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Is there a MMORPG with the "treasure behind the waterfall" approach?

curds

Magister
Joined
Nov 24, 2019
Messages
1,098
An MMO that plays like a good single-player, party-based RPG is pretty much my dream game.

Unfortunately that seems near-impossible to achieve. For one, you'd have to actively alienate the majority of the MMO marketbase for it to work, since you'd be forcing a playstyle on them that they generally don't enjoy.
 

Norfleet

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Jun 3, 2005
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Not only that, but the bigger issue is incredibly static content. Most content should not be mineable in the first place.
The thing is: There's a certain subsect of player that actually DESIRES static content, and prefers it over dynamic experiences. I saw this in my last Shitty Dead MMO, where players would repeatedly run the map that contained the least possible random variations on the map, eschewing the uncertainty of the more dynamic, randomized maps, precisely because these static maps produced a kind of performance benchmark that they could reliably test themselves against. Which, of course, quickly led to degenerate builds tailored specifically to the benchmark which were of limited use elsewhere...which meant that because they performed worse in those other pieces of content, they avoided that content even more.
 

Forseti

Novice
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Oct 20, 2021
Messages
13
Wanting "secrets" out of an MMO is a wonky premise already. Consider a clever way to beat a boss or bypass a trap:

- In a single-player game, you'll only learn it on your third playthrough and you will feel like the smartest guy on Earth for figuring out
- In an MMO, virtually everyone knows about it and you will be kicked from your group if you don't build for it
The alternative is that you TELL NO ONE, and thus are the only one who knows how to do that. Because loose lips sink ships. If you find such a thing, and tell everyone, it will get nerfed.

Because "secrets" in an MMO means "exploits". If it's intended, and it's useful, everyone knows and it's not a secret. If it's not useful, then nobody cares and the entire thing was a massive waste of time on both your part and the developer's part.

At best, you can find ways to exploit that aren't actually useful and can let you take funny screenshots, which may or may not be ever nerfed, and you won't care, because it wasn't useful anyway and you got yours.
You've almost said it yourself - the issue isn't about the possibility to read about it somewhere, but the fact that people would do that as long as they need to compete with others in a fast-as-possible way. In its core the MMORPG is about racing others. Take that away or change it, put the secret behind a "player-skill wall", make the game not that much about competing with others, or make the PvP mostly about the skill and not that much about the equipment (maybe save that for the adventuring itself), implement changing names/locations etc. for every player, create the secrets in a semi-procedural way etc. Solutions could be found.

For "make the PvP mostly about the skill and not that much about the equipment (maybe save that for the adventuring itself" along with a game that encourages exploration, Guild Wars 2 fills that niche. Progression to max level / stats (or very close) caps out quickly, and there's no real stat treadmill. Once you have your gear, it's good forever. Plus, there are a lot of easter eggs in the game that make exploring the maps rewarding. I specifically remember playing one of low level maps with a particularly RP-oriented friend. She went up and /kneel-ed at the foot of some shrine because that's what her character would do. In return, the shrine bestowed some small temporary buff. I'm sure I could have gone and looked up all the easter eggs on the wiki somewhere, but again, the game really is about exploration and not stat-grinding. The exploration is its own reward. My only complaint is that you can't PvP on the PvE maps, even as an opt-in system. You have to go to separate areas.

For "create the secrets in a semi-procedural way", Crowfall actually did this decently. The main game is a guild PvP focused "throne war" based on 2-8 week campaigns. In each campaign, the maps (resources, mob spawns, castle locations) are randomly generated, so there's actually huge value in being able to explore and evaluate areas. Factions absolutely keep secrets among themselves, at least when the maps are still fresh - less so toward the end of the campaign.
 

Norfleet

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My only complaint is that you can't PvP on the PvE maps, even as an opt-in system. You have to go to separate areas.
Interesting fact: People do not like PvP in MMORPGs. Very few PvP-based MMORPGs succeed in the long-term. I think Eve is basically the only one that has lasted? And even they kinda compartmentalize the PvP areas. This is perhaps because PvP, especially on the world scale, is a fundamentally unstable equilibrium, and at some point someone is going to "win". This is why these games seem to rarely last. Totally open PvP in the public PvE spaces is almost assuredly an unmitigated disaster that even Eve won't touch anymore. Every other game that has permitted this has either dialed it back significantly, been relegated to obscure niche corners of the Interwebs, or just flat out died off completely. This problem is essentially cursed.

For "create the secrets in a semi-procedural way", Crowfall actually did this decently. The main game is a guild PvP focused "throne war" based on 2-8 week campaigns. In each campaign, the maps (resources, mob spawns, castle locations) are randomly generated, so there's actually huge value in being able to explore and evaluate areas. Factions absolutely keep secrets among themselves, at least when the maps are still fresh - less so toward the end of the campaign.
This seems to be more of a procgen episodic style of subgame, yes. In this case, there are less "secrets" in the sense of that the very nature of the area is a mechanical secret, and more simply that the map is "unexplored". Since these secrets are not really long-term, they fall more into military intelligence than game "secrets", though.
 

Forseti

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Do combat techniques or map knowledge count as secrets? Eg. unexpected animation cancels, or using an ability to traverse a gap in terrain where your opponent can't follow. Many PvP MMOs have that sort of thing.

Of course, your opponent can learn from you. "Zero-day" combat tricks are a valuable resource, but in the right game, a creative player can always have something up their sleeve.
 

ItsChon

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Unironically, the best "mmo" experience I've had was on a Minecraft server with specific rules and a factions plug-in. PvP was totally skill based and very fun. Tons of community driven interaction between players. Different jobs and niches for everyone to do to the sandbox nature of the game. And the rules that were enforced by a moderation staff did a great job of preventing griefing, overpowered things, and many of the other problems that are common in other factions servers. A well run server with the right rules and plugins offers an experience that really can't be beat by any other online game.
 

ElectricOtter

Guest
People do not like PvP in MMORPGs.

they do but the problem is most mmorpgs have shit gameplay that pvp becomes even shittier by extension

and ofc theres carebear fags that end up ruining everything and turn the entire game into a menu queue sim
 

Norfleet

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they do but the problem is most mmorpgs have shit gameplay that pvp becomes even shittier by extension
No, they don't. That's the thing. Many people like PvP. Many people like MMORPGs. But PvP in an MMORPG tends to be short-lived. While PvP MMOs have been widely successful, pretty much all the ones that succeed have split off into the MOBA genre, and essentially left their RPG roots behind.
 

ElectricOtter

Guest
But PvP in an MMORPG tends to be short-lived.

by what reference lol

dark age of camelot was beloved, a majority of popular golden age wow vids are from pvp, guild wars 1 was baller, eso has ppl in pvp daily, eve online, etc.

problem is most ppl that use this argument will point to these jankshit pvp mmos that failed like darkfall online and warhammer online and go "see? see? mmo pvp is t-r-a-s-h" when the idea wasnt the problem but the execution was
 
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Codex Year of the Donut
daoc barely had any players and gw1 isn't an mmo
people who wanted pvp in mmos moved over to mobas, it's no surprise that most of them were the same giant faggots that play mobas
 

Norfleet

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dark age of camelot was beloved, a majority of popular golden age wow vids are from pvp, guild wars 1 was baller, eso has ppl in pvp daily, eve online, etc.
Have you noticed how the first 3 are in past tense (as in, these games are either dead or have changed to largely exclude the elements you describe), the second to last is PvP in a ghetto, and the last is Eve, the sole outlier I already covered?

The problem is that world-scale integral PvP in an MMORPG is a cursed problem. What you are offering cannot be indefinitely delivered as a satisfactory experience: At some point, somebody will win, and these winners will persistently crowd out the losers. You must now either offer these people a safe sector of the game in which they are not constantly being teabagged, in which case, being the majority of the population, this IS the game now, segrregate these people from each other so like only fights like (now you are a MOBA), or you accept that your game inevitably must decline and die.
 

PorkaMorka

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Feb 19, 2008
Messages
5,090
MOBAs probably make WOW battlegrounds and similar instanced MMORPG pvp obsolete, but they were lame anyway. Better off playing the same game without mandatory grinding. (Or better yet, not playing at all)

However, open world MMORPG PVP (best example is Ultima Online) is nothing like a MOBA.

Arena based games are about fair fights between even teams in some kind of e-sports like situation where you play the same map over and over in order to get good. The MMORPG part doesn't add much except imbalances, grinding and cash sinks; instead of just playing a new character you have to pay gold / cash to respec your high level character, etc.

Open World PVP is not about fair fights, not about even teams, not about e-sports, not about doing the same thing over and over. It has nothing in common with MOBAs and attempts to make it more like a MOBA tend to ruin it.

The problem is that world-scale integral PvP in an MMORPG is a cursed problem. What you are offering cannot be indefinitely delivered as a satisfactory experience: At some point, somebody will win, and these winners will persistently crowd out the losers. You must now either offer these people a safe sector of the game in which they are not constantly being teabagged, in which case, being the majority of the population, this IS the game now, segrregate these people from each other so like only fights like (now you are a MOBA), or you accept that your game inevitably must decline and die.

I think you're kind of combining two separate problems.

The problem with objective based PVP like Shadowbane is that someone eventually wins, gets a long term advantage and crowds out everyone else. Apparently at some point they combined the Asian server with the North American server and the Chinese just wiped out all North American towns with superior numbers. That's an extreme version of the problem but even without full town destruction the same thing can occur in objective based PVP, one side permanently wins the objective, even if it resets occasionally.

The problem with open world PVP / PKing is that carebears just don't like it and in the long term Devs tend to feel it is in their financial interest to get rid of it and cater to the less problematic carebears at the expense of the PKs. However, it doesn't necessarily share the problems with objective based PVP, it's not hard to prevent PKers from taking over everything by imposing mechanical disadvantages on them. A lot of people just don't want to deal with them at all though.
 
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Italy
People do not like PvP in MMORPGs
neocron, beta. there's a chip inside every character's head which enforces pve-only, to pvp you have to remove it, can only interact with other people without the chip, everywhere was open hunting season, for the removal you were rewarded earlier use of equipment (basically an easier pve) and the chip became incresingly difficult and time consuming to pull/put back.
it was full of pvpers everywhere. the whole city was a battlezone, even if most of the fights took place in the red lights district. (pepper park, around the supermarket, good times).
people like pvp. people dislike shitty pvp.
 
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The western road to Erromon.
Guild Wars 1 is the game you're looking for. In addition to the scenery hunting people have mentioned, Nightfall at least has a series of buried treasure in particular zones that award free items and gold once per month, resetting every 30 days. Chances are, you'll never find them unless you're looking for them. The rewards scale down on subsequent hunts after the first but it takes a while and it's still worth doing if you're out looking for cool looking loot or mods for your party. I wish they had added more to EOTN when it launched.

Overall though, with GW1 you're only ever going to get as much out of it as you put into it. Just having the goal to do the main missions and finish the game means you're not going to get much out of it aside from the initial challenge. You can day-trip your way through normal mode if you're dedicated enough, plenty of people are willing to basically carry you. You really need to have some other goal for yourself. For me, initially it was getting a certain elite armor set for my ranger which required a lot of gold and certain rare materials. That required a lot of exploring and questing to raise the funds and the attachment to what I was doing grew over time. Found lots of neat places doing cartography and made the cash through that. It was hard as fuck with no outfitted heroes, relying on henchmen but it felt great donning that Norn Armor in the end.

My advice is browse for gear on the wiki. Find the shit you like and figure out how to get it. That will will give you a wider goal that will carry you on that journey of exploration.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Jan 23, 2022
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I don't think there is anything fundamentally bad with instanced PvP in MMOS. The experience of fighting with your character that you spent time and effort gearing up hits differently from just a straight up moba, and while losing to an overgeared person can feel frustrating, it's also like "aspirational" because you want to have all that gear one day. The problems are always just execution and balance of the individual game being bad.

WotLK supports huge private servers based around instanced PvP for like 12 years after its release. That's because the core PvP loop is good and the "gear" difference doesn't ever feel insurmountable during progression and the PvP itself is fun. Meanwhile something like New World is just actively anti-fun.
 
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Dec 24, 2018
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...where the player skill, perception and exploration'n'reward matters more than mob killing or raids or crafting myriads of +3,5% of dodge/att items and stuff?

Guild Wars. Player power flattens out pretty early, so the gameplay is basically entirely based on player skill and teamwork / party tactics (since there's not really any stat advancement). What power increases you do get later on are rather horizontal as you get more potential build varieties as you seek out and unlock new skills (this doesn't make you more powerful, you're still capped at 8 skills at a time, you just have more options). Fancy "elite" armour and weapons are purely cosmetic and have no statistical advantages over basic gear, they just look different (and often not even better). Enemies do keep getting more powerful after the player's power caps out, so it does naturally become expected that the player learns to play better, rather than grinding to become stronger, in order to progress.

This is all a holdover from the game's heritage as being originally intended for mainly PvP, where "grind to win" would have ruined everything and it was necessary that players be able to get on even footing with each other without undue effort.
 

anvi

Prophet
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Early EverQuest was exactly like that and the internet was sort of non existent at first, so no info online. There were hidden walls in dungeons and lots of secrets and mysteries, things to explore, and if you found something it could be just you that knew about it, for a while at least. Guilds used to keep their knowledge secret. There were no quest markers, no map, no nothin. NPCs all over the world but many had nothing to say, or nothing to say to you. Or you had to start a quest elsewhere and then they'd talk to you. Nobody knew anything, it was all like word of mouth. People would go on adventures to get themselves a weapon they heard about, yet the weapon was crap compared to other stuff nearby. But the game was huge and just needed to be explored, and then you had knowledge to share with others.

A couple of years later it was all documented online, the mystery was gone. The worst thing is the obsession with finding the shortest route through everything. New content would still be super exciting to explore for a while though, you could be the first one to figure something out that was really special, give you a huge advantage or whatever. But as the internet grew and google came along and wikis grew for everything, it kills the mystery. I think random/procedural stuff is the only solution. But there are bigger problems with MMOs I think.
 
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Cyberarmy

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Divinity: Original Sin 2
...where the player skill, perception and exploration'n'reward matters more than mob killing or raids or crafting myriads of +3,5% of dodge/att items and stuff?

Guild Wars 2 has many secret places named "jump puzzles" and secret dungeons but those are not the main focus of the game. But if you are a maniac like me that explores every nook and crany, GW2 will give you good time. If you can endure boring gameplay...
 

Nikanuur

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Do combat techniques or map knowledge count as secrets? Eg. unexpected animation cancels, or using an ability to traverse a gap in terrain where your opponent can't follow. Many PvP MMOs have that sort of thing.

Of course, your opponent can learn from you. "Zero-day" combat tricks are a valuable resource, but in the right game, a creative player can always have something up their sleeve.
It's not that I wish to decide what is good or bad in general here. For some, definitely. For me, not so much. It's this notion, the dissapointment back in the day when MMORPG started. We were so excited, we thought that MMORPGs would going to be the same as RPGs, only bigger and with people. Instead, we got... MMORPGs as we know them now. I hope this answers your question.
 
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Codex Year of the Donut
The lesson here is that security through obscurity is not a viable long-term option.
except it's the opposite
the reason modern games have everything spoiled is because it's datamined

everquest couldn't be datamined because much of the information(item info, quests, all NPC dialogue, etc.,) was stored on the server and sent to the client on demand. EQ had unsolved quests for years because of this. They also frequently added quests or updated existing ones without anyone noticing.
 

Nikanuur

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dark age of camelot was beloved, a majority of popular golden age wow vids are from pvp, guild wars 1 was baller, eso has ppl in pvp daily, eve online, etc.
Have you noticed how the first 3 are in past tense (as in, these games are either dead or have changed to largely exclude the elements you describe), the second to last is PvP in a ghetto, and the last is Eve, the sole outlier I already covered?

The problem is that world-scale integral PvP in an MMORPG is a cursed problem. What you are offering cannot be indefinitely delivered as a satisfactory experience: At some point, somebody will win, and these winners will persistently crowd out the losers. You must now either offer these people a safe sector of the game in which they are not constantly being teabagged, in which case, being the majority of the population, this IS the game now, segrregate these people from each other so like only fights like (now you are a MOBA), or you accept that your game inevitably must decline and die.

Unfortunately, that's how I understand it as well. Who knows, maybe one day someone proves us wrong.

But anyway, they could've at least try to make the genre seem not that void of prior RPG exploration and adventure :/ Things like a stashed treasure inside a normal looking stump. You could find the stump by chance. It's known to have a pixel-huntingly-small patch of brushed bark on its side, but good luck checking each of 155574 stumps in the game :D The exact location of that stump would be different for each player. Fixed for their own game. It can be determined if the player reads the lore well enough, e.g reading three books with an "easy" riddle such as three words written in the manner of the mixed letters code. These lore books would have to be acquired by ever-changing quest givers located randomly at 10 different places, starting to appear from the 15th level. Yeah, right in the faces of skinny, freckled, strong-talking kiddos destroying their controllers in frustration, muhehehe.

Also, they could've introduced some semblance of "life" into the dungeons. Things like a tile-puzzle opening a portcullis to a mini-boss with a rare loot. Its location changes every dungeon instance, its "finished look" changes too (random photos of the world's architecture, for example), 5 little modifications to the tile puzzle like the pieces being fed through three intakes or whatnot. Also, you'd have to find the three missing pieces scattered throughout the dungeon, one after killing another mini-boss, one in the hidden room always changing place with 10 different hints changing rotatingly etc.These things could have hardly be considered too much of an added effort in already huge opuses such as WoW or GW2 etc.

I wonder how many players would leave the game because of these "adventure" elements :D But then again, how many would rush into a world that's not as empty as other MMORPGs?
 

Norfleet

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except it's the opposite
the reason modern games have everything spoiled is because it's datamined

everquest couldn't be datamined because much of the information(item info, quests, all NPC dialogue, etc.,) was stored on the server and sent to the client on demand. EQ had unsolved quests for years because of this. They also frequently added quests or updated existing ones without anyone noticing.
And what's the lesson here? Both of these designs relied on some form of security through obscurity. Everquest tried to hide the data on the server so the users couldn't get at it, but eventually this technique was defeated by Wikkas, while modern MMOs try to hide their data in obscure data formats but these just get stripmined. Neither of these are viable long-term strategies: Always assume that your adversary will know everything about the system, and the system must still be sound in spite of this.
 

anvi

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It can still work with obscurity or whatever. I played an EQ emulator server that modified the game a lot. So the community was only about 300 people in the evenings. It was awesome, nobody posted anything online, people wanted anything they learned to stay with them or their guild mates. Someone even sold me information which ended up being totally worth it. Guilds would be careful about who they recruit because their website contained their strategy for raid fights and stuff. The top guild could dominate and get rich selling unique gear to the other players and stuff. Spies from other guilds used to make newbie Rogue characters that could sneak unseen and follow guilds on raids see how they win. They even tried to hack each others websites and stuff =)
 

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