On "Farming"

[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]

Originally Posted by Furycat

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!

[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]

Originally Posted by Flambe

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.