Mob interactions

A post I recently made on Zro's recent semi-goodbye thread got me thinking along these lines... I think we need to figure out ways to vastly improve interactions with mobs in FL, most importantly because I think it'd be a great way to keep new players interested despite the obvious lack of other players to regularly interact with. I think we need more interesting and in-depth mob quests, and I think we need these quests to have lasting impacts in the world so that people see actual results of their actions rather than just being sent to kill some random mob, being given gold and exp, and then being sent to do that same thing again and again and again.

Some ideas I've been toying around with a little bit:

1. Give guilds various rewards based on how often members are fulfilling guild quests. Say, if you complete five guild quests in a single log-in, you gain an exp bonus, or a bonus on future expgain for the remainder of your login, or the invoker guild gets a +1 bonus to spell level if their members complete 50 guild quests in a week, etc.

2. Quests that have definitive results in the game world. Do quests for a shopkeeper, earn permanent discounts at his store. Do quests for a city official, the city has extra guards for a while - conversely, do quests for a Syndicate mob, and city guards are fewer in number for a while, or take longer to repop, etc. Lots of possibilities here.

3. More quests along the Dragon Slayer or newbie quests line, but particularly aimed at the 15-40 range. Lots of exp bonuses, preferably some eq bonuses as well... we want people to want to do these quests because they're fun to do and worth the reward, not just because they're powergaming for Master Questor.

4. RP-oriented guild quests. Quests with multiple-choice answers for people of different temperaments, that turn out in different ways and reward you differently for having completed them in varying ways. They could be based along how certain qraces/qclasses have quests built for them, but reward them no matter the answer picked - just reward them in different ways (but make sure it's an actual reward - I honestly hate that the tarot card quest and dartboard can kill you so easily, and to newer people, that they do this can be very much an unexpected and undesired experience).

You know, if I wanted to play a quest game, I would diablo.

The being said, I've had IMM interactions every day in the past 3-4 days I've logged.

Yes, because I was really arguing in favor of making this game only about quests, I wasn't looking to find ways to make the game more interactive on its own merits without necessarily requiring other players to interact with to keep newer players interested...

I was looking to find ways to make the game more interactive on its own merits without necessarily requiring other players to interact with to keep newer players interested...

"I wasn't" was a typo I guess?

You simply can not do that with an automated system. The more quests you add, the more they will feel like chores.

Lets not lie to ourselves, the only way a new player can be kept interested is with interactions, be it with other players or with immortals.

Interesting, well-designed quests can make interacting with the game world interesting on its own merits, rather than just other players within it being all that is worth interacting with.

And no, I did not have any typos in my last post. You simply failed to recognize the sarcasm.

Agreed with Pali completely.

Been thinking for awhile that a few 'minor' but interesting quests would really help - things similar to the newbie quests, that engage someone and logically lead to the next quest.

I think the idea of doing 5 or 10 guildquests in a session having a nice hefty exp bonus would be great for the low population ranking situation.

I also think the chances of death from those 2 particular quests should be removed and either the rewards decreased or cost increased.

firstly, 1 & 2 sounds practical, so, they get a thumbs up...4 would simply be nice...

secondly, darts are the devil!

Oh how I hate those two quests...

The death part should definetely be removed from the darts.

You know, if I wanted to play a quest game, I would diablo.

The being said, I've had IMM interactions every day in the past 3-4 days I've logged.

Wow, lucky for you, I've had one positive one that lasted about 30 seconds since I've been back.

I really enjoy the quest idea. I wish this game had more quests plus the exp bonus idea. I dunno about the + spell level as that could be insane paired with spell level eq.

Don't compare this to another game. It is it's own world and to some it could be their questing game.

I don't know why you get so hyped about quests.

I personally find doing quests almost as annoying as gathering consumables. At least, once you do all the quests it's done.

If you are asking me, remove quests altogether and give that same bonuses for RP. Or even better, make a shop with neat items which can be bought with points. Points which will be given by the IMMs for RP.

Seems much better to me than the useless running all over aabahran that quests offer.

That is why I'm arguing in favor of making quests that are more intricate and interesting than the ones we have now, because I fully agree that right now a lot of quests are just pointless running around. Did you even read my post? If you did, I can't imagine how you have this concept that I'm arguing for more quests exactly like the ones we have now.

P.S. Bonuses for RP are great and all, but they require player interaction - I'm looking for ways to make the game more interesting that are NOT dependent on player interaction, because player interaction is at an all time low right now and the only way we can fix it is by making the game fun enough to play through other means that new players WANT to play it.

because I fully agree that right now a lot of quests are just pointless running around.

Yes I read your suggestion. And the examples you give, about "intereting" quest is still boring. What does a quest need to become interesting, for you? The reward?

I personally find ALL quests boring. Now I don't mind your suggestion, but this is a multiplayer game. We need to look for other ways, not players having fun alone.

[edit]

There are no interactions? Make people want to interact.

There no people online? Make people want to be online. Everything is easy with the right approach.

But making a multiplayer game more fun when "alone" will only accelerate our demise.

What you're seeing here is how many variables come into play when trying to build the population of a game such as ours. It isn't JUST about interaction. It isn't JUST about leveling.

You need more players online!

You need them to want to be online!

Well you need them to experience interaction!

Well you need people for them to interact with!

You need more players online!

You need...wait a minute....

We need to look for other ways, not players having fun alone.

The problem is that right now, people spend lots of time alone, and particularly a large portion of their pre-50 time - and many players, but especially new ones, will not continue to play a game unless they are finding it fun.

There are no interactions? Make people want to interact.

People already want to interact. The problem is a lack of things to interact with.

There no people online? Make people want to be online. Everything is easy with the right approach.

That's exactly what I'm trying to do here: come up with ways to make people want to be online, regardless of how many other people happen to be online.

But making a multiplayer game more fun when "alone" will only accelerate our demise.

Making a game where alone time is boring, but you still are forced to spend a great deal of your time alone simply because of circumstances, will accelerate our demise.

I am not trying to come up with ideas because I'm bored. I'm trying to come up with ideas because right now, I do not play FL. It's not because I don't have the time - I do. It's not because I get my butt kicked too much and I'm sore about it - I tend to average at least an 8-1 kill/death ratio even nowadays. It's not because I can't come up with interesting RP concepts. It's because I have plenty of other games that are fun to play from beginning to end, games where I don't feel like I'm just working for 50 or so hours to get to the point where things become fun. Leveling is designed around having people to group with to make it fun, else it is just grinding - and I have no interest in grinding. I don't want to come home from work just to pop onto FL and work more - I come home from work and figure out something fun to do. FL is great fun when there are people around, but it's an incredibly dull experience when there aren't. Feeling like you're still interacting with and having an impact on the world can keep you interested (it's how every single-player RPG keeps people interested) - it would help keep me interested. You say my ideas regarding this suck? Well, fine. What are yours? Give some suggestions of your own that you think would help convince me to come back and start playing again, because right now I just don't have the desire to spend countless hours killing things meaninglessly on my own. I'd rather replay Mass Effect 2 and see how my actions on this playthrough influence the game world compared to my previous times, because that is more interesting than doing the exact same guild quest over and over again.

Maybe Celerity's ideas on changing the classes would be a step in the right direction. I piddle around on a character here and there but with the combination of the same classes for so long, the lack of players, the people who are good vs people who are not in pk, and the gap of information seems to all bring me down. I have fun for a bit and then it just goes downhill.

Solutions: Get rid of dbags (No matter how much everyone here swears up and down that nobody ever does anything wrong to anybody, and i mean out of the realm of decent sportsmanship, there is still plenty of trash around. start banning. let other players know what punishments are being done to jackasses. The worst pain about this game is you cant smack the jackass who just pulled some rediculously trashy stunt just to be told not to worry about it.

, let people not in cabals get some of the same benifits with gold instead of cabal points (why have gold),

get rid of qclasses and races (open them up), support of rp plots from characters,

making notes important, change around cabal politics? (why do warmasters and savants fight?)

Just some thoughts from someone who is very close to running out of steam for the game.

I don't think that making things that have to be earned easily obtained without any extra work is the way to keep people interested - quite the opposite, I'm fully in favor of cabals having powers that can't be obtained without joining and qclasses that you have to work for (it's having things to work for that keeps people interested in the game - if you can just roll a vampire, then they lose their mystique, whereas if you have to try for one, you can enjoy the challenge of the application process where your time in-game feels as if it is worth something, and feel as if you earned it once you have it).

What we need are things that keep people interested at lower levels, because right now pre-50 is the weakest point of the game (there's a fun spike around 30, but that's only because of evil qrace applicants often needing to wait here a while). I think more quests that give big exp bonuses and special eq would go a long way in helping keep people interested (especially if the quests themselves are interesting in terms of the events being RPed through them or by being puzzles that the player has to figure out, or anything else one can think of), particularly newer players, because our leveling process is incredibly tedious right now since we lack the playerbase for regular grouping.

EDIT: Again, the reason I'm arguing in favor of these kinds of things is because the last three times I rolled up a char, I solo ranked into the 20s and decided I didn't care to spend the time solo ranking the rest of the way. Yes, I had IMM and other player interactions - but these were often short-lived (very rarely were they grouping opportunities, which are the real meat of low-level play) and didn't constitute more than 10% of my playtime at the very best (training and solo ranking were most of my playtime, but they are simply not fun [training is excusably not fun; solo ranking not being fun is not] - this is the problem I'm trying to help address). FL is certainly designed as a multiplayer game, but right now, it is a single player game for a large portion of anyone's time - and it sucks as a single player game. I'm not trying to advocate major changes in what FL is supposed to be - I'm trying to figure out patches that will cover us and keep people interested long enough that the average playerbase increases in size enough that the awesome multiplayer components of FL are allowed to shine.