Not Hard-Core Enough. Ghosting, Home Points and Haven

[Shiroi]

So yesterday I suddenly got the urge to get a book only to realize that that specific book could only be bought from a town that's on the opposite side of the map. "No worries" I thought, "I'll just suicide, ghost there, kill a couple of pigs to make the few gold coins I need for the book, suicide again, click on home point and I'll be back home before dinner". Then I thought "hold on, I don't even need to go through the hassle of killing stupid pigs. I just need to sell some of the stuff that I have in my haven bank. That's even better, yay!"

I think many of you guys here are familiar with this story and you know where I'm going with this.

As the title says, ghosting, home points and Haven banks cheapen the experience. I don't think anyone should be able to get a book that is exclusive to certain towns/areas this easily, fast and with zero risk. Books like any resource should have a risk involved with them when trying to get them.
This can also make it so people can make a trade out of getting books from place to place and selling them for a profit which would be good for the economy.

I am using books in this example, but my issue with the above features extends beyond just books.

I think that ghosting, home points and nearest priest should never be used as a mean of safe and fast travel for long distances.
I think that home points and nearest priest should either be removed entirely or if they must stay (which I honestly don't see their purpose), you should only be able to teleport to them when you're close enough that you can see the priest beacon. Teleporting from one side of the map to the other side with just one click is just too cheesy in my opinion.

As for ghosting, I think you should only be able to travel in ghost form within a certain radius from the point where you died. The radius can be determined with closest priests to you. It doesn't have to be just one priest. The game could give you the option of a few priests, one in each direction, but no more than that. The idea here is the same as with home points. You should not be able to traverse the whole map at high speed and in complete safety.

As for Haven, well Haven is supposed to be a tutorial area. So that's all it should be, no more, no less.
I think Haven banks should be completely removed from the game and I also think that you shouldn't be able to carry anything with you from Haven to the main map and that includes skills.
In fact I think that the character you use to log into the main map should be a completely different character from the one you use in Haven.

My suggestion is that in the login menu you should have 2 options at all times. You can either log into the main map or into Haven, with your character in Haven being a completely different character than the one in the main map.
They can also make it so that when the game goes persistent, that they can keep the 100x speed on leveling and even allow multiple characters in Haven so that new players can experiment with different builds and crafts and so on. But as soon as they try to log into to the main map, they would have to create a completely new character.

I have other suggestions for Haven, but those are not related to the main point I'm trying to make in this post.

I'm curious to hear what other people think of these issues. Thanks for reading.

Cheers Guys!

 

[Dracu]

Haven exclusive character that is x100... interesting idea^^

 

[Grack]

So yesterday I suddenly got the urge to get a book only to realize that that specific book could only be bought from a town that's on the opposite side of the map. "No worries" I thought, "I'll just suicide, ghost there, kill a couple of pigs to make the few gold coins I need for the book, suicide again, click on home point and I'll be back home before dinner". Then I thought "hold on, I don't even need to go through the hassle of killing stupid pigs. I just need to sell some of the stuff that I have in my haven bank. That's even better, yay!"

I think many of you guys here are familiar with this story and you know where I'm going with this.

As the title says, ghosting, home points and Haven banks cheapen the experience. I don't think anyone should be able to get a book that is exclusive to certain towns/areas this easily, fast and with zero risk. Books like any resource should have a risk involved with them when trying to get them.
This can also make it so people can make a trade out of getting books from place to place and selling them for a profit which would be good for the economy.

I am using books in this example, but my issue with the above features extends beyond just books.

I think that ghosting, home points and nearest priest should never be used as a mean of safe and fast travel for long distances.
I think that home points and nearest priest should either be removed entirely or if they must stay (which I honestly don't see their purpose), you should only be able to teleport to them when you're close enough that you can see the priest beacon. Teleporting from one side of the map to the other side with just one click is just too cheesy in my opinion.

As for ghosting, I think you should only be able to travel in ghost form within a certain radius from the point where you died. The radius can be determined with closest priests to you. It doesn't have to be just one priest. The game could give you the option of a few priests, one in each direction, but no more than that. The idea here is the same as with home points. You should not be able to traverse the whole map at high speed and in complete safety.

As for Haven, well Haven is supposed to be a tutorial area. So that's all it should be, no more, no less.
I think Haven banks should be completely removed from the game and I also think that you shouldn't be able to carry anything with you from Haven to the main map and that includes skills.
In fact I think that the character you use to log into the main map should be a completely different character from the one you use in Haven.

My suggestion is that in the login menu you should have 2 options at all times. You can either log into the main map or into Haven, with your character in Haven being a completely different character than the one in the main map.
They can also make it so that when the game goes persistent, that they can keep the 100x speed on leveling and even allow multiple characters in Haven so that new players can experiment with different builds and crafts and so on. But as soon as they try to log into to the main map, they would have to create a completely new character.

I have other suggestions for Haven, but those are not related to the main point I'm trying to make in this post.

I'm curious to hear what other people think of these issues. Thanks for reading.

Cheers Guys!

I think we need to keep in mind that some features in the game such as heaven banks are the way they are to help promote players convenience for testing, and that in the full game we won't have features exactly the same. Although it never hurts to explain why they shouldn't remain the same.

Things I hope will be changed for real game.

-Ghosting. it seems crazy to allow ghost to scout living players, I hope that changes.

-Red priest outside of every town. I can understand why it is like this currently but in the live game ? Seems like this will only lead to town camping and what does helping that add to the game exactly ?

-Haven bank transfer. Im fine with taking skills into the game, this will help players who are knew have a more even playing field with older players who have a massive gear and total full level skills over them. You should not be able to transfer anything from haven however, just seems like its making more problems then it needs too.

 

[Archiel]

Taking away home/nearest priest would be terrible for anyone that doesn't want to spend hours ghosting the map when they die, if you are an MO player you will know that death comes in many forms and not all of them are intended, so to die from a bug is bad enough but to then spend precious time ghosting all the way back would suck.

I have faith that SV will see the issues of haven bank transfer.

Being able to travel back to haven to help out new players would be a great idea as long as you can only get there in ghost mode and leave the same way (provided the banks no longer transfer).

 

[Shiroi]

Taking away home/nearest priest would be terrible for anyone that doesn't want to spend hours ghosting the map when they die, if you are an MO player you will know that death comes in many forms and not all of them are intended, so to die from a bug is bad enough but to then spend precious time ghosting all the way back would suck.

First of all, basing a game mechanic on a bug is simply just not good game design. Bugs should be fixed and nobody should expect to die from bugs. Period.

Second of all, where did you get the idea of ghosting for HOURS after you die. I believe there isn't a point on the map that's more than 30min to a priest.
So yes you will have to ghost around for a bit, but it's nowhere near as bad as you make it sound. And I think it is a fair punishment for dying. Hence the title of this thread.

Anyway, the whole point I'm trying to make is that, the way these mechanics are currently implemented make them way too easy to abuse as illustrated by the story in my original post.

Being able to travel back to haven to help out new players would be a great idea as long as you can only get there in ghost mode and leave the same way (provided the banks no longer transfer).

This could also be solved by my suggestion of making Haven and main map characters completely separate. With my suggestion, you could go back to Haven at any point whether to help a new friend out or simply to test out stuff, without it having any repercussions on your main character in the main map.

 

[Shiroi]

-Ghosting. it seems crazy to allow ghost to scout living players, I hope that changes.

This as well as being able to travel quickly and safely around the map in ghost form are some of the things that make dying have positives in certain situations.
I don't think dying should have any positive sides to it.
If they want to have Scouting game mechanics or even some sort of invisibility spell, I would be more than fine with it as long as it's well implemented into the gameplay with skill points requirements and so on.

 

[Archiel]

First of all, basing a game mechanic on a bug is simply just not good game design. Bugs should be fixed and nobody should expect to die from bugs. Period.

Second of all, where did you get the idea of ghosting for HOURS after you die. I believe there isn't a point on the map that's more than 30min to a priest.
So yes you will have to ghost around for a bit, but it's nowhere near as bad as you make it sound. And I think it is a fair punishment for dying. Hence the title of this thread.

Anyway, the whole point I'm trying to make is that, the way these mechanics are currently implemented make them way too easy to abuse as illustrated by the story in my original post.



This could also be solved by my suggestion of making Haven and main map characters completely separate. With my suggestion, you could go back to Haven at any point whether to help a new friend out or simply to test out stuff, without it having any repercussions on your main character in the main map.

In a perfect world games wouldn't have bugs but they do and probably always will, the home priest mechanic isn't based around this, it was implemented as a convenience QoL change.

If you live in Meduli and die in GK I would estimate (not tested) close to an hour of ghosting to get home, longer if you rez at a priest and run back.

The punishment for dying is losing time and loot (full loot game) don't need to lose extra time ghosting.

 

[Jackdstripper]

Ghost scouting was eventually removed from MO1 cause it was a very cheesy mechanic. Pretty sure this will be fixed in MO2 soon enough. It’s just not a huge priority right now.

Haven bank will also be changed I’m sure. Either gold/ skill gains will be hugely nerfed in Haven. Or there will be only a limited time that you’ll be able to spend there. I do agree that you shouldn’t be able to bring anything over though. Skills or gold. Once you leave Haven everything should go back to 0.

I like the fast ghosting especially in such a huge map. I have a feeling it will be nerfed though.

 

[Shiroi]

In a perfect world games wouldn't have bugs but they do and probably always will, the home priest mechanic isn't based around this, it was implemented as a convenience QoL change.

If you live in Meduli and die in GK I would estimate (not tested) close to an hour of ghosting to get home, longer if you rez at a priest and run back.

The punishment for dying is losing time and loot (full loot game) don't need to lose extra time ghosting.

But this is EXACTLY my point lol

If you live in Meduli and decide to travel to GK, you SHOULD be prepared to make the trip both ways and that's whether you die or not.

If you die, well you can resurrect in GK (or closest priest) and still make the trip back to Meduli, alive and not as a ghost.

The problem is now people don't even need the excuse of dying to someone else. They actually have part of their plan to just suicide and get back home with the click of a button. In this case why don't we just have teleportation like every theme park mmo? This way nobody loses time ghosting or traveling for that matter like you say.

Cheers

 

[Jackdstripper]

Well you do have teleportation in MO2. The option to teleport back to home priest is just that.

ghosting as a means of travel still takes time. you still have to navigate the map and can’t just jump over mountains or obstacles. Teleporting between cities (even naked) is super cheesy. Not to mention that it gives people the ability to instantly move large armies of people anywhere on the map. Yes, can also do that by ghosting but it takes a lot more time especially the further away you are. When you have to ghost from GK to Meduli you’ll think twice about it. If it’s just a quick teleport away you’ll do it any chance you get. This changes the dynamic of battles as people would be able to 3rd party a fight almost instantly upon hearing about it, instead of having to spend the time to travel there first (ghost or not). On top of all this there is also the Spiritism school (not yet in game) which allows for banishing of ghosts. That would be kind of rendered useless by instant teleport.

 

[Kebek]

But this is EXACTLY my point lol

If you live in Meduli and decide to travel to GK, you SHOULD be prepared to make the trip both ways and that's whether you die or not.

If you die, well you can resurrect in GK (or closest priest) and still make the trip back to Meduli, alive and not as a ghost.

The problem is now people don't even need the excuse of dying to someone else. They actually have part of their plan to just suicide and get back home with the click of a button. In this case why don't we just have teleportation like every theme park mmo? This way nobody loses time ghosting or traveling for that matter like you say.

Cheers

Yes and people seem to like this game moving away from hardcore to more mainstream and "easy".

 

[Shiroi]

Well you do have teleportation in MO2. The option to teleport back to home priest is just that.

ghosting as a means of travel still takes time. you still have to navigate the map and can’t just jump over mountains or obstacles. Teleporting between cities (even naked) is super cheesy. Not to mention that it gives people the ability to instantly move large armies of people anywhere on the map. Yes, can also do that by ghosting but it takes a lot more time especially the further away you are. When you have to ghost from GK to Meduli you’ll think twice about it. If it’s just a quick teleport away you’ll do it any chance you get. On top of all this there is also the Spiritism school (not yet in game) which allows for banishing of ghosts. That would be kind of rendered useless by instant teleport.

I was being sarcastic when I said why not have teleportation. Of course I don't want teleportation is this game lol

I understand that teleportation is not the same as ghosting. But ghosting is still too easy and requires very little effort.

I understand that many people like it because it makes the travelling more convenient especially since the map is big.

It also seems that we agree about Haven stuff.

What about home teleportation? You didn't mention it. What do you think about it?

Cheers

 

[Shiroi]

Yes and people seem to like this game moving away from hardcore to more mainstream and "easy".

That just doesn't make sense to me. Why would anyone looking for mainstream and 'easy' be even looking at or thinking of playing MO.

What about you? What do you think about the suggestions?

 

[Jackdstripper]

Home teleportation wasn’t originally in MO1, it was added because too many new players complained about spending hours and hours looking for priests especially in difficult regions of the map like the jungle. This was back when there weren’t any maps that you could easily google. So yea, the game was even more hard core back then.

I think it’a a necessary evil to help new players not rage quit every time they die in unfamiliar parts of the map. It doesn’t really break the game that much, besides maybe giving the “home team” a bit of an advantage when battling close to their city. One more reason to have and control your own home turf I guess.

 

[Kebek]

That just doesn't make sense to me. Why would anyone looking for mainstream and 'easy' be even looking at or thinking of playing MO.

What about you? What do you think about the suggestions?

I want the game to be more hardcore. I proposed permadeath and a lot of people are like "oh no, that's too harsh". They don't seem to want any actual consequences for their choices that end up killing them.

Like the title says, the game isn't hardcore enough.

 

[Shiroi]

Home teleportation wasn’t originally in MO1, it was added because too many new players complained about spending hours and hours looking for priests especially in difficult regions of the map like the jungle. This was back when there weren’t any maps that you could easily google. So yea, the game was even more hard core back then.

I think it’a a necessary evil to help new players not rage quit every time they die in unfamiliar parts of the map. It doesn’t really break the game that much, besides maybe giving the “home team” a bit of an advantage when battling close to their city. One more reason to have and control your own home turf I guess.

I get what you're saying.

But I still believe that if you decide to go to the jungle for example, then you should be well prepared.

Rage quitting just because you got lost in the jungle is like rage quitting because you lost twice to a boss in Darksouls. It just mean that this game is not for you.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback.

Cheers

 

[Shiroi]

I want the game to be more hardcore. I proposed permadeath and a lot of people are like "oh no, that's too harsh". They don't seem to want any actual consequences for their choices that end up killing them.

Like the title says, the game isn't hardcore enough.

Interesting.

How do you propose permadeath to be implemented?

 

[Kebek]

Interesting.

How do you propose permadeath to be implemented?

I figured a "lives system" could be viable. Similar to how muder counts disappear after a certain set of time has passed, lives could be regained after a certain amount of time. If you die when you have 0 lives left, you need to reroll.

This would create a bigger value to your life while at the same time not punishing you with loss of your character on your first death. Every death would simply have more meaning than just losing your loot and people who play carelessly and throw their lives away will suffer the consequences.

 

[Kokolo]

How about something like a 20 minute timer on "teleport"? It prevents the instant bonuses of suicide, but saves some time for long ass travels.

 

[Rorry]

I figured a "lives system" could be viable. Similar to how muder counts disappear after a certain set of time has passed, lives could be regained after a certain amount of time. If you die when you have 0 lives left, you need to reroll.

This would create a bigger value to your life while at the same time not punishing you with loss of your character on your first death. Every death would simply have more meaning than just losing your loot and people who play carelessly and throw their lives away will suffer the consequences.

We need new people to play the game. Some of them die 20+ times a day.


Also, imagine getting stuck in a crack in the rock and not being able to suicide and teleport to a priest. You might not get out for a week in certain time zones.