f13.net

While discussing a different topic and idea came to me.  In order to cut down on the amount of instance farming for those elite items, make it so the items found in an instance can only be kept if you finish the instance.

Proposal:

1.  Find a "blue" or better item in an instance.
2.  The item is able to be used, traded, etc. like normal.
3.  If the item is removed from the instance without completing the "finishing" action of the instance, the item will be destroyed.
4.  If the item is removed from the instance by "finishing" the instance the item is made permenant in the "world" and acts like a normal item.

Obviously, some creativity would have to be used to put in the tags for "finishing" the content.  Some instances might have several points in the content that would be considered "finishing" nodes so that casual players don't have to be in there for multiple hours.

Purpose:

1.  Allow standard questing and instance journeys to recover nice items.
2.  Stop people from entering instances only to grab a high occurence item and then leaving the instance only to repeat again. (a.k.a. farming.)

Thoughts?

One problem I see is when I find an item, but find I am unable to complete the instance for any number of legit reasons.

True.  The only thing I can think of is that the developers would have to be sure to balance the number of "finish" nodes and the discomfort of farmers in repetitively reaching that first node.

The fact it takes more than hour for any fun instance means I'd really hate this particular approach.  I'd settle for a situation where repeat instancers cannot roll on the itemized epics, just the usual vender/alt trash.

If money gained vs time spent is balanced and they just get rid of freaking stealth then there's no problem, I promise, stealth is the work of satan, it simply sucks in an MMORPG enviorment.

Playing a stealth character in PvP enviorment might be fun but it opens up a huge world of griefing and opertunities to piss people off. For example in WoW a tactic often used by rogues is to stay stealthed near hard quest objectives, then they wait for a couple of guys of the other faction to turn up for completion of the quest. What they do next is let the other faction do the work, then just before they're moving in on the boss they fuck up their attempt and steals the boss. Might sound cool as a rogue but it sure as fucking hell isn't for the people who gets fucked over.

Just make it so each character can only loot one uber item per instanced zone. Characters can return to help their friends as often as they want, but once you loot a flagged item from a particular zone, then that's it.

I don't like that solution either. I say just ban the gold sellers.

lol, that's worked so well.

I'd be all right with this idea.
It may be a pain to the "I can't commit more 15min at a time" croud but I am of the opinion they should find a new hobby. Sorry.

Yeah, fuck those damned casuals.


I'm of the opinion that self-centred catasses like yourself should all go play EQ2 instead, then Vanguard. Sorry.

Nice, fuck off or something.
Like it or not, MMOGs take time and if you have no time or your time is sporadic, you're better off playing a single player games or multiplayer arena games.  I don't think designing a game to be played in 60min to 90min blocks is catass, still leaves plenty of room for hygiene and house cleaning. The casual players I know set aside a couple hours during the week and a couple hours on the week-end, and they wouldn't affected by the Dren's plan.

I won't even play WoW, because its a pointless level/item grind.  So I sure in hell ain't going to play EQ2/Vangard.

Well I definately am from the casual crowd in that I have a very hard time committing more than an hour at a time.  My thought was that each node would represent about 30-45 minutes of time spent.  The intent is to be sure farmers aren't grabbing that special loot every 5 minutes by stealthing to the first chest spawn and then running back out.  I'm pretty sure that is what is causing the problems for WoW currently.

I doubt farmers would bother with this system if it took 30 minutes before they even had a chance at a good item.  Seriously, if you can't sit for 30-45 minutes straight, then you aren't probably doing instances now anyway.

The "you can only enter X unique instances over Y unit of time" seems to be a pretty elegant anti-farming mechanic (that WoW just started using on Tuesday).

Sometimes I play games barefoot.   :oops:

Kinky.