1 Topic by pennywise

  • pennywise
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  • Registered: June 26th, 2003
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Topic: New uses for the instanced map system.

For starters, I think that the idea behind the pit map is great.  It's about time that a mechanic was added to the game that encouraged group play.  However, I think that a systems like this has a lot more potential and could be expanded on to allow more and different types of players to get involved and allow for a greater level of difficulty tuning.

Here's some basic ideas that I think would work well and would help make the game more akin to other MMOs on the market.

Firstly, in order for these to work with prime effectiveness, the party system would either have to be reformed or the scripting engine would have to allow for limited amounts/levels of players in a given zone (which might already exist as I've never actually seen the available commands for the scripting language or map editor)

My first idea is to make instanced zones that are selectable on a level specific basis.  For example, you can allow 5-10 players in a group at level 20 to run a gauntlet of rats, then perhaps skeletons, and so on(scaling up the difficulty but keeping the monsters confined to the level of the selected instance).  At the end of a few waves, you could have a monster that's a little more difficult and would require class synergy(see attack classes and healing) to defeat.  At the end of the round, each player gets a specific amount of experience that would be greater than if the players had been playing solo(this would support group play and allow for greater control in level scaling even without a level cap).  Also, the players would perhaps get a level appropriate item and/or gold randomly awarded for completing the zone(with the odds of  common items>prefix/suffix common>unique>artifact).

Of course, with higher level instances, you would have much more challenging encounters with a much higher reward at the end (including chances at rare items that would be much higher than grinding solo).

If a system like this were added, it would encourage more group play, allow better control over experience scaling for low level players, allow you to add interesting stories/lore behind the mass killing and just allow for a playing experience that goes a little beyond the 90's style grind-heavy Asian MMO experience.

Last edited by pennywise (April 5th, 2010 5:22 PM)

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2 Reply by Mr Spy

  • Mr Spy
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Re: New uses for the instanced map system.

I think it's a great idea, and it could to some extent be added to the current server.

There is an area which does something like you mention, it's the Royal Sewers. It's basically the same as the pit but it has gradually harder monster waves. It is however, not level based, and it's not really an area where you're supposed to level and lacks a proper reward system (it's just some gold at this moment).

One problem with such a thing however is that only one team of players can use an area at the same time with the current server.

3 Reply by pennywise

  • pennywise
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Re: New uses for the instanced map system.

Mr Spy wrote:

I think it's a great idea, and it could to some extent be added to the current server.

There is an area which does something like you mention, it's the Royal Sewers. It's basically the same as the pit but it has gradually harder monster waves. It is however, not level based, and it's not really an area where you're supposed to level and lacks a proper reward system (it's just some gold at this moment).

One problem with such a thing however is that only one team of players can use an area at the same time with the current server.


Well the progressively harder monsters is cool, but I was just thinking that the system would be better used to make like individualized, group-based linear dungeon-type zones like you see in games like Diablo.  I'm pretty sure that I heard that the new client will allow on-the-fly monster editing which would be great for creating actual bosses and such(please update your dev notes, Zer   wink  ).

While a lot of headway has been made towards making progression a little more interesting than it was in the past, it's really about time to add real "dungeons" and real "bosses".  The pit system is a great idea and if Zer can implement multiple instances of the same map running at the same time, it will really push this game into the 21st century as it would allow for proper balancing and limit griefing while in dungeons.

In my opinion this idea as well as more dynamic, scriptable monster monster UI would make this game amazing.

Last edited by pennywise (April 6th, 2010 11:11 PM)

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