them before they can kill the boss.

I also think making bosses despawn is a bad idea. There's no reason we shouldn't be able to repeat them; they're fun encounters, worth a lot, with lots of loot as a rule. Having a single set of items from each boss a'la World of Warcraft or having tiers of items (eeeeeeeew) like Warhammer did would help to alleviate boss-repetition issues and get people to move on, but I don't like either of those ideas all that much; I prefer a system akin to Titan Quest's, but with rewards for progressing farther and farther.

TQ was good about throwing up a lot of stuff between you and a boss to make straight farm runs hard to do and I believe that's good for the health of the game; I spoke earlier on a Luck system or a kind of reverse Rest system (being on a roll?) that means more kills/time =more drops/xp, which I believe would tend to instill the urge to -forge ahead- rather than just reset and kill the same Telkine over and over while devouring delicious XPs from those ridiculously wonderful Dark Obelisks. Would you -really- want to lose your drop/XP bonus by resetting the game?

[Scryer]

@Jack

I would love to know why you think it is appropriate to foster such negative game-play and co-op experiences in a game world that you are meant to have fun and enjoy playing with others in?

In a multi-player game the whole point is for it be a cooperative and fun experience, not something that is negative for both parties. Allowing everyone to share the same loot fosters greed, hatred, and resentment among players, why should these particular traits be allowed in a game that is meant for fun and enjoyment? Isn't the point of a game to be happy while playing it? Why should it be frustrating to play in a multiplayer game when there's technology to prevent this?

If the game creator is the only one that can unlock a boss this requires anyone who enters to help that player get to the boss, this can help foster cooperative game-play, which the game will clearly be designed for. Another player "steal killing" a boss just for the loot is not how a game should be played, and is not fun for either player. It does not foster friendships within the game and creates a community of people that want nothing more than to take people's bosses.

Individual loot is a great idea and nothing you said has shown it to be otherwise, fostering greed, resentment, and hatred are not fun for anyone and should not be in a game that's meant for cooperative play. Those feelings break a community in pieces. You have the people at the front lines taking whatever they want, and the people in the back getting angry that they made a ranged class. This is not the way to design a fun game. Much less an innovative game.

This game should not be designed around the idea that everyone is their own best friend, it should be designed to help people play cooperatively. To fight against a common foe - that is the game's enemy, and not each other. You have not given any reason why letting people steal loot from each other is a good idea, let alone useful for the goal of the game in general. Just because other games had this feature and failed does not mean it's a poor feature - it simply means those games had other features that were unsatisfactory to the majority of the player base. I know that the individual loot system alone was not part of that.

In Diablo 2, no one likes to play together because the loot is free-for-all and because of this, people with "pickit" a program that picks all uniques up automatically, it causes player to stay away from each other. In a cooperative game you want players to be close and using their skills to overcome the enemy. you don't want them to be greedy and getting all the loot for themselves, this is counter-intuitive to the game's core design.

A game should be fun, practical, and strategic in this genre, not abrasive and unsatisfactory.

While your opinion always matters, it would be nice to hear reasons and suggestions rather then "no that's always impossible."

[Mind Dragon]

If a game has a strong storyline, I expect/want to be able to play it from begining to end without gaming the game. I normally fully explore all areas and collect whatever I can. While still wanting a challenge, I expect good skill/equipment choices should keep you on top. Saving and reloading the same areas to replay them isnt what I normally expect to to. In something like Oblivion is was a bit easier to do some of this since the area is so wide and the number of caves/structures was large.

If there is a known challenge ahead and the character can gain experience or equipment before that, then this could be a valid part of the experience -- but since I normally fully explore all areas / quests, the question is how this would play out.

Being an RPG, there might be some quests your character may not wish to do. Does a champion take on quests that are unfair? Does he do what the mob asks? Does a rouge enforce blockades or join police forces? (Bioware games come to mind). TQ didnt have this problem.

TQ did have a related issue where one could play a storm caller with a bow up until the end and then it was difficult to do enough damage to Typhoon with the bow or high cooldown spells to offset the hard-to-avoid life leech. You had to level up by replaying areas, work on the demons blood drops? or reassign your skill points to the one skill that would do a lot of damage. The validity of reassigning skill points was partially reasonable, but part of the Game is to allow the users to play the character they desire.

And yes, sometimes the hero enemies in the fourth act had very overpowered equipment such fast daggers (dual wield) with life leech @ 1/4-1/3 your health.

Torchlight's extra dungeons are ok but the tend to be challenging (ok) but have the "crush at the door" problem. If you are the melee character with all the armor then you probably dont mind so much, otherwise...it's thrilling.

I bought D2 a while back. I thought it was alright until my mage was stuck in a small room with mud all around the walls forming a bowl, with a boss that had thousands of hit points, could run about as fast as you, and would kill you in about 3-4 swipes unless you timed the instant rejuv pots right? What's wrong, you didnt have better equipment or that spell that takes a percentage off powered up, cast it quickly a bunch of times, know when to stop and then hit it with something else? All the skill points I wasted on all those other spells I needed....

(After that, I ran into a patch of fast but uninteresting enemies. Before that, the larger non bosses were interesting)

Many games have a skill/spells that make engaging all of the numerous ordinary foes fun but are completely/mostly ignored by bosses. Such games also have skills/spells that are useful for bosses but are a waste and mostly of little use on ordinary grunts or groups of such. So the choice, when it comes to your limited skill points, is to power up the powerful attacks for the infrequent boss battles while knowing that you have to whittle your way through every grunt and pack of grunts, or to have fun up until the boss battle (and then you keep the health pot button down most of the time). Is Farming needed to fill these out? or is something else broken?

BTW, I see more than a few "meh"s for TQ. I didnt like Diablo stuff all that much, and the graphics are a bit low res for today. The angels and demons cut scene storyline was, whatever, skip. (I was surprised about how similar later games actually were with the classes -- I thought that was a bit overblown but apparently not too much.) What else is there really? Sacred 1 -- ok but a bit heavy with the cooldowns, and random skill advancement (rune drops). Sacred 2 -- dull enemies overall -- and a lot of ground to cover. Dungeon Siege 1 & 2 was ok but DS2 wasnt that replayable the last time I tried. DS1 maybe? In TQ, the enemies had personality, good sound effects and were generaly fun to engage. Sure, there was a few too many beastmen but If I want to play a game over again, TQ.

[Scryer]

Farming - This topic's main discussion.

What is the goal of farming for the player? Quick answer - to obtain an item of value that can only be obtained by a game creature or chest/doo-dad.

First, lets examine the consequences of placing specific items on certain creatures. If we place say "Hornets Stinger" on a hornet, and the reason for this item is to use it as craft material. What are we saying to the player and what behavior does the player's mind set take? Let me explain my thoughts, when a player knows that a specific creature only has the chance to drop a specific item, that player will create a behavior of farming that creature if the item is of value to the player.

Now, imagine for a moment the scenario I've posed to you, do you think it is fun game-play mechanics to only slaughter one type of enemy in order to advance your character? I do not believe that is fun, because it becomes pseudo-monotonous. Let me explain, if a player knows where to find an item that is very much desired, he or she will farm the area the item can only be found in until they've reached the goal of farming the item as many times as required. However during this farming period the player may re-create the same game over and over just to "Re-spawn, or Refresh" the creature the player wants to farm.

That is an undesired effect of only letting certain enemies drop certain loot, it creates a pseudo- monotonous environment in which the only part of the game that the player enjoys is the part that he or she is farming, and it will quickly become un-enjoyable. However this does not have to be the case. The game should be fun because it is fun to kill and slaughter any and all enemies for the purpose of finding loot and advancing their character.

So, with this in mind, I have another question to pose to you - why is it okay for Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 to both have had random loot tables regardless of what you killed? Remember, Diablo 2 is still being played by thousands daily. Creature level is all that determined loot drops in D2 and soon in D3. Diablo 2 had a true lottery effect, and monsters had the ability to drop any loot, except in the case of the creature level. So why is it wrong for the ARPG genre not to continue this trend? It un-forces players to farm any particular creature and lets them farm all creatures and enjoy the game to it's fullest extent. Farming a creature because it is useful is done away with and the player can enjoy a game free of limitations and restrictions and best of all monotony.

To summarize, loot that only drops from specific creatures, that is valued by the player, causes the player to only farm that creature. During this farming the player my re-create the game many times just to obtain the item that the creature drops (like boss runs). This should not be a desired behavior for the player, it is counter-intuitive to the purpose of playing the game. It does take focus away from what the main point of the game should be about, that is, killing everying and having fun doing it.

However,this is not to say I want trash drops, please visit this thread below and read my comments about Trash drops. I do not like bad unnecessary trash and will never like it.

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=73

[Vorkronor]

... I just hope some dev reads this in the endless flow of loot formulas and drop table exploitation stuff :p

For a game to be fun it does not need to revolve around LOOT. And if the loot is not the main motivator to play the game, then you do not need to give farming a second thought.

Only one game I can think of (in the 'action' RPG or MMORPG genres) got the formula correct - Guild Wars. As you progressed through the game (PvE campaign), rewards were in the form of SKILLS, not ITEMS. While you could get über items, they did not make much difference in the PvE part (did not play PvP that much).

In fact, correct use of skills (sometimes even from multiple classes) was crucial to success. Even the items sometimes followed this rationale. Take bows for example. There were around 6 types of bows (from short to half-moon) with differences being primarily in cadence and range, while the DPS was roughly the same. Therefore you would use some specific bow rather to support some of your skills, not to increase your damage output.

Crossing fingers, that the devs at least try to get inspired by Guild Wars a little bit. Because the STORY was so strong in that game for me. Closest to actual roleplaying EVER (at least for me, that is).

[Renevent]

Guild Wars would be a terrible example for this game to go off of...the ONLY reason Guild War's formula works is because the game heavily revolves around PvP and balance is a major concern.

It's a brilliant game for what it aims to be, but a PvE loot centric ARPG like Grim Dawn needs to pretty much stay completely away from it's mechanics.

[Vorkronor]

... but a PvE loot centric ARPG like Grim Dawn needs to pretty much stay completely away from it's mechanics.

I enjoyed the both the original TQ and the expansion without farming. I checked merchants regularly to see if they had something a little bit better, than I had, but that whas it. The story was more important for me than the drops.

Using the same view of the game I enjoyed the PvE (cooperative singleplayer) part of Guild Wars without grinding of any kind and just enjoyed the ride.

Couldn't we just have an option in the configuration somewhere, that just switches the 'farming mode' on? Then you can even let people edit the drop formula if they like :) or even choose different drop modes if that suits their fancy. :rolleyes:

For me, I don't care about the drops ... I AM A GODDAMNED (or godfavored) HERO. I can therefore kill any enemy with a dull spoon or bare hands and teeth if needs be. :D

Farming just breaks the suspension of disbelief the devs are building the story on.

P.S.: Would be interesting how many people think the same.

[Renevent]

There will be hacks (like TQ) that you can change the drop rate. I doubt they will actually create "farmingmode on/off" for the game itself.

[JackKerras]

The reason I'm against split-up loot is because I think people should have to actively work together, not be relegated into their own little item-microcosm for the sake of fairness.

Before I continue here, I ought to make it clear that I play more or less nothing but ranged classes, and despite that fact my opinion here still stands. Despite the fact that I very rarely get the first pick of most items (because I'm usually 30' away when they drop), I believe that folks should have a first-come, first-serve loot system. I like the idea of having to trade with people for cool things they find. I like interacting with other folks in that fashion, be it raging because some wizard picked up the world's coolest bow or making new friends after finding someone who will split loot evenly. I have, in my long history of playing games like this, found -all kinds- of folks who are cool to each other in this way, and while I'm playing games I tend to play with them.

I think that playing alongside strangers is a dice roll. Sometimes they're great, sometimes they ain't, and I like the situation to be unstable in that fashion. It's easy to get items and such when you get all your own drops, but I believe that it makes the game a less social experience, and socializing with others is -why- I play multiplayer. I'm a really fair party leader; if something drops, and someone wants it, I'll hand it over. I distribute loot the best way I know how, and tend to have few alts to feed, so I more or less only take what I need. I try to inspire others to follow my example, and wonder of wonders! It works.

I think programming it away is a detrimental solution, and it seems like getting angry about losing items in a game where you're a ranged class and you're playing with people who don't know you from Adam is silly. Playing with folks you don't know is a risk. I like that risk. I like having to talk items out of people or trade cool stuff for them. Games like this don't really need an economy, per se, but it's neat to have barter actually -work-, and to have drops be available for everyone so as to not let some swordsman stack cool bows and spears in his pack to give to alts or sell for gold while he's fighting alongside spearmen and bowmen who could use them. People who -see- someone doing that will boot them or stop playing with them, and I'm all for greedy bastards getting the cold shoulder at every turn.

Amongst my friends (the folks I usually play with online) I tend to foster an open, cooperative experience WITHOUT having to be forced to share. Being forced to share is for kindergartners.

[ravenight]

Not sure if this has already been said, but Torchlight's solution to this is pretty elegant: You can't actually kill the same boss twice, but there are randomized maps you hop into when you need that extra "farming" (I used to call this "persuasive fundraising") to even out your levels and gear. This has the advantage of being extra challenge (because you can get random maps that are much harder than your current spot in the game, if you want), smoothing of the level/gear curve, and encouraging people to gain variety.

[Scryer]

@Jack

So, you've decided to use a loosely situational example to try and support your case for not making loot individual per player? This type of premise is one of sheer preference and opinion, there is no inquiry in your post except that you believe it is best for all players to have to "share" loot because you think that is part of human nature.

Unfortunately, history will show that this is not the case. Diablo 2 and other games that do not have an individual loot system have notoriously been absent of a majority of what the game was meant for - cooperative game play.

In the end you patronize every player by thinking that your situational opinion alone is best for them. You might think that I'm doing the exact same thing, however I have given reasonable arguments as to why logically having an individual loot system is practically necessary for a game to help foster more cooperative behaviors.

To a new player that is playing cooperatively, they should not have to worry about this kind of risk of another player taking their items. This would be very distasteful for any new player and an unnecessary aspect of the game. Why should a game give the player feelings of regret, hatred and resent? A game that is meant to be fun will not have these traits.

[JackKerras]

I wouldn't call this whole deal loosely situational. I agree that the situation I've put forth doesn't happen a lot; it's unlikely that strangers, with no stake whatsoever in you or your character, are going to help you out. That said, I'd rather have a situation in which such a thing -can- happen. This is how I know which people to stick with and which folks to avoid.

It's also my ken on the whole matter that folks who have no way to screw you over one way (by taking your loot) will happily screw you over another. The folks that are going to want to will find a way no matter what, whether it's casting town portals that crash the game or heals that deal 9999 damage to you. The only thing putting up barriers like loot-by-person does is inspire people to break -other- stuff instead of getting their kicks doing (relatively) harmless, kosher-but-not-cool stuff.

Also... -I- patronize every player? That seems somewhat disingenuous coming from a guy who wants everyone in their own little loot-world so as to keep everything equitable in the name of fairness for everyone. I'd rather not be in that situation, myself; a split loot system doesn't foster cooperation nearly as much as it holds people apart from creating actual connections to one another.

Someone steals your loot, you hate 'em forever and avoid 'em as best you may.

Someone saves your ass or passes you cool stuff that you can use and they can't, you remember 'em for that, too. It's how I've made a lot of buddies out there in the online world, by culling from the group of reasonable folks and forgetting the morons who steal all my stuff or hack or anything else.

This is obviously a question of personal preference. Frankly, I'd be fine with the Crate folks putting in a loot system that ensures only one person can pick up any one piece of loot, but I'd also like to see it be an option for party leaders to enable... or -disable-, as I surely would.

Also, weighting drops by class/equipment would be a reasonable compromise. Dudes wearing bows when the drop occurs get first crack at any bow that drops, dudes with swords get first crack at swords, etcetera. Visible for everyone as a dimmed version, with a short timer before it resets to anyone-can-grab-it.

[Scryer]

@Jack

I'm glade to see you come to some concession.

An individual loot system does not mean that people won't be able pass gear to each other; it just means there won't be players with an un-just advantage.

Also, people are going to try and wreck a game no matter what happens, there will always be those 20 year old high school drop outs that want to ruin another players fun time, however the developers have a chance to at least make this one aspect of the game fairer for all players involved.

An option to toggle it on or off, eh, what’s another option?

[Mind Dragon]

I need:

better equipment
more skill points
the next levels heath increase
to decrease a level difference penalty in combat

to survive, or to survive without resorting to player determined overuse of health potions, deaths, reincarnation, exploits, cautious behavior, or to have more vigorous and fun gameplay.

or
I want

Special unique stuff because its shiny
Better or equal stuff than someone else
stuff and I cant stop

In the want list I have an interest in shiny stuff (because the stuff is interesting usually) but I hope that i would be able to find some stuff without farming. If I was interested in multiplayer then the second bullet would apply.

The core gameplay, I think, should consider the needs section.

The user in that position because of ?. You expect him for farm, load save points, to have played the game before (like your testers) and know some unexpected/unrealistic way of making it easier (but it can be too easy so you make it harder)? Maybe the scripted aspect of the game is having a negative impact on difficulty and you are compensating. We have dual & quad core cpus now -- yes the programming & design is still hard. Something is broken.

Does the user need more skill points because he used some skill points on something that wasnt useful? Are there not enough skill points to around?

If more points here concentrated on some skills the character would be too powerful.
I want the character to commit to one skill set so he has to replay the game to use the others, so he doesnt need any more points -- even if this means your actual set of skills is rather small and narrow.
I dont know the reason but it's best to keep em hungry. It's edgey. For some types of games (survival-horror) it is a mainstay but is it for your game?

Does the gameplay revolve around armor and weapon statistics. Or does it revolve around tactics, better position, movement, timing, and/or use of attacks that do more damage against specific types of enemies?

Gameplay that uses mostly statistics has blunt weapons to control difficulty. Restriction of items is important. Farming is a way to gain advantage over this restriction. A game has to have some prize loot or it's boring right? (maybe not). You are forced to have prizes; you can come up with clever ways of restricting and doling them out. Design time could be used on something else that is better?

I think RPGs could learn a few things from shmups. Some of the difficulty should be in the players hands to resolve. Also, adding a weapon / ship mode doesnt make you overpowered. Thus you dont have to restrict them that much and then users dont need to farm them. Maybe they "farm" them in the normal game. You power up your weapons in game.

[Llama8]

Having played several games with individual loot (Guild Wars & Sacred 2), it worked well. If the other players in your team got some items that would be useful for yourself, you can always ask them for it & vice versa.

[Scryer]

Once again, I'll have to concur with you Llama8, I've always found that particular aspect of a game (individual loot) very fun. It was never not-fun playing with others.

So, I really do hope it can be made into this game... I mean.. I think that would be great that is.

[ExNomenDei]

I think it's hard if not impossible to make a drop show up first for the person who 'needs' it most. Most items in these games are worn by any kind of character or are wanted for mults, not to mention that it'd make people angry when they feel that some types of characters get better drops.

Assigning each drop above yellow level to a random player for ten seconds (to give them time to grab it if they want it) while keeping it visible but not pickup-able to all other players would give everybody a chance at the item if the player who randomly got it doesn't want it. I think this system is used quite often in some games and honestly there's nothing with the way it works in those. TQ, of course, often has smaller parties and people who more actively talk and work together than most other games, so there can still be communication about certain items. I think an 'I call this' system is possible in these kinds of small-party kind of games.

Phantasy Star Online, when I played it on the schthack servers, was a game with bands of players coming together and enjoying the game. Trading and bartering was done very often and there was hardly a problem with people stealing all the 'reds' (rares) in that game. Hell, I rushed to them, picked them up, identified them, and then asked who wanted it, not because I wanted first dibs but because I wanted to give everybody a chance and not just a hoarder in the unlikely case they were among us. What I'm trying to say: If the community is good, this system isn't needed but it won't get in the way either, but if the community isn't any good, this system is pretty much a necessity to keep things fair.

Edit:

On farming:

I agree with the OP here that farming is an integral part of the experience. Going to a boss ten times in a row to kick his ass (and have fun doing so if I may add) is, to me, one of the charms of the game. Getting frustrated at finding no rares for sixteen hours and not having the chance to go back and stomp some old boss with your new powers, to me, is just plain silly. Fans expect this kind of thing to exist and they want it, it's not something that should be removed.

What I thought was odd about TQ, was that the first chest from all bosses held better loot than later. The system, however, is smart, but I think that the 'farming' chest should be your normal amount, and the first-time kill should just yield an additional chance, or perhaps a sure-fire chance at one unique item from a lower-tier list. This makes sure you feel you've been rewarded for killing a boss, even if the reward is only 7/10 and not an insanely rare purple.

[Yippers]

Congratulations on the site and the game (awesome sweet premise--cannot wait for more information!). I'm going to address the main topic, but reference several others' opinions throughout this thread.

To that point though, it could be said that farming is not, in fact fun. It is something that players feel forced to engage in if they want to acquire the best items in the most efficient way possible. Repeated runs on the same boss are monotonous and boring. Wouldn’t the game be so much better if players could spend their time focused on just playing through the game normally?

...For many players, doing runs on bosses makes them feel as though they are “getting ahead” in the game... When we believe we are doing work above and beyond what might normally be expected, it increases this satisfying sense of accomplishment.

I personally have a low tolerance for monotony but I do like knowing that if my character is getting behind on the equipment curve and progress through the game is getting too difficult (especially in hardcore) that I can turn to farming as a way to bring my equipment up to par. This, in turn, makes me feel like I am facing a much greater challenge... If I was always just progressing though the game normally, I don’t think I’d feel like I was facing an epic challenge.

Farming also adds a different type of gameplay dynamic. I think it is good whenever a game allows you to engage in different types of activities to achieve different purposes... Sometimes I don't have time to really sit down and seriously play for more then 15-20 minutes so I'll jump in and do a couple boss runs on the off-chance that I might hit the jackpot. If you remove boss runs, then you only have normal progression... it’s like you're removing a mini-game.
Fundamentally, to me, ARPGs and the term "Diablo clone" is defined by loot. Despite the spoken general community negativity to farming as being repetitious banality--staring at the same scene of pixels, clicking the repeating series of keys, minimizing time, and maximizing efficiency through grinding the exact process after the last dozen hours--there is a common census that the collection of rare goodies is amazingly addictive and fuels this genre with replayability and depth. Farming (and as mentioned, boss runs in particular) is the unfortunately tedious, mind-numbing byproduct.

Pleasure from gaming is derived from the sense of power and success the player exerts on the virtual world, but "power" is a dangerous idea. People definitely enjoy "getting ahead", as medierra nicely sums, or beating the system and thus the succeeding the challenges of the game. However, inflating the players' strength with super weapons is draining towards enjoying the adventure; power defeats challenge and without challenge, the game is beaten. Thus, easy accessibility to monstrous loot (a recent example is Dragon Age: Origins's downloadable content--the best sword in the game at whim) is utterly destructive towards fun gameplay. Yet, on the other hand, fun gameplay is the pursuit of power--wielding the epic weapons and cleaving through hordes; farming is the gameplay for many players in many ARPGs. How can "power" be managed and feel rewarding?

More importantly, the ability to farm defines the value of a 'toon. Although playing as a tank or a support character is awesome, doing so undermines my farming efficiency later. I'll have to sacrifice the little gear I do luck into to trade for mediocre-epic weapons and armor. On the other hand, DPS maximizes farming efficiency and easily cashes in sweet loot. The prevailing theme in this genre of games is who can spec their 'toon to do the most damage fastest. Parties in games boil down to differences in equipment choices and types of damage; there is no specializations other than damage, no experimentation, and pure focus on grinding and maximization.

Ultimately, repeating segments of the game is awful game design. To be blunt, forcing farming as a substitute to actual gameplay is player exploitation. Why is farming necessary? Sure, most players really don't mind. Sure, players can even get through the game with little or no farming whatsoever. However more challenging difficulties literally demands farming to compensate for "random, unavoidable, instant kills"; the modes require pain tolerance for farming and luck for drops rather than strategy and skill. Arguably, farming is the exercise in dedication--those who work hard gets rewarded. Again, though, better game design can easily offer the same work/reward in a much more fun-oriented execution.

This begs the question: what are such examples? I wondered the same, and thankfully the brilliant developers and faithful community doesn't fail to impress. To me, the most revolutionary idea medierra mentioned was his comparison of farming to a mini-game: farming gives a vacation form the immersion. Revolutionizing farming is expanding on this concept.
I think there's something that can be learned from newer games that have expanded on the ARPG formula...namely MMORPG's. I know some people might get riled up with my even mentioning this game, but let's talk about World of Warcraft. Basically, you can run bosses in that game over and over too...and people do...the difference is you have to complete some challenges prior to slaying it...mainly completing a difficult dungeon.
One of the items on the tech list is proxies that can respawn and I think a very good use for them would be in "challenge" areas. They could either be set up sort of like MMO respawns or it may be possible to craft some sort of setup where groups of enemies are periodically pouring into the level through one-way entrances - the proverbial enemies crawling of a hole in the ground or jumping down on you from a ledge.
Renevent, medierra and Munderbunny all reference one viable option: the dungeon. Raids, even single player raids, are glorified adventures that impose personal strategy and team tactics. Arenas pit the player in fresh (monster spawns can easily swap), deadly combat that feels difficult, logical, and achieving. Torchlight's version of mini-dungeons, which Munderbunny speaks of, offers bursts of casual spelunking (for breaks at work). Although these are familiar and successfully tested, a potential concern is the unbalancing weight of farming areas verses the storyline areas. Overpowering experience/loot gains in the former can easily undermine the challenge of the latter.

One particular idea I liked is the unique drop tables for each "dungeon". For example, a low-level elementalist can access two dungeons. Through the hints dropped by the NPCs, she knows that the tribal creatures inside dungeon A are renown archers. On the other hand, a legendary sorcerer was said to have died in dungeon B. The first dungeon can potentially drop some shiny bows, and the second can have magic-enhancing equipment. That would be pretty cool, adding a depth of lore behind items and allowing players to have a general idea of what they could farm for there.

Another sweet concept is a detailed crafting system:
We're currently thinking about a hybrid system where recipes sometimes involve unique items.
#1 GOOD crafting system: intead of wasting time in making a billion rare/set/legendary weapons, invest time in giving the player the ability to create their own rare/set/legendary items, even with their names on it. So I can make my Winsrp kick ass set #1, and give them some cool bonuses.

The game "Monster Hunters" kept invading my thoughts through this thread. In the game, players salvage crafting ingredients from dead foes instead of finished equipment, and bosses drop several pieces of vital, rare ingredients. In town, the players can blacksmith a choice of gear--all of which branched to more and more epic weapons and armor (ex: short sword + ingredients = super short sword; short sword + other ingredients = long sword; and the items kept branching into a massive tree). The best equipment in the game would have been forged endless amounts of times and thus requiring plenty of farming but nothing was chance-based, the ideas was logical to the game world, and players can see their progress towards epicness and feel gradually more powerful. I thought that was a fantastic concept for loot drops.

The last idea, and one horribly devouring of programming resources, I want to put out is the idea of an actual mini-game to gain epic loot. I'm talking about a concept akin to Final Fantasy's Blitzball, possibly replacing actual PvP. Teams compete with each other in matches, during which the players use their toons' skills (and not equipment). Damage skills inspire strikers, tanking skills create amazing defense/goalies, and support skills make way for team captains who can swap between roles. It will, ideally, require a balanced team--with a focus on defensive/support--to win games and gain loot drops. In forcing "farming" to require new skillsets, characters will have a reason to develop non-offensive skills and create a much more diverse gaming style for classes. I think that's a win for everybody.

Thoughts? Shouts of "tl;dr"? :p

[Yippers]

Having played several games with individual loot (Guild Wars & Sacred 2), it worked well. If the other players in your team got some items that would be useful for yourself, you can always ask them for it & vice versa.
Definitely. I'm not sure how the advantages JackKerras spoke of does not apply to randomized assigning of loot. If each player has a guaranteed chance to share the loot, then every player will ultimately have nice drops. The same community experience occurs when you barter, but more importantly everyone will be on reasonably equal ground in trading. Players don't get shafted for picking ranged or support classes, and the forced sharing eradicates selfish auto-looters. I give away my share of unused gear to newbies, but if the game's best bow drops, I wouldn't mind crippling a few strangers' opinions of me.

Not sure if this has already been said, but Torchlight's solution to this is pretty elegant: You can't actually kill the same boss twice, but there are randomized maps you hop into when you need that extra "farming" (I used to call this "persuasive fundraising") to even out your levels and gear. This has the advantage of being extra challenge (because you can get random maps that are much harder than your current spot in the game, if you want), smoothing of the level/gear curve, and encouraging people to gain variety.
It has, and the only flaw to that reasoning is that Grim Dawn will be much more multiplayer. In a multiplayer game, how can you restrict a boss spawn if one player has defeated him and another hasn't?

[Llama8]

It has, and the only flaw to that reasoning is that Grim Dawn will be much more multiplayer. In a multiplayer game, how can you restrict a boss spawn if one player has defeated him and another hasn't?

By having the spawning (or not) of certain bosses being based on the host's progress. I like the idea of having random caves/quests based on buyable scrolls like TorchlightMythos had since it would enable you to have a static world (with all it's benefits) & some random content.

[Yippers]

By having the spawning (or not) of certain bosses being based on the host's progress. I like the idea of having random caves/quests based on buyable scrolls like TorchlightMythos had since it would enable you to have a static world (with all it's benefits) & some random content.

What would keep advanced players from jumping into newbie games, rush to and farm the bosses? And then repeat, and destroy the experience for inexperienced kids? There's a thin line between helping a friend and stealing the bosses, and I think barriers to block the latter yet encourage the former would be difficult to create.

As for the scrolls to different worlds, I agree that randomized, unrelated dungeons would be a nice addition. :)

[Scryer]

One idea to help "block" other players from killing each other's bosses is this - only allow the game's creator "unlock" the boss. I think that this is something that should be implemented even if they don't de-spawn bosses.

I've always disliked in games like Diablo 2 when a higher level would come into my game and kill the act - end boss just for the loot rather then playing along side me cooperatively. A game with cooperative play should try best to improve that feeling.

[shawnmck]

First I want to say hello to everyone here, as I am a newcomer to this site. I am very anxious about Grim Dawn, & I have no doubt that the talented people at work on it will do a fine job regardless.

I want to address all the issues that have popped in my head while reading all the previous posts, so this might be a long post, & for that I ask your pardon.
With that said, I want to say that I will not be playing this game (or any of my games) On-line or with other players. I am a single player guy who likes to play by myself. It's fine that others wish to play cooperatively, but to discount those who want SP play is a sin. Options are great, but don't make a game that caters to one group (multi-player), but ignores another (single-player).

I personally also don't like to farm. I never have, & never will but I end up having to to gain experience in order to level up to be able to get through a difficult boss or part of a game. I wish there were ways to avoid farming, but I know people who just love to farm. No matter what you end up doing, you are going to upset some & satisfy others. It can't be helped. So I offer these suggestions....
You can impliment mini bosses before a main boss (sort of like generals) that are random, so that even though you fight the same big boss, you can fight varied mini-bosses to change things up.
One thing I liked about TQ very much was the way new bosses were added on higher difficulties. Please bring that back.
Another option is to have maybe two different paths to the same objective, each with a completely different monster or boss. That way a player can choose to take one path one time, & another path a different time. The different paths can be a little different in order to add variety. This will add a lot more work for the Developing team though.

I want to also add that if a game has very good design (levels, monsters, bosses, equipment, combat, etc) then it makes finding loot that much more enjoyable. Gaining loot is like the icing on the proverbial cake. But I don't think loot should be hard to come by either. Borderlands is very fun because you are always finding something useful. If you aren't finding good equipment then you are going to have a harder time with some enemies & bosses, which is going to force players to farm (which is a bad idea). You want to give players the ability to find good stuff throughout the entire game, not just by defeating bosses.
One way of doing this is to not only drop good loot, but also drop really good parts to stuff (weapons &/or armor). Have an enemy or boss drop a hilt or handle that has certain properties that can be combined with some other dropped part like a blade or whatever. Take those parts to a blacksmith (or whatever) to have them combined into a very useful & unique weapon or such. You can even add a spell, rune, gem, potion, material ore, or whatever to further the effect. Allow players to build or customize their weapons (& armor maybe) to their liking, with parts of varying abilities & properties.
But I think most people farm because they feel the need to, not because they want to (I certainly don't if I can help it).

Another idea for farming bosses is to incorporate a spell or stone or other item that can revive a boss. That way bosses don't normally re-spawn, but if you happenned to pick up an object, or buy one from a merchant (for whatever price), you can go to an area and use the object to resurrect the boss. That way it is optional, but not forced on anyone.

As for the free roaming thing...I personally don't like the idea. Unless you do it in sections. One very large area (Sacred 2, Oblivion, etc) is a major pain in the butt. But if you have regions, such as different continents &/or islands that are free-roam, then that would be okay.
Town portals are really just used to sell stuff in inventory anyway, so if you could add some kind of cool feature or sidekick (that can vary like Torchlight), then that would automatically cut down on the need to go to town frequently. I persoanlly favor the idea of just not being able to teleport if there are any enemies nearby. Although I can see where this might offend some people who will want the ability to. Doesn't really matter to me one way or the other.

I also want to bring up some things that I personally would like to see in the game. I am glad that blood & gore will be added. I really thought that the lack of it hurt Titan Quest, as the combat didn't feel as visceral as it otherwise would have been with some blood & gore. It just makes defeating an enemy that much more satisfying.
But I also didn't like the way skeletons walked. They walked too normal. Zombies waddled, but skeletons would run. I personally didn't like that at all. I really liked the way Sacred 1 managed the skeleton movements. They walked & ran all gimpy like, & rolled their shoulders. it was a nice effect that just made me think more that they were skeletons. In TQ it was odd to see them move so smooth & normal. I know this is an odd complaint, but it is one that I have to make. I love it when attention is made to the smallest of details to make the game world that much more convincing.

Anyway, that's all I have for now.
Thanks for reading this long post, & I wish you the best of luck. TQ is an awesome game that I still play, & I was real upset when Iron Lore closed its doors, as I was hoping for a TQ2. But this is just as good. I really am hoping for a disc copy (& would gladly pay more for it), but you can count on my purchase day 1, and whatever support I can give.
Thank You so much. You have no idea how glad I am to hear (know) about this game.
:)

[Jophilli]

We have a much improved system for assigning and balancing monster stats. In TQ it was a little chaotic and sometimes inappropriately configured. I think you'll see less of this and encounter difficulty more as a sustained fight with a difficult enemy then a surprise death. Although, in legendary, I figure its "anything goes". ; )

Well, I guess that already touches on some of my gripes about TQ. Sustained fight == way better than instant death.

Anything goes in legendary == perfect. That's why I would even want to play Legendary in the first place.

[4987354987]

One nice brand new suggestion:

About boss farming:
Make a new location (group of locations) called "Hell cells" or something like that. Let's say you killed Barmanu (yeah I know) in the original story.At death, among all loot, he drops a rune,and then go to Hell. Take this rune to a town NPC (Hell gatekeeper or smth like that) and a new location will be opened: Barmanu's Hell Cell. A dark creepy copy of original game story map, and after a [long/short] run you get to the dead Barmanu to kill him again. And again. And again. The loot, boss features and stats are all the same as first, alive one. If you portal to town after you killed it, speak again o that NPC and do the run again, without needing to restart game.

About monster farming:
I'm short of ideas here, but monsters can respawn like they did in D2 and TQ, or maybe make large dungeons or 'reservations' where monsters live (after their brothers in that region being defeated by the hero they are afraid to get out).

I know the monster idea seems lame, but the boss one looks really original.

Edit.
For everyone being satisfied, you could make this at character creation:
Create normal, hardcore, no-farming, ironman character. They wil all have something like a title.
No-farming and ironman keep the hell cells locked.

[Llama8]

What would keep advanced players from jumping into newbie games, rush to and farm the bosses?
Have the boss spawned by the quest to kill it (which won't be unlocked until you do the preceding quest, etc), though this could possibly create issues for SP when you want to farm a boss you've just killed (unless the bosses respawn, or something like 4987354987's idea).


As for the free roaming thing...I personally don't like the idea. Unless you do it in sections. One very large area (Sacred 2, Oblivion, etc) is a major pain in the butt.
Why? What's the difference between one large area with portals & several smaller acts with portals? Other than in the latter you have to use the portal to get to the next act.

Town portals are really just used to sell stuff in inventory anyway, so if you could add some kind of cool feature or sidekick (that can vary like Torchlight), then that would automatically cut down on the need to go to town frequently.
Or something like S2's feature where you don't need to use a merchant to sell stuff, but you'll get a lower price if you're selling "in the field".

[Meesh]

I am someone who enjoys repeating areas to get gear for my current character and alts etc. If you want to call that farming so be it. I hope you do not radically change this process from how it worked in Titan Quest or I wont purchase Grim Dawn.

[medierra]

I am someone who enjoys repeating areas to get gear for my current character and alts etc. If you want to call that farming so be it. I hope you do not radically change this process from how it worked in Titan Quest or I wont purchase Grim Dawn.

No worries, we fully support the idea of farming gear to outfit subsequent characters. I myself do this a lot and find that it gives me a lot of incentive to create new classes I might not have otherwise tried.

If anything, we're just considering ideas to make this better for everyone.

[Roros]

Explosions!

[Scryer]

If anything, we're just considering ideas to make this better for everyone.

I guess I think of better for everyone as more fun, farming is a way for players to get what they want, so just make it awesome and fun.

Going about doing that.. ehh... well... mundane and absolute predictability are the killers of most fun. At least I think so...

[Vorkronor]

If anything, we're just considering ideas to make this better for everyone.

After reading most of this discussion I urge you to consider the following ideas, that closely relate to farming. These were our thought for a similar game me and a few friends are designing. The aim is to give the player different options, rather than re-run the main storyline to grind for items. The point is to introduce 'farming' in a more story-friendly way. Let me explain the details ...

:cool: Wishes - let the player wish something he would like to have in terms of equipment. This is an important factor, which would decrease the dull parts where you're not getting what you want.

By including random/large areas of enemy territory, where the player would be given some simple dynamically generated objective which would force him to fight his way through to finish it (killing lots of monsters in the process and potentially getting good loot too).

Mission types in this area would be:

Rescue mission - get in, rescue the person, get out
Wished artifact retrieval - get in, locate and retrieve the artifact (possibly the one you wished), you can keep it
Boss elimination - get in, eliminate the enemy commander, get out
Reach/Clear an area - clear an area (to allow our forces to progress)
Supply chain missions - deliver supplies to our troops (the more you deliver the more you're paid)
Recon - get in, scout the area, report back (something for ranged people, spellcasters)
Research - observe some new type of enemy, artifact or natural phenomenon (high inteligence required, casters?)
Defense (Waves of enemies attacking) - hold a fortification from attacking monsters
Last man standing - hold out for a certain period of time until help arrives


This way you would not be forced to re-run the game and would absolutely give you the option of connecting future expansions to the main game seamlessly - access to the area could be through a mission in the enemy territory (or by a teleporter, but that would not bring you that much fun, coin and equipment).

Even if some people would use this area to grind for equip, it would be more interesting and would not break the suspension of disbelief. At least for me ;)

It is my wish ... and I'll fight for it! :p

[yerkyerk]

While I'm definetely for an infinite quest system, the wishing thing doesn't sound very appealing. I'm not even sure how to implement the choice (unless you can put up a general item for a wish - a weapon/shield/armor/leggings/etc.. I'd be ok with that). And easily getting what you want takes the fun out of finding a really rare item.

[shawnmck]

How would we know what to wish for, if we don't know what exists?
Part of the charm of finding random loot is that it can be a good surprise to find something really good that you weren't expecting.
I personally like not knowing what to expect, and then being surprised by something totally cool and worthwhile. Its part of the fun.

The only thing that I don't consider fun is finding a lot of unique & special items for a character that I am not using. It's okay once in a while, but when it starts happening at a constant rate then it becomes annoying.
I didn't have that problem too much in TQ, as I was occasionally finding a good sword once in a while (among the many bows, staffs, etc). But in Diablo 2 it happened all of the time. I rarely found a useful item in D2 for my character, & when I did it was usually 15 levels (+/-) too late. :mad:

[Vorkronor]

Well, the wishing system could work this way:

You would either wish for a certain type/class of item - let's say you're in need of a good sword.

If you would have one already, you could wish for a similar, but better item. Something along the lines of "wish I had a better sword than this".
If you don't have one you would wish you had a good sword.


I would definitely make it so, that you can even wish how good that item should be on a scale of 1 to 75 (limited/tied to your level?) and the system would then create a quest for you with appropriately though enemies.

Difficuty of these Wish quests would have to be carefully ballanced to be a challenge. Don't think it would be fun to get a rare for defeating two rabbits :p

[4987354987]

Oh yeeees... Infinite quest system... ALMOST good as pancakes. And my Hell Cells idea is good too.
About wishes: make a fountain in the city where you throw coins and wish increased drop chance for swords or whatever you wish. (throw x monetary units = x% increase *item* drop chances for x minutes)

[shawnmck]

My impression is that any "wishing" system is going to cause problems because it would cause a lot more anticipation for acquiring certain items than might otherwise be healthy. Say you wish for a particular sword, armor, or whatever, and perform the actions necessary, but still don't get the item....it's going to backfire & piss some people off.
You might as well just incorporate a blacksmith that will just make an item for you, but then where is the fun in that?

The "wishing" system could work, I just don't see how personally..?
but that's just my opinion.

[Renevent]

Interesting ideas, Vorkronor. Like yerkyerk not sure about the wish system, though your second explanation is a bit better. Just not sure how that actually fits in the game. Killing a boss makes sense, or most of the others, but a wish quest kind of seems out of scope of the game world.

[eisprinzessin]

Here's a way not to ruin immersion. All the TQ merchants constantly claim to have the best selection, which was hardly ever true. An informant could show up occasionally and offer something to improve your equipment ... for a "small" deed. There was also this discussion about infinite vendor quests (http://www.titanquest.net/forums/grim-dawn-suggestions/33150-vendors.html).

You should not be able to select a specific item, but the slot and type. The worse your current item, the better is your chance to get something useful. This way you can even out the odds, if you still use an outworn item due to poor drops.

[Malpheas]

The worse your current item, the better is your chance to get something useful.

ABUSABLE! *cough* But I get where you're going.

[Llama8]

ABUSABLE! *cough* But I get where you're going.

True, but if you put your mind to it you can abuse anything...

[Jerich]

I think it really depends on the focus of the game. Games that have a multiplayer focus have to be much more careful about mechanics that allow farming.

Here is when I think farming is bad:

It is easily botted. (Then the economy is flooded with items that boss drops)
It is by far the most efficient way to get good loot. (Then people who dislike the farming mechanic feel compelled to do it and get bored)
The farming location is more efficient to run solo than in groups. (Then the community is splintered)
The dungeon is always exactly the same (if farming is allowed, the goals need to be random in nature)
One or two bosses are always the best bosses to farm.


Here is when farming is good:

When it is something you can do when you have 15 minutes to kill, so that you can get loot.
When multiple bosses drop different loot tables so players are encouraged to farm in multiple areas
When farming brings people together in groups
When there are multiple ways to farm items


Ways to promote good farming:

Make reward drops player specific so people can farm together without worrying about who is fastest on the click.
Add a boss of the day feature, where players get a bonus the first time they kill that boss with their account each day.
Increase the quality of the boss drops when players group together so that it is beneficial to group with others. (i.e. single player - 2 drops, two player 2.5 drops per person, 6 player 4 drops per person)
Make some of the items no-drop so that players have to farm the boss themselves.
Add challenge areas that require a group to complete
Add random dungeon puzzles or quests that spawn randomly and have boss level rewards for finishing them. This means that exploration is rewarded and an interesting area might be around every corner.


- Jerich

[Scryer]

Interesting ideas Jerich, I think individual loot will help cooperative game-play more then anything else, but as for farming bosses, if the developers can stop other players from "boss stealing" that will also help cooperative game-play goals.

I don't know if it's even possible to code something like, letting only a game's creator unlock a boss but I'm sure other things can be done.

[Malpheas]

Ways to promote good farming:

Make reward drops player specific so people can farm together without worrying about who is fastest on the click. Good idea.
Add a boss of the day feature, where players get a bonus the first time they kill that boss with their account each day. Kind of MMO-ey to me. Not sure that this would apply in this form to Grim Dawn.
Increase the quality of the boss drops when players group together so that it is beneficial to group with others. (i.e. single player - 2 drops, two player 2.5 drops per person, 6 player 4 drops per person) Great idea; I like this team play mechanic.
Make some of the items no-drop so that players have to farm the boss themselves.
Add challenge areas that require a group to complete Definitely a smokin hot idea. UBERS FTW.
Add random dungeon puzzles or quests that spawn randomly and have boss level rewards for finishing them. This means that exploration is rewarded and an interesting area might be around every corner. This could be turned into something neat.


Cool ideas, man. I dig some of them. I like the fact that they promote team and explorative play. It will make the farming a much more broad time consuming facet to the game. Not to be too cynical, but I would still opt for the fastest to complete area. I still think players should not be penalized for farming and if you take that out you'll get gripes for people who collect end game items.

Although, largely, the game will be played single player, unless a closed server will be opened, there will be solo farmers regardless of how you look at it.

[Malpheas]

True, but if you put your mind to it you can abuse anything...

Well, yeah. Some things easier than others.

[Dejnov]

I know in the PnP version of DnD these days the dungeon master asks the player what types of equipment they'd like to see.

I don't see a reason why we can't have something like that in Grim Dawn. Instead of asking / wishing for a specific item, we might want to have a game mechanic that allows a player to choose a specific type or category of equipment that they're interested in and the game skews the probability charts towards those items. A big reason that ARPGs have to have so many random drops is that they can't guarantee any one drop will be useful, let alone the majority of drops.

I, myself, only play melee classes in these games. Even my Diviner and Oracle were built to do melee. I absolutely hate wielding range attacks. So I would love a system that gave me the option to skew drops towards melee weapons and away from magic weapons and missile weapons.

Once a player picked a preference (say melee for me) the drops would be 2/3rds of the type I need and 1/6th of the other two remaining options. That practically scales my useful drops by double while reducing wastage by half. Win/win in my eyes and with such a system you can reduce the amount of drops to half since my usage content went up.


Dejnov.


P.S. I also only play the majority of computer games single player and also really have a low tolerance for group games. Titanquest and Diablo are some of the few games that I have played in groups and then the drop rate doesn't seem so horrible, because the vast majority of friends I play with don't play my way.

[4987354987]

The infinite portal quest in torchlight was good.

[alexei]

Looks like this thread not gonna die :)

[4987354987]

well it isn't supposed to die :hmm:

[k4llu5]

Not until I find the last piece of that set I've been "Farming" for...

[Azrael]

When I start a new character and decide what direction I'm going to take it in, I also do some research on how to attain my 'ultimate' build. That is the reason I farm, in order to obtain the gear I need for my build.

Sometimes I find it fun, but if I have been trying to get a specific item for a long time with no luck then I might start to get frustrated. That is why I think it's important to have a lot of item variety; So that if I can't find my ideal item, I still have some other options to choose from that give me something similar to what I want.

So for example I may not be able to find that one legendary shield to max out my resistances for my build without extensive farming. So what? If I feel like farming I have better chances of getting it. If I don't feel like farming, there should be some other shields or items out there that will still provide some of what I need.

I don't see a need for big game play changes to make farming less effective. Why kill off something that can be fun? Instead, make sure that there are plenty of more common items to choose from for those that don't prefer to farm.

[medierra]

Have no fear, when I think about making changes that would affect farming, I'm only thinking about how to make it more fun and possibly more effective. I have absolutely no desire to discourage farming as you might have gathered from my original post.

I'm not a huge farmer but I do find it satisfying sometimes when I feel like my character is underpowered and needs better gear. I like knowing there is a way to go put in a little work and increase my chance of finding some better gear so I can continue on in the game.

In D2 I probably did several hundred Baal and Mephisto runs. They get pretty old after a while. They were pretty much the only two bosses I found worth farming. I would have liked it if to get certain items I knew I had to go farm different bosses or areas even. I actually kind of enjoyed EQ style camping where you had to control an entire area while waiting for a rare spawn.

If we do anything in regards to farming, it won't be to discourage it.

[chris01]

Have no fear, when I think about making changes that would affect farming, I'm only thinking about how to make it more fun and possibly more effective. I have absolutely no desire to discourage farming as you might have gathered from my original post.

I'm not a huge farmer but I do find it satisfying sometimes when I feel like my character is underpowered and needs better gear. I like knowing there is a way to go put in a little work and increase my chance of finding some better gear so I can continue on in the game.

In D2 I probably did several hundred Baal and Mephisto runs. They get pretty old after a while. They were pretty much the only two bosses I found worth farming. I would have liked it if to get certain items I knew I had to go farm different bosses or areas even. I actually kind of enjoyed EQ style camping where you had to control an entire area while waiting for a rare spawn.

If we do anything in regards to farming, it won't be to discourage it.

i have a question a little off topic
how many peopple are working on grim dawn

[yerkyerk]

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=92&highlight=working

[ExNomenDei]

In D2 I probably did several hundred Baal and Mephisto runs. They get pretty old after a while. They were pretty much the only two bosses I found worth farming. I would have liked it if to get certain items I knew I had to go farm different bosses or areas even. I actually kind of enjoyed EQ style camping where you had to control an entire area while waiting for a rare spawn.

Perhaps this kind of idea would be fun (for players) to implement: Respawning enemies in a certain area that get progressively harder as you go, then after a while better and better loot showing up. The effects could then diminish each time you portal away to give players the sense that the battles get tougher and tougher, thus giving you a real risk-reward structure. It would probably have to be reserved for a few areas though, perhaps only those that have a certain shape or size.

[yerkyerk]

Basically, the problem is that the best rewards in-game should not come from a fixed location.

Adding in randomly spawn uberbosses with better loot and xp than the fixed bosses is one way.
Varying the locations of endbosses might work as well (this could've been done with Act 2 Telkine in TQ - if there was a random chance for him to spawn in 1 of the 7 tombs.
Another is by penalizing players for running the same monsters over and over again.
Yet another way is by rewarding players who have been killing monsters in a lot of different areas.

Doesn't matter which way it is implemented to me, I just hope that the powergamer in me isn't forcing me to run the same spots over and over again... yes, I'm a weak-willed man.

[Chameleon]

So long as GD isnt like TQ where I spent 6 hours farming gorgons and got nothing...

[Malpheas]

I think it should be like that in not all items are easily attainable. There has to be some give and take here. I don't want a game that gives it up on the first date.

[4987354987]

So long as GD isnt like TQ where I spent 6 hours farming gorgons and got nothing...

wohohoooo 6 hours? are you serious? hahahoo... people spend there waaaaay moar time.

[k4llu5]

I rarely ever got anything good from them.

[4987354987]

I rarely ever got anything good from them.

cry sum moaar. You just had bad luck.

[eisprinzessin]

I play a lot of board and card games ... the one who whines most usually wins :p

[4987354987]

I play a lot of board and card games ... the one who whines most usually wins :p

this is our shitty universe...

[Chameleon]

wohohoooo 6 hours? are you serious? hahahoo... people spend there waaaaay moar time.

Which highlights my point that farming in TQ was tedious and boring and not done so it was fun.

In 6 hours of farming(anything)I expect to find a lot of decent items...

[yerkyerk]

The easier you get access to stuff, the less interesting it becomes. TQ was even a bit too slutty for my tastes (I have to say I never farmed for MI's with special affixes - but I think I found almost all looked-after uniques with little farming).
I think Diablo got it just right with their uniques (except perhaps with "Tyrael's Might" - but that's ok, it's a single item which also makes it sorta cool). Very specific uniques were also extremely hard to get due to stat randomization - but that was a good thing, even though you found the item you were looking for, you could still continue looking for it with meaningful better stats (ethereal Hellslayer anyone?). Having a 1 in 20 chance to spawn a random powerful affix on any item gives a huge boost to farming (ethereal in Diablo 2 - but preferably without the durability at the cost of having no socketables).

There's a treshold to the impossible ofcourse. Which, in D2, lies around the 'ist' rune. High runes were 'mother-Theresa' hard to get..
And since runewords were the end-all-be-all items in the game, it kinda defeated the point of having hard-to-find uniques. Never got much excited about finding uniques anymore, onlyrunestones (and unique jewelry) - and with the limited storage I had to either dump them or trade them.

[Skorpion_King]

A lot of time needed to read this thread, so first I only want to say one thing:

Farming must be an option, not an obligation.


Of course it would be harder not farming, but please, the game must allow not farming, if there is a point it´s imposible to continue without farming for top items, or for experience to rise your level, I think that would be bad.

And merchants are there, buying items (or gambling in Diablo2) is an options allways to continue without farming bosses or areas.

[4987354987]

Maybe just add a game mode at character creation that does not respawn monsters and that's all

[yerkyerk]

Myeah, I think farming should become somewhat obligatory for the highest difficulty (or perhaps nintendo-hard if you don't farm in Legendary). If you already got through Legendary, it means you're interested in a challenge. You'd want to face challenging opponents even with decked out gear.

[Malpheas]

I know I refer to MXL (http://modsbylaz.14.forumer.com/index.php) a lot, but he really has the right idea for drop bias for item types in certain uber challenge areas of the game. At least, that's my preference.

Yeah, there should be some reason to be ridiculously overpowered. If the gear's available then it shouldn't be just for aesthetics.

[D3vN0ll]

Good afternoon all,

Maybe the following has already been suggested:
Why not add different boss behaviour for each run? Adding some sort of challenge where a player has to use a totally different strategy to defeat it. It would break the monotony of farming and also require the player to adapt instead of using the same gameplay over and over.

[Malpheas]

Has been suggested already in a different thread.

[4987354987]

Has been suggested already in a different thread.

but imo it's a good idea that deserves attention.

[yerkyerk]

Might be, but it's much better if the stuff would be discussed in the relevant thread (http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=258)(s).

[digitalforce]

Me for one, am replaying Titan Quest like mad now. I run through each boss on average, about 10 times. While I find the loot table a bit maddening (No blues until the 4 run and all yellows on the first run?), I find it like a slot machine. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.

I think as suggested, it would be nice maybe to make bosses harder and harder each run or something but for me, farming should stay :)

[Phoenixfury]

I really enjoy farming, and for this reason I must promote the "do nothing" idea.

While farming is indeed tedious, it is an important aspect of these games to actually work for the good gear and gives me (and most certainly other players) an immense feeling of triumph and satisfaction when finally after a bunch of runs, that item you so desperately sought after has dropped.

Making this harder and putting the player at an even greater disadvantage to find the 'phat loot' seems really stupid to me, and would likely significantly lower the length of time the game is fun and enjoyable for.

Players should not be disadvantaged for farming certain areas repeatedly, it should be their choice where they wish to do it and restricting their options will detract from the overall experience.

Personally, whether or not I buy the legendary subscription (or even just the game) is hanging on this (how farming is going to work), and if the skills look sexy :)

Let us have no limitations, let us have freedom, let us farm!

[eisprinzessin]

"legendary subscription" ... that's news to me ;)

[Phoenixfury]

"legendary subscription" ... that's news to me ;)

Oh whoops, I meant fan edition...thingy.

[LeonResEvil2]

Farming is not fun, but is enjoyable to some. Proof of it not being fun? Make a game that is simply one boss just outside of a town. The boss drops awesome stuff, but never gets harder. Who would buy that? I think no one.
So, how is farming enjoyable? It provides a sense of achievement when the ideal item is dropped. Farming, as it is traditionally thought of, refers to the search for items. If you already have amazing items, and your choice was to continue farming or actually work ahead in the game, I believe most people would go ahead instead of farming for what will likely be equal or lesser items. Farming is not true fun in most instances, and most players do it to fill blocks of time, gain experience and levels, and to hopefully get the items they want. I would guess that no one here (or anywhere, for that matter) would list "Farming in D2" as a favorite activity or hobby. Farming can border on 'work' for some people, something that games (as a source of fun) should avoid.

I have some ideas on adjusting the situation, to make farming less of a necessity, but still an option to players that want to farm:

1) Treasure Hunters. These types of merchants would appear in towns, and perhaps randomly in the field. Town TH's would allow you to specify items that you want. You can tell them an item type (sword, gauntlets, boots, etc), certain attributes (+50% regen, -25% cast time, 36 poison over 6 seconds, etc), or even as precise as a specific item your character knows of [ingredient, additional piece in a set you have, or arcane formula for a greater arcane formula]. You pay the TH's 10% of the estimated cost (and these would be expensive, so players are not intended to use Treasure Hunters unless they REALLY want items of a specific type), and then the THs go on the hunt. There are a limit on how many THs each player can send out, so even if you could afford to get every other piece in a set you have, you will likely be unable to get them all at once. The hunt for items, however, is not based on time, but instead on your experience gained. The more valuable the item you request (lower drop chance, higher in-game buy/sell value), the more experience you need to earn before the THs "find" the item. As the same time, the closer your character's level is to the item level, the sooner you get it (so requesting a sword with stats and abilities close to your own, or what you should be finding based on your character level, will come sooner than a set sword or higher-level sword, and items from a set far above your character level will take a long time to "find"). Also, rogue Treasure Hunters could randomly appear in the field, already holding special items close to your existing level, and you can just buy them outright for ~80% what it would cost from a town TH. If you request an item from the town THs, and a rogue TH, you can transfer 50% of what you paid up front over to the rogue TH for the item you want. Also, if you find the item that you requested from a town TH, you can get a 50% refund. 50% is so that players do not spam/abuse the system, requesting any set piece and getting it no matter what for little to no gold. I imagine TH's would charge 5-10X the sell-value of an item requested (so you cannot make profit, the TH's are in a business mind you). So, with simple math, you can see that the up-front money would be about equal to what you would get from selling the item you want. Maybe the up-front would be raised to 20% then.

2) Experience statuses based on location. When you are in a new area, you should get more exp than when in an old area. 1.0x EXP for areas you have not been recently, 1.2x for brand-new areas (working ahead down the storyline map), 0.8x EXP for areas you have been in several times. I see it as a combination of game day-night cycles, and the regions as defined in TQ. If you have never been in a region, that region gives you 1.2x EXP. Been there in the last 3 game days, 1.0x. Been in a region over 36 game hours in the past 4 game days, 0.8x. The values could be adjusted, but the idea is that pushing ahead should be rewarded, camping day after day in the same location should not, and mixing up gameplay by going to different locations to farm should be favored. Maybe base the multiplier on where the player should be, according to the character level, so twinking way ahead with an experienced player should bring the newer character(s) up to par far quicker. As far as I have seen, twinking is to get the new characters up to where they can play and fight alongside the upper-level characters. Minimizing twinking time this way would lead to more time for players to play together as a team, and less time helping the struggling low-level newbie. The new player shouldn't always be behind in that kind of situation, and dragging someone along for hours to get them up to Epic is just no fun. Newbie has to rush, the leaders kill weak enemies, the players just want to be on equal ground to have some fun.

3) An in-game online bazaar. IMO, game merchants rip players off, and gold is mostly useless. I only really purchase creation of artifacts in TQ. I can find everything else I need out on the field. Meanwhile, I find lots of items that I do not want or need, but other players probably could. I play mostly single-player, and working through forums to buy/sell items is a chore. Let players put up items for sale on a unified server, and less players will have to farm items to get what they are after, plus players will be interacting in a better way. Let players purchase the items outright from each other, or let player A send a nudge to player B who has Sword of Wickedness +2 for sale, and let them meet up to trade/purchase the item. Either way, it is better interaction than just selling all the things players don't want. Limit the bazaar to items that are at or below your character level, so you cannot buy something far beyond what you should have at that level. You could establish the bazaar economy to adjust like Runescape (never played it myself, just watched friends), or have static prices similar to what merchants would buy/sell for, or let players negotiate for themselves.

When you take out the chore and feeling of necessity behind farming, players will be left with more time to enjoy the game. And for players that really do enjoy farming, you will be rewarded for breaking up the runs and going to different locations. I do like the ability to craft items (I LOVE artifacts!), but that can lead to more farming as you search for the particular pieces you need. Breaking items down into crafting pieces (like in Hellgate London) is not a bad idea, but items in H:L were just kinda lifeless. Armors and weapons often stayed pretty similar, and things just became bland. Being able to see the mods you applied to equipment was nice, but was just a small feature that couldn't save an unfilled game.

I think that set items are a good way to go, as they give you a strong goal (complete this set for great bonuses), the bonuses make good equipment even greater for stronger characters, and they stand out more than the average special or even legendary item. An attractive, matching set of items is awesome; I personally love the look of the Obsidian set in TQ, so stylized and unique, and I would wear it all if it were not so weak. So I vote in favor of set items vs crafting, but it's a close match.
Anyway, sorry for off-topic bits and the length, but I wanted to speak and keep the topic alive. Crate, keep up the good work.

[eisprinzessin]

You might want to split this into separate threads in the Ideas and Feedback (http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=9) section.

[Renevent]

I gotta say, I really hate the Treasure Hunter idea...pretty much removes the incentive to hunt for items. And you really aren't getting rid of the grind with that idea anyways...you're just changing the grind...and in my opinion into something far less satisfying.

The experience thing just seems totally unnecessary...your character will get less XP in old areas simply because they are now higher levels. Just seems kind of pointless...

Item bazaar/auction house is always a nice idea...problem is in a game with no closed net it's a wasted feature. If they added it of course wouldn't bother me...auction houses are great.

[yerkyerk]

The length of your posts is extremely long; I'd advice to cut them up and leave out redundant information.

At any rate, I mostly agree with Renevent.
I think the Treasure Hunters will damage the game beyond repair; no incentive to hunt for items yourself and a huge chore with managing Treasure Hunters, that sort of play the game for you..

The experience system; I think there should simply be a tighter cap of where you can level. Monsters more than x% below your level should give diminishing returns. Higher than x% above your level should also give diminishing returns to prevent powerlevelling. This was already the case with TQ, I think, but the spread was much too big (I think I could level to almost 40 or so, without too much problems on Act 2 Normal, which was ridiculous).
Implementing a system based on visited areas and new areas will be hard for a lot of players to grasp; and for players who don't visit the forums, they'll probably never know. I just don't see the added value of this, as players are already rewarded for moving onward and penalized for staying behind (just not enough).

Any implementation of any sort of auction system would be great, unfortunately there's no closed servers - which completely devalues trading.

[SlayerII]

I think farming could be more fun by "forcing"(forcing is such a bad word...) to farm different locations. In TQ i had to do this when i wanted to create artifacts. So instead of killing the same boss over and over i had to travel around and collect items.
That was much more of fun than killing the a boss again and again. In addtion there maybe merchant which sell rececipes. The best rececipes still should be dropped from bosses, but you are able to make the items which you actually need to move forward without a need to have so much luck on killing bosses.
Maybe a random bonus on completition of a item so players are still able to get better gear if they need it.

Something different could be a difficult systemw hich works beside the system of TQ(where you jsut make everything 3 times. i still like to have it like that.) YOu are able to make the game more challenging but getter items as a reward. More Xp would be somehow wrong.

[Agouti]

My opinion is if people want to farm, let them. I don't see what the issue is?

OK, I don't like farming, but I don't see why that means I should force other people not to...

WoW was mentioned earlier in the thread, and I think it's relevant to questions on farming because farming is both needed (for PvP) and hugely rewarding - rare boss drop items, or PvP rewards (another sort of farming) are so far beyond what you could expect to find otherwise. I addition, boss runs in those sorts of games are far more interesting than you're standard RPG.

Torchlight is probably the bottom rung of the "interesting bosses" ladder. They are just overly tough named critters with maybe a spell or 2 up their sleeve. Find, bash, kill, loot zzzzzzz. Dungeons in MMORPG's like wow are far mroe interesting, you have to fight your way to here, throw a switch, go here, kill this etc etc which makes actually killing it so much more rewarding.

Someoen mentioned earlier, can't remember, but making more randomized boss fights - perhaps even variations on the same boss with different names and slightly different behaviour.


For instance, a boss of some particular creature group, when you kill him the first time he gets replaced by a boss of roughly the same difficulty, theme & drops but a different name and needing a slightly different tactic to defeat.

Would make farming mroe interesting, and people only farm because A: they need to or B: they find it rewarding. I don't have a problem with letting them do it for either reason.

[Kilwala]

Personally I think that farming is a key feature of games in this genre, and the farming will be as fun or boring as the game itself. Diablo-style ARPGs are traditionally loot-whoring games, and that is a major part of the appeal. Items that are rare or hard to acquire make the game more fun, bottom line. The key, I think, is to focus on designing fun core gameplay, and make the player care enough about the game, and then farming becomes fun.

I just want to mention one thing specifically:

Loot that only drops from a certain place/enemy.

I liked how in TQ, bosses had differences in their loot tables. You get a different flavor of loot depending on which boss you're farming, which made it worthwhile to revisit different bosses. That's good.

Also, one of my other favorite features of TQ was the monster-specific loot (the green items). I thought this was a great idea that other games should imitate, really. They add flavor to the world and gave you a reason to go to certain places and hunt certain types of enemies, and that's good.

Having certain items drop only in one place or only from one type of enemy adds a lot to the game. Farming would be boring if you could just farm one boss and eventually get everything in the game.

I hope that the Grim Dawn team will implement plenty of variety and variability in loot, giving players a reason to farm different places! It's always good to give players a reason to revisit older areas. I think some of the devs alluded to that already.

Furthermore, there's nothing better than...

Optional dungeons that are harder than the final boss/dungeon! (and have some special loot)

You can't make the final storyline dungeon impossibly hard or brutal, because you want people to be able to finish the game. That's why you have an optional end-game dungeon or two, for people who want to go above and beyond the storyline and test themselves. Like I said, these are loot-whoring games, at the core. Make an ultra-punishing optional dungeon and create some super loot that only drops there.

I'm looking forward to this game. I have very high hopes!

[Betrayer]

I really don't like loot that only drops from a specific boss.

I don't like any game mechanic that requires you look at an online guide to take advantage of it. :\

There's no way of knowing that a piece of loot you're looking for drops from a specific monster unless you go online and look up loot tables.
I prefer softening the "advantage" gained from sources outside the game as much as possible.

[Agouti]

Most of my really good items in TQ dropped out of normal run around chests or monsters - with such good items dropping (albeit rarely) of normal critters I don't feel the need to boss run. I still make a point of scouting around as I run between towns and such to make sure I get all the chests, and the optional caves, but apart from that.

Also, really good randomized loot as quest rewards is always nice, and can't be farmed ;)

I like the idea of the optional end game dungeon, thats neat. Like, you fight your way to the final boss guy, who we are assuming, since he's been the object of the story so far will have some backstory and such, kill him yay! world saved!

Then you have the option of looting his personal dungeon/castle/whatever (really hard), and the game mechanics should cope from what we've read with being a couple of levels higher starting the next act. You could make access quest based, so you can put really good loot in there without worrying about people farming it to get over the top gear (make it a one run reward for finishing the game?).

Me, I prefer better drop rates with some sort of enforced farming limit over like single digit drop percentages almost forcing you to grind a run to get an item you really want. If it was an interesting run I wouldn't mind though :)

[Kilwala]

I really don't like loot that only drops from a specific boss.

I don't like any game mechanic that requires you look at an online guide to take advantage of it. :\

There's no way of knowing that a piece of loot you're looking for drops from a specific monster unless you go online and look up loot tables.
I prefer softening the "advantage" gained from sources outside the game as much as possible.

I see your point of view. But you don't ever need to look at an online guide. You always have the option to just play the game and see what happens. That's how the people who write the online guides figure it out in the first place.

Would you prefer a game where you don't ever have to know anything? You can just kill the last boss over and over and eventually get everything there is to get? That doesn't require any knowledge but it's boring.

I prefer a game where there is more to know. It's more interesting. Nobody forces you to spoil it for yourself. But if every boss has the same loot table, that would drastically shorten the life of the game and make it pointless to go back to different dungeons.

[Betrayer]

Yeah, but it really sucks to have to kind of police yourself and make your own rules. Kind of like if there were no hardcore mode, "I'm gonna delete my character if I die".

The fact is that a seeming majority of players go online and min/max their characters and find all the best loot in the game and stuff.
So if I don't do these things, I feel gimped and kinda bitter that it seems like everyone is "cheating" but me.

Of course that's just my perspective and how I want to play the game. If others want to go online and min/max, who am I to say they can't?
But I would argue that if you have to leave the game and look behind the scenes so to speak, just to get the most out of it and to stay "competitive"... There is something wrong with the game.

This has been true of pretty much every ARPG, and I've always thought of it as a major problem... If a bit unsolveable.

I think it would be SO AWESOME if the devs could think up some mechanics that would discourage leaving the game, reading guides, farming and what have you.

I'm all for making your character the best it can be and getting the best loot, but if there aren't tools within the actual game to do this, then you have to kill your immersion and your sense of achievement by leaving the game and "cheating".

I wouldn't really care if some people want to spoil their experiences, but in this type of game it quickly becomes the standard to "cheat" like this.
If you want to talk to anyone else in-game and you're not up on the best items, the best builds, all the outside names and abbreviations... Well you're going to have to go learn, or you might as well not bother socializing.

I would like hard rules and "walls" that keep the game self-contained in the game world, and the experience from leaking out onto the internet/forums/guides/etc.

That's just the ideal scenario, imo. I have no idea how to do that in practice.

[Kilwala]

How about this for a solution:

Make the loot tables for each boss different, but generate some of the table randomly each time you start a new game.

That way, nobody could make a guide that would spoil it. You'd have to farm different bosses but you couldn't know ahead of time which boss drops what.

I don't know, just throwing it out there as a compromise. What do you think?

[Roros]

I don't like farming for specific items, but I do enjoy farming in general - from time to time.

Using diablo2 as an example, me and my friends were happy to farm for runes, but during our (literally) dozens of level 50+ characters we have never ever farmed for a unique or set item, even when we were just 1 piece short of a full, awesome set.

I suppose it takes some of the excitement out of it when you are expecting it to drop. It's a great feeling (though a psychologist could probably tell me it's for the wrong reasons) when you see that green named item appear on the ground and you realise you or someone in your party is wearing part of that set.

[Kilwala]

Yeah Roros, I like farming just to see what will drop... farming to get one specific thing that never drops gets old pretty quick.

That's what I love about TQ... I just collect everything and then make new characters inspired by the loot that I find. I'll get a couple great items that suggest a new class/skill build and then I'll make it and twink it out.

[Llama8]

I think it would be SO AWESOME if the devs could think up some mechanics that would discourage leaving the game, reading guides, farming and what have you.
Your character gets deleted if you alt-tab out of the game, for any reason.

I would like hard rules and "walls" that keep the game self-contained in the game world, and the experience from leaking out onto the internet/forums/guides/etc.
On installation, there's some subliminal images (along with a psychotropic drug that's absorbed through the skin on the DVD) that install a small applet in your brain that encrypts any knowledge/memories of GD preventing you from accessing them until you watch the startup screen again.
As for the digital download, when GD shuts down a team of your country's elite Special Forces are sent round to your house & inject you with a drug to induce short-term amnesia for the same effect.

What you want is impossible, sorry. Unless Crate serve DCMA notices on every forum/site/etc that discusses GD.

[Betrayer]

I'm not talking about literally stopping people from leaving the game; I'm just talking about implementing game mechanics and features that make getting outside info unnecessary.

[mamba]

I'm not talking about literally stopping people from leaving the game; I'm just talking about implementing game mechanics and features that make getting outside info unnecessary.

I do not feel there was any need to get outside info for TQ to begin with.

Just by playing the game through once you already know what items are dropping where, certainly for monster-specific ones. If you are interested in farming, you look out for such things even more than a casual gamer would, but even the casual gamer would have noticed. So outside info was not needed at all for this.

The same was true for unique items, they dropped in a wide enough 'region' that you did not need to farm a specific boss to get specific uniques, so it is not as if you really had to know which boss to farm depending on the item you wanted - and even if that were the case, it is not as if that item is really essential to continue.

So casual gamers will not look for such info and yet know enough about what drops where anyway, while a few item whores will always search on the internet and create tables to prove that farming Typhon has a 0.002% better chance to drop the uber-armor-of-unneededness than the second most likely boss, the crazed swamp rat ;)

[Agouti]

How about this: In the same vein as TQ, bosses have the same sort of classes and abilities (in general) as players have. As well, they drop what they are wearing, same as normal critters.

So if you are, say, a hunter, and you want good hunter gear, you can grind the hunter type bosses. Need a good shield? Grind a boss that uses one.

No fancy loot tables, and it makes a logical kind of sense. I think bosses should have a better chance to drop the same items as can drop anywhere, personally. I also dislike the idea of certain items only dropping of particular bosses with small % chances, needing an online guide.

[Malpheas]

Oh Betrayer, you crazy so-and-so.

How about the game being so good, that "needful" articles are created by fans of the game to catalog information about the game that they feel necessary? There is impetus to fame. Information blackout imposed by the community or developers is not something I want to see. That is a surefire way for me not to be interested in the game because, in my opinion, it shows lack of interest from other people as well.

[ASYLUM101]

I think it would be SO AWESOME if the devs could think up some mechanics that would discourage leaving the game, reading guides, farming and what have you.


You do realize, some players LOVE guides. I can't tell you how many annoying nubs come on the TQ forums BEGGING for a guide on a conqueror. I mean seriously, of all the possible guides you need, a CONQUEROR? Some players enjoy farming, and it's not like it's cheating. How is killing a boss multiple times cheating? They've been using that mechanic for who knows how long, it worked in D2. And in D2, there was no way to kill various bosses without farming the prior ones. I remember my first run in with Baal, I was level 30 something, and obviously died many times. I checked up online and saw most people took on Baal at 40 something, and after farming up to that point, I was able to take him on. It's just player preference. If you don't like it, no one will force you to do the same.


I wouldn't really care if some people want to spoil their experiences, but in this type of game it quickly becomes the standard to "cheat" like this.
If you want to talk to anyone else in-game and you're not up on the best items, the best builds, all the outside names and abbreviations... Well you're going to have to go learn, or you might as well not bother socializing.

This sounds more like a personal problem than a cry against farming....

[Betrayer]

Oh Betrayer, you crazy so-and-so.

How about the game being so good, that "needful" articles are created by fans of the game to catalog information about the game that they feel necessary? There is impetus to fame. Information blackout imposed by the community or developers is not something I want to see. That is a surefire way for me not to be interested in the game because, in my opinion, it shows lack of interest from other people as well.

I'm not talking about information blackout.

Guys, I was just discussing a problem with ARPGS in general. I'm just talking about game design. I put forth no solutions or ideas. Just what I'd like to see in an ideal world.

The crux of my blabbing was this:

In a game where choosing skills and choosing what loot to use (from the loot that you find) are pretty much the only big decisions you have to make and pretty much the only things that determine the power of your character, it would be nice if it weren't so easy to figure out what the statistical best decisions are.
Yes, if you like doing that, it's totally an ok thing to do, but these games are played online. When you have a game that's played online, everyone should be on equal footing.
Indeed, I could just not play with people that do this, but the mere fact that they exist in the same online community that I do is enough to alienate me and other like-minded players.

This is in fact the reason I DON'T play these games online. I don't like to have my experience and the "mystery" spoiled by people who know the statistics of the game and have min/max'd their way to power (which, is a pretty big portion).

I played torchlight, and I couldn't care less how other people played the game. It was a single player game, there was no community, unless you count a discussion forum or something.

I'm not saying the way I want to play is the right way; I'm just saying it's the way I want to play, and I personally would like games to play how I want them to (obviously). I'd like to be able to play online in a closed environment where everything is not "figured out".
And yes this is a "problem" with just about every single (co-op OR versus) online game in existence. Soon after release, online games devolve into games of statistics and guides, instead of discovery. In a game like Diablo, where randomness and rerolling are paramount features, the immersion and the excitement are destroyed by the statistics. It's a Role Playing Game, not a spreadsheet.

That's just what I think, and I wanted to talk about it in a decidedly esoteric manner.

[mamba]

The crux of my blabbing was this:

In a game where choosing skills and choosing what loot to use (from the loot that you find) are pretty much the only big decisions you have to make and pretty much the only things that determine the power of your character, it would be nice if it weren't so easy to figure out what the statistical best decisions are.
Yes, if you like doing that, it's totally an ok thing to do, but these games are played online. When you have a game that's played online, everyone should be on equal footing.
Indeed, I could just not play with people that do this, but the mere fact that they exist in the same online community that I do is enough to alienate me and other like-minded players.

Ok, just to get this straight ;)

You would like to be ignorant as to what gear is better and what skills / builds are better when playing this game and would like everyone else to not figure this out as well so you are on equal footing.

As obviously most people will figure this out, you would like the game to make this 'hard' to figure out, so your lack of knowledge is less severe.

(Yes, I may be exaggerating a bit, but this is in essence what you are asking for).

Quite frankly, this will never work. As long as the game shows any kind of statistic players will figure out which skills and items are superior and will discuss this online.
I also very much doubt any ARPG would get away with not telling you the stats of items or skills, so in essence, there is nothing which can be done about this - short of you looking for a different genre ;)

[Betrayer]

I'm not ASKING for anything, and I KNOW it's really hard (if not impossible) to solve, I'm just saying WHY I don't play these games online.
If there is something keeping people from playing online (like me), it could likely be construed as a "problem". To get rid of a "problem" you have to acknowledge the "problem" and find a "solution". To acknowledge the "problem", the "problem" has to be discussed.
I'm not asking the grim dawn devs to perform a miracle, I'm just giving my perspective on farming and farming related issues per the thread topic.

[mamba]

I'm not ASKING for anything, and I KNOW it's really hard (if not impossible) to solve, I'm just saying WHY I don't play these games online.

fair enough

If there is something keeping people from playing online (like me), it could likely be construed as a "problem". To get rid of a "problem" you have to acknowledge the "problem" and find a "solution". To acknowledge the "problem", the "problem" has to be discussed.

agreed, however I believe that more people would find a solution to this 'problem' to be a much bigger problem for them.

People like to farm and discuss builds and gear, otherwise they would not do it. Of the ARPG crowd I would assume this is the majority (certainly of the people who so far have heard about GD, I am not necessarily talking casual gamers here, there the ratio probably is different).

So one persons 'solution' here will be another persons problem. Farming and build / gear maxing is intrinsic in this genre, if you were to take that away you take away incentive to play (fun).

I really think there is no solution to your dilemma other than finding players who think alike (open a game called 'non-tweaked chars' or something and ban everyone who appears tweaked - these guys are easy to identify and most people adhere to the topic).

[ASYLUM101]

I'm not ASKING for anything, and I KNOW it's really hard (if not impossible) to solve, I'm just saying WHY I don't play these games online.
If there is something keeping people from playing online (like me), it could likely be construed as a "problem". To get rid of a "problem" you have to acknowledge the "problem" and find a "solution". To acknowledge the "problem", the "problem" has to be discussed.
I'm not asking the grim dawn devs to perform a miracle, I'm just giving my perspective on farming and farming related issues per the thread topic.

I still think it's an odd reason to stay away from online games... I stay away from online games with people I don't know cause most of them are idiots. :)

[Betrayer]

agreed, however I believe that more people would find a solution to this 'problem' to be a much bigger problem for them.

People like to farm and discuss builds and gear, otherwise they would not do it. Of the ARPG crowd I would assume this is the majority (certainly of the people who so far have heard about GD, I am not necessarily talking casual gamers here, there the ratio probably is different).

So one persons 'solution' here will be another persons problem. Farming and build / gear maxing is intrinsic in this genre, if you were to take that away you take away incentive to play (fun).

I really think there is no solution to your dilemma other than finding players who think alike (open a game called 'non-tweaked chars' or something and ban everyone who appears tweaked - these guys are easy to identify and most people adhere to the topic).

Well a couple steps toward a solution would be specific items not dropping from specific bosses/monster types, and all items being Bind On Pickup. CERTAINLY not having a "shared stash" and not having wanton trade of whatever items you want whenever you want.

Hahahaha...
I know that's a really unpopular opinion.
I'll just stop talking. :P

[mamba]

Well a couple steps toward a solution would be specific items not dropping from specific bosses/monster types

not sure this would really help all that much, instead of farming some monster types, you just farm them all then. It certainly takes away some of the fun however ;)

and all items being Bind On Pickup. CERTAINLY not having a "shared stash" and not having wanton trade of whatever items you want whenever you want.

that would help you more, the problem with it obviously is that most players would hate that

Hahahaha...
I know that's a really unpopular opinion.
I'll just stop talking. :P

:D

[Betrayer]

not sure this would really help all that much, instead of farming some monster types, you just farm them all then. It certainly takes away some of the fun however ;)

Well I'm not talking about farming so much as "targeted item finding". Like... Just the ability to figure out what item you want, and then to go and get it (because you know where it drops). It kind of defeats the purpose of the random loot gameplay, imho.

But yeah.
You're right, I don't really have a solution. ;)

[OneEyeRed]

While some farming is a necessity I would try to make it as fun as possible. there needs to be a comfortable median. Let's face it, camping a spawn point in EQ with a group for two weeks to get one fucking drop got old quit. I think however that farming works a bit better in ARPG's due to the already quick pace of the games.

The worst thing is a silver spoon and a guide to even the local acorn that just fell off a tree in the middle of a thousand acre wood. I hate dumb downed versions that carrot ans stick bait you the entire way. On the flip side, I also want to be rewarded for going the extra mile to get a good drop.

[Malpheas]

I guess, Betrayer, what you're really talking about is: Personal Choice. Besides, the solution is to play single player. Because you know, once the game gets popular, people have the need to feed their knowledge craving.

I'm not so much disagreeing with you, more like saying, you're kind of in a tough preference: Being that you don't WANT there to be information. There's no stopping it. You're basically right in that you have no solution to this; except single player and forced hermitage.

Now, I actually dig that. It's also a trend not many prefer.

Cheers for what it's worth,

Malpheas

[Randomness]

First, you'll have to forgive me for not reading the whole thread, and if this has already been mentioned. (also this is my first post after getting legendary preorder)

Having seen the term "monotony" associated with boss runs, i immediately thought "Arena".
Let me explain : each boss you kill throughout the normal game gets addeed to a random roster in the arena. After you kill so many of them, you get a loot box that is tied to your level (basically level 40 characters will get lvl 40 and under loot and also not necessarily good quality).

Each boss would be scaled to your level to make it more challenging, and maybe even extra attacks.

i know there are probably loads of flaws with this, but i think it may be something worth thinking about.

thanks in advance to your feedback

[Yggdrasil]

Yes, the arena idea was already discussed before (perhaps not in this thread).
I personnaly think it's an excellent idea.

[jiaco]

If the arena idea falls into the category of "we would like to but cant with the time/budget constraints", I was thinking after reading Randomness's post (and by the way, welcome to the wait).

How about a quest dude that is some sort of boat-guy who could be hired (not sure really if it should be prohibitively expensive or not) to teleport you across the world with stops at all major bosses. Sort of like a hunter-tour-guide type thing where you could not only farm the bosses but also get rewards based on how well you killed them all?

And if the GD engine is different than TQ in the respect that a boss could scale to player level, that would be totally awesome, but their loot better scale too.

[Furycat]

I must say I was quite excited to hear about this - as a long time player/strategizer on the TQ forums (different account) I am looking forward to this game :)

As to the farming issues - yes it can be boring. But for the packrats amongst us, farming a boss for the sweet drop we want is actually an important part of the game. I remember how much it irritated me in Hellgate: London (a prime example of how NOT to do this kind of game) that I couldn't boss farm, meaning my character's gear was 100% dependant on random luck.

I think a recent game (Torchlight) had a fantastic idea that could be adapted here. You could buy a pricey one use item to allow you entrance to an extra, shortish level that was exeptionally difficult but dropped amazing loot.

This could be adapted to this.
How about 'Boss Scrolls' (under a cooler name) - bought for some ingame currency (and also perhaps a rare drop off mobs). Each time you kill a powerful boss it unlocks that bosses 'glyph'. You can use a scroll (or a set number of these scrolls) to open a portal to a short, but intense level (either randomly generated or chosen from a large list of small, simple maps) filled with powerful enemies and ending with the selected boss.

This could be framed as a memory, time travel, pocket universe...I dunno. But this would allow people who want to farm to do it (without that gimpy feeling of diminishing returns), but would place some kind of cost/limit on doing it endlessly.

Oh - and random portals opening every now and then to these areas would be a cool idea too :)

EDIT - bosses scaling with character levels is something I have never liked. Take a look at Oblivion for how this rubber-banding can ruin the feeling of leveling up altogether.

[Boneflesh]

Oh - and random portals opening every now and then to these areas would be a cool idea too :)


I'd like that! Like some sort of "temporal rifts" that have spawned in random places as a result of great destruction in the lands of GD! :D

[Kardiophylax]

Great idea Furycat! I'd prefer that greatly to a "instant warp to the boss" or arena type functionality. Having the item required drop off random mobs would also encourage people to both play through levels and boss farm, rather then just running the boss over and over. It encourages diversity in gameplay and in the end should increase the game's longevity.

Also, I agree with boss scaling. The "Normal", "Epic", and Legendary" bosses should stay at the same difficulty regardless of the player's level. I would say they should scale somewhat based on number of players though, both in loot quantity and difficulty.

[Flambe]

If we're talking about farming then we're assuming that players can trade items/gold/loot.

Why not just disallow trading? Really, what is the benefit of allowing players to give items or money to other players? It just causes an imbalance.

Don't allow trading. If you didn't find it, you can't use it. Essentially, everything is BoA. That way, if you see someone running around in Awesome Armor(tm), you know they earned it.

I personally think item trading is a mistake except in MMORPGs.

No trading = no farming. Simple.

[Betrayer]

I SO agree with you, Flambe.

Trading defeats the purpose of a game that is 3/4 about finding loot.

Unfortunately it's a very unpopular stance to disallow trading.

[Kardiophylax]

No trading = no farming. Simple.

Maybe if this were an MMO where all the good loot was in raids, but that's not true in ARPG. Without trading people have to farm even more. There is no such thing as trading to finish up a set of items. You have to farm it yourself, if you want it. Thus, No trading = more farming. Simple.

I'm not commenting for or against trading. I don't usually trade things in ARPGs, but if I really needed the last piece of a set, I'd like to have the option.

[mamba]

Maybe if this were an MMO where all the good loot was in raids, but that's not true in ARPG. Without trading people have to farm even more. There is no such thing as trading to finish up a set of items. You have to farm it yourself, if you want it. Thus, No trading = more farming. Simple.

I'm not commenting for or against trading. I don't usually trade things in ARPGs, but if I really needed the last piece of a set, I'd like to have the option.

Agreed, plus as with TQ, there will be ways to trade outside the game if they do not exist (and probably even despite them existing in game), so you do not achieve an enforcement of no trading anyway.

[Renevent]

No trading = terrible idea

Seriously, trading is awesome in these games. There's so much loot in TQ there's not way you can farm it all (unless you play for hundreds and hundreds of hours). According to steam, I have like 200 hours on TQ and I know I don't even have 1/3 of the available items.

I don't think they will take this away anyways...would be a silly thing to do:p

[Chameleon]

I dont think this has been mentioned...I'd like to see a Boss Teleport system.

I have recently got back into TQ and I have found that some bosses are a real pain to get to as they are so far away from the nearest teleport. It would be nice to have a warp tile appear nearby once you beat a Boss so you can easily return to it later.

[mamba]

Hm, I do not think there is any boss I cannot reach within 3 minutes or so. That time is intentional so you cannot farm a boss every 10 seconds ;)

[Gem]

How much time need to catch Pindleskin in D2? 10-15 sec. Or Mephisto? (sorc\eni armour)? with MH less than a minute (or in solo with properly randomed map less than a 5 sec)
And in D2 for some items chances better than chances getting properly item in TQ.
I was in duty journey and spend almost month on farming(didn't have TQVault) for getting properly bonus on some runes(got 15 Polyphem's blunts lol).
I can't imagine, how much time i need to get 55 level artefact with 35% attack speed. It was really annoying in farming, that rune bonus is less, almost useless, than "complete bonus". Becouse almost always in Boss chest you can get 1-2 runes, making complete not a problem.
For example:
legendary Herakles - 36 str
+25% Damage 6.74%
40 Armor 6.74%
303 Reduce Armor for 3 seconds 6.74%
41% Pierce Resistance 6.74%
+65 Defensive Ability 6.74%
+450 Health 20.22%
+5% Strength 20.22%
5% Chance of stun for 3 seconds 6.74%
66% Slower Attack for 3 seconds 5.62%
+33 Strength 6.74%
+65 Offensive Ability 6.74%
Odysseus 30% int
+33 Intelligence 21.43%
10% Lightning Resistance 10.71%
10% Cold Resistance 10.71%
10% Fire Resistance 10.71%
+210 Energy 21.43%
+250 Energy 21.43%
18% Elemental Resistance 3.57%

ZEUS' THUNDERBOLT
7-16 Cold Damage 8.57%
3-20 Lightning Damage 8.57%
+30% Lightning Damage 8.57%
7-16 Damage 8.57%
5% Chance of stun for 3 seconds 25.71%
72 Energy Leech over 3 Seconds 7.14%
66% Slower Attack for 3 seconds 7.14%
+33 Dexterity 8.57%
+15% Attack Speed 17.14%
Look, second - it's perfect balance item. I will use it anyway, and it have fine bonuses. If i don't want farming, i may use it as is, also i can try make perfect resists. Other items useless without bonuses

Herakles - 25% damage or 30 str? I used herakles with 60 str for stonebeinder cuffs on mage - it was only once.
5% str. Hmm. can it be converted in more than 25% damage? (physicalDamageDV*((strengthDV/500)+1))+(strengthDV*0.04)
we have 2k str, get 5%= it will be 100 str. 20% damage + 4. It's not a 25%. And 2k str almost impossible.
when 5% str can be more than 30 str bonus? Easy - when you have more than 600 str. It's means - you hero have str as one of primary attribute, can have all armour (i didn't count dex) So you dont need str.
Other bonuses is also strange. It's can be used, but for what, if possible make 1 hit=1 kill?

Zeus thunderbolt - it's annoying item. bonus 30%, item - 9%. I sell other bonuses, and bet, that all not-novice make same

What i want say? Please, make items, that "i got them, i can use them, or trade, or store for other characters."

[Kardiophylax]

I dont think this has been mentioned...I'd like to see a Boss Teleport system.

I have recently got back into TQ and I have found that some bosses are a real pain to get to as they are so far away from the nearest teleport. It would be nice to have a warp tile appear nearby once you beat a Boss so you can easily return to it later.


Actually we discussed this a few pages back. A few alternative ideas for farming have been brought up so far. Any method of being able to instantly farm a boss is not desirable in my opinion though.

[Psychoti]

I personally like the 'daily quest' approach to farming: You get a quest from a local NPC to defeat a certain enemy, explore a certain area, collect certain number of certain items, and at the end you get to *choose* a reward from a short list of options. Now, I don't know how many 'daily quest' (or even if 24 hours is the time frame you want to look at here, the important thing is implementing the quest rewards) NPCs or even quests you would want to have, but in a system like this it is usually risk vs reward. Perhaps one of the options from the NPC is a certain number of special tokens which you can spend at a merchant to purchase a specific high-tier item. I dunno.

[Chameleon]

Actually we discussed this a few pages back. A few alternative ideas for farming have been brought up so far. Any method of being able to instantly farm a boss is not desirable in my opinion though.

I didnt say it has to be instant buuut...I'd like it to be a little easier to get to bosses in GD than it is in TQ, it takes me like 10 minutes to slog my way to a lot of the bosses that are at the top of mountains or at the end of dungeons.(ANd Yes I have to kill everything in my way! :o) It makes trying to get a certain drop VERY time consuming as 98+% of the time is spent getting to the boss.

[ZZSmufa]

I didnt say it has to be instant buuut...I'd like it to be a little easier to get to bosses in GD than it is in TQ, it takes me like 10 minutes to slog my way to a lot of the bosses that are at the top of mountains or at the end of dungeons.(ANd Yes I have to kill everything in my way! :o) It makes trying to get a certain drop VERY time consuming as 98+% of the time is spent getting to the boss.

To be fair, almost all the bosses in TQ were reachable in a minute, if you had the nearest well. However, if you had to rely on the portals, then yes, it'd take forever. This is what made the farming so tedious, as you tended to just run the same boss over and over.

[Bleh]

Why not make an arena where you can fight bosses you have defeated. First you would get some waves of minor enemies before the big boss will appear. This way you can go straight into the action but still need to deal with a few enemies before reaching the boss.

[Chameleon]

Why not make an arena where you can fight bosses you have defeated. First you would get some waves of minor enemies before the big boss will appear. This way you can go straight into the action but still need to deal with a few enemies before reaching the boss.

Heh and call it The Colosseum Monster Farm. ;)

I like that idea, once you have beaten a boss it unlocks them in the special arena, and the preceding monsters could be all champions for extra goodies.:D

[snotz]

The biggest "farming" runs that make these types of games popular are boss runs. In D2, for instance, there were even bots made to do Pindle and Meph runs. Why not add a little something to boss runs that will make the game more enticing, not only better loot drops. For example, boss A only drops this item (1% chance or something) which is a part of a recipe to a grand master unique.

[Furycat]

I quite like some of the ideas put forward so far. Sort of a summary of what I think:

- Farming is a bit of a headache and some don't like running the same boss over again.
- Without farming however, you feel like you have no control over your loot (ala Hellgate).
- A system that allows you to farm within moderation is just downright awesome. I like a 'boss rune/rift' idea like my last post.
- I hate rubberbanding (i.e. reducing drops based on xp/time farmed etc) in all forms. Morrowind can go and EA great big D.

[sevrun]

I am really of two minds when it comes to farming... The inability to go back and assault areas for experience and/or loot has hamstrung a few games for me but at the same time I really don't like games that put me in a position of spending hour after hour after hour doing nothing _but_ farming. This is why I don't play WoW, just feels like I never stop farming. There is a happy middle ground, and for me it's fairly wide. I'd have to see exactly how much the drop rates declined before I weighed in on any kind of 'rubber band' effect, but I'd hope that the _quality_ of gear would not be influenced by such.

Just my 2 cents, take it for what it's worth.

[medierra]

This is why I don't play WoW, just feels like I never stop farming. There is a happy middle ground, and for me it's fairly wide.

I agree - I think there is a happy middle ground and the key is just reasonable moderation. I mean most of us do play these games in one way or another for the psychological satisfaction of grinding XP and loot... just the grind needs to be a grind-lite. I think ARPG is sort of the province of those who don't have the patience for MMO pacing or who enjoyed MMOs but have become burnt out / too busy with life and want that mechanic but served up faster in easier to swallow portions.

[Renevent]

That's exactly right...well at least for me :p

[deimos]

- I hate rubberbanding (i.e. reducing drops based on xp/time farmed etc)

I have to agree, even if there weren't many boss chests in TQ that had repeated run penalties (Nessus, Minotaur and a few others?), i found it annoying nonetheless. They sometimes dropped usable stuff but knowing i had reduced chances of getting more strongly discouraged me from running them. All bosses should be worth farming at least to some degree, and not under penalty.

[Scryer]

Some of the magic of these games is the # of modifications, customization, and the varying amounts of attributes, from imperfect to perfect on loot, that help give players a sense that there can always be a better version of the best item in the game.

That there is always something better to be found or attained.

So, if you reduce the chance to find that perfect weapon it does increase the amount of grind necessary to attain it. However, as a developer, it's making the grind fun that matters.

How do you vary the game play enough and make it fun for the player to get these items, eh?

Killing enemies is fun for a while, but that eventually gets repetitive, so, what can help this? AoE attacks, certainly make killing enemies more fun, because then it's no longer this single target grind fest. Single target attacks are fine, if they do some pretty awesome damage or pretty awesome effects.

What else can help? I would say, fun, or interesting challenges can definitely change up the game play and make the game much less stale and repetitive.

Challenge ideas -

- Timed challenges - Player's goal is to get to an area in time before failing the quest.

- Traditional survival challenges (Waves of enemies) - Goal is to stay alive.

- Reduction challenges - Enemies can reduce the player's movement speed or other stats, the players goal is to avoid reductions and eliminate enemies.

- Boss Challenge - Destroy a boss with specific conditions being met. (Could include timed, survival, and even reduction challenges all in a boss challenge, or individually)

These challenges should be continuously repeatable, and essentially give players another way to gain loot. I think this would be very awesome and very fun!

[Shinrou]

I must agree that there's a lot of magic involved in grinding and finding the sweet spot. I don't care if I had to kill 100 mobs for getting my character to even level 2 (over-exaggerated, I know), if that progress is somehow made fun with varying combat with good ragdolls, decapitations and just in general a some laughters about cool ways to decimate enemies.

I can easily sit grinding even if it's very harsh grind, as long as it's fun and I don't need to watch my xp-meter all the time just to check how many more mobs do I have to kill to see the potentially cool next skill that might make the game more fun...

I have faith that things will evolve to that point at very least with patches and expansions when the voice is heard from the angry crowd also known as fans. :P But yeah, I have a strong feeling this one is gonna pack a lot more punch than TQ from the very start, and that's gonna be a helluva good start.

EDIT: And yeah, would be fun to add some separate survival mode that's basically just one arena that's getting constantly spawned with mobs that are of selected character's level at first, and eventually get harder... No xp gain at all, only chests as rewards for completing waves of enemies. Start off with small chests when killing equal level monsters, and as you progress to very high level monsters compared to you, you could be rewarded with better chests.

Could be fun mode for item farming. I could see myself doing that one "survival-mode" before I get to sleep... And in practice end up pulling all nighter in hope of some epic loot. The key is to make it hard to get even smaller chests, and very hard to get better loot. I dunno, but I just felt it could be potentially cool when implemented right. :P

[Vorkronor]

... These challenges should be continuously repeatable, and essentially give players another way to gain loot. I think this would be very awesome and very fun!

Finally someone who sees things the same as I do (http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2399&postcount=106)! Since there's already 2 of us, you could consider implementing these ideas :D

[Queeg]

Hi, I'm new to this but thought i'd toss in my 2p.

Sorry if this has already been suggested or if it upsets anyone but how about considering a kind of 'farming mode' that enables players to revisit any areas they like to farm. The difference between 'farm' and 'normal' modes would be simple.

1. In farm mode you can not progress your game/story, you can only go back.
2. You can gain XP but only up to a level that will not ruin your game progress in 'normal' mode by making you too strong.
3. All of the monsters scale to meet your current level making it harder to farm earlier stages of the game where people go around one hitting things for the loot.

There would then be room to make 'normal mode' more restrictive while allowing the players who love to farm the ability to do so. If done right, you could potentially change these modes on the fly and satisfy everyones lust for a strict game or a farmers paradise.

thoughts anyone?

[Code187]

Hi, I'm new to this but thought i'd toss in my 2p.

Sorry if this has already been suggested or if it upsets anyone but how about considering a kind of 'farming mode' that enables players to revisit any areas they like to farm. The difference between 'farm' and 'normal' modes would be simple.

1. In farm mode you can not progress your game/story, you can only go back.
2. You can gain XP but only up to a level that will not ruin your game progress in 'normal' mode by making you too strong.
3. All of the monsters scale to meet your current level making it harder to farm earlier stages of the game where people go around one hitting things for the loot.

There would then be room to make 'normal mode' more restrictive while allowing the players who love to farm the ability to do so. If done right, you could potentially change these modes on the fly and satisfy everyones lust for a strict game or a farmers paradise.

thoughts anyone?

duno, i like that the monsters just become stronger if you are at a lvl 10 place when you are lvl 30 the mobs must just be lvl 30+ miniboss 35+ as to meke it funn still.

any way it i understand you right +1........ from me

[Queeg]

Thats pretty much the idea, when in the 'farm mode' all of the beasts and monsters in the lower level areas will scale up to your characters current level range so that there is a real challenge when you farm. The bonus here is because there will be the same level of effort involved in farming, you can leave the majority of the good drops in place as the perceived cheat of it being easy to get the good drops... will be gone! (I hope) :D

The flip side of this would be if you went to a lower level area without being in 'farm mode' the drops would decrease in quality sharply making it utterly pointless to do after maybe 2 or 3 runs for example.

[Renevent]

Hi, I'm new to this but thought i'd toss in my 2p.

Sorry if this has already been suggested or if it upsets anyone but how about considering a kind of 'farming mode' that enables players to revisit any areas they like to farm. The difference between 'farm' and 'normal' modes would be simple.

1. In farm mode you can not progress your game/story, you can only go back.
2. You can gain XP but only up to a level that will not ruin your game progress in 'normal' mode by making you too strong.
3. All of the monsters scale to meet your current level making it harder to farm earlier stages of the game where people go around one hitting things for the loot.

There would then be room to make 'normal mode' more restrictive while allowing the players who love to farm the ability to do so. If done right, you could potentially change these modes on the fly and satisfy everyones lust for a strict game or a farmers paradise.

thoughts anyone?

Sounds like a lot of work to create something that really doesn't seem to bring anything interesting to the table. In fact, I hate the idea :furious:

I joke! But seriously...I hate it :D

[Queeg]

any danger of an explanation to go with that joke? I'm all for constructive comments on the idea. :)

[Renevent]

To me it just seems like a totally unnecessary additional mode to the game. You explain it as it's something simple, but in reality it's probably a lot of work. Depending on mode monster spawns will have to be adjusted throughout the game. In "farm mode" because you can't progress past "where you haven't already been" now the game has to track where you have been and lock areas based on this. How will this be done? Fog of war invisible walls? Every area now needs invisible walls in the chunk segments? Or do the developers now need to design the world with doors/gates/fences/boundaries/ect to decide where players can and can't go based on their progress?

And in the end, the game is designed by difficulties so you do eventually encounter the same enemies in the same locations but stronger and scaled to your level...just in a higher difficulty...so this mode is somewhat redundant to begin with.

Then there's logistical concerns...like breaking up the game into even more modes. Online with TQ you now have normal, epic, and legendary when you want to join games. With this you are essentially turning into 6 different modes (normal, normal farm, epic, epic farm, ect)...

[deimos]

It does seem somewhat pointless, although not necessarily a bad idea in itself. If there was a "farming mode" i'd be opposed to an XP cap while farming. A whole lot of people farm bosses and dangerous mobs not only for the loot but XP as well, often i've been doing that in TQ just to get enough levels for a good artifact before i continue trekking on, for example.

I guess i just don't see the point of it ;) The only gripe i've had regarding farming/loot/etc so far in TQ is that the random drops aren't as random as they should be.. and now even that appears to be fixed. :) Otherwise it's a pleasure to hunt items.

[ASYLUM101]

I'm not sure what the discussion is about, besides "farm mode" "another mode" "monsters scale with you". If it's something along those lines, GD's mobs will scale with the player to a certain extent from what I remember. It won't be like Oblivion, but it won't be static like TQ, so it kinda removes the necessity for this "farm mode" I think.

[Queeg]

Yea Renevent, I see what you mean about the way it could be implemented, I just guess I assumed that a lot of the work had already been done with minimaps tracking progression and online play in TQ that already spawns and kills monsters as needed.

I suppose problem for me is the fact that a lot of the time going back to farm is pretty dull as there is little challenge from the monsters and often poor loot.

Anything to make them worth fighting and drop decent loot would be a plus.

[Queeg]

deimos, I also go back for XP at times :D , we shouldn't just stop all XP farming as that would be lame :) but if the monsters are going to scale you could effectively just farm in 'farm mode' until you were uber and that would spoil the rest of the game so there has to be a limit of sorts to the XP you could gain if such a mode ever existed.

[deimos]

deimos, I also go back for XP at times :D , we shouldn't just stop all XP farming as that would be lame :) but if the monsters are going to scale you could effectively just farm in 'farm mode' until you were uber and that would spoil the rest of the game so there has to be a limit of sorts to the XP you could gain if such a mode ever existed.

It's always up to the players themselves how they play the game, i don't expect a developer to guide my hand around all possible loopholes. :) Blatant exploits are stupid, i know, for example there was a game where you could sell things for a price and buy them back for less. Infinite gold. Still, it's up to the player whether or not to exploit it.

Multiplayer is another thing, i fully support any and all balancing and anti-cheating efforts, in single player "flaws" like that aren't all so bad however.

Instead of trying to stop or limit "XP farming" i think the game should come up with additional challenges for players who over-level themselves :)

[Queeg]

Instead of trying to stop or limit "XP farming" i think the game should come up with additional challenges for players who over-level themselves :)

haha i like :D

[Malpheas]

Instead of trying to stop or limit "XP farming" i think the game should come up with additional challenges for players who over-level themselves :)

Yea, like when monsters spawn, they spawn according to (or at least with reference to ) the player's character level; make it low key. Now when they approach the higher bound level that they have possibilities to spawn at, give them slightly more powerful, or different, skills to use vs. the player. More tact with the new skills would be my preference.

Then even replaying the area would be more fun at higher levels. Maybe rare treasure at those levels as well? This would encourage broader spectrum farming; perhaps for rare materials.

Cheers,

Malpheas

[Hawkn]

Well considering how big of a hit diablo was, and how often people would farm bosses, and even more recently, TQ, i personally enjoy wasting hours just to get the best gear possible on my character. But that's just me. But i do think to keep things balanced, the higher level you are, the less likely an item is to drop, but only to a point. I don't want a 1% drop rate on an item because i'm twice the monster's level.

[heron]

Farming is great for MMO but for something like this .. I dont know!
By the time you collect all the item sets you out level those items.
MMo tend to make you grind but for something like this? I would think story should be more important not looting.

[Hawkn]

Maybe, but it depends if there is pvp, etc. Will gear be a big deal, or will there be tons of different endgame items to use? It really depends which direction they go.

[Bleh]

I find grinding just a time sink to make a game last longer. Of course it shouldn't be made easy but seeing a boss for the 1.000.000 time is not my idea of fun.

[space-time mogul]

@Bleh: I see it the same way.
And I think, Heron said something important - this collecting items that when you got them are no longer of use to you.
This only leads to the players amassing huge numbers of items so that they can use them for a different character later.
Sure this is part of the "experience" of ARPGs, but I mostly find it unnerving.
I would want items to drop according to my level, and would especially want set-items of a given set to drop massively more often when I already got an item of this set. Or something like that.
So I first could find a set-item that is 5 or 10 levels ahead of me, and would already have found one or two more items of this set when I am able to actually wear it.

Other possibility would be to couple set-items with mini-quests so that there would be some NPC that I could talk to whenever I had found a set-item and that would tell me where to go to find the next part of the set.

[Prosoro]

Other possibility would be to couple set-items with mini-quests so that there would be some NPC that I could talk to whenever I had found a set-item and that would tell me where to go to find the next part of the set.

Interesting idea indeed :D

[MageMaster]

Even some kind of Rumor Mill, that you would be able to tap into for interesting hints for people to talk to/ places to go and things to see to try and get those hints for set items. Make you work for them, with a whole quest chain.

Even treasure maps where x marks the spot for you to dig something up.

[The Fallen One]

I never really knew about farming/respawning of monsters until I played Titan Quest. I was used to playing Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (awesome game btw), where monsters could just pop out of nowhere if you just stood there doing nothing. But, you could never face bosses again. Once you fought them, they were gone for good. Of course, the loot system for that game was also much different. Weapons and armor was static, they only dropped from certain battles, chests, or bosses (if you used Morwen's thief skills). Every other monster would just drop medicine at the end of fights. So imagine my surprise when it took me so long to defeat Polyphemus the first time I played, and thinking I was done for him for good...boom he pops out of nowhere!

Farming is definitely an interesting aspect when it comes to bosses. It's more realistic if they never come back, but then how are you going to get all that juicy gear? I actually like the idea that a weapon could drop from a certain area instead of just from one monster or boss. Endless amounts of monsters is much more realistic than facing the same boss over and over and over again. It would be interesting indeed if you guys employed a similar strategy to LotR: The Third Age.

[mamba]

I was used to playing Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (awesome game btw), where monsters could just pop out of nowhere if you just stood there doing nothing. But, you could never face bosses again. Once you fought them, they were gone for good. Of course, the loot system for that game was also much different. Weapons and armor was static, they only dropped from certain battles, chests, or bosses (if you used Morwen's thief skills). Every other monster would just drop medicine at the end of fights.

[...]

I actually like the idea that a weapon could drop from a certain area instead of just from one monster or boss. Endless amounts of monsters is much more realistic than facing the same boss over and over and over again. It would be interesting indeed if you guys employed a similar strategy to LotR: The Third Age.

Don't these two paragraphs contradict each other ?

Items dropping 'from' a certain area to me means from random monsters within that area, not just specific bosses. They do that in TQ, the do not in LotR, so how does changing to a LotR approach achieve this ?

The only thing I could therefore potentially see you wanting is for bosses to be there only once (like LotR) while keeping the random loot from regular monsters of TQ.

I do not like that, I want to be able to kill bosses over and over again, for one it is more challenging / fun than just killing mobs over and over and for another, they have better drop probabilities (you can still get the same items from random mobs).

If you want to kill them once only and get gear from regular respawning mobs, feel free to do so (just walk thru some large area up to the boss (without fighting it), exit and repeat).

[Pvt_Ryan]

Too many replies to read before posting but how about track the kills.
Every time a Boss is killed the following happens
Xp for killing boss = (100-(killcount*3))(baseXP/100)
So the 1st time the boss is killed you get 100xp (for the sake of the maths)
the 2nd time would be XP = ((100-(1*3)(100/100))
XP = 97
3rd time = 94 etc

In addition to that have the bosses HP increase by 10% each time he dies

and finally throw in extras so if a boss has been killed say 3 times we look at a tier 1 pool of general mobs which spawn to help the boss. Once the boss has been downed 6 times we look at a tier 2 pool of slightly better mobs and so on.

[space-time mogul]

@Pvt_Ryan:

The idea in itself is ok, but I would either increase the bosses HP, OR decrease the XP received for killing him.
And why I just wrote "is ok" is, because I don´t know if this would really solve any problem - as quite a few people have mentioned, doing "boss-runs" is an integral part of gameplay for them.
Decreasing the amount of received XP for a boss is not necessary, because this already happens when your level increases.
Making a boss tougher every time could on the other hand lead to bosses getting to tough to beat them pretty quickly, thus making runs on them very annoying.
The whole point of doing such runs is getting better, either through better items and/or through earning XP.

Of course, adjusting the rate at which a boss would get better could solve that problem.
But I then would rather couple the bosses skill to the players level directly.

[irk]

The whole point of doing such runs is getting better, either through better items and/or through earning XP.

I would think having the boss only drop good items the first time, rather than multiple times, would stop some farming...

[REDASSBABOON]

Make "trap" runs, where the farmers would be subject to ambushes from the enemy/dark forces farmers. The Dark force farmers do save and exit reruns after they waste you, take your loot, you get trolled. No, lol just make some ambushes for the player, by some pcp-junky monster that chases you with its posse.

Also make secret dungeons, and random em in the world, they'd be super unique though, don't make em appear near the bosses so people can do runs in throughout the province instead of the municipality.

Put in earthquakes/disasters and add a skill for the warrior that gives him the ability to increase his attack speed with every consecutive attack with a cap of 100. Yes good stuff, remember that weapon that has chance to cast chain lightnin as well.

[Pvt_Ryan]

@Pvt_Ryan:

Making a boss tougher every time could on the other hand lead to bosses getting to tough to beat them pretty quickly, thus making runs on them very annoying.
The whole point of doing such runs is getting better, either through better items and/or through earning XP.

Of course, adjusting the rate at which a boss would get better could solve that problem.
But I then would rather couple the bosses skill to the players level directly.

I wasn't trying to discourage farming as it is part of the game but I was trying to make it harder so that it would at least provide a challenge each time. Of course you could take my idea one step further and introduce an HP cap per boss so that the bosses will eventually become easy.

[space-time mogul]

@Ryan: Problem here, as I see it, is that how easy a boss is to beat depends on so many variables that it is very hard to calculate when it is appropriate to enhance the bosses strength and how much.
The most simple approach would be to let the bosses level rise with the level of the character.
But if a boss is already to hard for the player to beat, then rising it´s level when the characters level goes up could end up frustrating the player very much.
Another way would be to adjust the bosses strength by some fuzzy logic kinda way, taking into account several variables to determine the characters strength against this special boss.
Of course, if applied properly, this could be used to judge the characters strength pretty precisely.
Only that this could require a whole bunch of variables to be taken into account - requiring different variables for each boss.

So I´m not saying that this wouldn´t be possible at all, only that it could pose quite a challenge for the designers.

[Nospheratus]

I gave up reading around page 17, but would like to add my personal opinion about farming.

In my opinion there are two types of players in regards to their approach to a game. Those that play it from a single-player perspective that follow the story, end the game and sometimes don't even run the game in the harder difficulties. For them, their character development is finished. Then there are those that want more and more power, be it leveling, equipment or just to complete the other difficulty settings. Two different attitudes that will lead to different behaviors.
The reward itself for each one is different, and the kind of dedication each puts into one path or the other is different.

That said, and very simply put: You can't expect to be as powerful (equipment/level wise) as another player that expends a much greater effort. And that effort should be rewarded!

So, yes to unrestricted farming! :)

[Dominus]

Like Nospheratus I didn't read this entire topic, but there's a lot of really good suggestions here for tackling the "problem" of farming. Although personally I quite enjoy making a bunch of boss runs back to back to try and snag some new loot before moving on to the next act/area/etc.

What I would suggest though is perhaps introducing a new risk/reward system into a boss fight once that boss has been beaten initially as part of the storyline. From what I've read about the game so far there's a real supernatural vibe, so perhaps the concept of a boss' "shade" or reanimated form would hold some merit.

Basically, each time you re-enter the boss area, the game randomly re-rolls the boss as either a tougher or weaker form, with the rewards commensurate to the risk. This in itself adds an element of farming to the boss encounter, hoping you encounter a tougher boss but not one so tough you can't beat it. You could even make it so each revisiting has other random values, such as spawning a bunch of extra minions around him or giving him an immunity to certain damage.

Essentially what I'm saying is you should just embrace the farming that is part and parcel with these ARPGs and actually make it a valid and enjoyable part of your game. You could even introduce a quest to harvest certain parts/relics from the boss that bestows a unique user title or something. Make it part of the experience...a lot of people will thank you for it, and so long as it isn't something mandatory, it shouldn't bother other players either.

[myrmidon]

I think you guys should keep it the same. i like to farm it keeps you entertained after you beat the game alot

[Josho]

First post, and with it, my thoughts on item farming.

Basically, why not create an area similar to the secret cow level of Diablo II. Hand crafted, or random level, it probably won't matter. It should be a nice large area separate from the main game designed specifically to try and find items. Hordes of minions, with a higher rate than normal of the "boss style" monsters, probably broken into areas.

I agree that item farming should be removed from the idea of game progression, which is where one condition becomes attached. By going to the "item farm," experience is not gained, so the character can only progress their equipment, not their character.

But then, what about boss runs in the normal game where good equipment can drop, and large amounts of experience can be gained? Well, if Grim Dawn follows in the Titan Quest way of having the nearest waypoints being a rebirth fountain or three away from the boss (still some fairly significant ground to cover) then that alone was enough for me to dread doing boss runs.

Basically, this idea should be a way to reward the player by getting a decent number of good item drops in a shorter period of time, at the sacrifice of no experience gained. Hopefully, a simple system also.

[Aesir Rising]

What are your thoughts?

I like the idea in the top post, linking rewards to XP gains, and dwindling as you progress.

Not that I hate the idea of other people farming - but I don't want the game to be balanced based on the developers' assumption that people are going to grind gear. Because the de facto result, even if not fully-intended, is that *everyone* needs to gind gear to keep up with the Joneses (even in the single player game where I'd likely spend most of my play time).

Incidentally, I had a chance to see in action an implementation of the core idea in the top post during my years playing a custom Neverwinter Nights persistent (multiplayer) world. There, a custom XP and loot table reduced the rewards earned in both loot and XP from grinding MOBs based on the total number of kills your character had against a given MOB (and the character or party level compared to the monster level). After a relatively short time, if you kept grinding a given spawn area and MOB type, you ended up blowing play time earning just 1 XP a kill and getting little (or zero) loot. This nudged you towards newer and greater challenges as your character progressed. It worked well there.

Whatever you end up doing, please remember some of us prefer questing and exploring new areas over grinding the phat lewtz. Though there is something to be said for picking up new shiny drops as well. :)

[inebriatedcaribou]

I am all for keeping farming the way it is and has been. I really like TQ and how if you didn't have the nearest rebirth fountain getting to a boss like Typhon took some effort and, for me at least, running through that mountain to the Telkine was more fun than the run from the Olympus fountain to Typhon. I think I like this run more because its harder and better XP than the mobs in Olympus. Although there have been times where I wish Olympus had a portal so I could do a few quick Typhon runs before work or before bed, etc.

I just wanna say a quick thank you for TQ and thanks in advance for Grim Dawn. (thanks to soulseekor for the GD news in the defiler! i would have never known.)

It took me a few days to read this whole thread, mainly because I've been on a huge TQ binge lately and when reading about farming and people's ideas, I just want to play! Anyway, I had an idea kind of early on in reading the thread of an arena. And then arena popped up a few times in conversation but nobody really had the idea that I did.. that is until about page 18 I think. But I'd like to add on to that idea a little and see what people think.

It was Randomness who posted the idea of an Arena that, when you kill a boss it gets added to the arena. Well this is almost exactly what I was thinking early on in the thread. (And this isn't really instead of normal farming, this is in addition too). You "collect" boss monsters and named champions that get added to the arena. And when you enter the arena, you get a small options box where you can select the hardest "wave" you want to face and pay a fee based on difficulty and then its "all-you-can-eat" so to speak. As long as you don't exit or die, you can keep fighting random waves up to the hardest difficulty you chose. And I'd say there is little to no XP in the arena (so it can't be exploited for power leveling?) but there are some decent drops (maybe even some slightly different drops than in story areas?) and you can choose what to pick up and everything goes into some Arena chests that you can view when you're done and decide what to keep. But if you die, you lose everything. I'd also say that items dropped in the arena should either have no sale value or like 1/2 or 1/3 the value.

Wow, I think I'll cut myself off there cuz I know someone a few pages ago said to keep posts short. So if anyone likes this idea I can expand on some ideas for the difficulty options and such.


-inebriatedcaribou

[Squirrel_Bane]

i think a specialized area with a random generated map could be used for loot. i also think the inclusion of random generated items with good potential to be far greater than preset elite items is required.

as for the area i was thinking of devil may cry's bloody palace, mixed with pokemon's Cerulean cave, mixed with the area of the original zelda map where you had to go left to get out or it would repeat itself. lmao, kinda strange. a repeating map where if you go in all but a particular direction, you reach a deeper stage with a randomized map, creatures, and possibly quests. of course, go back where you came, and you end up at the beginning. stronger creatures give rarer loot. gives the illusion of going somewhere and advancing through stronger and stronger creatures, all the while gaining good loot and not actually going anywhere. lol
more or less a battle simulation where you gain loot as opposed to xp.

as for type of loot, mods and number of mods on magic/rare(blue/yellow[diablo], yellow/green[TQ]) should be based on character level and difference between char/monster level. easily allowing for ultra elite items(better than the preset elite items). allowing for characters to be unique and preventing the game from being spammed with cookie cutter elite sets/epics/legendaries/uniques.


stupid idea? probably. am i retarded? pretty much. but there is my two cents.

[Sile]

It would be good if there was an option that the game takes into account what class your using and only class specific loot drops off *bosses*. Whether it be set peices or swords for sword using classes etc.

Then at least, if you are farming, you not killing the same boss 30 times to get 1 peice of armour you can use.

Then obviously, you could turn the feature off so that bosses drop any type of item.

I still like the idea of having a rebirth fountain type thing close to a boss so I only have a 5-10 minute fight to get to the boss, like Typhoon. So with the above idea, it would make farming a lot quicker for your class items, but it doesn't take away the actual joy of farming a boss.

Best of both worlds imo, whether something like that is easy enoguh to do though is another question.

[EmperorZanus]

It would be good if there was an option that the game takes into account what class your using and only class specific loot drops off *bosses*. Whether it be set peices or swords for sword using classes etc.

Then at least, if you are farming, you not killing the same boss 30 times to get 1 peice of armour you can use.

Then obviously, you could turn the feature off so that bosses drop any type of item.

I still like the idea of having a rebirth fountain type thing close to a boss so I only have a 5-10 minute fight to get to the boss, like Typhoon. So with the above idea, it would make farming a lot quicker for your class items, but it doesn't take away the actual joy of farming a boss.

Best of both worlds imo, whether something like that is easy enoguh to do though is another question.

Thanks for posting that idea. I totally agree!! I love farming bosses for cool loot and I don't always have lots of time for long stints of play. Having options in my control that allow me to tailor my experience for "bite sized" gaming makes me happy.

EZ

[Kardiophylax]

It would be good if there was an option that the game takes into account what class your using and only class specific loot drops off *bosses*. Whether it be set peices or swords for sword using classes etc.

Then at least, if you are farming, you not killing the same boss 30 times to get 1 peice of armour you can use.

Then obviously, you could turn the feature off so that bosses drop any type of item.

I still like the idea of having a rebirth fountain type thing close to a boss so I only have a 5-10 minute fight to get to the boss, like Typhoon. So with the above idea, it would make farming a lot quicker for your class items, but it doesn't take away the actual joy of farming a boss.

Best of both worlds imo, whether something like that is easy enoguh to do though is another question.

Not a bad idea, but I actually like getting cool items I can't use on my primary character. I also enjoy the thrill of the hunt. It makes that item you've been searching for so much sweeter when you find it.

I agree that the drop rates are a tad low in TQ though, especially on first boss kills where you get nothing but yellows and maybe a brown or two.

[R3D]

i think fixing farming is not possible the closest idea i can think to do is the endless dungeon idea. that is it would offer an alternative way to get loot/xp and not force u to ruin the story as it is given to u or grind the same area over and over.
now working in an endless dungeon into the world and making it make scene is probably just as hard to do, but is doesn't have to be a dungeon it could be an arena where u fight through endless rounds but the xp/loot are designed around farming, or random encounter style mini quests that can offer a high loot/xp pay off if u survive (running along floor gives way stuck in an underground mine till the exit is found eg rope that lets u clime out of where u fell in). i don't no but something that offers a different choice to doing boss x y z.

don't no if it can be fixed as people will always farm bosses unless u take away there ability to drop sweet loot after a toon kills them once, and then people will still want to farm and u are just taking something away from players.

[Tarnsman]

Just to tune in on the farming issue, I farm very little myself. I like having random champion monsters scattered through the game that can have good drops. I will generally just play through all the maps again just so the scenery doesn't get stale, and maybe pop in and do a couple of boss runs from time to time...